Chapter 82 The Game Of Tag III

Without missing a beat, Satoshi summoned his familiar, Windfan, and directed it at them to blow them away. The Principal almost touched them but fortunately, he was caught off guard when the Windfan almost knocked him forward. His first impulse was to stop himself from falling and by then, Satoshi, Hiroshi, and Sana were already a couple of hundred meters away from him.

"Hiroshi, just like we planned," Satoshi called out.

In an instant, a couple of walls spawned out of the ground, climbing to frightening heights of ten stories. These walls served as a breaker for anyone who tried to chase the three of them. In the middle of these walls were narrow pathways and on one of them, Hiroshi's party hid while trying to regroup and recover.

This was the tactic they formulated as soon as the game started and it wouldn't be possible if Sana wasn't with them. During the entire process, it may seem like Sana wasn't doing anything but she was actually the backbone that made it successful. One of her buffs was enhanced reflexes which he gave to Satoshi because he was the one who'll be doing most of the heavy lifting. And as for Hiroshi, she doubled his superpower output so he could manipulate earth and fire with ease. This was what made them unpredictable and simultaneously dangerous.

"That was close. The Principal really is scary." Hiroshi was reduced to simple sentences after everything that happened. Well, no one can blame him since they were just blown a couple of hundred meters away by a huge Windfan.

"If you're planning to do that again... just remember I'm not doing that again." Sana tried to maintain her alluring aura but she was reduced to the state of a panting dog. Her ragged hair and the multiple scratches on her tattered clothes didn't make her image any better.

Satoshi heaved a sigh of relief, totally ignoring Sana's complaints since he was sure he'd do it again if the opportunity arises. He couldn't sense any signs of the Principal being nearby so he led the group to a nearby abandoned, decrepit building which is a good hiding spot. Once again, he used his Droplet familiar so he could encase everyone in an orb of frozen water, sort of like an igloo in the middle of a desert. With this, no one would be able to see them while Hiroshi recovered his energy.

"If you were to train more, you'd be able to do more than those." Satoshi pointed his lips towards the towering walls that limited everyone's movements. Those walls weren't indestructible, but they could totally impede anyone traveling through them.

"Shut up, why am I with you anyways," Hiroshi said, but he didn't have any intention of leaving the team. "What do you think about the others, did they already get captured? We have no way of knowing."

"Yeah, for all we know, this game of tag might go for hours... and then we'll miss the night shows airing tonight." Satoshi continued.

"That's right! That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Goo is premiering tonight! Sheesh, why did we have to go through this? Out of all the days." Hiroshi lay flat on his back as a huge sigh escaped his mouth. After a few seconds, he was fast asleep, snoring as he tried to find a more comfortable spot. Out of nowhere, he grabbed a rock and hugged it as if it was a pillow.

Satoshi gulped. He could already foresee the awkward atmosphere that would befall the two of them. With Hiroshi awake, Satoshi didn't feel self-conscious at all. But now that Hiroshi was deep in his slumber, he couldn't shake off the feeling that he was alone with a girl, even though technically he wasn't.

'This is going to be a long wait.' Satoshi inwardly said.

.....

"You go first,"

"No, you go first,"

"My right ear already got done in. I don't know what will happen if I activated another trap of that Fuuka. And in all honesty, I'm afraid what those traps might do to me."

"Don't worry, my senses are top-notch. I managed to pull you out of that trap before it even inflicted some real damage."

"Barely, you barely reacted on time! If your senses are as good as you said, then why don't you lead the way and show me."

"Haap! That's no way to talk to your homeroom teacher!"

As Knighthawk and Kurogami continued to argue like little children, Flashbang and Shielder (who are in the same class as Kobayashi Siril— Class 3-4) appeared in front of them and tagged the two of them. There were no words exchanged anymore as Flashbang and Shielder went on their way. "You're now on the Principal's team," Flashbang said, creating a flashbang before disappearing in front of Kurogami.

"Who are y— what on earth?" Kurogami said as his eyes watered from the flashbang. The flashbang wasn't even that strong, it's just that Kurogami was really sensitive to light due to his attunement to the shadows.

"All that, for nothing. Sigh~" Knighthawk said. "You know what, I don't even want to bother capturing the others."

"Then you stay here. I have a score to settle with that girl Fuuka." Kurogami said, his eyes turning a different kind of dark.

As Kurogami turned around and headed the other way, Knighthawk had to squint his eyes in amazement as he saw an unfamiliar sight in front of him. It's as if Kurogami's feet melded with his shadows and he was sliding through the ground like an ice skater on the rink. This was what Kurogami decided to do since he thought that the traps might be planted on the ground. If his feet didn't touch the ground at all, then he wouldn't activate anything.

Just when he was getting comfortable sliding around, he sensed something up ahead and he ducked impulsively. That's when he heard a weird 'bloop' sound up above, and something seemed to have sucked the air right in on top of him. 'So she also set up traps in the air, huh. Seriously, I would've died if I didn't see through that.'

Of course, Kurogami was exaggerating when he said that. At most, the spatial trap would have knocked him unconscious without any damage to his head.

Once again, Kurogami's eyes turned a shade darker until his eyes, even outside his irises, were pure black. His shadow, which assumed his form up until now, started to get bigger and bigger until it extended to some places, getting thinner and thinner as it scoured through the land. Currently, Kurogami was trying to locate Fuuka by trying to locate her shadow which is always on the ground. Of course, if Fuuka was behind a wall or under a shade, then it would be harder for Kurogami to detect him.

As luck would have it, however, Fuuka was actually in a hole on the ground along with Cherry who was hiding with her. Even though they couldn't be seen in plain sight, their shadows couldn't be all the more obvious. It didn't take long before Kurogami detected them.

"Found you," Kurogami muttered under his breath as he slid, this time a pace faster than normal. Fuuka and Cherry were just nearby, approximately seven hundred meters from where he was, so he didn't have to travel that long. But then again, he knew that the place around them would be more riddled with spatial traps than usual so he'd have to be careful.

"Well, if worse comes to worst, I could just brute-force my way through and tag them. As long as I don't die, I won't be killed." He continued, realizing that what he said was just plain stupid but there was no way to retract it. Fortunately, no one heard it or he'd have forced himself to crawl into a hole and hope to die due to embarrassment.

Another trapped almost blew Kurogami's thighs off but he managed to jump in time. Getting tired of all the traps set in place, he decided to grab a handful of rocks and throw it towards the front as he smoothly slid while riding his own shadow. He managed to trigger all of the traps and safely go through the wasteland-like part of the Training Center. However, he revealed his location to Fuuka and Cherry because he was activating traps directly towards their general direction.

"We have to get out of here. The rest of my traps will buy us enough time to go to another location." Fuuka said, panic-stricken. Whatever it was traveling towards them, it was unstoppable. Even her traps couldn't stop it.

"But where would we go?"

Unluckily for them, Kurogami had already found their location and once he got it, there's no way they'd be able to escape him. By the time they started getting out of their hideout, Kurogami was already on their tail, paralyzing them by constricting their shadows in place.

"Kurogami? So this is how your power works... " Fuuka had already surrendered. She didn't even try to resist as Kurogami approached her and Cherry.

"Game over," Kurogami said with a mischievous smile.