The following morning, Ruko woke to the sound of his alarm.
For a few moments, he remained beneath his blanket, staring at the ceiling as the familiar sounds of the neighborhood drifted through his bedroom window. Pale sunlight slipped between the curtains, illuminating the furniture and the schoolbag resting beside his desk. Everything looked exactly as it had the day before, and the ordinary atmosphere made it difficult to believe that anything had changed.
Yet something had.
Yesterday, Seishin Academy's Gaming Research Club had fought its most important match since Ruko joined. They had faced Ishika High, challenged a team with considerably more experience, and pushed their opponents into a battle that could have ended differently if only a few crucial moments had gone their way.
They had lost.
And now, the club's future rested in the hands of Principal Rikka.
Ruko slowly reached for his phone and silenced the alarm. He sat up, rubbed his eyes, and leaned against the headboard while the memories of the previous afternoon returned with unwelcome clarity. He could still picture the final battle near the Dragon, the desperate attempts to turn the fight around, and the moment Kazuha had stood alone against the remaining Ishika players.
For a brief moment, she had looked unstoppable.
She had eliminated multiple opponents, taken down Inori, and given Seishin a chance to win despite the disastrous situation surrounding her. Ruko had watched the battle unfold with the same intensity he once brought to professional matches, searching for the smallest opening that might allow his team to recover.
Then Kazuha had misclicked.
The opening she left behind was all her opponent needed.
Seishin's Base Camp fell shortly afterward, and the final result appeared across the venue's enormous screens.
VICTORY — ISHIKA HIGH.
DEFEAT — SEISHIN ACADEMY.
Ruko had accepted the result, but accepting it didn't mean he had made peace with it. The defeat continued to bother him precisely because their chances had been real. They hadn't been completely outclassed from the beginning, nor had they simply surrendered to a stronger opponent. They had found opportunities, forced Ishika to respond, and come close enough to winning that every mistake felt heavier than it should have.
He lowered his phone and exhaled.
There's no point replaying it now.
The match was over. No amount of reviewing the final fight would change the scoreboard, and no clever analysis could undo the mistakes they had made. If the club was disbanded, the members would have to accept that consequence regardless of how close they had come.
Still, a question lingered in the back of his mind.
What is Principal Rikka going to tell us?
Ruko picked up his phone again and opened the group chat. A message from Kazuha had arrived late the previous night, shortly before he went to bed.
Kazuha:Principal Rikka wants to meet with all the members of the Gaming Research Club tomorrow morning. Please make sure everyone arrives on time. She said she has something important to discuss with us.
The replies beneath the announcement were brief. Kana had acknowledged the message, Hikari had confirmed that she would attend, and Risa had simply stated that she would be there. Ruko had sent his own response before putting his phone away, but seeing the message again did nothing to ease his concern.
Principal Rikka wasn't the sort of person who summoned an entire club without a reason. She had already made it clear that their exhibition match would determine whether the Gaming Research Club deserved to continue receiving the school's resources. Now that the match had ended, there was only one matter left to discuss.
Their future.
Ruko got out of bed and began his morning routine. He washed up, changed into his school uniform, and gathered the belongings he needed for the day. Breakfast passed without incident, though he barely paid attention to what he was eating. By the time he left home, the streets were filling with students and workers making their way through the morning traffic.
The walk to Seishin Academy gave him plenty of time to think, and his thoughts repeatedly returned to the same problem.
The team had lost, but what exactly had Principal Rikka expected to learn from that defeat?
The result proved that Ishika had won the match. It proved that their opponents had been better prepared, that Inori possessed an enormous amount of experience, and that Seishin still had weaknesses they needed to address. None of that was particularly surprising.
But did losing one match prove that the Gaming Research Club had no future?
Ruko couldn't answer that question yet. He didn't know how Rikka would interpret the results, and he had no intention of pretending that their performance had been perfect. They had made mistakes that a stronger team would punish, and some of those mistakes had directly contributed to their defeat.
Even so, he couldn't forget how much the team had improved.
Risa had adapted to Inori's movements during their encounters, gradually learning to recognize the patterns behind the marksman's attacks. Kana and Hikari had created openings despite their coordination problems, while Kazuha had demonstrated that she could survive under enormous pressure and fight back when the situation seemed hopeless.
And Ruko himself had managed to challenge Inori again.
They weren't ready to defeat Ishika consistently. They might not have been ready to win yesterday, either. But there was a difference between a team that still needed to improve and a team that had no potential at all.
He wanted to believe Principal Rikka understood that difference.
Whether she agreed was another matter.
By the time Ruko reached the school gates, his thoughts had become sufficiently tangled that he decided to stop analyzing the meeting before it even began. He adjusted the strap of his bag and headed toward the Gaming Research Club, hoping that the others had managed to get some rest.
Judging by the circumstances, he doubted it.
The hallway outside the clubroom was unusually quiet when Ruko arrived.
He stopped in front of the familiar door and listened for a moment. In the past, he could usually hear the club's occupants before he even reached the room. Hikari's lively voice, Kana's complaints, Risa's dry observations, and Kazuha's attempts to keep everyone organized often blended into a familiar sort of chaos.
This morning, there was little of that.
A few quiet voices came from inside, but the atmosphere lacked its usual energy. Ruko couldn't tell whether the others were deliberately keeping their voices down or simply didn't have anything left to say.
He opened the door.
Hikari and Kana were already seated at the table. Hikari had folded her arms across her chest and was staring toward the window with an expression that suggested she had been arguing with someone moments earlier. Kana sat beside her, her shoulders slumped and her gaze fixed on the tabletop.
Ruko noticed Kana's condition almost immediately.
Her eyes were red, and the skin around them looked slightly swollen. Her hair wasn't as neatly arranged as usual, and the tiredness in her face made it clear that she hadn't slept well. She appeared to have spent a considerable part of the night wrestling with thoughts she couldn't resolve.
Ruko knew that feeling.
After a defeat, the mind had a habit of returning to the same moments, examining every mistake and imagining all the ways things might have gone differently. It was especially difficult when the result carried consequences beyond the match itself.
For Kana, this wasn't simply a loss on a scoreboard. She had joined the club, practiced with the others, and gradually become part of a team that had given her something to look forward to. Now, the possibility of losing that place had turned every memory of their time together into something painful.
Ruko quietly closed the door behind him.
"...Morning."
Hikari glanced at him.
"Morning."
Her response was brief, and she immediately looked away again.
Kana lifted her head a little later. She tried to smile, but the expression barely formed before fading.
"...Good morning."
Her voice sounded weak.
Ruko hesitated. He considered asking if she was all right, but the question seemed unnecessary. Even if Kana answered that she was fine, neither of them would believe it.
Instead, he placed his bag beside an empty chair and looked around the room.
Risa wasn't there yet.
Kazuha was seated near the opposite side of the table, writing on a sheet of paper. Her back was straight, and she held her pen with the same steady grip she used when organizing Student Council documents. From a distance, she looked almost unaffected by the previous day's defeat, as though she were preparing for an ordinary school meeting rather than waiting to learn whether the club she had fought to preserve would be disbanded.
Ruko watched her for a moment.
He had noticed that composure yesterday, too.
Even when the match had begun slipping away from them, Kazuha had continued making decisions and searching for opportunities. She hadn't abandoned the team when the situation became difficult, and she had fought until she was the last member of Seishin still standing.
Her final performance had been more than a desperate attempt to delay the inevitable. She had read the battlefield, selected her targets, and eliminated opponents who had expected to finish the match without further trouble. When she brought down Inori, the entire fight changed for a moment.
Ruko remembered the feeling that had surged through him.
She might actually do it.
He had known the odds were against her, but he had still found himself leaning forward, watching each movement as if his attention alone could somehow help her succeed. Kazuha had carried herself with a determination that reminded him of players who refused to accept defeat even when the situation was nearly impossible.
Then came the misclick.
Ruko could still remember the precise moment her movement failed to match her intention. It had been a small error, the sort that might go unnoticed in an ordinary game. In a decisive fight, however, it had cost her the opening she needed.
He understood that such mistakes were part of competition. He had made them himself, including mistakes that had haunted him long after a match ended. Nevertheless, watching Kazuha lose after coming so close had left him with a strange feeling he couldn't quite explain.
Perhaps it was disappointment.
Perhaps it was the recognition of something familiar.
Or perhaps it was because, for a brief moment yesterday, he had wondered whether he was seeing someone he had known long before this club existed.
Ruko's gaze drifted toward Kazuha's hands.
She was still writing, her pen moving in small, precise strokes. The paper appeared to contain a list of points, though he couldn't read the details from where he stood. Her fingers paused whenever she seemed to be considering her next sentence, then resumed with the same careful rhythm.
There was something about the gesture that tugged at his memory.
He couldn't immediately identify what it was, and that uncertainty bothered him more than it should have.
"...Morning, Ruko."
Kazuha looked up, catching him staring.
He shifted his attention to her face.
"...Morning."
She offered him a small, tired smile before returning to her notes. The exchange was ordinary, familiar, and entirely consistent with the way she had spoken to him countless times before.
That was what made the thought so difficult to dismiss.
Could Kazuha be Mitsuru?
Ruko's expression barely changed, but the question struck him with enough force that his attention stopped following the movement of Kazuha's pen.
It wasn't the first time the possibility had crossed his mind. He had entertained the thought before, usually in brief moments when Kazuha did something unexpected or reacted to him in a way that seemed unusually perceptive. Each time, he had dismissed it for the same reason: there was no evidence.
But yesterday had given him more to think about.
Kazuha's performance had revealed a side of her he hadn't fully appreciated. She was more capable under pressure than he had assumed, and her determination to keep fighting had reminded him of a particular quality he remembered from his years playing competitive Nervanox.
Mitsuru had possessed that quality, too.
Of course, so did plenty of other players. Determination wasn't unique, and neither was the ability to perform well in a difficult match. Ruko knew that better than anyone. He had spent years studying opponents, identifying patterns, and separating meaningful information from coincidences that only appeared significant after the fact.
Still, the resemblance had lodged itself in his mind.
He remembered how Mitsuru had played beside him for three years. She had been the Legendary Roamer, the teammate whose movements often seemed to anticipate the direction of a fight before it began. When Ruko committed to a play, Mitsuru frequently understood what he intended without needing a lengthy explanation. She knew when to create space for him, when to draw an opponent away, and when to abandon a seemingly favorable fight because the real opportunity lay elsewhere.
Their coordination hadn't appeared overnight. It had developed through countless matches, countless mistakes, and the slow accumulation of experience that allowed two players to trust each other's decisions.
Sometimes, Ruko had barely needed to say anything.
Mitsuru would understand.
That was what he missed most about playing with her: not merely her skill, but the ease with which they had worked together.
And then there was the other part of his memory.
The part he had spent years trying not to revisit.
He remembered their conversations after matches, the casual remarks that had gradually become familiar, and the way their partnership had extended beyond the game itself. Mitsuru had been someone he could talk to without having to explain every thought that crossed his mind. She had listened when he was frustrated, challenged him when he was being unreasonable, and remained beside him through victories and defeats alike.
For three years, he had known her through a screen.
Yet he had never known her face.
He had never known the ordinary details of her life that other people took for granted. He hadn't known what she looked like when she was tired, how she behaved around classmates, or what expression crossed her face when she was trying to hide an emotion. He had known the person she chose to reveal through their conversations and the game they played together, but that knowledge had never given him a complete picture of who she was.
Then, when he finally gathered the courage to tell her how he felt, Mitsuru had told him that she was a boy.
Ruko still remembered the shock of hearing those words.
He remembered how quickly the future he had imagined collapsed, and how difficult it had been to continue speaking to her as though nothing had changed. He had eventually withdrawn from competitive play, abandoned the account that had once represented so much of his life, and convinced himself that he would be better off leaving those feelings behind.
He had told himself that the world of two-dimensional characters was simpler.
They couldn't reject him in the same way. They couldn't conceal an identity he had spent years trying to understand, and they couldn't turn an ordinary conversation into something he would replay in his mind long after it ended.
It had been an easy conclusion to hide behind.
But it hadn't answered the questions Mitsuru left behind.
Why had she told him about being a boy so suddenly? Why had she never explained anything else about her life? And why, after he had returned to Seishin and joined the Gaming Research Club, had he found himself receiving clues that suggested she was closer than he had imagined?
The message from the storage room still lingered in his memory.
If you can figure out who I am by the time we graduate... I'll answer everything.
Mitsuru hadn't said that she had left his life forever. She hadn't told him that they would never meet. Instead, she had given him a condition and left him to search for an answer.
That meant she was somewhere in the world he already occupied.
Possibly closer than he wanted to believe.
Ruko looked at Kazuha again.
She had stopped writing and was reading over her notes, her brows drawing together slightly as she reconsidered something on the page. A loose strand of brown hair had fallen near her cheek, and she tucked it behind her ear without thinking.
It was an ordinary gesture.
There was nothing mysterious about it.
And yet, Ruko found himself wondering what he would feel if he learned that the girl sitting across from him had been Mitsuru all along.
Would he be angry?
Would he demand to know why she had allowed him to search for her while remaining within reach?
Would he ask whether their years of friendship had been built on a truth she had deliberately concealed from him?
Or would the anger disappear the moment he finally heard her explain herself?
He didn't know.
That uncertainty was precisely what made the possibility dangerous. If Kazuha really was Mitsuru, then the truth would change more than his understanding of their current relationship. It would force him to reconsider memories he had spent years interpreting in only one way.
He would have to ask himself whether the distance between them had always been as real as he believed.
He would have to confront the possibility that the person he had been searching for had been standing beside him all this time.
And he would have to understand why.
Ruko's fingers tightened around the strap of his bag.
No. That's too much of a leap.
He forced himself to look away.
There were similarities, but similarities weren't proof. Kazuha was his childhood friend, and that alone explained why she sometimes understood his habits better than other people did. They had known each other for years. She had seen him before his retirement, before his bitterness toward romance became a convenient shield, and before he began treating every new girl in his life with suspicion.
Of course she could recognize his behavior.
Of course she could anticipate some of his reactions.
And as for her performance in Nervanox, it was entirely possible that he had underestimated her. Kazuha had spent considerable time playing the game, and yesterday's match had demonstrated that she possessed instincts he hadn't fully recognized. Her ability to fight under pressure didn't mean she had once been the Legendary Roamer.
If he treated every resemblance as evidence, he would eventually convince himself of whatever answer he wanted to find.
That was no different from forcing a pattern onto a battlefield simply because he wanted a particular strategy to work.
He knew better than that.
I don't have proof. Not even close.
Ruko exhaled quietly and turned his attention toward the table.
He wouldn't accuse Kazuha based on a suspicion he couldn't explain. He wouldn't allow his memories of Mitsuru to distort the way he saw his childhood friend, either. Until he had something concrete, the question would remain exactly what it was: a possibility, nothing more.
Still, the thought refused to disappear completely.
If it really is her...
He stopped himself before the sentence could continue.
For now, he had a more immediate problem to worry about.
The Gaming Research Club was waiting for a verdict, and whatever Principal Rikka decided would determine whether they had a future together.
"Would you stop saying that?!"
Hikari's raised voice pulled Ruko out of his thoughts.
He turned toward the two girls at the table. Kana had lowered her head again, while Hikari leaned forward in her chair with her hands clenched against the tabletop.
"But it's true," Kana replied. "We lost."
"So what?!" Hikari shot back. "That doesn't mean we should sit here acting like everything is already over!"
Kana flinched at the volume of her voice. Hikari noticed, but the frustration she had been holding back since yesterday made it difficult for her to stop.
"We can still think of something! We can talk to Principal Rikka, ask for another chance, or figure out some other way to save the club!"
Kana shook her head slowly.
"What would that change?"
Hikari stared at her, clearly struggling to understand why Kana seemed so determined to give up before the meeting had even begun.
"What do you mean?"
"The condition was clear." Kana's voice trembled as she finally looked up. "We had to win the exhibition match. We didn't win, so the club will be disbanded."
She pressed her lips together, trying to steady herself before continuing.
"We all knew that was a possibility. We knew what would happen if we lost."
Hikari's expression tightened.
"That doesn't mean we should give up!"
"I'm not giving up!"
Kana's sudden outburst silenced the room.
Her eyes had become wet again, and she quickly turned her face away as though she regretted letting her emotions show.
"I'm just saying we lost! What else am I supposed to say?!"
Hikari stared at her, momentarily unable to respond.
Kana lowered her gaze and rubbed at her eyes.
"...I'm sorry. I didn't mean to shout."
Her voice had become small, and the apology only made the tension between them more uncomfortable.
Hikari's shoulders stiffened before gradually dropping.
"...No. It's fine."
But neither of them looked convinced.
Ruko understood why they were reacting so differently. Hikari was angry because she blamed herself for what had happened during the match. She had been caught by Inori, lost opportunities to contribute, and watched the team struggle to recover from the pressure their opponent created. She wanted to do something about it, even if she had no clear idea what that something should be.
Kana's distress came from a different place. She wanted to believe their efforts had meant something, but she couldn't find a reason to be optimistic when the very condition that had threatened the club's existence had gone against them. The match was over, and she was afraid that everything they had built together would disappear with it.
Hikari wanted to keep fighting.
Kana wanted to know whether there was anything left to fight for.
Neither of them was wrong, but their frustration was making it difficult for them to understand each other.
Before either girl could speak again, Kazuha put down her pen and stood.
"That's enough."
Her voice wasn't loud, but it carried the kind of authority that made both girls look toward her.
Kazuha walked around the table and stopped between them.
"Both of you, calm down."
Hikari folded her arms.
"I'm calm."
"No, you're not."
Hikari opened her mouth, then closed it again.
Kazuha turned toward Kana.
"And repeating the same conclusion over and over isn't helping, either."
Kana lowered her eyes.
"...I know."
Kazuha's expression softened. She glanced at Hikari before looking back at Kana, making sure that neither felt as though she was taking the other's side.
"I understand that you're upset. All of us are. Nobody wanted to lose that match, and nobody wanted to put the club's future at risk. But arguing with each other isn't going to change the result."
Hikari looked down at the table, her hands slowly loosening.
Kazuha continued in a gentler voice.
"We'll hear what Principal Rikka has to say, and then we'll decide what to do next. Until then, there's no point fighting among ourselves."
Kana wiped her eyes quickly and nodded.
"...Okay."
Hikari turned toward the window.
"...Fine."
Kazuha waited a moment to make sure neither intended to continue the argument before returning to her seat. She picked up her pen again, but instead of resuming her notes, she stared at the paper without writing anything.
Ruko noticed the change.
Kazuha had always been good at keeping people organized. As Student Council President, she was accustomed to dealing with disagreements, managing responsibilities, and presenting herself as someone who could handle a problem even when she was tired. But the way she had stopped over her notes suggested that her composure was costing her more effort than she wanted anyone to realize.
She was worried, too.
Perhaps more than she was willing to admit.
Ruko took his seat and placed his bag beside him. Nobody spoke for a while. Hikari stared out the window, Kana tried to compose herself, and Kazuha sat with her hands resting on the paper she had been writing on.
The clock on the wall continued ticking.
Each passing minute brought them closer to the meeting they had been dreading.
Ruko looked toward the door.
He didn't know what Principal Rikka had decided, but he knew that the next few minutes could change everything.
Footsteps eventually echoed through the hallway.
The sound was measured and unhurried, accompanied by the faint murmur of a conversation. All five students weren't present yet, but the moment the footsteps approached their room, the remaining conversation died away.
Ruko straightened in his chair.
Kazuha set her pen down.
Hikari unfolded her arms, and Kana quickly wiped her eyes one last time before sitting up.
The footsteps stopped outside the door.
For a brief moment, nobody moved.
Then the handle turned.
Risa entered first, her expression more subdued than usual. She adjusted her glasses and stepped aside, allowing the woman behind her to follow.
Principal Rikka walked into the clubroom.
She wore her usual professional attire, and her long white hair fell neatly over her shoulders. Her crimson eyes moved across the room, taking in the students with the composed attention she displayed during school assemblies. In her hands was a collection of documents, neatly arranged and secured together.
Risa closed the door behind them.
"Sorry we're late," she said quietly.
"It's fine," Kazuha replied.
Risa gave a small nod and took the empty seat beside Hikari. Her gaze briefly met Hikari's, but neither girl spoke. Risa's expression was difficult to read, though the slight tension around her eyes suggested that she had been unable to persuade her mother to change her mind.
She had promised to speak with Principal Rikka.
Whether that conversation had helped remained unclear.
Now that her mother stood in front of them, there was no escaping the matter any longer.
Kana sat with her hands folded in her lap. Hikari tried to maintain a neutral expression, although the tension in her shoulders betrayed her. Kazuha remained composed, but her fingers tightened slightly around the edge of the paper on the table.
Ruko watched Principal Rikka.
The principal placed the documents against her side and stood before the seated students. For several seconds, she said nothing. Her gaze moved from Hikari to Kana, then to Risa and Kazuha, before finally settling on Ruko.
There was no obvious anger in her expression.
She didn't look disappointed, either, and there was no sign that she intended to scold them for their performance. Instead, she wore a faint, almost pleasant smile, the sort of expression she might have used while greeting a guest at a formal school event.
Somehow, it made the room feel even more uncomfortable.
Ruko had never found Principal Rikka easy to read. She was capable of being approachable when she wanted to be, particularly when speaking with her daughter, but her position required her to make decisions that couldn't always be softened by personal feelings. When she evaluated a student's performance, she tended to focus on what could be demonstrated rather than what someone hoped to achieve.
The documents in her hands only reinforced that impression.
This wasn't an informal conversation.
She had come prepared to deliver a decision.
"Thank you for coming here this morning," Principal Rikka began.
Her voice was clear and composed, carrying easily through the quiet room.
"As you all know, yesterday's exhibition match was arranged to evaluate the current state of Seishin Academy's Gaming Research Club."
Nobody interrupted.
Rikka continued, maintaining the same measured tone.
"The club has been operating under considerable scrutiny because of its previous results, its use of school resources, and the lack of consistent evidence that its activities are producing the outcomes expected of a school organization. Before making a final decision, I wanted to give the club an opportunity to demonstrate its current capabilities in a competitive environment."
Kana's hands tightened in her lap.
Hikari lowered her eyes.
Risa remained still, listening without expression.
"The condition was straightforward," Rikka said. "You were given the opportunity to compete against Ishika High and demonstrate that the Gaming Research Club could justify its continued existence. The result of that match would be taken into consideration when determining whether the club should be allowed to continue its activities."
Ruko watched her carefully.
He had known this was coming since he had read Kazuha's message the previous night. Nevertheless, hearing the condition repeated aloud made the situation feel more final. It was one thing to worry about a decision that had yet to be announced; it was another to sit in the room while the person responsible for making that decision explained the reasons behind it.
Rikka glanced down at the documents in her hands.
"I have reviewed the match results and considered the circumstances surrounding the club's performance. I have also taken the school's responsibilities and the resources allocated to extracurricular activities into account."
She paused, allowing her words to settle.
"I have reached my decision."
The room fell completely silent.
Even Hikari, who had spent the morning insisting that they should keep fighting, didn't say a word. Kana stopped moving altogether, her eyes fixed on the table. Risa's expression tightened almost imperceptibly, while Kazuha sat perfectly still, her gaze never leaving the principal.
Ruko felt his stomach tighten.
He had spent the morning trying to convince himself that there might still be a way forward. They had improved, they had fought hard, and they had demonstrated potential that wasn't reflected by the final scoreboard. He wanted to believe those things mattered.
But he wasn't the one holding the documents.
Principal Rikka raised her eyes and looked at all five students.
Her faint smile remained unchanged.
Then she delivered her verdict.
"The Gaming Research Club will be disbanded."