Volume 3 Interlude & Afterword

-Interlude-

It was the morning of Saturday, June 17th, the morning of the Inter-District Kendo Tournament. Birds chirped as the sky was brightened by the rising sun, and by the front gates of the east district a small bus was parked.

“Well then…” rumbled the gritty voice of an older man. “The roads further in are too narrow for the bus, so we shall disembark here and walk to the school on foot.”

The dignified-looking man spoke into the intercom of the bus. His name was Kenyu Chishiro, and he was the district manager of the west district of Starlight Academy.

In response to his dry declaration, a few annoyed groans could be heard escaping the lips of several students on the bus, which contained four middle school students and four high school students. These were the members of the west district kendo teams who had made the trip over for the sake of the competition.

“Seriously, we have to walk all that way?” whined one of the middle school students, getting up from his seat and pulling up his bag with a grunt.

“Yeah, sorry I forgot to mention that part, guys.” responded a mature-looking older student among the middle school group. He was the captain of the middle school team.

For some reason, despite getting to enjoy this rare trip to another district for a team competition, the middle school students came across as unusually dispirited.

“Please make your way outside in an orderly fashion. I will go and finalize our visitation paperwork.” manager Chishiro declared after stepping off the bus, before walking over to speak with the guard at the gate.

Within the bus, the middle school students sluggishly made their way toward the exit, passing by the seats where the high school students sat.

“Cheer up, you guys don’t have to look so depressed!” spoke the voice of a bubbly girl among the high school students. “After all, it’s not every day we get to visit another district!”

“Don’t patronize us!” one of the middle school students shouted in frustration. “You guys aren’t even on the kendo team! Of course we’re upset, realizing we got stuck with you guys! There’s basically no chance we win this year!”

“What the hell was Senpai thinking, stepping down from the tournament and letting these nobodies come in their place?! It’s absurd!”

Two of the younger middle schoolers vented their frustrations.

“Leave her be, you lot.” spoke a serious-looking girl with long hair among the high school group, as she glanced their way with a piercing cold expression. “Do not underestimate us.”

“Kh…!” grunted one of the students, as he backed off and continued to walk.

“… Do forgive them.” the middle school captain gave a begrudging bow, doing his best to hide his own displeasure over the situation.

“I swear, you boys take this silly sport of swinging sticks around far too seriously.” spoke a relaxed-looking girl by the window, shutting a book closed with a yawn.

After giving the high school students one last round of dissatisfied glares, the middle school team members all turned and made their way off of the bus, leaving only the high school students inside.

“Well gang, I guess we should get moving.” spoke the lone boy among the group of high school students as he rose from his seat.

The remaining high school students all followed his lead and stood up, each taking up their bags and exiting the bus. As they stepped outside, the fresh morning wind of a summer morning brushed past all of them. Using his hand to block the bright morning sunlight, the boy gave a simple smirk.

“Time to finally finish things.” muttered the boy, named Hiroyuki Takata.

“Indeed. Hopefully the situation hasn’t gotten too out of hand.” responded the serious-looking girl named Kureha Wakabayashi as she brushed her long flowing hair to the side as it billowed in the morning wind.

“So this is the east district! I wonder what the students are like~?” asked the bubbly girl named Mayu Sawada as she hopped out of the bus.

“I can’t imagine it’s too different from ours…” replied Aoi Kosugi as she exited the bus, stifling another yawn.

With that, all four of the so-called ‘members’ of the west district’s high school kendo team stood in front of the bus, preparing to set off on their trek to the east district’s high school auditorium for the tournament. A moment later, Hiroyuki gave one last declaration for his group.

“Let’s go everyone, it’s time to find Elisia.”

[Volume 3: Crimson Interloper’s Lost Princess – END]

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-Afterword-

It’s dooooooone!! … Well not quite, but still, hello everyone! It’s been a while, hasn’t it? I completed Volume 2 all the way back in Spring 2023. I didn’t put out any writing at all in 2024, and just when I finally started this series back up again in 2025, it took me the whole year just to complete this one volume. I’m really sorry about how inconsistent my writing has been…

If you’re reading this on Honeyfeed or ScribbleHub, I hope the switch to uploading the chapters in parts wasn’t too jarring. See, for Volumes 1 and 2, the chapters I uploaded were rather chunky, with each upload being a whole chapter that averaged around 6,000 words. I later discovered that web novel sites like these didn’t tend to upload such long chapters, so in the end I adjusted things so that my chapters would be released in parts that averaged 2,000-3,000 words instead. Was it easier to read the shorter entries? Honestly I wonder if it was really worth it, since the chunky chapters of the first two volumes remained as they were anyway…

Finding readers is hard. ;_;

But enough woe is me, how did you all like Volume 3? As you might have guessed by the ending, this was actually the first entry in a multi-volume arc I’d planned. The conclusion will be in Volume 4. Thus, this volume ended with an Interlude, rather than an Epilogue. I plan to start writing Volume 4 sometime in 2026, and when I do, it will continue from this point in chapter count as “Volume 4, Chapter 7”, rather than Chapter 1. I hope that won’t be too confusing… ^^;

Anyway, this time the story was about a mysterious girl named Eli, who turned out to be a vampire! It may have been a little obvious even before the big reveal, but it was fun to write those first few chapters as if a big secret could spill out any minute. Also, I sprinkled a lot of little clues into previous volumes in order to build up for this story; from the introduction to the concept of vampires in Taniguchi’s backstory from Volume 1, to the introduction of Yuko’s childhood friend Aoi from Volume 2. Bet you were surprised to see her turn up here in the very end, huh? Hehe!

Overall though, I’d say this volume was a pretty big character book. I got to formally introduce the rest of the student council, who only had unnamed appearances in Volume 1, and I finally got to give Tanabe some development. He’s more than just ‘that one kendo guy Yuko likes’! And of course, we can’t forget Kanna, who’s finally back in the spotlight after being almost entirely absent from Volume 2! Writing part of the story from her perspective to contrast Yuko’s experiences was a lot of fun. Lastly, the relationship between Yuko and The Guardian is beginning to shift now that the experiences with the dream world stuff from Volume 2 have awakened a loose channel through which the two personalities can communicate.

Please continue to watch over Yuko and her other self as I continue to write the story! I will say, even as the author, I find myself being a bit surprised by my own characters. And I can feel my understanding of Yuko’s will and who she is as a person really starting to take shape in this volume. I’ll be honest, I really like pure-hearted earnest girls like her… it’s no wonder someone like her ended up the main character of this story. ^^;

Anyway, once more I want to thank all of you for reading and sticking with this series. I don’t know when exactly I’ll get started on Volume 4, but please look forward to it with due patience, it’s sure to be the most action-packed volume yet!

With that, I conclude this volume. See you next time!