We followed them through the streets again and, just like Risa had said, people started greeting Butcher as soon as they entered the neighborhood that had many restaurants, stalls, and food places.

Sugioka seemed confused at first, but her shyness quickly kicked in. It even looked like Sanae's and Risa's plan was about to backfire. Luckily, it didn't, but not everything went as planned.

"Oh, no," Sanae expressed as Butcher and Sugioka walked past a boxing gymnasium.

Butcher slowed his pace down and stared at the building. Sugioka said something to him, but we couldn't hear them from our hiding spot behind a delivery truck. They stopped in front of the gymnasium and exchanged words for a while. They then stepped into the building.

Sanae hit the truck and fumed, "Damn it, Gorō!"

The truck driver peeked out from the other side of the truck and glanced at Sanae, who didn't stop bowing to apologize as the driver checked that nothing had happened to the bodywork. Obviously, it was intact, so we rushed to the gymnasium.

We peeked through the windows, petrified to see that Butcher and Sugioka were already in the ring, wearing boxing protection. They barely moved for a few seconds, then Sugioka threw the first punch, which was actually a fake to open Butcher's defense on his abdomen. Butcher didn't hesitate to counterattack.

Both of them seemed incredibly focused and even upset. Sanae, Risa, and I couldn't believe what was happening.

"They are getting angry with each other," worried Sanae. "We should stop them."

Risa held her shoulder. "No, let them fight."

"What? Why?"

"This is better than what we had planned."

"How can you be so sure?"

"I'm not, but look at them. They seem really focused. Passionate, even."

Sanae seemed just as worried as I was, yet we decided to not intervene.

The fight kept going for almost ten minutes until the bell rang again. I knew nothing about boxing, so I didn't know who had won. The girls didn't know either.

Butcher and Sugioka took their face protection off. Surprisingly, a smile appeared on their faces as soon as they fist-bumped each other with their gloves.

Sanae, Risa, and I moved away from the window as soon as they got out of the ring. Since they were closer to the entrance, we could barely hear their conversation now.

"That was fun," said Butcher.

Sugioka replied, "It was. It had been a while since anyone gave me a challenge."

"Same. We should do it again another day."

"Of course."

That went better than I expected.

Distracted by the perfect outcome, we barely had time to hide around the corner of the building before they stepped out. They walked past us, but they didn't see us, luckily.

"Come on," said Sanae.

I grabbed her shoulder to stop her.

"I think we should leave them alone now."

"What? But…"

Risa added, "I agree with Kaito. They'll be fine on their own."

Sanae didn't seem to agree, yet she didn't insist.

We waited for them to enter the arcade before walking back to HQ, where we chatted about what had happened for the next half hour. Sanae then called Butcher to tell him that the nonexistent meeting was over.

I walked with the girls to the central marketplace of the Trading District since it was a middle point between HQ and the arcade. The girls reunited with Butcher and Sugioka and resumed their day trip.

As for me, I spent the rest of the day with Aki since I had finished all the critical tasks and there wasn't much time to spare before Aeryx's world tour.

The lessons I had scheduled for the girls took place in the dance studio. It wasn't the most comfortable place to learn, but it did the job for now.

Even though the girls could have fun during class from time to time, they weren't meant to be fun. Still, the girls worked hard and didn't complain a single time. In front of me, that is.

Modeling was notably the most difficult skill for all of them to grasp. Only Aki had prior experience, while the rest struggled.

Both Sanae and Risa understood that it was part of being an idol, so they simply followed the instructions and slowly got better at it.

Astra also understood the goal, but she wasn't able to follow the lessons since she couldn't portray what she was asked to. Nonetheless, she worked hard and quickly became better at it, thanks to the girls' and the instructor's additional help.

However, the person that struggled the most was Umi. Her shyness and excessive pride got in the way most of the time, but she was great at it when she managed to overcome those feelings. That didn't happen often, unfortunately.

Aside from having lessons every day, the girls also had to practice the choreographies and rehearse the fifty-minute show to open for Aeryx. On top of that, they tried to come up with concepts for the third album—as did every team member of GIMA. Sadly, none of the ideas sounded convincing enough to us.

Two weeks was barely enough time to get anything done, but after months of being postponed, we finally hired a market analyzer, taking the little space that was left in the art office, along with Jun and the accountant. Sadly, we couldn't spend much time with him as the world tour was around the corner.

The same team that had toured with us last time stood in front of HQ, waiting for the transport sent by TOTOT while carrying their suitcases and backpacks.

The team also included the same assistant, makeup artist, photographer, and lighting technician we had worked with, but they were going to meet with us at the airport.

Unlike last time, we didn't need another three bodyguards since TOTOT was going to lend their team to us. However, we still had a slot for one more person available, so we brought one extra bodyguard with us. It was obvious who Butcher was going to choose.

"Are we going to the spaceport?" wondered Astra.

"I wish," I answered. "The venues are always in countries nearby, so an airplane is more than enough."

"Oh," Astra uttered in disappointment.

"That is for the first half of the tour. We'll take a couple of suborbital flights to travel to the other continents after the tour break."

Astra's eyes sparkled. "Yay!"

I smiled at her, sharing her enthusiasm.

Two SUVs sent by TOTOT arrived a few minutes later. The twelve of us barely fit inside the two vehicles with our luggage and, to our bad luck, we had to stay cramped for almost an hour because the airport was far away from HQ and the morning traffic was awful.

Fortunately, we left HQ three hours before our flight to avoid problems just like that, which meant we still had plenty of time to spare.

We met with the rest of the team at the terminal and spent another hour going through security and registering our bags due to the absurdly long queues. Only then could we sit down and chat.

Not even half of the team had been on a plane before, including me. Funnily enough, I had been to another planet, but not another country.

To everyone's surprise, Butcher had been to multiple countries while in university and told us a few of his adventures. Sadly, he wasn't able to graduate.

We chatted for another hour until the announcement to board the plane was made through the speakers. Not even a second later, a notification with the same message appeared on our glasses.

Less than five people were lined up when we arrived at the gate, so it didn't take us long to enter the tunnel that led to the plane.

Three flight attendants welcomed us as we stepped in, then we just had to walk to our seats, marked by our glasses with an arrow only each of us could see.

Because we were so many people, it couldn't be helped that we were spread through the entire plane.

Aki, Tomokazu, and I were supposed to sit in the same row, but Tomokazu asked Butcher to change seats. He was going to sit with Sanae and Risa, but then Risa asked the makeup artist to change seats to be able to sit with Astra.

Sanae and Risa also wanted to make Butcher and Sugioka sit together at first, but they were too big to sit in the same row. The whole situation was a complete mess, but everything worked out in the end.

We had to wait yet another hour until it was time for the plane to depart. As I had expected, the take-off was significantly more boring than the take-off of a ship. I barely felt pushed into the seat with this take-off, while I hadn't been able to move at all while a ship left the atmosphere.

The excitement of the new experience lasted for a few short minutes, then we just had to sit for another fifty minutes until we arrived in another country.