Hi, guys!

Hey, there! We've been waiting for you!

Sorry to bother you while you're so busy.

It's fine, it's fine. We're all friends here!

*Laugh* That's true. Anyway, today the focus is going to be on everyone's Aqours Challenges!

Feel free to ask anything you'd like! C'mon, have a seat over here! Whoops, just let me tidy up the desk.

Oh, this is… Sorry, my timing's gone from bad to worse. You were discussing the promo video, right?

Don't worry about it. We're in the middle of talking about it, sure, but it's not like last time when we hadn't settled on anything.

Yes. We were in the midst of discussing how best to bring each of the strengths we possess together.

We've all grown thanks to this school idol fansite project you brought to us.

So we wanna put them aaall into the video!

I want everyone to see just how far Aqours has come.

I want to show people all the challenges that we've done so far.

I think we should do something special for each grade.

The articles that you've written have been a great reference.

They have…? I'm glad!

There's always so much that I want to write about, so I worry about whether or not I can put it together well enough.

Oh, right! There was something I wanted to give you guys before the interview. Here.

What's all this?

Letters and emails from people who read the Aqours Challenge articles.

There's so many of them!

Wow! Lemme see!

Oh! This one's about Yoshiko's challenge, zura. Hm… It says, “I was cheering for Mistress Yohane from the roadside on the day of the Walk Rally.”

From the roadside…? Don't tell me they saw the part where I fell over…

Here's one from someone who watched the third years' Tokyo contest video.

“Kanan, Mari, and Dia's Aqours was really amazing,” it says.

Aw, don't make me blush.

There are some from kids that read Hanamaru's article, too.

This one says, “Now I totally get why people are drawn to Hanamaru when she's singing!”

*Giggle* I'll have to try even harder so I don't disappoint them, zura!

Every message sounds really passionate, right? Plus, they're coming from all over Japan. That's not too common either.

Hey, look! This one…!

“We love Aqours so much that we started our own School Idol Club.”

“We're a small provincial high school, and we only have four members.”

“Even when we upload videos, we don't get many views. And in contests, we always get defeated in the preliminaries.”

“But everyone at school and in our town is cheering for us, so we want to put in even more work to do our best.”

“One day, we want to shimmer and shine just like Aqours!”

Then it says, “We're looking forward to the Aqours Challenge articles and the School Idol Exhibition promo video too!”

…They admire us? They want to shine like we do?

When they put it that way, well… I'm honestly a bit flustered.

I can't believe these girls see us like that.

I guess they're just like everyone at Nijigasaki.

Huh?

We look up to μ's and Aqours, and we're doing the best we can so that one day we'll be sure to stand on the same stage.

I mean, look at the School Idol Festival. Every one of you was so into it! That was amazing!

Starting out as school idols because you admire them… It was the same for us too.

We started out just looking up to μ's, then we practiced and practiced…

That day was so, so, SOOO nerve-wracking!

Which day?

You know, the one with the μ's and Aqours joint live show that you came to see.

Oh…

Chika, you were really nervous when you sent the email asking μ's about that show.

Yep. Your hand was shaking so much you couldn't click send.

Of course it was! I kept thinking, what if I'm bothering them? What if they say we lack the experience to be on the same stage as them?

…Thinking about it now, sending that email might've been a really important challenge for us.