There was the unexpected accident of the new student representative turning down an offer to join the student council, but without any other major upheavals, First High entered its club recruitment week. (The second-year members all pretended not to hear Azusa when she muttered, “It sure is peaceful this year…”)

But every year, troubles large and small (though maybe not so many of the small ones) sprang up during club recruitment week; there was no way it was going to end peacefully this year. On its second day, Friday, April 13, Azusa’s prayer that things would end without anything going wrong was dashed like an ephemeral dream.

That day, like the previous one, Tatsuya and Miyuki waited on standby in the club committee headquarters after school. This way, if any trouble happened during club recruitment activities, they could immediately go in and use force.

Last year it had been Mayumi and Hattori in this position, but with the student council’s irregular dual-vice-president setup this year, their both being away from the student council room seemed like it would create a poorly balanced formation. Still, not a soul had any doubts about Miyuki’s magic power, and Tatsuya’s abilities had been proven by his real-world exploits (and in real combat) far beyond what he scored on practical testing. Whatever someone’s true feelings on it were, nobody would oppose the siblings’ moving over to the active team as a pair.

The executive group, which was the club committee’s peacekeeping team, also waited in that room. Before Hattori assumed the chairman position, the executive group had been a system that dispatched people here from other clubs when the need arose, but now that he was in charge it had been changed to a permanent system and its scope expanded. Their lineup was stationed at headquarters and rotated regularly, with each group comprising two boys and two girls, so it boasted the largest active force in school, even beyond what the disciplinary committee had. One couldn’t deny that Hattori was lacking in the charisma department compared to the previous chairman, Katsuto, but as an organizational manager, he was, at least for the moment, showing more skill than his predecessor.

The executive members packed into the HQ yesterday had all been students Tatsuya didn’t have any connections with, including the second-years. At most, he knew their names and faces. Today, though, an upperclassman was present whom he was a little more than passingly familiar with.

“I still don’t get it, though. I almost caused an incident that got me expelled last year, and now I’m on the side dealing out punishment?”

“You’re saying that about yourself?”

“Kirihara, please, don’t say anything you don’t need to… What would we do if someone took that the wrong way?”

Tatsuya’s reaction was one of mild shock at most, but Hattori’s was quite overblown: He put his elbows on the desk, rubbed his temples, and heaved a sigh.

“It’ll be fine. Nobody else is listening.”

Right now, only Hattori, Kirihara, Tatsuya, and Miyuki were in the club committee HQ room. There were another four executive members assigned for today, but two of them had gone to check to make sure nobody was overusing their allotted time in the small gymnasiums, while the other two had been out patrolling from the start.

“Whoops, speak of the devil. Let’s leave it at that.”

But as soon as Kirihara said nobody else was around, a senior female executive member returned from a small gymnasium.

“The kendo club’s demonstration should have just begun, right?” said Tatsuya, changing the topic as ordered, his eyes shifting from the back of the girl reporting on the gym’s status to Hattori and over to the clock.

“Yeah. It looks like the kenpo club stuck to their time limit.”

Kirihara said it that way because a lot of clubs went past the allotted times for their demonstrations.

“Are you not going? I feel as though you were spending more time practicing at kendo club than your own club in March.”

“How do you even know that…?”

“I was a disciplinary committee member until last month. I went to watch practice from time to time.”

“Wait, when…? I never even noticed.” Kirihara turned a look of trepidation and caution on Tatsuya. But when he saw his transcendental expression, he immediately relaxed. He’d changed his mind—after so long, there was no point. “Yeah, I was practicing with the kendo club, but I never transferred into it. They’ve got a practice match the week after next,” he said, naming a high school known nationally for being strong kendo performers. “I ended up on the roster.”

“So that’s why you were practicing with them.”

“Basically. It was a good opportunity, so I didn’t want to waste it.”

Tatsuya and Kirihara had met almost in the worst of ways, but now they were friendly enough to make small talk like this. Miyuki watched over them silently, seeming happy.

But their quiet time was interrupted by the alarm on Hattori’s desk going off.

The call sound had been set to an old-fashioned telephone ring; Hattori picked up the receiver on the table. After a short discussion, he stood up and addressed Tatsuya and Miyuki.

“Shiba, other Shiba.”

It was an annoying way of putting it, but he called them both that by default.

“Yes?” answered Miyuki in a calm tone. Tatsuya stood up without a word and waited for Hattori’s next words.

“Trouble in the robot club’s garage. Could you go break it up?” he asked, looking at Tatsuya. Which had no deep meaning behind it—he just found it easier to give orders to Tatsuya.

“Understood,” answered Tatsuya, with Miyuki bowing to indicate her understanding before they both headed to the scene.

Freshman recruitment activities were limited to one week, and when that week ended, registration was restricted to the new students putting in applications of their own free will. The main reason for that was the wars between magisport-related clubs. But that certainly didn’t mean that conflicts didn’t arise during freshman recruitment between clubs that weren’t sports related. In fact, in front of the garage the robotics research club used as a clubroom, a new student was now caught in the middle of a stare-down between the robot club and the motorcycle club.

The motorcycle club wasn’t a club for riding around on motorcycles, but for building and customizing them. Originally, it had been part of the robot club. One could fairly say the two had parted ways over whether to use legs or wheels for movement. Their history led them to be on bad terms with each other daily. If one had to distinguish, the motorcycle club, which rented what used to be a former auto repair workshop close to the school, had a stronger sense of antagonism against the robot club, which used an on-campus garage.

The two clubs now had their eyes on a very conspicuous new student with platinum-blond hair, silver eyes, and pale white skin. A short stature and charming facial features gave an impression of cuteness to everyone who saw the freshman. The boy had whetted the desires of junior and senior girls who wanted to make him their club mascot. Both of the students at the fronts of the battle formations happened to be senior women as well.

“Why don’t you just give up already? Sumisu said he wanted to join the robot club.”

The name of the freshman and the prize of their battle was Kento Sumisu. He was the one Tatsuya had come across who was lost before the entrance ceremony.

“Have you used those press machines so much you can’t hear anymore? He didn’t say anything remotely like that. We’re the ones who talked to him first, so I would much appreciate you minding your own business.”

“First? We’re not in elementary school anymore. It looks like your outdated reciprocating engines have been shaking your brains around, too.”

“Outdated?! Leave it to the forefront of the nerd community to be too infatuated with playing around with life-sized machine dolls to be reasonable.”

A group of onlookers had formed, quite interested in what was, objectively speaking, a considerably ugly duel of disparagement between women. Still, the male students waiting behind the girls got riled up then, as though they’d spoken the key words.

“‘Outdated’…?”

“Did she just call us nerds…?”

“Um, I’m…”

And they disregarded the cause of all this: Kento.

The mood was on the brink of explosion. The first ones who rushed to the scene weren’t part of the student council or the disciplinary committee—it was a pair of executive members of the club committee who had been patrolling on their own.

“Both of you, please calm down!”

The first one to intervene was Hagane Tomitsuka, junior executive member. Next to him was Takuma Shippou, an apprentice of the executive group.

Takuma, who had accepted an invitation to the club committee’s executive group with an active attitude that seemed, at least, to be much like a freshman’s, was on his first job as Tomitsuka’s assistant, who was assigned to mediating disputes between clubs.

Kento, pushed by Takuma’s momentum, left to the outer circle of the quarrel.

“Is that you, Kento?”

Just then, a moment later than Tomitsuka, Tatsuya and Miyuki arrived.

“Oh, Shiba!”

Kento turned around to face Tatsuya happily, despite the fact that Miyuki was standing next to him. This could be said to be an extremely unusual thing. Feeling somewhat uncomfortable at Miyuki’s deeply interested stare, Tatsuya asked him, “What happened?”

At this point, Tatsuya still didn’t know that the trouble in front of them had started because of Kento. He stood out, and Tatsuya had met him before; that was the only reason he’d spoken to him.

“Um, I’m, uh, really sorry!”

Even with the sudden apology, Tatsuya wasn’t getting any grasp of the situation.

“I haven’t decided what club to join yet, so I wanted to just go and look at some of them today, but then they told me they’d tell me more about it inside, and just as I was about to go in, all of a sudden, from behind…”

He must have been rattled. His diction was completely breaking down. As Tatsuya struggled to make heads or tails of his explanation, a new development occurred.

“I’m with the disciplinary committee!”

He turned to the other side of the conflict, to where the familiar voice had come from. Not from the robot club or the motorcycle club, each insisting loudly to the other that it was right, nor from Tomitsuka, who was raising his voice in the middle of them.

“Oh? Brother, it’s Kasumi.”

“Yeah…”

Tatsuya had been purposely trying not to look over there, but there wasn’t much point. He didn’t need Miyuki to tell him—he knew it was Kasumi who had introduced herself as a disciplinary committee member.

“Kento?” said Tatsuya, getting Kento’s attention—the boy’s eyes had gone wide as he turned around at Kasumi’s fiery voice.

“Oh, yes, I’m sorry.”

“You don’t need to apologize.”

Tatsuya smiled gently at Kento, who was almost pathetically tense right now. It was very much an amused smile, but Miyuki, watching from the side, found it to be nostalgic—though it didn’t seem to work on the important one, Kento.

“Yes, I’m sorr—er!”

“…It’s fine.” Tatsuya continued before an awkward silence was upon them. “What you mean is, the motorcycle club misunderstood, and then the robot club got involved with them?”

“Umm, yes, I think…”

“I see… Well, they should be fine now.”

The arguments they’d heard until now had changed to something different. A stormy debate had begun—one leaving both clubs aside. The air was uneasy, as though a magic shootout would begin at any moment. Both the robotics club and the motorcycle club members were holding their breaths, watching the source—Takuma and Kasumi confronting each other.

“Kento, you can go now. I’ll talk to the clubs myself.”

Feeling a psychological headache at his underclassmen for trying to start trouble when they were supposed to be stopping it, Tatsuya instructed Kento to leave.

“Okay… Thank you.” Kento seemed to waver for a moment over whether it was okay to push the cleanup onto Tatsuya, but in the end, he bowed and followed the instructions.

“The club committee’s executive group already responded to this. Disciplinary committee members should go somewhere else.”

That remark from Takuma had been what started the debate.

For a moment, Kasumi flinched away from the overbearing objection. But when she saw his face and realized he was a freshman like her, she shot back angrily: “I thought arguments between students were the disciplinary committee’s job to handle.” With that, she made to stride past him.

“Hey, wait!”

Takuma reached out for Kasumi’s arm as she was about to go past. But his hand never grabbed anything. Kasumi deftly sidestepped to avoid it. Takuma was taken aback by the unexpected miss, but when he saw Kasumi grinning at him arrogantly, the blood went to his head.

Of course, he wasn’t simpleminded enough to let that lead to a violent act.

“Don’t be stubborn,” said Kasumi in a fed-up-sounding voice after swiftly moving around in front of him. “Could you not get in my way?”

“I told you we were handling this, Saegusa. Or do you need me to spell it out for you? There’s no place for you here.”

“Huh… I see you know about me, Shippou.” Kasumi leveled a meaningful look at Takuma. As he opened his mouth, she continued, swiftly cutting off his opportunity to speak. “I get that you want to treat me like a nuisance. But it’s too bad for you—there’s no rule saying a disciplinary committee member has to do what an executive member says.”

The smile was thin on her face, but her eyes flashed with a defiant glint.

“Saegusa…are you picking a fight with me?”

Takuma, on the other hand, was red in the face, while his eyes alone held a colder light.

“No, not at all. I’d be willing to take you up on the offer, though.”

“Really…? A Saegusa wants a fight with a Shippou, does she?”

Takuma casually pulled his left sleeve back, showing his bracelet-shaped CAD. The only students officially permitted to carry their CADs with them in school were student council members and disciplinary committee members—everyone else, club committee executives included, was forbidden. But during club recruitment week, the CAD-carrying restriction was lifted. The one Takuma had just flashed wasn’t one whose place and method of use restricted him to competitive use—it was his own, one fit for combat.

“Yeah, and we’ll beat the snot out of you no problem. You’ll never think of picking a fight with the Saegusa again!”

Kasumi also pushed up her left sleeve. Wrapped a bit above her wrist was a top-of-the-line CAD of her own, which, though smaller than Takuma’s and more stylish, didn’t lose to it in specifications.

“Your other half isn’t here—you want to do this alone?”

“What, did you want an excuse for when you lost two to one?”

Takuma and Kasumi weren’t looking at anyone but each other at this point. They took no notice of the fact that the argument between the robot club and the motorcycle club that they’d tried to mediate had been suspended, nor that Kento had used the opportunity to leave in the meantime.

“Hold it right there!”

In the crowded area, filled by the robot club, the motorcycle club, and quite a few others in the peanut gallery, a male student stepped between them, having decided their clash was inevitable.

“Both of you, calm down!”

It was Tomitsuka, who had been watching in a daze, affected by the poisonous air coming off Takuma and Kasumi.

“Please don’t get in the way of this.”

“Just calm down, Shippou!”

“Tomitsuka, you’re going to take his side?”

“No, I’m not! You need to calm down, too.”

…Though the dangerous mood softened somewhat when Tomitsuka stepped in, the stare-down showed no signs of stopping. Thanks to that, the robot club and motorcycle club, left aside for the moment, ended up looking at each other, wondering where to lower their raised hands.

“Why don’t we all go back now, everyone?”

And thus, when a voice addressed them from the side, it was as welcome—well, convenient anyway—as a voice from an angel.

“The student council will not make an issue of this incident. I’ll talk to the disciplinary committee and executive group as well.”

Tatsuya followed on Miyuki’s heels, and his statement that they wouldn’t make an issue of it sent the robot club back to its garage and the motorcycle club back to the tent it had been assigned for recruitment. Tatsuya and Miyuki returned to the club committee HQ as well, leaving only the peanut gallery and what its attention was on—Takuma, Kasumi, and Tomitsuka.