"Hmm…

Where am I?"

He looked down to his left and noticed Biharu lying on the ground, with his left arm chained to the wall behind him. When he made that visual connection, he noticed a cold object surrounding his right wrist. Kori quickly looked to his right and saw his own right hand chained to the wall behind him.

Kori's mind started trying to piece together the events that followed up to this, but nothing really came to mind. All he remembered was doing Karaoke yesterday with the others, and then everything was black. Kori started fearing that he had taken some sort of alcohol the day before that resulted in a black-out. But he wasn't feeling a heavy headache that he had heard you were supposed to get the day after drinking. He looked at Biharu again and thought that he perhaps knew something. Kori reached over and punched the side of Biharu.

Biharu woke up in a second and screamed

"Wo cao! What the h.e.l.l!?"

He looked around confused a couple of seconds before calming down and seeing the smiling buff guy next to him.

Biharu got even more scared once he noticed that he was chained to a wall and that he had probably slept at that spot.

Biharu screamed

"You animal, Kori! Did you abduct me!? Did you abduct me and exploit my sleeping body!? Not only that. You're a d.a.m.n fetis.h.i.+st as well! Look at this chain!"

Biharu crawled up towards the corner and covered up his fully-dressed body with his free hand.

Kori sighed and said

"Why is that the first thing you a.s.sume? Is that what you wanted to happen? Really? Who's the real pervert in that case?"

Biharu relaxed his muscles a bit and said

"Then, where are we? What's going on?"

Kori sighed and said

"You think I know? Look at this chain, we're in the same situation. I woke you up because I thought that you perhaps had some clue from memories."

Biharu thought for a bit and said

"Nope, I only remember going for Karaoke and then just black."

Kori exclaimed

"f.u.c.k, do you think alcohol did us in?"

Biharu looked at Kori in fright and said

"Oh no… That can't be true! My mother would be so disappointed she found out that my drink-virginity went to something like that."

Kori looked at Biharu with disappointed eyes and said

"Look, I'm fine with that sentence. But don't say that in front of Kurohito, ever. I think he would feel hurt and insignificant if he heard that."

Biharu exclaimed

"Call him Boss----!"

Immediately after he finished talking, another voice was heard yelling

"Will you two shut up!? The boys are trying to sleep!"

Biharu got beet-red in embarra.s.sment and said

"Sorry!"

But after comprehending what just happened, Kori and Biharu stared at each other in a 'Wait, what?' situation.

After that, a late-20s person entered the room wearing some sort of uniform with a small spider embossed on his upper-left chest on top of the blue fabrics.

"You seem confused enough for me to start explaining what's going on."

The voice made a slight echo in the metallic room while Kori and Biharu stared at the young man.

…

I opened my skill sheet once again. I looked at the options in dread, I was forced to upgrade something if I really wanted to defeat those guys. But I thought that perhaps it was easier and faster to just get beat up by them and leave. So I closed the sheet again, but another thought came up and I thought that it perhaps even faster if I managed to steal back Sora before they even made it to that place. The scream I heard before was definitely Sora, and that probably meant that she wasn't already at that place. Instead, someone kidnapped her and was running towards the place we were meant to meet at.

In the piece of paper that I had gotten, there was some handwriting that said 'The abandoned warehouse next to the fisher statue'.

It was a bit strange seeing a description of a place instead of an actual address, but luckily I knew what statue the note referred to.

But that could've easily been the doom of someone else if they had read that note, since the description was so generic and unspecific.

I opened the sheet of powers again when I suddenly realized something important, there were two fisher statues in this town.

The most famous one by the main dock and a more obscure and lesser-known statue to the north side of the docks. The reason I knew that lesser known statue was because I once went fis.h.i.+ng next to it with Father a long time ago.

If I remember correctly, both the statues had warehouses next to them.

One on hand, it would make sense if they were talking about the obscure one because it's lesser-known thus more likely that there was an abandoned warehouse next to it.

But on the other hand, it would make sense if they meant the famous one, because the lesser known one is, you know, lesser known. Meaning that the kidnappers perhaps didn't even know it existed.

I scratched my head in irritation, because I couldn't make a decision of which one was more probable of being the location.

The kidnappers had perhaps even written the note like that to intentionally cause confusion, but I dismissed that theory once I remembered that younger boy's words

" 'I want to let you know that we won't hurt her', huh?"

The words seemed genuine to me, although my ability for reading feelings was a bit shaky at that moment. I looked at the sheet of powers in front of me and noticed the 'speed' power that was there, so I upgraded the power and the base affinity 'Light' to level 1.

I turned my body towards the metallic door that let out of here. The steps I took were heavy, the damage I had sustained before was really taking a toll. Pair that with the fact that I was very tired at the moment, and you had a worn out boy trying to do his best despite being the worst.

…

"They sure are fast!"

Aya whispered to herself as she desperately (grasped for air).

She had been running at consistent by fast speed ever since she noted that they were heading northwest.

At this point, she was starting to doubt her decision and thought that it perhaps was a decoy put out to remove distractions.

- d.a.m.nit, at this point…

Kenjiro will…

I don't know, what would Kenjiro do? He's kind of an unpredictable fellow, except for the moments where his responses are super predictable. I have a hard time deciding if Kenjiro would leap to Sora's rescue, or if he would sit back and enjoy his free time.

Should I trust Kenjiro to pick the first choice? If so, is he already on his way there?

Should I then focus on gathering the other members?

I don't know!

This whole thing is so decentralized so no one knows what they're doing, no one's in charge leading everybody!

I don't care anymore, I'll just continue chasin…

Wait, is that…?-

As Aya turned her attention to her right and looked behind her, due to hearing some weird *Do do do do* sound, she saw a running man with a pretty fast running speed.

The red-haired man who was catching up to her was running with a desperate face and a very tired body language.

He was fast, perhaps twice as fast as Aya herself. But not as fast as a car or anything of that sort, if he was in an Olympics compet.i.tion for the 100 meters he would have probably gotten 5th or 6th place. A pretty good place, but not quite as good as the legend Usain Bolt.

A very awkward "Wait, what?" situation arose when that man was about to pa.s.s Aya and their eyes met in a single second of confusion.

Aya didn't slow down her running but instead said slowly

"Ke-Kenjiro...?"

The man known as Kenjiro Asukara slowed down to match her speed, he then said

"Aya? Are you Aya?"

Aya nodded her head, Kenjiro continued

"Look, I know that I did something wrong before, but we can talk about it later. I have a more pressing issue.

I a.s.sume that you already know that Sora got kidnapped, since you're running so desperately in this direction.

If that's the case, then you can go home."

Aya slowed down a bit and let out "Eh?"

Kenjiro continued at his speed that was faster at this point and said

"The man who visited me specified that I was the one they're after. As long as I get to the place they were talking about, they'll release Sora. So either I'll be able to catch up to them running and steal back Sora, or I'll get beaten up by those people.

Basically, you don't need to involve yourself anymore. It would pain me to see you get hurt because of me."

The parting words from Kenjiro left Aya to slow down continuously until she had stopped completely, leaving only the sight of a red-haired boy disappearing into the horizon. After a few dozen seconds, the only sound left in the streets were the distant footsteps of a running person and the silence of disappointment mixed with a heavy breathing sound.

Aya stood still panting, just staring at the direction she had been running so desperately at before.

She looked down at the ground and noticed a crumpled up note lying on the ground. The uniform that she had been wearing crumbled up when she bent down to pick it up from the ground. The note was a little bit wet from the rain that had poured an hour ago, but was still readable when opened up.

Aya looked at the note for a couple of seconds, contemplating whether she should open it or not.

After being stared at for a long enough time to make even a piece of paper blush in embarra.s.sment, Aya put the note in her pocket and started sprinting towards her previous location.

As she sprinted, she looked at a sweet spot between the ground and straight ahead. Within her heart, a sour feeling took power and led Aya into a melancholic state.

She pondered about what feelings she had towards Kenjiro. At this point, she was in complete disarray. She wasn't clear about how to feel concerning the self-deprecating guy. When Kenjiro finished his declaration before, she felt a blow dealt to her chest. The feeling she felt right now could only be explained as guardsmen threatening her with spears, trapping her into one spot. That spot being the place of reflection, locking her into a mindset benefiting only thoughts regarding her relations.h.i.+p to other people, not only Kenjiro.

Aya thought that she had built a good friends.h.i.+p with Kenjiro, but was that interpretation wrong, or just one sided?

Because from what Kenjiro said before, it didn't seem like he had any sort of liking for the people around him. Like he simply was there just because he had to, not because he enjoyed spending time with the members.

Was it wrong for her to consider him her friend?

She did after all know that the mindset of Kenjiro Asukara wasn't the most normal from the beginning of their escapades.

But still, she really considered the little time they had spent together to be enjoyable.

Perhaps it took time to build a relations.h.i.+p with a person like Kenjiro, perhaps that was why he seemed so reluctant to accept any relations.h.i.+p with him.

But Aya wasn't all too sure of that thought, it seemed like wishful thinking to her. She already knew that she wasn't going to reach a fulfilling answer unless she actually discussed it with Kenjiro, but that fact couldn't distract her from the thought while she backtracked her steps to school.

A car hummed by peacefully.

A silence only known in the peaceful streets where she walked penetrated her heart, and a feeling of loneliness slowly bloomed.

Aya fully understood that she wasn't alone, that she had tons of friends and a generally good life. But logic once again lost to the power of emotions and the feeling persisted.

Aya said quietly to herself, partly to break the silence and partly to find a scapegoat,

"You really don't understand anything, Kenjiro you idiot."