The lessons that day seemed to crawl by at a snail's pace. Very few students bothered to pay attention, their minds focused on lunchtime. Even the teachers didn't seem all that bothered, as most of them seemed to recognize the futility in trying to teach a class whose minds were elsewhere. Besides, many of the teachers themselves were anticipating the fight; Inaba-sensei spent most of third period absent-mindedly caressing her Chekhov water gun.
Finally, the bell rang to end the last period before lunch, a few minutes early to allow all the students to filter out and make their last-minute preparations. Sanae stood up and crossed to Amaya's desk, gun clamped in her hands. "You ready?"
"I was born ready," Amaya replied, standing up and snatching up her Kasaiki H40.
"Good." Sanae pumped her already well-pumped gun for no real reason, other than to look cool and dramatic. "Let's soak some suckers."
***
In class 1-B, Ryouichi pocketed his twin water pistols, his belt stuffed with water balloons. After I win this battle, he thought, Sanae-senpai is sure to notice me!
Meanwhile, as the White Star Fan Club made their own preparations, Nagisa was already heading towards the classroom door. "Where are you going, Nagisa?" asked Hitomi. "I thought we agreed we'd stick together?"
"There's something in my locker that I'll be needing," replied Nagisa. "I'll meet you guys outside." With that, she vanished into the corridor.
"Alright," Hitomi called after her, "but you'd better. Hinata, quit trembling!"
"B-but... I don't want to fight..." squeaked Hinata.
"Tough beans!" said Hitomi. "Everyone has to join in whether they want to or not!" The twintailed girl gave Hinata a rather creepy smile. "Don't worry... I'll protect you, Hinata!"
***
Evidently Kazuo had not gotten the memo about the fight being compulsory, as while the other student made their final preparations, he was hiding in a broom closet, as he had been the previous year.
"It's all a trick," he muttered to himself, "a trap set to catch me. They think it's ordinary water they're firing, but in reality the Illuminati have laced it with a mind-control substance that's absorbed into your skin and allows them to control you like a puppet! It's too late to help the other students, they've already been contaminated... but if I can save myself, I can reveal the truth to the wider population! This conspiracy must be unveiled!"
***
One minute to go. Fifty-nine seconds to go. Fifty-eight. Fifty-seven. And so on. Time seemed to slow almost to a standstill as the bell to signal the start of the fight approached. Fifty-three.
Sanae and Amaya were stood back-to-back in the centre of the courtyard, guns pointed in opposite directions, covering all possible angles. Both were ready to fire at a second's notice. Amaya's trigger finger, honed by years of playing her mother's video games, twitched constantly. Above them, Kage lay on the roof with a beer, a tub of popcorn, and a pair of binoculars, eagerly awaiting the chaos that was to come. Forty-three.
Ryouichi stood crouched behind the cover of a stairwell, ridiculously posed like a gun-fu action movie hero, preparing, in his mind, to fight for Sanae's love. Kazuo stood stock-still in his broom closet, scared to make even the slightest sound in case someone discovered him and dragged him outside where, in his mind, he would meet his doom. Thirty-three.
Three of the four White Star Fan Club members stood together in a cluster, weapons primed. Hitomi was looking frantically around for Nagisa, who had still not shown up. When she finally saw Nagisa approaching, her jaw fell open, and when Mio and the still-trembling Hinata spotted her as well, their jaws fell open too. Slowly Hitomi's mouth curled into a grin, her mismatched eyes sparkling. "We are so gonna win this," she said. Fifteen.
The atmosphere in the courtyard was so tense that one could cut it with a knife. In theory. Sadly, nobody present had any knives with which to test this theory. In any case, three hundred trigger fingers twitched in anticipation as the final few seconds counted down. Three.
"This is it." breathed Sanae.
Two.
"Sanae-senpai, here I come!" muttered Ryouichi.
One.
"PREPARE TO DIE!" roared Nagisa.
Zero.
[AUTHOR NOTE: Tomorrow I will be going away on holiday and I won't be back until Friday. I will continue to write Project 20:15 posts during said holiday and will post them gradually upon my return. I may even write more than one post a day, so look forward to a prolonged spell of two posts a day ;) ]
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