The Reve - Part 2

Chapter 6: Psycho

« Hey! Now we'll be okay. It's alright. »

Hyori's classmates recounted to her how the previous year's summer camp ended with a courage test. It was safe to assume there would be another activity with the other heroic class. The violet hadn't crossed paths with them since the joint training. Except for Monoma and Pony she saw a couple of weeks ago, she hadn't met any other apprentices of class 2B. This year, they would have a scavenger hunt inside the mountains, at night. Grouped in teams of five, they had one hour to complete their lists.

Pixie-Bob, the blond woman, had created mud creatures to hide different popsicle sticks in random places. Their homeroom teachers had written the clues for the hunt. The goal was for each team to retrieve all of the sticks and solve the puzzle. That should lead them to the treasure. They couldn't use their hero costumes or tools. The winning team would be offered hiking tickets to Mount Fuji. The team players would be randomly distributed using a bingo wheel with balls. Each ball would have a team number on it.

Hyori found herself in a team with Sero, Togaru Kamakiri, Tokoyami and Midoriya. She was disappointed not to be paired with any of the maidens. Not even from the other class. At least, Midoriya was witty and she guessed it was an advantage to have Sero's flextape and Tokoyami's Dark Shadow. Along with whatever trick the short green-haired had up his sleeves.

From when she brainwashed Kamakiri from class B during her training, he was a confident mantis chimaera with related abilities. The baby wings on his back didn't allow him to fly. They still eased falls and helped make his jumps more precise. His skin could produce sharp blades, his eyesight was enhanced and his vision field covered a full circle around him. But his stereoscopic eyes fared poorly with static elements, being geared towards identifying moving elements. She had noticed he relied on his antennas to avoid bumping on rocks.

She had had a hard time manoeuvring him when brainwashed, since he needed to receive signals from his antennas. She had had to adjust to free the nerve path back and forth his antennas, thus weakening the tether. The young man had been rather proud of himself when they debriefed afterwards. His satisfaction had been short-lived, though. His teacher warned him to protect his appendages since he might be incapacitated if they were damaged. They had been hidden in his hair for so long no one suspected they were there. And since they had never been targeted or damaged, the young man had never guessed that the small appendices were so important to his mobility, being used to having them.

The realisation shook the young man as he thought about the numerous times he had had haircuts. His parents taught him to be mindful of his antennas, but he had thought it was only because they were so sensitive even a paper-cut was painful and numbing. He also kept his hair to a certain length to hide them. His pliers already subjected him to being made fun of. He didn't want to give even more munitions to his kindergarten bullies, especially if they discovered how sensitive the antennas were. Point is, he had thought damaging them would only be painful. He never suspected permanent damage could hinder his mobility.

Being third by alphabetical order, Kamakiri had been among the first pupils from his class she had brainwashed. Afterwards, his classmates had been eager to debrief with her and their teacher. She hadn't found something ground-breaking that they didn't already know in most of them. The class B apprentices were more well-rounded than class A. Probably because they had faced mess emergencies demanding them to specialise early on. Still, she appreciated the change in how they approached the exercise.

With her four teammates, Midoriya had assumed the role of deciphering the clues while the three other lads had retrieved the hidden sticks. Her role had been redundant. She thought about distracting the nearby teams. Using her flute, blowing or even whistling. She wished she had been able to use her vocal chord item to reproduce their teacher's voices and destabilise them further. Yet, she guessed sabotaging wasn't part of the game. The other teams remained fair and she didn't want to be the one starting drama.