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.
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