Chapter 25: The Festival Disaster
Ayame ran down the streets and ended up in front of Rikkaidai Fuzoku. She heard that the school was holding the Ocean Festival, and she wanted to go see.
It's not bad… she thought as she walked past the gate and entered the festival grounds.
Ayame began to explore the festival as she browsed the stands and eventually entered the school. She walked down the third year hall and peeped inside one of the rooms. She immediately spotted Sanada, Yagyuu, and Yukimura talking with a familiar boy.
M-Momoshiro-senpai is here too?! she thought in shock.
Ayame stayed out of sight and eavesdropped. She heard the middle schoolers discuss about a play that was being held by Rikkai's tennis regulars.
A play? Ayame thought, interested. They seem so serious on the court, but are they really doing a play?
Ayame went to the auditorium and took a seat. She grabbed a book from her tennis bag and started reading to pass the time. Minutes passed, and soon a half hour passed.
Why haven't they started yet? Ayame wondered.
"May I have your attention please?" Yukimura's voice announced on the auditorium's loudspeaker. "We are dealing with a certain difficulty at the moment, so the play will be delayed."
I wonder what kind of difficulty? Ayame decided to investigate.
She snuck backstage and ran into Yukimura.
"What's going on?" she asked.
"Ah, hello there, Kanna-chan," Yukimura greeted her. "Akaya won't come out of the toilet because he's playing the main role of Cinderella. We've tried everything to get him to come out, but it's not working. Perhaps you can try?"
Ayame started laughing. She personally had never seen Cinderella, but knew that it revolved around a girl wearing a dress. The thought of Kirihara wearing a dress was too good for her.
"Wait…" Ayame said suddenly, as another thought came to her and she stopped laughing. "So you're telling me to walk into the boys' bathroom and get him to come out? No way! I ain't walking into the boys' bathroom!"
Yukimura sighed and went into the bathroom. Ayame followed him, but she stayed outside.
"Looks like we might not be able to do it," Yukimura told the regulars and Momo gathered around the stall regretfully. "Kanna-chan's refusing to help."
"Eh? Ayame-chan is here too?" Momo asked. "I thought she was still in Tokyo."
"We're out of time," Renji said. "We should've started already, but we're being delayed because of this."
Ayame had heard everything that the boys inside of the bathroom said. She believed that removing Kirihara from the toilet would be a piece of cake, if only that this wasn't a boys' bathroom. But on the other hand, she really wanted to see Kirihara wearing a dress, so she pushed all her doubts aside.
"Oh, come on!" Ayame called, exasperated. "Just leave it to the professional!"
Ayame entered the bathroom, pushed past the crowd of regulars, and went as close as she could to the door while being out of range if the door were to be opened. Before any of them could open their mouth to tell the young girl that she was walking into the boys' bathroom, she had already started talking.
"Oi, is it true that the seaweed head locked himself up because he has to wear a dress?" Ayame spoke at a slightly higher volume than normal. "He must be a real chicken to not wanna do this, so he's juuuuust running away!"
"Ayame-chan, you sound a bit like Echizen," Momo remarked.
"So she's trying to provoke him out…" Bunta remarked.
"But no matter how simple Akaya is, there's n—" Jackal started.
"I'LL DO IT!" Kirihara interrupted, suddenly pushing the door open, his eyes bloodshot. "DRESS OR WHATEVER, I'LL WEAR IT!"
There was a long moment of silence as everyone stared at Kirihara. Ayame held back her laugh at the sight of him wearing the dress while wondering why he hadn't noted that she was in the boys' bathroom.
"He fell for it so easily…" Renji commented.
"He's more of a simpleton than I thought," Bunta remarked.
"I'm a genius, after all!" Ayame said smugly, causing Bunta to glare at her in annoyance, since she stole his line. "Just kidding. All the credit goes to Ryoma. Make sure of that. If I never grew up with him, I probably wouldn't have found the right words. But anyways, I'M GETTING THE HELL OUTTA HERE BECAUSE THIS IS A FREAKING BOYS' BATHROOM AND I'M A GIRL!"
Ayame fled from the bathroom as the rest of the boys stared at her, startled at her sudden mood swing. She went back to her seat and Momo sat next to her. The play finally started, and Ayame had to hold back her laugh when she saw that Yagyuu and Bunta were also wearing dresses (they were playing the roles of the mean, ugly stepsisters of Cinderella). She watched as Niou played the role of the mushroom vendor, Jackal played the role of a horse, Sanada played the role of the prince, and Renji played the role of the butler.
Damn… they are actually good at acting… Ayame thought.
The play soon went into an intermission. Ayame grabbed a book from her bag to pass by time again. Before the time of when the play resumes, Yukimura got onto the loudspeaker.
"Presently an accident occurred," he announced. "Please enjoy this until we'll start again."
Niou and Yagyuu then got onto the stage to do some skits. Ayame looked over to the side of the stage and noticed Yukimura beckoning her to get backstage. She got up and obeyed.
"What's going on?" Ayame asked. "Why do you want me back here?"
"The dress ripped," Yukimura answered. "With the leftover fabric we have, the dress can only fit you, Kanna-chan."
"What are you getting at?" Ayame asked, nervous about what she thought was coming.
"Can you please fill in the role?" Yukimura asked. "You have no lines. All you have to do is support Sanada."
"Why?!" Ayame asked, having the expression like as though she was sentenced to death.
"Ayame-chan, you're a girl," Momo pointed out. "There shouldn't any problems with you wearing the dress! And you'll look cute with it on!"
"No!" Ayame refused flatly.
"Why not?" Momo asked.
"I don't wanna do it!" Ayame said adamantly. "I suffer from stage fright!"
She knew it was a lie. Ayame does not suffer from stage fright, but she just didn't want to get involved. She hoped that it was a good enough reason for her to not be involved.
"Please," Yukimura begged. "I earnestly want everyone to enjoy this. With that thought in mind we came this far. I want to make this play succeed no matter what! Please, do it."
"Fine," Ayame sighed, reminding her when she gave in to Karupin. "But I'm doing it just for you."
Momo went back to his seat as the play resumed to the wedding scene. He then took out a cell phone and started calling someone.
"Hello?" a young boy's voice drowsily answered.
"Oi, Echizen!" Momo said. "Ayame-chan is doing the Cinderella play for Rikkaidai!"
"Is that so? Why Rikkaidai?"
"They're doing the play at their Ocean Festival! You didn't tell me that she's really good at acting!"
"Oh…"
"She's getting to the part where she has to kiss Sanada-san!"
"Wait, did you say kiss?!" Ryoma sounded wide awake now.
"Yeah!"
"You better stop her now!" Ryoma spoke with barely suppressed urgency. "If she has to kiss, she's gonna snap!"
"What are you say—?"
Momo was interrupted by a violent noise of somebody kicking, and he looked up to see that Ayame had delivered a left-footed kick on Sanada's face.
"You didn't tell me that this play has this sort of scene…" Ayame hissed to Sanada in an undertone as she gave him a death glare that was worth five of Ryoma's San Paku Gans.
If I had a choice, I'd rather walk into the boys' bathroom! she thought fiercely as her instincts began to kick up inside of her.
Ayame proceeded to beat up Sanada.
"I changed my mind! I am not marrying this lovesick prince!" she shouted as she beat up Sanada.
"See?" Ryoma said through the phone, as he heard the commotion. "But I have to say, she's pretty good at ad-libbing."
Kirihara held back his laugh at the sight of his scary fukubuchou getting wrecked by Ayame. It wasn't every day you get to see Sanada overpowered by anybody physically, especially if it was by a twelve year old girl, so Kirihara enjoyed the scene while he could.
Ayame ran offstage and stripped the dress to go back to wearing her normal clothes as she started running down the halls of the school like as if she was being chased by a group of serial killers.
"Oh yeah, you said that this play was held at a festival at Rikkai, right?" Ryoma asked Momo through the phone. "I wish I stopped her then."
"What do you mean by that, Echizen?" Momo asked.
"Ayame's idea of fun in a party is to start a ruckus," Ryoma answered, yawning. "Once she starts, it's hard to stop her because she starts it in a way where no one would suspect her unless they knew her well. Anyways, it's still late over here and you woke me up. I'm going back to sleep."
Ryoma hung up and lay back down in bed. He recalled that the other day he was passing by a dance club, but he noticed that the entrance door was ripped off of one of the hinges. As he peered inside of the building, he saw ruined speakers and other broken objects everywhere. There were injured people lying unconscious on the ground, but there was only one person still standing in the room: Ayame. Ayame had greeted Ryoma happily, and explained that she managed to get two guys fight each other, which caused chaos to break into the room.
I hope Rikkai is prepared for what she's gonna do this time… Ryoma thought as he closed his eyes and fell into a deep slumber. I can't even remember how many ruined festive places I've passed by that had Ayame involved…
Momo then ran backstage.
"Yukimura-san, where did Ayame-chan go?" Momo asked.
"I'm not sure," Yukimura answered. "Is Kanna-chan always like this?"
"No, but I think it's gonna get even worse!" Momo said. "I was talking to Echizen a second ago, and he said that Ayame-chan's idea of fun in a party is to start a ruckus!"
Right then, there was a commotion outside.
"It probably started," Momo said, staring at the direction of the exit. "We have to stop her before things get out of hand."
It was then the Rikkai tennis regulars along with Momo went out to go hunt down Ayame and tame her before the festival breaks into chaos.
"The probability of catching Kanna before the festival gets out of hand is 0.73%," Renji stated.
"For real?!" Kirihara exclaimed.
"Kanna-chan is very fast at running," Yukimura said. "She moves like a ninja. That's why it'll be very hard to catch her."
"She was called "kunoichi" back in America," Momo said. "It's no surprise as to why she's called that!"
"But how is she able to run that fast with that bag on her back?" Jackal asked.
"That's what I've always wanted to know!" Momo said.
They ran outside, and the supposed ruckus had already started there. Amidst the chaos, they saw a blur of black rush by quickly.
"Move like lightning!" Sanada yelled as he used the Rai of his FuuRinKaInZanRai.
While Sanada was able to catch up to Ayame with his Rai, it did no good. Ayame heard him yelling and began Ninja Dashing in an irregular zigzag motion to make it harder to catch her. She then took out her racket and a ball, and she hit a serve in front of her. When the ball landed, an explosion of dust kicked up.
"That's her Smoke Bomb!" Momo exclaimed.
Ayame vanished inside of the dust created by the ball, and the ball soon flew out of the dust in the reverse direction, hitting Sanada in the face.
"Sanada-kun!" Yagyuu cried.
"Smoke Bomb?" Jackal repeated the name.
"Ayame-chan hits it like a Twist Serve," Momo explained. "But she puts a lot of spin where it would kick up dust when it hits the ground. She can use it like a reverse Twist Serve as well."
"We've lost sight of her because of it," Renji said.
The boys were about to move until they saw Ayame in front of them. Suddenly a second Ayame appeared.
"There's two of her?!" Kirihara shouted, confused.
"She's using Eiji-senpai's Seal Step!" Momo exclaimed. "Now it'll be harder to catch her, because we need to find the real one!"
Ayame formed a second clone of her, and all three of them dashed off in opposite directions.
"Everybody split up!" Yukimura commanded. "Go in groups of three and chase after one of them!"
"Wait, Niou's not here!" Jackal pointed out.
"The probability that Niou went and disguised himself as Kanna to join in on the fun is 94%," Renji said.
"This is bad, we really need to stop them," Yukimura sighed.
Meanwhile, the real Ayame was standing on top of the school gate, playing her flute. She felt triumphant at her success for sabotaging the festival, and wanted to celebrate by playing her favorite instrument. She played for a bit before she was eventually spotted by Momo.
"Hi there, Momoshiro-senpai!" she called out.
"Is that really you, Ayame-chan?" Momo asked, suspicious that she might be a Seal Step clone.
"These people here are rude," Ayame commented. "They're not listening to my beautiful music, even though I've had 2 years of flute experience."
That part was true. Even though it sounded like she was just mocking Horio's line of "2 years of tennis experience" (which she really was), Ayame started taking up flute when she was ten.
What's with her? Momo thought. She's good at tennis, she's good at acting, she's good at starting a riot without getting caught, she's good at pretending to be a ninja, and she's good at flute. Does she not have any limits to what she could do?
Ayame packed away her flute. "Well, I'm leaving the festival now. Tell those Rikkai guys that they don't have to hunt me down anymore. And tell them good luck catching the trickster guy too."
She jumped off of the gate and left the grounds as the madness did not show any signs of settling down.
That was unexpectedly simple, she thought as she ran off. All I did was move the food from one stand to the other and they thought they were stealing each other's food. Rikkai guys are stupider than I thought.