To think when I started this story, there were supposed to be only ten chapters. Chapters 1-3 remained roughly the same; Chapters 4 and 5 were expanded to three chapters; the original Chapter 6 became chapters 7 and 8; Chapter 7 became chapter 10; Chapter 8 became chapter 15; and Chapter 9 became chapter 20. I jettisoned Chapter 10 and my original finale a long time ago, so the new planned finale will bear very little resemblance. For now, the climax forever approaches.
Acting President Ryunosuke Tanaka was furious. An hour after Sugawara eluded Gen. Ukai, Kageyama's goons released a new video. This one, to Ryu's abject shock, showed Sugawara as a hostage and threatened his execution if Saeko's advance on Ministry Street wasn't curtailed. At the sight of the People's General facing certain death, morale dropped instantly, and the Tanaka siblings had to relent. Ryu thought he'd pull his hair out if it were long enough to grab: to think Suga would actually let himself get captured just to undermine his prerogative to kill the traitors by his own hands.
But the fact remained. Suga had gotten one up on him, and he couldn't accomplish his objectives with the popular Koshi's life on the line. The ceasefire bought more time for Hinata to legally reassume control of the state, but, in the claustrophobic office at Sakanoshita Ryu had commandeered as his personal space, the acting president smirked. Saeko, looking on patiently, thought he was going mad.
"Nothing's changed. If Narita finds Hinata before we're done, then we persuade him to remain invisible for his own safety. That's that."
"So what are you gonna do about Suga?" asked Saeko. She was skeptical her brother had an idea.
"Simple!" he proclaimed. "We rescue him like the heroes we are, and then we blow those devils heads off!"
"No duh, dimwit," Saeko bunted. "So how're you gonna find him is my question."
"I'm workin' on it, you dope!" What he meant to say was he had no clue. Then on the desk, Terushima's wife's cell phone pinged. As if believing the sudden text message would hold the key to locating Sugawara, he grabbed the phone.
"That phone ain't gonna help you, man," Saeko ridiculed as Ryu gaped at the display. Then, he giggled.
"Oh, really?" he sneered and displayed the text message:
I'll tell you where Suga is if you free Hana
"How could you ever doubt me?"
He had told Oikawa he needed to use the bathroom, and Toru peculiarly obliged. Then Terushima's shoddy escape plan began. It wasn't so much a plan really. He calmly exited through the front door, hoping to walk off the premises of the presidential estate without issue. When he was stopped at the outer gate that led directly onto Ministry Street, he correctly identified himself as the minister of communications and said he was dispatched on an important mission by the acting president. He huffily dared the guard to call his superiors and verify.
Unfortunately, the guard did just that; and a few minutes later, Terushima was being professionally escorted back to the foyer at the request of Lt.-Gen. Iwaizumi—allegedly to have one more debrief. Yuji knew he was in trouble.
As was procedure since the broadcast debacle, Terushima's escorts knocked on the foyer door. Iwaizumi cracked it open, took Terushima inside, and thanked the guards. Yuji stood by the door, hands in his pocket, trying to act normal. Iwaizumi sauntered back to Toru's side, the latter far too comfortably squatting sideways in an armchair. His legs dangled over one side of the chair while the other armrest served as a solid pillow for his upper back. He was staring at a smartphone—Terushima's own in fact—but Yuji was too nervous to notice.
"I thought that was a really long dump," Oikawa grumbled without making eye contact.
"Look. I don't give a darn about your stupid insurrection. You think I'm gonna let myself die?"
"Even after seeing her protesting against you, you were going to Hana, weren't you?" Oikawa said gravely. Terushima pursed his lips.
"None o' your business," he grumbled.
"Ryu arrested her," Oikawa said. Now he cast his eyes squarely on the communications minister, whose shock was apparent.
"Don't lie about that."
"See for yourself." Toru held out the pilfered phone for Yuji to take and read the message string. "And he's going to release her," he added as Terushima shakily grasped the phone.
He quickly thumbed through the conversation, in too much shock to be angry that Toru had been impersonating him. Toru had disclosed Sugawara's location—the Shinzen Shopping Center—in exchange for Hana's release. He'd even revealed that Suga was in one of the storerooms on the top floor. Hana's release was conditional on Suga's successful recovery, which it was obvious Ryu intended to effect militarily.
"You see?" Oikawa continued. "If Ryu had caught you and questioned you about this, they'd have assumed it was a hoax, and then your ticket to redemption would be forfeit."
"But…why?!" cried an incredulous Terushima.
"You said it yourself," replied Oikawa matter-of-factly. "Because it's over. Tobio won't admit it though, but you and I are on the same page."
Terushima froze, appearing to be quietly contemplating the situation. Toru gave him a few seconds of space before requesting Yuji's phone back, on the grounds that, if Ryu texted again, only he possessed enough information to keep up the charade. Terushima hesitated but with a gulp surrendered the device.
"Yuji, here's the deal, but you must tell no one," Oikawa continued. "Once Ryu has rescued Suga, we're going to launch our own coup against Tobio. We'll then hand him over to Ryu in exchange for amnesty for the rest of us. Are you in?"
"Um, you bet I am," Terushima said with a nervous grin.
"For your own safety, you'll have to stay in the estate. Iwa's already instructed his soldiers not to lose sight of you, so we can be sure of where you are when things get messy." At this, Iwaizumi proceeded to the door. There were already two soldiers waiting in the hall outside, apparently to escort Yuji to another space. "Those two'll protect you from any fanatics in the regiment if they resist our takeover. I'll let you know how things are progressing."
Terushima issued a thumbs-up. "You got it," he smirked, though in his head he was calling Oikawa a few nasty names.
Then, as soon as Terushima was gone, Iwaizumi sternly faced Oikawa.
"Obviously, most of what you said isn't true," Hajime challenged.
Using his palms as a pillow behind his skull, Toru beamed at the ceiling.
"The fact he tried to walk out of here means his loyalty is shot, so I had to do something drastic to turn him around." He sighed. "Too bad now he's blown any chance of getting out of this alive."
"You're not worried about him knowing your exchanges with Tanaka?"
"As long as he doesn't know that the location we gave Ryu is phony, what's the problem?" He stretched dramatically and sat up properly in the chair. "Yuji's stunt just ate up our time. Ryu will be rushing to rescue Suga. And once he violates the ceasefire, then we announce Suga's pending execution. And then we overthrow Tobio to save the general's life."
"But you aren't really going to let Sugawara live, are you?"
Oikawa shook his head disingenuously as he began to poignantly narrate the future turn of events. "It was a sad situation. We tried to stop Suga's execution, but by the time we reached him, he was already…." He sniffled as he trailed off. "I want to cry just thinking about it."
"It hasn't happened yet, you psycho," jabbed Iwa.
"You've been real nice to me this whole time, so can't you keep it up a little bit?" squirmed Oikawa. "Anyway, Suga no doubt spoke to Kenma and probably isn't towing Ryu's line about 'Tobio the Terrible.' He probably suspects I'm the culprit. He'd have to be an idiot to walk up to one of Yutaro's checkpoints with hands raised if he didn't believe I was in charge: most people in our shoes would have just killed him on the spot, but Suga knows I could never pass up such a valuable pawn—the little rat." He made a bulging fist; for all of his love of using people, Toru hated being used himself. It was perhaps fortunate, at least, that the two of them equally benefited from Tanaka being temporarily reeled in—in Toru's case, that bought more time to learn Hinata's status, information that would determine his final move. "Anyway, I'm positive Yuji won't try to escape now—he's too lovesick for that. That just leaves the other matter to be resolved before you go off and commit suicide."
"Could you not be so casual about killing me off?" Iwaizumi chafed.
"It's your own fault for showing your face when you shut down HBC," protested Toru.
"You said, 'make it dramatic.'"
"You know what I meant!"
Iwaizumi glared. He wanted to retort, "Nobody knows what you mean," but knew it was pointless. He was just quietly glad that his best friend and compatriot was only asking him to fake his death.
"I don't see why you're so angry anyway," Toru resumed. "After all, you don't have to make it scientifically provable or anything: just something that no one can verify in a short amount of time, or at least no one can verify until we've accomplished what we need. Which reminds me: don't forget that if Shrimpy is alive, I'll need you for the finale, when we bury him for good.
"But anyway," he postured, "stop stalling and watch Tobio, so I can have a talk with Yutaro."
Terushima was taken to an office on the north side of the building. The first thing he did was protest the room was too stuffy and asked for a window to be opened. The guard grumpily cracked one and left without a word. Terushima heard the sound of a key locking the door.
He peered out the second-story window. There was a hedgerow directly below. After checking the coast was clear, he opened the pane wider and tenuously maneuvered himself out.
Landing in the bushes was a lot more painful than he anticipated, not the least from being pricked a thousand times by twigs. He knew going out the front gate was a no-no, so he clumsily mounted the perimeter wall. Iwaizumi had deployed a good chunk of the 1st Division to the perimeter or to the task of incorporating the regiments of Aone's 11th Division, leaving the presidential estate much more sparsely guarded than it had been at daybreak.
He kept running through alleys, finding cover where he could. Before Sugawara's mysterious surrender, an anonymous message was sent to all social media accounts associated with the coup. It warned: "Do not trust your leaders." Seeing it on the laptop in the foyer, Terushima ignored it as an effort to sow confusion. However, when he took a break to check his personal account while Sugawara's hostage video uploaded, he found the same message addressed privately to him.
Except this time, its sender was not anonymous. It was Koshi Sugawara.
"Do not trust your leader." This time, the object of the sentence was singular, not plural, as if to tell Yuji he was referring to someone in particular. It was obviously Oikawa, but at the time Terushima merely said to himself, "No, duh!", and deleted the message so Toru wouldn't see it.
But now, Terushima knew what Sugawara really meant: Toru Oikawa was a well-worn con artist. The man's bogus claim to be looking out for Yuji's wellbeing was one of many outright lies. Yuji didn't know what Oikawa's real plot and was determined not to stick around to find out. He would get to Tanaka himself and expose Oikawa for the crook he was.
And so, Yuji Terushima made his way to the only place he could think to go: Shinzen Shopping Center. Since Tanaka would soon raid the mall in order to rescue Sugawara, the rescue was the perfect time to let himself be captured and prove his sincerity. He would shortly regret his choice to believe that piece of information from the already untrustworthy Oikawa.
Oikawa, Tanaka, Sugawara-whose scheme will succeed? And will Terushima screw up all three of their plans? Leave your thoughts below about who's going to come out on top, and when-or if-Hinata will arrive to throw a wrench in everyone's plots.