Editing Maria-sama ga Miteru:Volume33 Chapter6 3

===<noinclude>Soloist's Ad lib. </noinclude>Part 3.===

" – and to these words of thanks, let me add my personal gratitude for being given the opportunity to deliver this formal reply."

Onee-sama smiled broadly.

"Graduating students' representative, third year pine class, Ogasawara Sachiko."

Finally, she looked straight at Yumi. That wasn't Yumi reading too much into it, nor conceit. Despite the distance between them, their eyes still met.

A thunderous round of applause rolled through the gymnasium. Everyone was clapping so hard their hands must have been turning bright red. The applause just kept coming, not quieting down. On the contrary, people started rising from their chairs.

A standing ovation.

Has a formal reply ever received such a response in the history of Lillian's Girls Academy? Yumi didn't know for sure, but she thought this was probably a first.

Having used her script to capture the honey bee, Sachiko-sama hadn't read the formal reply. Instead, she had expressed it.

That didn't mean she had memorized the script beforehand and was just reciting it verbatim. She was expressing what she was feeling at that very moment. Even someone who didn't know the contents of the script would have been able to see that.

The style of the phrases she used hadn't overpowered the substance of the reply, but the words she had spontaneously chosen reached the hearts of the people listening.

From beginning to end, she had kept her head held high, looking out over her fellow graduates, the petit soeurs they would leave behind, the teachers that had guided them, the families that had raised them, and the guests that had come to honor them as she weaved her words together.

She was magnificent.

Even as Sachiko-sama stepped down from the stage, the applause didn't stop.

Atsumi-sensei rose from her seat in the teacher's area, walked over to Sachiko-sama and relieved her of the script for the formal reply, before leaving the gymnasium. She had probably gone to set the bee free. The way she walked made it look as though she was protecting something, but she made it out of there.

The applause continued even after Sachiko-sama had returned to her seat amongst the graduating students.

As Yumi applauded, tears tumbled from both her eyes.

Even though her goal had been for no major crying episodes, it was alright. Because these weren't tears of sorrow at their separation.

Ogasawara Sachiko-sama was truly amazing.

And these tears were due to the pride that Yumi felt, knowing that Sachiko-sama was her onee-sama.