Koyuki led the half confused, now very much revived, Professor Ito along the lighted arches of the Sakura River Park.
Visitors were hastened by them, and they drove away a row of gawking murmurs behind. The beating of her heart was in her ribs, and the trite countdown on the emergency mechanism had arranged the time fifteen minutes to the keynote.
Professor Ito, refreshed by the thought of new information, started to talk, in a sort of ecstatic manner, about the geometrical instability of traffic cones and carrot noses. Himekawasan, are you sure that Yuu has three dimensional scanner device that has less than a millimeter error at a range of five meters? he inquired. "Absolutely sure, Professor!" Koyuki answered, and they headed toward a waiting taxi which she had been able to procure with a feeling of urgency that bordered on crisis management.
"Concentrate on the abstract! Empirical data will follow."
I couldn't remember the journey back to Sakura University, which was a massacre of traffic jams and a mad scramble of thoughts through my head of what I needed to accomplish today. Koyuki used the time to give a call to the emergency line that was assigned to Haru, the nervous literature major. "Haru, status report!" she demanded into the phone. Haru's voice trembled. "S
senpai! It's chaos! An international press delegation has come early and they are inquiring about the speaker who will give the keynote! Shirogane senpai is walking around, and he looks like the spreadsheet that is a dying server! He has not violated the zero distraction policy but the mood is violated! "Deep breaths, Haru. Professor Ito is shackled and on his way. Get the staff to clear a passageway to the main entrance and all the way to the green room. There is no stopping to take pictures or ask questions. I want a glass of water, but not chilled; water, at room temperature, waiting the Professor on the podium. And see that the stage lights are at seventy not a hundred. He needs time to get used to it. Koyuki broke off the conversation; her heartbeat decelerated slightly. Her crisis had been neutralized; she now needed to arrange the logistical factors of the arrival.
The title of a crisis manager with Yuu Shirogane had now become too real, and she was getting a strange and yet thrilling pleasure out of being able to make a perfect recovery.
They stopped within eight minutes before the Great Hall. Koyuki took Professor Ito out of the taxi and led him into the main doors, screaming, Clear the way! The atmosphere of the room charged. There were hundreds of scholars sitting up, waiting and waiting. Yuu Shirogane was standing at the entrance of the green room, almost exuding an aura of severe cold disapproval. His white hair was gleaming under the cool ambient lights. His silver eyes knitted, when he spotted Koyuki and the shabbily dressed professor.
Koyuki led the professor to the green room and spoke to Yuu, in a low, cutting tone, quite without apology. Edo, Senpai, mission accomplished. Keynote speaker delivered. On schedule." Yuu hardly noticed the professor, but instead turned his gaze upon Koyuki, her dishevelled hair, her scarlet flushed cheeks, and her navy jacket, that was creased with the struggle to get the professor into the taxi.
Yuu saw Professor Ito looking very much agitated and looking very fatigued. These are not the ideal circumstances in which one can have a ninety minute lecture on the topic of advanced neural networks. In which of the numerous places did you find him, Himekawa-san? he was carrying out some very necessary empirical field work, at the illumination display at the Sakura River Park, in his own words, Yuu. He needed to be instantly legitimized of an aberrant structural phenomenon. I gained him the confirmation required to his successful presentation.
Yuu glanced at her another moment, a moment of surprise possibly, and then turned back to the professor, who was now being hurriedly escorted into the green room by an apparently relieved Kenji.
As he still had three minutes to go, Yuu took a deliberate step towards the podium, adjusted his microphone, and with the calmness of a man who was to rule the silence of the world, began his introductory speech. The Winter Academic Research Symposium. His voice was toned, business like, and completely unemotional. I should mention that prior to our starting our first keynote, the exceptionally good work of our logistics team in solving a necessary, but unforeseeable scheduling variable in the morning. Our Crisis Manager was of a high caliber and hence we move on time.
Koyuki, who was standing on the back wall, felt an inner change. He had never called her by name, but the infrequent, almost public recognition was as sharp and accurate a laser cut. She had challenged the Winter Prince, and, in a moment, obtained the analytical approval of him. The symposium was already on, and her three days of cold, calculated labour had formally opened.