From the Warlord's Empire Read Online Free Page B

you on?”
    Kojou gave an indifferent reply and shook his head. “Nah, it’s all the same to me really.”
    Nagisa’s expression, which tended to move around a lot, changed to an obvious frown for once. “Huh? Why not?! Doesn’t it make you happy?!”
    “I’d get embarrassed to have my little sister cheering me on, all worked up over just an intramural sports tournament.” Kojou let his comment loose with a very blunt tone. He’d only meant to convey the opinion that he had no interest taking pleasure in making his own little sisterplay cheerleader, but Yukina, listening from the side, seemed to derive a different meaning from it.
    “E-embarrassing…outfit…” Mumbling as if in shock, Yukina hung her head in dejection. To such an overly serious girl, wearing a cheerleader outfit must have been a high hurdle indeed.
    “Er, no. I’m not saying I’d be embarrassed to have you cheer me on, Himeragi.”
    “Hah? What’s this? Yukina’s fine, but it’s embarrassing if
I
cheer you on?!”
    “It ain’t that. I’m just sayin’, an intramural sports tournament’s just for fun, so you wouldn’t need to go out of your way to come see me at a match,” Kojou explained while waving his hand, looking annoyed at the bother.
    Nagisa looked up at his face for a while with her lips in a pout. And as her expression suddenly went stiff, she inquired in a vaguely concerned tone. “…Kojou, does it still bother you? I mean…about last year’s tournament.”
    “Tournament?”
    For a moment, Kojou seriously didn’t know what she was talking about, looking back into his little sister’s eyes as he replied. Noticing that, as rarely happened, she seemed hesitant to say something, he finally understood the meaning of her question.
    Back when Kojou had been part of the middle school basketball team, he had the youthful experience of being isolated on a team that was obsessed with victory. It had thoroughly depressed him and was the trigger for him having quit basketball.
    Watching Kojou while speaking of her coming to cheer him on must have made Nagisa remember all that.
    “Ahh, nah. Has nothin’ to do with that at all.”
    “Really?”
    “Not one little thing to do with me. And it’s not like I hate basketball or anything.”
    As Kojou said it, he shrugged his shoulders as if concealing embarrassment.
    It was true that he didn’t pay any heed to the past. Kojou wasn’t the only one to have quit his club when graduating to high school, after all;it held no special meaning. The guys from the basketball club at the time were striving to do well even now.
    Regardless, in his current state, Kojou couldn’t seriously immerse himself into sports. Kojou was, after all, the World’s Mightiest Vampire. He couldn’t be using the extraordinary physical and demonic abilities possessed by a “primogenitor” in the middle of ordinary high school varsity sports.
    But Nagisa, who didn’t know of those circumstances, smiled happily as she listened to Kojou’s words.
    “Is that so? So, maybe we can still see your match at this sports festival, then?”
    “Not necessarily gonna be in a match like you’re hopin’ for, though.”
    Kojou felt a faint throbbing feeling as he tossed the comment out.
    In the sports festival, high school boys had three events: basketball, table tennis, and badminton. It had not yet been decided that Kojou had any role to play.
    In the first place, they’d probably prioritize people with experience for the competition, so there was a high chance Kojou would be assigned to the basketball court.
Maybe that’s okay,
thought Kojou.
    Though he missed being able to have serious fun in intense team competition like he used to, if he thought of it as giving his worried little sister a freebie, playing while holding back quite a bit wasn’t so bad at all.
    “Can’t be helped. Well, if you do get an event we definitely have to cheer you on. Right, Yukina?”
    Nodding, in a good mood for some reason,