by Takehaya
“H-Hey, keep it together!”
“But Prin— Uwaaah?!”
“L-Let go of me, you fool! Ahhh!”
The cheerleading squad member fell off the beam, taking Theia with him. Hitting the ground, they were both immediately covered in the pure white powder from the mat. Theia jumped up in a fluster and grabbed the cheerleading squad member by the collar and started shouting at him.
“You idiot! Why did you take me with you?! If you were going to fall, you should have just fallen on your—”
BOOM!
However, Theia was unable to finish scolding her partner because a landmine exploded underneath them.
“W-Why...?!”
The blast knocked them both to the ground and covered them in the stark white powder once again.
“I... I told you to keep the beam at the edge clear...”
“P-Princess, so that’s what you meant... I... I was certain that you meant the other beam for the disabled...”
At Harukaze High, almost all of the school clubs participated in the obstacle marathon. That included students who had been injured during their club activities and those who were in wheelchairs, so the volunteer work clubs had set up a special beam just for them. It was the only beam the cheerleading squad hadn’t planted any mines under. This was because Theia had told them to keep the rightmost beam clear of mines. The cheerleading squad was moved by her kindness, but sadly, that wasn’t at all what she had meant.
“Y-You fool... It seems your loyalty and courage have backfired... Ugh...”
“I am truly so... Ugh...”
Theia and her flunky both stopped moving as their eyes rolled backward.
“Uwaaah! There are bombs buried under this one too!”
“Turn around! Run away!”
“Don’t push! Stop pushing! I’ll fall!!”
“The mines! The mines will...!”
The remaining students panicked. They beam they’d clung to for safety turned out to be a lie. They no longer had anywhere to run. It wasn’t just Koutarou and the others now; all of the students were at a standstill on top of the beams. But with so many people pushing each other around, that didn’t last for long.
“Waaaaah! I can’t keep it up!”
“Kyaaaaaaaah!”
“Mommyyyyy!”
It was only a few moments before several students fell from the beams. In surprise, several more students lost their footing.
“Why?! Wasn’t this supposed to be heavenly punishment for being too handsome?!”
“I guess it’s always the same for ugly men no matter where they go!”
“Gottsan desu!”
Obstacle eight was alive with blinding flashes of light and the thunderous roar of explosion after explosion. Describing it as a warzone seemed fitting. The only saving grace was that the neutralizing mines didn’t actually harm anyone, although that was of little consolation to those actually caught up in the blasts.
But none of commotion at the eighth obstacle concerned Harumi and Yurika, who had only just passed the sixth. They were still a good kilometer away from the fallout.
“Whoops...”
“Are you okay, Nijino-san?”
“I’m okay, Sakuraba-senpai.”
“We still have a long way to go, so hang in there.”
“I’ll do my best. Thank you, Senpai.”
They encouraged each other as they dragged their heavy, tired bodies towards the goal. The two girls making their way down the promenade together was a touching sight, quite the opposite of the grizzly disaster at the eighth obstacle.
The two of them actually got along very well. Harumi, who was normally withdrawn, didn’t think much of it when she was with Yurika. She didn’t have a reason to feel self-conscious around struggling, childish Yurika. The fact that they were sharing last place gave them a sense of camaraderie. And because Harumi actually listened, Yurika quite liked her as well. In other words, it seemed like they would make good friends. They would be quite happy to reach the goal together.
“Sakuraba-senpai, why are you trying so hard?”
“Whoo... Hahh... Actually, I promised a friend in my society... that I’d finish the race.”
Harumi answered Yurika’s question between gasps for air. Her breathing was so labored that her words grew further and further apart. It seemed like she was about to reach her limit. But even then, Harumi was smiling.
“That’s why... I want to... reach the goal... It’s because... of a precious promise... I made with my friend...”
Having missed a great deal of school when she was younger, Harumi had very few people she could truly call friends. That was why Koutarou was special to her. Although the promise to reach the goal might not have meant much to Koutarou, it meant the world to Harumi.
“A friend... What is your friend like?” Yurika asked, not realizing she meant Koutarou. Even though her joints were aching, she felt a little at ease when she was talking.
“That’s—”
But Harumi suddenly stopped speaking and her legs stopped moving. Still doing her best to run, Yurika ended up a few steps ahead of Harumi before she realized something was wrong.
“Sakuraba-senpai?”
When she stopped to turn around, she saw Harumi starting to tip over.
“...”
Harumi’s face was pale and her eyes were quivering as if she was trying to say something, but no words left her lips. All she could do was give Yurika an apologetic look before falling towards the concrete pavement.
“S-Sakuraba-senpai!”
Fortunately, Harumi never hit the ground. Yurika demonstrated a surprising amount of agility for her usually clumsy self and caught Harumi mid-air.
“Please hang in there, Sakuraba-senpai!”
“...N-Nijino-san...”
Blood drained from Harumi’s face. Her lips turned purple and her limbs went cold. Yurika felt a strange chill as she held on to her. Despite doing her best, the five kilometer marathon proved to be too much for Harumi.
While she had trained a little bit, her body was aching and screaming now. If she hadn’t met Koutarou, Harumi might have retired halfway through. But she had given it everything she had in order to fulfill her promise with Koutarou.
“I’m... sorry... I have... a weak body...”
“P-Please wait! I’ll call for help right away!”
I need to hurry or something terrible might happen!
Yurika understood that Harumi was far from okay. Her face was pale and her breathing was uneven. Even though she felt cold to the touch, the pulse Yurika could feel with the tip of her fingers was stupidly fast. Yurika looked around in a panic, but there was no one else nearby. She decided to go find help, but Harumi’s weak voice and the grasp of her cold hand stopped her.
“Nijino-san... Sorry I couldn’t... be with you... until the end...”
And with those words, Harumi lost consciousness. The cold hand that had grabbed Yurika’s slowly let go and fell to the ground.
“Sakuraba-senpai! Sakuraba-senpai!”
Despite Yurika’s desperate cries, Harumi didn’t wake up.
This is bad! There’s no time to spare! In that case...
Yurika gently laid Harumi down on the ground and stood up with a determined expression.
She then held out her right hand and loudly declared, “Come! Angel Halo!”
A blue, spherical light appeared in front of Yurika’s extended hand. When the blue sphere of light vanished, an ornate, decorated staff was floating in its place. Yurika snatched the floating staff. She firmly grasped it with both of her hands and focused.
“Next is... Costume Change! Modifier: Quicken! End: Permanent!”
When she raised the staff above her head, a blue light covered her body and her outfit instantly changed. Suddenly, she was in her magical girl outfit instead of the maid uniform. It was the same outfit Yurika had been wearing when she first appeared in room 106.
“Just hold on, Sakuraba-senpai! Mag
ical Girl Rainbow Yurika will save you!”
After changing her outfit, she tightened her grip on her staff and focused once more. This time, she pointed the tip of the staff at Harumi’s chest. Harumi’s eyes were closed and she wasn’t moving a muscle. Being unconscious, she was unaware of what was happening around her.
“Remove Disease! Modifier: Maximize!”
As Yurika shouted, blue light from her staff shrouded Harumi’s body. Depending on the type of spell Yurika cast, one of seven different lights would be used. The blue light was for when Yurika was trying to summon something. All three spells she had used today had the effect of a blue light: calling forth her staff, changing her clothes, and now trying restore Harumi’s vitality.
This was Magical Girl Rainbow Yurika—the magical girl with the power to wield the seven colors of the rainbow. Unfortunately nobody was around to see her save the day, but Yurika didn’t care about that right now. The only thing she was concerned about was saving Harumi.
“Wake up, Harumi-senpai!” Yurika shouted, grasping the staff as hard as she could.
As she did, the blue light glowed brighter and covered Harumi several times over. Yurika desperately called out to Harumi in an attempt to wake her up.
“You’re going to reach the goal, right?! You made a promise with your friend, right?!”
“...”
Even then, Harumi showed no sign of opening her eyes. She had been born with her sickness, and it wasn’t something that could be cured easily, even with magic.
“I’ll run with you! So please...!”
But that didn’t stop Yurika. She kept calling out to Harumi. Harumi was the one who had taught her not to give up.
“Ah?!”
But the surprises for the day weren’t over. As if responding to Yurika’s voice, the light flowing from the staff changed.
“Huh?! Wh-What is this?! I’ve never heard of white magic!”
Before she knew it, the light had turned from blue to pure white. On top of that, it was shining much brighter than before. It was almost as if a tiny sun had appeared. The brilliant white light surrounded Yurika and Harumi.
“H-How?! It even healed me too?! The pain is gone!”
The spell Yurika had used on Harumi had increased in power so dramatically that it started affecting her as well. Yurika had several wounds after being tramped, but when she was enveloped in the light, they vanished as if nothing had ever happened. Even the exhaustion weighing her body down disappeared.
“What is this?!”
The light took the shape of a pillar and extended up towards the sky. Yurika stood in the middle of it all with a blank look on her face.
“What is this power?!”
The spell Yurika had used on Harumi was only intended to cure a single person of an illness. It didn’t have the power to affect multiple people, and it definitely wasn’t meant to heal their wounds or remove exhaustion. Those were different spells entirely.
“Could this be the power concentrated in room 106?!”
Yurika herself wasn’t sure of the origin of the power, but she knew one thing for certain...
“No, the reason doesn’t matter! With this much power, I can save Sakuraba-senpai!!”
Harumi’s pained look disappeared and her complexion improved. Her body temperature returned to normal, and her pulse and breathing slowed down to a healthy rate. The only important thing was that Harumi was okay. Nothing else really mattered to Yurika at this point.
“D-Damn it...! I can’t... lose here... I need to put Senpai... on the podium...!”
“Hang in there, Koutarou! You’re almost there!”
Returning to the schoolyard, Koutarou was a mess. He couldn’t walk straight, and he looked like he might collapse at any time. He was using a branch he picked up along the way as a walking staff, practically dragging himself through the gate.
But as Koutarou entered the schoolyard, the crowd on the bleachers cheered. Even though he was visibly struggling, he was currently in first place. Since Harukaze High had so many clubs, the knitting society had never gotten first place in this event. Because of that, the tension in the audience was at an all-time high. However, even their loud cheers were lost on Koutarou as he trudged his way across the track.
“Just a little bit more... The goal is so close...”
“Look, it’s the tenth obstacle! It’s only thirty meters away!”
All Koutarou could hear was Sanae’s voice. He was relying on only her words as he dragged his legs one in front of the other.
The minefield at the eighth obstacle was responsible for Koutarou’s current miserable state, but the ninth obstacle and all the other running only made things worse. However, even in this condition, Koutarou refused to fall because he wanted Harumi to win and because Sanae kept cheering him on. Without that motivation, he would have collapsed long ago.
“Once you do that, you’ve finished!”
“Finished? I... I’ve already finished?”
However, Koutarou made a grave mistake. He missed part of what Sanae said, and only heard, “You’ve finished.”
“Waah! Koutarou, no! You can’t stop nooooow!”
“I see, I finished...”
Ordinarily, this kind of misunderstanding would be easy enough to correct, but for Koutarou who had already reached his limits, he was past the point of no return. His body shut down and he simply fell forward with a satisfied smile on his face
“I... I did it! Yeaaah!”
“You didn’t! Would you listen to meeeee?!”
“Heh heh heh, you don’t have to praise me that much, Sanae...”
“I’m not!”
But Sanae’s screams were in vain as Koutarou closed his eyes. He was already out cold.
“Zzzz...”
Once he passed out, Koutarou appeared to be sleeping peacefully. Even asleep, he had the contended, triumphant grin of a man who had accomplished what he had set out to do.
“How can you fall asleep with such a self-satisfied smile on your stupid face?! What are you going to do about my points?!”
However, to Sanae, his peacefully sleeping face was truly an unpleasant sight.
When Koutarou, who had dominated first place, collapsed, the schoolyard fell into a big stir.
The commentator narrated, “Oh no! What a turn of events! The knitting society’s representative, Satomi Koutarou, went down just before the tenth obstacle! A nearby committee member is shaking his head! It seems like he’s completely passed out!”
But before the female commentator could quite finish, the tension in the crowd rose once again as the second place and third place participants appeared.
“There you are, Sanae! Koutarou is... Aha! After coming this far, he ran out of steam! Lucky for you as my vassal, when I win, you will be rewarded as well!”
“This means that it’s just between you and me now...”
Entering the schoolyard were Theia and Kiriha. There must have been quite a large gap between them and the rest of the participants as no one else could be seen behind them. As the two girls approached, cheers rallied from the bleachers.
“Kurano-san! You can do it!”
“Kiriha-chan! Win this and secure the funds for the culture festival!”
“Hail to the princess! Hail to the princess! Victory for Her Highness Theiamillis! Glory to the royal families of Forthorthe!”
But just like Koutarou, they were so exhausted that they were unable to respond to the cheers for them. They were covered in white powder and their clothes were scorched. Both of them had fallen off the balance beams.
After that they had skirmished against one another and gradually lost their stamina. By the time they entered the schoolyard, they were barely able to move. A drop of sweat would slip down the white powder every time they took a shaky step.
“It was quite the dramatic race, but it seems that you and I need to settle this.”
“That was my intention from the start. Let’s settle this, Theia-
dono.”
Despite that, they both forced themselves forward as they ran down the track. How much control they had over room 106 depended on this obstacle race. There was no way they would simply back down. As the two got closer to Koutarou, they called out to Sanae next to him.
“Sanae, is Koutarou all right?”
“Yeah, he’s just sleeping.”
“I see. That’s good.”
“Heh heh, it seems you chose the wrong partner, Sanae!”
“Shut up! Leave me alone!”
“I think I’ll do just that! Fuahahahahaha!”
They ran past Koutarou and reached the tenth obstacle positioned at the end of the track.
“Welcome back, ladies! And welcome to the last stop—the tenth obstacle!”
Welcoming Theia and Kiriha in sing-song fashion was none other than the cosplay society. The five members who weren’t participating in the race were serving as the staff for the final obstacle. Because of this, they were wearing maid outfits armbands that had ‘staff’ written on them.
“I have no time to play! What do I need to do here?”
“There’s no need to rush”
The vice president, who was in charge of the obstacle, approached the girls carrying a box colorfully decorated with ribbons and flowers.
“What’s with this box?”
“I’m glad you asked. For the tenth obstacle, we’ll have you participate in a scavenger hunt. Draw a card from this box and find the thing written down on it. Once you have it, head for the goal.”
“Got it!”
“Then I’ll do the same.”
Theia quickly thrust her hand into the hole at the top of the box, with Kiriha following right after her. They each pulled out a white piece of paper that had been folded twice over.
“Well then, you two, please read your notes!”
Following the vice president’s lead, they each took a look at the paper in their hands.
“Th-This is...?!”
“You’re telling me to bring this to the goal?!”