The Unexpected Challenge (Part-2)

A lone girl was walking back towards her dorm, returning from her visit from the school swimming pool. Her dark hairs still had the tingling smell of chlorine on them, she was strangely tall for a highschool girl which made her presence noticed by anyone passing around her. With headphones on, listening to some loud metallic music she moved forward without any care of the world. Her appearance gave off a delinquent vibe from her.

However much her presence was noticable, some people are always lost in their own world.

*squish*

"Uwaaaah!"

*thud*

A pair of 1st year girls were passing by, they both held an ice cream cone in their hands. The girl whose height was similar to an elementary school kid, was happily talking to her partner while eating the ice cream. She slipped because of stepping on a stone, lost her balance and feel straight on her face. Though, her ice cream cone took the liberty to fly away towards the person who was coming from the opposite direction.

"Uwoooooohh...."

"Silica! Are you okay?" The other girl, unaware of the other party showed her concern.

"Y-yeah, I got a small scratch on my forearm though."

"I'm glad, you should watch where you walk, here, get up." She offered a hand to Silica.

"Thanks Liz!"

While watching there childish play, the victim of this incident looked at her bag and started glaring daggers at the pair.

"Yeah, you should really watch where you go..."

As if noticing what had happened just now, Silica tensed up, which pissed off the supposedly victim girl even more.

"U-um, I'm really really sorry!" Silica tried to apologise.

"Like hell your sorry's gonna do anythin, look at my clothes. That cone even fell inside my damn bag! It's all spoiled now!"

"I really apologise for it, I... I'll get it cleaned up for you too."

"Eehh? you really think you can clean this?" The tall girl moved forward and grabbed Silica's collar. "Aren't you good at talking back to your upperclassmen?"

"Talking back? But she only apologised to you. I don't thing she said anything wrong." Her partner, Lisbeth, tried to defend her.

"So you're saying spoiling my clothes is not wrong? Eh?"

"T-that's not what I meant..."

At this point, a small crowd started to gather around them, most of those were 2nd years. Looking at the crowd, tears started to well up in Silica's eyes.

"You think crying will solve everything? Stop that and look straight in my eyes."

"But you should also have been careful, you were walking with a headphone on that's why you didn't noticed it..." Lisbeth tried to rebuke again.

"Oh, so you're shifting all the blame on me? Really are a good for nothing kids. And it's not "You", my name's Pitohui." The delinquent looking girl, Pitohui made another snide remark on them.

"Uh, Pitohui senpai, I know it was my fault and I'm really sorry for it. Like I said, I will clean up-" As Silica gathered a bit of courage and spoke up, her words were cut down by her senpai.

Pitohui, while grabbing Silica's collar, was now lifting her in air.

"And like I said, I don't need your apology, you ruined my swimsuit!"

Even at this violent display shown to all the audience gathered around them, no one spoke up, not even the students from the same grade as Pitohui's. All they did was watch it over with worried expressions while whispering.

No one spoke out loud besides one student who arrived at the scene a few seconds ago.

"Hey! Stop it!"

***

Me and Koharu just arrived at the scene in time to see how a girl, even taller than myself, was lifting up another girl with a single hand grabbing her collar.

What kind of troublesome students are they, doing something like this which completely violates the school rules, and on the first day at that. I totally don't want to get involved with them.

But that was just me, I looked out for Koharu who was supposed to be standing next to me was now nowhere to be found. As I searched for her figure in the small crowd which was gathered, her voice reached my ears.

"Hey! Stop it!"

"Eh? You want to say something?"

"Yes, please stop bullying her."

At that, she let go of the girl who fell down on her butt and started moving towards Koharu.

Ah, we're done for.

"I'm bullying her? Ya know that she's the one who was wrong, I'm the victim here."

"I understand that, but using violence is going way too far."

"So? You're saying that I should just apologise to them for ruining my swimming gear and leave?"

"We said that we'd take complete responsibility of it, and even offered to wash it for her!" The girl who was supposedly the friend of the chibi girl joined in too.

"See, they'll take full responsibility of it. What's the problem then?"Koharu replied back with an unwavering gaze.

As I was standing at the back, listening to the murmuring of the girls, I realised a few things, that the one they are standing against is a second year senpai of ours and she has a really bad personality at that which is probably the reason no one was trying to stop her, she must have done something really big in past.

Looking at the face of the senpai, her expressions were always the same throughout this all, she had a very bold smile on. It was as if she was enjoying this.

And just as I thought of it, she moved her hand towards Koharu, who still stood there unfazed. This is turning out to be really bad.

"Wait!"

Before senpai could do anything, I dashed towards her and called out.

"Ho? We have another one here. You one of the 1st year's too? They sure are bold."

"No- I mean, yes, I'm a 1st year student..." I stopped, thinking what should I say next.

"S-senpai, let them go for today, it's just their first day here, they still haven't gotten used to the school... ha ha..."

She looked at me with an expression so bored, as if saying go away, you're not worth my time, don't ruin my fun.

"Watching that pathetic behaviour of your really makes me loose my motivation to continue here." She stopped for a moment which almost made me believe that she's going to leave, but then, "Get out of here if you're not even willing to put up a fight!"

Her voice was way to strict, and strong, strong enough to send chills down my spine.

"Tha-..that's not it..." I trailed of the sentence realising that there was no way for me to reason with her. She just wants someone who is willing to put up a fight to her, she finds that entertaining, something like what I did would just make the matter worse in her case.

"Apologise to her."

"Eh?"

"I said, apologise to Kuunya." Koharu stood up for me, with a stern expression, she faced the senpai.

"Heh, why should I, she was the one who came out on her own, and not like what I said was wrong."

"You're wrong, she was brave enough to stand up for these two girls here, that was her will to fight. Fighting against something and just using violence are two different things."

What was this girl saying? The only reason I interrupted them was because she entered this mess before me, as we were explained before, our pair will be judged as an individual, I just wanted to make sure nothing wrong happens with us.

"So you are willing for a fight if not violence?" The senpai, now with the bold smile returned to her face, said.

"Eh?" For the first time, Koharu let loose of her expressions and looked confused.

"You're fine with a 'fight' right?"

"... As long as it's not something violent, I guess." Koharu replied carefully.

"It's a fight then, I challenge you for a swimming race!" The expression she made was as if she had said something really evil.

"Ehhhhhhh!?" Koharu who was totally confused could do nothing but make such sounds.

"Two weeks later, after your periodical tests ends, we'll have the match. You can't refuse, if you don't appear on that day, I'll complain about the incident which happened here, how my swimming gear, got spoilt and how I was talked back by on it by my cute kouhais. If you win, I won't ask for anything from you." She said it, looking very happy. And as if she was satisfied, she picked up her bag and started to leave.

"Oh, and also, you there chibi, you'll be coming too, don'cha dare forgetting about it." She said to the girl who was probably the cause for this whole scene.

And just like that, after causing all this storm, she left.

Slowly, the crowd started dissipating and only the 4 of us were left.

"Thank you very much." Said the friend of the chibi girl.

"Yeah..." The chibi girl joined in her gratitude too.

"It's okay, you both are fine?" Koharu showed her concern.

"Yeah, we're really sorry for causing all the trouble"

"Don't worry about it, I'm Koharu by the way." Koharu smoothly tries to change the conversation topic.

"I'm Kuunya, what about you guys?" I tried to join in changing the topic too.

"This is Silica and I am Lisbeth." Lisbeth gave a simple introduction for them both. The chibi girl or Silica as she was introduced looked really scared.

"Thanks for standing up for me, really." Silica said.

"It's fine, it's fine." I tried to assure her.

"It's okay now." Lisbeth embraced Silica and whispered those words in her ear.

As releif washed over her, Silica started sobbing. Well, it couldn't be helped, she seems like someone with a very weak mentality and after going through that, it feels obvious that she would cry.

"Thank you very much" They both thanked us again.

"What are you going to do now?" Koharu asked.

"I think we should leave for today, it's just that so much happened, we need some time." Lisbeth spoke for them both.

"It's fine, that'd be really good. I think we'll leave too." Koharu replied.

"See ya." I bid farewell to them.

"Yeah, we should meet tomorrow, you know, to talk about it..." Silica, now looking better, said.

"Where do we meet? School cafeteria would be good." Koharu suggested.

"Yeah, that sounds good, we'll arrive there during the lunch break."

"Okay then, goodbye!" Koharu said with her usual smile.

"See you both." Lisbeth replied, Silica just waved her hand.

Ah, we're finally done with it, this was really troublesome. Anyways, I can finally go home.

As we started walking towards the dorms, Koharu asked me.

"Are you fine?"

"Hmm? Yeah, why so suddenly?"

"You know, what happened back there..." Koharu replied with a troubled expression.

"I'm not really the type of person who'd feel down just from going through something like that."

"You were really brave though." She probably thought that I was lying about being fine and was just putting up an act.

If anything, Koharu was the brave one, she stood there unfazed against the opponent for someone she didn't even knew, not many people can do that. As troublesome I thought it was, what she did was really cool. Yes, she was definitely cool and cute.

"By the way Kuunya."

"Yeah?" I looked at Koharu.

"Do you know how to swim?"

"Oh..."