On one of the afternoons after Honoka had become the student council president, our ever dependable three third-years found themselves sitting in their clubroom with nothing to do. Because, well, they were the only ones who could attend the previously planned meeting, and everyone else had convenient emergencies resulting in the meeting being cancelled.

To prevent herself from dying out of boredom, Nico took the candid photos taken at a haunted house during their Halloween night gathering and began flipping through them.

Having sensed the sudden movement, Nozomi stopped nodding off and instead leaned over to peek at the printed photos.

"Aww… Muse looks cute when they're scared!" She drawled, pointing at the pictures. A shiver ran up both Nico and Eli's backs. Nico swore she saw Eli tense up from across the table but she made no movement towards the two. Nico herself bristled slightly but tried her best to be nonchalant, bracing herself from Nozomi's teasing lest her own candid photo showed up in the pile.

As she flipped to a new photo, the topmost one was suddenly snatched from her hands. "H-Hey! I haven't seen that one yet!" What if it's hers-

"Elicchi~ Elicchi looks so cute trying to put on a brave front hehe!" She waved the photo teasingly in front of Eli, a wide triumphant grin on her face.

At this, a furious blush appeared on Eli's face as she attempted to bury her face in her palms. "N-Nozomi, stop raking up the past! Halloween was more than a month ago!" Her voice was muffled as she cried out into her hands.

Nico chuckled at the spectacle across of her, how did the rest of Muse even manage to convince Eli to go INTO the haunted house in the first place?

Not being able to stand the two of her fellow third years any longer, Nico grabbed her belongings including the photo from Nozomi, commenting 'Get a room' drily before bursting out the clubroom door. And leaving the both of them to stare at the door, Eli's blush increasing by a tenfold.

She can't be fearless, was all there was on Eli's mind the whole of the following day, there MUST be something she's afraid of.

Her sapphire eyes bore into Nozomi's back during class, as she tried to think of any single situation where her best friend was actually scared of something. If looks could kill, the furious concentration of Eli's gaze would have killed Nozomi a hundred times over by the time class ended.

This daydream continued even as the Muses finally had a replacement meeting on what their next performance would be like. Their loud chatter and occasional argument flew by Eli's ears and completely failed to bring her out of her thoughts. The Muses, on the assumption that Eli was thinking hard about their discussion topic, simply let her be. (Or did they forget she was even there…?)

Only when Nozomi excused herself to go to the washroom did she snap out of her train of thoughts. "Let's continue and update Nozomi chan about the details later-"

"Is Nozomi afraid of anything?" Eli suddenly interjected, releasing the giant boulder of a question that had been in her mind for ever.

Seven pairs of eyes snapped to her.

Conscious of the sudden attention, she repeated "Nozomi always seems fearless doesn't she? Is she afraid of anything?"

All the girls seemed to nod understandingly. They all seemed surprised by the out-of-the-blue question, save a certain redhead who looked unimpressed and a certain twin-tailed girl who smirked remembering the previous day's events.

"Are you going to try to scare her, Elichan?" Hanayo smiled shyly.

Eli replied with a determined nod.

"Then of course we'll help you!" Honoka cried out excitedly and nods of assent, murmurs of excitement and a 'whatever' went across the table.

The girls thought it was safer if they discussed the plan another day, so one by one despite their excitement, all fell silent. However, even when said girl returned to the clubroom, they'd all forgotten the ideas that they wanted to discuss during the meeting in the first place.

Operation Scare Nozomi had just begun.