- Man, I sure am hungry. It would be incredibly convenient if a Curry Bread somehow presented itself in front of me this moment… -

While thinking that, I had closed my eyes in hope. When I opened my eyes, I found, to my expectations, nothing on my desk. What I did find though was a black-haired girl next to me.

"Ibuki! What are you doing here?" I asked her.

Ibuki was standing in a shy pose, fidgeting around quite a bit. She was also staring down at the ground. Ibuki responded

"N-nothing really. I just heard from Anami earlier that you had some kind of mission. I just wanted to check how you were doing..." The tone she used when answering was very quiet, but somehow very reliable.

I looked at her and answered

"That's not okay!"

Ibuki instantly moved back as a reflex and quickly let out an "Eh?

I continued

"You can't treat me nicely and care about me! I don't know what you expect to gain from being nice to me, but just be aware that I'm not influential, rich or anything like that. I have special rules that say that n.o.body will or is allowed to treat me nicely."

Ibuki let her guard down and sighed in relief. She asked

"Are you hungry? I have a Curry Bread if you are..."

I thought about it for 0,34 milliseconds before answering

"That's not necessary, because I am not hungry----" but I was interrupted by a growling stomach that was clearly audible.

Ibuki stared at me in doubt. She looked down at my stomach and then at my face again, and continued that action for a bit.

I said with an embarra.s.sed expression

"Upon heavy reconsideration--"

…

"This bread is really good! Where the h.e.l.l did you find it?"

I asked Ibuki after digging through half of the bread that had surprised me so much. Ibuki got a happy aura around her after hearing what I said, although her neutral face persevered. The students around the cla.s.sroom looked at me with estranged faces, I even heard some whispers among them

"Since when did Kenjiro have friends?"

"I don't know, and it's a girl nonetheless! It feels really unfair!"

"That's right! He's such a weird person, why does he have friends!?"

With a frown, Ibuki stared at the whisperers. I decided to interrupt their shenanigans by saying

"Excuse me, you guys! I just want to clarify one thing; I don't have any friends and will never have! This is a forced thing right here."

Hastily, the boys who had whispered left the room in an attempt to avoid confrontation.

"Now back to my question, please." I said

Ibuki turned around in response to my question and answered it

"I actually made them myself."

A wave of shock made its way through my body. I had to convert my surprise into words, I said

"You made these!? I mean, they're really good..." The emphasis in that sentence was on the 'Really'.

Ibuki started blus.h.i.+ng and tried to hide that and her smile with her hands. She said

"That's good. Thank you..."

I laughed a bit, drawing a confused reaction from Ibuki. I said

"No-no, I should say Thank you. So you're good at cooking, huh… Must be nice to be nice at something. See what I did?"

The air suddenly got a tinge of suspense around it. Ibuki stared at me in a recognizable worried face. She suddenly burst out and said

"That's not true. There must be something you're good at!"

I put up my legs on the desk and sighed out in a visibly tired way. That suspenseful aura immediately dispersed as I did that action. I said

"Ibuki, I don't think you understand me very well. I honestly don't think that I'm good at anything, nor am I allowed to be. I'm worse at everything I do."

One would expect my face to be sad and melancholic at this point in time, but the reality was that I was smiling for some bizarre reason. Ibuki picked up on this weird phenomenon and responded with a helpless smile. The rest of the people in the cla.s.sroom also picked up on this, but decided to ignore us. Ibuki thought for a little while before saying

"I know! We, the Kenjiro-watching-pact, will test out different things with you later and we'll see what you're good at!"

I could only sigh at a response like that. But I didn't really care too much. I said

"As long as it's on club time. Don't think I'll waste the little free time I have on something useless like that."

Ibuki lightened up and said with a bright and cute smile

"That's good to hear! I'll talk to the others later."

I responded

"Sure. But that thing will have to wait until I'm finished with this mission and this mission will probably take a bit of time."

Ibuki stood up to leave but before she did, she said

"Understood, and: Good luck with your mission!"

Ibuki then proceeded to sprint towards the exit, I quickly squeezed in a quick line

"Thanks… But don't put so much pressure on me! You already know I'll fail!"

…

As the last English lesson wrapped up, Kenjiro was sitting in antic.i.p.ation on his chair.

The whole day had been building up to this moment in his head, which caused him to get some stress. He had to successfully complete the plan for them to win against Kori. The nervousness was building up a bit within.

"You're dismissed! Now go home and do homework or something, who cares?" Eraijo yelled out and like it had been a starting whistle for a race, people stormed out of the cla.s.sroom immediately. After a short period of time, almost less than two minutes, the only people left in the cla.s.sroom were Kenjiro, a surprised Eraijo, and the smartest girl in cla.s.s Nirai Wasemune who was studying like nothing just happened. Kenjiro also decided to stand up and walk towards the exit. Before he exited the cla.s.sroom, Eraijo tugged his s.h.i.+rt and whispered

"You haven't shown anyone those pictures, have you?"

Kenjiro pulled a wry smile and said

"Don't worry, I try to keep my promises."

Eraijo took a step back in surprise and said

"That was unnecessarily cool! But, that isn't good enough! You said 'try'! I can't trust that!"

Kenjiro quickly pushed out a barely audible 'Hehe' and walked nonchalantly out the door. Kenjiro kept walking, despite his teacher's complaints in the background.

He turned a sharp left and continued down the hallway and then took a right where lounge-esque type place existed. In there, he met the other two co-conspirators of his team.

"Are we ready?" Kenjiro asked the two of them.

"Yes, we have everything prepared." Kanton said and slapped the machine that sat next to him. The look of the machine was quite peculiar, the main body was a red barrel with a flamethrower-looking thing pointing out of its top. Narino nodded in agreement, and Kenjiro said

"Good, I'll get into my position then." and proceeded to run down the stairs.

"He should be coming soon then… That d.a.m.n human will taste my pa.s.sion" Kanton exclaimed in an excited voice. Narino clutched on to Kanton's shoulder aggressively and said

"What did I say about using that word like that?"

Kanton looked at Narino's terrifying face in fright and said

"R-right..."

…

Kori slowly came out of his cla.s.sroom with a tired face. He thought to himself

- Man, yesterday sure was tiring. But I finally maxed out that d.a.m.n Social Link. Ahh… What should I do today? Guess I'll walk around to see if there's anyone to fight.

About that… I wonder when that new recruit is going to challenge me… -

Kori went out to the hallway and took a look to the right and then left. What he found was nothing. His cla.s.s was the last ones to end that day, and Kori had decided to stay a couple of minutes to finish the math problem he was working with.

He didn't succeed though and ended up almost tearing his notebook to shreds in frustration.

He chose to walk to the left and started moving his legs in a rhythmic movement some would describe as walking. About 20 meters in front of him, there was a potential turn one could take that was to the right. In that turn, there laid a lounge-esque room and two nervous people.

The whole hallway was dead quiet, the only sound you could hear was the thudding noises Kori's shoes were making.

Kanton and Narino were sitting in extreme antic.i.p.ation. They had to activate the trap at the exact right moment, otherwise it would fail miserably and the plan would fail. Since they knew that Kori was on a completely different level than them, the tactic they wanted to use was the element of surprise. Not only that, they didn't even have a visual on when he'd come, only the slow and heavy steps from Kori that felt like a countdown to their doom. Kanton thought to himself

- I'm about to give out. This is way to stressful! But, I can't escape. That's not because I have some sort of duty to finish this, it's just that; If I try to, Kori will definitely fight me! Right now, he's looking for an opponent so anyone will probably do the job. I guess this plan really is the best for my chances of survival. -

Both of them closed their eyes in unison and focused all their attention to listening.

*Clack Clack Clack Clack Clack Clack*

The footsteps got closer and closer, and the way that Kori was walking was audibly very casual and relaxed. That fact was what irritated Narino the most. The fact that this person, who has hurt so many people, is just strolling around like anyone else. She clenched her fist as a way to calm herself, in her head she kept reminding herself;

-He's gonna get what he deserves… He is.-

The footsteps suddenly stopped.

The duo's hearts started pumping faster and faster

*Dunk Dunk Dunk Dunk Dunk*

The next sequence almost moved in slow motion from both the parties viewpoints.

Kori started slowly approaching the edge of the door-frame, without a worry in his mind. Kanton was putting all the focus he could on the left side of the door, in search of a person.

Kori continued walking and like that, his black bowl-haircut was visible. Not too soon, one could also see a bit of his muscular build. Kanton stared at the person with wide eyes, he thought

- I-I can see him! He's right there, in front of me! But I can't do it yet, he needs to be closer. I beg for him not to notice us yet… I beg. -

Kori's body got more and more visible the more he walked. To their blessing, he was walking with the same nonchalant aura. Narino thought

- Not yet! Only a little bit more… -

*Clack Clack Clack*

3 steps; 3 steps were all it took until Kori was in the position that they had prayed for. Everything clicked inside Kanton once he saw Kori in the position. He thought

- It's time. -

Almost like it had been a reflex, Kanton pulled the lever on the side of the machine incredibly fast. Once he did, an aggressive flame was let loose and started making its way towards Kori.

Kori, who now noticed everything to his right, instantly thought to himself

- Fire! -

From his point of view, everything was moving in slow motion; Like it supposedly does when one is in a dangerous situation. His reflexes made him back one step towards the window that was located behind him. He also instantly summoned one of his powers. He shouted

"Water station!"

Water immediately started pouring out of his hands and flew towards the flames. But the summoning had been so sudden and chaotic that some of the water spilled to the floor. Another consequence of this sudden summoning was that he didn't have time to control the amount of water that came so the recoil was huge. He did successfully manage to kill the fire that headed towards him, but the combination of these two things led him to hastily propel himself towards the window behind him. The water on the floor caused him to slip a bit so that he was at a certain degree. The recoil from the powerful blast caused him to fly into the window.

*CRASH*

The window broke and out flew Kori. He flew towards the ground at a rapid speed, so he yelled out once again

"Water station!"

to reduce the speed at which he was flying.

*DONK*

Kori scratched his head in confusion, he thought

- What the h.e.l.l just happened!? Did I get ambushed? I need to get a grip on this situation. -

Suddenly when he said that, he looked up from the ground and noticed something; Kenjiro was standing 10 meters in front of him in a taunting position.

Kenjiro smiled and said

"The challenge came quicker than you thought, right?"

Kori stood up and brushed off the dust from his shoulders. He pulled a smile and said

"Certainly..."