"Are we really doing this?"
Offside Trap asked uncertainly, looking at the four horse girls around her who all seemed even more excited than she was. Ever since a moment ago, the initiative had completely left her hands. The Sakura girls were being a little too enthusiastic.
"No problem. Trust me!"
Sakura Bakushin O, who had only just been half-hearted about it earlier, had now turned into the vanguard. The moment anyone said anything even slightly discouraging, she would reject it with all her might. Offside Trap clicked her tongue. The type, in a team, who started off timid, but once persuaded, charged ahead without a shred of hesitation.
The five girls walked down the long corridor and finally arrived at the door to the Student Council office.
"Did you bring the key?"
Even Sakura Laurel kept her voice very low. In truth, if anyone was inside, their behavior would be discovered whether they whispered or not. But the guilty conscience of sneaking around still made her eyes dart nervously.
"I brought it. I wouldn't forget."
As she said that, Sakura Bakushin O pulled the key from her pocket and carefully inserted it into the lock.
The lock accepted it with a soft click, but instead of looking pleased, Bakushin O's expression grew even more serious.
Because she had just realized that the door wasn't locked at all.
"What is it?"
A bad feeling welled up in Offside Trap's chest. She immediately grabbed Bakushin O's wrist, afraid she might turn the key and make a sound.
"The door… the door wasn't locked."
Bakushin O didn't usually come here, so she had no idea whether Symboli Rudolf locked up when she left. She vaguely remembered seeing Rudolf at one of the stalls just a little while ago, so she had assumed the Student Council president was definitely not inside.
"Phew…"
Taking a deep breath and then slowly exhaling, Sakura Laurel's gaze sharpened at once.
She pulled Bakushin O and Offside Trap apart, removed the key, and the faint metallic scrape rang out in the quiet hallway. Her face was full of resolve as she shoved the heavy door open.
Inside, darkness.
Laurel's ears twitched. She thought she might have heard something just now, but the room looked empty, and she let out a quiet sigh of relief.
She must have imagined it…
Turning back to Offside Trap, Laurel spoke in an urgent whisper, still slightly out of breath.
"Just turn on two phone flashlights. Bakushin O, hurry and help look. The trainer dorm registry probably won't be on the horse-girl side. I think it'll be in the trainer cabinet…"
"I know, I started looking on this side the moment I came in, but it's not here. And this side is such a mess. I can't believe they're usually this sloppy."
"A mess?"
Sakura Laurel looked toward the desk and the neat cabinet behind it, and a vague unease rose in her heart.
"Then check whether there's a dorm list on the horse-girl management side. There might be some trainers listed there too. I'll look around the desk."
Her hurried instructions barely finished, Sakura Laurel stepped up beside the desk—
—and suddenly felt something soft under her foot.
Her heart tightened. She jerked her foot up and looked down, only to see a pen lying there, complete with the Student Council emblem.
"A pen?"
She muttered in confusion. She was sure she'd stepped on something soft. How had it become a pen?
A chill began to spread up her spine, creeping all the way toward her scalp. Her waist stiffened. Fighting down the fear in her heart, she leaned around the side of the desk and looked underneath.
Then she met two pairs of eyes.
One pair held pain.
The other was filled with fury.
"AAAAAAAHHHHHHHH—!"
Half an hour earlier.
Symboli Rudolf had bent down to pick up the pen she had dropped, only to hear the office door being opened with a key from the outside, followed by footsteps coming straight toward the desk.
Her gaze sharpened instantly.
She truly had not expected someone to be audacious enough to sneak into the Student Council office at a time like this. Important materials were kept here. If neither she nor one of the two vice presidents was present, nobody was allowed inside alone.
Who is it?
Several Student Council officers' faces flashed through her mind, but Rudolf didn't make a move right away. She waited for the intruder to walk into her hands.
"Where is it…"
The muttered voice, combined with the noise outside and the deliberately lowered tone, sounded familiar, yet she couldn't quite identify it.
"I remember Vice President Air Groove said she put it on the trainer side when she sorted things out…"
Familiar with Air Groove, but not involved in organizing the Student Council office herself…
Rudolf's suspicion deepened. It wasn't either of her vice presidents. After all, both Air Groove and Narita Brian had personally taken part in sorting and organizing all the materials here.
Suppressing her anger, the Student Council president slowly climbed out from beneath the desk.
The horse girl standing by the cabinet in the shadows was completely focused, flipping through the files there and using the dim light of her phone screen to read the labels.
Not even daring to turn on the flashlight.
Rudolf found that laughably overcautious. If someone was in the room, whether she used a flashlight or not wouldn't change the fact that she'd be discovered.
Rising onto her toes, Rudolf walked toward her step by step. The girl still noticed nothing and continued rummaging through the cabinet. Papers lay scattered on the floor. Rudolf wanted to sneer at how stupid this was. Even if the intruder tidied up afterward, there was no way she could restore everything perfectly. Someone as meticulous as Air Groove would know at a glance that the office had been entered and the files tampered with.
Sakura Bakushin O?
Rudolf still couldn't make out the intruder's face. The light was too dim, and she was approaching from behind. All she could tell was that the girl wore Tracen Academy's standard uniform.
At last, she came up right behind her. The girl's perfume drifted over, and Rudolf frowned slightly, almost wanting to ask if she'd actually made herself smell nice tonight just to come steal materials.
Perhaps Rudolf's gaze was too openly disdainful, because the horse girl in front of her twitched her ears and her whole body suddenly went stiff.
Tentatively, she stretched her tail backward.
It brushed across Rudolf's body.
Rudolf watched the girl begin trembling even harder, her tail swishing once more, then again with even more force, as if trying to confirm what it had touched.
"Stop swishing it."
Though she found the reaction somewhat funny, Rudolf cared more about what exactly this girl was doing, and snapped the command out sharply.
"AAAAAAAHHHHHHHH—!"
The sudden scream nearly made Rudolf clap her hands over her ears.
The girl spun around. Her eyes were red, tears shimmering at the edges, the sight heart-wrenching enough to make Rudolf stare in astonishment.
"Brian!?"
"President…"
Now that she had seen Rudolf's face, some of Narita Brian's fear and tension eased. Unable to help herself, she threw her arms around Rudolf.
Brian had always been afraid of darkness, especially this kind of pitch-black room. She had been terrified that some ghost might suddenly pop out, so just coming here alone had already taken all the courage she had.
Rudolf's movement a moment ago had made her think she had really run into one on her first time walking around alone in the dark, and she had completely broken down.
"What are you doing here?"
"Waaaah… you scared me to death…"
The contrast was so extreme that Rudolf almost wanted to rub the bridge of her nose, but Brian was hugging her too tightly to move.
"All right, all right, stop crying. It's okay."
She could only soothe her first and let Brian vent the rest of her lingering terror before asking again:
"So if you're scared of the dark, why did you come here alone?"
Brian only continued sobbing softly, but Rudolf had already realized something was wrong.
Her vice president's face was still flushed. It was definitely not the kind of redness caused by fear. It looked much more like the redness of someone desperately trying to hide something.
Rudolf's expression turned serious as she gently pried Brian off her.
"Don't tell me…"
As she spoke, both Brian and Rudolf noticed the trainer dorm registry in Brian's hand.
Rudolf's expression instantly became strange.
She understood at once why Brian, who clearly had the authority to look through the files, had come sneaking in here like a thief.
The implications were… hard not to imagine.
"No, no, it's not like that!"
Brian hurriedly threw the dorm registry to the floor and waved her hands in panic. Meanwhile Rudolf had already begun picking up the folders and papers Brian had accidentally knocked all over the place.
The president's sigh made Brian feel as though her face was burning.
She couldn't fool Rudolf. Especially not after being caught with the trainer dorm registry in hand.
Helping Rudolf gather up the scattered documents, Brian kept her head lowered. Rudolf felt so irritated she wanted to bite someone.
"Why are you looking for this? You're looking for Teruizumi Shinji?"
"Mm… because…"
Brian hesitated, squirming awkwardly. Rudolf lightly smacked her on the head with a file folder.
"Because he won't answer my calls."
"He won't answer your calls?"
"Yeah. I can't get in touch with my team…"
Even as she said it, Brian felt wronged.
She couldn't reach Saint King Halo, and Offside Trap had very obviously lied to her, saying she was spending New Year's Eve alone.
Spending New Year's Eve alone? Was she fooling a ghost?
For the first time, Brian felt that Offside Trap had become more and more dishonest with her.
She had called Shinji.
Ten times in a row, and no answer.
And then Brian had suddenly realized—
Was the whole team out somewhere together without her?
She knew Shinji couldn't stand hand-me-down trainees. The only reason she had been able to join him at all was probably because of the help from Hayakawa Tazuna and Tōjō Hana.
Had he never truly thought of her as one of his trainees because of that?
Even though ever since she joined, Brian had genuinely felt how attentive Shinji was to her, enough that the anxiety and fear she had felt at first had almost completely faded, replaced by deep gratitude.
But then why?
Why at a time like this…?
Brian didn't want to admit it, but she had to.
The enormous drop in her strength, and the series of problems he had pointed out in her body, had left her utterly insecure.
She was no longer the triumphant Triple Crown winner of the past.
Now she was just a humbled climber, scaling a rugged mountain path she had once walked before, yet which now felt utterly unfamiliar.
She could only rely on that trainer.
He was her last—and only—hope.
"Hah?"
Rudolf thought she had misheard.
When had she ever heard Narita Brian say something this spineless and vulnerable?
Rage flared up at once. All the guilt she felt toward that man transformed, in that instant, into an urge to march straight over and punch him.
This was her vice president.
Her chosen successor.
If Brian hadn't insisted on chasing her own dreams, Rudolf would have put her in that seat herself.
"You could just ask the dorm matron. With your status—"
"But she wasn't there…"
Brian's answer snapped Rudolf out of her anger enough to realize she had let herself get carried away. She took a few rough breaths, spread open the dorm registry, and began scanning it.
"226… 227…"
If it hadn't been so dark, Brian would have seen that Rudolf's eyes were red with fury on her behalf.
"He's in 227."
"Thank you."
Brian froze for a moment. She hadn't expected Rudolf not to pursue what she had done tonight.
She had already forgotten that she technically had every right to look through these things.
That word of thanks grated on Rudolf's nerves. The anger she had barely suppressed started to rise again. She had never wanted so badly to know exactly how Teruizumi Shinji trained his trainees.
What on earth had he done to crush a horse girl's confidence this thoroughly?
Back when Brian had decided to step back from Student Council duties for a while, she had still seemed hopeful and optimistic about the future.
Just as Rudolf was about to offer a few words of advice, her ears twitched.
She heard movement outside the door.
Someone else was coming.
Her face went completely dark.
She had not handed out keys to those Student Council officers so they could sneak in on their own. She had given them those keys because she trusted them.
Tossing the papers she held into the trainer management cabinet, Rudolf grabbed Brian and pulled her beneath the desk.
Brian, dragged with no warning, barely had time to snatch the dorm registry from atop the table before curling up into the cramped space beneath it.
Then the door creaked open.
The voices that entered with it belonged to a whole group. The first was Sakura Laurel's, followed by Sakura Bakushin O's.
The anger in Rudolf's eyes deepened.
It was bad enough that Sakura Bakushin O had come here herself. She had even brought all her Sakura sisters with her. This had already crossed Rudolf's line.
"Just turn on two phone flashlights. Bakushin O, hurry and help look. The trainer dorm registry probably won't be on the horse-girl side. I think it'll be in the trainer cabinet…"
"I know, I started on this side the moment I got in, but it's not here! And this side is such a mess. I can't believe they're usually this sloppy."
At the exchange between the two girls, Rudolf and Brian both froze, then looked at each other.
They could both see the shock in the other's eyes.
They had not expected the Sakura girls to be here for the exact same registry Brian now held in her hands.
Footsteps approached openly now.
Sakura Laurel was already walking toward the desk.
Brian tensed. Her ears kept flicking forward and back. Rudolf quickly put a finger to her lips, silently ordering her not to make a sound.
She wanted to see just how bold these girls had become.
Then Brian's eyes suddenly widened.
Rudolf followed her gaze and saw it clearly—
Brian hadn't managed to pull her tail all the way in.
It had been left outside the desk.
At that exact moment, a foot came down on it, then slowly lifted.
Rudolf reacted instantly, dropping the pen into place and yanking Brian's tail back.
A shoeprint remained on it.
Brian's eyes watered from the pain, tears welling from pure reflex.
Rudolf wanted to comfort her, but she couldn't speak. All she could do was keep watching.
In her field of view, Sakura Laurel's foot slowly came back down.
Rudolf's instincts told her the girl had noticed something was off.
So Rudolf, who had been tensed to avoid making any noise, deliberately relaxed.
She simply kept staring upward into the darkness beneath the desk.
She wanted to see exactly what those bold little intruders were after—
what reason they had for breaking into the Student Council office in the middle of the night—
and why they were looking for the trainer dorm registry, something horse girls were expressly forbidden from knowing.
Join here to read ahead.
In Star Rail, Ultra-Beast Armored — Have I Caught "Equilibrium"? l (Chapter 80)
Uma Musume, But I Only Have Five Years Left to Live (Chapter 178)
Zenless Zone Zero: I'm a Doctor, Not a Bangboo (Chapter 139)
Ben Tennyson Wants to Join the Justice League ( 126 )
TYPE-MOON: Redemption Beginning with the Holy Grail War (Chapter110)
Yu-Gi-Oh! — Transmigrated into the White Dragon Girl (Chapter171)
"Is this chat group even serious?" (Chapter100)
I, Lord Ravager, Utterly Loyal! (Chapter184)
Can Playing Games Save the World? 65
Crossover Anime Multiverse: The Demon Hunter of an Unnatural World 77
From Junkman to Wasteland 66
Weekly Refresh of Overpowered 31
I'm Grinding Proficiency Like 46
From Kiana, Lord Ravager, Onwa 168
Honkai: Is This Still the Prev 42
Elf: My Starter Pokémon Is Inc 65
Warhammer: My Primarch Is Remi 156
From Demon Slayer to Grand Ass 105
The Way the Umamusume Look at 68
Uma Musume, but My Cheat Power 185
Naruto: Weaving the Future, Be 65
Zenless Zone Zero, but Kamen R 76
Multiverse Crossover: The Perf 66
My Cyberpsycho Girlfriend 65
Uma Musume: The Dark Trainer 160
Uma Musume: A Calamity Born fr 150
I, a Reincarnation-Loop Player 76
The Violent Girl Group Is Beat 97
Uma Musume: The Horse Girl Who 66
Uma Musume: From Beginner 116
Becoming a Horse Girl, I Will 75
Uma Musume: I Want All 93
I Can Copy Unique Skills 79
Summoning an Evil God, but the 55
Supernatural Multiverse 75
My Harem Is Indescribable 68
Jujutsu Kaisen: Heroic Spirit 70
"I'm just a Valkyrie passing through." 66
Uma Musume: Today Is Another Romantic Battlefield 69
Still playing traditional Honk 49
The Most Filial Son Under Heav 53
What Should I Do After Switchi 42
Reincarnated as a Demon, Skill 50
Hell-Difficulty Dungeon? 38
Transmigrated as Sukuna 35
Checking In in Demon Slayer 40
The Reincarnating Trainer of Tracen Academy 55
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