Cheng Sui calmed himself, laid dictator across the still-unconscious Caesar's chest, and rubbed his brow in vexation.
Beating Chu Zihang was easy enough—after all, he'd never had any dealings with the Lionheart Society.
Given the temperament of that bunch, they'd probably just blame themselves for not training hard enough.
But Caesar was different.
He was a member of the Student Union, and Caesar was its president.
Worse, Cheng Sui had taken Caesar down by ambush; someone as proud as Caesar would never accept defeat that way.
With Caesar's prestige in the Student Union, it looked like his days there were numbered.
Cheng Sui clenched a fist, feeling the surging vitality inside him.
He didn't regret it; no matter how many times he could do it over, he would still pull that trigger.
Gazing at the unconscious Caesar, Cheng Sui stroked his chin and mulled over the System.
The System had mistaken Caesar and Chu Zihang for Naruto and Sasuke, but which was which he still didn't know.
Yet looking at Chu Zihang's frosty face, Cheng Sui naturally cast him as Sasuke—equally aloof, equally burdened by destiny.
So the question became: who was Sakura?
A sudden thought made Cheng sui shudder.
Surely it couldn't be the not-yet-matriculated Lu Mingfei.
Though in his past life he'd only read the first two volumes of Dragon Raja, Lu Mingfei had seemed a perfectly normal guy.
He couldn't have turned into Little Cherry Blossom in volume three, could he?
A rousing fanfare cut his musings short; a strident march resounded across the campus.
Beside the plaza, an unremarkable building's doors burst open; doctors and nurses in pristine white suits poured out, silver attaché cases emblazoned with the Cassell College crest in hand.
A passing doctor shot Cheng Sui a puzzled look; while the students waged their Day of Freedom, the med-staff had opened a betting pool on who would win.
Every single gambler had put their money on either Chu Zihang or Caesar.
But who was this stranger still standing? They'd never seen him before.
The house had just swept the board; the colleague who'd set the pool would probably wake up laughing tonight.
A small, bald old man wearing delicate round gold glasses and dabbing a handkerchief to his nose sighed repeatedly as he shuffled toward Cheng Sui.
Each time he passed a bullet-scarred wall his sighs grew heavier.
"Sigh—all that money… gone."
Manstein reached Cheng Sui's side, looked him up and down, and asked, "You're Cheng Sui?"
Recognizing the man, Cheng Sui automatically straightened; this was Cassell's Discipline Professor, the terror of many a student.
"Yes, sir—Professor Manstein."
The old man snorted, openly scornful. "Look at today's youth. You're a senior—why aren't you interning, why isn't your future your priority, instead of wasting time on this pointless, wasteful game? Do you want to become the second perpetual senior?"
The more Manstein spoke, the angrier he became; his bald pate began to glow red.
Cheng Sui scratched his hair awkwardly, unsure what to say.
Adjusting his monocle, Manstein reined in his temper and added flatly, "The Headmaster wants you. If you've nothing urgent, go to his office at once."
Cheng Sui tilted his head. "The Headmaster? Why would he want me?"
He suddenly recalled the System's rewards: besides the Sharingan and Uzumaki constitution, there was also favor with the Third Hokage—could Headmaster Angers be that Hokage?
Come to think of it, the resemblance was there: both old geezers, still vigorous.
"How should I know? I'm only the messenger. You've turned the campus into a battlefield—do you know how many buildings you've wrecked…?"
Before Manstein's gleaming scalp could redden again, Cheng Sui beat a hasty retreat; he had no wish to face the Discipline Professor's wrath alone.
While they talked, medics had begun injecting students, diagnosing injuries and noting down student numbers.
The first thing each "dead" student did upon waking was tear off the mask and ask how the battle had gone—yet everyone looked bewildered.
Seeing Caesar and Chu Zihang lying on opposite sides of the fountain only deepened the crowd's confusion.
Cheng Sui strolled along the path, uneasy.
Though Angers always played the cultivated elder at school, Cheng Sui knew the outwardly refined English gentleman was, at heart, a thorough hooligan—old-school civility was just his camouflage.
So why summon him? In all his years here he'd never heard of the Day of Freedom victor getting a private audience with the Headmaster.
Avoiding the just-reviving crowd, Cheng Sui neared Valhalla Hall.
Valhalla Hall was Cassell's equivalent of a cathedral; a C-rank senior like him would normally only enter twice—once for the opening convocation and once for graduation.
But his destination wasn't Valhalla Hall itself; it was an inconspicuous two-storey building beside it—little more than a garage beside that majestic hall.
After tidying his appearance, Cheng Sui knocked on the Headmaster's door.
"Come in."
A gentle elderly voice sounded from within.
Inside, Cheng Sui found the office surprisingly spacious; far from its plain exterior, the interior radiated understated luxury.
The floor between the first and second levels had been removed; a huge skylight of frosted glass overhead poured in natural light.
The entire office resembled a colossal bookshelf: two-storey shelves stretched to the ceiling, packed with books; zig-zagging wooden stairs and intersecting platforms carved the space into cozy alcoves for retrieving volumes at will.
A faint woody fragrance permeated the air; everywhere the eye fell showed the mellow sheen of aged timber.
"Headmaster—Professor Manstein said you wished to see me?"
Stepping inside, Cheng Sui felt less nervous than he'd expected; perhaps the faint wood-scent calmed him.
Angers smiled, closing his book; Cheng Sui's enhanced vision caught the title—he'd actually read it.
He wasn't some literary buff; he'd only picked it up because Angers had taught the literature-theory elective he'd taken.
"Les Fleurs du Mal, by Charles Pierre Baudelaire—one of the nineteenth century's most influential poetry collections, the herald of French Symbolist verse, and required reading for last term's lit-theory class. I recall you scored rather well, Mr. Cheng."
Noticing Cheng Sui's gaze, Angers spoke while brewing coffee.
Sunlight through the skylight gilded the old man's neatly parted silver hair; steam from the coffee veiled his still-sharply lined, though aged, face.
Damn—he really is handsome.
Cheng Sui couldn't help the mental jab; the old rogue had style etched into his bones.
"Please—sit." Smiling, Angers set two cups of Black Ivory Coffee on the spruce-wood desk and motioned Cheng Sui to a chair.
Cheng Sui obeyed, took a sip.
Mellow and rounded, distinct chocolate-and-nut notes with a faint, elusive fruit or floral sweetness—delicious.
He was still savoring it when Angers' next line nearly made him spray the coffee across the room.
Settling back, Angers retained his gentle smile, but something in the depths of his eyes shifted.
"Mr. Cheng Sui, based on your recent performance, we suspect your bloodline assessment was erroneous. For your own future, we'd like you to retest your bloodline."