NekoMentals!

Chapter Twenty-Two

Yurika woke up scratching herself everywhere; her body itched horribly. From what it looked like, mosquitoes had come in the tent in the middle of the night and bit her. It seemed as if the others were bitten too, since all Yurika could hear was the sound of fingernails against skin.

"Is anyone else really itchy?" Sachiko announced from the other side of the tent, where she was laying on top of her sleeping bag.

An arm opened the zipper of the tent, and Hisa's head popped into view. "I have some mosquito repellent and itching cream in my bag, if you want it. It doesn't work immediately though, so the itching won't stop for a little while."

Hisa left and the two girls followed her, desperate to get rid of the itching. Damion and Aito were cooking a meager breakfast; they didn't have much food left. They were supposed to go into town today to get more.

As Sachiko and Yurika rubbed cream on their arms and legs, Aito dished the breakfast scramble into some bowls and set them on the ground. Hisa was busy rolling up the sleeping bags and folding up the tent, so they could get moving right away.

The rest of the morning went by quickly; they switched between eating and packing. Damion joined Hisa and helped her right after the breakfast was done cooking. The other three ate and then finished stuffing the tent into the small bag it came in, while Hisa and Damion ate their portions of the scramble.

When everyone had eaten and the tent and sleeping bags were hiked onto various shoulders, the group set out for the northern city, in which they had found a few chunks of the crystal. There, Damion had seen good yet cheap places to eat and buy food for the week or so ahead. The city wasn't too far from the forest, considering how much walking they had done the past few days.

On and on they trod, the woods thinning the farther they went. The city of Toyohashi came into view as the five continued to make their way north. Tall, structural buildings towered over tourists and citizens alike, different styles contrasting each other.

The Toyohashi City Public Hall, which is located near the Catholic Church and the Yoshie Kaiganiya Hospital, was not a building to be missed. With its cream and beige colored walls and roof, the hall is an amazing sight to behold. The large steps leading up to the pillars in front of the entrance way are flanked with railings to hold on to.

"Do you see the place you saw, Damion?" Yurika asked him.

Damion shook his head and replied, "No, I don't. Not yet, at least. The city is huge, though. I'm sure we can find somewhere cheap to eat at,"

Sachiko folded her arms across her chest. "We don't even have any money, and I highly doubt these people will give us anything for free."

A flash of silver caught Aito's eye. "We do have money?"

"Yes," Hisa nodded. "I've had to use some of it to buy food for me, when we hadn't even met yet. I have about 15,000 yen with me right now. I can go back to my house to get more, but I don't want to risk Tama catching me, since we lived in the same house many years ago."

Sachiko's brother counted the yen to make sure she was correct, and came to a conclusion. "We could probably afford food for the next two to three weeks or so, but after that we have to come up with a better plan."

Everyone agreed with Aito and the five of them continued their trek to find a place to eat. Eventually, they came across a cheap supermarket, where everything was under 1,500 yen! Hisa figured that they could get a month's worth with the money she had.

"Alright, we need a game plan. No junk food, nothing that's not absolutely necessary for this. The ideal food would be soup or other canned items, so that's what we need to stock up on. Anything else needs to be checked by Hisa, since it's her yen that we're spending," Yurika instructed the others; Hisa had already gone to an aisle in the very back. "Also, we can't stay here forever. We need to keep traveling, so that Tama can't find us one way or another. Fifteen minutes maximum, and then we book it."