(52) Day 3 Mixed Bath Intermission (16.7 m < 16.9 m)

“So I get to take a dip now. Thankfully this doesn’t look like the foot bath area.”

The mixed bath at Hotel Ten-Scale was certainly the strangest co-size location I had been at. I could see why it wasn’t easily known, but it was certainly an experience to use after I had changed into a provided swimsuit and walked outside.

“This is a wide fence. It loops around the building.”

There had been two doors next to each other – one Magnified and one regular sized. Kamiya-senpai had pushed Yae through the noren and into the girls’ side entrance while leaving me to head through the boys’ side entrance that was partially concealed behind a Magnified potted plant. The boys’ side seemed like your own typical bathhouse changing room, but there was something peculiar outside of the changing room and it wasn’t just the expansive, fenced-in bath.

”Hm…? Is this okay? I’ve never heard of riding one of these in a hot spring before.”

While there was enough room for a bath already, there were also several boats docked in the hot, steamy water. You wouldn’t ever expect for a hot spring to have boats, but the entirety of the springs was actually large enough to resemble a lake so it made sense.

Whrrrrr!

“Whoa! O-Oh, it’s automatic? I guess I’m going to the mixed area now then.”

I narrowed my eyes the boat pushed me through the floating steam. I was sure that this section of the spring was manmade because it didn’t seem likely for the path to be so linear naturally. It also didn’t seem to be connected to the rest of the hot springs outside. This was made clear when I saw that there was an entrance in the inn that the spring redirected towards. The high-tech looking white and blue boat made its way through the steam and into the even steamier building.

Cough!

“Oh jeez. This steam is thick. Am I glad I’m only wearing a swimsuit right now.”

The heat and steam made my body feel sluggish and heavy. It felt like I was travelling through a sauna, which wasn’t too far off considering the tunnel through the wall of the inn building made it difficult for the hot steam to leave. I couldn’t see the walls due to the thick fog, so I was thankful for the lights that lined the tunnel. Still, it took a full thirty seconds of boat travel to get to the other side where there was light.

“Kwah! Gah… It’s still hot but that’s better.”

Despite knowing that everything inside the building was Magnified, entering the expansive indoor mixed bath took me aback the moment I entered. Rather than entering an indoor bath, I felt like I had entered a Roman emperor’s thermae. The bath that I was in looked to be made of something like marble and had an intricate pattern visible through the water.

Well, that was only the singular bath I had entered. As the boat got further in, I saw the rest of the room. The marble was only for the large bath while the rest of the room had flagstone flooring. Some of the walls had square ceramic tiles lining them which would be 10 cm wide normally but were a solid meter wide at this scale. This made it somewhat easier for me to determine the actual size of the room I was in.

“Jeez. It’s a single room, but this indoor bath really feels on par with the lake outside,” I remarked as the boat started to slow. It began turning to park itself at a second dock located in the indoor mixed bath. I didn’t see another boat there so I was likely going to be the only guy around.

Walking to the front of the boat and looking around, I had to admit that I rarely ever went to public baths before. This was a fancy ryokan, but I imagined it would follow standard bathhouse etiquette. Would I have to take a shower before entering the water even though I just rode a boat across it? The showers looked over 100 meters away from me and didn’t seem operable at my scale. The bottles of shampoo and conditioner were also taller than me, and a stray bar of soap that I saw was half my size.

The large mixed bath lake that I had come in to was also not the only bath present either. Separate baths for different temperatures were also in the room but impossible for me to get into when the water was being kept behind solid wood, ceramic, or stone walls that were over twice my height. Well, impossible wasn’t actually the truth. There seemed to be regular sized steps that would allow me to head up if I wanted to try those baths out.

In any case, I didn’t have to do anything nor did I have time to do anything as the boat ride from the mens’ changing room into the mixed bath took long enough that Yae and Kamiya-senpai were already washing up at the showers. They realized I was here when a green light lit up on one of the walls.

“Oh. It seems as if one of the boats just docked. It must be Kirishima-kun,” Kamiya-senpai’s voice could be heard across the room. “That is good timing since you seem to have finished washing up. Yae-san, you should go get him. Kirishima-kun needs to be cleaned up as well before we can soak in the hot springs.”

“Boats? Oh, that spot you showed me. Okay, Senpai.”

The steam in the room was thick, but Yae’s figure got clearer and bigger as she crossed the room over to me. She wearing an inn-provided pink two-piece swimsuit that covered much more than the fabric-lacking O-ring she had been made to wear earlier. She was clearly more comfortable in this one because she was not at all embarrassed or hesitant walking around in it.

“Hi, Touya. It took you long enough,” Yae greeted me with a giggle. I held onto the edge of the boat as two feet each over half the length of the boat entered the water, buffeting it with wave after wave. The boat had been docked at the first step of a four step stair down into the water, so Yae’s feet were only ankle deep. She had to bend her knees to get a closer look at me.

“The boat ride was unexpected. These things are automatic apparently. It’s pretty cool,” I was keeping a straight face as best as I could, but my face must have been turning red for a reason that wasn’t the heat. Because of how she had stood next to the boat before bending down, I was being treated to a close up view to Yae’s pink bikini bottom.

“They’re automatic? Then these boats are more surreal than I thought they were when Senpai told me about them.” It sounded like Yae had already been told by Kamiya-senpai so the initial surprise had already faded. “Well, come on, Touya. Senpai and I are practically done washing. You need to wash up too before we can jump in.”

Rumble!

“Gwoah!” I tightened my grip on the railing I was holding onto as Yae brought both hands down to the deck of the 5 meter long boat. At her scale, her hand was as long as I was tall, meaning that the entire boat was more or less a big toy to the nearly 17 m girl and I was more or less a doll. Yae snatched me up off the boat and made her way back to the showers.

Kamiya-senpai was finishing up washing her long hair while seated on a stool. She wore a similar swimsuit to Yae’s but in green. It felt odd seeing my responsible upperclassman in a swimsuit. I couldn’t help but notice that she was slimmer than Yae in a few places.

“Kirishima-kun… I am aware that you are staring,” Senpai did not have to open her eyes to intimidate me with the truth.

“S-Sorry, Senpai,” I apologized as Yae put me down between her stool and Senpai’s stool. Actually, to be specific, she put me into a basin tub that had a shampoo bottle, conditioner bottle, and a rubber duck in it. It wasn’t too deep of a tub that I couldn’t climb out of It but it would take some effort. I was more concerned about the fact that the tub was actually directly beneath the showerhead. “Uh… Yae?”

“Ufufu. I already finished washing so it’s your turn, Touya,” Yae giggled and turned the faucet. In a second, a deluge of water started to pour onto me.

Splash!

“Uwoah!” I expected a cold shower but it was lukewarm. I had to make sure to put my weight on my right leg in order to avoid getting knocked down by the waterfall of shower water. I wondered if this was what being hit by a power washer felt like. To my concern, the basin was also starting to fill with water. There was no way for it to drain out so it rose up to make ankles and soon the water was halfway up my knees.

“That should be good, Yae-san,” I heard Kamiya-senpai say. I had to close my eyes to avoid getting the water into my eyes. The water was Magnified so the literal downpour was full of heavy and hard droplets. I knew what was happening when a sudden acceleration increased the force of the water on me, slamming down into the growing pool of water in the basin.

Senpai had lifted the entire basin up and turned on her stool. She set it back down on top of hers and Yae’s laps. Yae lowered the water pressure until it became a trickle to them (while still being strong shower strength to me).

“Hey, what’s going on?” I realized Senpai had likely planned something with Yae.

“We’ll wash you up, Touya,” Yae told me, taking the giant bottles of soap and shampoo out of the basin and squeezing some out into the hand. “You’ve had a tough day, right?”

“No, it’s fine. I can wash myself, Yae,” I tried to refuse, but that was not going to happen.

Kamiya-senpai also had a rough day, but she was also joining in. “Considering what Yae-san told me about your encounter with Ranko-san and what I saw in the changing room of that… incredible outfit… you both were told to wear underneath your clothes, I believe some pampering will do you some good, Kirishima-kun.”

“Senpai, you too?”

“While I may not be as good as Naru-chan, I am quite confident in my technique,” Senpai smiled warmly. Her long fingers entered the basin and began to stroke my arms and back. “Although, I do not believe I have ever washed the back of someone so small before.”

Washing someone’s back was something that you could call pampering. I remembered those times when we were kids where Yae and I helped wash her parents’ backs when we were still young enough to take baths together. What Senpai was doing was not washing my back, though. She was rubbing her thin fingers against my body gently while Yae came in with her hands, lathering the soap up in the water basin until herbal-scented bubbles surrounded me completely.

“Kirishima-kun, lift up your arm a little, please. Like this,” Senpai’s pinched her fingers and grabbed my entire left arm, lifting it up so she could wipe under it. It was a motherly action, but due to the sheer size difference between us, it was more like a girl messing with a doll.

“Ehehehe. I can barely see you anymore, Touya,” giggled Yae at the sight of me lost in the comparatively mini bubble bath. “Here, let me get your hair. You don’t take care of it too much.”

“Uwah! O-Oh! Wow…” I couldn’t form coherent sentences as I received a full body treatment. Senpai hadn’t been lying. Her technique was amazing. Yae and Kamiya-senpai alternated holding me and rubbing the soap around me with their fingers. Yae was comparatively rougher due to her inexperience, but Senpai’s fingers were gentle as they stroked my back and chest.

“This reminds me of whenever I have to give my puppy, Coffee, a bath,” Kamiya-senpai remarked. “Oh, Yae-san. That is the conditioner. The shampoo is over here.”

“Oh. Thanks, Senpai… A puppy? Do you have any pictures?”

“Yes. I can show you some later if you would like.”

The conversation above me started up and continued without me. I couldn’t speak up while surrounded by bubbles and water. The two 17 m giants were not cutting any corners when it came to washing me up. The girls were gentle and thorough, but I felt like a dish in a sink. I half-expected a sponge to be brought in to scrape any dirt and grime off of me.

Longer than I would have ever washed up in a shower on my own, Yae and Kamiya-senpai finally finished scrubbing me down. “Alright, Touya. We’re done.”

“Did that feel good, Kirishima-kun?”

“… More than I expected it to…” After going through a massage-like experience in my childhood friend and upperclassman’s hands, I was almost speechless. My legs felt like jelly.

“Well, if we are all finished here, then it is time for us to enjoy the hot spring. Shall we?”

“Yes!” Yae cheered.

I was grateful to hear that I was done being gently man-handled, Yae took me out of the tub while Senpai poured the water out and grabbed the rubber duck. The two of them then slowly walked over to the large bath I had entered from.

“Oh my, it is quite hot,” Senpai hesitated for a moment. She had to slowly get used to the temperature of the water.

Yae, on the other hand, was perfectly fine walking right in. As she walked down the steps into the deeper part of the steaming water, she lowered her hands with me in it. As her hands dipped under the water, I lost my floor and needed to tread water to float.

“Aaaaah~!” Yae let out a loud exclamation of pleasure. The water was just the right temperature for her. “It feels so good!”

“Yae-san, that was a little loud,” Senpai was taken aback by Yae’s moan but also made a noise after sinking her shoulders into the water.  “Nnnngn~ But I certainly relate with you here.”

“Sorry, Senpai. I haven’t been in a hot spring in middle school,” Yae sank her body deeper into the water, enjoying every second she was in the spring.

“Oh, right. That was back when Su…” I drifted off, remembering my conversation with Takahashi. We had to keep Yae oblivious to that girl’s presence on the island.

“What was that, Touya?” Thankfully, Yae hadn’t heard me fully. She looked at me swimming in the water in front of her. “Ehehehe. Are you having a good swim?”

“It’s a lot more like a heated pool than a hot spring here… A very hot heated pool,” I told her. “I never thought I’d be allowed to swim in a bath before.”

To prove her point, I swam a few meters forward and then dove down into the water. The hot spring water was surprisingly clear so my actions treated me to the underwater sight of Yae’s statuesque, swimsuit clad body. To think I’d have such a scenic view without having to go scuba diving.

“Kwah!” I swam back up to catch my breath to find both Senpai and Yae trying to stifle their laughter.

“I suppose I cannot lecture you for swimming in the bath here, Kirishima-kun,” Kamiya-senpai smiled. Her hand stroked the surface of the water, pushing it to send the rubber duck she had towards me. “Please use this if you ever get tired of treading water.”

Splash!

Senpai’s water pushing was strong enough to hit me like an actual ocean wave. The floating rubber toy, when Magnified, was about 75 cm in height, width, and length. It made a good pool float that was practically rideable. Actually, instead of just grabbing onto it, I tried to see if I could climb onto it…

To my own surprise, I could. “Whoa. It’s not even sinking.”

“Pfft! Ahahahaha~!”

Cough! Hack!

The sight of me mounting a rubber duck was something even I knew had to be hilarious. Yae couldn’t hold back her laughter and Kamiya-senpai choked on her own saliva trying to.

Cough! Cough!  “I did not expect you to just hop on…” Senpai managed a complete sentence between coughs.

“I’m.. I’m sorry Touya… You just look so ridiculous like that… Ahahaha!” Yae held her sides which were hurting from her laughter.

While being laughed at did feel embarrassing, I couldn’t help but laugh along with them. Even I had to admit how I looked must have been prime comedy. I was straddling a duck floaty in the middle of an onsen in my swim trucks for crying out loud.

“Heheh. Well, at least I’m at a bigger size in the water this time,” I tried to break the laugh-fest. I was successful as it got to remember how it had been for us during Reduction Week.

“R-right… That time in the bath…” Yae hesitated. She stopped laughing because she recalled.

Kamiya-senpai frowned at the mention of it. “… You two took a bath together while you were Reduced before, Kirishima-kun? I do not believe you told me about that.”

“Ah… Well, I did tell Sasakura-sensei. She approved of it too, seeing as she gave us something to test out in the bath.”

“Sensei… what were your intentions… Or was it actually Ranko-san behind it all?” Kamiya-senpai pinched her brow, trying to not get any wrinkles from stressing over it. She eventually opted to dismiss the matter and sank into the hot spring water in an effort to relax. “No, I should not think about it now. I need to calm down after today… Let the water soak into my shoulders…”

“Heh. That’s the spirit, Senpai.”

“…?! Kirishima-kun, you are a little too close…” my upperclassman’s ears reddened.

“Huh?” Looking around, I realized that the duck had floated over towards her. Directly below me was Senpai’s navel and if I looked down in front of the duck, I could see the green fabric of her bikini top poke out of the bath like little sandbars in the water. “O-oh. I can’t really control where this thing goes, Senpai.”

“I can, thankfully,” Senpai literally pushed away her embarrassment as her left leg moved underwater. She pulled it towards her, causing it to rise out of the water like a submarine surfacing. The force of her knee breaking the water’s surface sent waves that spun the duck and me off the course towards her chest and redirected me away from her body.

“Whoah! Waaah! I’m getting real dizzy here!” I held onto the rubber duck as it continued to spiral around the bath. I came to a stop when Yae’s hand rose up from the water and grabbed the rubber duck. “Uwoa!”

Splash!

I had been spinning too quickly so the sudden stop caused me to lose my grip on the duck. I fell off. I tumbled under the surface of the hot spring bath and tried to figure out which way was up before I could claw my way up to air.

“Kwah!” I was grateful to be able to breathe again. “Phew… I didn’t think my fingers would slip off. That duck is slicker than I thought it was.”

“Slicker? Ehehe. You sure did make a cute little splash, Touya,” Yae’s voice spoke down to me.

I had to look left and right to get my bearings after my tumble in the water. Above and below me were a given, but it was only when I turned around did I realize that Yae was behind me.

“…Cute, huh?” I mumbled, my attention was directed towards the prominent pink orbs taking up my vision. They were floating.

“Touya… pick your jaw back up,” my staring was too obvious. Yae both blushed and smiled at how stunned I must have looked. She didn’t move because she was enjoying the hot spring water. “Well, I guess it’s okay. It’s only the three of us right now. Let’s just relax...”

Both Yae and Kamiya-senpai were unwinding in the hot water. It was amusing to me how laid-back they looked, especially Senpai who was always so serious. I certainly wanted a break to so now that both girls were done laughing, I swam over and hopped back onto the rubber deck, laying my stomach onto its back.

“You’re right. It’s a hot spring. Let’s enjoy it…”

(53) Day 3 Hot Spring Horror (16.9 m < 17.0 m)

Although the three of us spent a long time in the hot water like old folks enjoying a bathhouse, the time we spent in the largest bath was more than my relatively smaller body could handle. I was as red as a lobster and intending to swim from the rubber duck that was floating over Yae’s belly button to get out of the water.

My attempt, however, was interrupted by some new additions to the mixed bath that had apparently been present the entire time.

Slam!

“Gaaah! So hot! I can’t take it anymore!”

“C-Cold bath! T-there’s a cold bath! Let’s get in there, Fumika-chan!”

There was a sauna connected to the mixed bath, and two people slammed the door open, running out to hop into the wooden, cold bath. It was so sudden that Yae and Senpai both stood up and turned around. Considering my location, I was pulled by the current caused by Yae’s body displacing the water.

“Gwagh!”

Splash!

Water dripped down from Yae’s body, particularly her boobs, smacking me in scattered, heavy bursts like multiple buckets of water. The rubber duck was sent spinning away so I had nothing to grab onto. I was forced to continue my swim to ‘shore’ as Yae and Senpai recognized who had broken the silence.

“Akagi-san, Morino-san,” Senpai recognized the second year duo in our health committee. “You were in the sauna this entire time?”

“Huh? Kamiya-senpai? And Yae-san? What are you two doing here?” Morino turned her head after it popped out of the cold water bath she had jumped into.

“Senpai recommended us the mixed bath so me and Touya could relax. Why are you here?”

“Someone told us this inn had a ghost rumor in the mixed bath’s sauna,” she explained. “We wanted to see it for ourselves, but it got too hot inside while we were investigating.

“Ghost rumor?” I was incredibly skeptical. I tried to glance into the sauna room to see if there were any ofuda talismans or something, but, with the way the door opened, I couldn’t see inside from this distance. Actually, I doubted Yae and Senpai could see inside either.

“W-wait, you said Tou-san is around? O-oh right, the mixed bath means guys can come in. I didn’t see any here until now,” Akagi sounded flustered as she lowered her body further into the water. Considering how flustered she could get when I saw her bare arms when she wasn’t wearing ‘moe sleeves’, she was really weak when her skin wasn’t covered.

“It should be fine, Kasumi-chan.,” Morino was the less embarrassed of the two. She was used to how nervous Akagi could get without covering her skin. “Touya-san’s smaller than us. We can just throw a towel over him if we don’t want him to see.”

“She’s that bad without long sleeves, huh? I should make a note of this for future reference,” I said to nobody in particular while dog paddling to the closest land which actually was the docks the boat was at.

“Come on. I’ll show you. Let me bring him over,” Morino got out of the cold bath.

“W-Wait, Fumika-chan!?”

Before I was even half way to the docks, Morino was already there. The normally ponytailed girl, her hair down and wet now, spotted me immediately. “Pfft! It’s bad manners to swim in the bath, Touya-san.”

“I heard that line before,” I groaned. Morino was the third girl to see me swimming in the bath after all.

“Here, I got you,” Morino decided to step into the water. The moment her feet went in, the displaced water created a wave that pushed me away. It was only for a brief instance, though, as the moment she started to walk, she generated a small current that yanked me forwards again. I didn’t have to swim to be carried towards where her dark blue swimsuit bottom loomed over me. I was a bit too close, but for Morino, that was just what she needed to scoop me out of the water.

Sploosh!

“W-Whoa!” I was startled when peach colored land suddenly burst out of the water from beneath me. Morino didn’t use her hands to get me out. She lifted her leg up while standing in the water. She made sure that I no longer had to swim by using her thigh to create an island for me. Morino was more flexible than I expected, though. The ‘island’ began to tilt as her leg went past horizontal and broke through the water’s surface. I had to hold on so I wouldn’t start sliding down towards her bikini bottom.

Morino, thankfully, plucked me off because I could slip further. “Get some good exercise today, Touya-san?”

“… Yeah, I think it’s been enough, Morino,” I answered as she brought me up to her face. “But I think you girls did a lot more work than I did.”

“Sure did,” Morino sighed and stepped out of the large bath. “I expect you to help us out tomorrow. That’s when your shift is.”

“Gotcha,” I nodded. Morino brought me all the way over to the cold bath where Akagi was. Inside the wooden confines of the small bath, I saw bubbles in the water that indicated her location. “…Is Kaa-san trying to see how long she can hold her breath?”

Spoosh!

“Kwah!” Akagi had run out of breath too soon. She shivered and jumped out of the cold water bath as quickly as she could. “I-It’s too cold!”

“3/10,” I rated her performance. She was always trying to scare me with urban legends and ghost stories so I felt I had the right to poke fun at her. “Got to go slower, Kaa-san, if you want to mimic those horror movie ghosts.”

“Uuuu,” the shivering girl frowned as she jumped out of the cold water. The warm color of her red swimsuit did not heat her up. “I-I wasn’t trying to scare you, Tou-san. N-now stop looking… Fumika-chan, put him away.”

A shivering Akagi who was doing her best to hide her skin was amusing to me. For her to be embarrassed because I was present, she was pretty self-conscious. The ‘S’ in me wanted to have her experience this for a bit longer.

“Whoa! Hey, Morino! Hold on!” I had to act quickly because Morino’s other hand started to come down on me. I was pushed down onto my back by her palm, forcing me to use my hands and legs to try to push back against her. Of course, there was no winning against Morino’s hand when she over 10 times my size, so I had to get clever. I had to distract Morino so she wouldn’t cover my face in her palms. “Y-You know, Morino. Since you mentioned that ghost rumor, there are always stories about inns that are haunted. Things like talismans on the walls of some rooms… hair coming out of holes… strange noises and happenings at night. Which one are you looking for?”

I successfully caught the interest of the occult club health committee member with my choice of conversation topic. She stopped moving and lifted her hand back up to her head, pondering an answer to the question. “Well, we were hoping to find hidden talismans, but we couldn’t find any. I guess they wouldn’t last too long in a sauna anyways now that I think about it. Hair seems more likely to pop up in the drains and baths. As for the strange happenings… is it night yet or does it have to be later?”

“Probably when everybody’s asleep. Speaking of drains, there are also hot spring and bath stories of ghosts coming out of the water. Was the rumor specifically just the sauna?”

“We were only told about the sauna, and then we dropped what we were doing to go look. Do you think something would come out of the water here, Touya-san? Maybe we should investigate tonight.”

“You are not allowed in the baths after hours, Morino-san,” Senpai scolded. She and Yae both had walked out of the bath to join us since we were talking to each other.

“And I’m pretty sure this inn can’t have been here long enough to have any ghosts,” Yae used logic and reason to dismiss the idea. “I mean, this place was Magnified too.”

Morino blinked, realizing what that would entail. “Oh, you have a point there. But if it were true, maybe the ghost would remain normal sized and we girls can just pick it up.”

“I like the idea of a Magnified ghost more,” I chuckled, imagining the long, dark-haired ghosts from classic horror movies.

“Touya, you’re enjoying talking about the occult a bit too much. Are you sure you’re not an occult club member?” Yae frowned at how into the conversation I was being.

“He’s an honorary member but also our rival skeptic,” Morino chuckled. “Akagi has him on speed dial.”

“Morino, you don’t have to tell her that,” I told her without looking at her. The entire time, I kept my gaze on Akagi, who had been trying to user her arms, a basin, and then a small towel to cover herself.

“Tou-san, you Peeping Tom. I said to stop looking,” she chose to cower behind Senpai and Yae to get the most cover between the two of us.

“Akagi-san? Are you okay?” Yae was surprised at how the normally energetic occult club girl was now in a panic.

“Sorry, Yae-san. Kasumi-chan is real bad at having guys see her skin. And that feeling’s probably doubled considering it’s Touya-san. After all, she used to li-”

“Morino stop!” “Kasumi-chan, stop!”

Akagi and I shouted in unison to stop Morino from blabbing about something neither of us wanted revealed in front of Yae. It was something Akagi herself had chosen to give up on, but if Yae knew, it’d make things much more complicated for everyone.

“Huh? Used to what?” Yae tilted her head. I was grateful for her occasional bouts of obliviousness. She likely assumed it was one of our health committee in-jokes because we certainly had plenty of those.

“A-Ah. Sorry,” Morino realized what a bad idea finishing her sentence would’ve been.

“… It’s fine,” Akagi sighed, shaking her head. “I already gave up on it before anything could happen.”

Akagi was saying too much. We needed a change of subject so I took it upon myself to do it myself. “Morino, do you mind putting me down? I’d rather not be more than ten meters above the floor.”

“Ten meters? Oh, right. I keep forgetting we’re Magnified when we’re here,” Morino nodded and lowered me back down to the floor.

Although we hadn’t been in the mixed bath for more than half an hour yet, it certainly felt like it had been ages since I had been on solid ground. It had also been just as long since I last looked up at the giant girls when from the ground because I had been moved around in Yae’s hands the entire time.

Looking up at the girls who were now around 17 meters in height now, I certainly felt small. If I were to compare myself to them properly, I was less than 20 cm to them. I wasn’t even half way up their knees.

“Jeez, you girls are huge,” I stated the obvious.

“No, you’re ju- No wait, you’re right,” Morino was about to say that I was the small one but realized her own mistake halfway.

“We are still growing I suppose,” Senpai added.

“Akagi-san, are you okay?” Yae was more concerned about Akagi than the rest of us were.

“Haaah… After that little scare, I think I’m better now,” Akagi let out a deep breath. Yae gave her a large towel – one that she could use to wrap around her body. It gave her enough comfort to huff and pout at me. “You know, Tou-san – you distracting Fumika-chan like that by keeping her talking - you’re a real ‘S’ sometimes.”

“It’s just a little payback,” I chuckled.

“Oh, really now? I’ll show you payback.”

I earned Akagi’s ire. Her being over 10 times my size also made it easier for her to quickly retaliate so she immediately got to it. Akagi’s feet, which were petite, were still longer than I was tall at over 3 meters. I learned this quickly as Akagi tried to intimidate me by lifting it up into the air. She could cover me completely underneath the soaked bare foot. My own trauma kept me frozen until she heavily stomped onto the ground.

Wham!

“Urk!” I winced at the force of dozens of metric tons of weight slamming down near me. However, to her dismay, I wasn’t as intimidated because she quickly pulled back to make sure her towel wouldn’t slip off her shoulders. I put my hand on my hip and worked up the breath to tell her, “…You’ll have to get used to short sleeves eventually, Akagi. You nearly passed out from heatstroke during our club training in the summer because you kept wearing your jacket.”

“He has a point, Kasumi-chan,” Morino took my side here.

“He does,” nodded Kamiya-senpai. There were no arguments here considering all of us health committee members had witnessed it over the summer.

“… I’ll get to it eventually,” Akagi bit her lip, unable to talk back after being triple-teamed. She went back to hiding behind Yae who was trying to follow the conversation. She was still feeling vindictive. She narrowed her eyes and glared at me. “Tou-san, why don’t you go into the sauna? You need some sweat out some of that nastiness of yours.”

To force me into the sauna, she bent down and used her hands to push me towards the door. It had closed sometime after the two of them had run out, though, so the occult loving health committee girl had to pull it open again.

Rattle! Rattle!

“Huh? It won’t budge,” Akagi was genuinely surprised. “Did it lock from the inside?”

“I didn’t think sauna’s have locks,” Morino approached. As I had a much smaller field of vision and Akagi’s attention was directed towards the door knob, she was the one who noticed something through the fogged up glass door of the sauna. “Huh? … Uh, Kasumi-chan, we were the only ones inside earlier, weren’t we?”

“Yeah. It was just us, Fumik-” Akagi glanced up and saw the same thing Morino did.

As I was at the bottom of the glass door, the part where the wooden frame became glass was chest high to me. I had to crane my neck to take a look, and the extra Magnified distance made seeing through the steam much more difficult. However, I was able to see a blurry and shadowy figure inside.

Click!

“Whoa!”

It was then that the door finally unjammed up for Akagi. Unfortunately, for me, it swung out. I felt my feet leave the ground when it hit me and shoved me along its path as it opened. That might have been for the best, as I was still able to hear what happened next.

“Get out…”

“Eh?”

“GET OUT!”

“K-Kyaah!” “We’re sorry!”

“Akagi-san? Morino-san? Yae-san, please go after them. I am worried they will run into the halls in the swimsuits.”

“I-I’m on it, Senpai!”

For the occult club members to be frightened of a sudden ghost sighting, they were a lot more cowardly than I thought. At least, that would’ve been the case if it were an actual ghost. I was hidden behind the glass door as a giant girl stomped out of the sauna. Much like movie ghosts, she had long hair, but unlike movie ghosts, it was a dyed blonde. The reason why they ran off wasn’t because she was a ghost but because she had a fierce glare.

However, after meeting her, I would’ve preferred a ghost.

“Tch. Bunch of noisy bitches,” the giant girl in a purple bikini clicked her tongue. “They were so loud, I thought if I snuck past and jammed the sauna door, I wouldn’t have to deal with their noise.”

“So that was how she scared them,” I mumbled. The cold bath wasn’t next to the sauna so we hadn’t seen her come in. I also hadn’t noticed because I was staring at Akagi the whole time to make her squirm. They must’ve been extremely stealthy, though, as the rest of us from Sakuragawa hadn’t realized either.

“Why’d they have to get it unstuck and barge inside with all their ghost talk? No matter the school, occult bitches are so annoying.”

Kamiya-senpai frowned at the girl’s choice of words but she chose to be courteous.  “I apologize. I should have reminded them sooner to be respectful of other guests.”

“You’re damn right you should’ve,” the girl crossed her arms with a snarl. “It’s been a rough day, and I just wanted to sweat off all this annoying shit. I did NOT want to deal with whatever bothersome spooky crap you all were doing.”

I narrowed my eyes. Senpai already apologized. There was no need for this girl to continue to snap at her no matter how bad her day had been. I didn’t say anything, however, because it actually was intimidating having an angry girl who towered over me within the vicinity. She steps were heavy and she wasn’t looking at the ground like the more cautious Akagi had been.

“Oya? Was today that bad, Reina-chan? Usually, you only blow you top off like this when Kimura-kun’s involved. There’s no need to be so harsh to someone we don’t know.”

It seemed someone else was in the sauna as well. A second pair of legs stepped out. She had been sitting against the wall out of view but now she had chosen to come out. She was thankfully more of a voice of reason. While I would’ve been happy that someone was defending Senpai, a chill ran up my spine. The second girl’s tone was not gentle. She was taunting her friend with a passive smile. I froze up faster from her words than from any vengeful spirit. Her voice triggered a memory within me.

“Tch. Don’t mention that guy now of all times. I want to grind that dumbass under my foot right now. If only he were on this trip too. Then I could make him squirm in front of everyone.”

“Ufufu. You sure do like to say that. He sure is lucky he isn’t around.”

Senpai and I both visibly winced. These girls were dangerous. This Reina girl was perfectly fine talking about hurting someone while Magnified while her friend was enjoying it and enabling her friend.

That wasn’t the worst part of it all, though.

“Her voice… It can’t be…”

The second girl’s voice was one that was familiar with me. I would’ve said that I couldn’t place it, but that would’ve been a lie. I knew it well. I couldn’t forget it even after two years. I could see why Takahashi had been completely exhausted today.

I hesitated to look up higher through the foggy glass to see the girl’s face, but I had no choice in the matter. Senpai, after hearing the Reina girl’s words, made the decision to get me and leave. She swiftly picked me up from behind the door and held me in her left hand, cupping her right hand over me to cover me.

I was able to get a good look from between Senpai’s palms. Although her hair was down, clad in a matching purple swimsuit like her friend was a face that I had known in middle school. The same expression she always carried was on her face today as it had years ago.

“… Sumire…” the girl’s name escaped my lips.

“I apologize for the bother,” Senpai was not going to retaliate and accepted the girl’s anger calmly. Engaging would’ve enraged her more. “We will make ourselves scarce. But please, next time, I would advise you not to jam the door if you want some privacy. Saunas can be dangerous if you cannot get out.”

“I don’t need you to tell me twice.”

“No, no. She’s right, Reina-chan. Even I was worried we’d be locked in.”

“Sumire, you bitch! You’re the one who told me to rush into the sauna in the first place!”

“Oya? Oh yeah, I guess I did. My bad, Reina-chan. It was the first idea that came to mind so we could avoid everyone.”

Their unabashed interactions… for her to be friends with someone so harsh and to enable her… I mentally jumped through loops, hoping I was only seeing a look-alike, but that wasn’t the case.

“… We should get going, Kirishima-kun. Do not worry. I will take you straight over to the male side,” Senpai told me, deciding to stop listening and to start walking away. I would’ve appreciated it if she didn’t say my name, but it had already been too late. An observant pair of eyes had already been locked-on to me.

“Reina-chan, let’s get back to the sauna. Once Touya and his friends leave, we can enjoy the bath together.”

While Senpai took me out of the room, I heard her use my name. As I thought, she knew it was me. It was her, and I could no longer deny it. I was only thankful Senpai had made Yae leave the room before they met.

Although horror had been what the occult club lovers were looking for, I felt I had gone through a proper horror experience.

I had reencountered Sumire Yashiro.