Act 16: Scene 5

"Very well, Hasebe-san, I will allow you to use that name when referring to me. However..." she let out an exasperated sigh, before flashing her icy glare once more. "You can only do so either in private or when in the presence of everyone else here. You are not, under any circumstances, allowed to call me by that name in any other scenario."

"F-Fair enough, Hori-chan..." Haruka chuckled nervously, while feeling relieved that things didn't escalate into something bad.

"Thank you for being considerate, Horikita-san," Kikyo smiled at her friend, who only folded her arms and turned away. It's apparent that Suzune still felt somewhat annoyed, but at least she wasn't vocal about it anymore. "Now, what were you saying earlier, Hasebe-san?"

Haruka took a deep breath to recompose herself, before continuing to speak. "As I was saying a while ago, can we go with you three? I did some more searching around for our witness during lunch earlier, and I'd like to talk about everything we found out together."

"When you say 'we', are you including Inogashira and Mori too?" asked Kiyotaka, raising an eyebrow out of curiosity.

A hearty laugh came out of the blue-haired girl. "Ahaha, yeah. Before we could catch up to you three, the two of them stopped us for a moment and asked if they could help too. Of course, I couldn't ignore Ne-chan and Koko-chan if they wanted to help Miyacchi."

"Right, but that doesn't explain why they're grabbing his arms like that..." the young man pointed out, glancing at the other boy who looked uncomfortable right now in his current situation.

"Don't ask," was all that Akito could say with the red hue on his face, most likely because of the two girls hugging his arms. The worst part is that both Inogashira and Mori didn't seem like they cared about the possible implications of their actions.

"Alright, I won't."

Despite his words, Kiyotaka continued to keep an eye on Akito and found himself feeling amused at his classmate's situation.

It's just like seeing Sudo struggle with keeping his composure around Onodera but unlike him, Miyake here was currently trying to deal with two girls. To be able to watch someone else having to handle a couple of girls like what he has done felt cathartic.

Heh.

Now he's beginning to wonder if the system is responsible for Miyake being in this situation.

"So, can we go with you three?" asked Haruka, repeating her question from earlier.

Suzune turned towards her and shook her head. "It's not my decision to make, since we were planning to head to Kushida-san's room."

Upon hearing that, Haruka quickly turned towards Kikyo with a hopeful look in her eyes.

Kikyo merely gave her a smile. "You can come with us if you want, Hasebe-san. I'd like to hear about what you found out during your little search earlier."

"Awesome!" Haruka exclaimed and, in a short burst of excitement, gave her classmate a quick hug. "Thanks, Kyo-chan!"

Kikyo was a little surprised at the sudden hug, but returned it after a few moments. "You're welcome, Hasebe-san. Come on, let's go so we don't waste any more time!"

With that, the whole group headed to the dorms. The journey to get there was a little quiet but after reaching their classmate's dorm room, it became louder, particularly between Haruka, Nene, Kokoro, and Kikyo.

Once they were there, Kikyo waited for all of her classmates to get in before closing the door. She then joined everyone else at the center of her room before Suzune began to speak.

"Well, Hasebe-san? What would you like to share with everyone?" she asked.

Haruka looked at everyone for a second, before responding. "Kiyopon told Miyacchi about another way that we can find the witness, and Miyacchi told me about it earlier. I thought it was a really great plan and I want to get into it right away."

"Kiyopon...?" Suzune frowned in confusion.

"I think it's her nickname for Ayanokouji-kun," Kikyo told her friend, who took a moment to consider those words in her mind. "What did Ayanokouji-kun come up with, Hasebe-san?"

Haruka adopted a thinking pose before she spoke. "Instead of asking people if they've seen the incident with their own eyes, we should ask if they've seen anyone near the bathhouse on the day that it happened. That way, we wouldn't have a harder time looking for our witness because instead of looking for the person who saw the whole thing, we'll be searching for people who saw someone near that place... or at least, that's what Miyacchi told me."

Kikyo, Nene, and Kokoro's eyes widened slowly as they thought about that idea carefully in their minds.

It made sense, the more they thought about it. Instead of wasting time and energy searching for the person who saw the incident happen, they would just have to ask other people around if they've seen someone near the bathhouse that day!

"Ayanokouji-kun came up with that?" asked Kikyo, feeling amazed at the idea and how much more effective it sounded than their initial plan.

Yesterday, Suzune told her that Kiyotaka was actually a very intelligent student underneath the 'average student' image that he was putting up and while she simply accepted that for what it is, only now was she seeing a glimpse of what the young man was capable of.

Akito nodded, confirming Kikyo's question. "Yeah. He told me, Sudo, and Onodera at lunch about it."

"I think it's a reasonable strategy," Suzune spoke up, causing everyone to turn to her. "Instead of finding the root of our evidence, we'll be looking for clues that lead to that exact root. It would also prevent the students of Class C from finding out that we're catching on to their scheme. Is this what you had in mind, Ayanokouji-kun?"

As Suzune shifted her gaze towards Kiyotaka, everyone else also turned their heads towards him. With the attention now on him, Kiyotaka stared at all of them for a brief moment, before shrugging nonchalantly.

"Pretty much. It was just an idea I made up on the fly, though. It's nothing special."

The raven-haired girl shook her head. Even when she was trying to say that his plan had merit, he brushes it off like it was just something that wasn't thought about deeply? Is he just that adamant about sticking to the shadows that he would downplay his own idea even though it was interesting and was worth giving a shot?

Well, at least he was helping out. That's still what matters in the end.

After a few moments of silence between classmates, Kokoro raised her hand to make everyone turn to her, before speaking in a determined voice.

"I'll walk around tomorrow and ask people right away!"

"Same here!" Nene agreed with a nod, flashing a serious look. "If this can help prove Miyake-kun's innocence a lot sooner, then I'll help as much as I can!"

Akito wisely chose to turn away as he heard those words, otherwise everyone would have seen a twinge of red in his cheeks from embarrassment... but he couldn't hide it from Kiyotaka himself.

The 'Masterpiece' smirked internally from amusement. It was clear that these two girls were strangely determined to help Akito for some reason, and it was enough to make the magenta-haired teen feel flustered as a result.

"Me and Kiyopon will do the same. Hopefully, it'll be easier to get a lead this way, because we're down to only four days before Miyacchi's trial. We have to work even harder to find out who saw the fight!"

Suzune stared at them with an impassive look on her face, before letting out a sigh.

"If the four of you are going for that tactic, then I suppose Kushida-san and I will proceed with our plan to ask Shiina-san if she knows anything. Perhaps even take a photo of Class C so that Miyake-kun can point out the people who attacked him."

Kiyotaka nodded at her words, knowing what she was talking about while the rest of them looked confused, since they weren't part of the conversation that they had two days ago with Kikyo and Kei.

"Wait, who's Shiina?" asked Haruka with a raised eyebrow.

"Ah, she's just a friend of ours from Class C, Hasebe-san. Don't worry, though! She's not a bad person, and I don't think she's involved in what happened to Miyake-kun," Kikyo explained.

"Oh, so you three have a friend from Class C? Nice!" the bluenette exclaimed, now overcome with excitement and glee upon learning of someone who could be their ally. "I hope she can help us then!"

Inogashira and Mori shared the same sentiment and smiled as well, both pleased with the turn of events because things seemed to be favoring them now. If this continues, then they'll be able to prove Miyake's innocence very soon!

"If she can't, then a picture of Class C is all Miyake needs to point out who are the students that ganged up on him," Kiyotaka added.

"And from there, we can find out how to turn the case around if we are not able to find our eyewitness in time, assuming there even was a witness in the first place," Suzune continued.

That stopped the little moment of celebration that Mori and Inogashira had and caused them to look worried once more.

"Horikita-san, you don't believe that there's someone who could have seen what happened?"

"I am only speaking from a realistic standpoint, Inogashira-san. Because Miyake-kun is unsure about the possibility of there being a witness to the incident, we must be prepared for the instance where we'll have to work without a witness to testify for us."

The two girls seemed doubtful of Horikita's words, mostly because they wanted to believe that someone was there to see their classmate being beaten down helplessly. They didn't want to believe that he was completely alone at that time...

"She's right. I could be wrong about what I said and that there was no one around when I fought those Class C guys," Akito agreed. "There's nothing wrong with thinking about the worst thing that could happen."

"Then what do we do if that's the case, Miyacchi? What if no one was there when it happened?"

As Haruka asked that question, the whole group was left silent. They tried to think of something that they could try in case that scenario happens, but nothing was coming up in mind.

In the specific scenario where Shiina had no clue regarding the incident and where there wasn't any witness at all, the only option left for them would be using a photo of Class C and have Miyake identify his attackers. However, that would only give them the identity of those people. It wouldn't lead to proving his innocence at all because there was no proof.

As of now, their hopes of winning the upcoming hearing rests upon the chances of a girl possibly knowing something about her classmates' misdeeds, and the chances of a person seeing what happened on that day.

"I'll get you all something to drink then," Kikyo giggled as she stood up to fetch some glasses for her classmates. She noticed that they had been silent for a few minutes now, and everyone was still thinking deeply about this situation they were in. "I think we're gonna be here for a while, hehe..."