After the scavenger hunt, we moved on to the cavalry battle.
Satoru-kun took up the role to become our rider while Sobano-kun, Kaido-kun, and I formed the three horses that kept Satoru-kun balanced.
Faced to face with a stronger enemy, our team had no choice but to fight. How do we know they are stronger? It pretty much says it all: how many victories this team claims is reflected in the number of headbands they have gathered in their riders' hands. In contrast to us, Satoru-kun was completely empty-handed. *Their team must have been weak* or so the enemy cavalry thought.
As they charged at us closer and closer, our formation slowly began to crumble, and the enemy saw an opening. Their rider reached out their hand, attempting to grab the loosely tied headband on Satoru-kun's head.
"Now!" Satoru-kun signaled, noticing how the enemy rider had grown complaisant, overextending his reach to grab Satoru-kun's loosely tied headband.
Pulling up Satoru-kun, not only did his unpredictable elevation avoid our aggressor's hand, but it also gave him the height advantage to easily counterattack and snatch the enemy team's headband.
"Just as we planed" Satoru-kun smirked with confidence, inserting another headband into his pockets, following the plan I had suggested.
Our plan was pretty simple. Make other teams underestimate us while preparing a counterattack to catch them off guard. By loosening Satoru-kun's headband, pretending our stance is unstable and imbalanced, and hiding the traces of our victims in Satoru-kun's pockets. The enemy teams greatly underestimate us, thinking it would be an easy snatch, marking us as easy prey.
We continued to pull this move until the red team outlasted every colored team and was the last color standing.
After claiming victory, the four of us fist bumped each other, celebrating our victory. Satoru-kun hooked his arm on my shoulders and said, "Nice strategy you got there."
"Haha. I only thought it was the most efficient way of winning." I humbly replied, scratching my nose, in truth, it was just my fetish of being underestimated and proving the other people wrong.
Also, I noticed Satoru-kun's getting more and more comfortable around me after winning yesterday's relay race. But no matter, I can use him as the star who overwrites my presence in case I stand out too much in class. He's pretty popular, after all.
Kaido-kun, too, hooked his shoulder unannounced, enthusiastically reminding me that, "Alright! Next up is our basketball match."
I nodded and replied, "You'd better catch all of my passes," cause I didn't want to score too much and stand out.
"Yeah," Kaido-kun replied, walking me towards the basketball court.
Actually, the boys and I have been playing basketball lately. Kaido-kun invited me to join, and so I accepted, as I have my own objectives, aka phantom attire funds. Shiki-kun invited me to play volleyball as well, and it is my personal decision to play soccer, as it was my sport back in middle school.
...
At the gymnasium. As the other team members fight over who should be the starters, my position got pushed over to come off the bench. Well, I don't blame them, though. I didn't participate in yesterday's preliminaries, so I understand why they don't trust me to play as a starter. Meanwhile, Kaido-kun and Hakuto-kun were selected for the performance they displayed yesterday.
Hakuto-kun stood in the center against the blue team's jumper. The whistle was blown, and the jump ball began.
As you may know, Hakuto-kun was the tallest student in our class. The tip of his fingers touched the basketball first, directing its trajectory to fall into Kaido-kun's hand.
Gaining possession, the red team went on the offensive. Kaido-kun drove through the defenses and pulled up a middy contested shot. The ball went in, and just like that, the red team is up two points to lead the game.
Going back on the other end, the enemy team began their charge. However, Kaido-kun and Hakuto-kun manage to play incredible defense inside and outside the perimeter, leading to the opposing team's turnover. Kaido-kun with the steal, he then drives and manages to pull an easy layup.
"No mercy, huh?" Hakuto-kun muttered, seeing a faint fire in Kaido-kun's eyes.
The first half finished, and our starters played the whole sixteen minutes of the game with no rest. Our team was leading by fifteen by the time the first half finished.
"To be honest, we could have scored more if our other teammates hadn't started to hog the ball and take bad contested shots." Hakuto-kun assessed, having a towel over his head, dripping with sweat.
Kaido-kun compassionately laughed, "Haha. It's the sports festival, after all. It's not weird to want a highlight or two."
Hakuto-kun stared at the stand, looking at Sobano-kun and the other students taking videos, and the motion picture camera up in the stands. He smirks, "Hm. I guess I can relate."
The reason why there are so many camera crews scattered around the campus is that they came here to gather some film to use as a reference when recruiting unpolished talents. Hokkyokusei, a renowned sports powerhouse around our prefecture, values exceptional talents that has potential to go pro.
Staring at the ceiling, exhausted, "Still, I can't believe they let us play the whole first half like that. On paper, we played sixteen minutes. But if you add in the fouls, clock stoppages, timeouts, that's more than half an hour we played on the court." Kaido-kun reminisces, "If this were a real match, we would have struggled in the second half due to failure in fatigue management."
Hakuto-kun didn't have to say a word to say he understood what Kaido-kun was talking about.
As if turning to the more serious topic, "The real question now is if our bench players could hold the fort while we're resting."
Only then did Kaido-kun begin to wonder, "Speaking of bench players. Where's Yukiya-kun?"
Hakuto-kun shrugs his shoulders, "Beat's me," equally clueless about where their classmate/teammate is.
And so they asked the other bench players who was with him a moment ago.
"Hey, did you see a blue-haired boy in the same team as us?"
The other bench player answered, "Yeah, he said he'll go watch some volleyball real quick."
Staring at the other side of the court, there they saw their teammate Yukiya Saito, inside the volleyball court, playing a match with their other classmate Shiki-kun.
"What the hell is he doing there?!" Kaido-kun exclaimed, confused as to why his teammate was receiving a serve from the opposing volleyball team.