The Will to Return the Favor
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Normal POV
The westminster chime of Hajime Ryou Wo high school starts to ring for the second time. It was time for lunch break, and the students immediately amass at the cafeteria to buy food for their own.
Meanwhile, somewhere within the outskirts of the second-year floor, a certain blue-haired teenage student walked past outside his classroom's doors and was immediately called by one of his friends to come join them for lunch.
"Hey Aoba! Let's go get lunch together!"
Unfortunately, he declined their offer for a reason to meet up with his fellow club members somewhere. Thankfully, his friends understood his excuse and bade a farewell to him as they left the hallways on their way to the cafeteria.
Aoba started walking toward the staircase and went upstairs to the third floor, and then finally, reaches the rooftop in a matter of minutes.
There, he found his already-gathered club members, which were eating their lunch together.
"There you are, Aoba! Come on and have lunch with us!" Hikari immediately gleamed as she raised her hand to call him after noticing him opening the door. Her face revealing several particles of rice sticking around her mouth.
"Thank you." Aoba went over toward their spot in which they placed a blanket on the floor, looking like they're having a picnic. However, Eren and Ivan were sitting on the benches next to the rails of the rooftop, so there was plenty of room for him.
After sitting on a vacant space in their little picnic, Aoba opened his lunchbox and clasped his hand to say a gratitude for the food. However, while all of them continue eating, a teenage girl with pink hair stood up before them after she managed to finish her lunch first.
"Okay then, let's start the club meeting." Stella said as she stood up and disturbed them while they ate their lunch.
"Ehh? But we're still eating, Stella." Natsumi said with her mouth being full.
"You don't have to talk if your mouth is full, Natsumi. Just listen to what I have to say, and if you want to say something, swallow your food first before you talk, okay?" Stella said to her.
"Okay, everyone listen up. Aoba and I gathered you all here to discuss something very important. Furthermore, we apologize to you if we made any inconvenience to your time for this sudden gathering, so we're sorry." Stella briefly said.
"Nah, it's nothing, Stella." Eren said from the sidelines.
"We understand." Eriko followed.
"Please continue the discussion." Erika went afterwards.
"Okay. Remember what we have informed you yesterday? About Nagisa-sensei's classroom being subjugated?" Everyone nodded at Stella's remark. With this, Stella continued.
"Well, this is the problem. We still don't know what exactly happened why Nagisa-sensei's classroom was taken. But now that we are not allowed to make any step on that hill, we won't be able to carry out our club activities from here on out. We need an initiative. Anyone got any ideas?" Stella asked her members, which were now finally finished eating their meal.
As Stella looks at everyone that were now thinking of any ideas, Hikari raised her hand up as the first to come up with something.
Stella called out to her and asks her what she got.
Hikari stands up and says, "Why don't we change our venue for our club activities?"
"That sounds like a good idea."
"That's the secretary of the club for you!"
Eren and Ivan both applauded for her remarkable idea, followed by everyone else's applause.
"Hm, okay. We'll go with that idea. Then, does anyone have any suggestions about our venue?" Stella asks after agreeing to Hikari's idea.
The club members went into deep thought as they start to think of a place where they can secretly initiate their training. Out from everyone else, Natsumi was the first one who raised her hand this time.
"Yes, Natsumi?" Stella called out to her.
"Um~ well, this only a suggestion, so I'm not sure if this will do. To tell you guys honestly, my family runs a dojo, and the place is currently unused. Though I still need to ask permission from my parents if we decide to use our dojo as our venue for our club activities. What do you think?" Natsumi said with a slight sign of embarrassment on her voice.
"Hmm... How about the others?" Stella redirects her attention to the club members after receiving Natusmi's suggestion.
However, after hearing Natsumi's family had a dojo, everyone couldn't think of any brilliant ideas besides that, so they didn't make any new suggestions. This way, Natsumi's suggestion will become the venue by default.
"Okay, since there are no other ideas, who agrees to have Natsumi's dojo to be our venue for our club activities?" Stella asked them while raising her hand around shoulder level, sounding like they're in a board meeting discussing a venue for their business trip.
At Stella's mark, everyone raised their hands in agreement to Natsumi's idea. Due to the majority, Natsumi's dojo will now become the club's new training grounds for their club activities—which are the continuation of Nagisa's assassin training.
"Alright! It's decided!" After Stella exclaimed, their club meeting was unfortunately interrupted by the school bell, telling them that lunch break is already over.
Stella immediately adjourned their club meeting after the beat and sent everyone back to their respective classrooms. Except for Aoba though since both of them are classmates.
While walking across the hallways to get to their classroom before their next teacher arrives, Stella randomly started a conversation with Aoba while they continue making their way back to their room.
"I just hope that everything will go well." Sighed Stella from being worried.
"Don't worry. I know it will. But, what are we going to tell Nagisa-sensei?" Aoba asked.
"Hmm... Let's keep our club activities in secret for now."
"What? Why?"
"Think of this as a way to return the favor to him. We'll continue training just like how he trained us, and when the time is right, maybe we can help Nagisa-sensei retake back his old classroom." Stella remarkably said with her chest puffed out with pride.
Aoba was surprised but he understood where Stella was taking the subject, so he agreed to her plan eventually.
"Ahh~ I see. But I'm warning you though, we shouldn't keep this as a secret for long. If Nagisa-sensei finds out we're behaving irregularly, he'll get suspicious, you know?" Aoba said.
"Yeah. We don't want to make him angry if we don't want to end up like the previous class that received what they deserve from him." Stella chuckled.
"You're right about that."
"I really also wanted to return the favor to Nagisa-sensei for placing us this far. But I wonder. How are we going to return the favor by becoming Assassins?" As Aoba entered their classroom alongside with Stella, he thought this to himself and wondered before each sitting down on their respective seats.
But his thoughts were momentarily disturbed when the teacher for their next subject arrived and starts disciplining them to behave.
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Stella's POV
"I got permission!" Spoke Natsumi from the phone which I was placing closely to my ear.
"Really? That's great news!" I exclaimed happily as I stopped from writing something on my notebook on my study table in the dark evening.
It was already dark around 7 in the evening and Natsumi had just called me to tell me about the news. We eventually got permission to use her family's dojo as our venue to initiate our club activities, and thank goodness it went well.
"Thank goodness." I heavily sighed for being worried, again.
"Stella, you stress yourself way too much!" Natsumi scolded me from the other line.
"Sorry about that." I apologized to her after fixing my specs I was wearing.
"Well? Are you really sure about this?" Natsumi started asking.
"About what?"
"About keeping this a secret from sensei, of course! Are you really sure that this is the right thing to do?" Natsumi was just simply asking around, but her question brought a strange impression on me, making me think the fact that I didn't think about it that hard.
"No worries. If my plan fails, we'll just have to apologize to Nagisa-sensei. I'm sure he'll understand." I replied back to Natsumi intending to reassure her from being worried about our plan.
"Oh jeez, you really are hopeless. Okay, fine! If sensei finds out, I'm not responsible, okay?" Natsumi sounded a bit mad, but maybe she's right.
I don't really know the main reason why we needed to keep our club activities a secret from Nagisa-sensei. All I ever thought about was to return the favor by surprise, help him retake his old classroom by becoming capable enough as his students, nothing else. I didn't think about the idea too hard. But now, since I've started this, I guess I only need to go forward and see where this all leads.
I just hope that Aoba's still okay for me ordering everyone around. I mean, he's the club president, right? Shouldn't he be doing this?
Oh well. Let's think about that tomorrow. I've gotta finish this homework first before I turn in.
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End of Chapter 27