Hey guys! I know, it´s always the same with me. Again I let you wait way too long, but you have to understand that I am just a human being who has a life as well. So yeah, lately I hadn´t much time to write but finally here I am with a new and probably the longest chapter so far! But before you read the chapter, please first read this:

First of all someone reminded me that it isn´t that easy to get an S+ rank in ranked battles like I described it to be in my last chapter and I fully agree with you. Let´s just say that Suzu and Tsubasa got very lucky that day, okay ;) (I just suck at describing action scenes so I guess I went with the easy route there)

Second of all I probably confused some of you with which squid has which colour, so I wanted to clarify this by mentioning the most important characters in my story.

Suzu was born as a bright yellow squid, with pink freckles on the end of her tentacles. Her freckles are quite special because they always stay pink. You could say this is her birthmark which makes her quite unique. (Eyecolour brown)

Shiro was born as a bright blue squid. (Eyecolour Grey)

Mari has blue eyes and is dark blue herself.

Lukas has purple eyes and is green himself.

Sakura has pink eyes and is also pink.

And last of all Tsubasa is a bright blue squid as Shiro, but she has purple freckles on her tentacles and she has purple eyes.

However Inklings can change their colour by will by using special ink showers!

With that, I hope everything is clear now so far ~

So before you are finally going to read the next chapter, please listen to this song, while reading the passage which I marked with this sign: /

Just type in OSO Blue song + Lyrics on Youtube

It goes really well with the scene I described and on my opinion the song should get more attention by other splatoon lovers as well.

Alrighty, I hope you like this chapter, since I think I did do a great job on this one. I await your opinion as always in the Reviews! And thank you so much for over 11000 views! Just remember that I will continue and end this story, despite me not writing for a while!

Take care ~


Chapter 12 – Ink bubbles

I yawned as I walked to the front gate of our school, carrying a little bag with some spare clothes and other stuff with me. Purposely I went there super early because I didn´t want to wake up my mother, since she had a very long night at work. So here I was, standing all alone at the place where my class was supposed to meet. Or at least I thought I was alone, because not much longer another Inkling made his way to our meeting point. Not caring who it actually was, I lazily raised my hand to greet my classmate. First I didn´t get any response. But after he came closer to me, I exactly understood why. There he was, Shiro Masato who looked a little surprised by my action, but he still raised his hand to greet me, coming closer and closer. I slowly lowered my hand. Sure I was suprised to see HIM that early in the morning and I sure was mad at me for greeting HIM. But I was really too tired to make a scene about it.

"Morning..", the light blue Inklingboy greeted me.

"Up so early? How come?", I asked, looking everywhere but at him.

He scratched his head: "I could ask you the same question."

"Maybe I´m just an early squid..", I obviously lied.

Shiro dropped his bag on the cemented floor and sat down on it: "Maybe it´s the same with me.."

After that little awkward conversation we sat/stood there in silence. I couldn´t help but glance at him sometimes. He just looked like a normal Inkling. Not macho like or anything. Maybe a little bit fresher than others. But him being a playsquid? Still I couldn´t believe what had happened between us. I mean, why me? I was anything but nice to him and he just didn´t stop being polite.. Did he really just play with me? He obviously didn´t seem like a bad Inkling, despite being my rival at turf war..

"Why?", I whispered my question out loud.

I was a little surprised when Shiro looked up at me and repeated my question by saying: "Why? Why what?"

"Why did you..?", I wanted to say but was apperently cut short by Lukas who had arrived at the meeting point.

He put an arm around my shoulder and greeted us: "What´s up, squid-kids? What are you two doing here all alone? It´s quite suspicious, ya know?"

In this moment my eyes grew bigger, as Lukas really surprised me with his sudden entrance. A little frightened I pushed myself away from him, saying: "Whoa, Lukas! Where the hell did you come from all of a sudden?"

"Behaving suspicious as well, I see. And I always thought you two hated each other!", the green Inklingboy grinned.

"Wha.. What?! What are you hinting at, you dork?! We two just happened to be the first ones here, that´s all!", I defended myself, starting to blush heavily.

The purple eyed Inkling raised an eyebrow, still having his grin plastered on his face: "Oh yeah? So if that´s all, then why are you blushing like a love sick squid?"

"Just stop it, Lukas. You never stop teasing Inklings, do you?", Mari suddenly appeared.

"Man, you´re such a party pooper. Things started to get interesting!", Lukas pouted.

But the dark blue Inklinggirl completely ignored him and brought all her attention to Shiro by greeting him extra nicely.

"Sweet Morning, Shiro. Is everything alright? You look tired.", She commented with the sweetest smile she could afford.

"Huh? Oh, hi there. Nah, everything´s fine. I just hate to get up early, that´s all.", he lazily responded.

Now it was me who raised an eyebrow.

"Oh yeah? But I thought you were an early squid?", I commented.

But the light blue Inklingboy didn´t answer. Instead he looked away from me, being embarassed? And did I see correctly or was the guy really blushing right now?

I wanted to ask him more questions but was interrupted by our teacher and other students arriving in front of the school gate. From there on it didn´t take long for the rest of our class to arrive and so we were shortly able to enter a bus and drive to our hotel for the night, which was located near the sideseas.


When we finally arrived at the hotel, our teacher allowed us to bring our bags and other stuff to our rooms, before we would head to our first destination, the sidesea museum. Unfortunately my roommate was Mari. Well, I wasn´t really unfortunate with that.. Mari was the Inklinggirl I always would hang out with at school. And yeah, I suppose we were something like fake best friends at school. But truth to be told, I didn´t really consider her as my friend. Sure, she was nice and polite and all but she also was so... exhausting? What I mean is she always talks about herself, her concerns, her worries and her preferences and I am the one who always listens.. or not. Fact is that she doesn´t know my true self so I don´t consider her as a real friend. So I guess I could have had a more annoying roommate, right?

Anyway after I parked my bag on my bed, we went back to the main entrance of the hotel and all together we went to the museum. It was quite interesting to learn more about the species who had lived on the surface before us. Apperently their bodies were kind of built similiar to our humanoid form. And they seemed like they were fresh like we are, considering the technology, music and clothes they had. Although there were also some things in the museum, which are still unknown to us. Like a really weird, thin stick with a hole in it and a green, small container where you could store the stick.

After our visit at the museum was done, our teacher allowed us to wander around the actual sideseas, but of course with at least three people in one group. And luckily how I was, I was thrown into a group consisting of Mari, Lukas and yes of course, SHIRO MASATO. So you could imagine my enthusiasm, right?

Despite being in this dream group, our little tour around the seaside was actually quite fun. It was awsome to be in a landscape, where there weren´t many Inklings or buildings around. So it was really refreshing to be in the nature, walking beside the sea and enjoying the silence compared to big Inkopolis.

After a while, our group also decided to wander around the forest until it was time to finally head back.

"Hey guys, we are quite late. Shouldn´t we slowly go back?", Lukas suggested.

"I agree. Maybe we will be faster if we follow the river this time?", Shiro agreed to Lukas´ plan.

So we did what Shiro suggested and followed the river until we came to a point, where we actually had to cross the river to get to the other side.

"I... Isn´t there another way? You guys are aware that we are NOT in turf war. So if we fall into the water..", Mari stuttered.

"Don´t be such a lame squid, Mari. I thought you were fresh! Here are enough rocks to jump on. Nothing can happen.", Lukas screamed from the other side, while he was the first to sucessfully cross the river.

After I easily crossed the river as well, it was now Mari´s turn to follow.

"I.. I don´t know. What if I slip?", the scared Inklinggirl said.

Mari being really unsure of herself and the whole situation, she dropped on her knees and started to cry.

"I´m sorry.. I.. I´m too scared to jump!", she whined.

As I secretly rolled my eyes, Lukas was about to head back when suddenly Shiro took Mari´s hand and "forced" her to her feet.

"Come on, don´t cry. Everything will be fine. Just get on my back and I will get you to the other side safe and soundly.", my rival encouraged her.

Wait, what?! SHE on HIS back?

So after his kind words Mari immediately stopped to cry, slowly nodded her head yes and got on his back. It literally looked like a romantic drama movie, as the two of them crossed the river together what seemed to happen in slow motion. At least for me this was the case. And Mari´s happy and dreamy face really didn´t help much in this situation either!

"There we go. See? You are still in one piece, as I promised!", Shiro bubbled to Mari, while placing her back on the ground and offering her a smile.

´Why is he being so friendly to her? Does he have a crush on her? Or is he truly a playsquid?´, I thought to myself while I still watched them in disbelief.

In response to Shiros kindness, the dark blue coloured Inklinggirl just started to blush like an idiotic squid, madly being in love. And I knew her good enough to know that she in fact fell in love with Shiro Masato in this very second.


After we had made it back safely to the meeting point, not much happened in the late afternoon. In fact we just ate something and went straight to bed. Unfortunately Mari didn´t think for a second to actually leave me to sleep. Instead she bubbled all about how much she was in love with Shiro until she finally fell asleep, leaving myself being fully awake next to her. Feeling different emotions at the same time, I figured to get up and get some fresh air. As I headed to the sea, different thoughts were floating in my mind. For a fact, I didn´t really like how Shiro had helped Mari back in the day. Just the thought of him, holding her behind him and flashing her that kind smile of his made me feel weird inside. But what exactly did I feel? As I slowly approached the sea, I saw a humanoid figure kneeling in front of the sea.

"What is that Inkling doing?", I asked out loud.

As soon as I asked myself this question, I saw the Inkling getting nearer to the sea.

My eyes grew bigger at this very sight.

WAS HE TRYING TO COMMIT SUICIDE?!

I quickly rushed over to the stranger and desperately jumped on him to stop him of getting near the sea, making us both fall on the sand. Suddenly a big wave of water was right ahead of us, so the other Inkling rolled us over to the left side, so the water wouldn´t hit us.

"Are you crazy?! You could have killed us!", a similiar voice screamed at me.

"Shiro?", I now looked at the Inkling straight in the face.

"Just what the hell did you think you were doing?", he still screamed angrily at me.

Now being pissed as well, I shoved him off of me and screamed back: "Me? What the hell were YOU doing, getting that close to the water?!"

/

Suddenly his anger seemed to fade away, since the light blue coloured Inklingboy flashed me a little smile and showed me a familiar object in his hands.

"This.", he simply answered.

I scanned the object more carefully and finally realized where I did recognize it from.

"But isn´t this from the museum? Did you steal this?!", I exclaimed.

"Nah, just borrowed it.", he said this like it was the most normal thing to do.

"Are you insane?! If they catch you..!"

"Don´t worry. I will bring it back, so they won´t even notice."

I sighed:" What do you even plan to do with this. Don´t tell me you know how to use this."

"Actually..."

Shiro now came a little closer to me and showed me the content of the green, little container.

"What´s that?", I simply asked.

Shiro took some steps back and proudly said: "A mixture of water, ink and that thing called soap."

I raised an eyebrow, being clearly confused: "O...kay.. And what do you plan to do with this?"

He grinned at me: "Just watch and be astonished!"

Shiro now put the stick with the hole in it into the container, pulled it back outside and blew some air into the hole. What happened next did indeed astonish me. Out of the hole came out colourful, somewhat invisible balls, glittering brightly in the moonlight.

"They kind of remind me of the bubbler, so I decided to call them ink bubbles."

Still in awe, I answered: "But.. How did you know..?"

"My brother once told me about them. And as soon as I saw this in the museum, I couldn´t help myself.", Shiro explained.

Enthusiastic I watched the ink bubbles slowly hovering to the sky. It was quite a beautiful view, which I had never experienced before.

"You want to try it out as well?", Shiro´s voice woke me up from my trance.

"Huh?", was the only thing I could manage to say.

I quickly shook my head no. As if I would do such a childish thing in front of him!

"Come on. Don´t pretend like you don´t want to. Here.", the Inklingboy completely ignored my answer and gave me the magical object which was used by a former species.

First I wanted to give it back to him. But then I decided to give it a shot and blew through the little hole. And as before many little ink bubbles were send to the air.

Shiro smiled brightly as he picked up a little stick and said: "Let´s have a little game. It´s you against me. Try to make as many bubbles as you can while I try to destroy them with my stick!"

"What? You want to destroy these beautiful things?", I asked a little shocked.

"Come on. After a while they will burst anyway. So are you ready?"

"But won´t the water hurt us?", I asked.

"Of course not. There is more ink inside it as water. Believe me, we are fine."

Just what the hell was I doing here? I HATED this guy. He was the one who made me suffer on turf war and he was the one who had played a trick on me by kissing me! So why the hell was I out here with him, actually having fun?!

Despite of my thoughts on this situation, I still agreed to play with him. It was quite a mess, all the ink bursting around of us. It even reminded me a little of turf war, but in a different and more harmless way, the amount of ink being that little compared to an actual turf war.

Anyway we played for a long time, until we eventually got out of ink, with the situation ending with us both collapsing on the sand.

"So.. who won?", Shiro asked me, himself being out of breath.

I also panted: "Me, of course!"

"What?"

Suddenly Shiro got up and leaned himself down on me.

He then whispered: "I clearly won this one. I destroyed every single bubble."

Surprised by this sudden closeness between us I simply started to blush, staring directly into his eyes.

A small smile formed on his lips, while his head slowly leaned towards mine, making our noses now touch each others.

"You didn´t change one bit."

"What are you two doing out here?! Get inside this instant!", our teacher cried out suddenly.