"Well... Good luck!"

"Seriously, Kawahara...?! You're gonna leave me here alone with this Kappa?"

"It's not a Kappa, it's just a weirdly shaped bear! Besides, you don't need help, stop pretending you do and use that ax of yours."

All this time, Sagasuga was hiding his ax in his bag. I do plan on asking him the real truth regarding that ax but as of now, the importance of being tasked with the chase reigns importance, so before I go all the way to the end of the stream, I will leave Sagasuga with a few words.

"I'll be back as soon as I find something at the end of the tide. If you die, that's on you, not on me."

Absurdly confident, Sagasuga didn't take out the ax from his bag and started to walk towards the bear. Sagasuga and I already knew that whoever was escaping our trails couldn't have gone far, so I'll agree with his decision this time. Plus, the moment I come back, I will be able to eat the bear. Unless Sagasuga dies, of course.

Should he die, I will take his words.

Then, just as I was about to follow the stream's course through the stony intercourse that was in front of me without any end at sight, I asked a question to Sagasuga just to make sure of something, with a light scratch on my head adjoined with a peerless glare to him.

"You wouldn't be using the situation to run away with your words, right?"

"You know I can use the same argument, right, Kawahara? Get going! We both know he couldn't have gotten far! Come late and there will be no bear food for you!"

Silently, I made contact with the next segment of terrain without replying back to Sagasuga. We equally benefit should we betray each other right now. No, wrong. I'll be still at an advantage. In that sense, Sagasuga should have no reason to betray me. I believe that the physical possession of words benefits us both greatly. It's not just random words on paper, after all. Or at least, I refuse to think so.

Given that my fatigue was getting to me, I didn't run at full speed by option and simply traveled the rocky course shaped in low-tier boulders until I found the end of the course, which was, predictably, the entrance of yet another beach. Unsurprisingly, this entrance might've been the starting point of someone else entirely.

Something noteworthy about this entrance would be that the entrance shrank a whole lot in terms of closure in comparison to the bear waterfall which was horizontally vast. Yet this ravine's entrance was small and tight. It couldn't be helped that I had to accept the weak water waves from the entrance in order to open my eyes to a new horizon. Before I could do that though, I looked upon the tall ravine above me and thought of the top spot as an extremely good spot for spying, because I couldn't be seen from the perspective of that ravine's top entirely.

Knowing that, with a light rock midst the shells in the tide, I threw it with hyper strength towards the blind spot to see if I could provoke a reaction of whoever could possibly be there.

"Ugh, nothing. Tsk... Either he's too much of a pussy to move or he isn't there."

Either way, by this time, Sagasuga was either done or finished with his task. If he was overconfident about his own strength and didn't take out the ax, then I would most likely greatly benefit from the bear killing him. In other words, although I just had found out about a ravine and beach intercourse, I would rapidly make my own way back to Sagasuga.

Roughly ten minutes after I sped up to meet up with Sagasuga, at the left side of the waterfall, in an area absent from the water itself yet nonetheless not that resistant to wind in the first place, Sagasuga was building up a bonfire. Around 20 minutes had passed midst all of this, so it wouldn't be a blunder to assume that he just had that much time in the first place.

The first one to speak was not I, but him. And he didn't even need to look in my direction.

"Yo, Kawahara, I need your help here. Block the wind gust so I can spark a fire, yeah?"

"Dumbass, you should've just went to the forest and not near the waterfall, since the waterfall's impact greatly produces wind as a consequence."

That's why it was fine in the first place to make a bonfire yesterday because although it was cold, it wasn't windy. The chilling temperatures were the issue; not the wind it produces since there wasn't any, to begin with.

By the way, the bear was dead yet I saw not his ax on the bear whatsoever, which awakened my inner curiosity.

"Alright, how?"

I was blocking the way of the wind which was being emitted through the waterfall and given that Sagasuga had already all the requirements to make a bonfire in a grand total of 20 or so minutes, it was only the correct move to help him ignite a fire; which he was able to thanks to my endeavor.

He began explaining how he was able to kill the bear without utilizing the ax the moment a baby flame was born.

"There are a lot of trees here and I thought that as long as I served as bait that the bear would eventually be taunted enough to strike me. After a couple of taunts, I did manage to put myself in a position where the bear would have no choice but to charge at me, but, you know... Animals aren't as rational as human beings, so he couldn't really tell that he was being baited into clashing with his head right into the tree. The moment he made contact with the tree itself I jumped on him and snapped his neck brutally."

"Sagasuga, you could've just used your ax, you know?"

"Dude, I know, it's just... It's not fair if I don't fight someone else on equal terms."

He argued that unless the circumstance was equal that he wouldn't do it, basically. Even though he said not a while ago that animals aren't as rational as human beings. I felt like arguing with him, but I moved on to the bear and thought of dismembering it to speed up the process until Sagasuga called me out once more.

"Ah, wait. Are you super hungry or are you hungry enough to where a single bear is enough for you? I don't mind just eating this bear, for the record."

I saw no animals nearby so I had no idea what the hell he was implying. Therefore, I answered truthfully.

"The bigger the food quantity I can digest, the better."

"Is that so? Well, come with me then."

As I followed Sagasuga, we started to go near the waterfall, to the point where our feet emerged with the strong stream itself. If it wasn't for our rigid absolute control, we would get swiped away without a second thought alongside the tide from all the way to the ravine. A normal person would lose balance; no doubt.

"While engaging the bear, I got distracted and saw an angle of a cavern of some sort below the waterfall, so I went to check it a while back and..."

Crossing the impertinent constant cascade was all it took for me to witness what Sagasuga was referring to all along.

"Oh, so there's more where that came from."

Outstandingly shaped, underneath the waterfall, a miniature-sized cavern where three baby bears in particular with the exact same features as the previous bear was a right for us to witness. Sagasuga had referred to the bear as he, but, unless he has checked the organs completely, he is wrong here.

"Sagasuga, have you checked the bear's genital organs?"

"I haven't."

"I see. It's not a he then. Most like a female bear. Their mother."

"Oh, poor thing. So it was instinctively protecting its children? What a cruel fate. But the situation dictated that my life was also at stake, so it's only a balanced decision for me to equally protect my own life through the methods of killing."

Sagasuga aside, the babies were absolutely nothing compared to the mother in terms of size, obviously. They had around 30-40 centimeters at maximum.

"Are you going to kill them, Sagasuga?"

"Well, yeah. That's why I asked you the question I did earlier."

...........

I briefly looked at Sagasuga for a second and his eyes remained utterly cold.

Showing weakness here wasn't in my way of plans, but I don't actually like killing unless it's justifiable, and eating a single bear is more than enough for my body, so killing a whole family like this isn't necessary. It just doesn't sit right with me to inflict personal feelings based on a necessity to animals out there like this.

"Let's not."

"Why? You accepted it before?"

"It's different now. Just let them be. They've lost their mother. It's not the end of them."

Turning my back on Sagasuga, I started to distance myself from him, until I heard a snapping sound and a loud cry coming from the baby bears, howling in agony and despair.

"Sagasuga, damn it!"

By the time I had turned my back on Sagasuga, he most likely had already decided to kill the three baby bears. Not with his ax, but through his own hands, without any sort of fear in dirting them with blood.

Coldly, without looking in my direction once more, Sagasuga spoke and tried to justify his action.

"What's wrong with you, Kawahara? You're fine with their mother dying but not their children? It's not balanced for one life to die and for three to life consequently. Don't be so emotional."

"Enough with that balance shit, fucker! Wasn't your decision based on our appetite?! These creatures weren't even trying to harm you, you have no justification here!"

Though I yelled, Sagasuga just brushed it off calmly while dragging the corpses to the bonfire. Of course, I didn't utilize physical strength on him, because, even if what he did is something that I oppose, I don't oppose food.

I just don't agree with the rationality of his action, but his action does benefit me.

That's why I won't go the extra mile, even though I won't agree with his pattern of action, ever.

"What do you have against my principle anyways? We all live by certain principles. I never tried to dismantle your set of principles. It's unfair for you to strike me down with words like that, you know? Also, the little ones taste better, just saying. Let's feast up quickly."

"Whatever, you just use your principles to escape reason..."

"Aren't you the same, Kawahara? A person that also uses his principles to escape reason? I believe that in the end, the quicker we come to the conclusion that principles hold the utility to escape reason that we can actually live the way we want to. And, isn't it a better lifestyle if we live according to the very principles we love? By such a conclusion then, we aren't really escaping reason."

"I'm different..."

I am not the same as before. Growingly, I've gathered differences and I've started to shape a personality. A personality that I am aiming to create and flesh out just to prove that I have a personality and that I'm not instinctively guided by guilty pleasure alone.

"Don't worry, I won't argue with you, Kawahara. Do your thing. I'll do mine. A balanced way where we both benefit, correct?"

"Shut up and start dismembering it."

15 minutes later.

Ultimately dismembering the bears with our hands and with the help of his ax, we started to roast the bear. Then, we sat, vis-a-vis to each other, and thus our conversation started, with Sagasuga initiating it while simultaneously taking a bite out of one of the roasted legs.

"What did you find ahead?"

Unlike Sagasuga who was eating a leg, I was eating the mother's right arm, which was delicious. Though, without any seasoning, at this point, this was just a sure way of satisfying our bellies. It's not as if King George ever adds seasoning to the food anyways. Not long after taking a bite, I answered Sagasuga, who was looking at me through the dreadful fire burning resonantly even in the middle of a semi-stormy wind.

"There's a beach up ahead; a starting point, I daresay. In addition to that, a ravine."

"Ho? A ravine? Really now?"

"Yeah. It contained pretty good spots as well."

"In what sense?"

Ripping the leg's flesh with a fierce movement of explicitly lashing his right arm away from his mouth that was biting the flesh of the leg, Sagasuga mercilessly digested the baby's content.

"Enhanced vision could be one of its usages. If someone is below you and you are at the top of the ravine; in a blind spot, then odds are that you won't be found out."

Sinking my teeth deep in the flesh, I rejoiced the magnificent bear meat that was gloriously roasted.

Subliminally, the fire was starting to get stronger with each growing second.

"So that's where you think he went?"

"If he knows our location, then it's the perfect scenario for him. In other words, he's most likely impossible to track right now."

"Great... What do we do now, Kawahara? Any brilliant ideas?"

Another savage bite; this time exploring the contents beyond the flesh differing the bone and flesh.

"Have you noticed how with each of our chases we just find new places?"

"Isn't that--- Ah, I see. You're implying that he's purposely leading us to make discoveries, is that is?"

Unless the trickster here doesn't have a brain, which I highly doubt, anyways. Still, the main essence behind this reasoning would be...

"He could've made us follow the same way as before, even if that meant playing a dangerous game. If he had our locations to his knowledge from the start, then he could've made me go all the way back to the oasis and so on. Yet, he did not. Instead, he invited us to the unknown. Dude's having a fucking blast, huh?!"

"That's confusing, man. He supposedly doesn't want to cooperate with us... or, maybe he actually does?"

"Hm? What do you mean, Sagasuga?"

Thus far, the guy's actions imply that he doesn't want any sort of cooperation in the first place. So, I was naturally inclined to question Sagasuga's rationale, as we both took bites out of our proportions at the same time.

His eyes widened just slightly as if expressing something that we both weren't really calculating that far in.

"Maybe he wants our cooperation in specific and not the others? He could have a similar mentality to me in that sense. In other words, we are his choice? We will know if we are his choice if he leads us further into something crucial. No--- on second thought, this chase has benefitted us greatly thus far. I'm going to buy the idea that he wants our cooperation and that he is willing to offer us knowledge in return. Kawahara, we should follow his trials."

I can't exactly deny that we haven't been blessed with discoveries thus far. Ergo, Sagasuga has a point.

Sagasuga wasn't quite done, so he added more value to his speech after taking yet another bite. Meanwhile, I didn't as I was immensely curious about the endgame of his reasoning.

"He seems to be aware that we are both the individuals who have the highest chance of succeeding. Isn't it smart to seek our cooperation alone in specific?"

"The question is, what does he have against the rest?"

"Could it be that he has a plan that strictly involves us alone? Hm... I don't see Kan nor Akihiko being able of coming up with a strategy like this. Sorry for being biased, but it's either Daniel or Hyunda, right?"

So he has finally given in to the temptation of judging prematurely.

Smirking, I took a long bite out of the arm; which was almost out of flesh to bargain from.

I've thought of revealing the fact that I have Kan's word to just prove his reasoning even better, but I didn't surrender to that temptation yet. Nothing tells me that Sagasuga isn't just putting up a fake front, though unlikely.

"Sagasuga, I think I know them better than you do, so I'll offer you my personal take. If it's one of them, then it isn't to seek our cooperation. It's to toy with us, deliberately."

They are both individuals capable of upholding their own selected individualism.

My theory regarding individualism is fairly simple. Should you be an individual with a strong sense of your own individualism and you aren't afraid to show the world how you are different, then you are bound to be different from the rest. Being different doesn't always mean you will be successful, but it allows you to think in ways that the mediocre ones without any individualism wouldn't which then could imply that success will be a habit of excellence.

"I think I get where you are coming from, Kawahara. We don't know much about their true colors?"

"That's one reason. The other is that if it was Kan or Akihiko, they would want to seek cooperation, most likely. This means that if Kan and Akihiko are behind this, then this is to seek our cooperation entirely. I don't see it otherwise..."

"And if it's Daniel or Hyunda, then it's not with the goal of cooperation but with the goal of playing their own game."

Out of flesh to eat. Instantly, I grabbed the other one that was being roasted to the ground and scavenged it ruthlessly with my sharp fangs ultimately adjoining my glance to Sagasuga's.

"Probably, Sagasuga. Daniel doesn't have much to lose. If it wasn't for my help, he would be with his back against the wall right now, if you get what I am saying."

Daniel seems to think of himself greatly to a delusional degree. He will suffer the same fate as Susaga and Ryoken. Those two broke pussies are already out of the program. Soon enough, Daniel will surrender to me and will become my pawn. Anyone can deny something as long as the consequences don't affect that person, but I know where Daniel gets his source of confidence.

It's his almighty friend, who just so happens to be one exam away from expulsion. Now, now...

For the record, what would happen if his friend was expelled due to the fact that he failed the exam? Oh, that's right... Exhausting, I know, but it will all be worth it.

"Damn, Kawahara, you have such an evil look on your face..."

"I can't help myself. But, did you get what I just said?"

"Of course. Weren't you saying that Daniel would be useless because Yulia killed herself? I didn't really understand that, could you emphasize that, please?"

I suppose it makes sense that Sagasuga doesn't know the full story, so I'll swiftly resume it, as I take a gigantic bite.

"You don't know the side of the story, but you do remember during February, where we were paired up with a person that contrasted our physical result during the exam?"

"Yeah, yeah! I was paired up with Shizuku. It was lucky of me to be paired up with a partner that actually knew what she was doing."

Sagasuga's lying here, he already most likely had a faint idea of the essence of the exam back then. It wasn't purely hard to guess the essence. The essence of contrasts is ridiculously applicable and common to the point where denying it just makes you a fool for the majority of the time.

Nevertheless, I wasn't going to argue with facts I already know.

"Daniel wasn't so lucky, as he was paired up with Yulia. You see, Daniel's quite the physical dude. Sure, he doesn't come close to me or probably you, but he has what it takes. But, it didn't matter if you were close to a Greek God in terms of the physique if your partner was absolute fucking dogshit."

I'm particularly speaking about that bitch Gale. Fucking bookworm, I hope you choke on a dick bigger than that encyclopedia you always bring along with you and die from lack of oxygen.

"Geez, crude. So, how did he win anyways? He got one of the worst scores, didn't he?"

"I offered him my help and I told him one of the loopholes of the exam, and he managed to pass. Did you know that one of the additional criteria of the exam back then was teamwork and not physical results alone?"

"I thought so too, to an extent, Kawahara. The exam would be extremely unbalanced, otherwise."

So he basically just thought of his concept of balance and tried to attach it to the exam. He then saw that it was an unbalanced exam and in his head, the exam wouldn't be acceptable unless it had a more balanced factor.

It's ridiculous how that concept of his sometimes manages to give him an absurd edge over certain circumstances like the exam in February.

Partial to this, we were being punished with hellish temperatures, as the dawn was soon to vanish.

"There's nothing that says that there weren't more criteria but for argument's sake, all he had to do was to get his partner, Yulia, to good use. But... The dude's fucking dense as hell! The chick had feelings for him and it took me almost an eternity for him to understand that it was the actual fucking case!"

"Talk about rough. I'm surprised you didn't snap."

"Well, I couldn't. After all, he was a temporary Hideout member. He was going through the "try before buy" trial. Now, all he had to do was to get Yulia to do his teamwork alongside him. Yet they were on bad terms back then, so that wasn't quite possible."

Daniel strikes me as the embodiment of someone narcissistic and anti-social. Someone who has both those characteristics often can't tell the feelings of others. It's the traits of a psychopath, after all.

Still, I'm fucking mad that he was retarded to the point of denying my offers to join EVEN after I showed him clearly that without my help, he would not have been able to be successful.

"Oh, so how did he do it? I remember that they were on quite good terms back when the exam started."

"I told him to man up and take her feelings into consideration and put on an act."

"I see! So, Daniel confessed to Yulia and Yulia thought that he was being serious about it?"

It seems that Sagasuga has finally grasped the first part of the story.

There should be no second part of the story, naturally. All Daniel had to do was literally just break up with her and allow her to have her heart get broken, yet...

"The fucking moron was too much of a pussy to just say to her face that she was nothing more than a tool so he didn't break up with her and decided to let things play out."

Sagasuga stopped eating as if he couldn't believe the words that I had just said. Furthermore, his face was with an expression of exclamation, almost telling that Daniel's action was quite stupid, which was.

"I can't believe it..."

"But it gets worse, Sagasuga... On top of not being able to tell her, they progressed with this take relationship. Noticeably, I only really interacted with Daniel when it was around the festival's time. I was too busy to see what he was up to. And that single flaw in my pattern managed to be lethal to me."

"Because your absence was taken into consideration?"

It's all too good to be a coincidence, basically speaking. Even a fool could tell that driving my attention away from Yulia and Daniel would mean that my knowledge would become restricted.

Yet, why Yulia? Why? Why? Why? What about her? Why would someone go through such lengths of messing with her mind that hard? This is the one question I cannot fucking give an answer to no matter how hard I try and think about it.

Due to sheer irritation, I snapped the bear's arm bone as I spoke loud to Sagasuga.

"That's right! But, fuck! I have no idea why someone would target Yulia in the first place! I observe every single one of them religiously but I never saw a single trace of hatred towards Yulia whatsoever! As a matter of fact, Yulia and Daniel were starting to interact more genuinely with each passing day..."

"Wait, what?! That makes no sense. Daniel supposedly had no feelings for her at all, right?"

"Yup. However, something happened that made him change in that circumstance. The dude seemed genuinely attracted to her."

He no longer treated Yulia as some sort of tool for his own gain even though all along that was her primal purpose. It seems that Daniel tried to reject that idea and embraced the idea of love instead. How cute.

So, how the fuck does this transition into suicide?

"That's very interesting, Kawahara... You probably already asked yourself this question a lot, but I can't help but ask such a question."

"I know. How does it go from a lovely healthy seemingly relationship to a horror-like scenario otherwise known as suicide?"

Resuming his feast, Sagasuga pondered this question while taking a few bites. I wasn't expecting him to give an answer relevant to the case, but he didn't mind doing so, which shocked me, realistically.

"Maybe Yulia found out about everything? How Daniel didn't actually love her and so on?"

"Right, I thought so too. Still, that's not enough, no matter how you look at it. Unless you are extremely emotional, you should be able to move on from that, even if that means moving on to be a difficult task in the first place."

"You could be wrong, Kawahara. I think if I were a girl and I found out that the guy that I had a crush on and was currently dating with, to the point where our relationship was fully blooming to perfection that I would be at my wit's end. This aside, who exposed this?"

Sagasuga's essentially implying that I'm too much of a sociopath to think of someone's emotions that deeply, but I don't think so. I simply believe that other factors were in play, even if I have no concrete idea which ones.

"No other person other than Daniel should know his situation. I don't see Daniel as the type of person to speak his emotions to someone else. He's not an emotional person and he is highly anti-social, so I don't know."

"What the hell? This is quite confusing, huh..."

His eyebrows twisted upwards in order to illustrate his disbelief.

"You are absolutely sure that no one else knew this? Because if someone else did, then the case is practically half-solved. By my theory, if someone else knew this, that someone could distort the facts here and create evidence so that Yulia would see an even more horrifying reality."

"And I'm telling you, that doesn't match Daniel's personality. He's not emotional; point. Cold-hearted to the touch."

"I mean... If you really insist that's the case, then sure. Either way, this is a really peculiar situation. It's one thing to look for a killer, but to look for someone who has motivated a person to kill herself? We are not even looking for a killer, but someone who made someone else the killer of herself. Pretty clever, if you ask me. This whole circumstance."

Oh please.

"Don't glorify this, Sagasuga."

"No, really. It's borderline genius if you were to ask me. Killing someone puts you in a way more dreadful position than prompting someone to kill herself. Truly criminal-like, honestly. However, it's still wrong. So, I won't glorify the morality of the action whatsoever. I was just referring to the overall rationality of the outcome. Anyways, let's get this over with. We could chat up forever, but we need to go all the way to the ravine."

"Point."

With that said, we hurriedly ate everything that the bears could offer. I refused to eat the babies, but Sagasuga showed literally no remorse while doing the exact opposite of my action.

Closing into the timeline of midday, we were about to be the subjects of scalenus temperatures yet I didn't put my uniform on.

Before leaving the area, we both agreed on taking a shower at the waterfall for hygiene's sake. Even if we both knew that just washing our hairs with water alone couldn't be fully classified as hygiene.

Notwithstanding the idea of inactivity, we ultimately started to march towards the ravine; a place that I had already been on. Firstly, I presented Sagasuga with the view of the beach by going through the tight rift below the ravine's sinuous high blindspot.

"Hm... Well, this won't do, right? It's too vast. I think we should follow your superstition, Kawahara."

"I'm glad you don't object to it."

Such superstition was already implied yet put more concretely, my superstition dictates that the clown behind this was all the way above on that eminently defensive blindspot that would give him an upper edge on us.

Regardless, that was the original plan of action. Should Sagasuga have objected to my plan, then I would argue. It saves time since he didn't.

Upon our mutual agreement, we went back and entered forest ground once again. This time, we were isolated from a rocky surface and embraced the earth's concrete. Naturally, we had to climb up just a little bit until we got to the top of the ravine. There were two sides of the ravine, one to the right and one to the left, but I concluded that only the left side of it had the most advantageous blind spot.

As we reached there, we both couldn't believe what had awaited us beyond the rustic bushes shielding the ravine's dangerous bay.

"No way..."

"Motherfucker..."

Although our reactions were identical, my reaction was undoubtedly the most aggressive, since I could not believe nor I wanted to believe the scenario at hand.

Right at the bay of the horrid stark ravine lied a mini box that we were both familiar with. A box that, under normal circumstances, should only be obtained through the cooperation of another person.

The moment Sagasuga attempted to approach the edge of the ravine, I stopped him by placing my right hand on his left shoulder.

"Wait just a second. The bay could be fragile and falling from this height is by no means a joke."

"Do you have some plan in my, Kawahara?"

"Well, let's test its durability."

There was no way that I would just quit on this. After all, a word box was right in front of me. I've thought for a second that there might've been more words than just ten since that's most likely the complete number of words given that there are only ten boys in the class and in this exam.

I grabbed a boulder that was nearby the edge swiftly and threw it to the ground in order to test the durability of the bay and as it turns out, it was incredibly fragile. As a consequence, the box fell off the cliff all the way to the beach's sand; thankfully not the stream.

Seeing the result, we hurried back down and got to where the box was.

Not opening it straight away, we stared at it for a while and we both took out our respective boxes and compared the design to it.

"No doubt, the design is the same."

Sagasuga was already on terms with the possibility of the box containing a word, so he was starting to approach the box.

However, because I was prematurely overwhelmed with joy, I reached out to the box faster than Sagasuga did and opened the box.

The thought of simply having the eighth word made my body a slave to that desire and I thought of nothing else in the process.

"......."

Making an abrupt silence, Sagasuga sighed very heavily.

"Guy's got a bad taste in jokes, I swear."

"..........er..........."

"Kawahara...?"

Pomping veins from both my legs and hands started to emerge to my skin's surface subsequently as I crushed the box with my own right hand through a thorough grip which almost annihilated the box's existence.

Following that up, I took a big breath and I started it.

"Motherfucker! Fuck you, fuck you, fuck you! You think this shit is funny to you!? I will fucking scourge your throat and make you regret the fucking day you were born, coward! Fucking stop playing tricks and fucking face me because I will fucking decimate you when I meet you! You can fucking hide but I will hunt you down, prick!! You can even hide that paper on your asshole and it won't even matter, but I will fuck you up so hard and put you through worlds of pain that will make you wish you were fucking dead, clown!!"

Ending the rant that echoed throughout the island, I initiated the action of inhaling profoundly as Sagasuga was standing at a distance of two meters away from me. I couldn't see his face because I was breathing heavily with my eyes on the yellow ground.

"Whew, that's the Kawahara I know."

"Shut the fuck up. I'm not in the mood, Sagasuga."

"Hey, I'm mad too. I was seriously hoping to find a word, not an empty box. Guy's fucking asking for it..."

In light of the current event, Sagasuga's face resembled a similar rage to mine.

I punched the sand until I felt better and calmer, which took me a few minutes, but eventually, I elevated my posture and looked up to the cerulean sky above, and inhaled deeply.

"Better?"

"This is no longer a quest for cooperation. One of those four has their time counted."

"Plan of action?"

Hearing Sagasuga's request for a plan of action, I looked at the horizon that featured a seemingly infinite source of oceanic water, but then I looked to our left and then to our right. To our right, there were mountains afar and even a grand waterfall, so gigantically vast that it could be seen from here. Nonetheless, I decided that the path we would take would be to our left since we were approaching an area full of caves which; outside of the cave underneath the waterfall, was a habitat that we had not been in.

Dictated by my natural interest, I pointed in the direction of my eyesight; to the left which provoked a comment from Sagasuga.

"Caves? Think we'll find something here?"

"My hunch tells me so."

"Can I make a joke here?"

"If it's about an empty box, then shut the hell up."

"Worth the shot."

Provided that my mood was less unstable right now in comparison to a while ago, I started to walk far more slowly than Sagasuga. From my right direction, clouds started to paint gray in the current cerulean sky, which indicated signals of rain.

I took ahold of my bag again and instead of putting it on my back, I limited myself to hold it by its edge as I thought of a certain possibility. The corners of my lips drastically increased and contrasted my normal expression far more than it should've.

You are laughing right now, aren't you? Yeah, I bet you are. You think you are so much better just because you have one tiny advantage over me. Just because I don't know who you are.

Play as many cowardly tricks as you want.

Laugh as much as you possibly can.

It won't be long until I emerge above you and laugh even harder.