Sket Dance 70

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Sket Dance
Chapter 70: Who...?!
[Insert text: They've caught him in the act!! What will the Glass Man do now...?!]

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Bossun: There was a meaning behind the rooms where the different windows were broken. // It was a code. // You hid your own name in the names of the different rooms you attacked. // Well, it's a little simple to be called a "code", I guess. // "Tamokuteki-shitsu", "Gyoumu-shitsu", "Kagaku-shitsu", "Manken-bushitsu", "Shichoukaku-shitsu", "Sahou-shitsu". // Take the first kana of each, and you get "Ta-ki-ka-ma-shi-sa". // Shift the characters around, and you can see it spells out a person's name. // "Shimasaki Taka". / Add this room we're in now - the "Ousetsu-shitsu" - to that, and the code is complete. // Shimasaki Takao.

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GlassMan: ...............
Bossun: Ah!! // Himeko!!!
Himeko: Right!! // HOLD IT!! // You're not gettin' away!! // Give yourself up... / Shimasaki Takao!! // !!!

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Himeko: It's... // It's not?!! // A girl?!
Bossun: Huh?! / That's... // The baseball team's manager!! // B... // But why...?!! // You're... // ...the Glass Man...?

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Switch: Year 2, Class F; Takashima Sakiko. Manager of the baseball team. // She come to school during the period in question, and spends it doing odd jobs... she has no alibi.
Takashima: Wh... what's your problem?! I'm just carrying a bat around! / I wasn't going to smash any glass or anything!!
Bossun: Who said anything about breaking glass? // We were keeping watch over the Glass Man's next target window when you showed up holding a bat. // How do you explain that?!
Takashima: ............... // All right...... // I'm the "Glass Man".

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Bossun: But that's not...!! / It's not Shimasaki...? // No... / It was a girl all along......? // Wasn't it a code, then...? // No... there are other ways those characters could be arranged... // Ta... // Taka... // ...shima... // Sa... // ...ki... // !! // Takashima... Saki... // Takashima Sakiko!! // It fits!! // I see... // It was just a coincidence that it matched up with "Shimasaki Takao"...!!

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Himeko: But why?!! / Surely the "Glass Man" is supposed to be a guy!
Bossun: We don't know that. / We don't even know who first came up with that name. // This was my fault for assuming the culprit was male in the first place. I subconsciously eliminated the manager of the Baseball Club without even considering her... // That's why I didn't come up with that name... // ...............!! // Of course! // You must have done it on purpose from the beginning... // It was you who came up with the name "Glass Man" and spread it around, wasn't it?

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Takashima: Bossun of the Sket-dan... // I'd heard rumours, but... // You're absolutely correct. // I'm the one who was breaking the windows every day... / ...and I spread the "Glass Man" name around the school in order to make people think the culprit was male. // After I told Shimada-san from the Newspaper Club, everybody was using it in no time. // And most of the school ended up thinking it was the work of a male student.
Bossun: ............ / Why did you do it?
Takashima: Reason......? / No particular reason, really. // School life was stressing me out, and I thought the school windows would be a good thing to take it out on.

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Takashima: Sorry, / but that's all it was.
Himeko: The hell's that supposed to mean?! // You're tellin' me you did all that for such a stupid little reason?!
Bossun: Stupid or not, it meant enough to the person in question. // She was stressed out enough to start breaking things; that's all it means. // You'll come with us to the staff room, right?
Takashima: ............ / Okay.
Switch: And that's another case closed.
Bossun: Ahhh, it was going so well up until the bit with the code, as well... can't believe I made a stupid mistake like that...
Switch: These things happen once in a while.
Bossun: True, that. But it turned out okay in the end! // At least we stopped today's window from being...

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[TN: Quick, isn't he. =p]
Himeko: Somethin' wrong?
Bossun: The Reception...? // Why... why exactly did you come here to the Reception... to the "Ousetsu-shitsu", then...? // Your name doesn't have an "O" in it...!

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Himeko: Wh... What's all this now?
Bossun: Come on... think about it. / I thought the culprit was Shimasaki Takao. That's why I thought the next room to be targeted would be the "Ousetsu-shitsu" - because "O" was the last missing character. / But if the culprit's name is "Takashima Sakiko", then there's no reason for her to come here! // She should have headed to a room starting with "ko"... / ...the Handicrafts room [Kougei-shitsu], for instance, and smashed a window there! // With only one character to go, you broke your own rule... // Why?!
Takashima: W... Well... / I felt like it!! What, you have a problem with WHICH windows I smash?!!
Bossun: No! // You're... // ...hiding something, aren't you.

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Himeko: Takashima-san... // I know this might not be easy, but we're not your enemies, okay? // Bossun'll listen to what you have to say. // If there's somethin' else, then be a brave girl and tell him, yeah?
Takashima: ............... // I...... // I'm not the culprit. // I was under orders.
Bossun: Orders?!
Takashima: There was nothing else I could do!! I was being blackmailed!! Someone was going to reveal my secret!!

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Takashima: It was after school last Wednesday that I received the first order. / There was a letter stuffed into my shoe locker. // "Come to the path outside Multipurpose Room A tomorrow at 6:30 AM"... // And... alongside the note... this photo was inside the envelope.
Himeko: A photo? / Let me see that. // Boys, you stay back! // ............... // Who the...?!
Takashima: That's... a photo of me, in middle school.
Himeko: Whaaaaaaa?!! // But you're SUPER-FAT!!!!
Takashima: Aaaahhh, don't say it out loud!!! // All right! So I used to be fat! // And the note said that if I didn't do it, then they'd tell the whole school about it!!

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Takashima: So the following morning, I went to the place the note said. // And when I did... // There was another photo of me in middle school taped up against the window. // I pulled it off, of course. / But behind it, there was a message carved into the window with a nail or something! // "Takashima Sakiko used to be a fatty"... // I just went crazy... I didn't know what to do any more... / And so I looked around, and...
Bossun: ...You spotted a baseball lying around, huh.
Himeko: But what doess it mean...?
Bossun: I daresay our culprit meant to make her break the glass from the beginning. // If the message was written on the glass in marker, it could be erased. // But if it was carved right into the glass itself... / ...the only way to remove it would be to break the glass.

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Switch: I see... very clever.
Bossun: I daresay the culprit left the baseball there on purpose, as well. // By making her use a baseball, suspicion would be cast upon the baseball team.
Takashima: I barely even knew what I was doing... I just picked up the ball, threw it at the glass... / ...and ran from the scene. // But that same day, after school, I found another message in my shoe locker, just like the first one. / That's when I realised that I was going to be forced to do the same thing over and over... // And just as I thought, there was a third message after the second one. // I became scared... I had already realised that people would start suspecting the baseball team because of the baseball I left at the scene of the first crime... / And if people suspected the team, they might suspect their manager, as well... // That's why... I spread the "Glass Man" name about the school, in an attempt to make people think the culprit was male. // I felt bad for the team members who would be suspected as a result, of course, but since they hadn't actually done anything, I thought that nobody would be able to prove they did, and the whole thing would be forgotten in the end...
Himeko: I see... / So someone manipulated you into doing all this.
Bossun: But did you really have to go so far just for that? I mean, it's not like you're fat any more, so even if people did find out...

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Takashima: No, they mustn't!!!
Bossun: !!
Takashima: If... if Hiraizumi-kun were to find out about that... he'd hate me, I know he would!! // I can't let that happen!! // I'd do anything to stop that happening... even if it meant doing what this person wanted......
Himeko: There are some secrets a girl has just gotta protect, right? // No matter what it takes.
Bossun: Well... / I guess I can understand that...

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Switch: But if that is the case, then our true culprit must still be out there somewhere.
Bossun: Yeah. // Our real culprit's aim was to make it look like Takashima-san was responsible for a series of glass-breaking incidents. // That's why they set up the locations so that they'd spell out the name "Takashima Sakiko", as a hint to lead the investigation to the 'right' conclusion. // But for some reason, they decided to change the location of that last character. // Why? // Because the people doing the investigating - us, in other words - had reached the wrong conclusion. // The culprit ordered her to break the glass of the Reception room because that's where we were going to be lying in wait. / After all, their aim was to have us catch her. // In other words... // ............... // In other words...!

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Bossun: That's what's going on! // The real culprit... // ...was the one person who knew that we would be waiting outside the Reception. // Someone who had been monitoring our investigation... // ...and knew exactly when and where we would make our move. // Heheh... If only we'd just come to the conclusion you wanted in the first place, eh?
Saori: !!!
Bossun: Looks like you're the one who really slipped up!

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Saori: Hey... // Let go!!
Bossun: Sorry, but no. // The culprit... // Is the person who's been keeping "total coverage" on us this whole time... // You. // Yasuda Saori.
[Insert text: Wait up, Bossun... what's this now?!]
[TN: Man, did I hit the nail on the head or what? =p]