Maria-sama ga Miteru:Volume26 Chapter8

X-Mark

Part 1

"How about sticking it on the back of a cat? Like in some sort of sling," Yoshino-san suggested.

"See, the cat would run away. It'd get scared with everyone chasing after it. So even if they called out to it or offered it food, it wouldn't come. Plus, the cat could go places they couldn't follow, like under the bushes or into small passages between the school buildings."

As she spoke, she traced a meandering path around the map, highlighting just such a route.

"Wouldn't it be fun to have the card move around?"

Their planning meeting was almost cooked. The gentle boil left only the parts that got stuck to the side and burned, so that adding more water wouldn't help.

"Fun? Are you being serious?" Yumi asked, although whether Yoshino-san was being serious or not didn't change that it was a troublesome idea.

"About half serious."

Half serious.

"What do you think, Shimako-san? Want to go with this?"

And it wasn't even an idea for her own card, but for Shimako-san's. She'd obviously got bored of the idea, but wanted it to be seriously considered for just a little while longer.

"Come on, Yoshino-san, when you said a cat, you meant Lunch, right? You know it would be impossible to catch Lunch, let alone stick something on her."

If she'd given it more thought, Yumi wouldn't have been drawn into this "half serious" conversation, but she was feeling exhausted so she didn't just let it pass for Shimako-san to judge.

"Oh, but Shimako-san could do it," Yoshino-san said, with a serious expression. "Merry-san is Sei-sama's cat, so if Sei-sama's petite sœur calls out to her, of course she'll come running."

But Shimako-san looked dubious.

"Goronta isn't my onee-sama's cat, and she doesn't come when I call."

Incidentally, "Lunch," "Merry-san," and "Goronta" were three different names for the one cat.

Yumi had referred to it the way the current second-years typically did, as "Lunch."

Yoshino-san would also call it "Lunch," but due to Rei-sama's influence, she'd called it by the name mainly used by the current third-years, "Merry-san."

Shimako-san used the name "Goronta," which had been used by the previous third-years, now graduated, including Satou Sei-sama.

"Hmm, I guess it won't work then."

The Lunch/Merry-san/Goronta line that Yoshino-san had been tracing on the map came to an abrupt halt when the lead in her mechanical pencil snapped, and she abandoned the effort.

". . . How about some tea?" Yumi proposed.

It was simple, but she thought they could do with a change of pace. They hadn't had anything to drink yet because they didn't want to get the maps wet, but they'd been talking so much her throat was parched, so it seemed like a good time for a short break.

"Sounds good," Shimako-san concurred and started to gather up the maps.

"Is black tea okay?"

The biscuit door opened at about the same time that Yumi stood up.

"Pardon me."

Shimako-san's sœur, Noriko-chan, stepped into the room.

"Oh, Noriko-chan's here."

"Mm."

Using her foot as a stopper so the door wouldn't close, Noriko-chan turned around and bent over, her upper body reaching outside the room.

"I searched the first-floor storeroom for the cardboard box we used for the tea party. I thought we could re-purpose it for the 'second-chance draw.'"

As she spoke, she picked something up and brought it inside.

"It wasn't that easy to find though."

But since she was carrying a cardboard box, that meant she'd found it after all. Where could it have been hiding?

"All the spare desks and chairs had been stacked, and a simple cardboard box is light, plus we had no future plans for it, so I thought it would have been casually set aside somewhere. But for some reason I couldn't find it. Even though it was visible, it was like I didn't see it."

After placing the box in the corner of the room, Noriko-chan took a breather. Then, noticing Yumi preparing the tea, she said, "I'll help with that," and bounded over.

"Even though it was visible, it was like you didn't see it. . . ?"

Yoshino-san asked from behind, so Noriko-chan turned around and answered, "Yeah."

"Even though I must have walked past it so many times when I was searching."

Hearing this, Yoshino-san snapped her fingers.

"That's it."

Just like that, the yellow card's hiding place was decided.

"Then it's gotta be here. Sorry for finishing early."

Yoshino-san clicked her mechanical pencil to push some lead out, then forcefully drew an X on their map of the second-floor of the school building, on the exterior wall of the staff room.

Part 2

"So that would mean that Yumi-sama and my onee-sama haven't decided where they'll be hiding their cards?" Noriko-chan asked as they sipped their tea.

"Yeah."

"That's right."

The pair agreed, and then –

"Honestly, aren't you just procrastinating?"

Even though she'd been a partner-in-procrastination until just recently, Yoshino-san's attitude rapidly shifted the moment she made her decision.

"Hmm. Where would I hide it if it were up to me?" Noriko-chan asked herself, as she picked up the stack of maps that had been left on the corner of the table and started leafing through them.

Indeed, this was the sort of situation where it was good to get a younger person's opinion. A fresh breeze could give rise to new ideas. Although there was only a one year difference in their ages.

"We decided to have hints to my card. But that's about all," Shimako-san said.

"Ooh, sounds fun," Noriko-chan chirped.

"R-really?" Shimako-san asked, with a not-entirely-displeased expression. After all, the emotion Shimako-san was aiming for was "fun," so her face immediately brightened when her petite sœur backed her up by saying it "sounds fun." It looked like Shimako-san had been feeling exhausted too. As they explained how they would mix the hints in with warnings, Noriko-chan became more and more excited, firing off a continuous stream of, "Nice," and, "Sounds good."

"The participants are going to be running all over the school looking for the hints. That'll definitely be fun. It'll be like when we played "Human Suguroku" at Rosa Chinensis' house during the New Year break. I wonder if, perversely, people like being given the run-around like that."

When she heard this, Yumi was initially skeptical about that last sentence, but then she remembered how Rei-sama enjoyed being given the run-around by Yoshino-san, and accepted the possibility that it might be true.

"I think it'd be fun to make it a quiz or a crossword, but we should probably stick to something simple this time around. I wouldn't want the hints to lead straight to the card, but there's a lot of ways to accomplish that — like each hint could be a single word, or a single character, so the location would only be found by gathering multiple hints together and arranging them in the proper order."

The fresh breeze had had a tremendous effect. Noriko-chan had disrupted the stale atmosphere and quickly set things flowing in a good direction.

Getting caught up in the moment, Yoshino-san asked, "So where should it be hidden?"

"That's something my onee-sama has to decide. Since it's her card that's being hidden," Noriko-chan grinned.

Part 3

Yumi set out on a stroll with Noriko-chan, borrowing her from Shimako-san for a little while.

That said, their stroll was along the maps in the Rose Mansion parlor. So, strictly speaking, it was not restricted to just the two of them. Like Shimako-san and the white card, Yumi had to decide on a place to hide her red card. That was fundamental. But with a skilled assistant like Noriko-chan by her side, she was 120 percent confident that her latent abilities would awaken and she'd come up with a great idea.

"As much as possible, you all want your hiding places to reflect those different ideas, right?"

"That's right," Yumi agreed. There was a certain leeway because the cards had to be hidden, but it should broadly fit the theme.

"Well, since Yoshino-sama's the only one to have decided on a spot, why don't we use her location as the center and look at places far away from that?"

"Makes sense."

There was a certain rationale behind it. Although it was going back to the "start."

"But the staff room's external wall is a bit of a strange place. It's part of the school building, but it's outside."

"Yeah."

Since it was a bit of a difficult position to pinpoint, they decided to start by looking at places some way away from the staff room.

"Is the school gate in-bounds?"

In one motion, Noriko-chan's pencil made a huge jump alone.

"I don't think it was last year, but . . ." Yumi turned her attention there too, "Mami-san was considering extending the bounds."

The security guard's station was, of course, out-of-bounds, but they wanted to get permission to include the staff parking lot, the tennis courts, and the oval in the game area. The gymnasium and martial arts building would be okay provided they weren't being used on that day, and they were currently in negotiations to ensure this.

"The area around the statue of Maria-sama gets kind of busy on Valentine's Day."

"That's true."

With a lot of, "That place is out," and, "I'm not really sure about that," they eventually made it back to the school building.

"Should we look at the school building too?"

Noriko-chan quickly swapped the maps, adding, "It just has to be away from the staff room. Like, the arts building's a separate building. And the home-ec rooms and science rooms aren't really close to the staff room either."

"Ah, the science rooms are out," Yoshino-san interjected from the side. "Because of the chemicals they keep there. The teachers were worried about that, even though the strong ones are kept in the storage room and the shelves are locked."

But if anything happened, it would be too late. Yumi thought they had made the right call in rejecting it. And since she'd never even considered hiding her card there, she hadn't really cared when it was ruled out.

"Besides that, there's not really any link between me and, say, the music room."

At a stretch, it had been part of her cleaning area as a first-year. But, in that case, Shimako-san was in the same boat.

"Same for the home-ec rooms, nothing really strikes me."

"Then what is a place that strikes you?"

"A place that strikes me?"

"When you think about the school building, is there anywhere other than your classroom that comes to mind? Ignoring the reason why for now."

Noriko-chan lay her pencil down sideways on top of the map and slowly moved it around.

(Is she dowsing?)

– That seemed unlikely, but, at any rate, Yumi did what she was told and tried envisaging the school building, and her attention was quickly drawn towards a certain room.

"The social studies prep room, I guess."

"The social studies prep room?"

Everyone else echoed the name of a room they weren't all that familiar with.

"The social studies prep room . . . why that place?"

Despite saying to ignore the reason why, Rosa Gigantea en bouton now firmly wanted to know the reason.

"Because of the maps."

She put her thoughts into words and Yoshino-san pointed and laughed, "Yumi-san, that's too simple. You're just being influenced by all the maps we have here."

That was an obvious conclusion given the situation, but it was incorrect.

"Not that, the blank maps."

For Yumi, the blank maps were a symbol of Touko-chan. Yumi didn't know whether or not Touko-chan would be participating in the event, but just for a moment she'd wondered where would be a good place to hide the card in order for Touko-chan to find it.

"Blank maps?" Noriko-chan repeated.

". . . Oh, it's nothing. Sorry."

Yumi reconsidered and shook her head.

"Yumi-san?"

"At any rate, the social studies prep room won't work."

"Why not?"

Shimako-san and Yoshino-san looked at her with quizzical expressions.

"I made a mistake."

She couldn't be thinking of someone when she chose her hiding place.

Why hadn't she realized something so obvious before?

"That thing with the social studies prep room?"

Noriko-chan asked for confirmation, and Yumi nodded vigorously.

That was it.

She wanted a hiding place that didn't favor any specific person, so that students with no inside knowledge of her would be totally fine.

"Alright, let's think of some other place. Anything you're particular about, or have an image of?"

Noriko-chan switched to asking her questions, probably because they hadn't been having any success with their previous approach.

"That reminds me," Shimako-san started, "Your theme was 'close to the Yamayurikai,' wasn't it?"

"Ah."

"That's right."

The second-years had completely forgotten about that until now, even though it was supposed to be the most important consideration. This time, Yumi was struck by something.

"How about the Rose Mansion?"

"That's it!" Yoshino-san said, and snapped her fingers again.

"Indeed — it's hard to see what's right under your nose, right?"

Shimako-san placed the stack of maps in front of Yumi. There, she drew an X with her pencil.

Even though they were in that spot right now.

It was a bit of a strange feeling.

Part 4

That left Shimako-san's hiding place.

While they'd decided the minor matter of having hints to its location, the location itself still hadn't been decided.

There had been a couple of candidates, but none of them had stood out as being fun, nor had she chanced upon somewhere good.

"Thinking back," Shimako-san said, as she traced her finger over a map, "Earlier, you were talking about attaching it to Goronta's back, right Yoshino-san? We quickly dismissed that idea, but I think there's plenty we could take from it as reference."

When she heard this, Yumi asked, "Like what?" Not to be rude, but she had no idea how Shimako-san could use anything from that idea as a reference.

"I think it'd be kind of fun if the card moved around."

"Then how about sticking it on the back of a teacher?"

Shimako-san forced a smile when Yoshino-san proposed this time-honored prank.

"But we wouldn't be able to do that without asking. And we'd have to ask them to stay within the bounds for the duration of the treasure hunt. It would be difficult."

"Then what? How are you going to use Merry-san as a reference?"

Quick-tempered Yoshino-san's self-satisfaction soon turned to irritation, but gentle Shimako-san was not perturbed by that sort of thing.

"Having the card itself move around might break the rules. But what if the environment around it changed over time, wouldn't that sort of trick be good?"

"The environment around it would change over time?"

"Yes," Shimako-san nodded, "Like the way the coastline at the beach changes between low tide and high tide. I was thinking it might be possible to do something like that."

"So it would be hidden at high tide, but visible at low tide?"

"Exactly."

Meaning it would be like gathering shells at low tide. But they weren't at the beach, and Yumi couldn't think of a similar system that would happen at an old Tokyo girls' school.

Of course, if it were possible, it would be quite fun.

Yumi was getting excited, although not to the level of Noriko-chan.

"In general, it's funny how things change at this time of day, isn't it?" Shimako-san looked at the clock and the other three were drawn in too.

4:40 p.m. The event's end time.

It would be growing dark outside the window. They'd been going back and forth over the maps for an hour.

"My, I'm surprised by your evil side, Shimako-san," Yoshino-san grinned, as she pointed this out, adopting the standard expression of conspiring villains in an Edo-period drama.

"Oh?"

Naturally, Shimako-san didn't respond in kind. In her place, Noriko-chan attacked the villain.

"What part of my onee-sama are you calling evil, huh?"

She would have been better off ignoring this frivolous chatter from her senior. Although it was cute the way she took it seriously and bared her fangs.

Well, it probably wasn't the sort of comment that someone who loved their onee-sama could let slide.

"Because, if we go on the premise that the game ends with the white card still hidden, then the joke's on the participants."

". . . You're right."

Shimako-san agreed, throwing away Noriko-chan's efforts to protect her. Gently laughing as she said, "I guess you would have to call that evil."

"What?"

Even so, Noriko-chan was still unable to accept it, and kept protesting seriously for quite some time.

"Well, Yoshino-san said it was a surprise, so don't you think that's fine?"

It wasn't until her onee-sama said this that Noriko-chan finally faltered.

"I think we've reached the end, so why don't we call it a night here?"

"Yeah."

"Sounds good."

They'd already decided plenty, so if they had another think about it at lunch tomorrow they'd be all set for their meeting with the newspaper club.

"What would you say to going out for a little preview?" Shimako-san asked.

"Do you mean walking around and looking at the actual location?"

Yumi couldn't think of anything else Shimako-san would have meant by a preview, but her mind had been dulled by all the virtual touring they'd been doing.

"Yes, on our way home. It's the perfect time for it too."

From that, it sounded like Shimako-san already had a location in mind.

"I'll go."

"Me too."

"Lead on."

With that, they quickly finished up — gathering all the maps into a large manila envelope, cleaning the teacups, and checking that the windows were closed. When the tidy-up was complete, they excitedly lined up in front of Shimako-san in their coats.

"Like a group of children lining up about to go on an excursion," Shimako-san giggled.

Yumi had to hand it to Shimako-san and her way with words. Because, right now, their excitement was plain to see.

"Well, let's go."

Rosa Gigantea and the three boutons left the Rose Mansion with a spring in their step.

The reality of the cold air sunk deep into their bodies, but their hearts were hot with excitement.

Where on the map was Shimako-san going to draw her X?

They'd have to wait just a little while longer to find out.

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