I became the Strongest Minus's mother!

Chapter 24:Hot and bothered girls are alwais cute

When they returned to the pool it was different then when they left it. Apparently, someone had not taken well to Kumagawa's parting remark about the poolside being dreary, as it was now decoarated with flowers.

Mei acted like it had nothing to do with her, even though she was obviously the culprit. But she greeted Saki and Kumagawa all the same, with her arms crossed.

Mei:...Have you figured out a method, Kumagawa-senpai? There's only 15 minutes left until the time limit.

Kumagawa:[Is that so? Only 15 minutes, huh. Then I'd better hurry. Since I need time to dig it out, too.]

Kumagawa ignored Mei's redecoration of the pool and just sat by the pool side. Wait, what did that mean?

Did that mean that he'd decided on the concrete plan in the end? There were still a lot of flaws to that plan. In the first place, would a poolful of concrete even harden in just 15 minutes?

Saki:Um, Kumagawa-kun...

As Saki was trying to speak with him Kumagawa dipped both of his hands in the water. It looked like he was trying to gradually get his body used to the water again, but he wasn't using his feet.

Then what was he doing? Was he going to wash his face?

It wasn't like he had even done anything that warranted washing his face for a fresh start. Or perhaps what he wanted was to cool his head?

Mei:...What are you doing, Kumagawa-senpai?

Kumagawa:[Utsubogi-chan. I have a request for you.]

Mei:A request?

Kumagawa:[According to my instincts, the Hero's Sword should be pulled out about halfway right about now. Can you go take a look for me?」

Mei:Eh? There's no way...How? What did you do?

Kumagawa:[Well, I don't think I'm obligated to explain that to you. It should be fine as long as I pull the sword out, right?]

Mei turned to look at the center of the pool, but of course, since the surface of the pool was reflective, you wouldn't be able to tell anything just by looking. Even if you could catch glimpses of it, it would be impossible to notice a small detail like it being pulled out halfway.

Mei:All Fiction...Did you use it? To tamper with the water in the pool somehow?

Kumagawa:[Like I said, I'm not obligated to explain it...Well, if you want to know, I don't mind telling you later, but right now I'm running out of time. The 'Hero's Sword' should get pulled out in just about 10 minutes, so it'll really be cutting it close. So can you please go and confirm it for me? That's within the range of your responsibilities as the facilitator, right?]

Mei:...Understood. However, even if it's partially pulled out, I won't do anything like pull it out for you.

Kumagawa:[Of course, I don't expect that from you at all. It's fine if you just take a look at it.]

Mei did some light streching to get ready for swimming. Saki thought if that was all he needed he could've just asked her to do it.

However, Saki knew what Kumagawa wanted wasn't something sge could have done even if she was wearing a swimsuit. And something only Mei could have done, even if she weren't wearing a swimsuit.

After finishing her streching Mei put her two hands together and swiftly dove into the water. It was at that moment.

The entirety of the water that filled up the pool, in an instant, really in the blink of an eye, froze over. The whole surface turned into ice.

Saki:Eh...Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeehhhhh!?

Kumagawa:[It's what they call, supercooling, you see.]

Kumagawa slowly stood back up as he spoke. It seemed that he'd shrewdly removed his hands from the pool at some point and, with that, he took a step onto the pool.

He began to walk on the frozen ice. Without sinking, and especially without drowning.

Supercooling, if you put a bottle full of water in the freezer and cool it down calmly without any sort of shock to the system, then the water would remain in liquid form even past the freezing point. But when you introduced a shock to it, then the water would freeze up in an instant.

Was that what he meant? He performed supercooling on a pool of this scale?

Kumagawa:[Basically, from the water of the pool, I made its temperature as if it never existed. By taking away only the 'temperature' of the water, it basically became the ultimate way of cooling it down calmly, which just happened to accidentally supercool it, you see. So in order to freeze it over, I needed some way to shock the system.]

Saki:You needed some way...

So Kumagawa had noticed her tendency of entering the pool by diving in, all the way back when he had been drowning. No way, he utilized Mei's beautiful, breathtaking dive for a purpose like that?

But if Saki remembers correctly, when you wanted to take a bottle of water that underwent supercooling and freeze it in one go, you could drop a marble into the water. In this case Mei took the place of the marble.

So saying that the sword was about halfway out was just an excuse to get her to dive in. Or rather, it was just a big fat lie.

Saki:You can't just pretend it was an accident!

Kumagawa:[What are you saying? It's the lifelong dream of any boy to be able to preserve a beautiful girl in ice.]

He wasn't even showing any signs of guilt. In fact, he almost seemed boastful.

Kumagawa:[Water is quite a strange liquid, after all, since its volume increases when it freezes. But although it's in a solid state, as you can see, even if it rises out of the water, it doesn't spill over or overflow. So it wouldn't fall under the definition of draining, right? Come on, Saki-chan. What are you doing, just standing around?]

Saki:Eh?

Kumagawa:[I'm going to have my hands full digging into the ice to pull out the Hero's Sword, so you should get to work in digging out Utsubogi-san already. I couldn't care less about that beautiful girl, but if you don't help her soon, she'll probably die.]

Saki:Ah!

So that was it. That was why he gave her the screw.

Kumagawa already began chipping away ice with one of his screws. For this much ice, it seemed like he'd be able to manage to reach the Hero's Sword to use All Fiction on it within the remaining 10 minutes until time was up.

It was a brilliant quest clear. At least, that's how it seemed.

However, the same surely didn't apply for Mei, who'd ended up being forced to bear the worst part of the supercooling. Saki wasn't sure if she'd be able to dig her out of the ice in time, before she froze to death or suffocated.

Saki:Wa...waaah! Utsubogi-saaan!

Saki began to panic. She quickly figured out the point where Mei dived in and began to dig into the ice with the screw Kumagawa gave her when they left the Student Council Office.

Saki:I'll get you out soon, so stay calm!

Kumagawa:[Hahaha. Team play really is beautiful to see, isn't it? People who were once hostile end up becoming people that work together, that's truly the greatest joy of shonen manga.]

Kumagawa-kun made an exaggerated display of shrugging his shoulders. Even as he continued to chip away at the ice, he spoke exceedingly cheerfully, like it was a breath of fresh air.

Kumagawa:[Although it seems like Utsubogi-san remained as cool as ice to the very end. And you really are cute, Saki-chan, when you get all hot and bothered.]