Daily Life Of A Ponytail Girl

The abandoned school building. A place that once was a heavily used location for classes on the school grounds, had been left almost entirely neglected for unknown reasons. Nowadays, some after school clubs use some of the classrooms in the building as clubrooms, but most of the time there's no one to be found. Except for now, of course. Four mid-teen aged girls in their school uniforms were walking through the halls. Though none of the lights were on, morning light shone through windows on the left of them. On their right, there was a bunch of doors leading to different classrooms. As the girls were walking, suddenly, one of them spoke up.

"Did you guys know that one of our school's 7 mysteries claims that this building is haunted?" Aoi, the girl with short blue hair and class 2-D representative, suddenly spoke.

"Don't be silly." Akane, the girl with long red hair who belonged to the Ethics Committee, replied. "Ghosts don't exist, and even just thinking about them is only going to cause unnecessary fear."

"B- b- but what if they are real and we come face to face with one?!" This time it was Yukkuri, the green-haired girl with her hair in two buns and thick glasses on her face, who spoke up.

"For all we know, ghosts found their new resting home in this very building, and here we are, just casually threading through their territory! Hey Yūi, on that note, didn't you say Netsu mentioned something about students hearing sounds of ghosts coming from this very school? Hey Yūi, are you listening?"

"Somebody is there." Suddenly, Yūi, girl with pink hair in a ponytail held together by a big purple ribbon, and the last of the four girls, spoke up. As she pointed forwards with her finger, and the other three girls proceeded to look at what she was pointing at.

Standing at the end of the hallway was a girl with short black hair which held a purple flower. With her face beaming self-confidence and a smug smile under her gray eyes, the girl looked back at them. The white blouse of her uniform wasn't buttoned up all the way, leaving quite some cleavage visible, and her purple skirt seemed to be a bit on the short side. Unlike the other students, she didn't wear a purple ribbon on her blouse. She opened her mouth and started speaking.

"I see you have finally made it here. The name is Ejji Rodo, I'm from class 2-B and I'll be your first opponent. To get past me, you have to complete my challenge."

The girl reached into her schoolbag, and from it emerged a small brown package.

"This challenge is one that tests your skill to the fullest, I hope you are prepared to lose beca- Hey! Where are you guys going!"

In the middle of her monologue, Ejji had to stop because her supposed opponents had already walked past her and were making their way further into the hallway.

Akane was the one to respond to her. "Listen kid, we're on a strict time limit here and we'd like to save time wherever possible. Whatever you had in mind seems like something we wouldn't want to deal with anyways."

Ejji threw herself at Akane's feet and started speaking with panic in her face. "Wait wait wait, hold on a just a moment, please! Yaruki is like actually gonna kill me if she found out I just let you pass with no challenge, at least give me a chance!"

Akane shook off the girl with little empathy. "You're just getting in the way, anyways, let's go Yūi, our classmates need to get saved and quickly."

Yūi and the others nodded and started walking again.

Suddenly, Ejji shot right up and started grinning while once again taking her smug stance. "Oh well, guess that makes sense, obviously class 2-D students are just a bunch of cowards who're too scared and weak to win against me in a small little match. Oh well.~"

Yūi replied saying "You really think such weak provocations will get us t-"

"Okay, you're on kid."

Before Yūi could finish her sentence, Akane had already turned around and faced Ejji with a smug grin of her own (with a twitching left eye in addition).

"Let's make this interesting, just you and me. Class 2-D weak huh? Well, we'll see who's weak after I beat you to a pulp in whatever you have here."

The two girls facing each other were emitting a powerfull aura that left the other three girls in awe.

"Sounds like a wonderful idea, may the best girl win." Ejji replied. The two girls shook hands, and the challenge was set to begin.

The black-haired Ejji opened the package and revealed it to be holding a bunch of playing cards. "The game we'll be playing is a simple game of Old Maid. I was originally planning on just increasing my winning chances by having all of you play at the same time, thus making my chances of ending with the joker much lower, but I digress." The girl shuffled the cards and then divided them amongst the two of them. "Sorry we have to sit on the ground by the way, the teachers said I wasn't allowed to take any of the tables and chairs outside the classroom." Ejji said while pouting and looking over her cards.

"That's quite alright, it's not going to take long for me to beat you anyway so it'll be fine." Akane replied.

At Akane's confidence, the three other girls felt some hope and thrust in Akane.

After getting rid of the pairs in each hand, Ejji was left with 7 cards while Akane had 6.

"You're speaking with a lot of confidence about a game of luck."

"The thing is though. . ."Akane spoke as she took a card from Ejji's hand "With my levels of mind games, this has gone far bey- Wait that was the joker!"

And at that, the three girls immediately lost the hope they had.

As the game progressed, the three girls went through a wide range of emotions, varying from happiness and relief when Akane managed to make another pair, to a bit of fear whenever she took a card and didn't set any pairs away. Eventually, the game had reached its climax;

Ejji: 2 cards.

Akane: 1 card.

Akane's hand trembled a bit as she reached out towards the two cards Ejji held. The three girls in the audience held their breath as Akane slowly pulled up one of the cards. The card slowly made its way towards Akane, and then. . .

"Not fair!"

Spoke up Ejji as she threw her remaining card on the ground, which showed itself to be the remaining joker card.

Akane waved a hand through her red hair as she stood up. "I said it before and I'll say it again; mind games. I could see the slight reactions in your eyes when I picked the joker the first time and used it as a reference throughout the game."

Ejji made a pouting face and raised her arms. "That's insane, not even human! What are you, a robot?!"

"So anyway. . ." Yūi interfered, 'This means you can now let us move on right?"

The black-haired girl let out a sigh. "Yeah yeah, that's how this challenge works. Just know I won't forget this loss! Don't you forget about me either, Robot!" With that final message, Ejji ran off back towards the entrance while still flinging her arms into the air.

"With that settled, we can finally move on. Hope there's still enough time left." Akane said as she made her way further into the hallway.

Yūi suddenly spoke to Akane with sparkles in her eyes. "That mind game thing you did was totally insane, it's like you read her like a book! Is there any chance you can teach me that?"

Akane looked back with surprise on her face at hearing that. "Mind games? Oh yeah, that mind games stuff, that was a total bluff."

"""Huh what?""" The three girls all replied in sync.

Suddenly Akane started speaking with a soft smile. "I made a small scratch on the joker card when I got it the first time. Small enough to not be noticed unless you're specifically looking for it. No way I'd let anyone take away my victory." Having said that, the girl continued walking, leaving the other girls left in awe.

"Sometimes I forget how scary and sneaky Akane can be. . ." Yūi finally concluded.