Chaoskouji

Arc 6 Chapter 10 - Festival Part 5

"Kiyotaka-kun, we have a problem."

Our lunch break was almost over when I heard these words. The afternoon period was shorter than the morning, but the events were worth a lot more. The tug-of-war, scavenger hunt, four-way tug-of-war, mix gender three-legged race and finally the 1200m relay were all that was left. The boys also had tug-of-war, and the girls had to play ball toss. These were the biggest events of the day, the most exciting, and the most rewarding when it came to points.

Which is why when Kikyou came up to me to give me a warning, I was understandably on edge.

"What's going on?" I asked.

"Well, a bunch of our classmates are too sick to participate anymore. They're all running to the toilets with diarrhoea, so they can't really compete in any races," she explained.

We were standing at the Class D tent getting ready for the next event, the tug-of-war. Everyone was supposed to return to their tents now at the end of lunch but as I looked around it became clear that a significant number of students were missing.

A concerning thought appeared in my mind. "How many of them have been socialising with Class C."

Kikyou was confused only for a moment, before shock appeared in her eyes. "That's right! Everyone thought Class C was being more friendly now, but they just showed it was all a plan didn't they. Thinking about it... a lot of people in our class were making new friends, but for the sick people... I think most of them were eating lunch with Class C today!"

"Poison then. Fast acting laxatives, probably in a drink they brought. Easy enough to purchase from the chemist here, and not very suspicious," I summised. It was a very likely possibility.

"Wait, but that means we're going to struggle for some events. Without all of those people, we don't have a chance!" Kikyou exclaimed.

I looked around the tent. Assuming everyone who would be participating was back now, we were missing 16 people. Ten boys and six girls. Unsurprisingly with the general nature of Class C, more boys were able to get along than girls, although that wasn't very relevant right now.

There were several events where the entire class would participate coming up. Capture-the-flag, the boy's tug-of-war and the girls ball toss would be much harder, down a significant number of students.

There was some hope though. We would most likely lose most of these events, but if we suffered no more injuries the recommended events would still be fine. There were a few people missing, but for the important events, the only person missing was Horikita.

"Horikita wouldn't have been friends with Class C though," I noticed. She was the odd one out of the missing students.

"No, you're right," Kikyou muttered in agreement. "Horikita must be missing for another reason."

"Let's hope she gets back before the 1200m relay. Other than that, we just need to get through the first few events.

"Hey, but is there no way to prove that Class C did something?" Kikyou asked. According to the foul play rules, they could be disqualified for this. Baiting us in with friendship and then knocking us down with laxatives was certainly a punishable offence.

"If you can find any evidence, go ahead and complain. But they most likely shared drinks and pretended to drink themselves. By now, any evidence would have been flushed down a drain. Class C wins this time."

"Aha, once again Kiyotaka-kun is right. We'll just have to do our best and fight on."

"Kushida-san, Ayanokouji, please pay attention." Hirata called us over to where he was trying to give the class a speech. We stopped talking by ourselves and came over to join the group.