Maria-sama ga Miteru:Volume34 Chapter1 nr

Little Horrors I

Are you afraid of ghosts, Nana-chan?

Despite being pressured into accepting by those words, she was still reluctant to proceed after all.

"Hah."

After walking a short distance along the corridor, and confirming that she was out of sight of the third-year chrysanthemum classroom, Arima Nana let out a long sigh.

It was after school one day, as April was drawing to a close.

The hierarchical relationship between seniors and juniors in the high-school division of Lillian Girls Academy was rigid.

She was nervous just being around a student one grade above her, but this came from a third-year, two grades above. For a first-year that had just entered into high-school, the option to refuse an order from a senior in her sports club didn't really exist.

However, she had undertaken this endeavor, and she agreed with it, even if not 100%.

(Besides.)

Sure, she was troubled by ghosts. Yes, nodding, she hastened her heavy steps. The opponent she was about to face was difficult, but she wasn't going to lose. They may be two grades above her, a senior in her sports club, and her onee-sama, but if she believed in what was right then she should steadfastly report to her superior.

But whether or not her opponent would meekly accept her reasonable argument was another question.

"Now then, how should I persuade her, I wonder?"

Leaving the school building and arriving at the entrance to the building called the Rose Mansion, Nana let out a sigh with a slightly different nuance to her earlier one.

Why? Because Shimazu Yoshino was not someone who could be dealt with by ordinary means.

"Huh? She's not here?"

Nana had rushed up the stairs (blame that on her battle-ready disposition) only to have her hopes of success crushed. Because Rosa Gigantea en bouton, Nijou Noriko-sama, had just come out of the second-floor room and informed her that the person she sought wasn't there.

"… Umm. Rosa Foetida is not currently present …"

Nana repeated the words that she'd just heard from Noriko-sama. It wasn't that she couldn't understand the words, or doubted them, but she hadn't even considered that possibility so it would take her some time to accept the facts.

"Yeah."

Noriko-sama leaned against the so-called "biscuit door" and nodded, as though to indicate there was no doubt about it. "Rosa Foetida" was the name that Nana's onee-sama, Yoshino-sama, was known by as part of the student council. So, basically, she was saying that "Yoshino-sama is not currently present."

"What's the matter, Nana-chan? Were you looking for Rosa Foetida? I thought you had club activities today, or did you come here because they're over?"

Noriko-sama fired a barrage of questions at her. Nana was Rosa Foetida en bouton, so had equal standing with Noriko-sama, but Noriko-sama was one year her senior and seemed to be concerned for the young newcomer.

"Club activities aren't over yet."

For the time being, Nana answered only the last question.

"They're not over? Then is it alright to be skipping out on them."

Since she'd only just joined. Her concern was perfectly understandable.

"It's not like that. One of the third-years told me to fetch my onee-sama."

"Wait a minute. I thought I heard that today's club activities were just for the new members?"

"Hah."

Based on the current situation, it looked like Yoshino-sama had told the rest of the group something like, "Today's club activities are only for the new members, so I don't have to go since I'm a third-year." Which meant her failure to show up for club activities wasn't the result of some unfortunate accident, but a premeditated attack.

Really, just what was she thinking? Nana sighed softly. Astounded by her own onee-sama. Completely.

"What's going on?"

Rosa Gigantea, Toudou Shimako-sama, said as she opened the biscuit door and stepped out.

"Onee-sama. Nana-chan came to see Rosa Foetida."

Noriko-sama turned to face Shimako-sama.

"Oh my."

Shimako-sama muttered softly. As befitting the title, she was pretty and impeccable. Nana had heard that at some point someone had labeled the White Rose soeurs as a "Western doll and Japanese doll," and when they were alongside each other the contrast really was beautiful. But today the impression was a little bit different to usual. – Thinking about it, it was because her long, wavy hair was bound up by a single hair tie.

"If you're after Yoshino-san, she's not here."

Shimako-sama smiled, like a flower blossoming.

"That's … what I was told."

For a moment, Nana had the illusion she could actually smell flowers – the real deal truly was something else. Well, that wasn't to say that Yoshino-sama was a fake Yellow Rose. Not at all.

"Then what about Rosa Chinensis?"

Nana pulled herself together and changed her line of questioning.

"Yumi-san?"

"Rosa Chinensis is in the same class as my onee-sama, so she might know something."

Yoshino-sama might have said there was some place she was going to visit before heading to the Rose Mansion after school. Or that, this week, she'd been assigned an area that took an incredibly long time to clean. A small hint could help Nana work out where Yoshino-sama was right now.

"That's … "

Instead, the White Rose soeurs looked at each other.

"Rosa Chinensis isn't here either."

"Huh?"

Again, this was something she wasn't expecting.

Rosa Chinensis, Fukuzawa Yumi, wasn't a member of any sports clubs, nor was she on any school committees. She and Noriko-sama were the two people most likely to be at the Rose Mansion.

"We were just saying how late they were, right Noriko?"

"Yeah."

Had something happened to the third-year pine class? If she was with Yumi, then that cast doubt on Nana's earlier theory about Yoshino-sama intentionally ditching club activities. Perhaps she really had meant to attend, but some circumstances prevented her from doing so. Although Nana couldn't even begin to guess what those circumstances could be.

"Say, Nana-chan, why don't we both go and take a look at the third-year classrooms?"

Noriko-sama suggested.

"That sounds good. Why don't you two do that? I'll wait here and if Yoshino-san arrives, I'll detain her until you get back."

Shimako-sama chimed in.

As for Nana, even though she thought she should be able to go to the third-years' classrooms and return all on her own, she didn't have a reason to refuse, so she bowed her head and said, "Thank-you for your help."

"Take care."

Shimako-sama waved from in front of the biscuit door, watching as the two boutons descended the staircase.

"Did my onee-sama tell you that today's club activities were only for first-years?"

Nana asked Noriko-sama's back as they descended the staircase. It was hard to hear over the creaking of the wooden staircase as it carried both their weights, but the answer she got was a vague sounding, "Huh, ah, I think so."

"When was it that she told you this?"

Nana asked again once they'd reached the ground floor, wanting to get a proper answer.

"When? … I'm not sure. At lunch perhaps?"

Noriko-sama stopped walking and tilted her head, somewhat lacking in confidence.

"At lunch?"

Nana tilted her head too. Perhaps realizing the doubtful expression on her face, Noriko-sama promptly withdrew her earlier statement.

"No, we didn't come to the Rose Mansion for lunch today, so it couldn't have been then. Maybe yesterday at lunch … "

"Yesterday was Sunday."

Nana wanted to quip, "How much do you like school that you're coming in on your weekends?" But she was talking to a senior so she refrained for now. Assuming it was true, for arguments sake, she could always say that you can still have lunch without having classes.

"… You're right. Then maybe it was this morning. I can't really remember. Sorry, now I'm starting to doubt whether or not it actually happened. Maybe I misunderstood what Rosa Foetida was saying."

Scratching her medium-length bob-cut hair, Noriko-sama turned towards the Rose Mansion entry way and started walking again. Nana followed after her, and asked:

"Are you, perhaps, covering for my onee-sama?"

"Not at all."

Her hand resting on the door knob, Noriko-sama answered that question alone definitively. Indeed, Noriko-sama had no reason to align herself with Yoshino-sama.

"Anyway, why are you so fixated on when it happened, Nana-chan?"

Opening the door and stepping outside, the little wind that there was felt good against the cheeks and hands, or the calves – which was to say, any exposed skin.

"Why indeed?"

With that single sentence filling the air as they closed the short distance from the Rose Mansion to the school building, Nana examined the contents of her own heart.

"When I last talked to my onee-sama, we'd discussed club activities and, at that time, she said something that led me to believe she'd be attending. So I was wondering whether she was planning on skipping it all along, or if something had come up after our conversation to make her change her mind."

"You mean you'd be annoyed at her if you found out she'd tricked you?"

Noriko-sama asked as they walked along the hallway.

"I'm not sure. Right from the start, I knew she was that type of person."

"What type of person?"

"A bit of a liar."

When she heard these words, Noriko-sama got a startled look on her face. She probably couldn't believe that someone would describe their own onee-sama as a "liar." At the kendo tournament in autumn of last year, when Nana was still in middle-school, she'd been an accomplice in one of Yoshino-sama's lies during their very first meeting. Although that lie had ultimately come true when they became soeurs.

"Basically, I don't think it's very amusing if my onee-sama is off doing something fun without telling me about it."

"… That's incredibly possessive, isn't it?"

"It's not like that though."

Nana wanted to explain that they were two grades apart, so it was only natural that there were differences in what they could and couldn't do. She'd given up on the impossible right from the start. But they were both members of the kendo club, so they should both attend club activities – therefore skipping out and keeping that a secret from your petite soeur was a bit different.

So what Nana most wanted was to find Yoshino-sama in the third-year pine classroom, detained by some urgent business that she absolutely could not have avoided.

"She's scheming something."

"Like what?"

"I don't know."

Nana didn't know, but she could smell it.

"If you don't know, you shouldn't be overly suspicious. You can resolve it directly when you meet her. Anyway, why don't we talk about something more cheery?"

So sayeth Noriko-sama. Calling suspicion a negative trait.

"Even so, I don't think that grinning is really necessary."

"Understood. Then how about we have a cliched, banal and inoffensive conversation?"

Nana started to say, "Like what?" but got cut off by Noriko-sama.

"Well, ahh, let's see. Have you got used to high-school yet?"

– That really was an incredibly banal topic.

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