"Well now that we finished that…"

"Where are you going now?"

"Huh? Oh, I'm going to relax for a bit. Then I need to go talk to some people about some things."

"If I hear that you were causing another mess then I'll make sure to tell Akasora-san."

"I guess that's fair…"

Conversations were going all around.

"We didn't get to see her use it much this time around…"

"Did she know we came to watch her?"

"Huh!? I-I came here to root for-"

"Now, now, no need to lie about that, Kuma-chan."

"I'm not lying! And since when were you the type to give that kind of smile, Rei!?"

"Heh heh heh. I wonder."

Some of them sound more dangerous than what he had originally thought.

"That guy needs another lesson in what to do. Guess I've got to take up the mantle again. Oh, I can get Murakami involved too. Yeah, the both of them look like they need a good smacking to right themselves again."

"Wow~ Arafune is trying for something fun even as I'm NTRing him! That's just messed up! But wait! Does this mean he's trying for the harem route!?"

"Someone call the guards! Get them over here before I slam this guy into a wall!"

"Kabedon!"

Shobu had tried not to listen in on some of them, but the volume they were using was too hard for him to miss.

Upperclassmen could be weird at times.

Any worry he had felt had settled down once the match had ended.

His mentor had seemed to realize something during his commentary, so there was no longer a need to go to his side. Knowing that he was going to relax had made him feel better.

"Is something the matter, Tenryū?"

He had not expected anyone to talk to him as they were moving towards the stairs.

The three leading the line had turned back to see what it had been about, so he ducked his head and lifted one of the devices around his neck. It had been big enough to hide part of his face while his hair hid the remaining part.

"…N-no… …I just…don't know what…I will be doing…now…"

"Oh! Have a match with me then! I haven't fought you so I wanna try it!"

"Midorikawa, don't go harassing him like that."

"Eeeeeeeh? I'm not harassing him! He's Yuki-san's student, right? I just want to see how good he is!"

"And harassing him won't do anything to help."

"Midorikawa is harassing that kid?" someone had whispered off to the side.

"Looks that way," came the response.

"Isn't that Yuki's other kid? Does that mean Midorikawa is a goner now?"

"We should set up the funeral."

"Oh, but make it a small one. He's been kind of a butt to me recently, so I feel like that's only fair."

"That's just because you suck!" everyone around them said, turning to make sure the guy could hear.

It was kind of amazing how they could all come together for a mass tsukkomi like that.

Midorikawa's reaction was just as good with him being the boke here.

…I thought that only…Yuki-san's age group…could pull that off…

Apparently Border had become a hotspot for these kinds of things recently and he just just hadn't found out until now.

"Anyway…"

The one who had originally asked turned back to him with a confirming smile.

At some point in the match, Ema had switched places with Tomoe. That had meant that Tomoe would be the one in front of him when they left with Ema being between Tomoe and Midorikawa.

With everyone else focusing on their tsukkomi against Midorikawa, it left the two of them to not be noticed by everyone else.

"You said that you don't know what you will be doing after this, right? Well Obishima said she will be going over to meet up with Taiyōko-senpai and Ema wanted to go to his squad's operating room. I don't really know how close you are with them, but either option is probably better than trying to keep up with Midorikawa."

"…What about…you…?"

"Hm? Me? Oh, I was planning to go for some matches too. One of the senpais had messaged me asking if I wanted to go."

"…"

"So, um…"

"…May I…go with you…?"

Everything went silent.

Even the air felt like it had gone silent.

In reality, everyone had turned to see what would happen next with him.

It was all the more unnerving that they had cut their tsukkomi just to listen in.

"Sure…?" Tomoe had said while looking back at Ema.

Ema only shrugged as if this was nothing that major.

He was glad when Ema glared at everyone to mind this town business though.

"Yeah. It would be nice to have some company on my way there!"

No one was expecting him to smile at the response, but that may have been why he did.

It was small and almost unnoticeable, but it was there now.

That was unfair.

Mitsuteru could only think that it was unfair how he was being treated at the moment.

Once the match and commentary had ended, he had been hounded by his squad about his reasoning for certain things involving the match.

At first it had been days to get away from that, but the last words from his former captain had gotten through.

"That guy is all kinds of messed up. How am I supposed to not let everything go after I've already decided on doing just that? That's like asking a child not to mess around after giving them a bunch of candy."

But he was a good child.

He would do just that.

"Damn it all. I guess I need to hold onto these things for a bit longer. If he didn't know what he was doing then he would have just told me to let it all out."

Instead he had been told to keep holding on to everything he hated about his former captain. All of the negative feelings he had decided to let go of after the match needed to be held onto for the time being.

Ninomiya and Murakami had been a part of those feelings, but he felt like he could let those go now.

He had messed with those two during the match and they seemed to have had their own thoughts on the matter, so he felt like he should lighten up on them.

Black Wolf: "Hey, Mitsuteru. …Wait, I never got permission to call you that. Sorry."

Speaking of them.

Daybreak: "It's fine, Senpai. I'm just thinking of letting you and Ninomiya-san off the hook here. Any business I have with Kiyoshi-san is with Kiyoshi-san only now. I won't be dragging any of you into this now."

Black Wolf: "That isn't really normal, you know? Most normal people would continue to feel like getting angry with anything having to do with something like that."

"Heh. Yeah, I learned that I might not be as normal as I thought I was."

The looks from his teammates had been amusing when he told them as much.

Shigeko looked ready to punch me though, so maybe I should be more careful from now on.

That was fine with him.

She had always been looking out for him. Showing her that he had taken a step closer to her world had been his way of expressing his joy at being closer to her now.

Daybreak: "Anyways. Sorry for the trouble I've caused, Senpai."

Black Wolf: "That's fine. You aren't anywhere near as bad as some other people I know. I'm just glad you managed to get through the match."

It had been rough, but they had all managed to get through it all.

Black Wolf: "Oh, and congratulations on making second. Just know that the next time we fight will be different. I will be in top form and won't be held back by anything."

"Please don't scare me like that, Senpai. Just seeing you today already gave me a heart attack. I thought I was looking at a wolf that was ready to tear into some throats."

He hoped that Murakami was laughing on the other end and so did the same.

They were on better terms now, so laughing like this would not be bad.

Black Wolf: "Oh yeah. There was something I wanted to ask you."

What was that?

Black Wolf: "If you happen to see them… As someone who cares about them, can I ask that you try to forgive Kotowari Squad?"

.

"Oh… Them."

Those younger ones who had been an insult to him.

The core three of that squad had been in the wrong so many times because of their attachment to their former captain. The same former captain he had once had.

They were being selfish in the way they thought, thinking that he had only been there for them and that he could not leave them. It had been disgusting to see once the disbandment had reached his ears.

But even before that, they had been terrible.

Kotowari Squad's core members had been arrogant, rude, and dismissive of anything that was not themselves or their former captain. When having met them, he had understood how they viewed the world and the things around them.

Each one of them had been bad on their own, but together they had been nothing but trouble.

After their initial meeting, he had made sure to stay away from them due to that fact. Word had still gotten around about them though.

There were some who liked them and enjoyed their company, but there were just as many, if not more, that disliked their treatment of each other. Always fighting each other, doing as they wanted, only listening to one person, and much more. All of it had reached him and made him worry for his former teammates.

So what would he do now?

Each member had been so different during the match than how they had been before.

Their newest member was also someone he had not expected.

The younger sister of his former captain.

The girl had been kind and caring, even while facing him as an opponent. Having her near people he felt disgusted with had been worrying, but…

"They changed. Even I can see that much."

Those three core members had not been the same as back then.

Movements had been more refined and their personalities had easily been shown in the way they moved to cover each other, even while selfishly taking the lead themselves.

Each one of them had seemed the same at a basic level, but how they held themselves while fighting was more than he had expected.

They were not the same.

He gave a sigh at realizing that simple fact.

"I guess I-"

"Mitsuteru! Heeeey! Over here!"

Someone called out to him.

"Foolish dog. You don't need to be so energetic. Actually, you might honestly scare him at this point."

The very people he had been thinking about.

.

The hallway felt more compact as the trio had made their way towards him.

Three? So Kiyoshi-san's sister and their substitute Operator are not with them then.

Having these three be the ones to approach him had begun to raise tension in his body.

His shoulder started to lift and his muscles were beginning to tense up.

So he took a breath.

Taking in air through his nose, he held it in for a moment.

Then he released the air through his mouth with a "hah".

Most of the tension had left this body, but there was still something that he could not point out.

And once they had reached him…

"We are very sorry for the way we had behaved!"

What?

No way those three terrible people were bowing at him while apologizing.

The ones from his memory would never do something like that.

And yet…

"Low! Take, lower your head more!"

"I am… I'm just not used to doing this sort of thing."

"We are honestly trying to look professional here and you two are messing this up. I will make sure to let others know how much you suck at this."

"Lower your voice, you damn idiot! We still need to hear him! Ah! Now he's looking at us weirdly!"

"That's because you took a peak, you idiotic mutt. Next time you should watch yourself."

"(The hell did you say!?)"

The one in the middle had bounced up at the insult and turned to rub his hand hard on the one to the right.

This had been more like what he remembered.

But…

"You guys are weird."

Mitsuteru's eyes opened wide at the words that came from his mouth.

They had escaped before could stop them and now he was getting looks from the three of them.

The one to the right and the one to the left also lifted their bodies to look more directly at him.

"See!? Now he thinks we're weird!?" the middle said with a whine.

The one to the left started laughing as she wiggled around in place.

"Heh heh heh. But he isn't wrong. You two are honestly weird. You should be pleased that I hang around you two! Yes, this summit flower will even stay near two losers! Isn't that great!?"

"Senpai, you are also weird. Just look at what you're doing and saying."

He found them all weird.

But not because of how they were acting.

Well that's also pretty weird too. But…

It was how different they were from what he had heard and what he had already seen.

There had been rumors going around that they had gotten better, but he had not thought that it was to this extent.

The three of them were still fighting, but it was much more lighthearted than he had seen before.

It felt much more like how proper friends would act.

So he spoke up to them.

"You guys-!"

They turned back to him.

It was good that they would not pay attention. Unlike back then, they were now looking directly at him.

"Thanks for apologizing. It's kind of late for that though."

Their faces fell and their eyes turned away from him.

None of them were ignoring him, that much he knew.

"So let's make a fresh new start. How does that sound?"

Their reactions had been refreshing.

The middle one had been the one to respond for them. It was clear to him that the middle boy was the one who wore his emotions on his sleeve.

"Really!? Are you sure!? We were pretty much assholes back then! …Even if we don't really remember that much. But are you sure!?"

"Foolish dog, don't go ruining this for us."

"That's right. I don't want to bring us back to square one after what we just did."

Mitsueru felt himself smiling at them.

They were weird, that much was certain, but that was not a bad thing at all.

I just learned that I'm pretty weird myself. Guess that's why I can do this right now.

A certain feeling came back up.

Up until now he had thought that it had gone away due to the events of his life, but that had not been the case.

Because he felt them here.

"Yeah, I'm cool with it. Besides, if we can get along then it means we're sibling students."

That one made him cringe on the inside.

"Or not… That sounds pretty sappy, doesn't it? Hahaha… Just forget I said that, okay?"

Sadly, he had soon elated something else about the three in front of them.

It first came when an arm wrapped around his arm.

Next was how a body crashed into him.

To finish it all, someone moved to his side.

"Heh heh heh! Too bad! That was extremely embarrassing to say and we won't forget it! You are stuck with us now! So please take care of us, A-ni-ki!"

"Yeah! We're not going to let you live that one down! Better get yourself ready! You're our big bro now, sucker!"

"Since this does seem to be the case… We'll also have to look out for you. Don't be too much of a hassle, okay? We already have the mutt for that."

"Eh…? Eeeeeeh!? Wait wait wait! What are you people saying now!?"

It must have been an infection that spread through them all since none of them said anything more on the matter and only started dragging him away.

Their voices began drowning his own out with conversations about nothing important.

"…"

But that was fine.

If they're fine with someone not as weird as them, then fine. Guess I'll suck it up and let this go.

Because there was no reason to hold it in anymore.