The residents had evacuated in an orderly manner due to the spacequake alarm, so this specially set-up open-air raffle booth looked suspicious no matter how you sliced it.
Though temporarily relocating an entire commercial street and its specialty shops was even more outrageous.
Shidou Itsuka instinctively glanced at his sister, and Kotori Itsuka timely gestured to him.
Her finger pointed at the suspicious booth while her other hand pushed him forward.
Shidou didn’t know if this was some kind of sign language, but the hurry up and go meaning was obvious.
…Is this really okay…
Still feeling it was unreliable, Shidou Itsuka turned his head and found a face rapidly enlarging in his vision.
Tohka pressed close to the boy’s face with sparkling, expectant eyes.
“Shidou! That’s it, right!”
The only suspicious spot on the street that could be called that was self-evident.
But Tohka didn’t seem to find it suspicious at all; she didn’t even raise her arm and gather spiritual power at her fingertip like when they first met.
Not all humans will hurt you—it seemed the girl had already accepted this statement. That was a good sign.
But Tohka had no intention of going by herself; instead, she leaned closer to Shidou.
Although she had asked Kyoumi what raffle tickets and drawing prizes were, how to actually use the raffle machine hadn’t been explained.
Well, that couldn’t be helped.
Kyoumi might have appeared a few more times than him and knew a bit more, but she wasn’t someone who had always lived among humans. Not knowing was normal.
But Shidou definitely knew.
“Shidou, draw first!”
With this trust, Tohka pulled Shidou Itsuka toward the raffle booth that gave off strong clearance-sale vibes, then hid behind him and pointed.
Shidou Itsuka scratched his cheek.
It was a bit inconvenient with one arm held by Tohka, but he could still hand over the ticket, so it was fine.
Shidou’s memory wasn’t so bad that he’d completely forget someone he’d seen.
So it wasn’t an illusion.
The man with the square, national-character face who took his ticket was definitely one of the officers in the Fraxinus operations room—Early Burnout Kawagoe.
If that was the case…
The boy looked left and right.
As expected, most of the officers who should have been in the airship’s command room had only changed clothes for the simplest disguise… Could this really be called a disguise?
Ratatoskr had to consider all sorts of possibilities, yet operations proceeded along a single route.
When necessary, not just staff but even Fraxinus officers had to be able to disguise themselves as civilians and support Shidou covertly.
Though the officers usually acted unreliable, each had undergone over a month of theater acting training and understood Kotori’s intentions and date plans better.
Post-meal rest was over.
Next, Fraxinus would bring out their full, genuine skills—
Including but not limited to rigged operations, illegal structures, forged documents, and method acting.
“Ticket’s fine. Please draw—”
After symbolically checking the ticket and putting it away, Kawagoe made a please gesture.
The four tickets were distributed to give each person one draw…
Not expecting to win anything, Shidou Itsuka placed his hand on the crank and turned the wooden raffle drum, making it clack-clack as it spun.
Raffle experiences weren’t common for Shidou, but he knew these simple machines—usually seen during store promotions or festivals.
The box contained mostly red consolation-prize marbles or plastic balls.
Normal people usually shook out those and got a pocket tissue pack.
Gold usually meant first prize, maybe with some other colored prizes, but second or third never beat the top prize’s appeal.
Weight settled on his shoulder.
Shidou Itsuka tilted his head slightly and found Tohka swaying her head in time with his cranking, eyes glued to the prize outlet.
With the motion, the girl’s chin occasionally rested on Shidou’s shoulder.
Childlike innocence and cuteness that strongly stirred ordinary protective instincts.
This distance… is too close…
Feeling his cheeks heat up, Shidou Itsuka looked away and released the crank.
Clack—
With the crisp sound of a marble dropping from the outlet, a red consolation prize fell into Shidou’s view.
“I thought so…”
He hadn’t really expected to win, but there had been a tiny bit of hope when the marble rolled out. But of course…
“Red is the consolation prize pocket tis—”
Before Shidou could finish, Kawagoe vigorously shook the handbell.
“Congratulations on the grand prize!!!”
“Ohhh!!!”
Swept up by the enthusiastic congratulations, Tohka let out an excited exclamation of unknown meaning.
“Wh-what…?”
Shidou Itsuka frowned and looked at the prize board behind.
The gold ball that should have been first prize had been colored over with red marker.
“Congratulations! The grand prize is free couple tickets to Fantasy Island!”
With irresistible momentum, two tickets were shoved into the boy’s hands.
Without giving Shidou a chance to ask, Kawagoe shook the bell and called “Next!”
This was already blatant rigging. Shidou Itsuka looked troubled at the two tickets in his hand.
First, he had never heard of a theme park called Fantasy Island.
Second, from what he could see, Fraxinus’s support only had options for dating Tohka and couldn’t accommodate Kotori.
“Phew…”
Approaching the raffle machine with battlefield intensity, Tohka recalled Shidou’s earlier cranking motion, then suddenly accelerated—
The raffle machine spun like a top at breakneck speed, the wind pressure blowing the girl’s night-colored long hair.
“Wait—Tohka?!”
The wooden raffle drum creaked and groaned, unable to withstand the force as dozens of marbles shot out in rapid succession like machine-gun fire, rat-tat-tat, flying into the air.
Only after the girl stopped for over ten seconds did they clatter-clatter rain down, steadily caught one by one in Tohka’s hands.
“Shidou—look, I won so many just like yours!”
Tohka proudly held up the dozen-plus marbles in both hands like a child showing off.
“…Um… Tohka,” In his vision, Kawagoe had lifted a bench as cover; facing this sudden incident, his hands shook slightly but his enthusiastic expression remained. Shidou Itsuka instinctively felt sorry.
“Raffle… you don’t have to spin it that fast…”
One ticket can’t draw that many… I’ll teach her that common sense later when there’s a chance…
“Hm, I won a lot too,” Shidou Itsuka turned at the sound of another girl’s voice.
There, Kyoumi stood with a yo-heave-ho, arms hugging a foam box that looked like she had pulled it from under the table while Tohka was drawing.
Thump—she set it on the table.
The purple-haired girl patted non-existent dust off her arms, then opened the box with both hands. It was filled with spare raffle marbles.
“Ticket for you,” She stuffed the ticket into the stunned staff’s hand and looked at the prize area.
“Please pack these up for me. I want them all~”
“This has already surpassed the realm of raffle!!!”
More like outright robbery.