"So…see anything?" Ranika grunted, growing weary of their ambling throughout the outside grounds of the stadium.

"Nope, just more food stalls and bathrooms." Suiiki scanned the unending rows of tents for what felt like his twentieth time. "Come on, there has to be some other games beside that stupid whack-a-mole thing."

Kisho checked his watch and sighed. "Fifteen minutes of idle walking. I suppose it can't be helped but I did expect much more when in the vicinity of you lot."

"You're free to find your own entertainment, bud."

"Ranika," Genso said, still atop her back. "Over there, behind the striped triangular forts next to the mortar fortification."

She craned her head to the right. "Those tents by the wall?"

"Yes, I've observed a tall structure beyond them. Might you have interest in venturing over?"

"Gotta be better than this shit. Seriously, why the hell is the front entrance so vacant now? Earlier there were a couple stands out here, now we gotta do a scavenger hunt just to find some life?!"

Tsubame's hand crashed down upon her head. "Calm it, I'm getting tired of that incessant yelling of yours. You're starting to remind me of your older sister."

"The pink police girl?" Suiiki asked, as the others similarly looked to her confused. "How? I don't think I've even heard her speak!"

"Er, I mean Hanako. Ya' know, the crazy long hair, she's been healing us after our matches."

"She's your sister?" Genso asked. "I was not aware. She is quite a kind and accommodating individual."

Ranika sharply turned her head around in disbelief. "What!? Tell me who you have been talking to cause it's sure as hell isn't my sister!"

"Mind your surroundings."

Her shoes squelched when they slipped into the mud of the flooded grass.

"Fuck, this is where that dunking game was. Everything's just pissing me off today. Shit, man!" She cursed while trudging through the mud puddle. "You sure you met Hanako? They are twins so maybe you got mixed up. Buuuuuut usually it's easy to tell her apart since she's a massive bitch."

"Yes, quite." Kisho backed away when Ranika gave him a cold stare. "Not as you put it, but to me she was very curt. I wanted to ask her about our- uh…some questions and she hardly gave me the time of day."

Suiiki moved the water out of the rest of the group's way. "Kisho, a clock wouldn't give you the time of day."

Amidst their snickers, he surprisingly found himself laughing along. "Yes, yes, laugh it up, you ruffians. That said…" He lowered himself to Ranika's feet. "I do need the company I keep to look presentable in front of others. As much as I'd love to see you all covered in mud." He placed his hands on her shoes and absorbed all the liquid that had seeped inside, leaving only the dried-out dirt clinging to the outside of her shoes.

"Thanks, K."

The bespectacled boy on her back began to shift around to loosen her iron grip on his hindquarters. "I apologize for the misfortune you've been acquainted with as of late. I assure you; I can walk on my own now. I do not wish to add on to your irritable mood."

"Nah, you're fine. It's everything else that's testing my damn patience. All these high prices for awful food, I dropped my wallet and soaked my bills in some lazy assholes soda, walking around in circles looking for ANYTHING to do, getting blamed for shit I-"

"Move your rears, slowpokes!" Tsubame said, already across the stretch of grass and past the blue tents Genso had pointed out. "Found a strength game I'm bettin' y'all will like! And there's a couple more 'round here too!"

"A GAME? No way, couldn't be!" Suiiki charged ahead. "About time we got an actual activity!"

Once they rounded the corner just beyond the line of tents, they were greeted with an entirely different area that seemed more in line with what they had expected. In addition to the strength game, there were rows of carnival rigs and challenges all along the sidewalk.

Genso winced at the explosion of sound when he and his current ride approached the first rows of activities. "Eh…this is a little overstimulating for my auditory senses."

"Tough titty, I'm playing all these-"

"First!" Suiiki shouted, the large hammer already in hand.

"Damn it!"

"Haha! I've been waiting all my life to try one of these!"

Kisho looked at the tall tower where a bell sat on the top waiting to be rung. "A mere fairground challenge has been what your entire life has been leading up to? Checks out."

"Yessir!"

"At least hesitate before saying that."

"Ten bucks." A gruff voice came from behind the tower.

He pulled out his wallet eagerly. "Okay, here ya…TEN BUCKS!?" Suiiki cried out, face aghast. "What kinda highway robbery is that?"

A man with an eyepatch snorted before angrily peeking his head out from behind. "If you ain't paying then leave!"

He disrespectfully dropped the hammer onto the grass. "What type of price is this!? You can't have made that much with these criminal charges!"

"Actually, little runt," He flashed an entire box of tens from a tackle box. "Business is better than ever! Now scram if you ain't paying!"

"Excuse me, sir!" Tsubame pushed Suiiki out of the conversation. "What are the rules to this game?"

"Rules? Heh, it's simple enough. Ten bucks, ten swings. Get a new high score, get your money back…twofold."

Riled up once more, Suiiki grabbed the hammer. "Sweet! Why didn't you lead with that instead?"

"You never asked."

"Fair enough."

Tsubame shifted side to side. "Uhm, sir? Isn't that gambling? You're aware it's illegal to allow minors to partake in such an act?"

He leaned in so close to her eyes, she thought she saw his own bulging out of its socket. "A narc? If that be the case, then all of you get on out of here!"

"What!? No, don't listen to her!" His wails were in vain as he snatched the hammer out of his hands and pushed them away from his machine. "Please! Agh, Tsubame! Why do you have to ruin everything!"

"N-now hold on just a minute! For starters, it's just plain against the law for this setup to be here! I'm not trying to stop ya' from having fun, I'm trying to protect us from being criminals!"

Ranika lowered Genso onto a nearby bench slowly, minding his sprained ankle. "Damn, we can't even hit something with a hammer without it turning us into lifelong serial killers and shit? Let us just play a game, geez!"

"Ah…" Their resident tattletale shrunk away into the shadow of a vending machine, feeling regretful despite her pure intentions. "I didn't…I guess I could turn a blind eye?"

"No!" The owner of the game said. "Not with the narc around here! Now go and get on!"

"Great. Awesome even." Ranika's clenched teeth grinded together as she stared daggers at her partner. "Thanks, Tsu!"

Genso tried to jump to his feet even as his injury prohibited him from getting far. "Wait, there's still other-"

"Shut up!" She forcefully pulled him back down on the bench, and no one got in her way as she grabbed the game operator and wrestled the hammer away from him with ease.

"Whoa whoa whoa whoa! Give that back, I already told you, you're NOT playing my game!"

"Then we'll play my game, it's called 52 guts pickup! It's simple!" She slammed it into his stomach, making him keel over. "I mop the floor with you," She then whacked him hard on the back of his head. "And you clean it up!"

"Ranika!"

"Dude, chill!"

"STOP!" The man raised his hands to cover himself. "Stop, I'll let you play, I'll let you play! God, are you insane!?"

"Now how hard was that?"

The student president covered his head in shame. "An admittedly effective negotiation if not more criminal than had we just played it from the beginning." He nudged Tsubame. "Maybe next time, we don't sweat the details?"

"…uhh."

Slightly less enraged, she tossed the large hammer at Suiiki without warning, resulting in the handle ramming into his chest. "I'm after you, I need to blow off some steam."

Hurting but not enough to risk her wrath, he made no mention of the chest pain she'd cause and readied himself for his turn. "Okay then…let's see…highest he's gotten is 75 out of 100. Then I just gotta hit at least 80!" Slamming the mallet onto the deck, the ball only went to 50 before quickly dropping back down. "Nuts…again!" He hit the deck again with more fervor, and his effort was rewarded with the exact same result as before.

Meekly, the rig owner stumbled over to his money box. "…Uh, before you continue on, the payment for playing?"

"We'll pay you by letting you keep your earnings, how about that?" Kisho said. "Unless, you'd rather spend the day trying to convince the chief of police why you're conducting a business that deals in gambling at a high school festival?"

He gulped.

"Wise man."

"This is broken!" Suiiki thrust the hammer into Ranika's arms. "Here, you try and see! I always get like 90 or higher on these in my video games!"

"This isn't a game, weakling! Step aside!" She swung the hammer in the air dangerously fast like a bo staff. "Watch and learn, pipsqueak! Hyaaaa!"

The sound of the machine creaking beneath her impact alarmed the owner as well as her friends, but they watched in disbelief as the ball only flew up to the 20-point mark. He nervously laughed, all the while his head became inundated with beads of sweat. A couple passerby had noticed the commotion around his machine and ventured over to see what was the matter.

"Okay, that's bull. I've won every single one I've ever tried. And there's no way in hell I'm weaker than Suiiki!"

"Ehehe…well, I uh…usually make these for adults so as your friend said, I raised the weight to a higher standard."

"But that still doesn't make a lick of sense." Tsubame felt comfortable enough to rejoin the group near the machine. "Even if you had raised the weight settings, Ranika clearly hit the lever harder but she didn't even break Suiiki's first attempt."

Kisho chuckled with a condescending handclap. "To feel the need to rig even something as innocuous as this, you must have been pretty desperate for some funds. Trouble with the bank lately?"

"Hey! My game is completely legit!" He yelled to ensure the growing crowd heard him. "Maybe you're just not as strong as you think you are! Besides, girls are weaker than b…" He caught himself too late.

"Oh no you did not-" Before she said anything else, Genso covered Ranika's mouth with his hand.

"Pardon me, I would like to run a simple test on your device."

Glancing at the boy's skinny body, he barely contained his laughter. "Sure! Give it everything you've got!"

"Why, thank you." Taking the hammer from Ranika, he held it above the deck as if about to drop it. "We'll be able to easily tell from this."

As it fell from his hands, he covered the wooden hammer in a thick metal. The weight of its impact crashing down on the machine broke the lever off its perch, and yet the ball which should have rocketed into the air only went up to the score of 30.

"WHAT?!"

"That's not possible!"

"I couldn't get past 30 either, what's happening!"

The crowd now against him, he turned his frustration onto the boy who broke his game. "YOU! In addition to cheating, you destroyed my property! I hope you're ready to pay for it or else I'll-"

"It appears this lever had little to do with the game's outcome whatsoever." He ignored the owner and adjusted his glasses. "In reality, what was really determining the outcome of your attempts was this." He pointed to a set of previously hidden wires running underneath the boards. "A sensor that leads all the way to an actuator, which is what controls the sliding mechanism the ball is attached to. But look closer…there's numbers written on each one. 20, 25, 30, 45, 50, they all correspond to the value the ball would travel to if activated."

"Lies!" He shouted angrily. "Those are just used for tracking scores! He's making all that up!"

"Oh, what tricks you played on the masses with these," Kisho sat on the wires with a sly grin on his face. "Humanity really is so gullible and pathetic, right? Human."

The ball immediately shot up to the 50-point mark, then wiggled down to the 30-point, then back up in a rapid dance jiggling throughout the tower as Kisho took pleasure in shifting his weight from one wire to the next.

"You had-…your quirk is…no refunds!" He dashed to his van behind his tent. "Irritating brats, I'll just go somewhere else! You've accomplished nothing! I still won today!"

Suiiki held back his laughter at the outburst. "Bro thinks he's the main villain!"

A hump of grass grew beside his van, tilting it heavily onto two wheels. It leaned precariously for several seconds before it crashed onto its side. Genso stumbled for a moment and turned around to see Tsubame's hand on the ground.

"…well, it seems someone has been practicing doing earth after all."

She rolled her eyes and tried to hide a smile.

"Get 'em!"

"He stole my money!"

"Thief!"

"Scammer!"

Kisho watched with a little too much enjoyment as the mob pulled him out of his van and heard his cries for help. "I love putting the plebians who think too highly of themselves in their place."

"Hell yeah, what you said!" Suiiki raised his fist to his face, making Kisho shirk away.

"Wha…are you trying to start something here of all places?"

"…it's a fist bump."

"Ah." With a little hesitation, he half-heartedly met the fist with his own.

"For as annoying as you can be, it's nice to have that arrogant attitude on our side! Maybe you aren't all that bad, we just got off on the wrong foot?"

Kisho stared at his fist and bit his bottom lip. "No, no no, I doubt that." He brushed his hand off against his pants and briskly walked away to another stall. "Come now, it seems this situation has been dealt with. We've only a mere ten minutes before the final match."

"Wait, why are you going so fast?" He tugged on Ranika and Tsubame as he chased after him. "Don't you wanna see this jerk get what's coming- watch it!"

Too late, his warning proved futile as Kisho collided with the back of another student, knocking his head against theirs.

"Ooh, that did some damage!" Suiiki shouted like an announcer in a game.

"Quiet, you!" Kisho barked. "Me getting all ruffled like that, over a simple gesture. I am sorry for…you're shitting me."

Hinote whipped around and beamed at him through her painful headache. "Seriously!? I bump into a lot of people but we've gotta be tied by fate for this to keep happening!"

"Fate leads me to you? I mean no offense but you and I have rarely much in common if anything at all, what business would we have with each other?"

"You two alright?" Tsubame rushed over and rubbed Kisho's head. "That's why we have the rule about no running in schools, to prevent these types of mishaps from happening in the first place! And what does that say about our student council when the president himself ignores them and causes trouble for-"

"He bumped into someone, is there a need for a sermon?" Ranika groaned. "Genso doesn't even get this preachy about his science projects."

"It is not preaching to discuss our universe's laws in a factual manner." The white-haired boy once again on his perch, still mainly against his will.

Hinote narrowed her eyes and darted around Ranika several times akin to a scientist investigating an animal. "Hmmmm. You two are pretty close, eh?" She raised her eyebrow coyly.

"I mean, we're friends." Ranika missed the point entirely as Genso hid his blush inside her shoulder.

"I do not choose to be atop this female."

"Yeah, no choice wrinkle brain. Don't mind him, he just got fucked while watching a match."

Hinote blinked rapidly in shock. "What? Oh, uhm…huh! Anyway!" She searched for any reason to change the topic. "Yeah, what a surprise! I just came for a quick drink and I crash into you guys! What're you doing way out here?"

"A-hem, we were merely meandering around vainly looking for a source of entertainment and the first one we found turned out to be a scam. Most unfortunate."

"Oh, so that's what that commotion was over there. I was wondering when they'd find him out."

"You knew?" Ranika asked.

"Had a feeling but I didn't have proof, nor a way to find any."

"What?" Suiiki held her arms up incredulously. "With these piping hot monsters you've got connected to you, you should be able to take anything no problem!"

"Fire doesn't make me stronger, I'm still just a normal human being under here."

"True, plus you didn't have a brainiac on your side to explain what was going on even if you did have some muscle." Ranika proudly hefted Genso higher up on her shoulders.

"I did little that anyone else could have done…" He bashfully claimed. "His setup was rudimentary in the first place. If it weren't for Suiiki and Ranika's contrary scores, I never would have figured what was wrong in the first place. And Kisho's boldness as to sit on the wires was ingenious, since he couldn't have claimed he had super strength with his posterior, as opposed to his hands."

"I…yes, that's what I was thinking." Kisho shifted his tie around and rubbed his hair back. "Naturally, I had it all figured out."

Suiiki leaned to the others and covered his mouth. "Get a load of this guy."

" I was there too…" Tsubame muttered under her breath, which Ranika caught easily.

"Who said you weren't?"

"So!" Hinote interrupted. "Now that we're here, who wants to hurry up and try a couple carnie games?"

"Oh, hell no!" Suiiki ran to a stall with two mounted fake guns pointed at a screen. "They've got Terminal Promise: Love of Glory? We have to play this one, right?"

"Ugh…" Kisho grunted.

"Oh sorry. I forgot you hate fun!"

"Love of Glory is so overrated. Terminal Promise: Setting Sun was so much stronger story wise."

"What? But Love Of Glory has much better multiplayer! It's a game, who cares about that stuff if the gameplay is better now?"

"The gameplay is easier now, not better. Just because you can get headshots with the ease of putting a block of cheese in the microwave doesn't make it superior to the game that requires true skill to master."

"N…yeah, well…you play Terminal Promise?"

"Tch. I don't live under a rock, Suiiki."

"Wow…uh…" The rowdy boy stayed unusually quiet for a time, now sharply aware the others had wandered off to a stall in the distance where Hinote and Ranika were duking it out in a VR robot punching simulator.

"…a-hem. I warrant we should reconvene with the others."

"That's cool!"

"Pardon?"

"I didn't expect someone to defend Setting Sun! That's my favorite so…you earned some points there."

"Your favorite? Pfft, likely. Why did you defend Love of Glory?"

"I don't know, everyone else was saying it was better so I assumed it had to be. But I always felt the game was a bit too simplified somehow. Felt so easy to get headshots!"

Kisho kept himself from laughing as he pulled out his phone. "It's clear if you pay attention longer than two minutes, the hitboxes on the characters are much bigger now. You can shoot almost two heads away and still hit them. Watch, this individual shoots with reckless abandon and gets four kills despite his reticle not turning red even once."

Suiiki rushed over with his mouth wide open. "No! You're lying!" As the video played, Suiiki burst into full on hysterics. "That's nuts! He's not even on his body, oh my gosh! What were they- TWO HEADSHOTS WITH THE SMG!?"

"I told you; it is quite ludicrous."

"Man, and I thought I was getting better at the game. All my victories feel cheap now."

"Knowing you, they were probably cheap anyway."

"What!?"

"Tell me you haven't done the infinite grenade glitch once every match."

"…that's not fair!"

" THAT'S NOT FAIR!" Kisho jabbed his finger on Suiiki's shameful face. "Exploiting a game's flaw to your advantage is cowardly and unsportsmanlike!"

"But it's fuuuuun!"

"How can lobbing an infinite supply of grenades at a helpless enemy possibly be fun?! The nerve that you'd-" With sudden alarm, Kisho shoved his phone in his pocket. "Well then. Best you meet back up with the others."

"Actually, I was about to say if you wanted to play Terminal Promise with me then you could, since they had two guns and all!"

"No! No, that's out of the question. Do you remember who you're talking to? Why would we ever willingly be in each other's presence? The only reason I came is Ranika's insistence and my boredom! I must say, what a lapse I had there, engaging with you in such a manner."

"Wait, huh? Did I miss something?" He scratched his brown hair as if the answer would be found if he physically searched his brain. "We were kinda vibing, right?"

"Enough, I've wasted enough of my valuable time amongst you mongrels. You all have approximately five more minutes until the fight starts. I recommend Hinote makes her way over to the gates soon." Hands in his pockets, he sauntered off inside the stadium, his delicate smirk forcing itself to stay on.

Bewildered, Suiiki threw his hands in the air and headed over to his friends at the robot boxing game. "Unbelievable. What a weirdo…what's up, Gen?"

"They have taken quite a liking to this electronic sprite-based punching simulator. Perhaps there is some merit to studying these mediums of entertainment as well, the digital handiwork to make something of this caliber must be truly astounding. The physics even seem to be accurate to how they'd logically work in our world, with some suspension of disbelief, of course. Obviously, the square cube law would make such heights nearly impossible to achieve without some sort of stabilizing mechanism which the autonomous units here-"

"We're having a grand ol' time!" Tsubame interrupted his spiel. "It looks super good, how all the robots have that pretty little sheen on 'em. Makes me think of cars coming off an assembly line, how uniform and clean they all are."

"Huh, I see what you mean. Not really, but I see what you mean. Who's winning? Hinote or Ranika?"

"Damn it!" Ranika shouted. She forcibly removed the headset from her face and slammed it back into its charging slot. "You're cheating, four in a row can't be real!"

"I don't know, I've never played this one before. Although you were just mashing buttons the whole time so it wasn't hard toOOOWW!" Hinote jumped out of her seat without disconnecting her device. It hooked onto her orange hair and painfully tore at several strands. "Agh! It's…stuck!"

"Stay calm, don't panic!" Tsubame rushed over to help dislodge her from the machine, the negligent owner standing at another stall not realizing the sounds of pain were real. "Hold still, get back inside your chair-mmph!" She was struck in the stomach by one of Hinote's flailing arms. "Stop moving, you're alright!"

"What…type of…toy has a dangerous grip like this!"

"Maybe if you hadn't tried to just walk off with it…" Tsubame and Ranika tried to wrestle the contraption free of her hair's knots to no avail.

"Have you considered reversing your previous actions so that the entanglement may undo itself instead of snatching futilely?"

The group looked at him as if he'd said the dumbest thing known to man.

"As if he'd said?" Suiiki replied to no one in particular. "How do you unknot thousands of strands of hair?"

"Hmph. I would much enjoy then to hear your suggestions, Suiiki."

"Uh…" Put on the spot, he wracked his brain to come up with an idea. "I got it, just back away everyone! Doctor's coming through, need to scan for evidence and all that jazz!" He wiggled between the two girls and grabbed Hinote's hair. Closing his eyes, he felt it up and down, leading from her scalp to the headset. "Got it!"

He coated the trapped strands in ice and shattered them, effortlessly freeing her. Quickly staggering away from the gaming chair, Hinote rubbed her head lightly. "Hah! Finally…it was so dark in there."

Tsubame sighed. "Geez, why didn't you take it off before trying to go flying Mach speed?"

"I just forgot I had it on!"

"How? That's like forgetting you put on clothes before you step into the shower!"

"It's whatever!" Ranika barked. "She's fine now, so lay off."

"Holy Cakes! You've only got a few minutes before you need to be out there!" Suiiki grabbed Hinote's hand. "We gotta get you back inside!"

"Shit! Uhhh…I'll take her!" Ranika snatched Hinote over to her. "It's better if I go, I came here a lot when my Dad owned the place so it'll be quicker going!"

"Hey, I know the way…" Hinote lamely complained, but also not able to put up much of a fight. A cold sensation on her forearm made her gasp. A tight ring of ice quickly pulled down her sweater's sleeves, which she hadn't realized had slipped up her arms. She turned to Suiiki who discretely flashed a thumbs up at her. Blushing, she mouthed a thank you to him while Ranika brutishly raced her back into a nearby side entrance.

"Whew…that was close." He whispered to himself. "Any lower and the whole world would've known."

"Known what?" He turned to see Tsubame right next to him, little care for personal space.

"Gah! Nothing, El creepo! Or La creepo, for you I guess?"

"If I recall correctly," Genso limped over to where they were, taking care to not put too much weight on his left leg. "We've approximately 73 seconds to the grand finals. We had best take ourselves back to the arena." Sucking in sharply, he raised his foot with his grimace becoming more intense.

"Dude, I've got you. No need to be so…heavy!" Suiiki lifted Genso at the waist and nearly fell over were it not for Tsubame's aid to keep him upright. "Woah, that's like a thousand pounds!"

Ignoring Genso's scoff, Tsubame took Genso's arm and draped it over her shoulder. "This seems like a lot more than a sprain. Let's get you to that healer too."

"Perhaps…you're right. Urgh, that is likely the smartest course of-…" He put his arm over Suiiki, who'd already put a lump of ice inside his shoe.

"Quit wracking your head for nerd terms or that ache is only going to get worse."

"That is nonsense at every scientific level." While they slowly moved him towards the exit, his face turned to Suiiki with a look of remorse. "I apologize."

"Huh? What for?"

"Heading to the medical clinic at this rate, our estimated arrival time will be four minutes and nine seconds. You'll certainly miss the opening act of the grand finals. Were it not for my careless excitement, I would not have required your aid."

"Yeah, you screwed me alright."

"Tsk." Tsubame wordlessly shook her head.

"But…I don't really-" His false start brought them to a crawl as he looked around the hallway, as if the words would be written on the wall. When his eyes fell on Tsubame's, he quickly turned forward again. "I don't mind cause, you're cool."

His glasses nearly fell from his face at the mere sound of the word. "Me!? Hardly, such an adjective would describe a person as-"

"It describes you perfectly! You help me with homework, tell me awesome facts about those explosive metals, hang out with me and all that stuff…someone taught me not everyone has people like that. And someone else taught me to be more considerate to those cool people like you."

"Was-" Genso opened his mouth, but in a rare moment of social awareness from him, decided saying nothing was the right choice.

"So yeah, I'll miss a grand final to make sure you're okay! Heck I'll miss a hundred of them!"

Tsubame smiled warmly at Suiiki for the first time in a while. "That's very honest and sweet for you!"

"Yeah, it's old granny stuff but grandmas always have lots of people who love them, so can't be wrong, eh?"

"A reasonable deduction."

"Ehh, now that I think about it, maybe I'd sneak to a couple matches here and there. It's a hundred matches after all, I can't miss ALL of them!"

"Obviously. It would be illogical otherwise."

"Oh my goodness, you're both unbelievable."