The Mysteries of the Community Service Club (Chapter Five)

While we're a bunch of superpowered teenagers, we're also members of the Community Service Club. Because of that, it's not strange to find us running around the school helping out whoever asked. This time, the Kendo club came to us needing someone to fill in for a few members who couldn't make it to a practice match they were having with each other. Mirai and Omoyo were usually the ones to take those requests. It seemed like the two of them had experience with swords before. 

But now and then, Mirai would make me join him as well, even though I never even held a sword before. That's why I was right now dressed in ink-black armor, holding a bamboo sword while someone charged at me with a ferocious attack. I raised the sword to defend myself, but the end result was I got hit. Fun fact: I've never once landed a hit in all the times I was made to help out the Kendo club.

That's right, I was extremely terrible at it. Well, what did you expect from a guy who spends most of his time watching TV and surfing the Internet on his phone? The only thing I ever got right was the form when I slashed at the air. I had no idea why Mirai would keep making me come help out with this.

With the match ended on my loss, me and the other swordsman bowed and then separated to different sides of the gym. Yuna, Mirai and Omoyo were gathered at the entrance, so I headed over there and sat down on the floor. I pulled my helmet off and shed the rest of my armor off before I leaned my back against the wall and grabbed the water bottle that Yuna handed to me.

She sat down patiently next to me as I drank, and when I put the bottle down, she tapped my shoulder and pointed towards a huge poster hanging on the wall. The poster was an old photo of a girl in Kendo robes proudly holding up a trophy.

"Who is she?" Yuna asked through her phone.

"Huh?" I went, glancing sideways at the poster. "Oh, that's Hanako Yamamoto. They call her the legendary Sword Princess. She's pretty famous over here as the first one from our town to make it to a national tournament."

"She's not from our school, though," Yuna pointed out. The white banners hanging behind Hanako Yamamoto had the name of a different school. "So why do we have a picture of her hanging on our wall?"

"It's to remind ourselves." The Kendo club president approached us with his helmet tucked beneath his armpit and drenched in sweat. He must have just finished his own match now.

"Remind ourselves of what?" Yuna asked.

"To remind ourselves of the bitter feeling losing to her has given us," was the Kendo club president's dark reply.

Yuna didn't seem to get it, and neither did I. Mirai must have sensed that because he joined in as well and explained, "You see, Team Oota," he said, "our school's Kendo team used to be called the best in town. But all that changed when Hanako Yamamoto appeared."

"That's right!" the Kendo club president shouted. It really startled us. I almost jumped out of my skin, and Yuna had a look like a deer frozen by headlights. "She appeared out of nowhere and took the local town championship from us! Her school used to be the lowest of the low in the world of high school Kendo too, so our loss thanks to her was an utterly humiliating one! We've never made it to the top again after that. And to add insult to injury, she led her team to the nationals, a dream generations of our club have strived for but never succeeded! Oooh! Just talking about her makes my blood boil!"

"Then shouldn't you get rid of that poster?" I said. "High blood pressure's not good you know."

But the Kendo club president shook his head.

"No can do," he said. "As the president of the Kendo club, I must keep this resentment, this regret alive for future generations!"

"They've had this grudge for decades," Omoyo chimed in. "It's not going to go away anytime soon."

"That's right!" the Kendo club president shouted. "Only when we have avenged ourselves and reach the nationals will we finally put the past behind us! That's why, Mirai! Won't you and Omoyo join the Kendo club?"

"Sorry, but I have my hands full with my own club," Mirai said. "And I need Omoyo with me to keep everything running smoothly. Instead, why not take Hisao under your wing?"

"Huh?" I went. "You're gonna pawn me off just like that!?"

I knew he was just joking around, but the Kendo club president looked at me and, with a very serious look, said, "No thanks. He's so terrible at Kendo that even my kid brother in Kindergarten can beat him. Why do you even bring him here? He's no help at all to get us ready for the tournaments."

I know that everything he said was true, but did he really have to say it like that? So harsh!

Mirai, however, chuckled and replied to the Kendo club pres' inquiry with, "Just a precaution. I thought that I should have my club members learn how to fight. We go all over town for our activities, and even in a town like this, there's no telling what sort of dangers could be waiting for us. I mean, did you see the news?"

"Ah, right." The Kendo club pres seemed to calm down a little. "You're talking about the Piper."

The Piper. I don't watch the news a lot, but even I've heard of him. In the big city, there's a guy going around attacking people with a pipe, hence the name "The Piper". Old or young, man or woman, it didn't matter. A lot of his victims died, which made him a serial killer.

"But he's all the way in Tokyo," I said. "And that's really far away from here."

"I'm just using him as an example," Mirai said. "All I'm saying that it's better to be careful than not."

"That's true," the Kendo club pres said, nodding. "In that case, I'm more than happy to help tutor your clubmates in sword fighting. But that means you owe me. Since you won't join us, at least help us get ready for the next match by training with us."

"Sure thing," Mirai said. "I'll take you on right now."

The Kendo club president grinned, pleased with Mirai's answer. "Then let's get started!" he said. "Omoyo, you should take part too!" And then he pulled his helmet over his head and made his way to a free floor mat.

Mirai started to follow him there, but then he stopped and turned to me.

"You might want to turn on your Psy-Armor now," he said. And then he left.

Yuna turned to me with a puzzled look and then typed into her phone, "What's Psy-Armor?"

"It's that armor thing you saw me use a few days ago," I explained to her. "We're calling it Psy-Armor, short for Psychic, or Psychokinetic, Armor. See?"

I held up my hand for her to see. The space around it was all blurry, kind of like how the air above a concrete road looks in the middle of a hot, hot day, all ripple-y and stuff. That's what psychic energy looks like for psychokinetics like myself.

As I was showing her my power, not too far away, a newbie member was having a match with a senior. With a yell, he raised his bamboo sword over his head and swung it down. But the senior swiped upward and struck the sword out of the newbie's hands. It flew high in the air and (wouldn't you know it?) it fell right on top of my head. The tip of the sword struck right between my temples, bounced off and hit the floor in a loud clatter.

"Oh, I'm so sorry!" the newbie cried out. "Are you okay?"

I tried to play it off with, "Yeah, I'm okay. As you can see, the thing barely even touched me."

"Okay? Okay, nothing!" the senior cried out. "I saw that sword go straight to your forehead! There's no way you're okay! We need to get you to the nurse's office pronto!"

"I'm fine!" I cried out. "Really!"

I was really, truly okay. Even though that sword hit me in the head, it didn't hurt me one bit thanks to my Psy-Armor. But it wasn't like I could just tell them that. It was unnatural enough that I was unscathed after an impact like that.

Things got messy as I tried to play it off as nothing, but then Omoyo cut in and said, "I'll take him to the nurse's office."

"Huh?" I went. "But Omoyo!"

She cut me off and said, "No buts!" In a lower voice, she hissed, "Things will only get worse if you stick around. Let's just head to the nurse's office, make something up to the teacher and then be on our way!"

"Fine," I whispered back. "Let's go then."

We were just about to depart, but then a girl suddenly appeared at the door and said, "I heard a commotion. What happened?"

I wasn't sure what to say so I glanced at Omoyo. But Omoyo said nothing. She was oddly tensed as she glared at the girl.

I knew that it would fall on me to say something, but then the newbie and senior involved in my accident came and explained to the girl what had happened. The girl put her hand to her mouth and went, "Oh my! Let me take you to the nurse's office, then!"

"Huh? No, wait!" Omoyo cried out. "I was just about to -!"

But the girl cut her off. "It's fine, Homura. I'll do it. You stay here and help Toshiro calm everyone down. There's no telling what might happen if we leave them alone. Some unfavorable rumors might get spread out. And we both don't want that to happen, do we?"

There was a sharp glint in her gaze and you could practically see the pressure on Omoyo's face. She just couldn't talk back to this girl. She couldn't even keep her eyes locked onto the girl's and looked away, glancing back at Mirai who was trying to get the crowd under control with the Kendo club president. A lot of people were gathering, wondering what the commotion was about.

"Fine," Omoyo said, finally caving in. "But Yuna go with him. She could probably use an extra hand."

Yuna nodded.

Before we set off for the nurse's office, Omoyo whispered into my ear, "Be careful what you say to her."

"Huh?" I said. Before I could ask her what she meant by that, Omoyo hurried off to help Mirai.

"Come on," the girl called out. "Let's go!"

While confused and unable to understand what was going on, I followed the girl out of the gym and back to the main building. Yuna followed close behind me.

As we walked down the hallway, I decided to break silence and said, "Thanks for coming with me, but I can go my own way, You don't have to go to all this trouble."

"Oh, it's no trouble at all," said the girl. "We need to help each other out in times like these, no?"

"I . . . guess," I said.

"But I must say," said the girl, "that was really careless of you, what happened back there."

"Yeah, I know," I said sheepishly. "I'll be careful of flying objects from now on."

"There is that, but that's not what I was talking about," said the girl. "I was talking about using your powers in public like that. You really need to be more careful about that."

Both Yuna and I stopped and gaped at the girl. My blood ran cold.

"Y-you know about powers!?" I cried out. "How?"

The girl frowned at us.

"You don't recognize me?" she said.

Yuna and I exchanged looks and then we shook our heads.

"Unbelievable," the girl muttered. "I spoke at the Welcome Ceremony! Doesn't that ring any bells?"

"Nope," I said bluntly. "I never paid attention to it."

She looked at me in disbelief, but then recovered and went, "Ahem!"

"Then let me introduce myself," she said. "My name is Naoko Soushu, a second year. I am this school's current Student Council President. And like you, I also hold a special power."

<== Previous                                                                                         ==> Next

The Mysteries of the Community Service Club (Chapter Four)

 Yuna and I exchanged looks.

"Trial?" I said.

Omoyo nodded. "Hold on," she said as she dug her hand into her pocket. She took out a crumpled piece of paper, straightened it out and read out loud in a really deadpan manner.

"Insert fanfare here. Congratulations, heroes. You have made it past the first trial, the Trial of Tree in a Forest. Thanks to you, the beautiful pri-!"

Omoyo quickly tore the paper apart, crumpled the pieces in her grip and then stuffed it in her pocket, probably to toss into a trashcan later. I had to admit, I was kind of curious what the rest of that script could be.

"Long story short," said Omoyo, "you got two challenges ahead of you when you find the others. Don't ask me what the other challenges are. I don't know. But if I had to guess, they're probably related to your power to find people, Yuna. I can't think of any other reason Toshiro would make me put on this getup and go somewhere with a lot of people."

Omoyo was probably right, I thought. She knew Mirai best, after all.

"So now we just need to find Isaneko and the Pres," I said. "Where to next, Yuna?"

With Omoyo joining the party, Yuna led us next to a classroom on the third floor at the very end of the hall. Because it wasn't in use right now, all the tables and chairs had been stacked at the sides, leaving the glistening faux wood floor bare. We found Isaneko sitting on the teacher's desk beside the chalkboard as we entered the room. Even though she must have heard us come in, she kept gracefully gazing out the window with a hint of sadness across her face. I've only known her for two months at this point, but I knew that she was doing this on purpose just for dramatic effect. It was something she and Pres Mirai had in common. But in her case, she was going for the old-fashioned, pretty noble girl look. It's why Mirai kept calling her "Lady Isaneko".

Only after I closed the door behind me, did she turn her gaze towards us while brushing strands of her hair behind her ear. With a gentle wave of her hand, the door clicked and locked.

"Welcome, adventurers," she said. "I am Isaneko, and I will be in charge of your next trial."

She waved her hand again over her head and about ten box-like things flew out from beneath the desks towards the center of the room where they stayed, drifting around like balloons. I call them box-like because it was hard to tell what they really were beneath those black cloths that covered them. All I could say was that they were 3-D squares, maybe rectangle-like.

"Allow me to explain," she said. "In just one of these boxes, there is a trio of bunnies. You must find those bunnies and free them from my spell. There is no set number of chances to find the right one. But if you choose the wrong one . . ."

She snapped her fingers and one box had its cloth flown off revealing a clear plastic container. All three of us adventurers recoiled in shock and disgust because piled up inside that container was a huge mass of black creepy-crawlies. With a really wicked smile on her face, Isaneko snapped her fingers again and the creepy-crawlies exploded out of the container like a hot spring geyser.

"EEK!" both me and Omoyo screamed. We rushed to the door and tried to pry it open, forgetting that it was locked. And only Isaneko with her powers could unlock it.

A huge, wicked grin appeared on Isaneko's face as a dark shadow was cast over her eyes. It was even more evil than the smiles that Mirai usually wore whenever he was being cunning. I had never seen Isaneko like that before, not once ever. So needless to say, I was really shocked. I wondered, this was all an act, right? Mirai was making her do this, wasn't he? There's no way that was Isaneko's true nature.

I turned to Omoyo to ask her the above questions, but never got my chance to when Isaneko's voice cut in.

"Anyway," she carried on as she used her powers to collect the scattered bugs back into their box, "just to make things even more interesting, there will be a timer. If you fail to find the bunnies before time's up, every single box containing my many, many little friends will be opened, and my friends will rain down over your heads." She giggled madly. "I can't wait. You have ten minutes, starting . . . now."

"Huh? H-hey! Wait!" I cried out. "Can't we talk about this first?" But it was too late. Isaneko already twisted the kitchen timer on and set it down beside her.

"Better hurry up," she sang. She waved her finger beside her head and all the floating boxes took turns, one by one, to move to a different place. And they never stopped moving.

"Oh, come on!" I cried out. "That's not fair! How're we supposed to find the bunnies if you keep moving around the boxes?"

"Tooooo bad," Isaneko said. "My game, my rules. Now, time's ticking. It won't be long now before this room becomes Cockroach Utopia."

"Gah! There's no reasoning with her!" I cried out. "Hey, Yuna! Hurry up and find the bunnies!"

But Yuna, blue-faced with fear shook her head and refused to go near those boxes, knowing that almost all of them were full of roaches that could explode out the instant she accidentally touches one of them.

"You're a man," Omoyo shouted, "so you go find the bunnies!"

"What? I don't want to go near that!" I snapped back. "Why don't you go? You're a Sensory Type too, aren't you?"

"My powers only work on humans," Omoyo argued. 

"Then Yuna's the only one who can find them! Because I certainly can't tell which box is which! Come on, Yuna! If you don't do something quick, we'll all get covered in roaches! Do you want that!?"

Yuna furiously shook her head and then she opened her mouth as if to scream. Her lips formed words, but no sound came out, which was expected. But I could tell, she was saying, "Alright, already! I'll do it! I'll do it! Are you happy?"

Slowly, she inched towards the boxes, trembling more and more the closer she got. I could feel the hairs on my arm bristle, but it was no longer brief like the last couple of times Yuna used her power. She was keeping it constant to keep track of the bunnies as their box moved.

But as she made her way through the swarm of floating boxes, while staying as far away as possible from the ones that probably had roaches in them, Isaneko sighed while looking very, very bored. And then a wicked smile spread across her face again. Seeing that evil grin, I couldn't help but think, "Well, that ain't good." And it really wasn't.

"This is taking forever," she complained, "so let's shorten the time a bit, shall we?"

"Huh?" went me and Omoyo. "Wait!"

But Isaneko wouldn't listen and twisted the timer which cut our time really short. The amount of time she took away from us sent a fearsome jolt to my heart and I couldn't help but jump.

"Hurry up, Yuna!" I screamed. "Hurry before it rains roaches!"

Rushed, Yuna nearly ran into a box. She stopped just in time and stumbled back, But she ended up losing her footing and fell towards another box. Afraid that box would be wrong, I quickly used my psychokinesis to create an energy wall between Yuna and the box. I made it just in time so she bumped into the wall and bounced back on her feet. Over Yuna's and mine's sighs of relief, I heard a sharp "Tch!" as a certain little fancy lady clicked her tongue in clear disappointment.

Yuna managed to catch up to the box she was chasing just in time and ripped off its black cloth, exposing the bunnies to the afternoon sunlight shining through the window. Me and Omoyo couldn't help but cheer as Yuna held the pet cage over her head in triumph.

"Ahem!" With a cough, Isaneko regained her composure. After settign all the floating boxes down with her power, she stood up from the table and dipped her head in a deep, formal bow. 

"Congratulations," she said, while maintaining her dip. "You have passed the second trial and defeated the wicked witch. The spell has been broken and the wickedness that possessed me is no more. But now the final and most difficult challenge awaits." 

She straightened up and looked us all square in the eye as she raised one hand to the door. 

"The final trial, the Cursed Wanderer," she said. "Will you be able to find him and break his curse, just as you've broken mine? You had best be on your way now, before the sun sets and a curse falls on you all as it had on me. I must stay behind and atone for my sins as the wicked witch."

I took that to mean she needed to stay behind to clean up and put everything back to where they belonged, including the three bunnies and the roaches.

"Fare thee well."

When she was done speaking, the door clicked and slid open on its own. None of us adventurers wasted time getting out of the room.

As we headed down the hall with Yuna in the lead, I asked Omoyo, "Say, what was with that act back there? It was like Isaneko wasn't really acting."

"That's because she wasn't," Omoyo replied. "What you saw was her real personality. Aika likes to look prim and proper, but deep down, she's an evil demoness that has fun tormenting people."

"Really?" I said. "But we've all been together for two months and I never saw her like that before."

"That's because there was never a good chance," Omoyo explained. "As long as there's no reason to, she won't break out of her Miss Noble Princess persona. But if an opportunity comes around to mess with someone, she won't miss it. Toshiro knows that better than anyone, but still gave her that role. When I get my hands on him . . . !"

While grumbling revenge plans to herself, she opened and closed her fists and held her hands up as if to strangle someone.

"Speaking of the Pres," I said, "where is he? Do you have a ping, Yuna?"

Yuna nodded and pointed towards the west wing. She led us to the library, but after searching the place top to bottom, we couldn't find him anywhere. She used her sonar again and then led us to the cafeteria.

Stumped at failing to find Mirai twice, Yuna glanced back at us while scratching her head. I thought it was weird, too, given that she had found both Omoyo and Isaneko without any problems. But just as I was about to suggest we linger around the cafeteria a bit to think, Omoyo spoke up.

"That guy's still moving around," she said. By "that guy", she could only be talking about Mirai. "He hasn't stuck to one place like me and Aika."

"Are you sure about that?" I asked.

"Positive," Omoyo replied. "I can't think of a better test of Yuna's power than finding a moving target."

"So our game of Hide and Seek just became a game of Cat and Mouse," I said, scratching the back of my head.  I sighed and said, "What a drag this day is turning out to be. So what now? Knowing he's moving around isn't going to make it any easier for us to find him. And it'll be even harder to catch him if he uses his powers since he'll know right away if we get close. Maybe we should just give up and head back to the clubroom?"

Omoyo shut that idea down with a blunt, "No!" And then she explained, "If we do that, Toshi'll throw a tantrum and I really don't want to deal with that. Let's try and get more information first before we throw in the towel. Toshiro might be a selfish moron with Middle Grade Syndrome delusions, but he usually plays fair. There should be a way for us to beat his game even with his power. Yuna, try to keep track of where he goes and write it down. There might be a clue there. Can you do it?"

Yuna nodded and closed her eyes. Several minutes later, she showed us her phone with a list of places. Apparently, after we reached the cafeteria, Mirai went back to the library. He stuck there for five minutes before heading out to a different room where he waited another five minutes before heading out again. I won't go into details about the list since it was really wordy (Yuna didn't know what all those rooms were so she had to describe them in as much detail as she could), but there was a clear pattern to his movements. There were five rooms in all, including the library, that he visited. He went to these rooms in a cycle, in the same order at least three times when Yuna stopped tracking him. The end of the list showed he was on his fourth trip to the library.

Omoyo looked at the list while rubbing her chin thoughtfully.

"That third room sounds like the second year A/V room," she said. "If he sticks to this pattern, which I'm sure he will, we can catch him if we wait around for him there. But we'll need to go now or we'll miss him. Come on!"

The A/V room, or Audio-Visual room, is where computer classes are normally held. It's a room full of computers that's also sometimes used for watching movies on the big projector screen. There are three such rooms in all at our school, one for each grade. For obvious reasons, the second year's A/V room was on the second floor.

Now, as we had talked about earlier, the plan was for us to wait at the A/V room for Mirai to come to us. But when Omoyo opened the door, there was already someone inside the dark air-conditioned room full of old PC computers lined up in neat rows, standing at the very end of the room, right beneath the projector screen.

It was a dude in a cape, wearing an elephant plushie head.

"MWA HA HA HA!" he laughed. "Congratulations, adventurers. You have caught me and thwarted my plans. Yes! It is I! The mastermi-!"

Omoyo closed the door and turned to us.

"Look at the time," she said, holding up her phone. "Time to go home. Let's get back to the clubroom, grab our bags and get out of here."

Yuna and I followed her without a second thought.

<== Previous                                                                                         ==> Next

Lead Ups

 Hey everyone!

I hope you're all doing well. I'm just peachy, doing pretty well given the situation. Today, I wanted to share with you some of my hardships as a writer. For me, my writing, I get flashes of inspiration for a scenario. I can see the scenario clearly and it comes with lots of good dialogue for me to choose from. But there is a catch, and that is I still have to lead up to that special scenario.

How do I get there? What happens before the scenario? Basically, I see the ending, but I have trouble thinking about how to get there. And that's true for the stories I'm writing now. Take my Mysteries of the Community Service Club. There is a certain part of the story that I have a clear vision of, but right now I'm a bit stuck on how to get there. It's like my fingers don't even want to type no more while I try to get the next part into words.

 I've managed to power through before, although in some cases, that sometimes leads me to feel uncomfortable with the end result and it'll be a long time before I find a way to redo it again, either just a certain chapter or two, or the whole book.

Because of that, while right now my goal is to give out one chapter a week for the Mysteries of the Community Service Club, some chapters might end up delayed. It makes me miss the good old days when my fingers just flew across the keyboard almost without end. Now I get writer's block sometimes and, among other things stopping me from typing, a stiff shoulder.

Anyway, that's all I got to share for now. 

Happy reading!

The Mysteries of the Community Service Club (Chapter Three)

You know, thinking about my past now, I think I might have been set up. No, hear me out. I think when I first joined the club, Mirai fell down on purpose and made Isaneko use her powers in front of me. They all planned from the beginning to show me their powers and get me to become one of them.

But that's not important right now. We just reached the part where Mirai was trying to recruit Yuna.

"I can give you superpowers too, if you join us," he had said to her. "What do you say?"

But a computer lady in Yuna's phone answered for her, "Granting me powers is unnecessary. I am already one of you, someone with a power."

I was, of course, surprised when Yuna confessed to having a power. As far as I knew, my family was completely and utterly normal before I joined the CSC and got a superpower. But to hear that one of my relatives, even a distant cousin on my dad's side, had a power was super shocking.

Isaneko and Omoyo were also dumbfounded, but Mirai didn't look the least bit surprised. He still had that sly look on his face, like he knew what Yuna was going to say. Well, he could see into the future, so I suppose he did know what Yuna was going to say.

But even if he did, he couldn't help but keep up the pretentious villain who got his interest piqued act.

"Oho?" he went. "And pray tell what kind of power do you hold?"

Yuna's reply was, "I know where people are."

"Can you show us?"

Yuna put on a troubled face, probably wondering how she was going show us her power. I mean, just the answer alone was enough to tell me that her power type was Sensory, which isn't really the showy kind of power. But after a bit of thought, she was able to come up with something and put it to action.

She pointed right and held up three fingers. And then she pointed left and held up four fingers. After that, she pointed down and held up one.

"So, what do you guys think?" Isaneko asked Mirai and Omoyo. "You two are Sensory Types, aren't you?"

"Don't look at me," Omoyo said. "I just know what people are feeling. If they're all feeling different things, I might be able to count how many people are in another room. But there's no way  I can do that if they're all feeling the same thing. What about you Toshi?"

A glint flashed from the corner of Mirai's eye.

"A hundred out of a hundred," he said. "She's the real deal."

"Now that I think about it, the only limit to your future sight is you can't see more than fifteen minutes ahead," Omoyo said. "So I'll take your word for it. But I'm really surprised. I didn't know that Oota had any natural-born psychics. I thought you came from a regular, everyday family."

"So did I," I said. "I didn't ever hear anything about being related to psychics from Mom or Dad."

"That is because my powers came from my mom," Yuna explained. 

That was right. Yuna was connected to my family through her dad. If the Oota Family was normal, before me, then the only way Yuna could have gotten her power would be through her mom.

"My mom told me that we had an ancestor who was a priestess with amazing powers," Yuna continued. "But that was a long, long time ago and our family has mostly lost those powers."

"Well, putting aside where you got your power from," Mirai said, "I'm kind of curious about its limits."

Yuna bent her head one side with puzzled eyes.

"Limits?" I said.

"Yeah," said Mirai. "I want to know what limits this power has. We all know mine. I can't see more than fifteen minutes ahead. I think Omoyo explained hers. And Isaneko needs to see something in order to move it with her mind. And Hisao . . . Well, actually, I don't know what your limits are either. But it's not like we can put that to the test. There's no telling what trouble we'll get into if we push psychokinesis to its limits."

"Gee," I went. "Thanks for not making me feel like those emo heroes in comics who're always afraid of their destructive powers."

I was being sarcastic, but Mirai ignored me and moved on.

"Anyway, I really would like to find out about your limits, Yuna," Mirai said. "Do you know it?"

Yuna, however, shook her head and shrugged. She did not know the limits of her power.

"Hmm." Mirai rubbed his chin thoughtfully. "In that case, why don't we play a game?"

"I do not like where this is going," Omoyo said. Isaneko nodded in agreement.

Having gotten to know just how crazy Mirai could get in the two months I've known him, I couldn't help but feel the same way.

Mirai, however, scowled at us and said, "You make it sound like I'm a deranged criminal or something. I'm not that bad, am I?"

"You conned me into getting superpowers," I pointed out.

"So you realized that was all an act," Mirai said. I guessed he saw no point in hiding it now that I'm one of them. "Anyway!" He continued on. "For the game, how about Hide and Seek?"

"Hide and Seek?" we all exclaimed.

"That's right," Mirai said. "That's the perfect game to test out Yuna's power. Not only that, it could double as a tour of the school."

"So you're planning to turn the whole school into your playground, again," Omoyo said. "Haven't we gotten on the Student Council's nerves enough already?"

"Oh, what's the harm?" Mirai said. "It's not like we'll break any rules with this game. You, me and Lady Isaneko will split up and wait in rooms at different corners of the school. Underling Hisao, since Yuna is not familiar with the school yet, you'll keep her company to ensure she doesn't get lost. In other words, this game of Hide and Seek will be the Community Service Club versus the Oota Family."

"I'm guessing that none of us have a say in this?" I said, letting out a resigned sigh.

"Not at all!" Mirai shouted. "Ha ha ha!"

"Will you cut that out?" Omoyo snapped. "You're not some character from a kid's cartoon!"

Unfazed, Mirai replied with, "If I did become one, that would be a dream come true!"

Omoyo sighed and glanced at Isaneko. "Can't you say something to him?" she asked.

"Please don't look at me," Isaneko replied. "I gave up a long time ago. Let's just get this game over with so we can move on to more important things."

"Excellent!" Mirai cried out. "You two just wait in here while we go find our hiding places. We'll call you when we're ready."

Mirai, Omoyo and Isaneko shuffled out of the room. Isaneko gave me and Yuna a bow before closing the door. When their footsteps receded, I pulled out my phone and opened a game app. Now and then, I would glance at Yuna to check how she was doing, but she just fiddled with her phone like I was.

About ten to fifteen minutes later, my phone rang. I answered it and put the phone one speaker, since the caller I.D. had Mirai's name on it. He only said two words to us before hanging up, and it was "Game Start."

When the connection cut, I got up, stuffed my phone into my pocket and headed for the door.

After opening, it, I turned around and said, "Let's go." But Yuna held her hand up for me to wait and then closed her eyes. Suddenly, I felt my arm hairs go prickly and I realized that Yuna must be using her powers. It was probably like a submarine's sonar or a bat's echo-location. Basically, she had shot off a psychic shockwave everywhere and whenever that shockwave hits someone, she'll know where that person is.

After she was done with that, she got off her chair and walked towards me. I stepped aside to let her through first before I closed the door and locked it.

"So where to first?" I asked.

Yuna answered by pointing down the hall to the right and then started walking ahead. I followed after her, pointing out the different places I thought she should know about, like the rest area on the first floor where people can sit down, relax and drink whatever they got from the blue vending machines. When we got there, I offered to buy her something, but she just shook her head, showing that she wasn't thirsty. So I just bought a soda for myself. I pressed the button on the machine, swiped my phone over the credit card terminal and grabbed the can that fell down the chute. And then we headed outside.

With summer upon us, I knew that it was going to be hot outside, but I never expected it to be so sweltering. It was so hot out, that the instant I stepped out the door, I was sweating buckets. Yuna had it worse.

As soon as the hot air hit her, she fainted backwards. I was afraid she was going to fall, but she managed to stay on her feet.

"You okay?" I asked. "Maybe we should go back and - !"

Yuna cut me off by holding her hand up. Her other hand was braced against her lap and she kept her gaze to the floor, but it was clear she was saying, "I'm fine."

I hesitated, wondering what I should do or say when a sudden sharp "pow!" got my attention. When I turned around, a ball smacked right into my face super hard and bounced all the way back into the grassy field. The guy who kicked the ball to my face ran over to pick it up, ignorant of what he had done to me. 

I could feel Yuna's gaze on my back and figured that she must look very dumbfounded and worried. But there was really nothing to worry about. Thanks to my psychokinesis, I could create an armor of psychic energy that could protect me from pretty much anything. So even taking the full force of a flying soccer ball to the face wasn't enough to sting me.

"Are you okay?" spoke a phone's computer voice.

Without much of a care, I turned around and replied, "Yeah." After I explained to Yuna about my power, I said, "Come on. Knowing Mirai, if we don't find everyone before school closes, he'll spring some kind of penalty on us."

With Yuna leading the way, we made our way over to the gym where the girl's basketball team was having a practice match. And boy was it an intense match. Both teams were tied with a score of 9, with the next score to end it all. The girls in red had the ball first, but then a blue-vest player cut in between as one red passed the ball to the other. The blue-vest stole the ball and dribbled to the end of the court. She was about to score a point, but then a red-vest slapped the ball out of her hand, snatched it into her own and made her way to the other end of the court.

As usual, the place was packed with people at the bleachers who had come to watch the match. And they watched it with such enthusiasm that you wouldn't believe that it was just simple practice between members of the same team. I mean, they were just going wild with their cheering. Maybe it had to do with how the two star players of the team were on opposite sides for the match. 

I scanned the court for any familiar faces, but couldn't find Omoyo among the players. Helping out sports clubs was sort of her thing, so I figured that she would have joined the match while she waited for us.

Instead, however, Yuna took me high up the bleachers towards a girl wearing a thick-framed glasses beneath a black baseball cap. Over her blouse, she wore our school's jersey. I didn't recognize her at all, but when Yuna held up her phone and pressed "play", there was a voice that said, "I found you, Omoyo."

I was pretty shocked, to say the least, as Omoyo shook her hair free of the cap and tossed the glasses aside.

"Congrats," she said. "You found me. You passed the first trial."

<== Previous                                                                                               ==> Next