Special exam - deserted island test (part 2)
// 3rd POV //
Two girls stood inside a tent by themselves, both had a serious look.
"Do you understand? It has to be perfect." The brown haired girl spoke in a deceitfully excited voice that was completely different from the look on her face.
"I understand." The second girl nodded her head and left.
The first girl, known as Lucy Hall smiled. "I truly am a genius. I'm going to ware down Ryuen's little mind."
// Himeno's POV //
I left the tent and looked around, seeing everyone was working I jogged to Kaneda and grabbed his shoulder. It looks like I surprised him, "Hey, can you come with me? I need help."
As he was surprised he stuttered for a few moments, that will happen when your in an enemy camp. "Huh, uurr I guess so."
I walked back to the tent dragging Kaneda behind me, the more shock he is in, the better. We entered the tent, and I saw Lucy on the ground hyperventilating. She had sweat dripping down her face and was grabbing her chest, "Quickly, I need you to grab the pills from that bag over there!"
I pointed at the bag placed on top of a sleeping bag, when he nodded I looked at Lucy. I truly was worried for her. It's like she can't hear me, as if i'm not even here, tears started falling from my eyes. Is she Ok?
I cleared the area around her so she didn't hurt herself. "Lucy? Lucy, please talk to me." My voice wobbled, "Hey, what's taking you so long!?"
It seems he broke out of the trance he was in, he rushed over with the pills but I also saw him pocket something. "S-Sorry, I've got them!"
I ignored whatever he stole from Lucy's bag and snatched the pills away from him, gently placing one on Lucy's tongue and quickly tried to give her some water but she just wouldn't have it.
She can't swallow it properly without the water though. I guess there was one way, I drank some of the water, keeping it in my mouth. I slowly brought my lips to hers and pushed the water into her mouth. Luckily she swallowed it this time.
After another 2 or so minutes, she came to. It looked like she was still affected by whatever happened so I put her to bed, "Eveything is fine, just go to sleep and you'll feel better in the morning."
With tears in her eyes, she responded with a hoarse throat, "OK." It didn't take long for her to fall asleep.
By this point, Kaneda had already left the tent, and hopefully the camp. If he had just never come here, this never would have happened in the first place.
Ichinose walked in on me crying over Lucy's prone body, "Is everything alright?" She kept her tone low so as not to wake her up.
~Sniff~ "It's fine, she just had a panic attack. Could you not say anything to the others please, she hasn't told anyone about this yet." Ichinose gave an understanding nod.
She walked over toward me, and I looked up at her in confusion. She knelt down to be on my level and brought my head to her chest, put her arms around me and spoke in a calming voice, "It will end up alright, Lucy is a resilient girl after all."
I ended up crying harder after that, in the end we told everyone that Lucy was fine, just feeling a little under the weather.
// Ryuen's POV //
I sat in my chair as the others went about their day, I had the thought of living in luxury and then everyone resigning. That would prevent anyone from guessing our leaders identity, while I stayed on the island, figuring out everyone else's identity and end up being the only class to gain any points.
But then it hit me, why should I go through all the trouble and live by myself for almost a full week when I can just hide the identity of our leader within the 30 odd students here. I made a deal with class A and am depending on Ibuki and Kaneda to get me proof of identity, then I will show Katsuragi and gain a monthly deposit of points.
I may have splurged a bit on some luxurys, such as good food and sparkling water. But I also had to buy four walky talky's. One for me, one for Ibuki, one for Kaneda, and one for Katsuragi. This was the main part of my plan.
Part number two was a strategy to make other classes guess our leader wring. I could make a display of someone else holding the card to trick the other classes but that would never work, I could also force a member of a different class to say they saw the card with a certain name on it but I don't think that will work either.
The problem is that most students don't fully understand the importance of points yet so they will prioritize, not betraying their class instead of receiving a bribery. Sure it's great that most students are stupid enough to not realize how important they are but sometimes that stupidity is also effecting me.
So what I decided on was simple, pay a teacher points to change the name given for themk to guess a leader. That will give each class negative 50 points. Sure I could ask to buy the names of the students but that investment wouldn't be worth it, the number of points that would cost would be easily over 2.5 million for each name.
Why give myself more points when I can decrease everyone else's for cheaper? I get the same result. All I need is the names from Ibuki and Kaneda, to give to Katsuragi and he will personally fund this purchase.
I heard static and looked to my radio, picking it up I answered, "Who is it?"
"It's Kaneda, I have class C's card," My eyes widened at this information, I thought that would be the most difficult to get, "Come to our camp, don't worry about taking a picture." I need to know how he got the card.
Kaneda arrived two hours later, sweaty and in need of a shower, I should let him get cleaned up so he can retell the story better. "Give me the card and go get cleaned up. Come back in 20 - 30 minutes."
With an exhausted sigh he spoke, "OK."
Taking the card from him I turned it over and lo and behold it said Lucy Hall. I just don't understand, anyone else's name and it wouldn't be suspicious but I know Lucy. She wouldn't let something like this leave her person or be unprotected for any amount of time.
Maybe that's it? She trusted someone else and Kaneda got it then? I guess I'll just have to wait and see.
// Half an hour later //
"Did it look real?"
"What?"
"Did the panic attack look real to you, are you sure she wasn't faking it?"
"I'm certain."
"OK, go back to class C's camp and plant it back in her bag, don't let them get suspicious of you."
He nodded and walked away.
I have been by Lucy's side for over 5 years, and I have never seen her have a panic attack. He said she had pills, I have seen her take pills randomly before. Maybe they prevent the panic attacks, but why would she be given them in the midst of one then? I can't figure it out.
That girl has the biggest ego I have ever seen, there is no way that there is something so bad that she would have a panic attack over it. The symptoms definitely suggest a panic attack. But why?
I have seen her quite literally torture a man before, but she can't handle being on an island for a week? Not a chance.
Maybe it's something she remembered before coming to Japan? But Lucy has a photographic memory, if that where the case would she not be having constant panic attacks? I can rule that out, if that where the case I would have seen it happen before.
Hmmm.
// The next day, Lucy's POV //
I woke up with a groggy head, I didn't feel like moving so I didn't. That was until I felt something shift next to me, Himeno's breasts where pressed up against my shoulder. "Himeno, can you get me some water."
My throat feels like it has been in a desert for the past 100 years. "Sure, she wan't shocked that I was awake but she sounded completely out of energy. She must have stayed up for me this whole time." I felt a pang of guilt hit me.
After I sipped some water I popped the question, "Did it work? The plan I mean."
She gave me disbelieving eyes, "How can that be the first thing you want to talk about? Do you know what happened? I thought you where going to fake a panic attack, no actually have one!" She got angrier by the second, the pang from earlier grew.
"I'm sorry." It was quiet but she deserved it. When I looked up, I saw she had big red rings under her eyes, she had obviously been crying a lot. My heart rate sped up, it's like Miyu all over again. When Miyu found out about this we where 7 years old.
The curse of having a photographic memory instead of a eidetic one is the fact that you can literally re live the moments you remember. And that is everything.
Most of the time it just happens, the first time was when I was 3 years old. Since then, due to my memory I take anti depressants everyday. I'm not actually depressed or anything, but it stops bad memory's from coming to the front of my mind. The doctors said it was due to dopamine or something, they didn't give an accurate description, I was 3 years old.
My father says that's the reason I like to do adrenaline related activity's. I know that's not true though, I just love the feeling of being to do anything without worry of losing my life, it's freeing in a way.
Yesterday was the first time I had brought apon one of those attacks on myself on purpose.
There is a reason why child amnesia is a thing, imagine not being able to breath for 9 months but somehow still being conscious and alive. Suffocation is extremely painful you know. Imagine you just about get used to the pain and it goes slightly numb, but then all of a sudden you are pushed through a tube several time smaller than you for over 15 hours but you can do nothing about it.
The horrific experience of being birthed is the worst thing imaginable, taking that first breath of air though, that is the absolute most painful thing. The sharp feeling of hundreds of red hot knifes being pierced through your lungs.
Now imagine that, twice. I have been on the receiving end of child birth two times and those two experiences are the only things that bring me fear. That fear however is balanced out by the fact that after those 9 months I will be able to cause havoc in the new world I will be reborn into.
Anyway i'm getting off track, right now i'm pretty sure I have paralyzed Ryuens position on our front. The safest option for him right now would be to abstain from guessing our leader.
Anyway, when it gets dark I need to go to class A's camp. That is where the problems start to arise, their position prevents anyone from being able to steal their card. There is one other way, I have knowledge that there is a class A student that is against Katsuragi, the boys name is Hashimoto.
If I can get to him before Ryuen, I will pay him not to tell Ryuen who their leader is. After that I will give it a day, then I will give Ryuen a visit of my own, and make him pay to get class A's leader.
The only problem is that the panic attack had me out for longer then I expected, 18 hours is a long time after all.
Suddenly I felt a shift, Himeno stopped holding onto me. To be honest after all that thought I forgot that she was even here. Ironic considering my memory.
"Himeno, i'm going out for a little while."
It didn't take her a second to respond, "No! Not after that. I won't let you. I know you plan to get the identity of the other classes leaders."
~Sigh~ "Himeno, please don't make me force myself past you. I feel bad as it is." i'm hoping she doesn't push me on this.
She cowered a little but seemed to reaffirm her decision, "I'm sorry, I can't let you."
I guess this can be used as an opportunity to see how she has progressed in her martial arts. I took two quick steps toward her and sent a jab at her mid section and she dropped...
I didn't even make contact... Maybe she was too tired? from what I've deduced she hasn't slept in over 30 hours. I tucked her into bed before leaving the tent. I didn't expect for my whole class to want to talk to me the moment I awoke.
"I'm going for a walk, i'll speak to everybody afterward, but I do feel much better than yesterday. Thank you all for your concerns."
I walked toward the treeline and a bit beyond that. I began running toward where I remember class A to be. On my way over, I saw two class A students guarding the enterance.
Luckily one of the students was Masumi Kamuro, Sakayanagi's main lackey. I decided that it was now or never and revealed myself to them.
with a rustle from the bushes the two students looked at me. "Who are you and what do you want?" It was a student called Machida who spoke.
"I would actually like to speak to Hashimoto if he's here." I gave him a smile and he blushed slightly.
I saw Kamuro roll her eyes at the whole situation, the reason i'm lucky that she was here is because I know she doesn't care enough to report anything to Katsuragi and stop my attempts at speaking with Hashimoto.
Machida contemplated his decision before disappearing behind the curtain that separated the entrance of the cave from the outside.
It took 20 seconds before I saw both Machida and Hashimoto leave the cave. "And what would a woman such as yourself want with me?"
I turned to the tree line and started walking, I made a motion with my hand for him to follow me. After a two minutes of walking I stopped. "I would like to make a deal."
"Oh, and what makes you think I have the authority to do that?" He had a smug smile on his face.
"How would you like for Sakayanagi to become the sole leader of class A?" He rose an eyebrow so I continued, "I can make that happen."
He never had a shocked face, he knows who I am, it's likely Sakayanagi told him. "Sorry, but we don't need any help."
He didn't walk away or anything so it's obvious he's just playing hard to get, "Instead of having Sakayangi one up Katsuragi, why not do the opposite? This is Katsuragi's chance to prove himself as a good leader and Sakayanagi has no way to stop this due to her forced withdrawal."
He still didn't look impressed so I continued, "Why not have Katsuragi fail this test? Imploy a point loss strategy."
This is where it all comes down to, this mans decision. If he says yes then my plan is a success, if he says no then i'm going to have to use plan 12 instead. "You want me to give up the leader of my class to prove that Katsuragi is a bad leader when we end up with 0 points don't you?"
It's a no, I was going to steal original Ryuen's plan to mess with his head further when he asks Hashimoto for the exact same deal, kill two birds with one stone. But it looks like Ryuen has already made that deal with Hashimoto.
Plan 12, part 4 it is.
~Giggle~ He looked confused, "Are you stupid?"
Now he looked shocked. "What do you mean? that would be the best strategy for you. Lower class A's points while increasing your own, ultimate closing the gap between our class's. Am I wrong?"
Another giggle, "That would be a good short term strategy, but I was thinking more of a long term one. Are you interested?"
All his smugness had disappeared by now, it was replaced by a serious one. "I will hear you out."
"Good, instead of merely having him step down from contention of leader and dragging your class down from there, why not just get rid of him?"
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Special exam - deserted island test
Day: 3
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Class A:
Points: 245
Leader: unknown
Withdrawals: 1
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Class B:
Points: 270
Leader: Lucy Hall
Withdrawals: 0
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Class C:
Points: 230
Leader: Unknown
Withdrawals: 0
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Class D:
Points: 265
Leader: Horikita Suzune
Withdrawals: 1