Chapter 37 : What’s Next

A/N: Sorry for the lateness, I'm in a party rn and I didn't see the time. see you next guys week!

thanks for the stones !!

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2 days later, in the middle of the woods.

Ryuko had a proud look showing on her face, and she had every reason to.

Today was the final of their little game, Loh Kanta.

In front of her stood the last 25 kids. 12 yellows, who hadn't lost anyone after their sole loss the first day.

Meanwhile the reds were 13. They had lost again yesterday 'thanks' to a certain cat.

Reminiscing about how the number shrunk from 100 to 25, her gaze stopped at Kurai.

The main protagonist of yesterday challenges...

After Rumi's team's first loss, there were 18 left. (Original number was 23, so -5 =18)

That's how they were down to 13 now.

Yesterday's matches were quite a showdown, but only one team could come up on top.

It all started in the morning, as always the yellows were nicely fed and had good coordination under Kurai's 'rule'.

The first challenge of that day wasn't an elimination one, so the winner was rewarded with a nice prize: food.

Well it was supposed to be a good reward, though no one would've expected the yellows to have such smooth sailing during the game.

The reds were salivating after seeing it, sadly it wasn't for them and they had to go back to their island with their stomach grumbling...

For the next part of the day, everyone knew what awaited them; the losing team would have to go through the hell night.

No one wanted to lose 5 other teammates. So both teams were going above and beyond their capacities during the challenge.

Which was in fact a sort of dodgeball, with every means possible authorized.

Quirks, barricades made of wood, team play, and so on.

Even though the yellows were outnumbered the game was pretty evenly and very quickly, a few kids stood out from the masses.

Kurai and Rumi were the top players of course, but both had a few good teammates looking out for them.

Still, after 30 minutes of game when the final showdown between both caramel-toned kids came, Kurai naturally won.

It's not to say that Rumi didn't play well, or anything else. In the first place, compared to him, she was famished.

Thankfully, and just like after their first loss, her performance was too amazing for her comrades.

That's why they didn't vote against her, they had to keep the best players in the team and weed out the more useless ones.

Even though they didn't like her, they all understood this simple logic.

Right now though, everyone was silently listening to Ryuko's last words for today's challenge.

They were all surprised after hearing from her that the team part of the game ended today.

Meaning that from now on there won't be any team, and it'll be a free-for-all challenge.

With only 3 winners...!

Her words shocked them, after this challenge 22 kids will be eliminated!

"And go!" Ryuko shouted her lungs out, giving the start of a hellish game.

Everyone instantly ran away crazily, but a pattern could be seen, mainly 4 directions.

They were all going either North, South, East or West.

Kurai had chosen the north direction, while Rumi was running totally opposite to him.

Funnily a lot more kids were following Kurai...

The game was pretty simple, it was called "Orientation challenge."

The kids were given a map and a compass and their objective was to find the 3 hidden objects.

Unfortunately it wasn't that easily done. The object location was unknown.

They had to first find a tag, well there were 4 tags but one of them was fake.

In those tags, a number and a colour was shown.

The number represented the number of steps from a key 'monument' to the place where the object was hidden. And it could be anything; a blade, an artifact or even a jewel.

The colour on the other side, represented the zone where the key 'monument' was. It could be a weird tree, a naturally sculpted rock, or a beautiful waterfall.

That's why Kurai was running toward the north with at least 9 kids tailing him.

He was looking for the tag there, and thanks to the map and the compass, he knew which direction to take.

Which wasn't the case for a lot of kids. They couldn't even read a map and even less use a compass.

So they simply decided to follow one of the powerhouses of the game.

The other directions weren't this crowded. They all had an evenly matched number of 5 kids per direction.

When Kurai reached the place he let out a sigh, 'It's like finding a needle in a haystack…'

The jungle was so dense, trees, branches and vines were obstructing his vision on every side.

He was the first one to reach the place thanks to his way-above-average speed, so he used this advantage to look for the tag before the other kids following him reached the place.

Although he was there at least 10 minutes before everyone else, he still didn't find it.

'Aaaah! I'ma go crazy!' His patience was nearly imploding.

Kurai was sure that he thoroughly combed the place.

'If it's like this…' He couldn't be sure but he also didn't have any more time to lose in a useless place.

'I could've stumbled on the only place without a tag.'

Since there were 4 directions for 3 tags, his chances of stumbling on the only place without one was still 25% high.

His decisions-making skills were always on point, decisive and full of confidence.

That's why he was already back on his track and going for the West tag. Even if it was already found, he was still sure that he'd find the final object before anyone else.

Maybe some kid had a x-ray vision quirk and already won, but he didn't care, that was his strength. Never giving up.

Surprisingly, the first kid to find a tag was the small bunny forgotten by everyone. She found her tag after running toward the South.

The sneaky rabbit found it in a tree trunk and after looking at it, she decided to hide it even more, with leaves on top of it.

Her tag showed green and 42. Right now she was running toward the central zone where Ryuko was standing.

There was a big board showing photos of the key 'monument' linked to their colours.

Luck played a major role in this game, that's why the rabbit took over the cat, or maybe not.

Though for now, Rumi had a wide grin after seeing the place empty.

'Aha! I'm first!' Jumping down from a tree with her powerful legs, she arrived in front of the panel.

'Green, green...where's the green one?'

She was looking at the images on the board but due to her precipitation, she couldn't see what was in front of her eyes.

'Here!'

Finally she found it, the green photo showed a tree with a curved shape, its trunk making a 'U'.

All she had to do now was follow the instructions and use her compass to reach the place, then she would need to make 42 steps and look around.

Elated, Rumi resumed her course, she kept a maniacal grin the whole time, 'Huehuehue…'

Not befitting a cute bunny at all.

It even scared Ryuko a bit.

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On the other side of the forest, Kurai reached the West tag after leaving his 9 stalkers on a fake tag.

He could already see 5 kids looking everywhere for the tag.

'Alright, if they are all here it means that no one found it yet.'

His thinking wasn't wrong since it was still hidden from everyone's sight.

This time Kurai didn't want to lose any more time, he tried to approach the problem from another light.

'Um, let's start from there.' He opted for a place where kids didn't look before.

He could've gone next to them, but he betted on the fact that the places were already searched thoroughly by the 5 initial kids.

Still, they all look weirdly at the newcomer who was impedding on their 'zone'.

After 5 minutes, Kurai was still unsuccessful, so he tried to put himself in Ryuko's skin and look for the best hideouts to hide a small tag.

Near instantly, he found a few spots and discreetly went to try his theory.

The first one was an empty tree trunk, he kept the same face even though it crushed his hope a little bit. His emotions couldn't betray anything and give hints to the other participants when they were looking at him.

He went to the next spot, a stack of leaves next to a dead tree.

'Aaah! Finally!' Like before, his face remained emotionless so as to not betray his joy.

Grabbing the small rectangular piece of wood, he gave a quick look and directly hid it again like his bunny-eared best friend.

Now compared to her, he didn't run right away, but kept on looking around as if he didn't find anything.

And to push the masquerade even further…

"Nice!" A sharp shout escaped Kurai's mouth. He was crouching close to one kid and played it as if he found something.

Since he directly ran, the kids didn't have a good look at where he was standing.

Looking back, 'Good luck if y'all want to find it!' He couldn't help but want to play with others, and the opportunity was too big this time.

He reached the central clearing pretty fast, 'Red and 69?'

Ryuko was surprised by his unusual lateness, even though she could already guess the top 3, she didn't think that Rumi would steal the first place, at least for now…

The game didn't end yet.

'Oh, here it is!' He found his photo faster than Rumi, mainly because he was quite calm.

"Alright, a dragon shaped rock formation, huh?" Giving Ryuko a look followed by a grin, he resumed the race too.

She naturally heard his snarky remark, but decided to overlook it and continued to monitor the game.

As of now, 4 kids had found the tags. Rumi first then Kurai… And 2 other kids who had seen Rumi's euphoria after she had found hers.

The game was still going and only the kids on the East and North side were still looking, well those on the West too, but it was because of misinformation from Kurai…

Rumi already arrived at the U-shaped tree, at the same time as Kurai found his rock formation.

Even though Rumi had started searching first, she wasn't as fast as him, nor as good as a retired assassin raised in the woods with a compass and a map.

Therefore this result was only logical... Still both best friends didn't know the other's advancement so they could only rush with all their might.

Rumi had to look 42 steps around the tree while Kurai had to walk more: 69 steps.

Right now everything depended on their luck and their ability to look out for the right place where the object could be.

Well, they also got to be precise in their steps...

A few minutes later Rumi was joined by the 2 kids who had seen her earlier.

She couldn't help but click her tongue at their annoying faces. Those weaklings waited for her to find the tag and just followed her...

'Despicable!' She knew it was authorized and that it was her fault for not keeping her emotions at bay...

...But she couldn't help it because she knew deep down that a certain cat would be able to perfectly hide such things.

She didn't know why she always found herself thinking or comparing herself to Kurai.

For now their rivalry was healthy and only pushed her to do her best and always strive for better than 'only' amazing.

It didn't mean that her ego wasn't hurt each time she lost...

Gritting her teeth at such thoughts, she refocused on her current task. 'Later! He'll see me and only me!'

She shook her head after not knowing why she said that and went to look at another bush hoping that she'll be the first to find the object.

Sadly reality can be crushing sometimes...

While the kids at the North and West position were still looking around, a rather lucky kid from the East had already found the tag and was in a good way to find the object too.

On Kurai's side though... The man or the cat was only a few feet away from the object.

It was in fact a wooden blade, a very small one shaped like a shark tooth with the tip curving inwards.

In between some leaves, the wooden blade was awaiting its first owner.

Luckily for it, Kurai's arm inadvertently touched it while combing the bush.

He was doing it pretty fast but his hand halted directly after feeling the surface of the blade.

At that moment he knew it, 'Finally! It took me long enough, aaaahh...'

Raising his head, he looked toward the central area where the referee was awaiting the winners.

'The last run...' His stamina was still rearing to go and he immediately started running.

The other kids didn't know that the rock formation area had already been cleared so now only Rumi and the other kid had a blade still hidden.

That kid was an odd one, for the whole duration of the game he stayed low-key, and coincidentally he was now running for the top spot

Even now, as Rumi was still looking around, he reached his area full of vines.

It was a race against time, Rumi and 2 other kids who were in the same zone and that odd boy who was alone.

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Ryuko was overseeing the whole game this time with the help of the teachers who were positioned strategically at different locations.

Thanks to talkie-walkies they could coordinate themselves.

While the teachers were giving the students their grades, Ryuko was only spectating.

'Who will come first? Would it be Rumi-chan or Kurai?'

She was quite thrilled at the notion of Rumi overtaking Kurai's top stop.

The cat had been the favourite for a while now.

All of a sudden, she heard some rustling, so she decided to ignore it thinking that it was some kid that had found a tag.

Unfortunately for her, the favourite will still remain favourite, for this orientation challenge at least.

"Yo!"

"Kya!!" Because she had decided to ignore the noises she was surprised at Kurai's high speed.

"Here's the blade!" He showed-off the wooden piece, making it rotate around his finger while keeping a cheeky expression.

Ryuko had her mouth gaping, she clearly wasn't ready... She didn't expect that someone would already find the blade.

"Ah! Huh...Yes! Let me fire the gun!" She said.

After each blade was found, the referee had to shoot a firework out of a gun to alarm the other participants.

*BAM*

A red beam rose high in the sky. After a short silence it exploded into a beautiful and sparkling red firework.

Making the kids all over the forest raise their faces, in shock, interest and awe.