The group continued searching and searching for the rest of the missing faces. And searching. ...And searching.
"...Bleh... Four more faces?" Susumu groaned. "How are we gonna find all of them now?"
Bowyetta took a look around. "Is much to be getting dark out now," she stated. "How we are to be finding of anyone like this?'
Konade stopped to think for a moment, looking at her surroundings. After a while, she began pulling up one of the large blades of grass. "Hey, I think we could make a tent out of these!"
Raya then rolled over to a very large tomato, pushing it over to the girls. "And look at all these fruits we've got! And those big raindrop things are clean enough to drink... What do you girls say to a camping trip?"
Raya and Bowyetta began constructing a makeshift tent and sleeping bags from grass and leaves, while Susumu and Konade went out to gather food. By the time they had gotten everything set up, it was almost completely dark out.
"Phew... Well, the tent's all set up!" Raya proudly declared. "How'd you girls do?"
Konade looked around nervously. "Well..." she began. "Most of what we found is tomatoes..." She then looked at Susumu, whose face said everything.
"Urgh... I hate tomatoes..."
"...Alright. Just wait here for a second," Raya said, before rolling off into the dark. Konade tried to stop him, but seeing how sick Susumu looked, she thought it better to stay with her.
After a few minutes, Raya's voice could be heard again. "Hey, Susumu!" he called out. "Got something for ya!" Raya rolled back up to the campsite, carrying what seemed to be a large brown mushroom.
"Is... That really safe to eat?" Konade wrinkled her nose. "It's all brown, and we don't even know how long it's been here..."
Susumu quickly took the mushroom, stabbing a stick through it and holding it over the fire. "Anything is better than tomatoes," she mumbled.
Once Susumu was sure the mushroom was thoroughly cooked, she took it out of the fire and prepared to taste it. Konade seemed concerned about this. "Susumu, you don't have to eat that thing if you don't want to..."
But before she could finish, Susumu took a bite. She didn't like mushrooms very much, but somehow, this actually... Tasted pretty good! "Mmph!" She didn't know how to describe the flavor, and it tasted a bit like charcoal due to the fire, but it certainly was edible.
"I... guess that means it's okay!" Raya commented. "See, I told ya it'd be fine. And hey, Susumu doesn't have to eat tomatoes now!"
The group continued talking and having fun through the night, and they even cooked bananas and marshmallows for dessert. Eventually, however, the group began to grow tired, and so they put out their fire and went into their tent to sleep.
As the group was settling into their sleeping bags, however, Konade turned back to Raya. "Raya... You DID remember to wash that mushroom, didn't you?"
"...Uhhh..." Before he could properly answer her, however, the group heard... Someone giggling to themselves. "Eh? ...Susumu? Susumu, are you alright?"
Susumu continued giggling to herself for a moment, until she finally composed herself enough to speak. "S-sorry! Can't... Stop it!"
Konade sighed. "I knew she shouldn't have eaten that thing... Raya, I think she might have eaten a Smileshroom, and from the sound of things she swallowed some spores too. It's not going to hurt her, but... She won't be able to stop laughing for a while."
"S-sorry!" Susumu managed to get out. "Try to..." She tried to hold in her laughter, but this only seemed to make it build up. Eventually, she couldn't hold it any longer, and burst out laughing even louder than before.
Bowyetta seemed to be very uncomfortable with this. "How we are going to be sleeping?"
Konade sat up with a groan. "Come on, Bowyetta, let's go sleep outside. Raya, you get along with Susumu best. You stay with her."
"Wha-?! Why do I have to-" Raya was about to protest, but he stopped once he saw the look on Konade's face. Bowyetta and Konade dragged their sleeping bags outside, and Raya stayed in the tent with Susumu. "Er... A-alright, just calm down. Come on, we've gotta get to sleep, alright?"
It took Raya a while to get Susumu calmed down, but once he did the two were able to get to sleep rather quickly. In the morning, however, Bowyetta woke up to see three strange faces staring right at her. "Eek!"
"B-Bowyetta!" The scream woke up Konade, who looked up to see three tomatoes of varying sizes, with the faces of Saburo, Kenji, and Leon. "U-uh-oh! They must have smelled the tomatoes we were cooking last night! We're so sorry, we were-"
Before Konade could finish, however, the largest tomato rolled into the tent, knocking it down and waking up Susumu and Raya in the process. "W-what was that?!"
"We've got to fight three of them now, you two!" Konade instructed. "I'll take the mid-sized one! Bowyetta, you get the small one, and Susumu and Raya take the big one!"
Bowyetta nodded, and hurled a gust of air at the small tomato. The rest of the group took their positions and began fighting.
Konade didn't have a while lot of trouble with the Kenji tomato, and even Bowyetta was able to take down the Leon tomato with ease. However, Susumu and Raya seemed to struggle a bit with the Saburo tomato. Susumu would have finished it herself, but as she was rearing up for the final hit, the tomato opened its mouth and spit tomato juice all over her.
"Urgh!" The smell of tomatoes started to fill Susumu's nose again. It was making her feel horribly sick. So sick she couldn't even fight anymore.
"Miss Susumu!" Bowyetta was about to finish the tomato for Susumu, until it spit tomato juice on her as well. "Eww! Bowyetta is thinking it have gotten in her hair!"
Okay, so Susumu and Bowyetta both hated tomatoes. This time, Konade made her move. "I've never eaten a raw tomato in my life!" She declared. "Maybe I can-"
Nope. The tomato spit juice all over her too, and as it turned out, she also ended up hating it. And now Raya was all that was left. "W-we can't beat this thing!" he exclaimed. "Haven't you ever seen Attack Of The Killer Tomatoes before?!"
But when the tomato reared up to spit juice at him...
"It's..." Raya's eyes lit up as soon as he tasted the juice. "D-delicious!" The tomato looked shocked as it saw the look on Raya's face. He actually LIKED this stuff? Raya fired off one final hit to the tomato, and as Saburo's face flew away... He began eating what was left of it.
The girls watched in horror as Raya ate the entire tomato. "Phew... Now that's what I call a balanced breakfast!" He said jokingly.
"R-Raya... You just..." Konade was too stunned to even say anything.
"...Huh? Just... What?" Raya looked around in confusion, tomato juice still dripping down his face.
"Urgh... Nevermind... Let's just... Go get Shari-Chan's face now." She began moving in the direction of the Lotus Lake, but stopped when she remembered something.
"...But first we'd all better get a shower."
