Although they now knew who had picked up the supernatural items, finding them was another matter entirely.
"The school... they probably won't be there at this hour."
Asakura rubbed his chin and pondered, "Maybe I should ask Hiratsuka-sensei to borrow the first-year student directory?"
"Even Hiratsuka-sensei wouldn't just show students something containing personal information, right?" Asagumo Chihaya reminded him softly.
After all, no matter how much Hiratsuka Shizuka enjoyed smoking, drinking, perming her hair, and beating up students, she was still a relatively good teacher at heart and wouldn't carelessly leak students' private data.
Asakura's eyes flickered.
Heh heh, maybe if he just said to her, "You wouldn't want anyone else to know what happened yesterday, would you?" he could borrow the records successfully.
Of course, he was only thinking about it; he wasn't so classless as to actually do such a thing.
So, Asakura and Asagumo Chihaya returned to Sobu High and successfully intercepted Chihaya Anon, who was just about to head home.
"Private Chihaya, the club needs you right now!" Asakura said with mock seriousness.
"Huh?" Anon, clutching her school bag and ready to leave, opened her mouth to reveal a cute little snaggletooth, her face full of confusion.
"Anon, do you know where Takamatsu-san is?"
Before Asakura could start a comedy routine with her, Asagumo Chihaya cut straight to the point: "We have something we need to talk to her about."
"Tomori?"
Chihaya Anon paused, then broke into a smile. "If it were anyone else, I might not know, but if it's Tomori, she should be in the Astronomy Club room right now."
"The Astronomy Club? Does our school even have that club?" Asakura asked, somewhat puzzled.
"It does! It's in a tiny cubicle tucked away in the corner of the top floor of the club building..."
Chihaya Anon first spoke up for the justice of her friend's (?) club, then looked at Asakura with adorable "dead fish eyes." "Actually, why is the Service Club's room so huge? The Astronomy Club is a proper, official club."
"Probably because of family background and power..." Asakura said in a deep, solemn voice.
"Darkness! This is pure darkness!" Chihaya Anon joined in the critique with mock gravity.
"Though by now, it's been completely usurped by Takuma-kun's Magic Club..." Asagumo Chihaya muttered under her breath.
As a side note, after the Founder's Festival, the Magic Club became an official club recognized by the Student Council. In fact, after the School Festival, its budget was even higher than some long-established cultural clubs. In contrast, the Service Club, founded even earlier by Yukino, remained an unofficial club with no school funding.
Chihaya Anon led Asakura and the others to the Astronomy Club room, chatting and laughing along the way.
Just as the pink-haired girl had described, compared to the Service Club's entire empty classroom, the Astronomy Club's space was indeed pitifully small.
"Tomori-chan! I've come to play!"
Chihaya Anon slid open the door and waved to the girl inside.
The girl, who was sitting at a table writing something, was startled. She stared at Asakura and the others like a deer in headlights; her brain seemed to have stalled, and for a moment, she didn't know what to do.
"Anon-chan, if you barge in and say things like that so suddenly, Takamatsu-san will be frightened..." the girl behind Chihaya Anon said clearly.
"Is that so? But I think Tomori-chan might actually like this kind of thing..." Chihaya Anon said nonchalantly.
"This is Takamatsu-san."
Next, Anon introduced Asakura and the others to her, then said to Tomori, "They are my seniors in the club..."
"Ugh..." Asakura shifted uncomfortably.
"What's wrong?" Asagumo Chihaya whispered.
"I think that's the first time Anon has called me 'senior,'" Asakura muttered seriously. "It feels a bit... unusual."
Asagumo Chihaya wore an expression that said, "I should have known better than to ask."
"Um..."
Takamatsu Tomori looked at Asakura and the others timidly. "May I ask... why are you here?"
Her expression was so adorable that Asakura briefly hallucinated that he was looking at a little squirrel.
"I wanted to ask, did you pick anything up outside between yesterday and today?" Asakura asked, finally speaking after enjoying her cute, fearful expression for a moment.
"...Yes."
The girl answered in a small voice.
If Asakura's hearing wasn't so sharp, he might not even have heard her speak. Regardless, this answer was infinitely better than what he had initially expected.
"That might be something very... er, not exactly 'important,' but likely 'troublesome.' If you don't mind, could you hand it over to me?" Asakura said to the girl earnestly.
The girl lowered her head as if deep in thought—Asakura felt she was just spacing out, but he quickly dismissed the thought. No one could possibly space out in a situation like this, right?
Fortunately, she didn't keep them waiting long. The girl suddenly seemed to snap out of it, stood up abruptly, and took a small bag out of a drawer. She handed it to Asakura with a hint of reluctance.
Asakura opened the bag and found it filled with various strange little pebbles.
Chihaya Anon looked at the pile of stones, then at Asakura. Though she didn't say anything, he felt he could see a "That's it?" written all over her face.
Ignoring her, Asakura narrowed his eyes and tried to sense them, but he felt no magic or supernatural aura from the bag or the trinkets inside.
They were just a bunch of ordinary, frankly not very pretty, little pebbles.
"Is this really everything?" Asakura asked the girl.
She nodded repeatedly, her expression looking as if she were being coerced by someone—a mix of pitiful and subtly comical.
But then, Tomori's movements paused. After a few seconds of silence, as if remembering something, she shook her head.
"So there's something else?" Asakura's eyes lit up.
"Yes..." the girl nodded gently.
Asakura waited for her to continue, while the girl, who was currently in a passive state, waited for Asakura to prompt her.
As a result, the two of them just stared at each other for a moment.
Finally, Asakura rubbed his forehead. "Alright, please tell me where the rest of the items went."
"I gave it to someone else..." the girl said softly, her voice carrying an ethereal quality. "I felt... like she needed it more than I did."
"That?"
"It was also a little stone."
"I-I see..."