Maria-sama ga Miteru:Volume32 Chapter9 1

The Ribbon's Path Part 1.

After leaving Katsura-san behind and eventually making her way to the room on the second floor of the Rose Mansion, she was greeted with Yoshino-san asking her, 'Are you sick?'

"Sick? No."

As she answered, Yumi made her way over to the chair by the wall and dumped the coat, bag and purse she had been carrying.

"I guess not. But, Yumi-san, when we split up you said 'I'm just going to the toilet.'"

"Ahh."

That's right. After they had finished cleaning, she had gone to the staff room together with Shimako-san and Yoshino-san and they had decided to go back to their classrooms and pick up their belongings, before heading off to the Rose Mansion. Because Shimako-san was in a different class she had split from them at their classroom. But after picking up her belongings Yumi had realized she needed to go to the toilet, so had asked Yoshino-san to go ahead of her. Then after she was done she had run into Katsura-san in the hallway.

"Sorry, sorry."

It seems they were worried because she had been so late in returning from the toilet.

"Did you take the scenic route back?"

"I bumped into Katsura-san."

Yumi carried her lunch over to her usual seat at the table. It looked as though Noriko-chan and Touko, who had come to the Rose Mansion straight after cleaning, had already finished their lunch while Shimako-san and Yoshino-san appeared to be about halfway through.

"Katsura-san?"

Shimako-san said.

"I ran into her just before too. I think she said she was going to look for her onee-sama. You must have seen her after that, then."

It made sense, since Shimako-san and Katsura-san were classmates, they would have more chances to see each other.

"Ahh."

Just like in a comic book, the light-bulb flicked on inside Yumi's head.

"You didn't happen to say something to her like 'From here I'm going to the Rose Mansion to do some odd jobs,' did you?"

"Yeah … maybe. Why?"

"So that's how she knew."

The true shape of the psychic was revealed. Well, she already knew that Katsura-san's claim of ESP was mostly fake anyway.

"More importantly, your cute petit soeur was also worried."

Yoshino-san turned her head prior to speaking. Yumi turned to follow her gaze, and there was her 'cute petit soeur' Touko pouring tea at the sink. Yumi didn't think that Touko would have minded that she was a bit late, but she decided to apologize anyway.

"Sorry."

"Don't mention it."

Touko seemed somewhat lacking in energy when she brought the tea over.

Perhaps this was a result of something Yoshino-san had said to make her worry needlessly. 'She's so late, I wonder if she's okay,' or 'Perhaps she's got a stomach ache.' Or perhaps Touko herself was feeling sick.

"…"

Especially after what had happened with Katsura-san, Yumi admonished herself that as an onee-sama she should pay more attention to her petit soeur.

The plan was to check the first floor room for anything left behind by Sachiko-sama or Rei-sama, ahead of their graduation tomorrow. But if Touko wasn't feeling well, it may be better if she went home early instead. She shouldn't strain herself, and they shouldn't ask her to.

But Yumi thought that even if she told Touko to go home, Touko wouldn't leave because everyone else was staying to work. There was a part of her that was very stubborn. In which case it was probably better to finish this quickly.

Yumi launched herself into eating lunch at double speed and while she didn't quite make her goal of finishing at the same time as Shimako-san and Yoshino-san they didn't have to wait long for her.

"Well, this shouldn't take too long."

Yumi remarked as they were descending the stairs.

"Even so, we have to do this for appearance's sake."

Yoshino-san's lack of interest was obvious as she said this. But it was something they had to do so they were resigned to doing it. Both her tone of voice and her attitude seemed to radiate the feeling that this was a bother.

"Oh, do you think we won't find anything?"

Shimako-san spoke as though she was expecting something, but even she was allowing for the possibility of finding nothing.

At any rate, they won't have left anything behind and we'll be able to head home quickly – that was the general consensus of the search party members.