I was completely surrounded by the Armored Rikishi and the Space Raiders.
Ah, I know this one.
This was that classic scenario from the Officer Academy where the upperclassmen call an insolent freshman out behind the gymnasium!
"Kill the bastard, boys!"
"Aah! Foul! Hey, Tank-sensei!"
"Special rules are permitted. Royal Rumble Sumo."
"Senseeeiiiiiiiiii!"
"Thanks for the meal!"
An Armored Rikishi charged right at me.
Your guys' slamming attacks are no joke!
I hate this!
But Kawagon knows better.
The Armored Rikishi hadn't even mastered the basics.
There, his feet lifted.
I hooked my foot around his and smoothly swept it forward.
The moment his balance broke forward, I immediately targeted the advancing foot with a leg sweep.
"Gyaaaaaaaaah!"
He was far too heavy, tumbling down into an extremely dangerous heap.
Not that I had any leisure to ask if he was alright.
"Watch out! That guy's a master of throwing techniques too!"
No way in hell.
My practice with throws was practically nothing compared to my time with a sword.
What I just did wasn't even a throw.
If anything, it was a technique from striking martial arts.
Properly speaking, it was a counter where you dodge a front kick and sweep the opponent's planted leg just before their full weight lands, tripping them up.
Under sumo rules, this alone made me the victor.
You only get caught by such a cheap trick because your shuffling is sloppy.
Right on cue, another Armored Rikishi moved in from behind to lock me in a full nelson.
If he pinned me, it would be over.
So I spun backward and drove my entire body into him with everything I had.
Tetsuzankou-whatever-strike!
"Doguaah!"
It was their own fault for trying to gang up on me.
Had they strictly adhered to sumo rules, they wouldn't have been blown away like that.
Understanding the rules properly was of paramount importance.
At that moment, a Space Raider came at me with a downward elbow strike.
I protected the back of my head, blocking with my bicep.
A sharp jolt shot straight through to my core.
"That hurts, you idiot!"
I faked an upward elbow thrust, only to drive an upward headbutt from below.
That was practically legal under sumo rules too!
"Guhaah!"
While he reeled in pain, I grabbed his face and executed a Gassho-hineri! Yeet!
Hahaha!
Fools!
When there are no rules, I have the absolute advantage!
Ah, the look in the rest of their eyes changed.
Uh-oh, that wasn't good!
They were using hand signs!
They sacrificed one guy just to scout out what I would do!
"Crush him with your weight!"
"Aah! Foul! That's a foul!"
They weren't even trying to strike me—they meant to overpower me purely on weight difference!
That was the absolute worst matchup for me!
No matter what I did, I wasn't going to get any bigger.
"Hmph!"
One of them casually grabbed my upper body.
G-G-Grab the mawashi...
Waaaaah!
My arms won't reach~!
Though by wedging myself in deep, I kept him from gripping mine either!
"Hmph!"
"Ah..."
He wrapped an arm around my neck.
Without thinking, I responded with a lock-up!
Imperial Taijutsu... or rather, I'd been doing way too much wrestling...
Engaging in Greco-Roman against this size difference was pure suicide!
I forcibly tore free and went for a neck throw!
"And that's His Majesty's loss."
And so it was.
During the neck throw, my knee had accidentally touched the ground.
That was the drawback of firing off techniques on pure muscle memory.
It would have been fine in wrestling, but in sumo, it meant defeat.
"Ah, you cheateeeeeeer! You're really gonna resort to petty tricks like that?!"
"Petty tricks are the only way we can beat you!"
"Ukeeeeeeeeeeeek!"
"Throwing a tantrum won't change a thing."
Even Tank-sensei scolded me.
How depressing...
"Alright, alright, His Majesty's workout is over. Someone get him a banana or something. He's just hungry anyway. Now, fried chicken and the like are strictly forbidden, so don't feed him any of that."
Tank-sensei clapped his hands twice.
Wasn't that a bit harsh?
"Well, His Majesty Leo. Eat a banana or somethin'."
Huma-san handed me a banana.
Banana~.
Eating it sent sugar straight to my brain.
Oh, right, I forgot to mention something.
"I wasn't looking down on the Space Raiders back then, you know."
"What's this all of a sudden?"
"About holding the Space Raiders back as the final squad."
"Hah..."
"There was a high probability of total annihilation. That's why, in anticipation of the worst, you hold back the unit you trust the most as your trump card. That's standard protocol for abnormal disasters—for when I fall."
I transmitted the manual.
It had been classified as a state secret, but since I had actually collapsed, authorization was granted to disclose it to relevant personnel.
"Did you anticipate a confrontation with a god?"
"Nope~. But I knew some kind of attack was inevitable. It's not like the gods are exclusively on our side. So the plan was to evacuate the wounded and detonate the entire facility. If anything, the fact that sports cheering squads and sumo proved effective was completely outside my calculations."
"Meaning we have no need to fight gods?"
"Yeah. I plan to let other people handle that, while the Space Raiders keep the rest of us from dying."
"We might just end up vomiting blood and collapsing on the spot, you know."
"I intend to resolve that through technology. As long as it manifests as a physical phenomenon, we should be able to suppress it."
"...Understood. What would you have us do?"
"Please continue your rigorous training as usual. I'm counting on you when things get truly perilous."
Now then, with that, I'd properly smoothed things over with my comrades.
My stomach didn't hurt, either.
Fried food...
"That's obviously out of the question."
In the dining hall, Kevin snatched the fried chicken right away from me.
How depressing...
"Here, I'll make you some rice porridge instead."
It seemed she was going to cook for me.
"Please do~."
While waiting, I sorted through some documents.
Private correspondence.
Apology letters from the Empire's Association of the Staff and Spear had piled up into a small mountain.
What a pain.
"Regarding the incident of the suspicious individual intruding into the palace: as it was an accident, no apology is required. However, Her Majesty the Emperor is exceedingly displeased regarding private travel conflated with public duty. Take heed."
I drafted a disguised letter pretending to be a third party.
Using an AI generator, I churned out a boilerplate seasonal greeting loaded with passive-aggressive gratitude for their trouble of traveling all the way beyond the galaxy to visit, copied it, and...
"And sent."
"What was that about?"
Kevin brought over the bowl of rice porridge.
"About Melissa's situation from the other day. An absolute avalanche of apologies arrived from the Association of the Staff and Spear~."
"What are you going to do about it?"
"What can I do? Wifey was trying to capture her and ship her off to a frontier planet. For someone to slip past those relentless pursuers and infiltrate under the guise of a guide... there was really no stopping that. If we execute her or make a massive scene here, it would destroy Wifey's standing, you see~."
"And Melissa?"
"She was a bit down, but said she wasn't angry. She just wants her banished to a frontier planet so she never has to lay eyes on her again."
There was nothing left to discuss.
Sure, it might have been different if there were an ounce of familial affection, but...
There was none of that. Not from that obachan.
She had been entirely consumed by her own self-interest.
In the first place, Melissa was the Queen of Chronos.
A woman whose profession was pimping prostitutes to old men had no business stepping forward and declaring herself a royal mother.
She should have been grateful she wasn't executed on the spot.
The same applied to my biological mother.
After the divorce, she had married into the Duke Association.
It wouldn't have been unusual in the slightest if she had faced clan extermination.
Yet she was merely deported to a frontier planet.
That went far beyond leniency.
If I were a remnant of the Duke Association, I would have claimed my half-siblings were 'the true Kamishiro heirs' and propped them up as figureheads of an anti-government movement.
Then, behind the scenes, to ensure my own survival, I would have negotiated to sell those children out to Wifey and myself.
Reinstatement into the nobility would be impossible, so asylum in Chronos... or perhaps citizenship in Repsitore would be the realistic bottom line.
Well, I would have staged it as an asylum offer and quietly liquidated them anyway.
Scum like that had no justification to exist.
They ought to be purged.
Hence, a villainous smile crossed my face.
"Wipe that look off your face. Pushing yourself into that mindset is precisely how you gave yourself a stomach ulcer..."
Kevin... you really hit the nail on the head.