Hatsuse and Shizuno continued talking.
"Eh?! All the matches have been delayed?!"
Hatsuse marveled at this piece of news. As Shizuno explained it, apparently, there were rumors circulating of teams being disqualified by force despite not breaking any rules, and other rumors of students randomly missing. Most of these students were from the better ranked teams in the tournament. The
fire
in Shizuno's voice as she had explained it was very real - she wanted to play, she wanted to win, but she couldn't until this was dealt with first, restraining her passion as if someone had grabbed onto it and held it in place without letting go.
"So yeah, Ako is off 'investigating', apparently. I don't know anything about where she went, except as soon as we heard this she declared she'd 'get to the bottom of it' as soon as possible and ran off! Haha."
"So that's how it is."
They decided to attempt to find Ako anyway. Eventually, they made it to the entrance hall, where a surprisingly dense crowd had gathered. They weren't sure exactly why, though.
Then Shizuno noticed one of her teammates standing in the middle of it, looking as if she was in a state of pure bliss. Despite it being summer, she was wearing a coat and a long, red scarf, although from that distance you could hardly tell as she was surrounded by people; the only reason Shizuno knew for sure was because she could practically always be found wearing a coat and scarf no matter the time of year.
"So warm ..."
"Oh, it's Yuu! Hey, Yuuuu~," she called out, waving her hand.
Yuu noticed, but didn't do anything to move through the crowd towards them. So Shizuno moved in to meet her instead.
"Mmph! What's with this crowd? It doesn't even look like there's anything going on here, there's just a bunch of people here for no reason!"
Hatsuse felt an intuitive need to grab onto Shizuno's hand in order to stop herself from getting lost. Neither seemed to mind.
"Hi, Shizu. What's going on?" Her voice faded off into the distance as she continued enjoying the warmth of the crowd around her.
"I'm looking for Ako. Can you help me look for her?"
"But ... it's so warm here! I don't want to leave."
A direct refusal. Eventually Shizuno just gave up and grabbed her by the arm, attempting to get back out of the lobby with her in tow. "H-hey, wait a minute!" Yuu protested. Shizuno had a lot of trouble working her way back through the crowd, though, and after a few moments, she tripped and landed face-first on the ground. Hatsuse, who was still trailing behind her, followed. They thought they heard Yuu to stop to ask them if they were OK, but by the time they got up, Yuu had disappeared back into the crowd again. Oh well, they can figure out what to do about it later.
----------------------------------
Meanwhile, Himeko, who had decided to take a walk to pass the time, noticed a random Senriyama student walking around, scanning the building. Then she noticed another one. And another.
"Huh? I wonder what Senriyama is up to."
After about a half an hour, she reached what appeared to be a nap room. It was a wide-open, empty room that had futons available. Himeko, or the rest of her team for that matter, was not aware of this kind of room existing in the tournament hall, but it was the only logical conclusion for what kind of room it is. There were a few futons laid out on the floor that had been forgotten to be put away.
That was when she noticed someone was actually sleeping in one of them.
"Huh?"
She stepped inside to check on the girl, and found out that her face was an extremely pale, almost white color, and her forehead was warm. She was also wearing a Senriyama uniform.
"... Eh?! She looks sick!" The thought immediately came to her mind, but she made sure not to speak out loud, for fear of waking the girl up. "And she's a Senriyama student?"
She exited the room and found another Senriyama student walking around. She decided it was best to alert her to their situation.
"Excuse me!" The student turned around to look at her.
"Um ... I don't know if you're aware, but I think one of your students is sleeping in the nap room over there, and she looks really sick-"
The student immediately rushed over towards the room. A closer look at the girl confirmed her suspicions. The only problem was, they were now in a pretty huge predicament. The Senriyama student didn't want to leave the girl's side, but also had to contact their team manager so that something could be done about it - and Himeko didn't want to make the girl uncomfortable by being looked over by someone she didn't even know. In the end, Himeko watched the girl while the student stepped outside to take care of the situation. After she had informed her team of what happened, she stepped back into the room to continue watching the girl.
"Hey, you know, you don't have to stay here any longer. I can watch her from here."
"I know. But I don't want to just walk up and leave without making sure she's OK first."
The student smiled back at her.
2. Gin and Sonic,
Tsuruta Himeko, Achiga Mason Conditional Unrequited Lover 1-shot Cop
, was killed N3
4. Cabd,
Matsumi Yuu, Achiga Vanilla
, was eliminated N3
