Maria-sama ga Miteru:Volume14 Chapter5 4

The Battle For Hanadera . Part 4

Yuuki made it to the student council room in three minutes, running all the way.

The school grounds were lively, just like a regular festival. Students, teachers, parents, and other visitors with no connection to Hanadera were all going a little bit wild, enjoying themselves and making noise.

The gymnasium and auditorium were used for the big events but each classroom also held something, like a haunted house, a mini-theater, cafe or refreshment booth, or some kind of display.

He'd taken the shortest path between the oval and the student council room and no classroom had stood out as being too overcrowded, nor had there been any large gatherings in the hallway. But despite this, he hadn't spotted Yumi on the way over. Although there were a number of staircases, and the emergency exits were open today too, so she may have taken a different path.

"Wh-what's the matter, Yukichi? The event hasn't finished yet, right?"

Yuuki opened the door and went into the student council room. Alice looked surprised by the sight and rushed over.

"Sachiko-san's worried about Yumi. She told me I had to look for her, so I got Nikkou and Gakkou to cover for me and came over. Has Yumi stopped by yet?"

"Yumi-san? Yeah – "

Alice frowned as he muttered this.

"But that was a fair while ago now. She isn't back yet?"

"How long ago?"

"Well, she would have left here about 2:40. I'm pretty sure of that because I called out something like, "Fifty minutes left, good luck.""

"What?"

Yuuki checked his watch. 3pm.

He'd climbed down from the tower at about 2:55, so from those numbers Yumi had been unable to make a five minute one-way trip in fifteen minutes.

"I guess she must have got lost after all. I'll try taking a different path back to the oval. We may have just missed each other. Alice, continue to stay on alert in here. If Yumi comes back, keep her here … Alice?"

"Ah, right."

Alice agreed, a bit absentmindedly. Yuuki may have just been imagining it, but it seemed as though Alice's face had grown progressively paler.

"Do you remember something?"

"Nuh-uh."

Despite initially denying it, it seemed as though Alice couldn't lay his suspicions entirely to rest as he said, "But there was that one thing."

"What thing?"

Yuuki grabbed Alice's shoulders and shook him.

"Ah, well. A little while after Yumi-san left, there was a commotion out in the hallway so I stuck my head out the door to take a look. When I did, I saw some guys carrying away that box from before … that's all it was."

"The box!?"

Yuuki dashed out of the student council room.

Indeed, the cardboard box that had been in the doorway was no longer there.

"… The box, huh."

But still, there was no grounds to suggest that the removal of the box was somehow related to Yumi's disappearance. It seemed more likely that the owner of the box had seen the note about the penalty, got scared, and quickly removed it.

Yuuki crouched down and examined the spot where the box had been. It looked as though that patch of floor was the only one where the thin layer of dust had been violently disturbed. But he may have just been seeing that because of what he was thinking. It could have been traces from when the box was moved.

"Alice, earlier you said there was a commotion so you poked your head out the door. Were they making a fuss even though they were moving the box?"

Yuuki asked, increasingly concerned about what happened at that time.

"Initially I thought there was a fight, because I heard what sounded like some thumps. Then I heard, "One, two," which would have been them readying to lift the box."

"Readying to lift the box? How many people were carrying it?"

"Three … no, four … ?"

"For an empty box?"

Cardboard boxes were sturdy, but they were still just made of paper. There was no way they would have needed four people to carry it. Unless there was something inside.

Something inside – ?

"They couldn't have … "

Alice gasped, covering his mouth with his hand.

"They may very well have done just that."

Yuuki muttered in despair, picking up something that had tumbled to the edge of the hallway.

"There's no way Yumi would carelessly drop something that was too precious to give to Sachiko-san … It must have fallen from her pocket when she defended herself."

Yuuki gripped it tightly. It was the lollipop that the panda had given to Yumi.

* * *

"You thought I was Yuuki!?"

These were the first words out of Yumi's mouth after the adhesive tape had been removed and she was free to talk.

"I'm so sorry. Truly, I can't say how sorry I am."

The four students all stood in a row and bowed simultaneously. When they'd crowded around her outside of the student council room, she thought they'd looked scary, but seeing them like this they just looked timid and thoughtless, like normal boys.

"Well, you've got Fukuzawa-kun's … trademark uniform on."

(You can call it tattered.)

"And you're about the same height."

(Because the geta sandals add some height. If you looked, you would have noticed.)

"And your face is exactly the same."

(Because we've got the same parents.)

"Plus your brother often wraps a hand towel around his head like that."

(Now that I did not know.)

Despite the apology, they listlessly offered up their explanations, with Yumi making a mental retort against each of them.

"– Even so."

"I know. Even with all this, it's not something that can easily be forgiven."

Basically, it was like this:

The hunters had turned pale the moment they inspected their prey after bringing it back to their nest. Because what they'd expected to be an ordinary raccoon turned out to be an endangered red panda. – That's pretty much what happened. Figuratively speaking.

They were in the nest, or, rather, the mystery novel appreciation society's display space. Yumi wasn't sure how far away from the student council room it was, since she'd been carried here in a cardboard box, but it was obviously a part of the school building. The two rooms may not have even been all that far apart. Although it had taken them a fair while to get here, since they'd been carrying a heavy cargo (Yumi).

"Didn't you know that Yuuki would be at the event, not in the student council room?"

"We knew. That's why we were confused at first. But it was a rare opportunity. So we hurriedly changed our plans."

"You changed your plans?"

"Yeah."

He said that their initial plan was to target Alice, who was staying behind. But like Alice had said, there had been a steady stream of visitors going into the student council room so they couldn't find a time when he was alone. But then Yuuki appeared and they decided that the student council president would have more of an impact than the secretary. – That's more or less a summary of what he said.

"But, why? Why did the mystery novel club have to kidnap someone from the student council?"

Yumi asked, sitting down on the seat she was offered. The two floor pillows were like a complete 180 from when she'd been in the cardboard box.

"There's a deep and meaningless reason for that."

"Not "meaningful?""

Not only was it for a meaningless reason but they'd got the wrong person. – As she listened to them talk, Yumi gradually started to pity them.

Besides, hadn't the mystery novel society been the one that gave her that lollipop? Or were the panda and the candy somehow related to this kidnapping too? Geeze, stop ruining little children's dreams already.

"It's to do with our mystery novel appreciation society. It used to be a fully-fledged club. But due to declining youth literacy and other such things, the number of members has dropped remarkably, to the point where there's only eight club members at present … ah, since we're a society, I probably shouldn't say club members."

The boy in glasses, who looked to be the leader, laughed self-deprecatingly. Since they were a society, he should probably be called the society president instead of club president.

"But there's only four of you here? Where are the others? Handing out candy?"

"No. The other four are also members of other clubs. They're basically only members on paper, lending us their names. One of our graduated seniors volunteered to hand out candy."

That kindhearted graduate was probably still out there in the panda suit handing out lollies, unaware of the mess his juniors had made. – Poor guy.

"This year, the animation appreciation society was promoted to "club" status, our clubroom was snatched from us, and we didn't receive any budget from the school. The space we were allocated was half a classroom. Half."

They seemed to want someone to listen to their complaints even if there was nothing they could do about them. So they told them to Yumi.

"Half a classroom, huh."

Certainly, the place was pretty small for a classroom. From looking up at the ceiling, she could see that the room had been divided in half by the lockers.

That said, the size didn't seem completely inappropriate. It seemed a good amount of space for the number of items they had on display and the number of visitors they had. And yet, they were insisting that this wasn't the case. So the main problem was one of pride.

"So, what, you thought you'd kidnap someone from the student council because you were annoyed at how small the room is?"

"Not at all!"

A partitioning screen split off the inner third of that small space, and it was there that Yumi and the club members were currently. They'd probably done that as a precaution to keep the kidnapped Alice or Yuuki out of view of the general public, but since they had hardly any visitors to their display it didn't look like it would have made a difference if they hadn't had the partitioning screen.

The items they were displaying – a timeline of when detective novels were written, a map on imitation vellum showing how a detective solved an example case, and others – were of questionable interest. They probably wouldn't be of interest to someone that wasn't already familiar with the genre, and didn't seem to have anything that a huge fan of detective novels wouldn't already know.

Yumi didn't know if her reasoning was correct or not but when visitors did come into the classroom they didn't stay for long. A deserted display seemed to have an invisible sign out front saying, "Boring," which meant fewer people even approached it, leading to a vicious circle.

People would gather at places where there were already people. Alice had said something similar.

"It's like this."

The president said.

"The student council promised that they'd all join the mystery novel society if we held an event that left them speechless. Naturally, we'd also be promoted to full club status."

"I don't know that the kidnapped person would be speechless, though."

"They would. Because, look."

He held out a copy of a book.

"This is a magazine we published ourselves. In it, we set out the plan we enacted today."

""Sherlock and Kogorou?" Is that the magazine's name?"

What an incredible naming sense. It was immediately obvious it was related to detective novels.

"Here, look at this part please. The cover story. The title is, "The mystery of the disappearing student council president." What do you think, isn't it exciting?"

"Um."

Yumi was stuck for words.

Putting it bluntly, it was too straight-forward, with no twist. Hearing the title, her immediate response hadn't been, "What sort of story is that? I want to read it." It left no question about whether or not the student council president would disappear. Sorry, but it felt stale and cliched, even for high school students.

"Since copies of each edition of "Sherlock and Kogorou" are presented to all student council members, if an incident took place that followed the plot of this story, then the magazine would become a gigantic warning notice. And where would that leave the student council who could have stopped it if only they'd read the magazine they'd been given? … They'd be speechless."

Judging by the title they'd initially been aiming for Yuuki, but while the plan was in motion they'd obviously decided that was impossible and switched over to Alice. But then their initial target had appeared, alone and defenseless, so they switched targets again at the last minute. But, who would believe it, they got the wrong person.

When Yumi pointed this out, they curled in on themselves, saying, "Exactly, it's so embarrassing."

"Then in that case, your plan's failed. Hurry up and let me go."

"I'd really like to do that, but if we let you go it's the end for us."

Obviously, he must have been speaking metaphorically, but his expression was deadly serious. Mistaking one person for another was one thing, but if their group was stuck with the label of, "Insulted the ladies from Lillian's Girls Academy," then Yuuki and the rest of the student council really might disband their society. Instead of being elevated to a proper club, they were facing a complete reversal with the prospect of having their club, err, society, abolished.

"I'm starting to understand why kidnappers kill their hostages."

One of them whispered furtively.

"I know, right. She's seen our faces too."

"It's kinda like, since we've failed already everything from here on is going to be even more of a hassle, so I'd rather just make a run for it."

"We can't run with a hostage."

Hold on a minute. No plotting amongst yourselves, mystery novel club.

"The arrest rate for kidnappers is high!"

Yumi shouted. This seemed to bring the boys back to their senses and they were more reserved in their words.

"– That's just something they say on TV, right?"

"No, it's true. You should know that."

Crackly laughter echoed around the room. Was it really okay for a kidnapping group to get carried away like this?

"I won't say anything. Promise."

Most of all, she just wanted to get out of there quickly.

"Even if you don't say anything, it'll be obvious that we're the kidnappers if we escort you back, right?"

"Then just tell me how to get to the oval. I'll go on my own."

"No way. Even if you're not in your Lillian's uniform, it's obvious you're a girl to anyone that looks closely."

"What are you saying? – You didn't notice."

"That's because it was dark outside the student council room. Besides, you're way more conspicuous since you look like Fukuzawa Yuuki at first glance. If any Hanadera students see you coming out of this room of course they're going to be suspicious."

The leader walked to the other side of the partitioning screen, slid the door open and looked outside. When he came back, he stated definitively, "There's still a lot of people coming and going."

"I know, why don't I get back in the box and you carry me? If you leave me in front of the student council room, I can get out and make my own way back."

Yumi thought she'd had a brilliant idea but the boys frowned and shook their heads.

"I'm sure we'd be apprehended while carrying the box. If Fukuzawa-kun notices his sister's gone missing, he's bound to suspect the box. Even if he didn't, Arisugawa Kintarou saw us carrying it away."

As expected of the mystery novel appreciation society, they were instantly able to see the ramifications of those actions. Although, in reality, over-thinking things made it harder to make a move.

"Well, you're the mystery novel society, aren't you? Surely you can do better."

Yumi swung the plastic bag containing Sachiko-sama's moist towel around. What would her onee-sama be thinking about her slow to return petit soeur? Hopefully she was so busy with the game that she hadn't noticed.

"What happened at the end of your story? Where did the missing student council president wind up?"

She flicked through the pages of the magazine, looking for a hint. The resolution was usually at the end. However.

"I'm not going to die!"

Yumi flopped down over the table.

The student council president was killed, stuffed in the brown box, and left in a corner of the gymnasium storeroom –

"Ah, we weren't really planning on killing your brother."

The leader hastily followed-up.

"Damn straight!"

"We were just going to leave him confined and when the school festival ended we'd nonchalantly lead the other student council members over to the gym storeroom."

"When the school festival ended? The storeroom? Hold on a minute. Sorry, but I can't fill in for my brother like that. The longer this goes on, the worse the situation will get. Um, you remember the "Hanadera War second stage, battle for Lillian?" If I'm not back before that ends, this'll turn into a major scandal."

The student council members tied up with the event and the Yamayurikai members would move as one. When that happened, there would naturally be an uproar even among the general student population.

"Wh-wh-wh what do we do?"

The boys all looked flustered, a bit late now though.

"I don't know why you're asking me. You got yourselves into this, you've got to take responsibility for it. Geeze, how pathetic."

It really was pathetic how far they'd fallen. It made her look like a complete idiot, for being kidnapped by them so easily.

"Ooh, I'm getting annoyed. I wonder if my blood sugar level's dropping."

She said quietly while looking straight at them.

"My apologies. All we've got is candy, but have as much as you like."

Thud, thud, thud. A mountain of lollipops were pulled from somewhere and piled on the table in front of Yumi.

"What, only candy again – "

The moment she picked one up, Yumi was struck by a flash of inspiration.

"Ah! I see, so that was … Alright!"

"Wh-what?"

Yumi may have been talking to herself a bit too loudly, because the four members of the mystery novel society looked frightened as they asked her this.

"I just had a brilliant idea. Somebody get Kashiwagi-san and bring him here."

"Kashiwagi-san … um, you mean Kashiwagi-sempai?"

"Right. Kashiwagi Suguru-san. You know him, right?"

"O-of course. But, um, why – "

"Hurry up. I'll explain later. Just maybe, no, it'll definitely work out fine. Trust me."

She gave the timid boys a boot up the backside. Of course, that was a figure of speech, she didn't literally kick them in the butt.

"Go! Quickly!"

"O-okay."

The president tumbled out of the room.

"What a pain, honestly."

Somehow, it had turned into something she never would have imagined when she first arrived.

Yumi, the supposed captive, was ordering around her captors.

She'd said, "Trust me."

Even though she'd been the one to say it, Yumi didn't fully realize its significance.