Cardfight!! Vanguard: Generations Volume 2 [Zyriot War]

- Part 11

Even though I didn't understand the context of what they were talking about, I could feel how tense and uncomfortable the atmosphere between Kawaguchi and Shigeru was. Judging from how shocked and irritated Kawaguchi looks, it was safe to say he didn't want this encounter to ever happen. Meanwhile, Shigeru looked indifferent, a bit angry even, staring down at Kawaguchi with a taunting but welcoming smile.

Shimizu quietly made her exit to give the two boys space to talk it out. However, the cameras stayed focused on them, letting me see and hear every little detail of their conversation. Thinking back on it, earlier this week, when Mikitaka paid a visit to our class, Shigeru had mentioned something about looking for Kawaguchi. It seems like this confrontation was a long time coming.

"Good to see some things never change. Here I thought you'd call me Shigeru."

"If I have permission to call you by your first name, why wouldn't I?"

Moments earlier, the two of them referred to each other by their given names, rather than their family names. I found it suspicious, since they were acting hostile to each other right now.

"Suppose that's true. It's just, after what happened in middle school, you suddenly cut ties with everybody, so I thought you didn't think we were friends anymore. I mean, you ghosted me for two months, dude."

So that was why they were so close. They attended the same middle school.

"So what? I don't have any obligations to talk to a guy like you."

"True, but at the very least I thought you'd offer me the courtesy of sorting out our issues from Karaikai in private, but instead you blew me off at every given moment. That's why I had no other choice but to go public with it here. This war was the perfect chance to finally have a little chat with you, Masaru."

So their middle school's name was Karaikai, huh? I haven't heard of that one before. It was safe to assume that these two shared a long and rocky history with one another. Kawaguchi must've had his own reasons for trying to avoid talking to him.

"Zenkichi, you know the consequences of what you're doing by putting all of this out in the world, right...?"

"I have nothing to fear by telling everyone. But you do. Consider this karma... or comeuppance, for avoiding me and your mistake for so long. You might've gotten away with it back then, but this time, I'm forcing you to take responsibility for what you did."

Kawaguchi tightened his fists and shouted back.

"What I did was crummy, sure, but I didn't hurt anyone by doing it!"

"That's what you still naively think, huh? Well, we'll get there when we get there. Anyways, I seriously gotta thank my friends for setting this up for me."

As if to make this conversation even more excruciatingly painful for the anxious Kawaguchi, Shigeru started their forced conversation with a topic completely unrelated to the past.

"While it's true that, originally, I was going to sit out of this war due to my injury and instead be Commander, I couldn't let my only chance to get you to speak with me slip by. That's why everyone did what they could to help me achieve that, even when our plans changed slightly when my leg got busted. Basically, we knew you guys didn't know about the Ride Deck and guessed that someone would leave the war prep room to get some cards for it, so we planted Ishigami in the main school building so he could tell that person I wasn't going to participate."