The hallway of the Prefectural Sports Center was quiet. The air conditioning flowed through it, separated from the summer heat outside. The floor was linoleum, and the fluorescent lights reflected white against its surface. Kunimi Akira leaned his back against the wall and looked up at the ceiling. Today's date was August 7th. He and Gasshu had arrived here just after 10 in the morning. For three nights before this day, Kunimi had been thinking about it. Gasshu's three notebooks, Koshiba's voice, Imamura's words about "the chairman Mikasa will hear about it." He'd thought that if he gathered all of it together and brought it here—to the administrative office of the Miyagi Prefecture High School Athletic Federation in Aoba Ward, Sendai—something would move. He'd been naive. The young staff member sitting at the window hadn't even accepted the copies of the notebooks that Gasshu had offered. "[cold]For complaints regarding internal selection criteria, we first require formal docume