As Shinomiya Kaguya voluntarily conceded, the entire Japanese style pavilion spatial anomaly began to collapse.
First, the wooden ceiling let out an ominous groan, and the muffled thuds of breaking wood constantly echoed. Then, the gold-painted paper doors began to peel from the beams, and the tatami mats started to collapse one after another, like dominoes.
"Ahhhhhh—!"
Fujiwara Chika, who had finally managed to crawl to their side, shrieked as the tatami board beneath her feet broke and fell.
Asakura, quick as a flash, grabbed her and pulled her to his side.
He glanced at the collapsing tatami. Where there should have been a wooden structural base, it was now completely pitch black, as if beneath the tatami was not a foundation, but a bottomless abyss.
"It's all over…"
Shinomiya Kaguya seemed not to have recovered from her defeat, still sitting duck-style on the tatami, staring blankly at the scattered playing cards.
"Kaguya-chan!"
Fujiwara Chika looked at the distraught Shinomiya Kaguya and suddenly became bold… no, she suddenly mustered up courage, leaned forward, and embraced Shinomiya Kaguya.
"It's not over at all, everything is just beginning!"
"Mmm…"
"It's all my fault, I never realized how much pain Kaguya-chan was in!"
"Mmm…"
"But it doesn't matter! Now I know, let's be even closer from now on!"
"Chu…"
"Kaguya-chan, what do you say? Kaguya-chan, answer me quickly!"
"…"
"Um—" Asakura casually slipped the World Cup trophy ornament, which was the stake, into his pocket, then picked up the cards from the floor and scattered them into the air. The cards, imbued with the power of the [Scale], pushed away the collapsing ceiling section that was large enough to flatten all three of them into pancakes. "I don't think she doesn't want to answer you; I think she's about to be suffocated by your chest."
Reminded by him, Fujiwara Chika belatedly let go, only to see that the distraught expression (referring to mental disorientation and emotional depression) on Shinomiya Kaguya's face was indeed gone, replaced by a distraught expression (referring to her mochi-like soul escaping from her mouth).
"Ahhhhhh—!"
"Stop messing around, hold onto me!"
Asakura's voice, overriding the sound of the entire Japanese style pavilion collapsing, rang in Fujiwara Chika's ears: "We're getting out of here!"
"Chika isn't messing around!"
Fujiwara Chika retorted softly, one hand gripping Asakura's outstretched right hand tightly, while the other held Kaguya's left hand firmly.
The next moment, the tatami beneath their feet finally could no longer support the weight of the three of them. With a crisp snap, it broke and collapsed, dragging all three of them down into the seemingly endless void below.
The air, which had previously carried a slightly musty straw mat scent, was now greatly diluted by the pine resin smell of wood. In the final moments of the Japanese style pavilion, the surrounding paper doors could also be seen shattering under an invisible pressure, their snow-white fragments intertwining to form a false, pale snowscape.
The entire Japanese style pavilion distorted and sank like a sandcastle collapsing in the sea, its remaining wooden frame remnants standing alone like skeletons in the darkness, resembling a strange tomb. Only, it was unknown what part of the girl named Shinomiya Kaguya was buried beneath this tomb.
She was expressionless, her entire being quietly falling like a corpse, dragging Fujiwara Chika down with her.
"Kyaaaah—!"
The pink-haired girl desperately tried to grab Asakura's hand, but in the end, she couldn't, only falling continuously with Kaguya.
But even at this moment, she never for a second considered letting go of Shinomiya Kaguya's hand.
Asakura sighed helplessly.
He stretched his hands forward, his body rigid, like a gannet diving into the sea for fish, accelerating sharply to approach the girl.
Avoiding the girl's long pink hair, which was wildly flapping due to the airflow, Asakura reached out in weightlessness and pulled the girl's waist, gathering her petal-like skirt into the crook of his arm.
At this moment, the girl's bangs could no longer completely hide her expression, revealing her pupils, which had shrunk in terror.
The pale blue had not yet filled with tears but had stabilized due to the warmth of his chest.
But the descent did not stop; the falling airflow tore at their clothes, making them flap loudly.
"What do we do now?"
Fujiwara Chika asked loudly, "Didn't you say we were going out?"
"Have you heard of an emergency landing?"
Asakura grinned, and for some reason, his side teeth seemed to 'ding' and light up as if a special effect had been added, giving off a strangely smug feeling that made one's teeth itch, "This is my escape route!"
"Instead of an emergency landing, it's just a plain crash, ahhh—!"
The girl screamed.
In the next instant.
The surrounding scene suddenly changed from the pitch-black void to the changing room of the Japanese style pavilion at the school festival.
Fujiwara Chika's thoughts paused for half a second before she suddenly realized she was being carried in a princess carry by Asakura.
The young man retracted his arms to cushion the force of the fall; his steady and strong arms made her feel incredibly secure.
The girl's curled fingers unconsciously pressed against his firm chest, and the light filtering through the gap in the changing room curtain just fell across her porcelain-like ankles, suspended in the air.
The moment Asakura bent his knees to cushion the impact, the girl's hair, a slightly pinker shade than mochi's, lightly brushed against his jaw, making Asakura's chin tingle slightly.
He subconsciously lowered his head and saw the airflow lifting the wisps of hair by her ears, revealing her adorable, flushed earlobe and her clear, sparkling azure eyes.
The two instinctively looked at each other, and a strange sweet-and-sour scent seemed to permeate the air.
"Guwa?!"
Shinomiya Kaguya fell face down on the changing room floor, letting out a shriek like a frog that had been squashed, interrupting their somewhat romantic gaze.
"Kaguya-chan, are you alright?"
Whether out of shyness or some other reason, Fujiwara Chika frantically broke free from Asakura's arms, not daring to look at him again, only squatting beside Kaguya with an air of trying to hide something and asking.
"…I'm fine."
After a long moment, Shinomiya Kaguya replied in a somewhat muffled voice.
"Don't worry, although I don't know what the consideration was, the changing room floor here used soft padding—" Asakura also said from the side, his expression much more normal than Fujiwara Chika's flushed face, "And looking at the bright side, she doesn't have anything that can be flattened, does she?"
"Can that be considered a bright side…?"
Fujiwara Chika mumbled doubtfully.
"…Humiliation."
Shinomiya Kaguya whispered.
"I was talking about her nose—" Asakura argued earnestly, "Don't get the wrong idea."
As soon as he finished speaking, a stream of nosebleed ran down the Shinomiya Family's young lady's red nose.
Asakura: "…"
Fujiwara Chika: "…"
Shinomiya Kaguya: "…Humiliation!"