Hirata's hand stopped in the side pocket of his bag.
There was no paper.
He felt around again. Not by the tree, not under the rock, not in the patch of dirt where the roster had been pressed earlier.
"The final coordination copy is gone."
Everyone assigned to the second patrol round stopped.
Ike Kanji hugged the water bag, looking first at Hirata, then at the faint paper mark on the ground.
"No way, right?"
No one answered.
That sheet listed who would take the night route, who could not carry weight, who needed to avoid whom, and who would guard the base. Once the duty roster was lost, the next round would not merely be missing a sheet of paper—it would be missing the basis that allowed everyone to act in coordination.
Yukimura did not let the discussion spiral first. He compared the three copies still present one by one: the status-restriction version in Sakura's hands, the girls' preference version held by Kushida, and the rules-explanation version he himself had kept.
"These three are all here."
He looked at Horikita.
"The photo that was passed around just now showed the new group roster, not the final coordination copy Hirata had. All we can confirm now is that the final coordination copy is no longer where it was. We cannot immediately claim someone took it."
Shinohara's gaze fell first on Kushida's wrist.
That thin hair tie looked very similar to the hand in the corner of the photo.
"But the hand in the photo is hers too."
"I'm holding the girls' preference version," Kushida said.
"What was lost was Hirata's copy."
Her answer came too quickly, making those nearby lower their gazes even further.
"Could it have been Class C?"
"Ishizaki is too far from here."
Yamauchi poked his head