Episode 6: The Eye of the Truth
It came as a shock the plan Noble made of moving to Tokyo to restart their business. The bleak response of their original hometown, Okinawa, was doing little to give them an edge; a reason to continue what they were doing. Shinta had just come onboard, after encountering Hayato in at his school gym and learning about his profession, only to find out, three months later, that they were packing up and moving away.
He had barely gotten used to the atmosphere of the current number of Noble Ouendan, let alone put up with the brutal training they endured to keep up their physique and stamina. Having to move to Tokyo on such short notice left him more than a little concerned about his place in the squad.
"Why Tokyo?" he asked as they were sailing their houseboat through the ocean towards Tokyo, "What's so special about it that we have to sail three days just to get there?"
"There's a lot of tension in Tokyo," Hayato said, standing at the front of the deck with his arms crossed, "Tension that may require a helping hand from a squadron willing to step up and accomplish the task. This will be the starting point of our goal in bringing happiness to the world."
"What about the Ouendan residing there? With them still around, Tokyo would just think of us as a second thought rather than an immediate reliability."
"Which is where the fight for trust comes in," Kaoru said, standing beside Shinta with his arms crossed as well, "The people in Tokyo will rely on anyone with enough encouraging spirit to help them deal with their problems. By taking advantage of their lack of observation, we will encounter the person in need before the Ouendan even becomes aware of the problems, assert our reliability, and convince them to seek us for aide."
"And what better way to start than that small town on the other side of Yuhi River," Hayato said, "The Ouendan we'll be dealing with live on the western outskirts of Yuhi Town. Even their most powerful members can't make it to a person's growing distress in less than an hour, which is another advantage we'll gladly welcome with open arms. They will have no choice but to forfeit the town to us and maintain what little reliability they have left on the town they settled into."
Shinta looks between his two superiors in slight hesitation. They haven't met the Ouendan living in Tokyo, yet they seem confident they can create a buzz through their fast reaction alone.
A few days have passed since they settled into Asahi Town. Despite acknowledging the presence of a new Ouendan, the veterans are doing little to strengthen their hold on Yuhi Town. This bothered Shinta, as he believed any rival trifling on one's settlement would immediately try to chase them out by any means necessary. These Ouendan appear to be doing nothing but go about their business like it was normal.
He had heard rumors that another Ouendan, from America, had started prancing around Tokyo, taking the calls meant for the originals to handle without the slightest bit of worry who would intervene and stop them. And it seems this has been going on for nearly four years, adding to the confusion of how Ouen was ever able to stay in business.
Noble believed these "Western Ouendan" had been stealing behind Ouen's back, using any means necessary to shove them out of business. This brought a new kind of fear into the squad; fear that the American squad would eventually confront them and pull the same stunt that's slowly eating Ouen out of their reputation. Shinta wanted to believe that to be true, but being new to the squad, he was still shaky on the thought. Only way he'll join this bandwagon is if he catches sight of the Western Ouendan and see if they were really as sleazy as Noble is leading themselves to believe.
Shinta jogs to Yuhi Town, sensing the Western Ouendan camping out there. Not long after reaching the bridge connecting the two towns, he encountered two strange men in black suits staring down at the Yuhi bank. Following their gaze, he catches sight of a large cowboy, wearing almost the same outfit as the two on the bridge, maligning the Ouen chief and calling the entire squadron lazy and unprepared.
The chief, clearly offended by the remarks, challenged the man to deal with the sumo's situation and prove just how great he was. Shinta watches with increased anger as the tall cowboy struts an imitation of the Ouendan performance, his spirit literally burning with more pride than realization at how stiff he was strutting his moves. He was now beginning to understand why these Western Ouendan were stealing jobs behind Ouen's back; they can't tolerate squadrons who don't respond like they do.
Angered by the sight, he prepares to leave when he sensed someone walking towards him. He whips around to see another person dressed in the same outfit, sauntering towards him. This one was different from the others, he wasn't acting at all apprehensive or annoyed by everything around him. Even when Kaoru knocked the tall cowboy around, this Ouendan did nothing but stare in curiosity and positive thought. What's even more confusing is his friendship with the Ouen Squad. Both the rookie and leader paid more attention to Noble then they did the Western Ouendan. This must be his way of bypassing their security and taking their jobs from them.
Shinta didn't have time to further ponder on this thought as he sensed a problem brewing in the countryside of Asahi Town. A doctor had just moved in and he's having problems complying with the demands of his patients. This is his moment to shine, his moment to prove his worth to the citizens of Asahi. But by the time he, Tsuyoshi and Kenshin arrived at the clinic and pushed their way past the crowd, his chance of asserting his dependency shattered, like fine glass, at the presence of the Western Ouendan's female division.
They showed up out of nowhere, didn't ask who was responsible for this side of Tokyo, and deliberately began encouraging the doctor to prove his worth on this countryside. This was the last straw for him. Without waiting for the girls to finish, he bails out of the crowd and rushes back to the docks to warn Hayato of the situation. The moment he got to the docks, however, he saw two of the female Western Ouendan gazing at the slowly setting sun. The sight of them boiled his anger to the point where he stopped thinking and charged at them, intent on making them pay for ruining his moment of dependency.
The split second they caught sight of his wild stampede, they stumbled out of the way, sending him flying towards the docks. Shinta tries to stop, but his velocity was too great and he went tumbling down towards the ocean below.
Shinta yelps as he stumbles to a sitting position with his hands propped behind him. He blinks, remembering where he was, sitting on the bed of one of EBA's quarters, and how he got here. The room he was left in was dark due to the blinds blocking out the sun and hiding any indication on how long he had been asleep. The nausea and flush he felt on his chest and cheeks had disappeared, suggesting his fever had finally gone down.
Glancing around the room some more, he noticed a black jacket and pants spilled across the foot of the bed he rested in; a gray object sticking out of it. Curious, he reaches over and pulls it out, causing it to flip open as he lifted it up. It was some kind of license with BA-5 printed on top and Spin's picture below it. On the bottom flap is a golden badge shaped like a shield with leaves around both sides, a star in the center and the words "E.B.A. Central" etched along the bottom. Shinta stares at the wallet for a while, thinking back to what Spin mentioned earlier about why he offered to nurse him back to health rather than leave him in the streets to freeze.
That's what all cheerin' organizations do, Spin's voice rang in Shinta's mind, They help those in need, even if they're from some rival company.
Help those in need? After what happened between Chieftain and the conflict that dragged him to this point? It was hard to even think about such a diabolical squadron helping out their rivals only to stab them in the back when such disasters like the meteor and alien invasions are over with. This is just another one of their plots to smear their color over all of Japan until there's nothing left for either Ouendan to gain reliability from. Angered by this thought, Shinta grips the badge to the point of bending it in half before thrusting it towards the panel near the door.
The moment the badge hits a sensor panel below the keypad, a chorus of chimes signaled the door to fly open, letting in some much needed, artificial light. Shinta blinks in surprise before jumping out of bed and rushing out the door, seeing two hallways leading to areas he wasn't familiar with. Compressing his lips in hesitation, the Noble rookie heads down the left hallway, looking around before spotting an open door leading to a forest-like garden. Assuming it led back to some part of Japan, Shinta ran through the door only to have his foot fall through something wet, taking him down with it.
His body didn't touch bottom, causing the water to go over his head in the split second that he realized what he was falling into. Gargling, he claws through the water until his head broke through the surface, coughing and gasping for air.
After regaining his senses, Shinta turns towards the door to find it standing above the middle of a wide pond, and nothing holding it up. His eyes widen in shock as he swam towards the door, trying to feel around for the walls only to have his hands touch nothing but thin air and water.
Not long after realizing he was still trapped in Central, he heard the sound of fighting drawing towards the banks near the pond. Panicked, he swam behind the door, peaking out the corner to see Spin and Ryuta shuffling through the area. Spin threw punches and kicks while Ryuta effortless dodges them. Though their expressions were mixed; the offense grinning cockily while the defense barely grimaced, their spirits revealed both were enjoying this strange form of enrichment play.
Studying Spin further, Shinta's shocked expression increases, realizing the BA-5 Agent now wore the exact same outfit as the Ouen Squad, seeming to explain why his original outfit was left in his room. The Noble rookie's face twitches in more overwhelming confusion, wondering which side this Agent is really on. Before he could think further on this intimidating phenomenon, the door he hid behind slides shut and vanishes, causing him to fall backwards into the pond.
Upon hearing a startled yelp and a splash, Ryuta eyes the pond in suspicion, accidentally dropping his guard.
"Left yourself wide open, Ryu!" Spin shouts as he throws a roundhouse. Ryuta jerks his attention back to the BA-5 Agent before leaping back, barely missing the kick by an inch. He slaps his hands on the ground doing a back flip and pushes off them, landing on his feet while skidding into the dark forest.
Spin snickers cockily, about to give chase when he stops and looks behind him, "Wow! Somthin' smells good!" he then turns around and follows the trail of the aroma, abandoning his original plot to hunt down Ryuta.
Shinta scrambles through the dark forest, panicked and overwhelmed. He tries to find a way out of the nightmare he fell into, but no matter how far he ran, he couldn't find end to it. Just as he was about to enter a pathway through the forest, he saw Ryuta walking along it and ducks behind a nearby bush, watching as the Ouen leader stops a few feet from him and looks around.
"He didn't get lost, did he?" Ryuta mutters to himself. He then heard leaves rustling and looks towards the source to see Aoi leap out and run to the other side of the path, giggling with excitement. Before he could ask, the young Cheer Girl turns and sticks the base of her index finger in front of her teeth.
"Shhhhhhhhhh!" she hisses, "Don't tell them I'm here!" she then glances to where she ran from and jumps behind a tree, giggling as she places her fists below her chin.
Ryuta just stared at the scene, completely dumbfounded. Shinta, seeing this as an opportunity to get away from them, turns to crawl off only to see several eyes stare at him from the shadows of a tree.
"DOGPILE ON MS. KANDA!!" shouts a quintuplet of voices, followed by a startled yell. Ryuta and Aoi turn to the source to see Shinta come flying out of the bush and land flat on his face with Lava, the husky, standing on top of him while the rest just about crowded around him.
Lava cocks her head to one side after the commotion came to a halt, "Hey! You're not Ms. Kanda!" Shinta snapped his head towards her, more befuddled than panicked by the sound of his apprehender.
"Who is he then?" Mecho, the Shiba Inu asked as he began sniffing Shinta's neck.
"He looks like an Ouendan," Sabin, the Shih Tzu barks, pawing Shinta's right glove. Diablo, the golden retriever, began sniffing the other side of his neck.
"Smells like one too!" she yips. The rest of the dogs began sniffing around the rookie Noble, their twitching nose and whiskered hairs tickling parts of his body. Shinta tries to ignore the sensation, but ends up laughing out of instinct, wiggling to push the dogs away from him.
Suddenly, the five dogs stop sniffing him and turn their nose towards the path that Ryuta had come from. Vixie, the Yorkie, was the first to speak up.
"Oh boy! Lunch time!" she yips as she runs off towards the source of the smell. The rest yipped and cheered as they ran off after her, leaving the three Ouendan to watch. Aoi then threw her hands into the air.
"Yay! I'm starving!" she cheers as she runs off after the dogs. Shinta stares at the running figures before snapping his head towards Ryuta, seeing him return the glance. He still had that same frown as the last time they made eye contact, only this time, he didn't seem at all suspicious or weary of the presence of a rival squad member. The leader eventually turns and follows the rest of the immediate party away from Shinta.
The rookie Noble continues to lay on the ground a few minutes before getting up and running off after the others, stopping behind a tree once he reached the clearing. Peaking around the side, he saw a large blanket cover 5ft of the grassy plains near the pond, and an assortment of Japanese bento, rice donuts, and a blue cooler beside them.
Spin and Hajime were already sitting at the picnic when the others arrived.
"Lunch is served!" Spin laughs as the dogs crowded around some of the meat-filled bento.
"Wow! A picnic!" Lava yips, "This is great!"
"Yeah!" Sabin howls, "This' the only time I don't mind eating on the floor."
Shinta watches as the small group began eating and chatting among themselves, barely aware of what he had seen since he first stumbled into this room. Not a single one of the Ouen members questioned Spin's actions, nor did they act suspicious around his behavior. It was as if they trusted him without conscience.
"Oh, hey!" Spin said, looking over to Hajime, "How's Chief? I heard he was messed up when Ryu went to pick him up."
"Knowing him, he's probably ranting over what happened last week," Hajime huffs before taking a piece of broccoli between his chopsticks and sticking it into his mouth.
"I say he deserved it," Aoi snorts, munching on a rice ball, "Going around and acting like he can change the way we work our business. I hope what Noble did would knock some sense into him about how things work in our squad."
"That's so mean, Ms. Kanda!" Vixie whines, "Mr. Chieftain is in pain after what happened last week. Don't you feel the least bit sorry for him?"
"No offense, but I'm gonna hafta side with Aoi here," Spin chuckles, "Out of all of us in EBA, Chief's the only one who can hardly tolerate goofing off as a form of tradition. Even if it was his shtick, it tends to lead us into a lot of trouble, especially with what happened three weeks ago when he picked an argument with Kai right in front one of them new Ouendan."
Shinta's furrowed eyebrows tighten as he listens into the conversation. Not only is Ouen treating him like a friend, he's actually criticizing the personalities of his own teammates. It's like he doesn't care what his responsibilities are as long as there's someone around for him to hang out with. Could this be how he was able to get his hands on half of Ouen's territory without them doing anything to stop him?
He wanted to confront Ouen and ask them about the situation. But with Spin in earshot of the conversation, he was afraid the EBA rookie would do something to shut him up. His best chance of getting any information was to wait until Ouen is by themselves before stepping out. Unfortunately, having not eaten since last night, Shinta's stomach disagreed with the idea, inadvertently growling loud enough to startle him.
Hajime stops eating after hearing the loud growl and turns his head towards the forest. Spin notices and follows his glance, barely managing to catch Shinta duck behind the tree while grabbing his stomach.
"Hey! Look who just showed up!" Spin shouts, grabbing everyone else's attention as they turned towards the forest, "How ya feelin'!?"
Shinta compresses his lips as he nervously eyes the picnic on the other side of the tree he hid behind, "O...okay, I guess..."
"Well, c'mon down here!" Spin waves, "There's plenty for everyone!" Shinta was reluctant at first; but after a minute emerges from behind the tree and walks towards the picnic, sitting next to Hajime as he picks up one of the untouched bento and begins nibbling on a sliced piece of salmon.
Sabin licks his bento before barking and flipping onto his back, wiggling his lower body side to side, "Wow! That was some killer meat you made!" Shinta jerks his head towards him in shock as Lava mimics her small companion, twisting her head slightly as she pants in satisfaction.
"Oh yes! Truly badass!" she barks, gaining another shocked glance from Shinta. Spin laughs and threw his arm around Hajime's shoulder.
"Hell yeah! Compliments to the chef!" he said, rubbing Hajime's shoulder.
"Compliments!?" Shinta exclaimed, snapping his head towards Spin, "They just insult his cooking!"
The entire picnic falls silent as everyone stares at Shinta in a way that made him feel overwhelmingly uncomfortable. Mecho sticks his snout a few inches from the rookie's face, more curious than he anatomically looks.
"Why would you say that? It's an urban form of appreciation!" he yips.
"Urban appreciation?" Shinta mutters nervously. Vixie jumps onto Mecho's back, placing her paws on his head.
"Wait a minute! You mean you don't know a thing about urban slang?" she asks.
"I'm surprised he doesn't," Hajime said, sounding more surprised than he looks, "I figured his leader would've at least mentioned the Urban Dictionary after stumbling upon that website a couple weeks ago and reading the whole thing like a comic book."
Shinta stares at Hajime, feeling even more confused by what was going on around him. He then stares down at what's left of his bento, wondering just how much the Ouen Squad knew about American culture, and if he should be doing the same just to maintain the trust status of the squad he joined.
A moderate-looking mansion sits on a hill in the north-east sector of Asahi Town. Inside, Christina Kamogawa, an old romance novelist, with messy, dirty blonde curls, wearing a pink, overall dress with a heart in the center, stares at her laptop with her hands dangling over the keyboard. She had a stressed out look on her face as her word program sits on her screen with only two sentences written on it; "Struck by Love" and "Christina Kamogawa" sitting below it.
Her deadline is nearing its two-day mark and she's been stuck in front of her laptop for days, trying to come up with more than just the title of her story. If she doesn't finish soon, her future could be in jeopardy.
I can't write... she mutters in frustration, continuing to do nothing but stare at the title and her name. She then slams her head on her desk in more frustration, "I can't write another line!"
She grabs her head and shakes it in exasperation, "Which mean, being confide in this room isn't enough!" She spills tears of agony as she stares back at the laptop a third time, "Love! I don't have love!"
As she continues to vent about her uninvited writer's block, dawn suddenly rises over the hill she lives on, cutting her deadline from two days to one. Staring at her calendar in horrified shock, Christina immediately flops down in her chair and starts typing on her computer like mad, staring helplessly as everything she wrote came up as the kanji for "cheer squad" on her screen.
"O..." she stutters, shaking nervously, "O..." finally, she threw her hands on her head and screams at the top of her lungs.
OUENDAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAN!!
Christina throws her elbows on her desk, about to tear her hair out when she heard voices outside her window.
"So, what's on the agenda today, J?" asked a voice.
"Hmm, I don't know," said another, "Maybe if we wander around, we might find something interesting."
Christina rushes over to her window and stares out it, seeing Morris, J and Derek pass by the hill, chatting among themselves. She screams in joy as steam shot out of her nose.
"Wah! Is that!?" she yells. Not wasting a moment, she makes a run for her door, hoping to catch up to the EBA trio before they left her area.
"Saionji-sama should we be doing this?" Tsuyoshi asks as he, Hayato and Kenshin stood at the bottom of the hill leading to the tall mansion on top, "We should be focusing on finding Kikuchi-sama."
"That's right," Kenshin said, "Last we checked, he was somewhere in America. Doesn't that make you a little bit worried?"
"I only know one squadron who would show up and take Shinta halfway across the sea," Hayato said, "I'm sure, whatever reason they have for keeping him there, he wouldn't buy into it so easily. Once we're done here, we'll question that oversized Western Ouendan and make him tell us-" He barely had a chance to finish when Christina rushes down the hill and away from the three Nobles, holding her skirt up part way to avoid stepping on it in her haste.
"Hey you! Stop!" she screamed. The three stood there and stared at her with dumbstruck looks on their faces.
"This' the first time I've been to this sector..." Tsuyoshi mutters, pointing towards the fleeing author, "But...isn't she supposed to be the person we're encouraging?"
"She's fast for an old lady," Kenshin mutters. Hayato continues to stare in dumbstruck shock before snapping back to his senses and rushing off after her. The two Noble cohorts quickly follow after him.
"J," Morris said, looking behind him, "I'm not sure you're aware of this, but there's an old lady running towards us."
J looks over to Morris, then where he glanced to see Christina practically appear in front of him; her face wide with excitement as she looks at all three of them.
"Black suits! Sunglasses!" she listed as she stares at everything covering the three Agents. She then threw her hands into J's pocket and pulls out a microphone, her eyes literally sparkling upon seeing its silver design, "Wireless microphone! It is you! The Western Ouendan who use song and dance to inspire many people!"
The three look to each other before Christina grabs J's hands and holds them up, "So dreamy! You must help me write my next novel!"
Again, the three look towards each other before J turns his attention back to Christina.
"Oh, well in that ca-"
"I object!" shouts an angered voice from behind Christina. Instantaneously, Hayato appears in her place, shoving his face into J's and almost forcing him back, "You sleazy, backstabbing cowboys! You don't think I was prepared for this!?"
"I don't know what you're-" J retorts before Hayato grabs his necktie and pulls him further towards his face.
"Don't give me that, Elvis! You've already splattered your names all over Yuhi Town and I'm not about to stand here and let you do the same in this town, especially after what your female squad did to one of our members!"
"What the Divas did?" J nearly chokes from the increased grip of his necktie. Morris and Derek glance towards each other before BA-4 looks back over to J.
"Now that you mentioned it," he began, "The girls were rather intimidated after they helped that doctor settle into this town. Maybe this has something to do with it."
"Well, if that's the case," Morris mutters with a shrug, "Maybe we should just leave and-"
"USOOOOOOOOOO!!" Chirstina shrieks, shoving Hayato to the ground and grabbing J by his coat, shaking him in desperation, "Please don't leave! I don't want these amateurs inspiring me to write my next story!"
"Sh-shirouto!?" Hayato squeaks, feeling overwhelmingly betrayed by the very citizen he was supposed to help out.
Christina lets go of J's shirt and sways back and forth, holding her folded hands to one side of her cheek, "I need an Ouendan with passion, love, and charms!" J readjusts his necktie as she continues, "The only ones who can accomplish that are the Western Ouendan! It must be a gift from heaven that you three showed up when you did!"
The Agents look to each other a third time as Christina turns around and points to her mansion on the hill, "Hurry! I must finish my story before the deadline, or I may never be able to write again!" she then marches off for where she pointed while the Agents look to her, then Hayato, who continues to sit on the ground, dumbstruck and shocked at his sudden rejection, before shrugging.
"Better luck next time?" they said before heading off after Christina. Tsuyoshi and Kenshin rush over to Hayato, panicked and worried.
"Saionji-sama! Is everything alright!?" Tsuyoshi asked.
"We just saw those Western Ouendan walk off after our target! What happened!?" Kenshin exclaims.
"She...she rejected us..." Hayato squeaks, "She just threw us to the side and accepted those Ouendan like they were some important icon to her..."
"And...you're not happy about it?" Tsuyoshi mutters.
"OF COURSE I'M NOT HAPPY, YOU IDIOT!" Hayato roars, glaring at his bald follower, "WE CAME THIS FAR TO BRINGING ASAHI INTO TRUSTING US AND THOSE OUTSIDERS TARNISHED OUR HARD WORK LIKE IT WAS NOTHING TO THEM!"
"What do you think we should do about it then?" Kenshin yelps after hearing his leader shout in anger, "At the rate this is going, we'll be back out at sea looking for someplace else to set up our business!"
"Not if I have anything to say about it..." Hayato growls before standing up and marching off back towards the hill.
"Are you two still holed up on what happened the other day?" Starr asked as she, Foxx and Missy walked through Yuhi town. The two backup Divas had depressed looks on their faces, focusing on nothing but their own two feet moving them along, "Sayaka said she and Anna were going to have a word with our new rivals and settle this misunderstanding. You should be peppier than this."
"It's just..." Missy mutters, "I can't stop thinking about the trouble we caused them just because we obliviously accepted Mr. Kuroiwa's cry for help. Do you think things would've been different if we had arrived just a few hours before those Noble guys showed up?"
"It can't be helped," Foxx said, "What's done is done. All that's left is to hope that they don't start coming to us, looking for vengeance."
As if on cue, two familiar faces stood in the Divas path, followed by a third unfamiliar face in the middle. This third Cheer Girl had short, pink hair pulled back by a white headband and appears to be the leader of the female Noble Squad.
"That's them, Rin-chan!" Honoka Kawai, the Cheer Girl with orange hair exclaims, pointing to the Divas in anger, "That's the Ouendan who have been waltzing around Asahi like it was their home!"
The Divas backed away as Reika Minazuki, the second Cheer Girl with silver hair, plants her hands on her side, "As usual, they refused to listen to our warnings, and have, once again raised their flags on another sector of Asahi."
"What!? Oh, c'mon!" Foxx exclaims, "It's bad enough that you're blaming us for not knowing you didn't want rivals running amuck in your territory! Now you're assuming we don't care and would rather chase you out of town instead of figuring out what our best course of action is!?"
"Calm it, Foxx," Starr said, waving her hand towards her silver haired companion, "If you lose any more of your temper, they're just going to see it as another reason to think we're too prideful to understand other cultures of cheering."
"Saionji-sama is already dealing with those other Ouendan who stole our targets," Rin said before planting her hands on her sides, "We can make these vixens pay for what they did to us and the other squad living in Tokyo. Once they learn why they should never take things that don't belong to them, they will stop harassing the Japanese Community and respect those who work hard to maintain its trust!"
The two cohorts nod, about to move closer to the Divas when they saw two different hands appear in front of them, acting as barricades to keep them back. The Noble Cheer Girls look to the sides to see Sayaka and Anna standing in front of the Divas, staring back at them with defying looks on their faces.
"Rin Shirosaki, was it?" Sayaka began, addressing the pink-haired Cheer Girl in the center, "I must ask that you refrain from punishing the Divas over an accidental misunderstanding."
"Accidental misunderstanding!?" Reika exclaims, "Are you blind!?" she points at the Divas, "They did not come to Japan to sightsee! They are trying to shut us down by making the Community trust them over the Ouendan!"
"You don't think we know that?" Anna snorts, "They didn't start responding to Japan's cry for help out of spite and pride. We allowed them to help out. Just because you showed up and took refuge in Asahi Town doesn't mean the people there'll automatically start assuming you're the only ones that can save them."
"You can either take your complaints to our leader, or deal with us," Sayaka said, "Either way, we won't stand here and let you punish EBA for something they weren't even aware of until this moment."
"This isn't your business," Rin said, "Nor do you have any reason to defend them for something that is our responsibility."
"Then we'll make it our business," Sayaka said, "EBA is our ally, and we'll do whatever we can to keep them from being wrongfully harmed."
"Ally?" Rin mutters, "If they were your allies, why do they treat you like irresponsible children who should obey their rules instead of letting us do what we want?"
"Just because Chieftain doesn't like our method of response doesn't mean he'll go out of his way to make us listen to his every beck and call!" Anna said, "If you'd just take a moment to survey EBA instead of blindly assuming what everyone else says, we wouldn't be having this argument!"
"Whether or not this EBA is your responsibility means nothing to Noble unless our leader says otherwise!" Rin said, "And from the way things are standing, he won't be changing his mind about them anytime soon." She then turns around, "Come on, girls. We're leaving."
Honoka and Reika glare at their rivals some more before turning around and following Rin down the street. The Divas furrow their eyebrows as Missy looks over to Sayaka.
"What's gonna happen now?" She mutters nervously. Sayaka sighs and lowers her head a bit.
"The only thing I suggest is to stay on this side of town," she said, "At least until we figure out a way to loosen their tenseness and make them understand the truth behind all those rumors spreading around Japan."
"After what happened two days ago, I don't think they would understand anymore than you would," Starr said, "They're probably gonna stick to the belief that we want organizations to run their methods our way rather than what they think is best."
"There's still a chance we could get them to stop jumping to conclusions," Anna said, "We're just gonna hafta keep trying 'til they understand just how helpful we all could be."
The Divas look to each other before sighing a moan and looking towards the concrete sidewalk in worry.