"Uesugi-san...did you happen to hear that?" The five of them stood in silence, a myriad of thoughts running through each of their minds.

"Is something wrong? I heard yelling!" Itsuki came running up from behind Fuutarou, staring in disbelief at Mutsumi and her fashion sense. "Why are you..."

"I..." Miku muttered, covering her face, which was starting to tear up, as she ran down the path that Mutsumi and Ichika took, passing Nino on the way down. It was sudden, too sudden to give the others enough time to react. The second sister, after some initial confusion, finally got a look at the sixth sister.

"You..." Yotsuba grabbed hold of Mutsumi's shoulders, gripping them tightly as she glared down her sister. "You wanted to sabotage Miku! Look at what you did!"

"Mutsumi! You've gone too far this time!" Nino ran up to the two, taking Mutsumi from Yotsuba's grasp to scold her. "You've made Miku cry! You always do things like this! When will you be satisfied!? Just how low are you willing to go?"

"Wouldn't you have done something similar if you had a chance?" Mutsumi hid her face, pulling off the wig to reveal her own hair. Her tone wasn't guilty, it wasn't anything. She tried to hide her emotions, hide her thoughts, because, in truth, she was happy. She shifted her head slightly, her gaze moving over to gaze at Ichika. Itsuki walked over to the scene, unable to speak as her brain was still trying to come up with her reaction. "After all, all is fair in love and war. Fuutarou-san is important to you, right? Why not go all out?"

Nino grit her teeth, growling at her sister. "That may be true, but..." She forced Mutsumi to look back at her. "The bond between the six of us is just as important to me!" Tearing up from everything that was happening all at once, Nino bowed her head. "If you were chosen that day, then I...I would've congratulated you!"

Mutsumi didn't reply, instead, she shifted her gaze back at Ichika who was just looking on in stunned silence. Fuutarou looked over the whole situation, eyes fixated on the center of the chaos. "Why did you..."

"Shut it! You being here is only complicating things! Go after Miku!" Nino yelled. "Go!" Having no room for negotiation, Fuutarou hurried down the path. Yotsuba, having had her fill of Mutsumi, ran after him to assist in his search.

"Ichika, Nino, sleep in our room tonight. Let's give her some time to think over what she'd done." Itsuki finally found something she could say. Mutsumi's message from a few days ago rang out in her mind. It was all starting to fall into place, but one thing was still unclear. "Let's go. We'll talk to her once she feels sorry for what she'd done." She said, wanting to avoid any more escalation of the situation.

"Mutsumi-chan..." Ichika muttered, staring at her sister as they walked down the path that Itsuki came from, leaving the sixth behind at the top. People started arriving, bringing with them the noise of idle chatter and camera clicks.

"Onee-chan...I'm sorry..." She whispered as their classmates arrived at the summit. Mutsumi's facade broke the moment her sisters were out of the vicinity. Her knees wobbled, her eyes watered, and her breathing became interspersed in some sobbing. She managed to pull herself together, opening up an app that showed seven blips of different colors moving around on the street. She took a screenshot, texting it to her sisters.

"Where could she be?" Fuutarou muttered to himself, stretching his back while catching his breath.

"Uesugi-san! I just got this text. It looks like Miku's on her way to the hotel." Yotsuba ran up, shoving her phone into Fuutarou's face. It was a photo of the map of Kyoto, with the blue blip near the hotel their class was staying at. "We should head there too."

"To think it all ended up like this..." Fuutarou muttered, getting onto a bus with Yotsuba in tow. "So Miku wanted to have lunch with me? That was her plan, huh?"

"You speak like you were expecting something."

"I was. After all, she already confessed to me. It would've been strange if she didn't try anything." Fuutarou took a seat on the bus, leaning back in his seat. "So when she said that she'd support me...I already had my doubts. So that wasn't the real Miku." They sat in silence as the bus started moving.

"What a mess we're in..." He muttered as they hit a stop sign. "Everyone has things they want to do, and nothing will end well if today is just the start."

"I guess it was my fault too...if I didn't say those things..." Yotsuba moped, her ribbon drooping down. "Uesugi-san, isn't there a way to make everyone happy?" Yotsuba asked, looking out the window at the Kyoto streets. A clear sky on a sunny day, it would've been a nice day to take a stroll if things happened differently earlier.

"There is." Fuutarou lowered his head. "Don't compare oneself against others and be content with what you have. If everyone could do that, then your wish would come true. But, realistically speaking, people's happiness often comes at others' expense. Competing against each other, taking from each other, happiness attained from victory is very real. There's nothing you can do about it, there are limits." He took in a large breath. "Isn't it conceited to say that you want to attain everything? When you choose something, it means not choosing something else. The time will come when a decision will have to be made. All we can do is delay the inevitable." He said as they arrived at their stop, having to walk the rest of the way to the hotel. Fuutarou nearly collapsed a few times on the trip.

"Miku's in her room, Mutsumi's not here yet though." Itsuki said, joining her sisters at a table. Nino, Ichika, and Yotsuba were quietly mulling over today's events, eating some food to help get their thoughts in order.

"Listen, everyone. A stalker has been following us around, taking photos of us." Nino announced, setting down her chopsticks to emphasize her point. "I've been hearing a camera ever since we got here. And it's been on the news too."

"Even if it was a stalker, why would you be targetted?" Itsuki picked up a piece of food as the sound of a camera clicking caught Nino's attention. She turned around, somewhat smug and ready to point out that she was right; it was just her classmate Tsubaki taking pictures of her food for Instagram. "Putting that aside, I find it strange for Miku to act out like that. What about you, Ichika?"

The eldest sister was unusually quiet, her food was barely touched. "Huh...oh yeah. Maybe we should check on her." Lost in her thoughts, Ichika slowly got up.

"Hey, wait. Let's all go together." Nino said, hurriedly finishing her food; Itsuki, somehow, finished her food before her even after arriving late.

"Uesugi-kun, what's on your mind?" Takeda asked, their group watching the Nakano sisters as they left the hallway. Fuutarou was still eating his food, Maeda got to go to the washroom, and Takeda was fiddling with something in his pocket. "If you're worried about the Nakano sisters, Mutsumi-san told me to tell you this. We happened to run into her on our way to the shrine."

"What did she say?"

"Fuutarou-san. I'm sorry. Goodbye."

"That girl..." Fuutarou stood up, heading away from the table. "Excuse me, I have to go somewhere."

The sisters walked up to one of their rooms, the one with Miku inside. "Miku. Can you open the door?"

"No response," Itsuki said, looking down at her phone. "And she isn't answering her phone either." She added.

"I'm sorry I blurted that out. But there are still two days left on the trip! Please give me a chance to make this right!" Yotsuba yelled at the door, knocking gently.

"Hey...why don't we check on Mutsumi-chan..." Ichika suggested as the sound of a camera shutter reached their ears. "D-Did anyone else hear that?"

"I'm sure it's nothing. Maybe it's just our classmates again..." Itsuki said as another photo was taken. "There's no way a stalker would follow us all the way to the...hotel..." They all turned around, finding an arm reaching around the corner, holding a camera with the lens facing them. One final photo was taken as the four of them screamed. Ichika scrambled to get her keycard out, fumbling with the door before she managed to get it open.

"Phew...it's a good thing that our rooms were next to each other." Nino muttered, catching her breath as she relaxed against the wall. "Anyway, sorry to barge in like this, Mutsumi. I told you! There was a stalker out there!"

"Mutsumi?" Ichika looked around the room, only finding her sister's luggage neatly packed. They started to panic, getting up to look around the tiny room. "Where could she have gone? Did someone check the bathroom yet?"

The four of them slowly opened the door, switching on the lights to reveal the sixth sister sitting in the fetal position underneath a running shower. Upon closer inspection, they realized that she had fallen asleep like that. "A-At least she didn't do anything rash." Yotsuba sighed, walking out of the bathroom only to be greeted by a knock at the door.

"Mutsumi? Are you in here?" Fuutarou's voice was calming, knowing that he was unlikely to be the stalker that followed them.

"Fuu-kun? She's asleep, so can you come back another time?" Nino opened the door for him as her phone began to ring. "Miku, it's about time you picked up your phone." She said, answering the call.

"I heard screaming, is everything okay?" Miku asked from over the phone.

"We're fine now. How are you doing?" Nino replied, putting her on speaker for everyone to hear.

"I'm feeling better. I think I can go out tomorrow." Miku's message calmed everyone down. Deep in the back of everyone's mind, they worried if she'd be able to pick herself up from the events that transpired that day, so hearing her back on her feet was music to their ears. "How's Mutsumi?"

"She's asleep in the room. Anyway, why don't we all go to sleep for the day? Quite a lot has happened." Itsuki suggested, walking past Fuutarou to knock on her door. The sisters all followed suit, biding Fuutarou a good night and resting for the second day of the trip.

"Goodbye? What could she mean?" He muttered, shutting the door to Mutsumi's room and returning to his to bed down for the night. A certain sister tossed and turned, unable to fall asleep. Her thoughts were still running wild, the memory of Mutsumi's actions flashing in her mind. Unable to bear it, she got up and picked up a keycard for the room next door.

"Mutsumi-chan...you didn't have to do that..." She said, seeing that one of the beds were occupied. "But...thank you. Onee-chan will make it up to you, I promise..." Ichika walked over, taking a seat on the side of the bed while running her hand over the covers. "Hm?" She raised an eyebrow, pulling aside the blanket to reveal that the lump on the bed was just a pillow with a red wig.

"I'm sorry..."

A/N: No update tomorrow (March 2/3) since it's my birthday. I'll try to get something out anyway, but it's unlikely since I'll be going somewhere.