The Suspension Bridge Effect
"Test of courage…part two?" Nagisa repeated, turning around to see Maehara and Okajima grinning mischievously. "What are you talking about?"
"Exactly what it sounds like, Nagisa." Karma replied with his usual laidback smile, taking a sip from his canned coffee and leaning on the wall. "Remember the cave that Koro-Sensei was using? We took another look at it, and we found a deeper network of tunnels inside that are perfect for a test of courage."
"Koro-Sensei's right about one thing alone, and that's the fact that tests of courage are a part of summer!" Maehara replied, clearly unable to hide his excitement. He rubbed his hands together in eagerness, imagining it all happening in his head. "We gotta make it happen, and we're gonna get everyone in on this!"
"We got some of the other guys, like Ryuunosuke and Takebayashi, to help us search for the best entrance." Okajima was clearly ready to jump with energy, since he was practically shivering in place. "Come on, Nagisa! We just need one guy to help spread the word! If we get enough people, we can make this happen!"
"I dunno…" Nagisa wondered, glancing back at everyone. "The last one didn't do go so well, did it? Besides, have you even seen the inside of the tunnel?"
"Aw, come on! Don't poop on the party!" Okajima groaned in complaint. "The fear and thrill lie in the unknown!"
After Koro-Sensei had arbitrarily tried to set everyone up in couples for a test of courage, which had ended in failure, and everyone had pitched in to help Miss Irina/Professor Bitch with her romance, the students had all decided to just relax for the last night. Tomorrow, Class E would be headed back from home from this extremely tiring Assassination Vacation.
And in the boys' room, a plan was clearly being concocted. Noisily, too.
"We've already planned to tell the girls, but we didn't yet." Sugino's voice came from seemingly nowhere, and Nagisa looked to the right and saw him coming out of the bathroom in nothing but a towel. He stopped drying his hair and lowered his arms, and he looked right at Nagisa. "We kinda need you to do this one for us."
"…why do I have to be the one to do it?" Nagisa asked in response. "Couldn't Isogai or…I dunno, anyone could ask them, right? Why does it have to be me?"
Okajima put his hands to his chin and then "…actually, I remember Karma just saying it would be fun to send you over there. He said there were a few boob traps they laid in case a guy was gonna sneak over there. A lot of them are for Koro-Sensei, though."
Nagisa shot Karma a look, but the redhead just winked wickedly and grinned, sticking his tongue out teasingly. "He wasn't supposed to tell you that, you know." The delinquent-like student then strode over to Nagisa and then pulled him up to his feet. Karma pushed him in the direction of the door, and then shut it behind Nagisa once the blue-haired boy had staggered outside. "Anyway, we're leaving it to you. Tell everyone to meet us at the beach at nine. We'll just play Old Maid and Go Fish while we wait. Bring us results~"
"Wait a min-" Nagisa turned around in the nick of time just to hear the door lock with a click.
"…jeez…" Nagisa groaned to himself, fiddled with the locked doorknob for a bit and then gave up. He threw his hands up in resignation and then sighed, and then started walking in the direction where he knew the girls were staying.
They were staying in the hotel rooms provided for them by the Kunugigaoka School Summer Trip. It was clearly as extravagant as expected, since it was similar to the hotel they had to infiltrate on the same island. The hallway was lit with a soothing, yellow light and had a long crimson carpet going down the length of the floor. The walls were eggshell white, and had a few lights mounted on the wall in the style of candles, making the place look more ornate than it actually should have looked from the outside.
Nagisa crossed the hallway intersection to the elevators and walked from the East Wing over to the West Wing where the girls' room was.
Now that I think about it, Okajima was complaining about our room setup. Nagisa remembered, smiling wryly to himself as he recalled the semi-bald classmate of his.
The instant he took a step in the hallway that led to the East Wing, Nagisa felt a shiver ride up his spine. He froze in response, and then he took a step backwards.
Piano wire hung at neck height.
Crap. Nagisa thought to himself with begrudging respect and took a closer look at it. He was familiar with the sheen on the lethal string that was the glint of melted and reused anti-Sensei material. The girls are really prepared.
He glanced at it hesitantly before he sighed, and he ducked under the wire before proceeding down the hallway.
Like a bowstring snapping, he felt his leg suddenly pull and break a string that was positioned at the height of his shin. A sense of foreboding immediately woke him up, and Nagisa felt his instincts dictate that he roll forward.
Roll forward he did, and just in time to evade a barrage of turrets that spewed anti-Sensei BBs. He looked up to see around eight machine gun turrets that had emerged from the wall and point themselves at him.
"Oh, sorry, Nagisa." The familiar voice of Ritsu called out to him from his pocket. He fished his phone out of his pocket and looked down at it to see her smiling apologetically at him. She clapped both hands together and bowed, her head facing the ground. "I was on standby in case Koro-Sensei came over here to peep."
"…you guys really went overkill." Nagisa couldn't help but admire the amount of effort that seemed to have gone into preparing the traps, and he watched as the guns retreated into the wall as if they were never there in the first place.
"Megu and Kurahashi said that this was the basics of the necessities when our potential target is Koro-Sensei." Ritsu replied, shrugging. "So? Is there something you would like to do over in the girls' room?"
Somehow, I feel like that wasn't phrased correctly. Nagisa kept his thoughts to himself. "I was planning to tell them about something the guys were planning later. Is it alright if I go there?"
"No problems!" Ritsu replied, nodding in confirmation and gesturing in the direction of the hallway. "I'll just tell one of them that you'll be coming."
"Thanks." Nagisa nodded, and he placed his phone back into his pocket before proceeding. As he continued down the long hall, he ducked and crawled under piano wires that were elaborately set up like a net as well as evading other traps as per Ritsu's careful instructions.
And after what seemed like hours of getting past those, Nagisa had gone around the corner and made it in front of the girls' room.
"…finally…" Nagisa let out a sigh of relief, pushing himself off of his knees and standing back up. After gathering his senses and getting himself together, Nagisa raised his hand and glanced to the right of the door. He pressed the doorbell and then took a step back, waiting patiently.
"…just a minute!" "Oh, perfect!" A mess of feminine voices penetrated through the wood and reached Nagisa's ears. Immediately, a sense of dread filled his body and he felt the urge to run away scream at him from within his body. His legs tensed in preparation to bolt without his prompting, and sweat already started coursing down his face like he'd been thrown into a boiler.
The door opened quickly, and the first thing Nagisa could see was a wicked grin on Nakamura's face with a bunch of other girls' faces peeking out from behind her. Specifically, Meg, Hara, Kurahashi and Yada. "Just the man-girl we needed, and right on time!" She said approvingly, gesturing for him to enter. "Come on in, we were just about to go get you!"
Those words, however, only made Nagisa feel all the more hesitant. He took a hesitant step forward, and then stopped. "Uh…why do you-"
"C'mon, c'mon!" Yada, grinning, grabbed him by the wrist and pulled him into the room without letting him say another word. With that, the girls parted and made way for Nagisa who was dragged into the room. Nakamura then closed the door behind him and then locked it.
…I'm getting a really bad feeling about this… Nagisa thought as Yada continued to pull him forward, and he was tugged into the room where all of the beds were.
The entire room was very plain and hotel-like. The sheets were all white and the pillows were all the same, with some people sitting or lying down on their beds. There was a single, extremely large television at the back end of the room, and there was a hallway to the right of the room as well. It was a massive shared bedroom, where everyone stayed.
"Why are you dragging me in here?" Nagisa asked as he tugged his arm away from Yada, stopping and trying to reassert his control over the situation.
A difficult thing to do for someone who was surrounded on all sides by girls.
"Why did you bring him inside?" Hayami asked, looking up from the book in her hands. She shot a glance in the direction of the hall on the right, and then looked at Nakamura. She looked worried, both for them and for whoever was in the bathroom. "There are still people in the bath."
A look of total regret immediately transformed Nakamura's features, and she immediately turned to Nagisa. "Crap! Nagisa, quick! Come with-"
She froze completely, even her lips stopped moving, at the sound of a door swiveling open. A familiar, feminine voice was humming a pleasant tune happily to herself as someone exited the bathroom door and walked into the main bedroom.
"Hey, thanks for lending me your towel, Kayano." Hinata was the first to emerge from the bathroom amidst a cloud of steam. Her skin was pinkish from the heat of the bath, and she was smiling apologetically while clad in nothing but a towel over her chest that only reached a little bit below her hips. She skipped over to what seemed to be her bed, completely ignorant of the crowd of girls that was huddled around a completely exposed, stunned Nagisa.
"And thank you, Kanzaki, for lending me yours. I got careless and forgot mine outside." Fuwa had the same apparel and apologetic smile as she walked into the main bedroom and walking over to her bed.
However, she did not ignore the crowd of girls that was clearly the elephant in the room. And seeing Nagisa, she completely froze with her mouth hanging wide open.
Slowly, but surely, the pink flush that was present on her exposed skin invaded her entire face. She let out a yelp of embarrassment and quickly turned around, running behind her bed and crouching under it and hiding herself from view.
"Is something wrong, Fuwa?" Kayano's voice came into the room, but everyone went pale as she walked into the room alongside her final companion, Kanzaki.
Nagisa would have paled, but he'd gone red up to the tips of his ears. Steam could have erupted from the top of his head and it wouldn't look out of place with the intensity of his blush.
"K-K-Kayano!" Nakamura squealed, completely unprepared for this situation, held up her hands as if in self-defense or anticipating it. "Wh-why aren't you wearing a towel?! You too, Kanzaki!"
"Well, Fuwa and Hinata forgot to bring their towels into the bathroom, so we gave them ours." Kanzaki said, a little embarrassed with a light blush to match, as she covered her important parts. "Besides, you have no right to say that when you were parading around in your underwear and saying we should have some female skinship."
"B-be that as it may, be quick and put something on!" Hara quickly jumped in, waving her hands. "Even a bedsheet will be fine!"
"Is something going on, you guys?" Kayano asked, coming out from behind the still-naked Kanzaki and taking strides towards the group of girls. She, like Kanzaki, had lent her towel and was thus nude. "Why are you…all…?"
Mid-stride, Kayano caught sight of Nagisa in the corner of her field of vision. Time froze for the two of them as they locked eyes, almost as if Father Time had chosen that moment to mess with the world and the people living in it.
"…N-Nagisa…?" Off guard and taken completely by surprise, Kayano stayed rooted to the spot. She'd frozen completely, her hands not even making a movement to cover herself.
"…" He knew no words to say in this situation, and his frazzled up tongue knew no way to let any leave his mouth anyway.
"G-G-GET OUT!" With that scream that was a mix of embarrassment and squeamishness, Kayano burst. She turned around and ran to the closest bed, grabbed the pillows and then began hurling them at him with enough force to take off a head.
"Stop! Stop! I get it, so don't throw those at me!" Nagisa begged as he dodged a barrage of soft bullets, rolled to evade another pillow and then dove out of the door, slamming it shut with his foot.
Kayano didn't calm down one bit after that, turning her attention to Nakamura and the others. She took a pillow in both hands and cocked her arms. "What…was he…doing here?" She was breathing heavily, like a beast on the rage.
"We just…wanted to dress him up in girls' clothes and…see how cute he'd look…" Nakamura replied timidly, cowering in fear.
"Wait, why did he come here in the first place?" Megu wondered, and then pulled out her phone. "Ritsu, why was he…?"
The purple-haired avatar displayed herself on the screen on cue. "He came to deliver a message, it seems. He'd gone through the traps for Koro-Sensei that we set to do so."
"Don't try and change the subject."
The girls took a step back from the green-haired teenage girl as Kayano stepped forward, ready to pulverize them one by one.
"Now, now." Kanzaki leaped in between Kayano and Nakamura, holding her hands out. "Let's try and calm down, and then see why he came here! Okay?"
"…if you're okay with that, even though he saw you naked, then I guess…"
"It's okay, so please don't bring that up."
"Oh, Professor Karasuma."
Everyone waved their hand in uniform, joint greeting as the P.E teacher of Class E opened the door to the boys' room.
"Hello." The man greeted in reply as he closed the door behind him and walked into the main bedroom. He looked to the side, where he saw Karma sitting on his bed and facing away from him, watching what appeared to be a video on his phone.
As the instructor walked past him, he took a curious glance at the screen for no particular reason. To his surprise, he caught a glimpse of Nagisa on the screen.
"Karma, what are you watching?"
"Real-life footage." The redhead replied, and his signature devilish grin of mischief forced Karasuma to face two choices.
To investigate and ask, or to leave it alone.
He very much desired the latter option, but chose the former for the obligation of a teacher.
"Real-life footage?" Karasuma asked hesitantly, drawing closer. He took a seat onto the bed and shifted closer to Karma. "Of what?"
"The girls' room."
His calm response to something so serious made the entire room react.
"You had something like that?!" Okajima leaped to his feet, hope glimmering in his eyes as he began to race over to Karma's side of the room. "Lemme-urk!"
Isogai held out his arm, and Okajima ran into it facefirst and flopped onto the floor, out for the count. The Class Representative eyed Karma like one would eye a snake: cautiously and hesitantly. "Why are you…?"
Karma just grinned and showed him and Karasuma the screen, which was of Nagisa on the floor outside of the room and breathing heavily as if he'd just seen a devil. "Blackmail material." The redhead snickered maliciously, and the teacher stood back up and took a few steps away from him.
Even as an instructor, I must never make Karma mad.
That was what Karasuma honestly thought.
"So you came here to tell us about the test of courage that the boys planned for later?"
Kayano stood with her arms crossed in front of Nagisa, who was kneeling to her for fear of his life in the middle of the hallway.
"Yes." He answered promptly and firmly like he would have answered an army drill sergeant. "I had no ill intent, so please forgive me for my actions."
"Isn't this enough, Kayano?" Kanzaki, who was standing directly behind the green-haired girl, asked as she cast a glance of concern at the boy who was groveling in the hall. "He didn't do it on purpose. Can't you just let him off with this? You two are friends, after all."
"Friend or not, he saw everything! I can't get married anymore! My mom always told me a maiden can't just show skin to just anyone!" Kayano replied, pointing accusingly at him. "He has to take responsibility or I'm not gonna forgive him!"
"Then…how should I take responsibility?"
The question that was asked so honestly and sincerely made all of the girls' heads turn, and they all stared at Nagisa in shock.
His eyes, and his expression both told them all the same thing: he was serious.
Kayano, shaken by the suddenness of the question, took a step back. All kinds of thoughts raced through her head thanks to the turn in conversation, and so many ideas were gushing forth that it was overwhelming.
The most prominent thing that came to mind, however, made Kayano's heart skip a beat and her face redden so quickly it was as if someone had splashed a bucket of red paint onto her face.
Why is that the first thing that came to mind?! Kayano screamed internally at the mental images of Nagisa in a tuxedo and herself in a white wedding dress. Just because he saw me like that…it doesn't mean he has to marry me to take responsibility!
"N-never mind!" Kayano pushed all of the girls back inside the room and slammed it shut, leaving Nagisa outside. "Tell the guys we'll meet them at the beach at nine!"
And all was quiet.
"…hahhh…" Nagisa let out a sigh and began trudging back to the guys' room. "I really do not want have to get past all of these traps again…Ritsu, can you call Koro-Sensei here? I want him to trigger all the traps so that I wkn't have trouble on the way back."
"Okay~ Also, you're surprisingly cruel, Nagisa."
"Just call him, Ritsu."
At Nine o' Clock…
The entire Class E, as per the guys' instructions, had all gathered at the entrance to the cave that Koro-Sensei had used for their previous test of courage.
"So?" Nakamura asked, clearly impatient and already disappointed by what she saw. "You call us out for a test of courage and we get this? Come on, you should do better, boys."
"Oh, relax, the actual entrance is inside the cave." Karma replied, knocking his fist on the wall of the cave. "Besides, I'm the only one who probably shouldn't go in."
"What, why?" Nakamura leered at him with a suspecting gaze, her hands on her hips as she leaned forward. "I thought everyone was going in. Don't tell me you're getting cold feet now, scaredy cat."
"Actually, I went ahead and set up a few things inside."
Those words were accompanied by Karma's signature smirk, and everybody felt an ominous chill go down their spines at the thought of Karma placing traps and surprises in the cave.
The fear factor of the cave had gone from 6 over 10 to 30 over 20.
"Y-yeah, then I guess you can't come inside with us." Nakamura agreed, her tone a little more nervous as she decided to divert her attention to the girls behind her. "Anyway, it's customary to go in pairs or groups. Let's decide those."
"Okay."
One round of drawing lots later…
"So it's exactly how things turned out last time…" Sugino muttered, half excited as he stood restlessly next to Kanzaki. "Are you sure that the octopus isn't messing with our stuff? He could just zip in at Mach Speed and change the pairing before we notice."
"Nah, he couldn't have." Nagisa replied, looking down at the slips in everyone's hands with their partner's names written crudely on them. "He was so startled with the traps in the girls' wing that he decided to bother Professor Karasuma and Miss Irina instead of us."
Nagisa shot a worried glance at his partner, who kept herself occupied by staring at everything else except for him. I can't believe I got Kayano after everything that happened earlier…
"Alright, then who'll go first?" Karma asked as he gestured to the open mouth of the cave entrance. "I guarantee you a good time."
Everyone shifted, clearly uncomfortable with the idea that Karma had set up the cave. No one spoke or raised their hands and instead shot uneasy looks at each other as if waiting for someone to throw themselves to the piranhas.
After a short while of gazing at the crowd, Karma just sighed and walked over to Nagisa. He whispered in the blue-haired boy's ear, "If you don't volunteer within the next ten seconds, then I'll show everyone the video of you in the girls' room."
You took a…! Nagisa gritted his teeth, biting back his tongue as he slowly raised his hand to everyone's surprise. "…I'll go!"
"Nagisa, what are you-?" Karma walked over to Kayano and whispered in her ear as well, and she immediately shut up and reddened. Without another word, she averted her eyes to the ground and then raised her hand up.
"That makes two~" Karma hummed, grinning from ear to ear. "Alright, just go in the cave and follow the original path."
"How are we going to find the new path?" Nagisa asked. He didn't know where to go, and Karma or anyone else hadn't told anyone what to do or how to do any of it yet.
"Oh, that won't be a problem." Karma replied, and he smacked Nagisa on the back so hard he stumbled towards the entrance of the cave. He then pushed Kayano gently on her back in the same direction, delivering a smile that looked so full of malice and mischief that it would send Satan packing. "You'll know where to go."
…this is awkward.
Nagisa felt the air was palpable as he and Kayano walked side-by-side through the darkness of the cave. The light that allowed him to see anything came from several very dim lamps and flashlights mounted on the wall. Their brightness had been dialed down, making it hard to view anything beyond a good three meters.
In each of their hands was a very small and not very powerful flashlight that could only light the rocky, dark rock floor with a somewhat weak beam of electronic light that was not just weak, but narrow.
Going in at nine 'o clock in the wee hours only made things worse for their eyesight. With sleepiness as well as tension hanging in the air for both him and Kayano, it was incredibly difficult for Nagisa to focus on what he was supposed to come here for.
Which was, namely, getting scared out of his wits by whatever Karma had chosen to prepare.
But that was the last thing on his mind.
Right now, Nagisa and Kayano strode forward in the darkness silently with so much tension in between them it was palpable.
…she's definitely still mad, isn't she? He thought to himself, trying to grasp the expression on her face.
Kayano wasn't looking at him, though. She faced forward, as if he weren't there in the first place.
Yeah, she's definitely still mad. He thought, his heart sinking in his chest. At this rate, I won't get to apologize properly. What can I do to make her forgive me completely…?
However, Kayano's mind was in a complete mess and a stark contrast from what Nagisa made it out to be. Instead of spending the time remaining mad at him, Kayano had absolutely no idea what she was supposed to do.
Ugh, I can't believe I got the same pairing as last time! She thought to herself, holding back the urge to squeeze the life out of something. Is God trying to punish me or something?! How the heck am I supposed to talk to him normally after all that?!
She felt like smashing her fist into the wall, but doing so would have created problems both for Nagisa, herself and everyone else that was waiting outside. God, why won't my heart calm down?! It's practically trying to turn itself into a milkshake!
"…come to think of it, how are we supposed to know where the deeper caves are?" Nagisa voiced a very important question that had his company stumped. "He said that we'd know when we got there, but-"
Suddenly, as Kayano took a step forward, she heard the sound of liquid beneath her feet. A splash, like she'd stepped in a puddle of moderate size. And at the same, a sudden smell hit her nostrils like a wave.
"KYAAAAAAAAAA!" She let out a cry of terror and jumped back, looking to grab onto whatever she could find and shield her. Her arm latched onto Nagisa's, and she quickly used his body as her cover.
She knew that smell. And so did Nagisa, as the scent reached him too and made his nerves suddenly explode with shock.
Blood.
The lights had already gotten dimmer this far into the cavern, leaving them almost unable to see directly in front of them. Nagisa fumbled for his flashlight, and then managed to flick it on and point it at the ground in front of the two of them.
It was an arrow of what looked like fresh, crimson blood that pointed to a fork in the cavern previously hidden in the shadows that revealed itself when Nagisa pointed his flashlight upward.
"…without a doubt, this is Karma's doing…" Nagisa gulped down his saliva nervously, not daring to tread another step as he reassessed just how scary the situation was. His heartbeat was definitely so high that it bordered on medically unhealthy, and beads of sweat were already dripping from his chin.
In a single instant, the atmosphere of the whole cave had changed from silent and tense to enclosing and terrifying. The shadows felt longer, the air felt colder and the silence felt louder.
"…K-Kayano?" Nagisa realized that his arm was beginning to hurt more than his heart did in his chest, and he turned to face her. He was getting worried. "Uh, are you okay?"
She clearly didn't look okay, though. Even in the faintest beams of the dim illumination provided from the wall-mounted lights, he could see her eyes glimmering with tears. She was biting her lips as if she were trying to keep them stapled together, and her skin was already paling.
She very clearly did not look okay.
"…sorry…" She apologized, her grip only tightening on Nagisa's arm. He could sweat that the blood flow was stopping from the bicep down, such was her strength. She continued to stay rooted to the spot and clinging onto her friend, doing her best to remain calm. "…I don't handle blood too well…" She laughed as if to spite herself. "What am I saying, when I'm in a classroom full of people who are trying to kill their teacher?"
Nagisa, in spite of everything happening, couldn't help but chuckle once in agreement. "True." He looked straight at Kayano, offering her a warm smile. "But we are just students, like it or not. It's normal that we're not used to blood and killing."
"You say that, but you beat Takaoka." Kayano couldn't help but smile.
"…if you've calmed down, could you please let go of my arm?" Nagisa felt her fingers really beginning to dig into his skin, and it was painful like a knife being grinded into his bones. "It…kinda hurts."
Kayano took one look down, realized what she was doing and then let go of Nagisa's arm and pushed him away from her gently. Her cheeks reddened a little more than they already were, which was saying something. "…s-sorry."
"N-no, don't apologize." Nagisa's expression grew serious as he glanced towards the cavern that the arrow pointed towards. "More importantly…we should probably go through this already and get it over with."
Kayano nodded in agreement, and the two of them stepped past the arrow of blood and began down the cave mouth.
The walls were closer to each other than the main cavern, making it feel more cramped than earlier. There was also a notable absence of light that forced the pair to rely on their flashlight instead, and that made things all the worse for them as they continued to walk forward.
The silence had grown heavy and hard to break, and it felt impossible to lift from the air.
Slowly the cavern compressed the two together until Nagisa and Kayano were forced to walk shoulder to shoulder alongside one another.
And this only made Kayano more aware of Nagisa's presence, making her unable to calm down. Images of what she'd imagined back at the girls' room were coming back to her right now, the most inopportune time to remember anything of the sort, and it was partially the reason for Kayano refraining from speaking with him even though the two of them were close friends in the middle of this whole thing.
…maybe…is he still kinda upset about me yelling at him? The thought struck her, and she glanced uneasily at him. I mean, sure, maybe I did go too far…but…
"…hey, Nagisa?"
"Yeah?" He replied, turning ever so slightly to look at Kayano as the two of them rounded a corner and continued walking.
"Um…I don't really know how to say this, and I know this isn't really the time for it, but…" Kayano looked away, too embarrassed to meet his gaze directly. "…sorry for getting mad at you earlier and everything. I think I went a little too far…"
"…no, I should be the one apologizing. I had the feeling you were still hung up over that." Nagisa let out a sigh and stopped walking, and he bowed his head in apology. "I'm sorry."
"No, I'm the one apologizing now! You already had your turn, so raise your head!" Kayano replied, and she lightly conked him on the top of his noggin.
Nagisa rubbed the spot she'd struck and smiled. "…well, I hope you've forgiven me already."
What the hell is with that unfair smile?! She thought, averting her gaze from him again. Stop it, or I won't be able to calm down in this situation!
And suddenly, they heard the sound of footsteps behind them. One, after another. Calm, like a person who was just strolling forward without a care in the world.
"Is that the next pair?" Nagisa wondered, turning around to look in the direction that they had come from.
"Maybe." Kayano thought about it, and then a realization struck her. "…but why is there only one set of footsteps? Shouldn't there be two?"
As if on cue, the footsteps suddenly broke into a run and got louder.
Whoever owned the feet that was making those footsteps, they were fast approaching Nagisa and Kayano. Each footstep echoed off the walls imposingly, and it was like a scene ripped from a B-grade horror movie.
Nonetheless, no amount of films could prepare anyone for the real thing, and the pair was getting more and more terrified as whatever was approaching them was closing the distance quickly. Heartbeats raced, sweat pores opened and screams were forced back down their throats.
"C-come on!" Nagisa, finally realizing that they were doing the worst possible thing on Earth by standing there, turned around and grabbed Kayano's hand. "We need to get away from that!"
"O-okay!" She agreed, and the two of them began running for their lives.
Nothing but the sound of their heavy breathing and their footsteps registered for their brains anymore, and their only lifeline was a pair of weak flashlights that only illuminated a meter's worth in front of them.
As they rounded the third corner of the path which was marked with a bloody trail of words, hand-marks and arrows, Kayano suddenly let out a yelp and fell to her knees.
"Kayano!" Nagisa immediately stopped when he felt her hand leave his, and he quickly shone a beam of light on his companion. "What happened?"
"I-I think I tripped on a rock…" She groaned in pain as she tried to force herself to stand, and she collapsed to her knees again. "I…I think I sprained it…"
And the footsteps were still closing in on them. Nagisa could hear them.
What do we do now?!
His thoughts raced at supersonic speed, though not quite Mach 20, as he tried to piece together a solution for the problem.
"…go ahead." Kayano suggested, grimacing as she tried to stand again. "It's just a test of courage, so just leave me behind and-"
But Nagisa didn't hear a single word of what she'd said.
Instead, in one smooth motion, he rushed to her side and lifted her up in his arms.
"N-Nagisa?!" She felt her heart skip a beat before continuing to pound away, and she looked at his expression. "Wh-what are you-?!"
"Hang on to me, Kayano!" Nagisa steeled himself and adjusted her body to fit in his arms perfectly, and he took a crouching start.
He took off, completely ignoring Kayano's protests and her half-hearted, weak attempts to break free of his grip. Dashing past the next corner, he could hear the footsteps behind him suddenly get so fast it was heart-stoppingly terrifying.
She threw his arms around his neck and braced herself as Nagisa dashed with all the strength and speed his androgynous body had to offer. As he reached yet another curve in the rocky wall, he found himself unable to turn easily and just gritted his teeth as he forced himself to stop quickly by smashing his shoulder into the wall. Keeping Kayano from hitting the wall, his bicep took the full brunt of the impact.
He clicked his tongue as he felt a little bit of blood begin to trickle from his shoulder, but he ignored the pain and continued to run forward. Both Nagisa and Kayano could see a very faint light far ahead, and he took the charge and began running.
The ceiling of the cavern had already been getting lower and lower, but now it was reaching the point where it was beginning to scrape against Nagisa's hair. As he lowered his body and continued to his run, Nagisa ignored the pain in his thighs that raced up his body in stripes of fire.
And as they neared the light, Nagisa could finally see the night sky and twinkling stars. It was the end of the cavern, the test of courage, and the rest of this hell.
"Hang on, we're almost out!" Nagisa reassured Kayano, not caring anymore as his head bumped against a small stalactite growing from the low ceiling. He could feel his vision go red as blood flowed down from a wound on his forehead, but he couldn't care less anymore.
He leaped out of the hole and twisted his body, landing on his back so that Kayano landed on top of him. Pain screamed as his body struck the ground, and he felt a rocky, gritty sensation on the ground grinding against his body, causing him more pain than he expected.
"Urgh!" He finally let out a grunt of pain as the pain that was going through his arm, his back and his forehead had grown a little more unbearable than earlier.
"Nagisa, are you okay?!" Kayano immediately dragged herself off him as best she could and rushed to his side, checking his hands and his head. "You're bleeding!"
"Don't worry about me." Nagisa replied, sitting up and looking over at Kayano. Her hands, her shoulders and even her eyes trembled with the lingering aftereffects of fear, and he took one of Kayano's hands and held it up for her to see. "You're still shaking. Are you okay?"
Kayano, surprised by the sudden motion, blushed red yet again. "I-I'm okay…"
"Why are your hands so cold?" Nagisa asked, touching her other hand. "See, I knew you weren't okay. Did the footsteps really freak you out that much? That reminds me, what about your ankle?"
What the hell is he doing?! Why is he Kayano thought in a panic, her tongue fumbling around. "I-I'm not sick or afraid or anything!" And in a perfect display of a late realization, her eyes widened as she snapped her gaze back to the exit that they had just gone through. "Wait, where is the thing that was chasing us?!"
What was in front of them, however, was a far cry from what they were expecting. Instead of a scary beast or pale ghost, they were looking at an RC helicopter with a phone attached to it.
And on the monitor of the phone was Ritsu's face. She waved in greeting, saying "Hello there, Nagisa and Kayano! Congratulations on being the first pair to go through the Test of Courage Mk. II: Karma Edition!"
"Don't make it sound like we'll be doing this a lot of times." Nagisa retorted, scratching the back of his head. "…were you the one making those noises?" he asked.
"Yes." Ritsu nodded. The screen then showed to a display of Kayano being carried by Nagisa as they ran in terror. "I also have a recording of what happened."
"You do?! Why?!" The two of them couldn't react in any other way, genuinely and utterly embarrassed at the video footage of the scene.
"Well, why else? I asked her for it."
Nagisa turned in the direction of the voice with dread in his heart, and that very heart sank down into Tartarus when he realized where they were.
The exit of the cavern was so close to the entrance to the cave where everyone was waiting that Nagisa and Kayano had spilled out no less than five meters from the mouth of the cave.
And of course, the owner was Class E's most troublesome prankster, Karma Akabane. Behind him was everyone else, who was just standing there and watching the entire spectacle.
"You asked her for it?" Kayano asked, clearly seething with embarrassment.
"I set it up from the beginning, duh." Karma replied as if nothing were wrong with what he'd said, winking mischievously. "It's great to have in case I wanna blackmail someone."
"Karma, no breaking the mood." Maehara nudged the demon-spawn with his elbow, grinning. "Those two had it going so well."
Kayano grinded her teeth and clenched her fists, tossing her arms around like they were wrecking balls in a squeamish fashion. "SHUT UP!"
Maehara was just thankful that she couldn't stand up.
"Telling us to go back to the room after all of that…who does he think he is?" Kayano groaned to herself, the very recollection of Karma's face filling her with the bloody urge to stab something.
She's totally pouting. Nagisa thought to himself, trying to hide the wry smile forming on his lips.
After the scene that they'd made at the beach, Karma had simply waved them off and told them to go back to the rooms and sleep. Everyone else present tried to calm down Kayano, and then she eventually did so after a five-minute long scream fest.
And now it had come to this. Nagisa was carrying her on his back all the way over to the girls' wing, and they were walking on the path back to the hotel from the cave.
"…how do I say this…sorry about this." Kayano snapped out of her rant as quickly as she'd gone into it, addressing Nagisa instead of empty air. "I'm making you carry me all the way to my room."
"It's okay." Nagisa replied, smiling warmly. "I don't mind. Besides, I'm kinda headed that way too."
And that was the end of the conversation.
Crap, we ran out of things to talk about… Kayano's mind was on overload, and she was running through one thing after another in her mind. She let out a sigh, trying to distract herself from all of the sensations she was experiencing simultaneously like a multi-pronged assault.
The warmth from Nagisa's back, which she could feel through her hands and her chest as she leaned forward.
The cool wind ocean breeze that flowed from the beach farther back from where they came.
And the embarrassing satisfaction of a maiden from being carried by a boy after her ankle got sprained.
Nagisa, on the other hand, was trying not to think about the very faint yet distinct pillowy sensation that was pressing into his back. Two mounds, definitely small but definitely present.
Her warm breath tickling his nape.
Her arms wrapped around his neck.
Everything screamed dating sim.
And the two of them knew it. And tried to ignore it, as Nagisa continued to walk through the lobby. Ignoring the piercing, questioning stare of the receptionist, Nagisa took the elevator up to their floor and then began walking down the hallway to the girls' room.
They dared not breathe another word. At least, not until Nagisa came to another realization the instant he stopped right outside the girls' dorm.
"…um, Kayano. A thought just occurred to me." He said, still carrying her and not letting her down.
"Yeah?"
"…with your ankle sprained, won't it be hard to take a shower and get ready?" He asked concernedly. "I mean, you're alone here, right?"
That statement made Kayano realize his extremely valid point. "That's true. Maybe it would have been better pull one of the girls out to help us after all…"
"Um…"
The two turned to see Manami Okuda standing to their side, and the two of them yelped in surprise the instant the shy girl opened her mouth to speak.
Caught off guard and off balance, Kayano almost tumbled and fell over herself. Nagisa, however, did his best to ensure that she didn't injure herself and instead acted quickly. His movements were precise and quick, his arms quickly wrapping around her waist and bringing her in front of him so that his back struck the ground instead.
Strikingly similar to what had happened earlier. The pain was much less intense, thanks to the carpet on the floor.
Nothing could ease Kayano's guilt, though.
"Nagisa, are you okay?" She cried out in worry, getting off him since she fell onto him directly and squeezed the air out of his lungs easily.
"I-I'm fine." He replied, out of breath and laughing bitterly as he slowly pulled himself back up. He shot a look at Okuda. "Why are you-?"
"I didn't have a partner anyway, and Karma said someone should head back to help Kayano." Okuda replied, running her room keycard over the door and unlocking it. "So, I followed you two back. Though it seems like you two never noticed me…"
"…s-sorry." Nagisa turned back to Kayano, glancing worriedly at her injured ankle. He stood up and held his hand out to her. "Can you stand?"
"I-I can." Kayano stuttered accidentally, covering her mouth in embarrassment and taking his hand. She pulled herself up to her feet carefully. "Th-thanks."
"I can take it from here, Nagisa." Okuda took a step forward and took Kayano's arm and slung it over her shoulder, nodding to the boy with a reassuring look. "You should go sleep. Have a pleasant night."
"Oh, r-right. G'night, Okuda. G'night, Kayano." He said, raising his hand once before he started down the hallway back to his room.
"Y-yeah. G'night, Nagisa." Kayano waved back to him awkwardly before she entered the room with Okuda's help.
Man, I'm beat.
Nagisa allowed his tired body and drained mind to collapse into his bed, exhausted from the day's events and ready to call it a day. Sleep set on him like a sudden, quick shadow that oppressed his thoughts and rendered him dumb.
…still, today was pretty fun…
As his weary mind sifted through his memories, he suddenly realized that the warmth of Kayano's body on his back, the rubbing of her shoulder on his in an enclosed space, the faint warm breath on the back of his neck as he carried her and the sensation of her arms around his arm were the first ones that came to mind.
He felt his face heat up at the mental image of her face so close to his.
…well, that should be normal for any boy in that situation. He tried to justify his thoughts, and then shook his head and managed to muster enough energy to push himself off the bed and stand up. …it's kinda hot now. Maybe I should wash my face.
Man, I'm beat.
Kayano thought to herself as she sank up to her chin in bath water. Okuda had done her the kindness of filling the tub, so the green-haired teen had obliged her friend and decided to let her body go to the water.
And yet, when the very thought of Nagisa carrying her the way he did like some action hero and his love interest resurfaced in her mind, she immediately felt that the water wasn't as warm as it was earlier.
…why do I keep remembering him? She thought, annoyed. Images of the entire test of courage kept flashing through her mind. I can't get him out of my head! Argh, this is so irritating!
"Do you need help getting out of the bath, Kayano?" Okuda's muffled voice came from behind the bathroom door.
"I-I should be fine, thanks!" She called back, rising out of the water before letting herself sink back into the bath. She blew bubbles with her nose and closed her eyes, her mind once again showing her another image of Nagisa.
This time, it was the memory of him carrying her to the room all the way from the cave.
…carrying me back to my room with that kind of smile…and then protecting me even though you knew it was all staged…what kind of gentleman do you think you are, Nagisa? It's too unfair. She thought to herself, not realizing she was smiling.
But…I'll admit that you were kinda cool.
Just this once, you girly boy.
