As the three young men wandered through the main building of campus, taking it as a shortcut over to where Hitoshi had seen Rui earlier, they were all thinking of what Umi had told Hitoshi. Although this could have been nothing more than a bad feeling, Umi was normally right with intuition. There was definitely a level of importance with this mission, and they knew that something could go wrong. They just weren't sure what that something was. Could this person at the beach somehow be involved in the missing students, or someone else that they might encounter on the way?

The three tried to shake the bad possibilities from their mind, but also try to keep a good mindset, taking Umi's concerns to heart. They needed to be careful on this mission, more than they could ever dream of. What lied ahead for them was something much more serious than what they thought this could have been. Their mind's were put at ease, for the moment, when they had emerged from the building and came up to Rui, who was still standing next to the track field. She looked and came right up to Hitoshi, a big smile on her face.

“Hey, Hitoshi-kun! So, what was that huge deal with the principal about? Is there any potential that we can throw a clever prank into it?!” Rui was her usual, hyper self. The goggles on her brown hair shined from the sun, and her blue eyes showed the look of a daredevil. She was ready for action. Hitoshi sent her a grin and gave her an answer, showing that he wasn't quite ready to throw any form of prank into what he'd been given by the Principal. Indeed, this was no task to be handled lightly, no matter how excited Rui might have been.

“Well, I haven't thought a lot about it yet. You'll have to give me a little while, Rui-chan. These things do take very precise calculations to pull off. The errand she has me doing is not ordinary, in the slightest bit!” Rui's expression changed as soon as she heard that Ayuka had sent her Hitoshi on an errand. She winced as she started to talk back to him. “What? She called YOU up there for an errand? You're not going to turn all teacher's-pet on me, now, are you? What possessed her to do that? Everyone knows that my Hitoshi-kun is much too cool for errand-running!”

The poor girl looked to the ground and started to let out a sigh. She had wanted to spend some time with her friend, but it seemed like he had important stuff to do for the Principal. After a few moments, however, she sparked an idea. She let out a soft grin and looked at Hitoshi were her blue, bubbly eyes, as if begging for a smile in response. She soon made her intentions apparent as she asked Hitoshi if she could come with him on this errand. Hitoshi wanted to let her come along, but he didn't think it would be a good idea for that to happen. He had to tell her she couldn't.

“Not this time. This is kinda of an important thing, something that's just too big to fudge up. We're planning to head to the beach to see Old Man Houjo. Aside from that, who knows what else we'll have to end up doing before returning to campus.” Rui almost looked disgusted as soon as she heard who they were going to see. “Ick! Hitoshi, I heard all that guys ever does is spend his time, peeking through the trees at us girls, when we spend out personal time out there. Whatcha want with him, anyway?”

Hitoshi didn't want to pre-judge this acquaintance of the Principal's, so he just tried to keep his mind from viewing this man as an old perv, despite what Rui heard about him. “It things go well for us, I will tell you all about it! For the time being, however, I'm supposed to be pretty hush-hush about it. Ayuka's orders. Hold down the fort for us while I'm gone, okay?” He let out that last bit, hoping that Rui would accept that answer and be alright with not going with them. He needed a way to convince her, or she might just end up following them, anyways. Thankfully, he didn't need to work any harder to help her make up her mind.

Her expression turned to a grin again and dug something out of her pocket. “Aw, fine. At least take this with you, though! I snuck it out after breakfast this morning.” Out from her pocket came the most smashed up, deformed cake the three of them had ever seen. They began to wonder why Rui would even think about putting a cake, of all things, in her pocket since that morning. Hitoshi took it, but then inquired about it. “Rui, have you been keeping this thing in your pocket all this time? It's mushed up!”

This got an assertive reaction out of Rui, who told him to appreciate her gift. “It's still cake! Don't be ungrateful for receiving cake, Hitoshi-kun!” Hitoshi started laughing as he put the cake away and tried to agree with her and let the group be on their way. “You're right. We'll enjoy it out there. I'm sure it will come in handy. See you around, Rui-chan!” As the group walked off, Rui's expression turned to a sad one as she let out one last statement towards her Hitoshi. “Don't be gone lone, Hitoshi...”

Leaving Rui behind, the group was happy that their little side-trip was over. As a group, they all headed around the main building of the campus and approached the back gate. Reaching for a level, Hitoshi unlocked and opened up the gate, revealing a path that led to the land behind the campus. They stepped forward and started going on their way. Their destination, the beach and that Old Man Houjo, who lived near it.