Ever since meeting the tsundere senior in the courtyard, I've been busy preparing for the school festival at the end of the month. The senior high school's Hoshinsai festival has a generous budget and is a large-scale event, but the junior high school's is smaller in scale...although it's still on the same level as an average high school's school festival, so each class was staying late after school to prepare their exhibits and do some shopping.
Our class was running a takoyaki stand, so all we had to do was prepare the takoyaki machine and tools like awls, and get the ingredients the day before. On the day itself, the boys were in charge of the backstage work and the girls were in charge of making the takoyaki, so it wasn't too difficult.ForecastIn advance
With only three days left until the school festival, I had finished preparing for my class's performance and had nothing to do, so I accompanied the disciplinary committee on their patrol. As usual, I was on patrol with Iino and Daibutsu when I overheard a conversation between two girls as we passed each other.
"So, the seven mysteries of the senior high school are..."
"No, stop it."
The Seven Mysteries, huh... Now that you mention it, I recall a bitter memory from last semester, right before the sports festival, when I was tormented by something called the Seven Mysteries of Shuchiin Academy. Six ghost stories, starting with "Skeleton" and ending with "Ring," and a seventh ghost story that required encountering the six previous ones to fulfill the conditions... I strongly vowed never to experience anything that frightening again.
"...By the way, are there any seven mysteries in the middle school?"
A question suddenly arose in my mind, and I decided to ask the Great Buddha walking beside me.
"The Seven Mysteries...? Hmm, I've never heard of them... What about you, Miko-chan?"
"...I've never heard of that either."
"Hmm, so it's only for the senior high school students..."
"Oh, but I have heard some strange rumors."
"Strange rumors?"
I asked Iino to repeat what she had said.
"Yeah, well... I heard that there are people at Shuchiin Academy that you absolutely must not make enemies of, and recently there's been a rumor that one more person has joined that group."
"Hmm, so there's a rumor like that... but it does seem to increase at strange times."
"Yeah, that's true... I could understand it if it were April when the new students come in, but..."
"..."
(...That's probably about Ishigami.)
As the Great Buddha watched the two tilting their heads, he recalled the reason why the rumor had started.
The maneuver Ishigami employed against Ogino was a sophisticated move, far beyond what one would expect from a middle schooler, stripping away Ogino's facade of lies. After that incident, people with something to hide began to distance themselves from Ishigami more than necessary. This was because they developed a sense of caution, fearing that if they opposed Ishigami, they too might be framed like Ogino. Subsequently, Ogino's whereabouts became temporarily unknown, and his bad friends began to turn themselves in one after another, leading to the inevitable suspicion that Ishigami was pulling the strings behind the scenes. The rumors grew even more exaggerated, and it was revealed that Ishigami had kept his true abilities hidden until his third year. Various speculations arose that he hadn't been in the spotlight until then, such as being in order to investigate and eliminate the problem children in the middle school.
(...Well, I know Ishigami isn't that kind of person. They say rumors only last 75 days... so those weird rumors will die down eventually.)
"...Come on, you two, you can't do your patrol if you're just spacing out, you know?"
The Great Buddha urged the two, who were tilting their heads in confusion, to continue their rounds.