V3Ch13: The Gods’ Sports Festival

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Translator: Soafp

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“Well then, let me explain the details about the sports festival.”

A few days had passed since my reunion with Renji, and the sports festival was now just a day away. As promised, I was getting a breakdown of the event from Mahiro. It’s not like I needed a crash course right before the festival, but Mahiro had that “I’m about to explain everything” look on his face, so I asked him to go ahead.

“For the finer points, I’ll help fill in the gaps.”

For some reason, Nekoda also decided to act like a teacher next to Mahiro. When I mentioned I was going to learn about the festival from Mahiro, she immediately jumped in.

I had no reason to refuse.

“I'm counting on you!”

I said with a smile. The two of them exchanged glances.

“By the way, doesn’t Nijitani seem unusually energetic lately?”

“I was thinking the same thing.”

“What's going on with you?”

“I have no idea.”

Recently, I've been in a hyper-energetic state. The reason was obvious—my reunion with Renji. My excitement was through the roof. A best friend is a best friend no matter how many years pass.

Since we reunited, we’ve been in contact almost every day, catching up and having pointless but fun conversations. We’ve even made plans to hang out after the sports festival, once we have some free time.

“Well, whatever. It's nice to see Nijitani in high spirits, it lifts everyone else's mood too.”

“Yeah, with this much energy, it's contagious.”

Watching the two of them talk, I realized something—I had forgotten to ask Nekoda about something.

Apparently, Nekoda had a bit of a run-in with Renji in the past. It led to a fight with Akazawa because of that.

I owed Nekoda a lot. Back in middle school, she helped me out in a big way. Though, I felt like I repaid that debt when she made up with Akazawa. Now, we were just classmates who got along well. I'd even say we're friends.

Since she's a friend, I'd like to help her out if I can.

I exchanged contact information with Renji, so there's always an opportunity to ask him about it.

…Wait a minute, Renji dislikes Akazawa because of me.

Akazawa must be aware that Renji doesn't like her. So why did she fight Nekoda, who said mean things to Renji?

Could it be that she really has a thing for Renji?

“…”

I couldn't make sense of it.

But now wasn't the time to dwell on it. What's more important is the sports festival. I didn't want to ruin Nekoda's experience by bringing up an awkward topic.

“Alright, back to the sports festival. You've probably already been told this, but at Tenka Academy, the teams are divided by color. The colors are determined by class.”

In the sports festival, participants are split into various teams by color.

The colors are “red, blue, white, black, pink, purple, and yellow.”

It's a rather unique color scheme.

“The key point is the team representatives.”

“Representatives?”

“Yeah, at the sports festival, the candidates for the Academy God position become the team leaders.”

Oh, I didn't know that.

“This is a tradition at Tenka Academy. The current God and the next top candidates for the Tenka Contest become the team leaders. The God is like the academy's symbol.”

So, the God candidates are the team captains.

I guess making the popular kids the leaders is meant to boost morale. And, given that the candidates are often stunningly good-looking, that would definitely fire people up.

“This year's festival is going to be especially exciting, as I mentioned before. That's because all the team representatives are Goddesses.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“Well, the male God is practically a done deal. There's no real competition.”

“True.”

When it comes to the male God, my best friend Renji is a shoo-in this year as well. There aren't any real rivals.

Not that Renji is particularly eager about it, though.

On the other hand, the Goddess contest is supposedly the most competitive in history.

“That's why this year's focus is on the Goddesses. The academy decided to make all the teams' representatives female God candidates. Although, I heard the biggest reason was because Inuyama-kun, the male God candidate, declined to be a team leader.”

Renji hadn't told me anything about this. He did mention some conflict with the academy, so maybe he just didn't want to talk about it.

Mahiro continued his explanation.

The current Goddesses, the Four-Colored Goddesses, were already established, and the other strong candidates also happened to have colors in their names, which led to this unique color division.

The Red Team's representative is Yuuhi Akazawa.

The Blue Team's representative is Umi Aoyama.

The Black Team's representative is Tsukiyo Kuromine.

The White Team's representative is Mayuki Shirase.

The Purple Team's representative is Shion Nijitani.

The Pink Team's representative is Momoka Akazawa.

That's how the teams are divided.

“By the way, who's the Yellow Team's representative?”

“That would be a former Goddess. Her name also happens to have the character for ‘yellow' in it.”

A former Goddess with “yellow” in her name? I can think of one person, but there's no way she'd still be around this school… right?

It's almost impossible, but there's one person that comes to mind. Well, the idea that they'd just happen to be at this academy is absurd, though.

“As you know, we're the Red Team.”

“Well then, Nekoda. Could you explain the reason?”

“Sure thing! It's because we have the Red Goddess—Yuuhi Akazawa—who also happens to be my best friend!”

Yes, our class belongs to the Red Team.

There's no helping it. The academy decided it, and it's just fate that we're all in the same class.

“What's this, Nijitani? Would you have preferred Shirase-san instead?”

“Eh?”

“After all, you are part of the White faction, right?”

“Eh, it doesn't really matter to me. There's no point in talking about it.”

“Yeah, same here. I'm a fan of Aoyama-san, but slacking off here would be disrespectful, don't you think? In fact, not giving it your all in times like this would be rude.”

That's absolutely right.

I've always been good at sports. I trained my body properly even over there, and I'm still good at it. I'm not doing this for Akazawa's sake, but I do plan to give it my all.

“I'm fully fired up! We're going to win, and I'm going to make Yuuhi a goddess!”

“…That's not really related to the contest, is it?”

“You're too naive. There's a legend that says the representative of the winning color becomes the next god.”

It's like those legends where if you confess under the legendary tree, you'll be happy forever.

“Oh, Nijitani, you don't believe it, do you? But it's been true for both last year and the year before. Well, I only heard about the year before from our seniors, though.”

“So, who won last year?”

“Renji-kun's team.”

I see. That makes sense in a way and also seems inevitable.

At that moment, I heard excited voices of girls from down the hall. When I looked over, Renji, the one they were talking about, passed by in the hallway.

It's rare for him to be on this floor. There are no classrooms used for lessons here, so I instantly knew he'd come to see me.

Our eyes met.

‘Let's do our best.'

‘Yeah. Let's have a fair and square match.'

We exchanged words with just our gazes, promising to compete earnestly at the sports festival.

Next to me, Nekoda was gazing at Renji with an awestruck expression, but I chose not to comment on it.

“So, Mahiro, who do you think is the favorite to win this year?”

“It's probably Inuyama-kun's team. The Pink Team looks like they've got strong overall abilities.”

Renji's on the same team as Momoka.

“Yeah, they're strong, but I don't think the Red Team is lacking either. We've got Nijitani, who's incredible at sports, and Yuuhi, our representative, is pretty athletic too.”

I'd like to live up to their expectations.

“Speaking of representatives, Aoyama-san was amazing last year, right?”

“Yeah, that surprised me too. I knew she was fast, but I didn't expect her to be that fast. Her performance at the sports festival made her incredibly popular, and it felt like she caught up to Yuuhi and the others in no time.”

Last year, Aoyama had an outstanding performance, and Renji's team narrowly beat them for first place. Thanks to her efforts, Aoyama managed to gather a lot of votes and was chosen as the goddess.

I'm looking forward to this year. I might get to see Aoyama running at full speed again.

Her running form was truly beautiful.

“I can't wait for the Tenka Academy Sports Festival!”

When I said that, Nekoda and Mahiro exchanged looks again.

“Hey, Shota, did you know? The Tenka Academy Sports Festival has a special name.”

“Yeah, it's a really cool one.”

As I tilted my head in confusion, they both spoke the name at the same time.

—The next day.

The Tenka Academy Sports Festival, also known as the “Festival of the Gods,” began.