The next morning.
Because it was the weekend and her schedule for the day had been set in advance, Shinomiya Kaguya was able to wake up a little later.
However, even though she woke up an hour later than usual, Shinomiya Kaguya today looked a bit dazed.
Hayasaka Ai, who was familiar with her young mistress, had a bit of a headache.
Her young mistress would occasionally appear in this dazed state.
According to Fujiwara Chika, Kaguya-sama's only friend, this was the "Super Rare Kaguya-chan" that would only appear when her happy emotions and her reality-escaping emotions reached a delicate balance, with the added condition of lack of sleep.
The "Ice Kaguya" young mistress, who was usually incredibly shrewd and would immediately consider the remaining use value of anything she saw, in this state, her intelligence would plummet to an unimaginable degree.
Hayasaka Ai knew that her young mistress was supposed to go and meet with the online friends she had met on LINE today.
Because Shinomiya Kaguya needed to mobilize the Shinomiya family's security forces in Tokyo, this was also the explanation Kaguya-sama had given to the main family in Kyoto.
But Hayasaka Ai also knew very well that her young mistress had, in some way she had yet to understand, already made contact with those people before changing her phone.
She had not reported this to the main family yet, just silently guarding this secret for her young mistress.
"The young mistress places great importance on today's gathering, but this situation has occurred. What should I do?"
If this had happened during a normal school day, she would have been quite happy to see this version of Kaguya-sama appear.
Anyway, she would be lurking around the young mistress to handle matters for her. At most, she would just need to ask Fujiwara Chika for a little help. After the young mistress returned to normal, she could even use this matter to tease her.
But now the young mistress was going to meet with online friends, and had even made so many plans for it...
Most importantly, she, Hayasaka Ai, had no idea what kind of relationship the young mistress had with those "online friends." How was she supposed to help her!?
As a competent maid, Hayasaka Ai grabbed her hair forcefully, feeling that this matter was simply unsolvable.
She tentatively asked, "Young Mistress, would you like to rest a little more? There's still plenty of time."
Anyway, the appointed time was before noon. With the power of the Shinomiya family, it would only take half an hour to send the young mistress over. If she could recover before then, they would still make it in time!
The current Shinomiya Kaguya's mind was empty. There weren't many things she could think about. She could only nod dazedly, and then slept for another hour or so on the bed.
Unfortunately, it was still no use.
Looking at Kaguya-sama, who was still in a mascot state, Hayasaka Ai wished she could reach out and rub her face fiercely to wake her up.
"Young Mistress, why don't we put aside the matter of the gathering for today? I'll help you contact your friends and reschedule the meeting time to a little later?"
To this, Shinomiya Kaguya refused without the slightest hesitation. "How can we just put aside something that's been agreed upon? I'm going!"
Even in this state, Shinomiya Kaguya was still very principled.
"Then when you come to your senses later, you can't blame me, and you're not allowed to dock my salary," Hayasaka Ai tried to persuade her for half an hour with earnest words, but still couldn't make Kaguya-chan change her mind. In the end, she could only decide to give up.
After choosing to give up, Hayasaka Ai suddenly felt a sense of relief.
Do you know how much pressure the main family has put on me these days, wanting me to find out what you're trying to do by meeting with online friends?
Now with you in this state, at least I don't have to worry about how to report to the main family tonight.
The people of the main family also knew that this condition of Kaguya's would usually last for one or two days before she recovered.
So as long as she reported this matter, she wouldn't have to worry about being questioned by the main family again for these two days.
"Are the bodyguards all in position? Then let's go," Hayasaka Ai, having given up completely, no longer struggled and directly had the Shinomiya family's bodyguard team enter their working state.
Although Shinomiya Kaguya hadn't told her many things, she was still clear on the point of having the Shinomiya family's bodyguards pay attention to any suspicious individuals around the station.
Anyway, I'll just follow Kaguya-sama's previous instructions. At that time, if we really run into any suspicious individuals, we'll just control them first and wait for the young mistress to wake up before dealing with it.
...
And on the other side, Kasumigaoka Utaha had also woken up late.
She had stayed up last night watching the six episodes of the anime that the mysterious person had uploaded, and at the same time, she had figured out why the mysterious person had uploaded exactly six episodes.
Because the sixth episode was basically her personal episode. After watching the entire episode, she only had one sentence in her mind, and that was, Can't the love-brains just die!
He has no feelings for you at all. It's all just your own self-indulgent, one-sided wishful thinking. What on earth are you doing, Kasumi Utako!?
She forcefully slapped her own face with her hand, and then looked at the two clear palm prints on her cheeks in the mirror. Kasumigaoka Utaha seemed to have sobered up quite a bit.
At that moment, she began to apply makeup in front of the mirror, carefully concealing the dark circles under her eyes.
Although her status in the group had already hit rock bottom, at least during the offline gathering, she had to get some face back.
After everything was ready, she walked out of her apartment with her head held high and walked towards the nearby subway station.
By the time she arrived at Minami-Shinjuku Station, it was just a little after ten o'clock.
This was also her first time coming to this place. As expected, just as Shinomiya Kaguya had said, although the straight-line distance to Shinjuku Station was less than a kilometer, the flow of people was worlds apart.
There were only a few people who got off the train here.
She scanned the vicinity and quickly found that she was not the first to arrive.
Not far from the station, a blonde girl in a red hoodie and a red newsboy cap was already waiting by the station, playing on her phone.
As for why Kasumigaoka Utaha could recognize her at a glance, it was entirely because the other person was also holding a diary in her hand.
This was what they had agreed upon: after arriving at the place, they would take out their diaries to show their identity.
If it was someone from the group, they could just go up and exchange the countersign.
If it was someone who had seen Shinomiya Kaguya's message and had decided to come at the last minute, then they would have to confirm whether the other person might be the mysterious person in disguise.
If someone was peeking at them sinisterly from the side, then they would just have the Shinomiya family's bodyguards take them down and await judgment.
Of course, Shinomiya Kaguya wouldn't say this kind of thing directly in the group, but Kasumigaoka Utaha felt that everyone should be able to think of it.
Thinking of this, Kasumigaoka Utaha also took out her own diary, walked up to the blonde girl, and exchanged the countersign.
"Do you think Voldemort deserves to die?"
The blonde girl looked up at Kasumigaoka Utaha, and seemed to recognize her identity at a glance.
"Kasumi Utako-sensei, I don't think I need to exchange the countersign, right? You can tell who I am just by looking at the letters on my hat," the blonde girl pointed to her own hat with some embarrassment.
On it were three large letters "UMR", indicating her identity.
But Kasumigaoka Utaha just continued to stare at the UMR in front of her without speaking, as if she were still waiting for an answer.
To this, UMR could only nod helplessly. "I think the mysterious person does deserve to die. But do we really need to come up with a countersign like this? What if Mr. Mysterious Person is watching us right now?"