I Shall Steal a Cat

Of the 24 students at the concert hall, only four of them were unsurprised by the large, plushie cat sitting at the end of the hall.

"His name is Nyochio!" Muni bragged. "I made him myself!" She crossed her arms and smiled smugly. All the others eyed Nyochio with varying looks of surprise, interest, and concern. Some of them thought he was cute, some of them were impressed to think that Muni had created him, some thought it was a little childish and embarrassing, others thought that he didn't look that cute...

Kurumi, though, stared up at the giant plushie with wide, clever eyes. Already, a plan was formulating in her mind... I shall steal a cat!

Later that night, she found the rest of her unit. "Hey, guys, I found our first challenge!" she cried, holding up a small flyer.

"Where did you get that?" Haruna demanded, immediately suspicious. No one else received such a flyer!

"I, uhh, found it," Kurumi smiled innocently. "I just happened to be walking past one of the offices and I saw that it said D4Fes Challenge."

"So you stole it?! Kurumi! That's cheating!"

"But just look at it!" Kurumi pleaded, shoving the flyer at Haruna. "It's supposed to be a secret, surprise challenge anyway! We were just lucky enough to get a head start!"

Haruna studied the flyer intently. It looked legitimate, all the proper logos, watermarks, headers, and signatures were in their proper place, and the wording was both formal and friendly, which was usually the tone these challenges took. Everything seemed to check out! But the exact mission at hand... It was a little... odd. It was asking the units to see which of them could steal Nyochio from the concert hall the fastest. It claimed that the exercise was a synchronization check to see which DJ unit was the most cohesive, but it was still strange...

"Oh! Miiko heard that sometimes colleges do this stuff as pranks!" Miiko clapped excitedly. Someone she met on one of her many travels told her that at the university he attended, there was a large statue of the Birth of Venus near the heart of campus. There were four large fish statues that surrounded the Venus sculpture, but the story was that every year, at least a few brave and stupid students tried to steal the fish statues.

"One year, they found one of the statues on top of the astronomy tower, somehow. Another year, the fourth one was never found at all!"

So perhaps this mascot-stealing game was reminiscent of what those college students did? It wouldn't be the first time a D4Fes gave them an unusual challenge that involved working with and against various other unit members.

"Hmm, then that means RONDO and M4 may provide fearsome competition," Haruna tapped her chin thoughtfully and Kurumi had to bite her lip hard not to burst out laughing. Poor, sweet, reliably-gullible and overly-driven Chairman took Kurumi's bait, hook, line, and sinker. That flyer was entirely forged. As LL's resident VJ, Kurumi excelled at art and technology more than any of the others. It was a skill that came in handy trying to create something that would convince even the Chairman that stealing Nyochio was something they simply had to try.

Half an hour later, the quartet was back at the darkened concert hall, sneaking in as quietly as they could.

"I feel rather like a thief in the night," Haruna admitted. "You are certain we shan't be punished for coming here unannounced after hours?"

"If it was against the rules, Chairman, the door wouldn't have been unlocked," Kurumi said smugly. Although she was, admittedly, surprised to find the concert hall still open, she wasn't going to look a gift horse in the mouth.