Welcome to Gaia! ::

Negi comes down from the hallway above, looking around a bit and wondering where he should start. Where -should- he start? He scratches his cheek a bit, thinking on it before shaking his head. He didn't know. Maybe Yuuna had some idea? He'd wait a bit for her here before he'd card-call her.

arrow Entry from hotel room

Yuuna came wandering down the stairs and into the lobby, looking around to see where the teacher that had summoned her had gone.

She turned at the call, and waved back to the boy teacher, painting her trademark grin on her face as she walked toward him. She nodded at his query, then just launched straight into it. "Claude-san showed me his talent for disguises and voice impersonation, and you wouldn't believe how good he is at it, and we came up with the plan that we can have him disguise himself as Konoka and parade around town. Hopefully, the kidnappers, or some of them, will see him, think they caught the wrong Konoka, and at best, release the real one in an attempt to capture him. Worst-case, they say screw it and try to take them both. Either way, we'd need a strong team on hand to capture and interrogate whatever kidnappers fall for the bait."

It was a hairbrained scheme at best, but Yuuna was a doer, not a thinker. The level of tactical wit she did possess had been painstakingly learned from Multiplayer.

She nodded. "Yeah, that and getting hold of a voice recording of Konoka-san are the only holdups. He's up in the room right now seeing if Chisame-san can assemble a facsimile on her computer. I tried to ask Asakura-san, but she was already gone before I could find her."

She gave the boy teacher a nod of acknowledgement, a little grin, and then she walked over to sit on a bench, letting her head lean backwards against the wall so she was staring up at the ceiling.

She tilts her head to the left, and looks at him out of the corner of her eye. She had promised to tell him her secret in return, but the boy was only 10 years old. The chances of him having any ability to help her were infinitessimally small, and the poor, righteous boy would probably try to do something to help her anyway, and only end up causing a serious ruckus right when nobody needed one. That's how these things always went in those shoujo mangas. Jesus, the poor girl that's trying to come out of the closet can never catch a break...

But no. Yuuna had made a promise, and she never reniged on her word, ever. She let her head hang, and took a deep breath. "Yeah," she said quietly. "Last night before Konoka-san was kidnapped, I was eating dinner with Makie-chan, Claude-san, and Chisame-san. We started talking about crushes, Makie-chan figured out that I had one for her, and so I sort of had to confess to her on the spot. And she shot me down like a Black Hawk with an RPG."

She nodded slowly, staring down at the floor, not one particle of the usual enthusiasm and strong spirit she usually exhibited making itself known. "She said something like that when I told her. But Makie-chan's not like that, so nothing can be done." This was one reason why she was throwing herself headfirst into the rescue efforts for Konoka. Staying active and keeping her mind engaged prevented her mind from drifting, where it would inevitably drift back to the rejection.