"Um... everyone, why are you all in my dorm...?"
Seeing his dorm packed wall-to-wall with Umamusume—and not just his own team, either, but even people like Rudolf, Tazuna, and Komata-san—Kitahara was completely baffled.
He had only gone out for a bit. How had his room suddenly ended up with this many people in it by the time he got back? And why did the atmosphere feel so heavy?
Faced with his question, the girls in the room looked at one another. Then Grass Wonder stepped up to explain.
"It's like this, Trainer Kitahara. We want to have a sleepover tonight."
A sleepover?
Kitahara froze for a second when he heard the word.
Was today some kind of special occasion? Right, it was Valentine's Day... but as far as he remembered, Valentine's Day in Japan didn't come with any sleepover tradition...
Well, whatever.
He had no idea what this was about, but it was their business, not his. If they wanted a sleepover, then a sleepover it was.
With that in mind, Kitahara walked in and asked as he went, "Have you picked a place yet? There are too many of you for most venues, and on a night like this, anywhere outside that could host a sleepover is probably hard to find. Most of them are probably already booked..."
"Ah, that's fine," someone answered. "Because we're planning to have it here."
"Oh, here... huh?"
The instant it sank in, Kitahara stopped dead. He looked around at the room, then back at the girls, and asked uncertainly, "Um... are you sure you want to have a sleepover... here?"
Strangely enough, the contenders who had been tugging at each other and fighting their quiet little war all day did something completely out of character this time. After exchanging a glance, they turned back to Kitahara in perfect harmony and nodded calmly.
"Yes. After discussing it, we unanimously decided to hold the sleepover here."
"Do you have any objections, Trainer Kitahara?"
All the Umamusume joining forces against Kitahara sounded a little strange.
After all, just a few hours ago, they had still been fighting for their own plans, tripping one another up, and even deciding that if their own plans failed, they still couldn't allow anyone else's to succeed.
And yet only a few hours later, they had put aside their differences and chosen to join hands...
So what, exactly, had happened to bring all this about?
To answer that, we have to start a few hours earlier, when Kitahara left Tracen...
...
A few hours earlier, inside Tracen Main Campus.
While Kitahara was still dealing with Grass Wonder and Special Week, a fierce battle had already begun in the shadows.
On the surface, his day had looked fairly peaceful. Aside from receiving chocolate in the morning and accompanying Tamamo Cross on a short shopping trip in the afternoon, nothing much seemed to happen to him.
But that did not mean nobody else had taken action. It was only because he had hidden himself away early on, where no one noticed him, and then later left the academy outright, leaving them no chance to make their moves.
It had been mentioned before that, on his way out of the academy, Kitahara noticed a number of acquaintances apparently searching for something. Since they looked so serious, he did not go over to bother them.
In reality, though, basically anyone in the academy with a pulse could tell what—or rather, who—they were looking for.
And it was not just a search. Including Grass Wonder and Special Week, whom he had just dealt with earlier, practically everyone had spent the whole day preparing for today, drawing up all kinds of plans and waiting for an opportunity to launch a full assault on Valentine's Day.
But after lunch, once he said he was heading back to his dorm to rest for a bit, the life-form known as Kitahara vanished off the face of the earth. No matter where they searched, they could not find the slightest trace of him.
At the start of the search, the Umamusume were still moving around in twos and threes, keeping tabs on one another, terrified that if someone found him while she was alone, she would shamelessly steal a march on the rest with nobody there to keep her in check.
But as time passed, even after they had nearly turned all of Tracen upside down and searched through places as secretive as certain hidden basements, they still found no sign of him. Even Grass Wonder and Special Week, who had already had contact with him earlier, could no longer find the faintest clue.
At that point, with all the mutual interference and all the fruitless searching, irritation naturally began to build in their hearts, and they stopped watching and obstructing one another quite so constantly.
If someone had managed to find Kitahara then, even if the others immediately interfered and the result was that nobody got anything out of it, at least it would have given them an outlet for their feelings.
But the problem was that forget finding him—when they finally accepted that they could not and tried contacting him instead, they learned that he had already left the academy long ago and was out shopping with Tamamo Cross.
They had spent half the day preparing, carefully arranging every plan, fighting and struggling with everyone else to make sure those plans could actually happen, and then searching for him for hours on end...
And now they were being told that he had not been in the academy at all? That he had run off ages ago?
All one could say was that, under those circumstances, it was very hard to stay calm.
Still, if that had been the end of it, the Umamusume under Kitahara were used to more than a few infuriating displays of dense, wooden behavior from him. They had developed a certain resistance to this kind of thing. Helpless as they felt, they could still accept it on the whole.
It was not as though no Umamusume, after learning where he was, had tried leaving the academy to "run into" him by chance.
But whether they were simply unlucky or Kitahara's anti-recon passive had triggered, the fact was that no matter how hard they tried, not a single one managed to "coincidentally" run into him over the course of several hours. In the end, every one of them returned empty-handed.
And by then, none of them had the energy left to keep dragging one another down.
After all, with Kitahara not even there, who were they doing all this fighting for? And even if he had been there, after all that struggling and all that searching in between, they were already exhausted.
So after they finally stopped searching and stopped fighting, the Umamusume exchanged looks and arrived at the same decision.
Then they would wait.
Oguri Cap was Tamamo Cross's roommate, and she had also seen what was written on that sheet of paper. Roughly estimating the time, even if they went through every shop on that list, it should only take a few hours. And since the others had already spent so long fighting among themselves, in theory, they should not have had to wait much longer.
As for what to do once he got back...
Since they no longer had the energy to keep fighting and there was not much time left anyway, after a brief discussion and compromise, they decided to follow the order in which they had given him chocolate and let each person have one chance to make her move. It was consolation, at least.
To be fair, their estimate had not been wrong.
At that point in time, it should have lined up exactly with when Kitahara woke up. Even if he slept a little longer, once he did wake, he should have returned to the academy right away, more or less matching their estimate.
The problem was that they had not accounted for Ardan showing up.
And because Ardan appeared, and because there were concerns about Tamamo Cross's condition, what should have been a return in ten or twenty minutes got pushed back by several more hours. He did not come back until after dinner, and some of the Umamusume still had not eaten because they had been waiting for him.
It was not as though they had not sent him messages in the meantime, either. Especially after giving up on fighting one another, they had simply joined forces and all started messaging Kitahara, wanting him back as soon as possible.
At the time, though, he had not yet met Ardan and did not know what was coming afterward. Since he had already bought most of what he needed, Kitahara had also assumed it would not take much longer, so he agreed...
But, well.
Everyone knew how that turned out.
And once things reached this point, the mood had already started to turn delicate.
Then, just as the humidity in Kitahara's dorm kept rising and the atmosphere became increasingly strange, Agnes Digital suddenly stood up.
"Um, everyone... I have an idea..."
In that environment, Agnes Digital proposed a Valentine's Day sleepover, and after a brief silence, the suggestion won unanimous approval.
And this agreement was not like the earlier ones, where everyone had accepted on the surface while still harboring their own little schemes. This time, after that long wait, they had made the same decision out of the same resentment.
What did that mean?
It meant that, unlike last time, this sleepover would not involve each of them fighting alone and treating the others as enemies. For the first time, they had united and turned their collective attention toward Kitahara.
And that led directly to the scene at the beginning, when Kitahara returned to his dorm.
After waiting so long, the Umamusume simply proposed a sleepover in his dorm and, without consulting him in the slightest, forcibly settled the matter on their own.
And so, after fruitlessly protesting their forced occupation of his room, Kitahara looked at the crowd filling the dorm, thought for a moment, and made a decision.
"How about... I stay somewhere else tonight?"
Click.
The moment the words left his mouth, the sound of the lock followed. At some point, Special Week and Grass Wonder had already moved to block the door.
"What's wrong?"
Neicha walked over to his side, smiling as she asked.
"Well, you can see it too. This place isn't exactly small, but there's no way it can fit all of you..."
He paused, then continued, "And besides, this is a girls' sleepover. You'll want to stay up talking and all that. I don't think it's really appropriate for me to be here. If you want, go ahead and use this place for the sleepover. I'll go find somewhere else to stay, and you can have more fun that way..."
"No, that won't do."
Agnes Tachyon walked over with a smile, dangerous light rippling in her ruby-red eyes.
"If anything, Guinea Pig-kun absolutely has to be here. We'll have much more fun that way..."
Why did that sound kind of weird?
A trace of confusion appeared in Kitahara's eyes. He kept arguing with them for a while, but no matter how hard he tried, he could not persuade anyone to let him leave.
In fact, while he was trying to talk them into it, the lock on his dorm door clicked a few more times, as though someone had added several more latches to it.
Once it became clear escape was not happening, Kitahara thought for a moment and then decided to give up and coast.
Worst-case scenario, he would just hole up in that little side room of his and answer everything they said with a bland, Yeah, sure, whatever you say.
Unfortunately, much as he liked that plan, before he could actually retreat into the room—or rather, even if he did, they would definitely drag him right back out—the Umamusume had already hauled him over and pressed him down onto one side of the sofa, saying they wanted him to join them for a game.
"No, hold on, what kind of game even needs me when there are already this many of you...?"
Kitahara sat down in confusion. Then, across from him, Satono Diamond smilingly pulled a brand-new box out from under the table and placed it in front of him.
At first, Kitahara thought it was just a game, and that going along with them for a little while probably would not matter.
But the moment he saw the words printed on the box, his eyes widened in horror.
Truth or Dare (Tracen Special Edition).
Truth or Dare? And a Tracen Special Edition, no less?
He had no idea what was actually inside, but just looking at the cover was enough to set every alarm in his head blaring.
Even at this point, though, Kitahara still did not think anyone was trying to use this chance to ruin him. He simply assumed Diamond was still young and had not been at Tracen for very long, so she probably did not understand what those words implied, which was why she had brought it out.
So he looked up at Tazuna Hayakawa and Symboli Rudolf across from him, figuring that since those two were adults, they surely would not join the children in fooling around over something like this, but...
"It looks pretty fun, actually."
Tazuna Hayakawa smiled as she spoke, and Rudolf beside her nodded as well.
"I've heard of this game before, but I've never tried it. This seems like a good chance."
Hey, hey, can't you two tell how dangerous this thing is? Stop them already!
Kitahara tried to signal desperately with his eyes, but strangely, no matter how he looked at them, the two of them acted as though they had not noticed a thing. They kept chatting to each other and even seemed rather interested in the idea.
There was no help for it now. He would have to do this himself.
With that thought, Kitahara lifted his head, chose his words carefully, and slowly began, "Um, everyone, I think maybe we could switch to some oth—"
"Ah, right."
Before he could finish, Komata-san suddenly seemed to remember something and checked the time on her phone.
"It's this late already. We really should change."
Change?
Kitahara looked at her in confusion when he heard that.
"Change what?"
"Into pajamas," Komata-san said calmly.
"It's already this late, and if we're going to play games, of course we should be in pajamas..."
As she spoke, Komata-san stood up. After hearing that, the other Umamusume also rose one after another. Only Kitahara remained where he was, still sitting there in a daze, watching them file into what had originally been his bedroom.
Then, after some time had passed, the bedroom door opened, and the changed Umamusume came back out of his room chatting and laughing before returning to their seats.
But that was not the important part.
The important part was that once Kitahara snapped back to himself, he realized there was something very wrong with the pajamas they had changed into.
He vaguely remembered that during the last sleepover, although they had also worn pajamas at night, those had looked more or less like normal clothes—just softer and looser, and Special Week's had even been a thick one.
But tonight...
Looking at the light, floaty, half-transparent sleepwear in front of him—sleepwear with barely more coverage than a swimsuit, hems that lifted when they walked, and in some cases even paired with stockings—Kitahara could not help feeling puzzled.
Were these girls seriously not cold? It was still spring.
No, wait. That was not the real problem here. The real problem was...
"Alright, the game's starting."
Before Kitahara could react any further, Satono Diamond opened the box with a smile.
And just then, while Satono Diamond was taking the game pieces out one by one, Agnes Tachyon spoke up from the side.
"Oh, right. Since we're playing Truth or Dare, I may have something that could help..."
Smiling, she reached under the table and hauled up an entire crate of potions.
Wait, don't tell me that's—
He had never seen it before, but the instant the potions were brought out, a name flashed through Kitahara's mind.
And then his terrible premonition came true.
"Truth Serum MK2."
Agnes Tachyon patted the crate of potions, then turned to look at him. A strange light flickered in her crimson eyes.
"Now, let the game begin."
"Guinea Pig-kun."
---
T/N: uhhhh yea fuck it cliffhanger this
T/N2: LMAOOOO i agree with past wise since patreon just got hit by a HUGE cliff
T/N3: yeah no excuse this time :sob: WAIT NO I WAS STARTING NEW TLS SO HA! yeah sorrrey heres the 4 chapters!
bonus chaps
200 stones -> 1 chapter
400 stones -> 2 chapters
600 stones -> 3 chapters
and so on
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