After a few seconds, Yuuji destroyed all the targets, returning the pool to normal and the event to something almost legal.
"Yuuji Rito! You're getting in the way of our competition again!" Saki complained loudly while pointing at him accusingly.
Contrary to the original plot, Yuuji took care of the robots quickly, so most of the teams were still standing, which annoyed Saki, who had expected to win thanks to her company's technology.
"Ah, Yuuji, how are we going to win now?" Lala asked as well.
"Can't you two just compete normally already?" Yuuji complained.
"It's impossible, she'll cheat using her strange inventions" Saki said, accusing Lala.
"Fine, I won't let her do it."
"Good, but if I see her cheating I'll have her disqualified" Saki nodded and began giving orders, signaling her team to advance.
"What? I can't use my inventions? How am I supposed to be sure we'll win then?" Lala said, worried.
"You don't have to win, just have fun."
"B-but..."
Before Lala could finish speaking, Yuuji moved forward, carrying them from their position, where Saki had already arrived and tried to knock them down.
"Take them down!" Saki ordered.
"Eh?ah! take them down!" Lala reacted quickly, repeating her command.
Yuuji, being the one carrying Lala, moved immediately at her command, supported by his two teammates at the sides and the one behind.
Instead, Saki managed to grab Lala's hands and they ended up facing each other, neither able to push the other.
They stayed like that for a while before being knocked down by another team that came from behind, both falling into the water.
Once they lost, Yuuji looked around, seeing that all the other teams had already been eliminated, including them now, and the team that knocked them down ended up winning.
"We won!" the five shouted at the same time.
"No way, I lost..." meanwhile, Saki just lamented on the ground, no longer looking only at Lala but also at Yuuji with resentment.
Yuuji shrugged, not really giving it much importance, with this event ending, the sports festival finally came to an end.
In the end, his class placed third, having made zero effort for the most part, they were quite happy with that result.
Second place went to Saki's class, who looked at them with a triumphant smile.
And first place went to a third year class where Yuuji didn't recognize anyone.
With the trophies handed out, Yuuji went to sit with his mother again, as it turned out there was still one last event left.
But when he got there, he was met with her piercing glare.
"I-is something wrong?"
"'Is something wrong?' Is there something wrong?" Clara repeated in disbelief. "Weapons, how dare you fire a weapon among so many people? What if someone had gotten hurt?"
'Damn, I forgot she was here' Yuuji complained in his mind.
"Instead of complaining in your head, apologize and promise me you won't do it again, otherwise I'll have to start placing more restrictions on you" Clara said while looking at him seriously.
Yuuji had no choice but to give in and do as she said.
"Good." Clara smiled, returning to her radiant personality. "With that settled, come sit with me and let's watch this last extra surprise event. It's a shame you're not participating, you looked really cool in the previous one, you know? Shooting everything with precision while protecting all your classmates, well, maybe not all of them? But..."
Yuuji didn't have time to think about what she meant by 'last extra surprise event' because the next second she was already talking about something completely different.
"This... Yuuji."
Fortunately for him, his mother's long speech mixed with bragging was interrupted when someone called him.
However, seeing the curiosity-filled eyes of his mother, Yuuji felt that maybe it would have been better to keep listening to her.
"You must be Lala, Yuuji has told me a lot about you, come, come, come sit with us" Clara said excitedly, pulling Lala by the hand and bringing her to her side.
Despite her superior strength, Lala couldn't resist Clara, ending up seated between Clara and Yuuji.
"By the way, I'm Yuuji Clara, Rito's mother, you can call me whatever you like."
"Yuuji's mother?" Lala opened her eyes in surprise. "Nice to meet you, I'm Lala Satalin Deviluke, I'm your son's friend. I hope we can continue being so despite the trouble I've caused" she said, letting out formal language without realizing it.
"Wow, you don't have to be so formal" Clara said with an amused smile, looking at the shy girl in front of her who didn't match the reports she had about her at all. "As for Rito, I'm not the one who decides who he spends time with, besides, he's the type of boy who gets bored very easily, so if you're his friend it's because you're interesting enough to him. Let me thank you in his place for staying by his side."
"I-it's fine, Yuuji is the one who actually takes care of me" Lala said, embarrassed by Clara's sudden seriousness.
"I see" Clara murmured before changing the subject. "But speaking of that, I've heard you have a fiancé, don't you think spending so much time with another man is disrespectful to him?"
"Rito and I already broke it off" Lala excused herself immediately. "I mean, I'm referring to Yuki Rito, my former fiancé, not Yuuji Rito, your son, actually, I wouldn't like to be separated from him, t-that doesn't mean... b-but it doesn't mean the opposite either..."
"Alright, mom, stop teasing her."
Yuuji looked at his mother, who was smiling with amusement while watching Lala act like that, and at Lala, who was digging herself deeper and deeper into a hole, and chose to interrupt.
"Come on, I was just playing a bit with my future daughter-in-law" Clara pouted playfully without forgetting to joke.
"Da-daughter in..."
"Yes, that's right, stop it" Yuuji said.
Ignoring his mother, Yuuji looked at Lala, a shy and nervous Lala was something he had never seen in the original anime, so in reality, he found it quite entertaining.
Thinking about it now, Yuuji realized that maybe she got that part of her personality from his mother.
Even so, whether it was because of her behavior or her actions throughout the rest of the day, Yuuji decided it was better to talk seriously.
He immediately stood up and took Lala by the hand, leading her away from the place and far from the crowd.
"Rito, don't come back late" Clara joked as she watched them leave.
...
Yuuji led Lala to a side of the school, to a hidden corner where no one else could be seen nor could anyone see inside, as it was surrounded by bushes.
The only thing there was a bench.
As a professional slacker, Yuuji of course knew about such a comfortable place to rest.
He guided Lala and made her sit beside him on the bench before speaking.
"What's wrong?"
"'What's wrong?'" Lala repeated, somewhat confused, not knowing what he meant.
As for Lala acting shy from time to time out of nowhere, Yuuji already knew the reason, so that wasn't actually what he was talking about.
"First the shoes, then the gift, then the Aquas, and I would say the bento, but that one tasted really good. The point is, today you've been overdoing it with several inventions, when you usually only make one or two per day.
Not only that, but you seemed too determined to win the festival, even, guessing, you called me to apologize because we didn't get first place, right?"
"You noticed?" Lala said, surprised by Yuuji's deduction.
However, from Yuuji's point of view, it was clear that she was overexerting herself to help him win the festival.
Even at the end, Lala didn't seem to really care about winning the horse battle and only seemed excited about the game, it was only after Yuuji joined that she truly started trying to win.
"This... Yuuji always helps me, right? So I thought about rewarding you somehow" Lala said, Yuuji guessed that only part of that was true.
"I spent a lot of time researching how to reward you, and I found out that boys like it when girls help and support them, right? That's why I wanted to help you win, is that wrong?" she asked with a pitiful look.
Lala was pretty bad at lying, so Yuuji could easily tell which part was true and which part was a lie.
But returning to reality, he shook his head at Lala's question.
"It's not wrong, it's just not necessary for you to overexert yourself to do it" Yuuji said.
"I didn't overexert myself" Lala said immediately. "I already had all those inventions and the bento was easy to make."
"No, overexerting yourself isn't about doing a lot, it's about doing things you normally wouldn't do" Yuuji shook his head. "There's no need for you to do that."
"I-it's fine" Lala said.
'So it was all for nothing, not only could I not really support Yuuji, but I also got scolded for it' Lala lamented to herself.
Lala, having researched, she read romance manga, how to make someone fall in love, tried really hard thinking that making him win would make Yuuji very happy, but in the end not only did she fail to make Yuuji win, she was also told what she was doing was wrong, so she immediately became depressed.
With her head lowered, a sad look, and teary eyes, Yuuji had to acknowledge for the second time in a few minutes that Lala was terrible at hiding her emotions.
"Actually, I also overexerted myself today" Yuuji said after letting out a sigh of helplessness.
"What?" Lala asked, not understanding what he meant, to her, Yuuji looked perfectly fine, without any sign of fatigue.
"I already explained it to you, right? Even if I didn't get physically tired, doing so many different things drained me mentally" Yuuji said, knowing what Lala was thinking. "Can you help me?"
Lala opened her eyes and immediately took out her D-Dial excitedly.
"Of course! What do you want? I have recovery injections, video game potions to restore stamina, I have beds from all planets, just tell me what you need and..."
"That's not necessary, just move a little."
"Move a little?" Lala said without understanding, but complying.
Before she could say anything else, Yuuji lay down, using her lap as a pillow.
"Very comfortable" he murmured with his eyes closed.
Lala's face turned red like a tomato immediately and she wanted to run away from embarrassment, but forced herself to stay calm and still so as not to bother Yuuji.
"Is this okay?"
"Yeah, don't worry, just stay still there for a while."
"I-I understand." Lala nodded as firmly as a soldier following orders and remained completely still, not moving a single muscle.
However, no more than five minutes later she spoke again, somewhat nervous.
"Th-this... Yuuji, I just remembered I'm supposed to be in the last event."
"...Last event? What's that?" Yuuji asked after a few seconds, lazily.
"It's a surprise event for the school, a cheerleader dance, the principal told me it's to support everyone who worked hard, so I wanted to join" Lala explained.
"The principal told you that?" Yuuji asked cautiously, knowing the principal's character, a complete pervert.
"Yes" Lala nodded.
"Do you have any picture of the uniform?"
Lala took out her D-Dial from her pocket and showed him a picture of the cheerleader uniform on a mannequin.
Just as Yuuji expected, it was the kind of uniform a pervert would choose, so short it looked like something out of adult fanart.
"Yeah, that's the most perverted thing I've seen in my life, you're not participating, and definitely not wearing that" Yuuji said, leaving no room for rejection from Lala, simply remaining on her lap without moving.
To Yuuji's surprise, Lala didn't respond, she just stayed silent for another half minute.
Even though Yuuji had his eyes closed, so he couldn't see her face, he was sure she was extremely blushing again, although this time he didn't understand why.
After a while, she finally spoke.
"Is this... dominance?" she asked, confusing Yuuji.
"What's that?"
"Saruyama said... that it's when a person shows dominance over another, like keeping them for themselves and not giving others the chance to get close... something like that."
'Saruyama definitely says nonsense' Yuuji thought, and then immediately shook his head before Lala misunderstood something.
"It's not that, it's just that the outfit is too revealing, so I don't want others to see you, just like I've covered you before so they wouldn't see you naked" Yuuji tried to explain.
But at his explanation, Lala only got more excited.
"But you said you can see through those crystals and you've seen me, right? That means you just don't want others who aren't you to see me!"
An emotion barely discovered by Lala, like shyness, didn't stand a chance against her lifelong excited personality, as soon as something made her happy, she immediately returned to her dominant personality, leaving the shy girl behind.
"...No, I already explained that I can't choose not to see through those crystals, right?" Yuuji replied after thinking for a moment, feeling like he was losing more and more ground in the conversation.
"But you could just look away, right?!"
"...Maybe?"
"And about the cheerleader outfit, if I wore it for you, would you like it?"
'I completely lost.'
Faced with Lala's bright and excited smile, as if she knew the answer but above all knew it would make her happy, Yuuji could only give up and agree.
"I would."
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+15 chapters in advance on Patreon.
p-atreon.com/IAMME26
(just delete the hyphen)
80 power stones = 1 extra chapter (cumulative)