Maria-sama ga Miteru:Volume15 Chapter3 3

Friend's Affection and Onee-sama. Part 3

Now, with everyone fired up from the cheerleading battle, it was time for the second-years' "Tug of War."

Yumi put on her gloves and gathered at the entrance gate with the others. The rules were pretty simple – the teams competing against each other would be chosen by lottery, and the winners would get 20 points. In other words, there was no ranking of the teams, it was just whether they won or lost. Of course, luck played a large part in this – if they drew a weaker team in the lottery, then their odds of winning shot up.

The result:

They fought against Shimako-san's purple team, and suffered a crushing defeat.

There was no way they could have beaten a team that had been independently practicing during their lunch breaks for the last week – that was Mami-san's story.

Was that it? That it was necessary to secretly make that sort of concerted effort in order to win.

"That was terrible. What were you doing?"

Greeting her with these harsh words was, of course, Sachiko-sama. It looked like her own recent defeat in the "Ball Toss" game had been put away on a high shelf somewhere and forgotten about.

It was just like Sachiko-sama. But Yumi was already used to it.

Following on from this was the first-years' "Fetch of War." Thirty poles, about 1.5m long, were placed in the middle of the oval, which the teams had to go and bring back to their positions. The teams got points based on how many poles they retrieved.

This was the last event that all the first-years would participate in, so all the teams were fired up. They could see the first-years checking out the locations of the poles and pointing at them, saying things like, "I'll get that one, you get that one."

In this match, victory or defeat was largely dependent on tactics – how many people did they think would be going for each of the poles? They couldn't just split the team evenly if they wanted to reliably get them, so they had to decide ahead of time which poles they'd target and which ones they'd ignore.

"Ready … "

Bang.

At the signal to start, the first-years all broke into a run. The poles that were closest to each team's starting positions were easier to get, so those students who were confident in their speed left them for their teammates, and ran towards the ones that were a bit further away.

There were some poles that only one girl reached and carried away easily.

There were some poles that were targeted by two teams, and neither one would let go.

There were some poles that were going nowhere because four teams were pulling against each other.

There were some poles that were only a step away from one team's position when a huge number of reinforcements from another team came to carry them away.

Each of the poles had their own drama.

"What are those girls doing?"

Yoshino-san pointed and laughed, sitting beside Yumi.

"Don't tell me they're playing it up as a joke?"

Looking at where Yoshino-san was pointing, Yumi saw Touko-chan and Kanako-chan gripping opposite ends of a pole but not moving. No, it wasn't that they weren't moving, it looked like they were pulling in opposite directions and canceling each other out.

"It's quite the spectacle."

Now then, who will be declared the victor?

"– But, they're both on the red team, aren't they?"

"Yeah. That's why it's got to be a joke, right?"

People in the crowd that noticed it pointed and laughed. And then others that followed where they were pointing would laugh too.

In truth, this was not the time for humor, but the situation with Touko-chan and Kanako-chan was like a circus clown performance so it felt like it was okay to laugh at them. The god of comedy was indeed smiling on them.

"Oh my, what's going on here?"

It looked like the students in the broadcasting club had caught on to the situation too.

"Are they in such a frenzy that they can't see their opponent's face? Two red team members are fighting against each other for a pole."

They excitedly reported, although their reasoning was a bit lacking.

Yumi understood, however. Kanako-chan and Touko-chan were both well aware of who was on the other end of the pole.

In this case, it didn't matter one bit whether they were enemies or allies. At this moment, all that mattered to them was that the other one wouldn't get the pole that they had their hands on. "Like hell I'll let her have it," – that kind of feeling. It felt like their normal everyday hostility had come gushing out all at once. They really were natural enemies.

"They're showing such fierce determination. No-one from another team, or even the red team, is willing to get involved. How is this going to end? If they don't get moving, time's going to run out before it gets back to their camp. That would be such a shame."

No-one knew what to do, so they were just hanging back and watching. It was an unprecedented event, so it looked like neither the red team or the other teams could figure out how to change the situation.

"Oh! One brave student from the red team has run over to them. Now, how will she resolve this?"

"It's Noriko-chan."

Whether it was brave or not, Noriko-chan grabbed the pole right in the middle, and pushed them towards the red team's position. Kanako-chan and Touko-chan were balancing each other out by pushing and pulling directly against each other, so they were unable to counter this unexpected perpendicular force as it slowly started moving them along.

That was just like Noriko-chan. When something had to be done, she did it.

As the other teams stood around dumbfounded and watched them go, a shot rang out, signaling the end of the game. It was just as the three girls made it to the red team's position. It looked like they'd made it by a hair's breadth.

The red team ended up with six poles, including that last one. It was a wonderful result, since each team had five in their vicinity. The green team had four – and as a result, they swapped places and fell to last.

" … How is this happening?"

Looking at the scoreboard, Sachiko-sama shook with rage. Seeing this, the green team members trembled in fear. The elegant Rosa Chinensis was shaking with anger. How could that anger be calmed?

Yoshino-san was acting like this was an everyday occurrence, and nonchalantly attached a colored paper flower to her middle finger, but those who only knew Sachiko-sama's public image were looking anxious, as though something were about to happen.

"Y-Yumi-sama. Please do something."

With that, the first-years forced this on her. She'd already used, "We'll make it up in the centipede race," so that probably wouldn't be effective any more. On top of that, the second-years dance was next, so it was almost time for Yumi to make her way towards the oval entrance.

Yumi quickly glanced over at her onee-sama, and judged that it would be a while until her anger subsided.

Well, of course. Despite her boasts about aiming for overall victory, they were currently in a mortifying last place.

In that case.

"Here, onee-sama."

Yumi-sama held out a taiko drum and drumstick.

"What's this?"

"Please bang this as much as you want. It's an instrument that was designed to be hit. Well them, I'm off to the "Flower Dance," so I'll leave you here."

Yumi bowed quickly, then grabbed her flower prop and left.

At the very least, this should prevent Sachiko-sama from ripping apart a pretty handkerchief, or tearing the sleeve of her uniform, or breaking the frame of a folding fan, or damaging a sash, or something similar. Although, Yumi would probably still have to follow up on this when she got back.

"Hurry up, Yumi-san."

Waiting near the entrance gate, her classmates waved her over.

"Oka-y."

As she answered, Yumi suddenly felt someone looking at her and stopped and turned around.

(Huh …? Just now.)

She felt like she'd just seen a familiar face somewhere. But.

(Who was it?)

It wasn't her mother or father. She'd already confirmed her parents' whereabouts.

(Where?)

She knew the general direction, but in the vast banked area surrounding the track there were students and parents mixed together, so it was face after face after face. Even though it felt like she'd just seen someone, she wasn't certain, and there was no way to confirm it.

She felt like it was someone she hadn't seen for a while.

"What are you doing? It's about to start."

By the time Mami-san had come back and dragged her to the entrance gate, the music had already started, and the white team were starting to make their way onto the field.

(Focus, focus)

She could think about it later.

Yumi attached the flowers to her fingers and moved towards the center of the track.

They'd been practicing for this day during gym class since the beginning of the second school term.

There were three colors of flowers – pink, light blue, and yellow. Yumi's pine class and Shimako-san's wisteria class both had light blue flowers.

They started as flower buds.

The tightly bound petals slowly opened in time to the music.

Buds, blossom.

Buds, blossom.

Eventually, the oval was filled with three large blooming flowers.

The music changed, and the flowers delighted in the sun's rays.

They braved the rain.

Then the wind came and the petals separated into ones and twos, like a storm of falling cherry blossoms. With no distinction between pink, light blue, and yellow.

After the storm had passed, they reformed into six small multi-colored flowers – their last pose.

She'd tried her best, but unfortunately as a participant, she couldn't really tell how well it came out. That would have to wait until the film in her father's camera was developed, to see what it looked like from the audience's perspective.

With the dance over, the first thing she did after returning was head over to Sachiko-sama, who was getting ready for the centipede race.

"Yumi."

Seeing her onee-sama's smile, Yumi thought she must have brightened her mood by releasing her stress.

"Did you bang the drum?"

Yumi asked a little happily. Sachiko-sama responded with, "You're so silly," and slightly adjusted Yumi's headband.

"It was a dance number, so I couldn't beat the drum even if I wanted to."

"Ah."

"When I realized that, I couldn't help but laugh. And it made me think that my irritation was absurd."

"Ha."

Basically, the drum was indirectly effective as a medicine to soothe Sachiko-sama's anger.

"You really are a mysterious girl."

Hearing these softly spoken words from her onee-sama, the petite soeur had mixed feelings.

"Umm. I'll take that as a compliment … "

"Of course, it is."

Sachiko-sama nodded in the affirmative, then hurried over to her classmates near the track entrance. On the way there she stopped, turned back, and said, "Oh, right," then gave Yumi a genuine compliment.

"The dance was wonderful. You danced beautifully, Yumi."

"Th-thank-you very much."

Feeling happy about the compliment, but uncertain whether that was appropriate or not, Yumi beat on the taiko drum to cheer Sachiko-sama on in the centipede race.

Perhaps as a result of this, the green team came in third and the red team came in sixth, so they succeeded in overtaking them in the overall standings.

The remaining event in the morning program was the club relay, so they would narrowly avoid the shame of being in last place when the scores were announced at the halfway point.