Bolting up in her bed, Nakano Miku, emerging from her end of the nightmare, is about to scream out the name of her youngest sister, but she just barely checks herself before doing so and causing a ruckus in the house; Itsuki's name is almost literally on the tip of her tongue before Miku forces herself to get rid of it, since calling out her name in desperation will do nothing by this point.
What in the world just happened?
Miku quickly checks herself. While she's woken up feeling incredibly disturbed and uncomfortable, there's (almost) none of the clamminess that she'd usually experience during such an outbreak - and probably more surprising for her personally, she's actually woken up at a somewhat normal time, though ten o'clock isn't really "normal" given that a high schooler like her ought to be in school by now if it weren't for her tutor's orders. Given that she's gone to sleep at around two in the morning, this means she's actually managed to get a good night's sleep, even including the whole nightmare ordeal.
But enough of these silver linings that are probably irrelevant anyway - she realizes that her Mystic Eyes are active on their own, so she slowly retracts them, half-afraid that they wouldn't obey her for some reason, but thankfully they do as they're told. Once they're put away, Miku, having tightened her grip on her blanket under which she still sits, apprehensively and shakily goes over what she's seen over the course of the night. Why the hell was Itsuki there? Why was she in a nightmare that only Miku was supposed to suffer? And is it all her fault, like she thought it was?
Itsuki's screams still reverberate in the back of the third quintuplet's ears; it's not an exaggeration to say that she's never heard any of her sisters scream like that. The worst was when Itsuki got punched in the face during their first incident at the warehouse, the night Fuutarou revealed his mage's identity to them and the truth behind his role as their dedicated private tutor, but even then, Itsuki let out no more than a strong yelp. While it's understandable that Itsuki would have such a strong reaction to stumbling into a world like that for the first time, Miku still can't quite get over it, in part because she still feels highly responsible for her sister's presence there in the first place. It has to be her fault; how could it not be? It's not like she's heard of any of her other sisters having this same recurring nightmare that she's been having for the past several years, so it can't be anyone else's.
The more she dwells on this awful subject, the more Miku begins to simply fall apart right here in bed. Her chest tightens as a stinging pustule of guilt swells rapidly inside, her own heartbeat begins to ache and exacerbates the guilt that's ballooning next to it, and the guilt that first infects her chest swiftly spreads throughout the rest of her body, and it manifests in her eyes in the form of tears that rush forth too quickly for Miku to suppress in time. Her hands thus rise to manually suppress them, but of course they're not really suppressing anything by that point.
"...Itsuki..." Miku hears herself sniffling softly, "...I'm...I'm so sorry..."
What makes Miku feel the absolute shittiest about this entire situation is that it's Itsuki. As the two sisters themselves acknowledged to each other earlier that morning, the third and fifth quintuplets have never really had as close of a relationship, and that night was the first night in both of their recent memories that they finally were able to interact with each other on an slightly more intimate level. And what's more, Miku felt like they'd actually made some progress on becoming closer as siblings, like she'd managed to make a new friend at school, almost. She must have inadvertently dragged Itsuki into her own nightmare when they took a look at each other's Mystic Eyes, since that's the only reason that she can come up with that would explain Itsuki's sudden presence there. Of course it'd be just her crappy luck that the night she'd managed to open up a little more with Itsuki, that's the night when her nightmare would strike. And obviously Miku didn't mean to drag Itsuki in there, but how would she explain all this to her? Someone like Itsuki is going to want answers, and Miku doesn't want to hide anything from her lest she lose all possible goodwill from her; she doesn't even know how to begin describing how shitty she'd feel if that were to happen.
She's already expecting Itsuki to be extremely distrustful of her the next time they meet, which happens to be later today.
Mentally groping for anything that she can think of that will help her cope, Miku then realizes something: assuming that Itsuki was in fact dragged into her own nightmare because they looked into each other's active Mystic Eyes, why didn't Nino suffer the same fate? The two of them have shared Mystic Eyes, and way more frequently than between Miku and Itsuki, so why hasn't Nino appeared in that nightmare yet? Why did it have to pull Itsuki in specifically?
Well, not that this particular silver lining really helps her feel any better; Nino is rather irrelevant in this context because Miku cares less about the order of the sisters being affected by her nightmare and more about her sisters getting dragged into her nightmare in the first place.
Never has her desire to learn magecraft been so great than this moment right now. Because now, it's no longer just for her own selfish desires of wanting to be useful to Fuutarou that she wants to be educated in the ways of magecraft; Miku wants to know what in the world is going on so that she can do everything she can to prevent another situation like this from happening again. Like, had it been Nino or Ichika, one of those two, Miku admittedly wouldn't feel as bad, even if it's a little suspect for her to say such a thing, because at least Nino's been dealing with her own Mystic Eyes for a while now must like herself, and Ichika is already a mage, so perhaps she wouldn't have reacted so strongly to the nightmare. Why did it have to be Itsuki of all quints? Hell, Miku would feel just as bad if Yotsuba were the victim here; someone like Yotsuba should never have to be subjected to that kind of mental torture.
No one should. No one...except for herself.
Treading weakly in this pensieve of her own dark thoughts, Miku forces herself to get out of bed, almost tumbling out instead in the process, and she reaches for her phone. She's not sure if Itsuki's woken up at the same time as her or not, but just in case she isn't, she decides to simply text her instead. But as she's texting Itsuki to ask if she's alright, being a little vague with her wording in case by some miracle Itsuki didn't actually experience the nightmare at all, Miku second-guesses herself: what if Itsuki's still trapped in that nightmare? What if Miku's the one who's woken up first, and her sister is still inside, being tortured endlessly? The thought is so harrowing that Miku finds her arms trembling on their own, which she cannot seem to stop, and she finds herself attacked by a near-irresistible urge to give Itsuki a desperate call, maybe in the hopes that it'll wake her up and snap her out of the nightmare. But then again, would a magically induced dream like that even be capable of being interrupted by physical means, like with a phone ringing, for example? Probably not. The only way to be sure is to go see Itsuki in person and check on her personally to ensure that she's doing alright, but that would mean having to go to Fuutarou's place again, and Yotsuba and Ichika would become suspicious as to why she's leaving the house when Miku's the one who probably has no reason to.
Fuutarou...that's right, she can call Fuutarou instead!
The instant this idea hits her, Miku watches her fingers fly across her smartphone screen to dig up his number in her phone's records to call him. Another smaller but no less uncomfortable pang of guilt seeps into her heart as she pulls the phone up to her ear: by calling her tutor like this, she's only adding to his workload, and who knows, maybe now is a time when he can finally get some sleep for all the hard work he must be putting in lately trying to clean up the mess that the quints have made. She copes with this guilt by telling herself inside that this is for Itsuki's sake, and Fuutarou isn't the type of guy who would get upset over lost sleep if one of the quints are involved.
The first call doesn't work, so Miku tries a second time, but to no avail. The dial tone duration for that second try seemed a little shorter than the first; did Fuutarou hang up on her on purpose because he doesn't want to be bothered? Doubt, which has been accumulating slowly and creeping up through the back of her mind, spikes without warning the moment she lets this single thought take hold of her, and Miku finds her hands and fingers temporarily paralyzed, though they continue to tremor and shake because of the aftermath of tonight's rather terrifying rendition of her usual nightmare.
What if Fuutarou holds this against her, for calling him so many times for what might seem to him as no real reason in particular?
Gritting her teeth, Miku manages to push past her invasive doubt and dials Fuutarou's number a third time. If he doesn't pick up here, then she'll stop and simply trust that everything will be alright, as difficult as that'll be to believe in. But if her tutor didn't pick up the first two times, what are the chances that he'll pick up a thir -
"Miku, what's up? You've called me a couple times already, is something wrong?"
Stunned to find her expectations subverted like this, like she's just experienced a sort of clutch timing that you'd only see in movies and anime, Miku scrambles to find her voice to respond.
"Y-Y-Yeah, um, uh...!" Still so surprised is Miku that she stammers the hardest she's ever stammered in recent memory, but Miku still powers through and keeps her voice down as she replies. "I - uh - h-how's Itsuki right now...?"
"That's what I'm going to check on. I just got a call from my sister saying that Itsuki woke up screamin' bloody murder or something and that I should get my ass over there as soon as I can to see what's wrong with her. That's why I couldn't pick up your first few calls just now."
Hearing this explanation brings sweet, sweet relief to Miku that thankfully erases much of the burden that's pulling her down like gravity, and she lets out a generous sigh to signify this.
"So I guess I should ask: do you know what's going on? I don't think you'd call me to check on Itsuki for no reason, would you?"
"I...I might. Basically, I shared a nightma - "
"Oiiiii, Miku, if you're awake up there, come down and eat some breakfast, it's already nine-thirty!"
The eldest quintuplet's voice, rolling up the stairs through the penthouse from the kitchen, makes Miku jump a little, and she turns around to look at her door in alarm, almost thinking that Ichika was going to barge into her room somehow, despite the door being locked.
"I-I'll be there in a second!" Miku yells back before turning back to her phone. "Fuutarou, I don't have much time, Ichika's calling me to eat breakfast, so - "
"Ichika's making breakfast? I really hope she didn't order takeout for breakfast, but then again, maybe that'd be better than if she actually tried cooking..."
"I guess we'll see. But anyways, um - basically, I had a nightmare in which I saw Itsuki. I'll explain the details of it when you get here with her, okay? But the point for now is that I think Itsuki and I shared the same dream, the same nightmare. It seems like we both woke up at the same time, so..."
"Got it. I'll meet up with Itsuki first, make sure she's okay, and I'll just bring her over to your place instead of what we had planned, is that okay?"
"It's fine by me, but...but will Itsuki be okay with coming back home? I thought she was being pretty adamant about not coming here unless Nino's with her."
"Guess I'll have to ask, but you leave that to me. Are you okay, though?"
"I'm...well, uh..." Miku bites her lip. "...not really, to be honest, but...but you need to check on Itsuki first; between the two of us, she took that nightmare a lot worse."
"Okay. I'll try to get there as soon as I can, so sit tight."
Nodding even though Fuutarou can't physically see her nod, Miku lowers her phone and shuts off the call, standing behind her chair at her desk while still in her pajamas. She silently marvels at the fact that just a single, short phone call with Fuutarou is enough to stabilize her greatly from being the nervous wreck that she woke up as just a few moments ago. Even though Miku tried making the focus on Itsuki during that conversation, Fuutarou still had the awareness to ask Miku how she was doing too, even if it may have been just an afterthought for him.
Miku really wants Fuutarou to arrive here as soon as possible...but he has to take care of her sister first, so she swallows her anxiety and impatience as best she can and gets dressed swiftly to go downstairs and eat breakfast.
Upon stepping onto the first floor, the third quintuplet finds her two sisters still in the house already seated at the dinner table, munching on some homemade riceballs.
"Good morning, Miku. It's not like you to wake up so late, even if Fuutarou-kun told us not to go to school today," Ichika smiles over at her middle sister as Yotsuba, already with a mouth full of rice, cooked salmon, and salted seaweed, waves good morning at her.
"Aha...sorry, I was...I stayed up a little longer than usual watching videos on my phone..." Miku apologizes quickly with the fastest excuse she can think of, taking a seat next to Yotsuba and grabbing the nearest riceball, which turns out to be a Shio onigiri, a riceball seasoned only with salt. "I guess it's only reasonable to have onigiri if we're not going to have takeout."
"H-Hey, what's that supposed to mean, haha..." Ichika chuckles a little.
"Well, you don't really cook, right? So Yotsuba probably woke up first and decided to make onigiri for breakfast since Nino still isn't back, and she got you to help you, right? Since it's not like you need to know how to cook to make riceballs."
"Wow, hangin' out with Fuutarou-kun a lot lately, haven't we?" Ichika snickers a little, enjoying the look on Miku's face as the latter reddens up suddenly at this sudden observation.
"W-What do you mean by that...?"
"Basically that you're starting to sound like Fuutarou-kun with the way you came to the conclusion that I helped Yotsuba with making riceballs today. Which you're totally right about, by the way, in case you couldn't tell."
"Oh. I mean, if being more like him will help me do better on our finals this week, then I don't mind. It'll do nothing but benefit me anyways. Same with everyone else, honestly."
"Yeah...if only it were that simple..."
"You were talking to someone upstairs, it sounded like. Who was it?" Yotsuba asks after finishing her own riceball and licking her fingers.
"Hm? Oh..." Thinking quickly, Miku decides to tell part of the truth, since this will act as a segway into telling her sisters about her plans for today. "...it was Fuutarou. We were talking about what we're going to do today."
At the mention of Fuutarou, Yotsuba deflates conspicuously, and both Ichika and Miku are keenly aware as to why. For now, though, both of them ignore it in favor of letting Miku continue.
"So what are your plans?" the eldest quint asks.
"He said that right now, his biggest priority is getting Nino back home so that he can go back to tutoring all of us at once. With all of us split up like this, it's incredibly inefficient to tutor us separately, especially when it's the three of us here at home, Itsuki by herself, and then Nino by herself too," Miku explains, recalling what Fuutarou told her and Itsuki the previous night and paraphrasing some parts whenever necessity demands it. "So he wants to come pick me up so that I can try to talk some sense into Nino and get her to come back."
"What about Itsuki, though? What do we do about her?"
"Actually, Itsuki, she...she's going to come with us. Fuutarou will take me over to where Itsuki's been staying, and we'll all go pay Nino a visit at her hotel downtown. Fuutarou said that he was able to calm Nino down since her fight with Itsuki, so we're hoping that they can come to an agreement and come back home together, since their issue was that they wouldn't come back until the other did first."
Ichika smiles with an understanding nod. "Efficient as ever - that's our Fuutarou-kun for you. But there's one big problem with all this."
"...what's that?" Miku asks quietly, slowly becoming apprehensive again. Did Fuutarou overlook something that Ichika, being a mage herself, may have picked up on?
"Me!" Ichika laughs out loud, grabbing another onigiri for herself, this time a tuna mayonnaise riceball. "So what'm I supposed to be doing during all this? Just sit here and study?"
Miku frowns over at her older sister. "What do you mean, you're just gonna go out to work again if you're feeling bored."
"Ahaha, I, uh, I don't know what you're talking about, ahaha ~ "
Scoffing under her own breath, Miku is about to take another bite out of her riceball when she remembers the sister next to her.
"...wait, Yotsuba, what about you? Why haven't you said anything yet?" Miku asks, but she already figures out the answer in the middle of asking the question that she's just answered herself. "...you're going out to practice with the track team again, aren't you?"
"Aha...ha...ha..."
Now that she's under the microscope, Yotsuba can't help but chuckle awkwardly at her intentions that she didn't even reveal herself.
"I mean, let's be honest here, she was going to head out to help them anyway," Ichika shrugs nonchalantly. "Remember yesterday?"
"Yeah, but I just told you guys about what we're planning to do today. I feel like I don't have to point this out that Yotsuba leaving to practice with the track team is also kind of a problem too? What makes you think that Fuutarou will be okay with it, just because Nino's the bigger issue at the moment?"
"Well, even if you say that, Yotsuba's actually been doing pretty well lately juggling both studying for finals and helping the track team out. And it's not like any of us have been stopping her so far, so why stop her now? That's not our responsibility. As much as we all know that Fuutarou doesn't like what Yotsuba's doing, that's on him to take care of, not us." Ichika munches on her riceball to give Miku a chance to respond, which she apparently doesn't take, so the eldest quint speaks again once she's gotten another mouthful of onigiri in her belly. "Besides, I of all people can't stop Yotsuba from doing what she wants with a good conscience, with how I've been sneaking out to work and such when I should be studying too."
"Didn't you say that you actually wouldn't be going back to work so often so that you could study for finals?" Miku narrows her eyes suspiciously at her older sister.
"That's true, but y'know...I'm just trying to hustle as best I can."
"What's that supposed to mean..."
Finally looking up from her own half-eaten umeboshi riceball, the usually jovial and bubbly fourth quintuplet who's been awfully quiet ever since Miku joined the table glances to and fro between her two present sisters.
"...um...just so you know...I do plan on leaving as soon as we're done eating breakfast," she announces hesitantly.
"Eh? But...but we still need to do at least a little studying in the morning, right? Even I was planning to study after we ate so that in case I felt like going to work, I would've already gotten some study time in..." Ichika scratches her head a little in confusion. "Did the track team call you in early today or what?"
"Actually, yeah. The captain scheduled an early workout session today, and we won't be back until around dinnertime."
"Why is the track team even practicing like this when it's so close to finals? Do none of them care to pass their finals or what?" Miku asks aloud rather indignantly. "Or maybe they're all just so talented that they can train and still pass their finals comfortably? Must be nice, I guess..."
"Nah, I doubt it," Ichika shakes her head with a bit of a snort. "From what I hear from our classmates and around school, the prospective athletes at Asahiyama basically forgo their academics and invest everything into their sports activities. Take Eba, the track team captain, for example. Apparently she's a notoriously bad student grades-wise, but she's among the very best track and field athletes that our school's ever seen. She herself apparently has some pretty lofty goals of one day competing in the Olympics and represent Japan and stuff like that, so naturally she's investing all of her own time and energy into taking the track team as far as they can into regionals and such so that it'll look good on her resume when she applies to university so that way, she can hopefully nab a scholarship specifically for track and field."
Miku tilts her head a little, listening closely to Ichika's third-party testimony. "Wow, I didn't know that. So for someone like Eba-senpai to have Yotsuba help them train, Yotsuba really must be a huge part of the team, then, huh?"
"Er, well, I didn't mean to be...!" Yotsuba cries softly. "I started training with them since they said that they needed a ringer for one of their meets, but when she saw how I performed at their meet and my results, Eba-senpai kept bothering me to join their main roster. I tried turning her down, since I knew what Uesugi-san would say, but she just wouldn't leave me alone, so..."
Ichika sighs. "Well, I guess that's just Yotsuba for you, nice to a fault and can't stand the idea of not helping people..."
"Yeah. You need to be a little more assertive and learn how to turn people down," Miku lightly reprimands her younger sister.
"Says you, Miku!"
"I know, says me. But I've been working on being less of a wallflower. At least, that's what I like to think..."
Yotsuba glances uncertainly at the sibling sitting next to her at the dinner table.
"...about me going to help the track team after this...I get Ichika's reason for not stopping me. But what about you, Miku? Are you not going to try to stop me?" the fourth quint asks rather nervously.
"I'd like to, yeah. But...I'm not sure how to put this...but you've always been good at sports, right? As we grew up, all five of us found things that we enjoy and are good at. Even if the right thing for me to do is to try to convince you to stay, just like what Ichika said, I can't in good conscience stop you from going out to do what you enjoy, especially because the track team needs you. You really should have picked a better time to help them out, though."
Yotsuba hangs her head. "Yeah, I'll, uh, try not to have such bad timing next time. I'll still be back tonight and study, though! That I can promise!"
"Well, we'll just have to hope that it's not too late," Ichika shrugs; she points with her thumb over her shoulder at the clock on the wall. "Besides, shouldn't you get going now? It's almost ten."
"Oh, right! I really should be off!" Alarmed at the time, Yotsuba shoves the rest of her umeboshi riceball whole into her mouth, takes a large swig of water out of her glass, and takes off for her room to change into her track team training uniform. "I'll be back by dinner, I promise!" she calls as she runs out the door.
After bidding their sister goodbye and watching her set off, Ichika and Miku are left finishing what's left of their breakfast. Ichika motions to Miku with the last pinch of onigiri that she's been eating, the same one that she got for herself when Miku first joined them.
"I'm surprised you didn't stop her. I thought surely you'd try your best to stall her out at least a little bit for Fuutarou-kun's sake?"
"If you're saying that to tease me, Ichika..."
"No, I'm not, I'm really not. I'm actually genuinely curious as to why."
Miku lowers her second riceball, an Okaka onigiri this time. "Fuutarou wants to take care of this himself. He wants to take it upon himself to bring Yotsuba back."
"Figures. But that makes sense...judging off what you mentioned earlier, I take it that while you and Itsuki are talking to Nino, Fuutarou's going to try to convince Yotsuba to come back home to study?"
"Yeah. Looks like you figured it out, huh...since when did you get so smart?"
"Oh c'mon, don't be like that...we all blow at studying for school, but it's always been a different story when it involves other things. If someone like Yotsuba can find something that she's good at, the same goes for everyone else, doesn't it?"
"You're not wrong, but still."
Ichika knocks back the rest of her riceball and wipes her fingers with a napkin.
"I'll go with you when Fuutarou-kun gets here," she announces suddenly, causing Miku to almost start choking on a bite of rice and bonito flakes.
"Y-You what?" Miku wheezes after she stabilizes, taking a gulp of water to help clear her throat.
"I said that I'm going with you. We'll study a little bit now, though, before Fuutarou-kun gets here, whenever that'll be."
"But...but why...?"
"Do you even need to ask?" Ichika raises an eyebrow at her younger sister. "If I don't go with you all, I'm just going to be sittin' here at home, all alone, and that'd be boring as all hell. I guess I could go check into work again like I did yesterday, but I wanna help out with the effort of bringing everyone back home. I wouldn't be able to call myself the oldest quint if I didn't do that much, at least."
Miku ponders this new development; in hindsight, perhaps she should have expected Ichika to get involved, even if she didn't mention Fuutarou's plans to her now, since eventually they would need to explain what they were planning to do once their tutor arrives.
"So...you'll help me and Itsuki talk Nino into coming back home?"
"No, not that. The two of you are more than enough to work on Nino on your own; if I'm there, Nino's definitely gonna feel like we're all trying to gang up on her or something and she won't like that one bit. So instead, I want to help Fuutarou-kun talk to Yotsuba and bring her back home so that we can all study together for the first time this week, haha."
"Hmm...I suppose it only makes sense that everyone gets involved in bringing us all back together..."
"Right? It's just fitting. So there's my contribution to the war effort."
"It's not a war, I don't think."
"Well, maybe not for us. But I'm sure it's something of the sort to someone we know very well." Ichika leans forward over the table a little. "You're not the only one who wants to help Fuutarou-kun in what way they can. I think I speak for all of us – er, well, maybe not Nino, but the rest of us – when I say that it doesn't sit right with me knowing that Fuutarou-kun is out here managing all this stuff that we as a family should really handle on our own. Obviously your rationale for wanting to help him is a little different, but we both have a common goal in mind, don't we?"
Miku locks eyes with Ichika, their two pairs of normal blue Nakano facing off against one another.
"And this is coming from someone who attacked the person you're suggesting we help?" Miku says in a low voice.
"I didn't attack him, but whatever; just think of it as my apology to him, then, if that'll make you feel better. I might've messed with him once, but I know better than to do it again, especially now that he knows more about me."
"Then how do I know that you're not up to something this time?" the younger quint asks quietly. "The cat's out of the bag about you being the most experienced mage in the family; like we just mentioned, we already know about the time you even used your Mystic Eye on Fuutarou at Starbucks that one time. What are you trying to pull here, working with him by yourself to take care of Yotsuba?"
"What? What do you mean by that, 'what am I trying to pull'?" Ichika scoffs lightheartedly. "Just to answer you first, again, I don't plan on doing anything malicious. I'm sure Fuutarou-kun is already on his guard against me whenever I'm around, since he's definitely not the type to get hit by the same trick twice. And if I really wanted to mess with him again, all these times I've been out to work, I could've easily done so, or at least tried, and you'd probably hear all about it from him directly, I bet. But ever since that time, I haven't bothered him at all. Honest, you can even ask him in case you think I'm keeping secrets about this."
Eyeing her older sister suspiciously, Miku gives off a small sigh. "Maybe you're not keeping secrets about this in particular, but don't pretend like you don't have some."
Ichika puts a finger up to her own lips. "Every girl's got some, you know?"
About an hour after Yotsuba has departed for track practice, a few polite knocks rap from the front door to the Nakano penthouse, followed by the front door opening to let in a visitor at this early lunch hour.
"Fuutarou!" Miku is unable to contain her happiness and relief at seeing her tutor, back in his usual school uniform and taking off his shoes at the shoe lobby while holding a plastic bag full of various kinds of meat bowls that he's bought for the gang for lunch.
"I grabbed some lunch for everyone; hopefully you haven't eaten lunch yet," the young tutor announces, holding up his plastic bag that carries no less than six bowls with assorted meats as entrees such as barbecued chicken, barbecued pork, and barbecued beef.
"Oh boy, bad timing with those bowls, we had a bit of a late breakfast today," Ichika can't help but grin at the lunches Fuutarou has thoughtfully bought for them in case they hadn't eaten lunch yet. "So I'm not hungry at all right now. What about you, Miku?"
"Yeah, I'm not feeling terribly hungry...I might eat part of one before we have to leave, but that'll be about it..."
"That's fine, I can leave these here and you girls can have them for dinner so that you don't have to worry about preparing dinner for tonight," Fuutarou shrugs, and the girls follow him inside as he makes his way to the dinner table and sets the plastic bag down there. He notices the glass table in the living room on his way over and grins lightly down at the first and third quintuplets.
"Thanks for studying even when I'm not here," he nods in approval.
"Geez, you make it sound like we never study if you're not around," Ichika pouts a little, pinching a bit of her tutor's right arm.
"Well, with all the runnin' around we've been doing for the past few days, I can't deny that there's a part of me that certainly feels that way. Though, in this case, I would understand why...but we got bigger matters to focus on for now."
Fuutarou turns to the two quintuplets again.
"Miku, did you tell Ichika?" he asks curtly, and Miku nods. "Alright, good, that saves me the time of explaining what we're gonna do today."
"I'm coming with you guys," Ichika says firmly, speaking proactively but making it clear that she has no intention of being denied. "You can't just suddenly take Miku and Itsuki out to go meet up with Nino and expect me to stay put here at home all nicely and stuff."
"Yeah, I didn't expect you to, either, since you'd just sneak out to go to work like you did yesterday," Fuutarou scoffs shortly while rolling his eyes, and Ichika flinches a little.
"Ugh...so you knew all along, huh..."
"Yeah. I also happen to know that Yotsuba also left the house when I told her not to yesterday. I take it that she's training with the track team still?"
Both of the quints nod.
"Yeah, figured...goddamn it, Yotsuba, why do you have to make this harder on us..." Scratching his head a bit quickly in slight frustration, Fuutarou checks the time on his smartwatch. "Okay. Since Ichika wants in and Yotsuba isn't here right now because she's probably out training again like yesterday..."
Waving his left hand and closing it next to him, Fuutarou dispels the Presence Concealment spell that he's cast over the youngest quintuplet before arriving here, revealing Itsuki standing next to him. To Ichika and Miku, it's practically as if Itsuki simply appeared out of thin air for them, and the experience causes both of them to flinch a bit in surprise.
"The original plan was for me to take Miku over to my place where Itsuki was staying, and then head downtown, but since Ichika wants to come along with us, then there's no point in hiding Itsuki like this," Fuutarou explains quickly as Itsuki awkwardly waves hello to her sisters. Ichika immediately gasps the moment she hears Fuutarou talk about Itsuki staying the past two nights at his home.
"Oooooohhhh ~ Itsuki-chan was at your place the past two days? Now, I wonder why she'd go thereeeeee..." the eldest quintuplet coos suggestively.
"Because my place was the only place that she knew of when she ran outta here, and she apparently forgot her purse, so she couldn't pay for a hotel room," the young tutor says flatly.
"That is true, but..." Ichika is suddenly distracted by what Miku is doing. "...wait, since when did these two get so close?"
Having said nothing, the moment her eyes fell upon her youngest sister, Miku has stepped forth and thrown her arms around a shrunken Itsuki, who's trying her best to hide completely behind Miku's profile, though such a feat is rather difficult seeing that, as identical quintuplets, they are the exact same height.
"Leave them alone for a minute," Fuutarou gestures to Ichika discretely, and judging by the look on his face, the eldest quint senses that her sisters aren't embracing just as a joke.
"...what happened?" she asks, dropping her voice down significantly. "Did these two get into a fight of their own or something when I wasn't looking? What's going on?"
The young mage looks torn on what he should do, and given his hesitation, Ichika decides not to press the matter and waits patiently for the two to finally talk on their own.
"...you were there, weren't you?" Miku asks Itsuki quietly, and when she sees her younger sister give her a tiny nod, Miku returns to hugging Itsuki tightly. "Oh my God, I'm so sorry, Itsuki...I'm so sorry..."
"No, it was...that was not your fault. You could not have known..." Itsuki tries to reason with her middle sister, but not only does Miku refuse to listen to her, but Itsuki herself can't resist the warmth of her sibling's arms and finds herself succumbing to its allure by snuggling into it. Miku's sisterly warmth is a different kind of comfort than that of Fuutarou's, but nevertheless both are equally comforting and welcome to Itsuki.
Finally, after a few full minutes of silent embrace, Miku and Itsuki finally part, just to find Ichika and Fuutarou patiently waiting for them to finish.
"Sheesh, sure took your sweet time, huh? Don't mind us, I'll just be hanging out all by my lonesome with Fuutarou-kun over here," Ichika giggles, tucking her arm around her tutor's, which causes both of the quints to look somewhat alarmed at first before relaxing.
"Mmmff! Ichika, getting a head start on us like that's unfair," Miku protests quickly without thinking about what she's saying, and Ichika sneers back at her playfully.
"Oh? But how do I know that you haven't been getting head starts on him while the rest of us aren't looking?" she counters.
The sudden verbal parry into max counter suplexes Miku unexpectedly, as the third quintuplet freezes as all the times she's spent with Fuutarou alone begin zooming through her mind. As an unintended side victim, Itsuki, who's just spent a big chunk of her morning recharging her battery of Fuutarou energy, has to look away before her sisters spy the moment of guilt etched on her face that would betray her stance on the matter.
"A-Anyways! Now that we're all here, we should really get going!" Miku yelps, hoping that a topic switch can distract everyone, including herself, away from her private transgressions with her tutor.
"Yeah, we should. I can explain what was going on between you two to Ichika as we go, if you're okay with that," Fuutarou glances over at the two younger quintuplets, who in turn glance at each other.
"I think we should...keep this for another time," Itsuki says first, saving Miku the trouble of having to decide. "Let us hold off on discussing it until after finals. For now, Nino comes first."
Fuutarou nods strongly, respecting his student's conviction. "Then that's how it'll be. Everyone good to go? Yes? Then follow me, we'll be teleporting over to the Mariott."
The three quints follow their tutor out of the house and up the elevator to hit the roof level access floor.
"So fill me in on what's been going on, Fuutarou-kun," Ichika asks, watching her tutor reactivate the teleportation rune on the helipad of the Pentagon roof.
"Yesterday, after I brought Yotsuba back home, I tracked Nino down and brought her back to the hotel after talking with her for a while, since she was really out of it, which is understandable, given what she's been through. She's calmed down now, but now it's going to be up to Itsuki and Miku to bring her home," the young tutor explains as concisely as he can. "That's about it, really."
"And our plans for today?"
"What, hasn't Miku told you them yet?"
"She did, but I wanna hear them from you."
"Bring Miku and Itsuki over to Nino, while I go track down Yotsuba and ask her to come back home too. This plan relies on all of us succeeding, so in case one group finishes before the other, I'd really like them to come assist the other. For example, if I can get Yotsuba to ditch the track team, I'll double back to you girls at the hotel and try to help convince Nino to come back home, or vice versa."
"Um, what will Ichika be doing then, if she is here with us?" Itsuki asks, glancing over at her oldest sister.
"Yeah, that's what I was about to ask too." Fuutarou also turns to Ichika once his teleportation rune is ready. "What's your hand in all this? Do you wanna go with Miku and Itsuki or something or what?"
Ichika shakes her head quickly. "No, I'm gonna tag along with you. It's going to be a crowd if all three of us go handle Nino, so I'll stick with you. If you're going to track down Yotsuba, you're going to look less suspicious with a cute girl by your side, right?" Ichika even ends this sentence with a bright smile that darkens almost immediately because Fuutarou follows this up with,
"But I don't need to worry about looking suspicious since people won't know I'm trailing someone. Did you forget I'm a mage, Ichika?"
"A-Anyways, I'm coming along with you. If these two need some extra help getting Nino to change her mind and come back home, then I'll join them, but like you said, we'll bring Yotsuba back first anyway since she shouldn't be too hard to convince, right?"
"Ichika, I know you're doing this on purpose..." Miku grumbles indignantly.
"Aha, ahaha, I don't know what you're talking about, ahaha ~ "
Rolling his eyes again, Fuutarou ushers the girls onto the teleportation rune and transfers all four of them to the nearest active teleporter rune that's closest to the Mariott hotel, in a seldom-used basement level of a tall PC and electronics building. As they emerge from the building and step out onto the sidewalk, Fuutarou turns to the girls, specifically Itsuki and Miku.
"You two ready? Nino should still be in her room, since it doesn't look like she's left it at all."
The two girls nod slowly; it's clear that while their intentions are locked in, they still don't have a good idea of how they'll go about talking to their sister. Fuutarou exhales carefully, reaching for the back of his neck due to his own uncertainty on the girls' chances of success.
"Don't sweat it too much, Fuutarou-kun. Believe in these two to get Nino to change her mind," Ichika reassures him. "As the eldest quintuplet, I can assure you of their success!"
"At least your sister believes in you two," Fuutarou forces up a difficult smile and an equally difficult thumbs-up at Miku and Itsuki.
"And if they don't succeed, we'll just have to drag Nino back home by force ~ "
"Isn't that what I'm supposed to do...?"
Fuutarou leads the girls into the hotel and takes up the elevators to Nino's room, and the four of them stop outside her door.
"Here's as far as I go; rest of this is now up to you two," the young mage says. "If there's any trouble, call me or Ichika, and we'll see what we can do. Good luck...c'mon, Ichika."
Watching Fuutarou and Ichika head back to the elevator lobby, Miku slowly turns to Itsuki and takes a deep breath.
"...ready to do this, Itsuki?" she asks softly, and Itsuki nods back.
"For the sake of our finals...we cannot fail here," she murmurs, and she steps forward to knock on Nino's door - which opens almost as soon as Itsuki is done knocking.
Behind the opened door stands Nakano Nino, sporting a white tank top and black shorts. In her left hand is her phone, whose screen shows a short text sent to her by a certain Uesugi Fuutarou that states:
Miku and Itsuki will be there in five minutes. Listen to what they have to say, okay?
Surprisingly, Nino doesn't look hostile or angry. If anything, she just looks tired.
"So you two gonna come in or what?" Nino asks rather dryly.
"Will they really be okay? Now that we've dropped them off, I'm starting to have second thoughts..."
Heading out of the Mariott lobby with her tutor, Ichika mumbles her thoughts aloud, though only loud enough for Fuutarou to hear.
"Oh, now you start doubting them? It's a bit too late for that now, we need to find Yotsuba." Fuutarou thumbs through his phone's app to pinpoint the fourth quintuplet's location via his surveillance runes.
"Speaking of Yotsuba, you knew that she was out training with the track team, right?"
"Yeah, and I also know about how you kept going to work even though I told you not to."
"Haha...well, I bring that up because I'm rather curious as to why you're not yelling at me over it right now."
"Long story short, I managed to force the guy who kidnapped Nino and Yotsuba to back off, and so he's laying low right now; he's the kind of mage who only shows himself every once in a while, so him popping up twice in a row is unlikely, though not impossible. I had to take a risk yesterday leaving you two alone while I went to bring Nino back from wherever she ran off to. A small risk, but a risk nonetheless."
"Do you have a plan to deal with Yotsuba and the track team?" Ichika asks.
"Kind of? The idea I've got is to pull Yotsuba away from the rest of the team, but the issue is that I don't know what they do for their training. I've seen Yotsuba go for runs around the city, so I'm assuming that's what they're doing to train, but I don't know their routes or anything like that. So it's going to be a little troublesome trying to figure out a good place to separate Yotsuba away from the pack and buy enough time to get a good talk in with her before the track team knows what's going on."
"Well, for starters..." Ichika pulls out her own phone and taps it on to show her tutor a map of the city, specifically the area around Asahiyama High School, and when Fuutarou takes a good look at it, he notices that it's marked with red lines that most likely denote training routes for the track team.
"Damn, this's convenient as hell. Where'd you get this?" he remarks, quickly scanning and studying the routes to commit them to memory.
"Thanks to yours truly, I was able to get in touch with some of the track members some time ago and got them to send me some of their running routes. Let's get to work, Fuutarou-kun."