Marionette

Cosmos, Chapter Forty Seven - Gakkō-sai [学校祭]

Needless to say, the preparations for the School Culture Festival went along with little problem, and of course with little input on Amaya's part. Like usual, her presence overall felt like it made no real difference in the grand scheme of things, however, following her attempt at leaving the Assassination Program altogether, Koro-sensei was making a valiant attempt at keeping her as included as realistically possible.

As such, he sent her out as the head of Mushroom Sourcing, and around those moments, he had various garden-orientated lessons for her when everyone else was busy. Nobody seemed to truly notice where the mushroom supply was even coming from, however every time Amaya returned with a small basket of the mushrooms Muramatsu would need for the next cooking test, the octopus was so very pleased with her efficiency.

'Amaya-san, I have not found a single mushroom in your basket that is poisonous, nor picked too late or too early!' The octopus announced with great pleasure on the last day of preparation, all the while everyone else was out of the classroom putting together decorations, setting up work zones among other things. 'And these hypogeous mushrooms are in perfect condition! This is beautiful foraging!'

Well... she was doing everything as the octopus specifically instructed her, so in a way she wasn't all that surprised, though she still preferred Koro-sensei to check them over.

'In fact, Amaya-san, I'd like you to take somebody of your choosing tomorrow morning and Sunday morning to help gather a large haul to use, as unlike the other ingredients, mushrooms are one of the few requirements that do not suffer in the slightest being picked a handful of hours early, so long as they are in a sealed container.' The octopus added. 'Any shortages will be amended in an on-demand basis.'

And all Amaya could do was sigh in response to such a declaration.

She half-wondered if this was one of Koro-sensei's various schemes to help benefit collaboration in a group, or a simple idea to get her more involved in the class, but right now she wasn't interested in trying to figure that out.

So she agreed and left it at that.

The Culture Festival started bright and early Saturday morning, and that meant all the finalization was underway. Some of the class were even staying back after dark to help finalize things, but Amaya was fairly sure Koro-sensei would send them all home to get a good night's rest before the big opening day.

However, Amaya chose to head home early, given that her presence wasn't contributing very much at that moment. And Koro-sensei practically ushered her away with remarks that she should get some rest, since she in particular was in need of it.

So she wandered off, with nothing but a parting call to Karma simply stating that she was going home.

He said nothing in response, though she didn't doubt he heard her. He'd broken away mid-discussion with Nagisa to cast a look towards her departing form, after all, and she didn't doubt he was half-tempted to leave along with her.

What Amaya was greeted with upon returning home was a rather vocal Koko who was trying in vain to use his water dish as a bath.

The sight of seeing the bird flapping away against the side of the cage, with just his feet and a small portion of his body squished into the water dish was enough to bring a sigh from Amaya, not to mention the racket he was making to go along with it.

'What the hell's wrong with you?' Amaya couldn't help but demand as she stared blankly at the bird, who immediately perked up at her arrival. A series of excited squeaks and chirps escaped the bird as he scrambled out of his water dish and right up to the front door of the cage, flicking water across the floor and over the bars of the cage. 'Guess birds need to bathe, too...'