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“I hereby declare the first official SONG Doubles Ping-Pong tournament… underway!” Hibiki declared with an energetic fist-pump. “Aaaand… hold for applause!”
“I don’t know what we’re applauding for, but sure!” Kirika applauded enthusiastically, while Miku spared a few polite claps. The response from the rest of the room was rather underwhelming.
“You called us here for a ping-pong tournament?” Maria raised her eyebrows. “That’s not what I was expecting.”
Tsubasa’s focus honed in on one particular part of the announcement. “An ‘official’ tournament? What is that supposed to mean?”
“It means the commander signed off on it! I did paperwork and everything.” At a nudge from Miku, Hibiki corrects herself. “Well, I didn’t do the paperwork. But I asked the commander if it was okay, and he asked Ogawa to put it in writing, so that’s basically the same thing, right?”
Tsubasa shook her head, sighing. “That does sound like Uncle.”
Chris folded her arms, looking somewhat huffy. “When you said everyone needed to get together for an important meeting, I was expecting something a bit more… well, important .”
“This is important, Chris!” said Hibiki, wagging her finger seriously. “If we’re staying at a hot springs inn, ping-pong is a must—just like hot drinks and pillow-fights!”
“Your expectations have definitely been shaped by anime,” Shirabe deadpanned.
“I-I think it’s a good idea, though!” Everyone turned to Elfnein as she spoke up in a shaky voice. “If it will help us work together as a team, th-th-then I think we should do it!”
Chris’s expression softened. “Well, I guess it couldn’t hurt…”
“That’s the spirit! All right, let’s go!” Hibiki pumped her fist again.
“Hold on, you haven’t even told us what the pairs are yet!” said Maria. Hibiki blushed, the realization obviously taking the wind out of her sails.
“…Right. I mean, obviously, I’m on a team with Miku…”
“Oh! Oh! Then I want to be teammates with Shirabe!” called Kirika, bouncing up and down.
“U-um… I don’t know how much help I’ll be, but…” Elfnein tapped her fingertips together nervously, but a pat on the head from Chris soon reassured her.
“Don’t worry, you can leave everything to me,” said the older girl with a wink. “I’m very confident in my accuracy.”
Elfnein grabbed Chris’s hand with a look of pure relief. “Senpai!”
“Then it looks like the two of us will be the last team,” said Maria, giving Tsubasa a smile.
Tsubasa nodded in reply. “I’ll be counting on you as always, Maria.”
Hibiki looked around the room and grinned, getting back some of her earlier momentum. “Okay, now let’s go!”
“Yeah!”
~
It still took a few minutes for the tournament to actually start—after all, they had to determine the rules and the match-ups—but at last, it was time to start playing. Hibiki stood to the side of the table, hand-in-hand with Miku, holding one of the spare paddles up to her face like a microphone.
“And now for the moment you’ve all been waiting for: the first match of the official SONG Ping-Pong Tournament! Maria and Tsubasa, VERSUS, Kirika and Shirabe!”
Chris rolled her eyes. “You don’t have to be so loud, you know.”
Hibiki ignored her entirely, instead going for a dramatic chop of the paddle to signal the start. “Aaaaaand, begin!”
The match started off fairly even, with all four girls’ combat-tested reflexes serving them well to keep up the rallies. However, it soon became clear that Kirika’s natural exuberance was somewhat of a liability: on more than one occasion, her return shots missed the table entirely, and Maria and Tsubasa pulled ahead.
With the older girls’ team one point away from winning the game, Kirika chuckled to herself. “Well, I guess there’s no choice… I’ll have to go all-out here.” She shifted her feet on the mats, extending her paddle out behind her in a dramatic ready stance. “Shirabe is depending on me… there’s no way I can lose!”
“Oh!” exclaimed Hibiki. “It looks like Kirika is getting serious! Could it be that we’re about to witness her true power?!”
“Th-this aura…” whispered Elfnein, staring at Kirika with a look of awe on her face. Chris simply rolled her eyes.
Maria smiled broadly, brandishing her own paddle with equal flair. “So, it’s going to be that way, Kirika? Very well! Then I shall match your resolve, and end this battle in a single strike!”
“Oh my, everyone is certainly excited,” said Miku, giggling.
Shirabe and Tsubasa glanced over at their partners, then at each other, and shrugged in unison.
“Prepare yourself, Kirika!”
“Bring it on, Maria!”
“HAAAAAAAAAAAAAA—”
In the end, the conclusion wasn’t nearly as dramatic as the build-up. Maria delivered a precise serve so fast that Kirika didn’t even have a chance to swing at it: instead, it bounced up off the table and hit the blonde girl directly in the forehead. With a dramatic cry of “Death…!” Kirika flopped over, landing on her back with a thud and dropping her paddle.
“The winners are Tsubasa and Maria!”
“Owwww…” Kirika rubbed at the red spot left on her forehead by the ball’s impact, an exaggerated look of despair on her face. “So, in the end, my power wasn’t enough. Forgive me, Shirabe…”
Shirabe crouched down next to her fallen partner, her face serious. “It’s all right, Kirika. Even if we’ve been defeated, our bond will never be broken!”
“Shirabeeeeee!” Kirika threw her arms around her teammate’s waist and buried her face in Shirabe’s shoulder, fake-sobbing. Shirabe patted her head reassuringly.
“There, there.”
“Oy. Think you could have your touching moment somewhere you’re not getting in the way of us playing?” said Chris, rolling her eyes.
“Uh, p-please excuse us…” Elfnein was much more diplomatic, punctuating her words with a polite bow.
Kirika hopped to her feet and extended a hand to Shirabe, pulling her up as well. “Yeah, yeah, I suppose it’s you guys’s turn now.”
Maria and Tsubasa stepped away from the table as well, letting Hibiki and Miku take their places. “All right, Maria, it’s your turn to be the announcer!” Hibiki declared, handing off her “microphone.”
To her credit, Maria only hesitated for a moment before her natural knack for performance took over. “For our next match, Chris and Elfnein will be challenging Hibiki and Miku! Ready… begin!” She chopped down with the paddle, just as Hibiki had, and with that the match began.
It quickly became apparent that Hibiki and Miku had a significant advantage. Elfnein’s timidity carried over to her style of play, and more than once she squeaked and ducked away from the ball instead of trying to hit it back, giving up a free point.
Hibiki, good sport that she was, tried to take it easy on her and hit the ball more slowly, but as most of her teammates would attest, delicacy wasn’t her strong suit. The first time she tried to give Elfnein an easy return, she fell woefully short of the net. On her next attempt, her aim was off and the ball ended up in front of Chris, who wasted no time in returning it with all the ferocity (and velocity) of one of her bullets.
“Uwahh!!” Hibiki yelped as the ball whizzed by her. Chris glared.
“Get it together, Hibiki! Are you trying to lose?”
“Hehe, well…”
“Don’t take it easy on us out of pity! It’s my job as Elfnein’s senpai to do everything I can to help her out, so don’t hold back on me. Come on!”
“Chris…” Hibiki pumped her fist. “You’re right! I’ll give this my all!” She gave an expectant look to Maria, who cleared her throat hurriedly.
“Just as it was during our last match, it seems that the gauntlet has been thrown down and accepted! What sort of extraordinary finale is in store for us this time? Find out after these messages—!”
“What messages?” said Tsubasa, her brow furrowed. Maria blushed.
“Oh my, sorry. For a moment I was treating this like another of my television appearances.”
“Now there’s an idea!” Kirika piped up. “Just think of all the people who’d tune in to watch cute girls like us in incredible death-defying ping-pong battles to the DEATH!”
“You said death twice,” said Shirabe flatly.
“Don’t forget, we’re still in the middle of a game,” Miku pointed out.
Elfnein nodded. “Y-yeah, we do need to finish up.”
The pairs squared off once again and resumed their battle. As expected, now that Hibiki was putting in a full effort, the scales tipped decisively in her team’s favor. Despite Chris’s gallant efforts, the match was soon over.
“The winners are Hibiki and Miku!” Maria announced.
“Yes! All right, then, so the finals will be…” Hibiki trailed off as Miku grabbed her hand, having already set her paddle down.
“Don’t rush into things just yet,” said Miku, serious tone belied by the playful twinkle in her eyes. “Our opponents in this last fight should not be taken lightly, so we must take the time to rest and recover.” She broke character, giggling and winking at her partner. “Especially you, Hibiki. Keeping up with Chris made you work up a sweat, and it’s important to stay hydrated.”
“Yeah, you’re right. Then, to the vending machines!” The pair headed off, hand in hand.
“U-um, Chris… I’m sorry I wasn’t able to be of more help…”
“C’mon, Elfnein, I told you not to worry about it!” said Chris encouragingly, patting the smaller girl on the head once more. She mimed a gun with her fingers. “Besides, when I’m in my Gear, I gotta hang back and leave the frontline fighting to these guys. So it’s nice to be the one standing in front of someone else for a change.” That seemed to be exactly what Elfnein needed to hear, because she beamed and hugged Chris around the waist, much to her senpai’s (poorly concealed) embarrassment.
Maria turned to Tsubasa, intending to ask if she wanted to get something from the vending machines as well, and was surprised to see a faraway, almost wistful look in her partner’s eyes. She lowered her voice, keeping the conversation between the two of them. “Is something on your mind, Tsubasa?”
“I was simply admiring how close everyone seems to be,” Tsubasa responded quietly.
“Is that so surprising?” said Maria, smiling. “We’ve been through quite a bit together, and our bonds as a team have grown as a result—”
“That’s not exactly what I meant.” Tsubasa paused, taking a moment to consider her next words. “My family has never been the sort to engage in… overt displays of affection.” Maria nodded in understanding. There were many words she could have used to describe Nastassja, but affectionate would never be one of them. “It is not the sort of thing that would have occurred to me once, but recently, I have found myself missing such contact.”
Tsubasa’s words confused her for a moment, but it clicked a moment later: Kanade, the other half of Zwei Wing and Tsubasa’s first partner. She’d had a bold, bright personality, one that naturally drew people to her.
And she’d died at Tsubasa’s side.
Maria took a step closer, putting a hand reassuringly on Tsubasa’s shoulder. Tsubasa looked startled, but she didn’t pull away—in fact, after a moment, she leaned into Maria’s hand. “We’re all here for you, Tsubasa. If you ever need a hug, or someone to lean on, all you have to do is ask. You know that, right?”
“I do, but it still makes me glad to hear you say it.” Tsubasa scratched at her cheek with one finger, blushing faintly. “Though I would appreciate it if you could keep this between us for the time being.”
Maria chuckled. “Hmm, yes. I imagine things could get rather overwhelming if all of the others got it in their heads at the same time…”
“We have returned!” announced Hibiki grandly, brandishing a sports drink in her hand. She looked between Tsubasa and Maria, frowning inquisitively. “You two look serious… what are you up to?”
Maria slung her arm more fully around Tsubasa’s shoulders, pulling them close together. “What else? We’ve formulated an unbeatable strategy for this final match. Isn’t that right?” She gave Tsubasa a theatrical wink.
Tsubasa hesitated only momentarily before clearing her throat. “Of course. I hope that you two are prepared to taste defeat at our hands!”
Hibiki’s eyes glinted, and her hair began to ripple in an invisible breeze as her fighting spirit stirred to life. “Well, I hope that you like the taste of, um. Those words! When we make you eat them!”
The two pairs engaged in an epic stare-off across the table, until the crackling energy in the air was abruptly dispelled by Elfnein.
“U-um… please try not to break the equipment…”