Yabo and Hina still wouldn't face Takeru.
"Ichino-kun! You're here... How did it go with Kagura-san?", Yuko asked. She looked at him with tender worried eyes. "It went pretty well, Ikari-senpai..."
"Come sit over here.", Rento said in a slightly pissed off voice. Takeru sat down on the rock with them and awkwardly asked, "So... How have things been, Ikari-san?"
"Its been the same as always for us, Ichino-kun. I should be the one asking you that... Are you okay after what happened...?"
Takeru fell into silence. Rento looked at him hiding the worry from his face.
Yoru was having a chat with Shiori while Rin was also there just mean mugging him. Yoru sighed and said, "What are you doing, Ryu-"
"Shut up, Yoyo!", She replied while having her arms crossed and lips pouted. Yoru sighed again and looked away. "I wanted the next participant to be Ichino-kun but he got swept away by Kagura-san and now, it seems he's busy talking to Group 5."
"Yeah, I guess he isn't gonna be in the next match either. It seems Nakano-chan is done with her match. So now, the next ones will be Asano-chan and Watanabe-chan."
Hina, quiet and expressionless like always, headed towards the bridge with Yoshimi following behind.
Yoshimi with an annoyed look said, "What is with you? We've both been here for years and yet we've barely talked. Are you really that high and mighty? Gross."
Hina stayed quiet.
"Damn, you're annoying." Yoshimi leaped towards Hina after activating her 2nd form. She had her nails sharpened ready to slice Hina.
"2nd form." Hina managed to parry Yoshimi's slash by grabbing her arm. She then delivered a clean blow onto Yoshimi's stomach. It significantly damaged Yoshimi since she hadn't activated her 2nd form on that area but then she immediately spread her 2nd form and healed the damage. After that, she kicked Hina smashing her into the bridge's railing.
"And who might you be, young man?", Kanji-Man suddenly said breaking the silence of Group 5. He had returned to them after his battle was over.
"Oh, Kanji-Man-kun! What happened with your fight? Sorry we didn't focus on it, we got distracted by something else."
"It is completely fine, mademoiselle. I'm sure you had something important to attend to. As for my fight, Nakano-senpai was too fierce of an opponent for me. I couldn't compete against her skill and experience so I unfortunately lost and brought dishonor to our group.", Kanji-Man said and then did a deep bow.
Yuko lifted him up and said, "Come on, Kanji-Man-kun. It really isn't that big of a deal, I'm still proud of you."
Kanji-Man was teary eyed. "You're too kind, senpai..."
Takeru watched him from the rock with a weirded out face. "Why am I witnessing so many manga characters lately? This one's just like a gag character..."
"He's weird, right?", Rento said. Takeru awkwardly replied, "Yeah..." He still found it hard to talk to Rento normally, he didn't understand why Rento was crying earlier. From Takeru's understanding, Rento was just a dickhead who's only nice to Yuko.
Kanji-Man looked over at Takeru again and asked, "I humbly ask you again, young man. Who might you be? I've never seen you before."
"Uhhh... I'm Ichino Takeru, nice to meet you.", Takeru said in a soft voice. Kanji-Man made a shocked face. "Ohhh... So you're the one I've heard so much about. Nice to meet you too, Ichino-kun!" He then bowed.
"Why is this foreigner bowing so much?"
"This is Kanji-Man, Ichino-kun. He joined Group 5 a week ago. He's an amazing person who just wants to save others.", Yuko said proudly introducing her Kohai.
Kanji-Man grabbed Takeru's right hand with both of his. "I sympathize with you greatly, Ichino-kun. My senpai and comrade have told me all about you. It's okay, it wasn't your fault. You seem to have been released now, I hope you're doing fine."
Takeru stayed silent. Yuko looked worried. "He went silent before too... He's still too uncomfortable taking about this..."
"Hey, Ichino-kun! Do you wanna talk about that manga you and Takahashi-kun like, Painkiller?"
"Huh?", Takeru said looking confused.
"Senpai! It's Pain Machine, not pain killer!", Rento shouted. "Hehe, sorry!", Yuko replied while scratching her head. This all made Takeru slightly chuckle. Yuko noticed and immediately grabbed Rento and Yuko and took them away from Takeru. She whispered, "You two! Ichino-kun is still sad and too uncomfortable talking about what happened. We need to talk about fun stuff and cheer him up!"
"Really, senpai? Why do we have to do that for him?", Rento replied.
"Of course we have to, Takahashi-kun!"
Rento sighed. "If you say so, senpai..." Rento actually wanted to cheer up Takeru anyway.
"I got it, mademoiselle!"
"Alright! Lets do this, my kohai!", Yuko said with a huge grin on her face. "By the way, what does 'mademoiselle' mean? You've been calling me that for a while now and I didn't really care cause it sounded sweet but what does it mean, Kanji-Man-kun?"
"Oh, well... It pretty much means 'young lady'."
Yuko pouted her lips to look annoyed. "Oi! I told you to stop calling me that, I'm older than you!" Rento looked annoyed towards Kanji-Man too. "Yeah and you referred to me as 'comrade' earlier too, right? I also told you to stop doing that."
Kanji-Man looked scared and starting bowing again and again multiple times. "I'm so sorry!"
Takeru looked at them from a distance and chuckled again seeing Kanji-Man. "Seriously, what the hell is that guy doing? I like him, he's funny." Takeru's slight smile faded again when he began to ponder over Hikari's words.
"Kagura-senpai told me that to deal with it, I have to protect what matters to me now and not stay upset at what I've lost and my past mistakes. He said that from now, I have to make the better choices I could've made before...
But... what do I have now that matters to me? I have nothing. Katsuragi-san was nice to me and it seemed he cared for me but I wasn't even all that close to him... What makes me sad is not the fact that I lost someone that matted to me but the guilt that I caused someone's death... Ikari-san is so nice, she cares a lot about me for some reason and was worried for me but I'm not that close to her, I don't really care much about her.
I've already lost everything that mattered to me. My regular life was stripped away from me... so what do I do now?"
Yoshimi threw a punch directed at Hina's face, she dodged to the right and kicked her waist. Yoshimi stayed unaffected with her strong stance and then kicked back. To dodge the kick, Hina jumped upwards using 2nd form on her legs and stretched her arms downwards with the nails sharpened.
Yoshimi jumped backwards and before Hina could contract her arms, she sliced them with her own sharpened nails. Hina fell down with her hands now missing but she still stayed expressionless, she was regenerating them showing no sign of pain in her face.
"Even now, you still act like that. You're gross. Do you wish to live the rest of your life like this? Building no actual connection with anyone and staying alone with nothing but your misery? Are you still not over the fact that you lost your real life? A piece of advice for you, its gone and you can't get it back. Do the best with the cards you've been dealt with.", Yoshimi said in an unfeeling voice.
Hina still stayed quiet. Assuming Hina was giving up, Yoshimi let her guard down. Suddenly, Hina dashed behind Yoshimi and sliced her back with just the nail of one finger that she had managed to regenerated.
"Shit!", Yoshimi shouted and then prepared to attack back but Hina just began walking away. "Huh? What the hell are you doing?"
"I give up, you win.", Hina replied with a voice even more monotone than Yoshimi's, a voice completely soulless.
"What is with that girl...?"
"It seems this match is over as well. Which agents have been eliminated from the match until now?", Yoru asked.
"Until now, Takahashi-kun, Louis-kun and Asano-chan have been eliminated.", Shiori replied.
"So the first round of eliminations have been completed. Ichino-kun will just have to move up cause there's an odd amount of Group Members. It'll either be Yoshimi-san, Nakano-chan or Ryuza-"
Rin started walking towards Takeru. "You left us for him, right? Let me see what he's got."
Yoru looked concerned. "Wait, Ryuzaki-chan!" Rin ignored him and kept on walking.
As Takeru was still alone deep in thought, Rin walked up to him said, "Oi, Ichino Takeru! Get up, the next match will be between you and me."
Takeru slowly looked up from the ground witnessing Rin's intimidating figure.
GULP!