Chapter 201 Swimming Festival - Part 6 [Chloe]

This swimming festival arc sure is taking a long time, author.

I know you can hear what I'm thinking. This swimming festival is nowhere near as extravagant as you are making it out to me. This better be the last part.

When I become the Main Character, I'll change this boring story, but for now, I'll run with it. Although, it is a little weird knowing that you know exactly what I'm thinking and what I'm doing at all times. It's going to rain soon.

Author, you know about my past, right?

*

The relays were just coming up. Soon enough, I'll be seeing whether my ambitions and desires get realised. There was a large movement of students, like waves, as four students from each house got up and made their way over to the swimming area.

The relays were basically the culmination of the strongest swimmers of each house, there is no gender or age heats, and everyone is in the same one. Meaning year nine girls and year twelve boys could theoretically be competing against each other. I was told that I was in the relay, but they didn't tell me who else in our house was also in it. I looked around to see two year twelve boys and a year eleven boy stand up, I guess I was the only girl participating in our house then.

"All swimmers for the relays, please roll call at the benches." That was my cue to go. I looked around, and all the top swimmers in terms of individual points were there, I noticed that Teru, Rin and Shin were also there. Aside from the top three girls in the individual rankings, there were no other girls present. "Due to weather concerns, we have decided to combine the two relays, it will now be a 600m medley relay, with each swimmer swimming 150m of their respective strokes. The race will be scaled by 2x." I had predicted this. However, this was going to be a great strain on most of the less inclined swimmers in the group.

I huddled up with the swimmers of our house. It was a little uncomfortable being in such a large group of boys. "Alright, so what stroke is everyone going to do?" I was unsure of the skill level of each of our swimmers, I wanted to take butterfly for safety reasons because if someone incapable of doing it tried to do it, it would not end well. The others were already chatting away so I decided to sit back and listen for a little while. "I want to do freestyle." It was one of the year twelve boys, so I didn't really mind it. "I want to do the last leg, to carry everyone!" announced the other year twelve boy. For some reason they seemed to agree on it, I guess they didn't realise that freestyle was the last leg, meaning one of them will have to change. The year eleven boy demanded to do breaststroke which was okay, eventually butterfly was pushed onto me as I hoped.

"You do realise that freestyle is the final leg right?" They didn't seem to understand what I meant straight away. I assumed that they thought breaststroke was the last leg for some reason. I decided to ask the question to confirm. "What order are we going in?" They seemed to be mentally calculating it before coming to a conclusion. Eventually, they understood what I meant and swiftly changed the order.

"Swimmers to your positions!" I walked over with the year twelve boy who had changed from freestyle to backstroke after consideration. I was the third swimmer in the order and looked beside me to see who my fellow third swimmers were. Turns out that I was in the same position as Rin, all the other people I knew were all swimming the final leg. I assumed that it was because generally the last leg was associated with having the best swimmer, although in this case, butterfly was a much more difficult stroke, especially for 150m so it would be a better strategical decision to put your best swimmer.

After a brief moment of silence, our first swimmer got into the water and prepared to start the backstroke leg. After a long siren sound, all the swimmers pounced off the wall, beginning the race. There was very intense splashing at the beginning, it looked like several people were almost drowning from having their faces covered by the blanket of water produced by the violent turbulence.

After the first 50m however, it was quite clear who was where. The race had split up into almost two sections, a faster and a slower section. Our house was coming a close third although the top four positions were within a metre or two of each other. The lower four were about three metres behind them. After the 100 mark, the gap began to widen even further, I quietly cheered for my teammate as he tumble turned off the wall. We were still in third place, although the gap between everyone was a lot greater. Almost a minute later, we finally finished the first leg, with our second swimmer diving in explosively, closing in on second place.

This however would be our downfall. Our second swimmer was quite slow, widening the gap between the second swimmer by the 50m mark. At the 100m mark, we had lost our third place position as well, falling to forth. I watched eagerly as our breaststroke swimmer neared the wall. I leaned down, tucking my head in and preparing to dive, the millisecond his finger grazed the wall, I pushed off.

At the point where I began, we were in forth place, just under a metre behind third. The distance between us and first place was quite great, almost four or five metres. I needed to gain our space back and push us closer to the lead. I had my doubts about our last swimmer though, we were probably goners. The first fifty metres, I had controlled the speed I was going at to retain energy, I felt as if my body was very light, flowing through the water, but I made sure not to push too hard. It was quite hard to tell what position I was in as I couldn't see anyone near me.

At the 50m mark, I could feel the strain on my arm now, with each push out of the water I do, I feel like more energy is being drained out of me. It was now a lot more tiring to push my head out of the water to take a breath, yet all my brain was telling me was 'I need more oxygen in my body'. It looked like salvation as I neared the 100m mark, however, as I split stroked in the final 50m, I felt as if I might die. This was three times as long as I was expecting at the beginning of the day and the pressure of the water was really taking a toll on me. I felt as if I was moving at nearly half the speed that I originally swam in the beginning.

Seeing the view of the wall through my goggles, I stuck out my arms and touched the blissfully sturdy wall, pulling my head out of the water.

My first reaction was to immediately look around, to check was position I was in. "Good job! You were amazing!" Said the year twelve boy who was waiting at the edge of the pool after his leg. "What are we coming?" I said with the last breath I could possibly heave out of my body. He looked down at me excitedly, "We're coming second! Very close to first!" It was both relief and anguish. It was all up to our last swimmer now. I wasn't able to claw us to first place so I placed all of my fleeting hope in this seemingly incapable boy.

The other boy helped me out of the pool as I couldn't even tense any of my muscles at that point. As soon as I got out, I looked back over at the pool to see what was going on. To my astonishment, it looked as if we were coming first and by a great margin as well. Was I seeing this right? I looked closely at the cap, it was definitely green. No way, were we actually winning? But more importantly where was Asahi's house? We needed to beat them by at least two positions if I wanted any chance to win first in individual points. I wasn't sure which house she was in so I couldn't check, I could only hope for the best.

A few moments later, our year twelve boy completed the racing, bringing us first place in the relay which both surprised and impressed me. They handed out the ribbons and we returned to our house areas. All there was left now was to wait for the overall results.

*

Individual Point Rankings.

1. Chloe Afford - 78

2. Asahi Yuuna - 76

3. Mai Yokodera - 64

Hold on.

I actually did it.