After clearing up the scuffle between Kouenji and Sudo, Kiyotaka and I left Kouenji in the medical tent and made our way back to Class D's tent to prepare to watch the girl's races.
~~~
Not many of the girl's races went in favor of Class D. Expect for the likes of Onodera, Maezono, and even Kushida.
But you could tell they all gave an honest effort. Even the likes of Sakura finished the race panting and sweating. I was proud to see that all of them gave it their all.
"First years, Group 10, 100m girls dash. Please take your positions on the track. I repeat-."
"Hey, Hirata," I called out. "Who from Class D is in group 10?"
Hirata diverted his attention to a small clipboard with each individual's race group they would be participating in.
"It looks like Horikita-san is the only one in this group."
This was going to be an important race to watch.
I looked toward the track and saw Horikita minding her business, doing a few stretches.
Almost right beside her, speaking a little too loudly into her ear, was Ibuki. Most likely trying to psych her out or trash talk her. But Horikita gave her no attention, focusing on her race instead. That duo would make the race far more interesting. Considering the events that had transpired during the Island exam and Ibuki declaring Horikita as her 'rival'. It would definitely be an entertaining race to watch.
The self-proclaimed rival vs. the ice queen.
It was quite a coincidence, though, that these two ended up being in the same group.
"Do you know if Ibuki's athletic," Sudo chimed.
"From what I've heard, she's definitely more athletic than most."
"That's fine. Horikita's got it in the bag. You'll need to be better than just average to beat her," proudly supporting his crush.
With the sound of the pistol, all the girls shot forward. From where I was standing, there was no clear indication of who was the faster individual at the moment between Horikita and Ibuki. Ibuki did start with a slight lead after some time. But as the race continued on, Ibuki's form started to turn sloppy, as she would turn her head to look back at Horikita. That was all Horikita needed to take advantage though, as she now began to create some distance between Ibuki.
Still, Ibuki showed no signs of giving up just yet and was hot on Horikita's tail for the entire race. This race was completely dominated by these two.
Eventually, Horikita was the one to emerge victorious. By a mere fraction of a second, Horikita had taken a first-place finish, with Ibuki placing second.
Everyone who watched the race exploded into grand cheers at the sheer excitement of the race. Ibuki wasn't so delighted, as she kicked at the dirt in frustration, letting a few curse words fly too.
Horikita tucked her hair behind her ear as she made her way back to the class's tent.
"Horikita, you were amazing!" Sudo was the first to congratulate her. Sticking his hand out in hopes of a high-five in celebration.
"Thank you, Sudo-kun," Horikita said as she walked past, leaving Sudo completely hanging.
Horikita continued walking past all her praises as she joined up with Ayanokouji and me.
"That was a good race," Ayanokouji said.
"I agree, Ibuki almost had you, but you pulled it off in the end," I added.
"I knew I was winning from the start," Horikita said. "I know my skill, and I know it's better than hers."
I don't know if that was confidence or arrogance coming from Horikita.
Horikita looked around the tent for a brief moment. "Where's Kouenji-kun? I was fairly interested in seeing his race. But I never saw him."
Ayanokouji pointed toward the medical tent. "He's in there. He told us his body wasn't feeling 100% and would have to sit out for the rest of the festival."
Horikita's cold glare shot directly at me as soon as Ayanokouji finished his sentence.
"Wasn't my fault, I promise. I tried reasoning with him, but he's Kouenji."
Horikita let out a deep and disappointed sigh in response. "I guess there is nothing to do. Team Red will be receiving quite a hefty amount of point deductions considering Sakayanagi-san and Kouenji-kun's absence then."
That is true, both participants would be considered 'last' in their races and receive deductions for doing so.
"Guess we will have to make up for their lack of participation."
The 100m dash for the second year started almost immediately after the girl's races. There weren't many second years I was acquainted with besides the idiot Nagumo and Kiryuuin-senpai, but I was still interested to see how the results would turn out.
Nagumo was in the first group for the boys 100m dash and finished with an overwhelming victory. No one even came close. He gave a small wave and smile toward the crowd as he crossed the finish line. But he didn't seem to be having all that much fun.
Kiryuuin-senpai was in the fourth group for the girls 100m dash. She too, had an overwhelming victory, displaying athletic skills which seemed far superior even to the likes of Horikita.
Once Kiryuuin-senpai crossed the finish line, another second-year girl which had already competed, pounced on her with a great big hug.
From what I remember, that girl placed second in the first group. She had chocolate-brown hair that flowed down to her waist and was blessed with generous proportions. There was also a bright, yellow sunflower hairpin, that held her hair back from falling in front of her face.
When Kiryuuin-senpai had broken free from the other girl's grasp, I swear she caught my gaze and shot me a wink. It could be my imagination, but Kiryuuin-senpai is a rather eccentric individual.
There was no one else among the second years that I recognized, so those races were all pretty boring to me.
The third years were finally up. Horikita Manabu was part of group 4, and needless to say, he devastated his competition. With almost a 3-second gap between the closest runner and setting the 100m time record for the day. It was a performance befitting The Student Council President.
I looked toward Horikita to see how she was handling this. She intently stared toward her brother and was nervously rubbing both her hands together.
I thought it would be best to keep my comments about the scene to myself. Maybe I'll expose her later. I know she doesn't talk to him much, but that was a weird reaction.
After all the races had finished, I took a glance at the electronic scoreboard that would be displaying the collective scores for the red and white teams.
It only took the school a few minutes after the final race to calculate the team scores after one event.
Team Red: 2011
Team White: 1891
The competition had finally begun, with Team Red gaining a slight edge over Team White.
The announcer's voice sounded throughout the area, apparently, there would be a short break until the next event. Because there needed to be some preparations on the track for it.
Hurdles were the next event. Like the 100m dash, it required speed. However, there were the added obstacles of clearing the hurdles that required its own set of skills. Clipping or taking down the hurdles would cause a time penalty from 0.3-0.5 seconds that would be added to your score. It required extreme skill and coordination to repeatedly hurdle an obstacle every 10m. This was one event I worried about for my class.
That being said, I don't believe many students within the first year had good experiences with hurdles. Unless they were in a track club, most people would probably struggle with an event like this.
This could be an event where we had more podium finishes than not. But that was getting my hopes too high.
I noticed out of the corner of my eye Sudo was 'motivating' our fellow classmates to perform well during this event.
Most students trembled at his words of encouragement. Which, I'm pretty sure, consisted of him saying that he would slap them if they didn't win. Definitely is not the greatest motivation.
I along with Sotomura was a part of the first group in the 100m hurdles. As we made our way to the track, Sotomura or otherwise known as the Professor, spoke up.
"Fukumoto, r-regrettably, I don't believe I can partake in this event. My body is not seeming to cooperate with my mind."
"You don't got to worry," I replied. "It's just the nerves getting to you. Promise me if you try your best, even if that means getting a few penalties here and there, I'll be happy with it. And if Sudo has something to say about it, I'll take the blame."
The Professor responded with a weak smile but continued onto the track.
I took my position in lane 5, and to my left, unfortunately, was one of the strongest competitors for our year, Shibata Sho.
"Fukumoto-kun! I know this will be a tough race now, but I won't go easy on you!" He replied with his ever-cheerful attitude.
Shibata was someone like Ichinose, his admirable qualities as a person naturally let others gravitate toward him. He was definitely shaping up to be the top contender for The Best Performing Student award in our year.
"Maybe, I'll try a little harder now," I laughed.
We both crouched down into position as we waited for the signal to sound.
The pistol sounded, and I shot up and raced toward the first hurdle. Clearing it with relative ease, I continued on to the next. Only focusing on the hurdle in front of me, not paying attention to where Shibata was at the moment. I continued to increase my speed with each hurdle.
After clearing the last hurdle, I made a quick dash to the finish line. Hopefully, securing a victory. I looked back to my left once again and noticed Shibata panting a little after the race, but it seemed he crossed the finish line roughly around the same time as I did.
I was too absorbed in my race to notice whether he had beaten me.
"F-fukumoto-kun, you were amazing! I really tried keeping up, but you were too fast!" Shibata said as he wiped away some sweat from his forehead.
"No, I'm pretty sure it was a close race."
"You'd be wrong," Shibata replied. "You nearly beat me by a whole second."
The staff replayed a video of the race on the scoreboard. You could clearly see that I crossed the finish line before Shibata. It was my victory.
Many people watching the race erupted into cheers after seeing this spectacle. I definitely didn't intend to win by such a large margin. But I guess being too absorbed with my own race backfired a little.
Shibata gave me a congratulatory slap on the back. "No wonder Ichinose likes you. You're kind and athletic; you've got it all," Shibata quickly raced off to his tent after dropping that line.
"Huh..."
I wasn't given any time to think about that, because I was immediately congratulated by Sudo.
"Look at you go, Fukumoto. Even beating that stupid Class B guy. That was an awesome race!" Sudo showered me with praise as we made our way back to the tents.
"That's the new standard," Sudo shouted at everyone. "That's how we should all perform!"
"It's only because I was up against Shibata. You don't got to put that much pressure on everyone," I replied.
Even the usual gang of Kei, Chiaki, and Maya came over to congratulate me on my victory.
"Eh, I didn't know you were that fast, Akio," Kei said.
"It is a race, what would you expec-... Ow."
Maya had shot me a cheeky elbow to the side. "Trying to impress all the girls, huh."
"That's not it," I replied. "I'm only trying to help our class out."
"You're doing extremely well, though," Chiaki said. "You could possibly win The Best Performing Student Award."
"I've only placed first in two races," I replied. "You never know how things will change from here. Besides, I'm not trying to win the award, just trying to help our class."
After that quick interaction, I made my way over to watch one of the next races. Ayanokouji and Hirata were once up again, they were the third group for hurdles today. I also noticed the leader of Class B, Kanzaki, was part of this group too.
From where I was standing, it seemed that Kanzaki and Ayanokouji even exchanged a few words with each other before racing. I never knew they were acquainted with each other.
The race started, and surprisingly, Ayanokouji finished in third place. I don't know if that was on purpose or not, but it was unexpected. May have been because he expected his opponents to perform better. Meanwhile, Hirata took first again, and Kanzaki placed second. So far, Class D was performing well in the hurdles event.
~~~
Finally, the hurdles had finished across all the years. Surprisingly, Class D had done pretty well. As for Team Red, we still held the lead, but Team White was getting closer now. From watching all the races and accounting for everyone's place they finished in the race, you could tell that Team White had closed the gap on Team Red now.
But there was one particular race that was still on my mind.
"Hey, Kiyotaka," I called out.
Ayanokouji walked over to me as we waited for our next event.
"Did you notice the competition in Horikita's group?" I asked.
"Yes, Yajima and Kinoshita from Class C were both racing against her."
It was something I had noticed too. Hirata told me just before her race that both of them were part of the track and field club and from Class C. Which was probably, why Horikita could only come out with a third-place finish. It was a strong effort by Horikita, but there's only so much you can do against those who train for this sport.
"Both of them are part of the track and field club. But, surprisingly, both of those Class C students ended up in Horikita's group," Ayanokouji continued.
"How'd you know they were a part of the track and field club?"
"I have my ways," he replied matter of factly.
"If this continues, Horikita may struggle during this festival. Currently, she's been a big help for Class D if she's taken out now, that could ruin our chances of placing at the top. The chances of receiving class points deduction seem higher now."
Ayanokouji paused for a moment before speaking up. "I have a feeling Ryuuen has a plan to deal with her," Ayanokouji said.
"I get that feeling too. And I'm sure you know how this happened too?"
Ayanokouji replied with a slight nod. "Also, considering how Sudo's opponents have been relatively weak, he's definitely planning to take out Class D now."
I shook my head in agreement. "This festival really is a drag."
"But I believe we should still proceed as we have been," Ayanokouji lowered his voice for a moment. "It would also be best not to engage with the mole in our class. It could ruin our unity and cause massive repercussions."
"Agreed. We don't want to draw any more unneeded attention. I can take care of that mole problem later. Our morale has been pretty good for the time being, but any more losses could tank it."
"Says the guy constantly placing first."
"Okay, okay. I'll lose maybe one or two, we'll see," I replied with a chuckle. "We still have to have some hope of winning this. Why don't you step up a little?"
"You know that's not my style. I prefer to work behind the scenes."
"That's true, your not the one for theatrics."
But this was concerning me now, that Horikita in both races had gone up against more formidable Class C opponents. I wonder how she will handle this.
I took another quick glance at the scoreboard to get an accurate reading of how well each team was doing.
Team Red: 2911
Team White: 2789
It seemed like for the upper years, both Class A's were dominating their competition. But because of Class D's lack of skill, every impressive score they got was almost nullified by their loss from other participants.
If Team Red wanted to pull out a victory, I assumed the first-year classes would be a major deciding factor in that.
But with how this festival was panning out, along with Ryuuen's interference with Class C, it would be significantly harder for us to pull out a comfortable victory. The only saving grace was Sudo's ability to produce results.
But anyone could see that he was starting to get frustrated at everyone's lack of effort compared to his. This could've been part of Ryuuen's strategy to take out one of Class D's biggest assists.
Nevertheless, we would still persevere and try for the best outcome.
The next event on the list was capture-the-flag. Sudo was already going berserk on our class about expanding the gap between Team Red and White. But I knew something was bound to happen in the next few events that would change the outcome for Class D and this festival.
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Helloooooo
another new chapter lets go!
i do have final exams and should probably be focusing on those more lol
also, i was wondering if you all wanted little oneshots of different characters for this book. And if you do, some suggestions would be great as to what characters you want and the scenario.
have a phenomenal day! thank you for the continued support!
until next time :)