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."
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