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While the girls are going wild, the boys have taken some distance away from us. They probably don’t want to get involved. There’s no assurance that they won’t get entangled, after all.

「That was an awful time.」
「You did well. I don’t find the change of clothes necessary, though.」

It was eating at me mentally, so I changed. Besides, I won’t be able to go outside wearing that. My bodyguards already saw me in that, so they’re fine but I don’t want to be seen by the other security people. My public image will crumble.

「I seriously want to make Aya lose.」
「In other words, you’ve thought of a punishment for her?」
「I have. It’ll probably be the most effective one against her.」

Still, I need to win and have Aya be at last place to execute this. Having an accomplice will be vital. Or finding a game I’m good and she’s bad at. I don’t know if that even exists, though.

「What will play next?」
「Since we have some consoles, why don’t we play with them for a bit?」

In that case, a fighting game? There’s other games we can choose from, but I guess we’ll start with that. Actually, this is perfect. I don’t imagine the twelve families being well versed with video games.

「If we’re going with a tournament system, how do we decide the lineup? Also, we’ll have an odd one out.」

Since we have an odd number of people, we’ll have to remove one player or have some people fight multiple times. If that happens, we’ll have to argue about the rankings. The former would be more ideal.

「I’ll abstain from playing, then.」
「You’re taking the lifeline, huh.」
「I don’t know what you’re talking about.」

He can’t win the right to demand punishment, but he also can’t be punished as a loser. Since he doesn’t have any wants in particular, he can skip the humiliating punishment game. For Hadzuki, anything’s good as long as it’s interesting, so he’s probably fine with just watching.

「Then for the arrangement?」
「Let’s draw lots. I’ll make the lots.」

He’s pretty proactive for a non-participant. Hadzuki is indispensable when planning and organizing events, but when he goes overboard, his influence spreads everywhere. And if there’s someone cooperating with him, things get out of control. Tonight’s one example.

「Let’s decide the first and last place from the winner’s and loser’s brackets respectively. The one to win two matches is the winner. No checking of techniques from the instructions. I guess that should do it.」

Everyone having zero context is more interesting. If you win, you’ll get more accustomed to the game and the loser’s bracket will be interesting to see. Mostly the people who play weird. Still, have these people even played video games before?

「Just to ask, those who have experience with these sort of games, raise your hand.」

Only Hadzuki and I had our hands up. Like I thought, it seems like none of them have any experience. They’re not the type to go to game arcades, after all. Incidentally, the rules from earlier work to my advantage. This time, I’m seriously aiming for the win.

「Finished the lots. Just pull, no need to worry about who goes first.」

Since there’s no one I need to be alert of, I pulled at the end. My opponent is Nagatsuki, Aya’s is Rin, and Kotori’s is Minadzuki. Frankly speaking, I can’t begin to guess how things will progress.

「Now then, round 3, start!」

Yup, I won. Like a somewhat experienced player would lose to absolutely newbies. Minadzuki got 2nd place. He was surprisingly good and got the hang of the controls, so the finals was a close game. And so the loser’s bracket is unfolding before me, but…

「Aya is just pressing buttons randomly, isn’t she?」
「I didn’t expect Aya to be bad at this game. Or is it that she can’t handle it when she doesn’t have complete control?」

Sounds very likely. The techniques don’t happen when you fail the input and you’ll get stunned when you keep getting hit. She’s been entering random inputs since earlier, but for some reason her character’s moving backwards. She’s got no talent for fighting games.

「Ah, he used an unblockable to finish her. Looks like Nagatsuki finally learned.」

I saw him fail a few times before, but you can practice as much as you like as long as your enemy doesn’t approach you. And now, he hit it well. I guess this game just didn’t click with Aya.

「Kuh, kill me!」 (Aya)
「It’s nice to see you have the complacency to fool around, do you understand what’s about to happen to you now?」 (Kotone)
「The punishment doesn’t really matter since we can have fun with it. Okay now, come on!」 (Aya)
「Timeout for one game.」 (Kotone)
「Eh…」 (Aya)

Yup, that’s the face I wanted to see. Seeing Aya’s blank expression, I hold my smile back. Next to me, Hadzuki has the same reaction. The others don’t seem to understand what’s happening.

「No participation in the next game. You can only watch. Naturally, giving advice and interference isn’t allowed.」
「You’re killing me!」

It’s the most effective psychological attack against you. While Hadzuki is the type who likes organizing events, Aya is the type who loves joining events. Just watching must be painful for her.

「As I thought, we absolutely need to prevent big sis Aya, Sister Kotone, and Mr. Hadzuki from teaming up. It’ll definitely end badly.」
「Agreed. It’ll be terrible if they get you.」

The underclassmen seem to be whispering amongst themselves, but no need to worry. We’ll only be together for less than half a year. TO begin with, I’m pretty behaved at the academy. Weird events like today won’t happen anytime soon, so no worries.

「In the first place, what other events are there after this?」
「Hmm, the regular ones are Christmas, New Years, Valentines, and the graduation, I think. If you want to do something at the academy, it should be during the latter two.」
「What do you plan on doing for valentines?」
「I don’t have anything particular in mind. I’m curious about who Kotone will give chocolate to, though.」
「She might go walking around campus giving away chocolates. Regardless of gender.」