"Whenever you guys are ready, go on out and hide. Also, one of their players is accusing your team of throwing rocks. If I see you throw one, you're disqualified," the ref explained. I was ready to turn Haruhi in right there if it meant we didn't have to play anymore, but before I could say a word, she pushed me out onto the field.
"Do I still have to play?" Asahina-san asked, and even though I thought we should let her go sit back at the base, I knew Haruhi wouldn't have it.
"Of course you do! You're part of the SOS Brigade." After learning she wasn't being discharged from Haruhi's Squad Of incompetent Soldiers Brigade, Asahina-san looked solemnly at her gun.
"She's just scared, Haruhi," I said, though I'm not sure what I thought it would accomplish.
Haruhi curled up her lip and eyed Asahina-san. "Well, she doesn't have to be scared anymore because she'll be hiding with me."
Idiot. That's all the more reason to be afraid.
"Kyon, you and Koizumi hide over by those bushes. Yuki, duck down behind that big tree near the fence line. Mikuru and I will be behind that log." It was easy to see Haruhi's strategy. She would position us in a half circle in order to keep the enemy from flanking us.
Not long after taking our places, I heard the shrill sound of the ref's whistle.
I watched for a long time, but I only saw the other team once before they had disappeared. They were moving very stealthily, and I figured it was only a matter of time before they popped up next to us and finished this.
Ten meters away, I could hear Haruhi talking to Asahina-san.
"Fine, you don't have to play if it bothers you that much."
I couldn't believe it. Haruhi had actually relented and let Asahina-san sit this one out.
I turned and looked at Koizumi, who only shrugged his shoulders. I wish I hadn't, though, because then I would have seen what was really going on in time to stop it.
Wandering through the middle of the forest like a wounded deer, Asahina-san had left her cover and was heading toward the base.
But the other team didn't know she was quitting.
And just as I opened my mouth to tell Asahina-san to duck, the paintballs came popping out of the woods from different angles, and after getting hit with three of them, our poor defenseless Mikuru dropped to the ground, surely in tears.
"There they are! Everyone fire!" Haruhi yelled as the referee pulled Asahina-san off the field. Then it became clear to me; Haruhi had used Asahina-san as bait to lure the other team out of hiding.
Unforgivable!
In my anger, I didn't know who to shoot at – the girl who used her as bait or the heartless bastards who shot her.
Luckily, a solution quickly presented itself to me. I wrenched Koizumi's gun from his hands, and, walking out into the open, fired one gun at the other team and the second at Haruhi.
"Kyon, you idiot! You're supposed to be shooting at the enemy!" she screamed.
You are the enemy!
When the ref came up and yelled, "You're out," I wasn't even sure what he was talking about. I had to look down to realize I had been shot five times. I hadn't even felt them, probably because of the adrenaline.
It didn't matter though, because the damage was already done. I was eliminated, and while she was pinned down by my enraged barrage of paint, the opposing team had taken the opportunity to sneak around and shoot Haruhi from the side.
The round was really over at that point, considering I had Koizumi's gun and Nagato wasn't firing back. The opposing team simply walked up and shot them in the gun and the foot respectively -- mercy kills on their part.
"Traitor!" she yelled when I got back to the base. "Prepare to be executed."
And before I even knew what was happening, Haruhi shot me in the chest, right in the heart, two times.
I should have just dropped it; I had gotten off easy considering what I'd done. But I acted without thinking or maybe I was still a little mad about what had happened, but I shot her back twice, once in the shoulder and once in the stomach.
Forty-six. That's how many times Haruhi shot me in retaliation.
She shot me so many times that my body went numb and I couldn't even feel the paintballs anymore.
"You got Asahina-san shot three times," I said when I had recovered enough to speak. Haruhi's face twisted up in disgust at my excuse.
"Yeah, well, you got me shot seven times!"
I hadn't noticed until she pointed it out, but in addition to the two shots I had hit her with in my moment of stupidity, seven other splatters of paint were scattered over her body, and I could see that 4 of those had been from my gun.
I decided to let it go.
After that, she left to go talk to the ref about the tie-breaker round, and I spent the interval trying to clean as much of the paint off as I could.
"I'm so sorry, Kyon-kun," Asahina-san said once Haruhi was out of earshot.
"This wasn't your fault," I said. "But it looks like you'll have to go out there one more time."
"Yes," she said, nodding her head with a newfound enthusiasm.
Did she really think she was to blame for all this?
"They won the coin-toss, and they want us to hide again," Haruhi announced when she returned.
Of course they want us hiding again; look what happened last time.
"Kyon," Haruhi said, once again regaining that military demeanor. "Since I obviously can't trust you out there on your own, you're coming with me this time."