"Damn it!"

A loud noise filled the room.

The match was now over and Katori continued to express her feelings on the subject.

"!"

By kicking the beanbag chair on the floor.

"That damn girl will be on my case because of that now! She wasn't even the one to take me out! I'm the one who took her out!"

"Calm down already. Taiyōko isn't like that, so don't say she will be doing something that is unlike her."

"Shut the hell up! You didn't even get a point! I won't want to hear anything from you, idiot four-eyes! You are just saying that because of your damn crush on her!"

"I-! What!? No! I don't have a crush on her! I just know how to respect other people! Besides, she was holding her own against you easily! That should be enough to show you up! Stop trying to lower people down just because they can deal with you!"

The response was an immediate beanbag chair to the face for him.

That was the second sound that came in the room.

Miura could only mince from the side at the sound and sight. Both were rather unpleasant.

He looked over at Somei at the monitor with a bit of worry.

"I don't think I have seen her this mad before. To think that Taiyōko would get her this mad without really doing anything."

"I am a bit interested in her too. I might go and speak with Taiyōko at some point, so feel free to tag along."

"Eh? That is fine and all, but you going right to her is a bit surprising. Well, I guess not given the circumstances."

"With that being said..." She spoke up without turning away from the screen in front of her. The noises behind her were low enough to where she did not have to shout. "Both of you need to calm down. They are giving the final commentary, so pay attention."

Katori and Wakamura stopped their glaring at each other to turn toward their Operator.

Regardless of what was going on, the final commentary was important to go over what had happened. It would be coming from A-Rank agents, meaning it would not just be wasted words.

"With that, this match is over. We will now be giving our final comments on the match and how each squad did. We will start with explaining the choice of environment. This match took place in-"

"Let's be honest and just call it the overpass map. It is hardly used since it was modeled after the next city over. The multi-level overpass was where the fighting occurred since its structure was built in an odd way."

"Nasu Squad was the one who got to choose the location due to their lower status. Due to the overpass being where the fighting usually happens, it is a bad location for Gunners, Shooters and Snipers because it is not built like a normal overpass. Otherwise it would be a good place for them."

"It showed with the way that Wakamura had to also go into the overpass so he could fight. It was clear that they were trying to think of which members they could prevent from fighting by using this map. But seeing what Kotowari Squad is capable of it is obvious that they had to choose between stopping their Attacker or their Shooter."

"Rei's Viper is also at the point where she could fight outside if the overpass, so they would be at less of a disadvantage because of that. Their choice must have been to keep Take from fighting so that are I could bombard Toby while keeping a distance."

"Ah, but that plan was both a success and a failure. Captain Kotowari had managed to set up a defense that prevented Captain Nasu's Viper from making it in. That forced her to head into the overpass to attack."

"Exactly. That should lead us into the fights that actually happened. The first would be the fight between Taiyōko and Katori. Although that was more of a skirmish until Awdry came in. That was when Katori became too overwhelmed."

"That seemed to be something we noticed. This match, Captain Katori ran away a lot and seemed extremely focused on Agent Taiyōko."

"Stop glaring like that. It was obvious that it was what you were doing."

"...No one wants to go against that damn dog or be outed by a Sniper. Those guys need to leave me alone."

"You can't just..."

"Shut up, stupid megane."

"If it wasn't for her running away and Miura's help, Katori would have likely been taken out. Even though Toby was holding himself back, him attacking with Hoshi's backup was enough for that fight."

"Oh, right! I remember you saying how he was comparing himself to others and that was keeping him from going any faster."

Yuki crossed his arms while nodding.

Those words remained true for him as he remembers just how easily he had been able to keep up with Toby's movements.

Seeing such a thing was rather sad to him since he understood why it had happened.

"It is more than that. Toby's Side Effect is his reflexes. Those reflexes force his body to move one way when they kick in, so it becomes hard for him to go against them without stalling for a moment. Unlike my own copying Side Effect, he can't go against his reflexes. I have been able to control my body because my Side Effect is not as hard on my body as his."

"So his reflexes have no stopping point. I see. That does explain some things."

"Yeah. But another part of that his that his body need to be able to keep up with those reflexes. If his movement is too slow then an oncoming attack will easily get through. His reflexes may even start a new chain of actions because the first one failed. I have seen it happen before and it does not look good."

.

"In that way it also holds him back. Since he loses control of his body for that to happen it means his mind also has to keep up with what his body is doing. He is a smart boy, so his mind could also be at a different speed than either his body or his reflexes."

Kōchō sighed from her spot next to Kurauchi.

He seemed to be listening to her words wheel checking his phone periodically.

From what she could gather, he was in a chat with other people his age and what they were saying was not something she wanted to think about.

Will I be like that as well? I mean some of us are already there, so...

She let out another sigh. This time in fear of her own future.

.

"In a way, that is also amazing. The fact he did so well under poor conditions."

"He is a good boy. I have no doubt that with some help he will easily beat out some others in the top tier."

Deer Prince: "Good job putting pressure on me! I am that help, remember!?"

TetsuG: "I wish you luck with that."

Haru: "Toby isn't that bad...? I'm sure it will go fine. We're counting on you, Mino!"

Deer Prince: "Why was that first part a question?"

Manager: "No pressure though."

Wow, that one got to even Minoru...

Both Yuki and Kunichika ignored the chat that was going in due to the former's words.

"So that puts us to the next fight. After having ran away from her fight, Captain Katori had to fight against agents Kumagai and Hiura while Agent Miura was found out by the previously mentioned duo."

"We should talk about Katori's fight first. The other one leads into something none of us were expecting."

"Good call."

"With that being said, we were able to see a bit of how Kumagai was able to improve in the short amount of time after her previous match. For those of you who don't know, she had fought against Murakami Kō of Suzunari during her last match and lost rather soundly."

"You really don't mince words, do you? Oh, but I guess I have no room to talk since I was on Kō's side the whole time."

Yuki ignored the glare he was receiving and focused on how Yamamoto chose to push his glasses up and speak instead of making any action against him.

"I am stating fact. Anyway, I was not finished. As I was saying... Her last match showed how poorly she could match up against someone of that level. This match was similar in the most basic of terms. With Hiura there to back her up, I am sure she would have lost this fight as well. But she seemed to have noticed an idea movement to change that course for herself."

"Agent Hiura played a good part in that fight by keeping Captain Katori on her toes, but even they could not take her out before she ran away again. Still, that means they had managed to push her back with only Agent Kumagai being completely on offense."

"The last fight was where she truly showed us how she took that loss. But that is for later. I believe we should get to the fight that had been happening at the same time."

"I am assuming that we will get some information about the prototype Triggers in a bit, right?"

Yuki took a glance down at his phone before giving a thumbs up to Kunichika.

His messages were shown so that she understood.

"Yeah. I am getting something from Mei explaining them. Apparently Kotowari Squad is fine with letting others know about them."

"Would this be considered a power move by them?"

"No. I am pretty sure that they know that their tricks will be found out soon, so they might as well come out and tell so themselves. It may be more of a matter of pride than anything else."

"In that case, we will skip explanations until the end. Right now we can talk about agents Awdry and Taiyōko fighting against Agent Miura. Although there isn't much to say there since Agent Miura was also pretty overwhelmed by the other two."

"Miura is very much respected by younger Attackers, but he is not necessarily stronger than them. Midorikawa is a good example. So seeing him fight against Awdry and Taiyōko made it clear that he was outmatched. That was why Wakamura had gone to help him instead of Katori. There was more of a threat there than there was elsewhere."

"It was at that point that the first two people were taken out. Well, actually...only one of them was taken out. The other was considered a voluntary Bail Out. It seems that Miura had noticed that Kotowari Squad was planning something, so he had taken the initiative to try and prevent that from happening. The end result was a showing of Kotowari Squad's first new Trigger."

"It seemed to have been more than enough to take out Miura. But it had also shown just how much needed to be worked on since it had also taken out Awdry after he had used it. That had left it as a fight between Taiyōko and Wakamura."

"That was around the time Rei's had gotten to the top level of the overpass and started firing down below."

"Kotowari's plan to get Nasu onto the overpass had worked, but she came at a better time for herself. With Awdry out of the picture, she had a clear way of attacking with little way to get attacked. In a way, she was able to turn tat plan around on him since it forced him to enter the overpass to attack her."

"We got to see some excellent squadwork by Captain Kotowari, Captain Nasu and their teammates. Agent Taiyōko and agent Hiura did a good job backing up their captains in offense and defense respectively. What's more, we got to see just how well Yuki-chan here trained his former teammates in the usage of Teleport."

"Hm? Oh, no, that was not Teleport. Or at least a regular Teleport."

Yuki nodded his head at the two confused looks he was getting from his left and his right.

he crossed his arms while continuing his explanation.

"I am good at using Teleport, but even I would have had a hard time dealing with that kind of attack without my Special Teleport. What else is that the teleportation kicked in after Takeshi had been sniped by Akane. At that point thee would be no way of teleporting without Bail Out activating."

"So what you are saying is..."

"Yeah. That was another prototype Trigger."

"From the sound of things, Kotowari Squad's win here today was because of these prototype triggers and the unknown factor they brought in to the fight."

"You can't look down on that. Using anything to your advantage is the best way to win. Those prototype Triggers were created by a member of Kotowari Squad and used by that squad. What is more is that they are willing to let out the information of those Triggers. They clearly want it to be known that they will be using those Triggers in the future."

"Oh, it looks like you hit a nerve, Yamamoto~"

"That was not my intention. Sorry about that, Tsukiko. I will make sure to be more careful next time."

"As long as you realize that."

.

TetsuG: "Why don't we get let off that easily when we mess up?"

Kage: "Is that a real question? It's because this guy has so many complexes that he just throws that off on us."

Haru: "Don't be ridiculous. He only throws some of his complexes at us. This is because he cares so much about his pups that he wants to make sure that no one is saying anything against them."

Ōji: "And then your captain comes in."

Haru: "He doesn't go after them! He knows that, besides Yuki, he will get in trouble with other people. Yeah, like Mei."

TetsuG: "Oh, but besides her, Kō can really got into rabid mode when he wants, or when someone really talks crap about them."

Black Wolf: "Why am I receiving friendly fire!?"

.

"Anyways. Due to that fight, we get to the last battles."

"Plural is a bit much. Agent Kumagai was able to score a point on Agent Wakamura after Captain Kotowari used all of his trion to destroy the overpass. That same destruction had caused any true tactics to fall apart."

"That final fight would be three-way fight between Katori, Kumagai and Taiyōko. If we were to disregard the prototype Triggers, it was obvious that Taiyōko would have the hardest time in that fight. ...But we saw that it still may not have turned out that way."

"That's right! Captain Katori's odd behavior during this match truly showed in that fight. She seemed to have been targeting Agent Taiyōko the whole time while only fighting Agent Kumagai when necessary."

"There was a small incident before this match concerning Hoshi and Katori, but I didn't think it would end up like this. Kō and I ended up staying out of it when the latter tried bringing us into it. Apparently that was all it took for Katori to become so close minded during this fight."

"She is easily spurred by simple things like that. It is no wonder this match ended the way it did. But moving from those two, I would like to talk about Kumagai a bit. By the end of it, it seemed as if she had figured something out and worked toward that."

"Yeah, from my point of view, she managed to grasp something she had been lacking before. Something that had probably been taken because of her fight against Kō."

"So it was all Murakami-kun's fault?"

"Definitely. It was all Kō's fault and he had someone else clean up after him."

"The ace of Suzunari-1, everyone!"

Black Wolf: "Now I am just being picked on! I expect this much from Yuki, but from Kunichika too?"

Shōgi Boy: "I hear some howling"

Ōji: "Strange. I hear that too."

Yuki and Kunichika tried their best not to laugh. It became hard as more responses came through, but they managed with their faces being the only thing giving them away.

Seeing such a thing, Yamamoto let out a sigh while pushing up his glasses.

"Heh heh heh... After dealing with that man, that kind of comment is honestly necessary for me right now."

"They really don't hold back when it comes to fighting each other..."

He could not argue against the comments coming from the back of the room.

His own age group had a tendency to mess around with each other, but they had people like Yuba and Mei in it that balanced out any strangeness from the others.

The same could not be said for the ones a year or so younger.

"Ahem. I believe we should be wrapping this up now."

"Oh! Right. This last fight was where we saw the third prototype Trigger used by Kotowari Squad. This one greatly resembled the Black Trigger Fujin."

"Tsukiko, have you received the information concerning these prototype Triggers?"

The fox boy looked down at his phone as multiple messages came up. It was proof that he indeed get the information from his former squad.

He looked up while voicing his confirmation.

"Yeah. I just got it. Should we go in order of appearance?"

"Sure. You aren't as bad as Akashi, so go ahead and let us know what was going on."

Secretary: "Why did they fire at me!? Murakami-kun should be the real target, right? Right!? I have done nothing to receive that hit."

Black Wolf: "Akashi, I would like to have a talk with you at some point."

Yuki once again ignored the messages coming in.

There would need to be some apologizing to the Suzunari-1 ace at some point. Most likely with rice as a bride of forgiveness.

With a plan now made for the future, Yuki looked at his phone to explain what they had witnesses before.

"First would be the one Toby had used to take out Miura and cause a technicality in the match. It currently has no name and can only be activated by using a 'surface'. Be it blade, shield or whatever. As long as it is a 'surface' made by trion."

"So that means we can rule out Triggers like Escudo or the guns a Gunner uses."

"Probably. Anyways. The Trigger is meant to take the attacks done to it within a few seconds and send them back from where they came from. In simple terms, it bounces back along the 'lines' the attack originally came from."

"That does seem like a powerful Trigger that came change the tide of battle. But the downside seems obvious. A forced Bail Out. I guess that is better than having to stay in or else Agent Awdry would have just been taken out and lose a point."

"It does make it easier to fix when the downside is obvious like that though. I wonder how that will turn out later on. Now moving to the next one..."

"Right, right. That one is called Zanzō. Oh, I might try this one out later on... Anyways. It is a simple replacement that requires the user to have Teleport equipped. Set a target to where you will teleport and something to take your place."

"Rather niche, all things considered. It sound good, but Teleport isn't really that popular of a Trigger. Our best bet is to rely on Yuki-chan and his former squad to see how that works."

"I can probably convince Arashiyama to try it out too. Remember, we're not the only ones who use Teleport. We just do it more often than others."

"So the last one?"

"That would be Fujin Kōgetsu. As we saw during the match, it splits the blade of Kōgetsu into those ribbons. No... They really are blades. Each blade is thin, but is still a blade. From what this match showed her, Hoshi has figured out that it is able to push back a normal Kōgetsu for a moment. What's more, each blade can be controlled mentally or verbally. The latter seems to be the fastest way to control them."

"The downside to this one seems to be the loss of the actual blade. It is fine if they manage to oust back a bit against something like Kōgetsu, but it is only for that single moment. Using the actual blade for that would provide a better outcome in defending. You basically lose all defense for this one offense."

"Hm... Hm... Crap! Oh, I mean..."

"That was not very ladylike, Kuni. And yes, we know we are going over the limit here. I will take responsibility for that since I had to explain the prototype Trigger for Kotowari Squad."

"Thanks for that. So we should finish this off talking about the squads, yes?"

"There was actually not too much to say. Nasu Squad and Kotowari Squad were well prepared for this match with the latter just trying out their new Triggers. Katori Squad could not get their momentum going, so they could only manage a single point in their three-way fight. They clearly need to straighten themselves out or else they will continue to fall."

"As opposed to Kotowari Squad, who has already fixed themselves and have gotten their own momentum back. They have even gone so far as to add someone new onto their squad as well as those Triggers."

"They still need to be careful. Taking a page from Nasu Squad would be good. Kotowari Squad using those Triggers is also what made them lose their two main attackers. Toby had to force Bail Out while Takeshi seemed to be reliant on Zanzō working to escape a fatal attack. This seems to be their true first time using them, which was not a good thing. They are not at the level where they can do something so free and get away with it."

"Ikoma Squad and my own squad tend to do that, don't they?"

"Look at those positions though. Your squad is first among A-Ranks while Iko Squad are third in B-Rank. Kotowari Squad still as stuff to learn before they can do something like that. Especially since they did not have Suzu with them during this match and Hoshi is not as experienced as the others."

"And how do you suppose they can learn from Nasu Squad concerning all of that?"

It was not Yuki who answered the question.

The answer came from the glasses man next to Yuki.

"Nasu Squad continued doing what they knew, understood what the situation was, and changed their actions depending on that. From a tactical standpoint, they were superior. I would say they just need to keep working on their power and ability to regroup quickly."

"But I bet Yuki-chan is proud of Kotowari Squad, right?"

"No comment."

"Heh heh. Hit the mark. But that will conclude this match. Thank you for joining me and providing that commentary, Yuki, Yamamoto."

"Of course."

"No problem."

"~~~"

"She looks so happy. Is it because of what your ice cream buddy said, Akane?"

Nasu smiled from her spot away from the giggling Hiura and the equally smiling Kumagai.

What they had heard from Yuki was him holding back from saying anything harsh. If it had been something important for them to fix, he would have said so or gone to Yamamoto for the answer.

It was because of that holding back that Yamamoto seemed to hold his tongue of saying anything about them. The difference in knowledge on their squad meant that Yuki was the better option to answer anything in them.

Still... That seems to be a bad habit for him. Holding back too much will lead to him going easy on squads like ours who need some harsh things said to truly hammer in what needs to be corrected.

She appreciated how he had made their squad rather happy with the praise, but that praise was said as a way to inform the other squads of their own mistakes.

"No..."

"Huh? Is something wrong, Rei?"

Kumagai's question brought something new to her mind.

Was something wrong? That was what he had been referring to when talking about Nasu Squad.

Something had been wrong due to their last match, but they had called that out already. Going so far as to make fun of their friend to do so.

Once she understood his words, she could not help but to start laughing behind her hand. It soon became to much and she started laughing without restraint.

The looks from her squad showed their curiosity and worry for her.

I should say something now, she thought while calming herself down.

She took a deep breath to look at them.

"There was nothing wrong. I just got the meaning of those words and the words Yuki-san was saying."

"What he was saying? Wasn't he saying that we were fine because the other squads were not at their best?"

"Yes...and no. He was telling us that what we had done was correct and the right course of action. It most likely means that if we can continue fighting like we had today, we will be able to grow strong enough to join the others."

"Are you sure? That sounds amazing! I was just thinking he was being nice!"

Yes, that seemed like the best answer.

Yuki was the type to use words to his advantage and change them when necessary.

But this had been different.

Those words had usually been reserved for Kotowari Squad, but they had been directed toward them instead. It was a way to show them that he was viewing more than just his former squad during the match.

It could have also been seen as words of gratitude for taking care of Takeshi, but there was an issue with that.

He is not the type of person to just say "Thank you" for something like that. Which means...

He had meant it.

That kind of thing from an A-Rank agent was nice.

"Well I suppose that means we can't be letting him down after that."

She smiled once more to her squad, receiving similar smiles.