Conquering Villains and Capturing Targets Is Harder in Real Life than in Games

36: If you don't stop, I can't guarantee that you won't get hurt!

When Madoka arrived to pick Shizuka up, he noticed that her expression seemed off; however, when he asked her what was on her mind, she insisted that everything was fine.

Throughout the day, despite multiple people going up to her and Madoka and gushing about their appearance on Heavenly Match, Shizuka remained aloof.

...The culture festival is exactly one week from now. That means our first performance will be staged in one week...Is the culprit planning on messing up our live stage?

"Shizuka."

That "hero" thing in the message is weird. It could be referring to the fact that I saved Madoka before but in that case, they wouldn't use "hero" but "heroine."

To celebrate her heroic feat, her fans had hung up an eye-catching banner, 2 m long, in the gym when she first returned to school. Shizuka had cringed when she saw the words on the banner because printed in fancy bold script were the words, "May We All Praise Yoshino Shizuka, the Beautiful and Romantic Heroine of KiGaku!"

"Shizuka."

Even Mikoshiba used it to mock me. So more likely, "hero" is alluding to my role as the prince in our play. If it's the latter then we can really narrow it down to members of the student council since they've dropped in on our rehearsals before to look for Madoka. They're the only ones not in 3-A who have an inkling of what our roles are like.

"Shizuka!"

Shizuka broke out of her stupor. "Huh? Did you say something?"

Madoka's lips were pressed together in a thin line. "I've been trying to get your attention for the past five minutes. Suzumori-san has been calling for you in the other room so that you can change into your costume."

Crap, I've been so preoccupied with thinking about how the culprit might ruin the performance, that I've haven't been paying to our actual dress rehearsal!

"Ah, sorry. I zoned out."

Madoka frowned. "You've been out of it all day. Is there something going on?"

"I guess you could say I'm feeling a little nervous for the performance since it's coming up soon," replied Shizuka sheepishly.

Madoka narrowed his eyes in suspicion. "Is that so? You weren't nervous at all even when we appeared on TV. Aren't you good at speaking up in front of crowds?"

"It's just you know, delivering a speech as myself is one thing and acting as a character is another so naturally, I'm a bit tensed..."

Madoka observed her face for a while before sighing. "What's really going on here, Shizuka? I've waited all day for you to confide in me but instead, you're lying to me. What is it? is it the culprit? Did they do something else?"

Although she felt guilty, she knew the consequences definitely wouldn't be pretty if Madoka knew the truth, so she adamantly stuck with her lie. "There's nothing else going on! That's the truth!...I'm only human, Madoka. I have off days like everyone else and I have things I'm not good at...Anyways, I don't want to talk about it anymore so I'm going to go to the other room now. I'll talk to you later."

Following that, she walked out of room.

In the other room, which was really just an empty classroom down the hall, various costume pieces and props were laid out over a couple desks that had been pushed together.