Nagisa and Kaede picked up their equipment and walked into the cover of the woods. Half an hour to equip them and get ready, it sounded like a lot of time, but for preparing an all out fight, it was nothing. But before coming up with a plan they had to understand their equipment.

The artificial skin had a surprisingly comfortable touch to it despite being so firm. Nagisa went behind a tree and started to take off his shirt and trousers. Since it was an artificial skin, you couldn't wear it on top of your clothes could you?

Nagisa stretched the artificial skin and slipped into it. The thin layer naturally connected with Nagisa's real skin and when he was done it felt like he was wearing nothing at all...but something felt really off...like really really off. Nagisa wasn't sure if it should be like this... But this artificial skin didn't considered a certain body part only male wearers had... it felt really uncomfortable having it simply squeezed against his body.

"N-Nagisa..." Nagisa heard Kaede's trembling voice a few trees away, "Ehm...do do you maybe have the f-female artificial skin?" It felt like a thunder has struck Nagisa's brain, so there was a male and a female artificial skin... Nagisa looked down at his body feeling completely ashamed and stupid...of course they won't make such a stupid mistake of forgetting the difference between the male and female body.

"Ehh yeah... Give me a moment!" Nagisa shouted pretty loud to hide his embarrassment as he quickly took out a whistle-like tool Lovro gave them to remove the artificial skin. The only way to take off the artificial skin is to get some air between the skin and yourself and that's what the whistle-like tool was for. Nagisa struggled himself out of the skin and quickly put his underwear back on, "I'm done!"

Nagisa walked out from behind the tree holding the artificial skin in his arms. Kaede came out as well, but unlike Nagisa, she has put everything back on. The sight of Nagisa being almost naked made her blush. Nagisa didn't grow much after graduation, but his body definitely became well defined and sturdier with all the training and to be honest, it did have a certain appeal to it.

Nagisa felt the awkwardness floating in the air and tried to distract Kaede by changing the topic, "How did you realize you had the male one?" Nagisa scratched his head while asking her.

This question only made Kaede blush even more, she didn't answer and simply held up the skin. It looked exactly the same as Nagisa's expect for that specific part... Kaede's skin had an extra bit of skin dangling around there.

-Ehh...Huh...yeah that makes sense.-

The atmosphere only got even more awkward..."let's hurry up. We don't have much time left." Nagisa bit the top of his tongue and forced himself to get the picture of Kaede wearing the male skin out of his mind.

Kaede nodded still avoiding eye contact with Nagisa as they exchanged their artificial skin.

-Urgh...this is so wrong...-

Both of them basically escaped behind their tree as soon as the exchange was done. Now that Nagisa knew how to put the skin on, it went way faster than the first time, he easily slipped into the skin.

-This is way better...-

Nagisa thought while letting out a relieved sigh. If there wasn't a male artificial skin, he wasn't sure if he could wear that thing for more than an hour. It was so uncomfortable and weird.

Now with the skin equipped, Nagisa quickly put on his clothes, put the handgun on his belt and held the knife in his right hand.

-I should have worn a jacket, now my gun is hanging there totally visible.-

He didn't expect Lovro to go straight for a mock test. Nagisa lifted his left arm and checked his watch, 12 more minutes to go he needed to talk to Kaede. "Ehm...Kaede are you done?" Nagisa didn't jump straight into actions, he still remembered how awkward that moment from before was.

"Mmhmm." With Kaede's barely hearable respond, Nagisa walked out of his cover and so did Kaede. Unlike Nagisa, Kaede had the gun in her hand while the knife was fasten on her right leg in a scabbard.

-Hmm, good first signs I guess.-

Without them even talking to each other, both of them decided that Nagisa should go for close combat while Kaede supported him with her gun. The scabbard was probably some extra equipment for Kaede since she'll be wearing a dress on the day of the operation.

"When should we get out?" Kaede went straight to the point while checking her gun for a one last time. They'll be using rubber bullets in this mock test, but a direct hit from it will still hurt as hell, even through the artificial skin. The rubber bullet Lovro shot before came out of a toy gun so it barely did any damage, but in this mock test he was going to use a real one.

"We don't." Nagisa answered while pressing down his voice, "we'll wait for him to come into the woods, that's the only advantage we have right now except that we are two. We have the right to choose our battlefield since he'll be the one chasing us down."

"Got it." Kaede nodded as she stretched herself while kneed down next to Nagisa. That's when Nagisa finally realized something... Kaede wasn't totally flat anymore?! There was still barely anything there but maybe, if you were generous you could call it and pre-A-cup? Also something else that really frustrated Nagisa, just these few days and Kaede grew almost another centimeter! He could sense her growth spurt was kicking in.

-This is dangerous...even though they say girl get into puberty first.-

Nagisa averted his vision from Kaede's body and shook his head. This wasn't the time to think about something like that. "Don't think little of this mock test just because we're using rubber bullets. Lovro shisho won't aim for our eyes but you never know what might happen in a fight so do make sure that you won't get hit on your head. And because our head is unguarded, even if it doesn't hit you eye it will knock you out instantly and losing one of us means the failure of the entire test. Go at him like you want to kill him." Nagisa warned Kaede because he had the feeling she wasn't taking it seriously.

"Don't worry. I won't hold back even if it's a mock test. Once I'm determined on something I just keep rolling remember?" Kaede gave Nagisa a sweet smile ending her sentence with a wink.

"Alright, five more minutes, let's get going. It's been a while since we fought together." Nagisa returned Kaede a gentle smile and disappeared in the next bush.

"Wait!" Kaede wasn't ready for Nagisa to suddenly start moving and fell behind a little.

Nagisa and Kaede were sitting in the treetop for half an hour now, but there was still no sign of Lovro. While Nagisa was still perfectly calm, Kaede slowly became impatient. Nagisa who specialized in reading wavelengths instantly noticed. Both of them kept an eye on each other while scanning their surroundings so when Nagisa made a sign to tell Kaede to calm down, she instantly saw it. Kaede took a deep breath, she only thought about being bored for less than a second and Nagisa has noticed, there was no guarantee that Lovro couldn't do this so she really had to be careful.

As she understood her situation, Kaede pulled out her second blade, her acting abilities, and almost entirely killed her wavelength. It resembled the wavelength of a dead person expect the fact that it was still trembling a tiny little bit but it was barely noticeable.

Nagisa always knew that Kaede was able to control her wavelength, so trying to read hers was always a waste of time. But this was new to Nagisa! For someone to be able to entire clear their mind and think about or feel almost nothing, Nagisa was impressed.

He had trained to control his wavelength as well, but the best he could do is to keep his wavelength stable while reducing its amplitude so it becomes less noticeable.

-An acting prodigy indeed. No wonder she became famous with such a young age, her control over her emotions and thoughts is scary.-

But Nagisa had no time to be impressed. Lovro has appeared in their field of vision. Both of them had their presence killed the entire time so Lovro didn't notice them behind their cover yet. Nagisa made a quick eye contact with Kaede and slid down the tree. The impressive part was, that the tree didn't even shake a tiny bit from Nagisa's action, not even the leaves moved. Kaede waited on the tree while watching Nagisa closing in on Lovro, when Nagisa got in a position where Lovro was between the two of them, she closed her eyes for a short moment before aiming her loaded gun at Lovro, releasing all her bloodlust and firing three consecutive shots with a silencer on her gun.

After the three shots, Kaede instantly killed her presence again and slid down the tree just like Nagisa did. But unlike Nagisa, she still made the leaves on the tree rustle a bit and gave away her location.

Lovro was alerted by Kaede's sudden release of her bloodlust but was still only able to dodge the one bullet aimed for his head. The other two hit both shoulders of Lovro just like Nagisa and Kaede had planned.

-Nice shots Kaede!-

The two bullets perfectly hit the joints between Lovro's shoulders and arms so his arms should be feeling numb right now. Lovro grit his teeth as he almost instantly and forcefully aimed his gun in Kaede's direction.

He was sharp on locating Kaede's position perfectly in this short amount of time. If he would've taken the shot right now, the bullet would perfectly hit Kaede's ankle the second she landed on the ground so that she had no way to dodge it. And getting hit in the ankle would result into being captured alive because she would lose most of her mobility.

But the sudden cold shiver that ran down his spine denied him the shot. A bloodlust ten times as big as Kaede's suddenly devoured Lovro from behind! Lovro didn't have enough time to block the attack so he had to give up his balance and rolled forward.

Nagisa's knife has missed Lovro's throat by less than a centimeter but Lovro had no time to be relieved. His tumble wasn't quite successful either, due to the shots he had taken, his arms couldn't support his weight and he lost his balance. While he was still regaining his balance, Kaede, who charged right towards him after she landed, fired another shot at his face followed with a slice aimed for his left ankle. Nagisa didn't back down either. He ducked down and charged in for a slice aimed for the other ankle!

Sling! The sound of the blades grating along the artificial skin ringed through the woods. Sling! Sling! Sling! The sound went on and on. Lovro tried his best to defend himself, but his arms were still numb from the shots he took before and Nagisa and Kaede were moving around him so fast, that he couldn't follow after both his ankles taking a hit!

Nagisa and Kaede's movement were identical. To outsiders it would look like they were dancing around Lovro, blooming like a lotus made of blades!

So, I'm not too sure how you will like the scene with the artificial skin. Tell me what you think about it. Is it too much and uncomfortable? Is it funny and interesting? Or is it simply boring and cliché?

Tell me how you feel about it and I might or will not add something like this to the future chapters.

Either way, thank you very much for your support and I'll see you in the next chapter ;)