Hello again everyone! A new chapter after a day! This is an accomplishment! Anyway, I hope you liked the previous chapter. Now, onwards to the 7th chapter! Also, Merry Christmas everyone!
Chapter 7 – The search begins!
Normal P.O.V
-After School-
"Alright guys! School's over and our search begins! Let's start!" Chelsea exclaimed.
"Uh, Chelsea? One question, who's going with who?" Mary asked.
"Oh yeah, I forgot that. Okay, we'll go like this, Vaughn and I will go as one team, since we're childhood friends."
"That's the reason?" they all thought in their minds.
"Jill and Mary will go together, and the remaining three boys, Cliff, Jack and Skye will go together!" Chelsea continued.
"Well, guess that's alright. Vaughn does get along with Chelsea best." Jack said.
"What did you say?" Vaughn asked, glaring at Jack.
"Nothing, nothing! You take things way too seriously!" Jack replied, laughing as he patted Vaughn's back, earning another glare from the amethyst-eyed boy.
"Now that we decided on who goes with who. Let's begin! See you again tomorrow, Claire! Come on Vaughn! We're wasting daylight!", with that, Claire pulled Vaughn to the southern street called Sunny Street.
The Flower Valley is composed of four streets in total that connects to one another in various parts. The school, Spring Dale, is at the heart of the kingdom and the four streets all meet at the school. From there, the southern street is 'Sunny Street', the eastern Street is the 'Twin Street', the western street is 'Forget-Me-Not Street' and the northern street is called 'Mineral Street'.
"Then we'll go to the western street." Jill said, then went off with Mary as they waved goodbye to Claire.
"Then we'll go to the eastern street." Jack said.
"Sorry we can't go and accompany you back home along Mineral Street." Cliff said, looking a little regretful.
"No, no, that's okay. I'm fine to go home by myself. Besides, you're all helping me, and yourself, to look for the Saibaras, so that's more than enough show of friendship for me." Claire said, waving her hands. "Well, I'll see you all again tomorrow, good luck on your search.", then she waved to them and went along home.
"Alright, now that we're done with your lovey-dovey 'goodbyes', let's go!" Jack exclaimed.
"W-we're not lovey-dovey!" Cliff retorted, blushing as he did.
-Sunny Street-
"Okay Vaughn, let's begin our search from the first door we see!" Chelsea declared, walking to one of the first doors on the street.
"Hold it! Chelsea, you do know that both our houses are the first on this street, right? That one's yours and my home is just opposite to yours, so there's no way we'd be Saibaras." Vaughn stated, pointing to the two houses.
"Oops, it totally slipped my mind, hehe. Okay then, onwards to the next house!", Chelsea punched her head lightly, then ran towards the next house. Vaughn followed and went towards another house.
"Wait, Vaughn! Don't tell me you're going to ask all by yourself?" Chelsea asked.
"Well, yes. I am." Vaughn answered.
"No you don't! I've known you since we were kids and I know that your experience of socializing with people is very bad. So if I let you do the asking yourself, then won't get any leads! You'd break your sentences midway, leaving the people confused and then finally slam the door shut against you! I can't let that happen!" Chelsea exclaimed, waving her hands frantically.
"Uh, you know, I don't think they'd slam the door right in front of me." Vaughn stated, but gave in to Chelsea's whine anyway.
-Forget-Me-Not Street-
"Alright Mary, should we split up the work? I think it'd be faster if we did that." Jill suggested. Mary nodded and Jill went towards one of the first few houses in the street.
After a while, Jill looked over to check on Mary, but found her standing in front of the same door she was standing at before Jill went to talk with the residents of the first house.
"Mary, have you already talked to the residents here?"
"N-no… I'm preparing myself first!"
"'Preparing' yourself? How? "
"Um. On how to ask the people here if they're the people we're looking for. I'm scared that I might jumble my words and leave them confused to my statement."
"Mary, just say it like this, 'Excuse me, I want to ask you if you and your family are a Saibara or not', like that."
"O-okay. Let me try.", knocks on the door.
A lady answered the door and asked, "Yes? May I help you?"
"U-um. I-I was wondering if… If you know anything about the Saibaras!", Mary closed her eyes in embarrassment.
"Huh?", the lady looked puzzled.
"S-she means, are you and your family Saibaras? We just wanted to know.", Jill quickly covered for Mary.
"Saibaras? No, we're not."
"I see, thank you." Jill said, then bowed apology and left with Mary.
"I'm very sorry. I'm really embarrassed when talking to strangers." Mary said, looking down in failure.
"Well, there's always a first of everything. You can do better than this, I know it! Think of this as a way to help you talk more casually with strangers. A training perhaps."
"Okay, I'll do my best."
"That's good. Don't worry if you ever make a mistake or jumble up your words, I'll cover for you."
"Thank you, Jill."
-Twin Street-
Jack stopped midway at the start of the street.
"Jack? What's wrong?" Skye asked.
Jack took a deep breath and shouted, "I S ANYONE IN THIS STREET A SAIBARA?!", Skye and Cliff hold their ears.
"Jack you idiot! What was that for! You'll make an enemy of the whole street by causing a ruckus at this rate!" Skye exclaimed.
"I thought someone here would report themselves, instead of having to go door by door to ask." Jack answered.
"Who, in the right mind, would do that if you impolitely shout like that?" Skye scolded.
"Calm down, you two. But Skye's correct, Jack. It won't do us good if you shout like that. Since there's three of us, we'll split up and ask the residents here. That way we'll cover more houses than the rest in one day." Cliff suggested. Jack and Skye agreed then went separate ways.
Meanwhile, watching them in the shadows was Lumina. She spied on them to make sure they won't find the Saibaras.
"You poor people. I clearly stated that I'm going to keep them hidden, yet you still try to find them. You all have made an enemy out of me, and that is the wrong choice. Even your silly plan of trying to unite the Regisons and Alexanders again will fail. Because I'll be in your every way, preventing you all from taking a step. Fufufu."