"Sagasuga..."

"That is odd. The bonfire is still lively. Whoever started it can't have gone far. What do you intend on doing, Kawahara?"

Odd indeed. As I step right into the area that is less solid and more rigid than the previous ones, it's evident that we are inside yet another type of forest, that being a coastal littoral forest. The difference in ecologies isn't as vast as one would think because the sloppy mudflats are still just about around every corner, should we step outside of this low monotonous ground.

Firstly, we were examining the traces left on the bonfire. By crooking down our postures, several elements that indicate a few things began to unravel.

"If--- Imagine that the one who was here just a while ago was the one who has the ability to track down the locations..."

I didn't answer his question right away and kept on investigating the scene with my hands. The fire was semi-covered with ashes and dirt which already indicates that the individual was in a rush to erase evidence yet the bigger question remains, which Sagasuga asked right away.

"Even if it was, isn't it way too early for them to be aware of us? As far as I'm concerned this water stream should do considerable noise and our footsteps weren't massively alerting, were they?"

Wondering further evidence, my eyesight adventured to the path that was on the edge of the water, and there I found footstep marks. Given that this is a mudflat, it takes quite a time for your footsteps to be erased naturally.

In other words, time was nigh.

"Sagasuga, the footsteps, let's follow them."

Upon my declaration, we both got up and erupted our no-longer crooked positions as the path of action was ultimately clear.

Midst this, Sagasuga untied his uniform tie a little bit. This has been confusing me for quite a while. I am someone who has been wearing absolutely nothing on my top, but this guy seems to reject the idea of letting his top breathe a slight bit of oxygen.

As we began to travel outside of the lake's bay, thoroughly following the footsteps that started to grow their own mark as we marked our progress alongside them, I asked the question to Sagasuga who was religiously keeping a track of the footsteps.

"It's not some gay shit for two guys to be topless in this environment, you know? Or what, you got an ultra ripped body that's gonna make me want to fight you, is that it? Come on, put that fucking uniform shirt and tie inside your fucking bag already, Sagasuga..."

It's draining my consciousness just looking at his white uniform adjoined with his messy red tie. Sweat droplets are all over his neck yet he refuses to budge.

"But I like the school uniform's design. Isn't it elegant?"

"You are prioritizing elegance over your own physical comfort?"

"I like the idea better."

His passion for an idea enables him to completely put such strong factors as heat and sweat away like that? I don't even know how to classify someone like this.

"But anyway, are you sure you don't want to rest? Your legs must be exhausted, Kawahara."

There's no way we can do that. Especially when the footsteps and the scenario are starting to heavily intertwine into another completely different thing. Despite this being a not-so-colossal coastal littoral forest, we were closely coming to an end here. A bright light was emitting life force through the trees that covered our vision. Soon enough, I would assume that the sun would start to rise.

"Resting would be nice. I had a shit sleep after all, but not now, for obvious reasons."

"My sleep wasn't the greatest, but it was surprisingly silent, you know?"

"Unless there were animals closeby, it would be hard to not be silent."

Our feet were starting to be baptized by a soft yellowish gradient that resembled the sand from the initial beach itself. All this time, there was a mini river alongside the footsteps but they started to fade away as soon as we noticed that the footsteps had most likely intertwined with the river of crystalized blueish water that would turn out to be a canal of a freshwater lake.

"I thought it would be a beach, but this explains it a bit."

"It's a dead-end, more like..."

This expedition towards the unknown turned out to not be worth it. The individual was aware that as long as there is a river of water that we could only trace the footsteps through the mudflats on both the river's sides yet the river began to grow and grow which eliminated the footsteps. No doubt about something though; the individual most likely did this on purpose.

"Kawahara, could he had swum over this lake all the way to the other side? Look at it, it's gigantically vast. I can barely see the end of the water."

"If he had swum through the lake with his bag on his back, then the contents inside would get watery. Unless the fucker already has a base, to begin with, and doesn't feel the need to walk with his belongings. Hell, it's as if this bitch's avoiding us, what the hell? Guy's too much of a pussy to cooperate?"

All evidence thus far indicates that this fucker deliberately doesn't want to cooperate with us which in other words symbolizes two different options.

Option 1: He gains something we don't by delaying our progress when it comes to achieving words.

Option 2: He fears our wrath in particular.

Nevermind, there is a third option...

Option 3: He's deliberately toying with us and will eventually blend in when he feels like cooperating.

This means that he's either playing a hazardous game through caution, or he is just hiding from us by putting his tail in his leg consequently. Unless the individual is extremely confident in his running skills. Alternatively speaking, he might see himself as an overly confident individual, because he should know that going up against me will have him fucked eventually. Nonetheless, he doesn't fall flat yet.

Sagasuga in the middle of this kneeled down and drank the water slightly before adding a particular comment about it and my previous words.

"Not salty, you can drink it, Kawahara."

Drinking salty water is out of the question yet as I heard Sagasuga declare that it wasn't salty, my legs started to engulf the glacial tempered water the moment I kneeled down to drink the water.

It was refreshing and absolutely heavenly; practically an outer-worldly feeling.

"It's true, I can't deny it. He gains something with this endeavor of his. We absolutely know that. We just don't know what."

He's implying what I've been implying for a while. Surely, he wins something. It could just be the joy of making a fool out of us. It could simply be the knowledge of patterns. It could be the denial of potential cooperation. Possibly to create a sense of confusion later on? Since it has become clearly obvious that we have an enemy already.

Water swept a bit to his uniform by drinking so much water. Then, through the act of retracing his right uniform's sleeve, Sagasuga cleaned up his mouth fairly.

Meanwhile, I kept on drinking as much water as I possibly can. Not even to the point where I felt like it was sufficient; my body required me to drink as much water as possible. Though, I wouldn't be a fool to the point of making my body movements become less nibble and jagged just because I drank too much water.

"What are the places in this island that he could safely call a base though? As far as I'm concerned, we will eventually know this island from back to front, correct, Kawahara? It's not a mistake to say that you and I already know close to a quarter of this island already."

I elevated my posture before taking a swim to the lake on this yet-to-be-born morning.

On the tip of the frontier of the trees towering the calm perfectly transparent lake, the sun had lost its idea of absence.

"If he already had our locations to himself from the start and his goal wasn't to cooperate, then he went in the complete opposite direction of us from the start."

Nonetheless, by breaking the barrier of air and water below, my entire body felt alive and igniting with a sensation of blazing tranquility. Yet drawn exceedingly subterranean shells below made me return to the surface which was contrasting with a blinding illumination unlike the thermally bottomless darkness below.

"But that makes little sense, does it now, Sagasuga?"

"Yeah, I was about to say that before you took a swim. If his intention was to never cooperate in the first place and he already has our locations to his knowledge, then all the dude has to do is stay away!"

Though he said that last sentence out loud, it wasn't as much of an exclamation as it would initially seem. It contained a calm maneuver to it based on a pent-up frustration from not being able to understand what was currently going on.

I could've gone for another swim, but I opted not to and simply swept my hair back a little.

It has gotten longer...

"He's either mocking us or inviting us..."

Splashing his hands and face to the water and at the same time only, Sagasuga cleaned his face and his hair a bit. His curtain haircut has always been one of his most notable features. I don't see the appeal of it though.

"If we conclude that he has swum through the lake, then his footsteps will be visible regardless. Here is my idea, since this is an oval freshwater lake, we both go through each side and if we spot any footsteps, we unleash a huge shout which will make the other come to the other. Otherwise, if we don't, we simply go to the end of this oval lake and continue to move forward. How does that sound?"

"The plan is fine, as long as you don't swim through the lake. You can't damage the papers inside and risk having the cellphone catch water is negative."

"I know. I'll take the left side."

"Right side is mine, be fast, Sagasuga."

With that said, we departed in different ways. Usually, running in dense vast yellow sand would make my running movements sluggish and slow, but the sand here was not vast as it was more acceptable as a surface that it incorporated watery elements much like a mudflat thus making the traveling far easier.

It wasn't even halfway through the course that Sagasuga shouted in my direction from the other side, which was growing larger in terms of distance.

"Kawahara!! This way, fast!"

"I'm on my way, don't move!"

I've thought of running away from Sagasuga all this time but he has the words and it wouldn't make any sense for me to break cooperation as of this current moment.

Plus, it would increase potential bad blood. Overall, not a good option at the moment, even if I have concrete knowledge of his, Tsudo's, and Tatsu's words altogether combined with four of my own. The advantage of having seven words is already in the palm of my hands. That doesn't give me an excuse to be careless, however.

Soon after, I met up with Sagasuga who immediately pointed at a trial of visible footsteps which would lead back to the forest itself.

"He must've run through the edge of the lake since his footsteps would naturally be consequently erased by the waves of the lake."

"But the fact that he cut his own way so abruptly like this, Sagasuga, means that he was aware of our progression. We've lost time already since he capitalized on our trailing. He's saying that if he had gone all the way to the end of the oval lake afterward that there was a slight chance of us spotting him but now that he prematurely cut his way, there isn't. Let's get going..."

Though oval, the lake was leaking a new avenue which was serving as the purpose of a canal.

The water source of this lake could, in other words, be something else entirely.

Resuming our way into the coastal littoral forest, the sun began to greet us from above. Temperatures began to rise slowly.

"It must be around six in the morning, right?"

Naturally, we could just check our phones, but wasting battery could turn out to be crucial. If there is some sort of underground and we are trapped for some reason, then telling the difference between day and night will be impossible. I'm aware it's unlikely but I simply want to consider possibilities instead of trashing them.

It's better to consider than to not consider if it could come up. I just refuse to give relevance to things that don't deserve to be relevant in the first place.

Help support creative writers by finding and reading their stories on the original site.

"Hours don't really matter anymore, Sagasuga. What matters is when the sun is up and when the sun is down. Remember how we have to meet up with the rest?"

"You really bought that, Kawahara...?"

I stopped my track as did Sagasuga. Our feet were carefully not intertwining with the evidence otherwise known as the individual's footprints.

Invisible rays of light illuminated Sagasuga's face and an eerie smile came forth.

"Form an alliance with me, Kawahara."

"Was this all for that purpose, Sagasuga?"

"Think of it as you may."

"That won't do. I need to know whether this was purposely orchestrated or not."

It would be a waste to not acquire such valuable information, so I insisted with Sagasuga as he stretched his left cheek with a serious glare on his eyes.

Then, he tilted his head a bit to the right and answered me back almost monochromatically.

"Of course it was. They are pretty useless, no matter how you look at them. Yet, look at the two of us. Don't you think that we could make faster progress to sweep this exam?"

He even went as far as showing jester-like movements such as squeezing his shoulders and contracting his pulse downwards with his hands.

"Yeah, I think so too."

"Then, what are we waiting for? Don't you want to get out of here fast too? If we wait and wait, then we are delaying the inevitable. Unless...?"

Does he consider the fact that I could've put my phone on recording mode all this time and then expose this information? I could've. After all, it doesn't matter if you don't have a connection or not, since cellphones have apps that can be used regardless of connection since they aren't attached to a necessity of connection or internet. Recording a conversation is one of them.

But... His words ring true.

Alternating my vision from his face all the way to the feeble water tide on my right, I answered truthfully.

"I won't deny that they are useless, but to cast out their cooperation through pure betrayal like that? What if the owner of the words is necessary later on? We are the ones who have their words, not the other way around."

"Don't tell me you are afraid of ruling such a scenario through an iron-fist, Kawahara?"

"Of course I'm fucking not. I even considered it multiple times, but it's important to keep their moods in check until we actually know how to make use of these words. Because, as far as we are concerned, these could be words without any real usage behind them."

He sighed and laughed mildly, crossing the line of mockery this time.

"Come on, dude! This is a deserted island. The law doesn't apply here. If women were here, we could rape them and not get punished for it. We can kill others if we mess around with the respective chips and so on. My point is, you're not really acting like yourself, Kawahara. Back in school, you are more primitive and savage, but now you are just a little wuss...?"

I wanted to clench my fists, grind my teeth, twist my eyebrows, penetrate his mocking stance with an evil glare, but ultimately, I simply agreed with him.

"You're right, you know? But that's just due to the circumstance. I gain little to no benefit from going savage mode. The same applies with you, Sagasuga."

"That's kinda my point. We are equally capable of exorcising control, so let's form an alliance and ditch the rest."

"I can't."

"Why not, Kawahara?"

"I am afflicted to my own crew. Hideout members are afflicted to me as I am afflicted to them. Betrayal is not an option. It's not the same as Tsudo and Tatsu, who are afflicted to you based on weaker terms."

And now, this is where I reverse the tide. I kept on walking slowly alongside the footsteps and proposed something to Sagasuga who was behind me this time.

"Why don't you join me, Sagasuga?"

"You mean your Hideout group? We both know that this means that I'll have to be afflicted to you for a longer time than the exam itself."

Supposedly, I create contracts that have iron-rules that must be followed and if you were to sign such a contract up, you would be part of the Hideout.

However, it's a mistake to assume that in order to get my wisdom in these exams you have to be entirely afflicted to me. Of course, the conditions will differ, but I see it as a sneak peek. You get my help, and if you like it, or if you find yourself in a rather unfortunate situation where help would be nice, you will join.

In light of Sagasuga, it's hard to say that such a scenario will apply since he is prone to success more than the others.

"We could form a temporary alliance. You would temporarily be a Hideout member. I've done this twice with Daniel. I am not afraid of doing it, really. What do you say?"

"So the core difference here is that I wouldn't be betraying Rayazaki and Kuzan but would be afflicted to them still?"

"Yes."

I looked back and found Sagasuga thinking about this. Accordingly, I have to conduct this in a way that would benefit me the most. The essence of being a Hideout member is that you get the leader's, I, help. Under the circumstance of exams that are manipulative and through the strict knowledge of being aware that there could be others who would screw you, would you not want help as long as you just have to be afflicted to a person? Simply afflicted.

You don't have to give money or anything that goes beyond the word reasonable. Conditional help, naturally. I'm not a saint, so I refuse to be unconditional about it, though, to others, this will seem unconditional at first. The trial is very simple. At first, they won't mind it, because they are focused on such unconditional factors as having my wisdom to their aid. Yet as soon as they begin to be familiar with my ways, they will become far more useful.

"What are the conditions, Kawahara?"

This is the tricky part. I can't tell the conditions without his consent because he won't like them.

"I will tell the conditions if you give your consent to be a temporary Hideout member until the exam is over."

Slowing my pace down, I took another glance at his facial expression and caught him smirking before replying back.

My skin was feeling violated by the primordial ball of light emerging from the flat line.

"That's rough, man. You have something unreasonable up to your sleeve, don't you?"

"It's not unreasonable though. By being a Hideout member, I would be lending you my help which would mean you would pass the exam."

"Even though I can do that myself?"

This prick really felt the necessity to be arrogant right now when he's purposely trying to exploit information out of me?

"If you can fucking do it yourself, then fucking do it. Not my problem, loser."

"Haha, just a joke, just a joke! Tell me something about the conditions. Do they change in accordance to the current exam or are they permanent?"

.......

I didn't want him to ask this because this reveals additional information. He realized that being a temporary member and a full-fledged one is completely different yet what makes that difference isn't just the words themselves. It's the conditions.

"You can't compare premium treatment to royal treatment, can you?"

"Hah, as I thought, they really do change. Tell me something in addition to that; if I demand royal treatment instead of premium treatment as a temporary member, then will you give consent?"

He's pushing his limits, but the condition that I have for his alliance benefits me so much that I'll have to let it slide. Outside of this current situation, the water stream was growing fiercer and fiercer. It wasn't an exaggeration to claim that the water was perturbing to the point of claiming the adjective raging to its constitution. Decimating contrast kept on crushing my expectations for an ecology. Towards what end would a raging tide lead up to?

Extravagantly predictable.

"If you concede to the conditions, then sure."

"Hm, interesting. Hey, did the conditions just change?"

"Clever, aren't ya?"

I didn't imply much else, but he was right on the money. So, I continued.

"If the treatment changes; the conditions do too."

"That's the weird part, Kawahara. You are probably aware that I can pass this exam all by myself, but you are making the deal oddly bad for you. Are you doubting my capacities?"

I'll be brutally honest this time around.

"I'm confident I can screw you up in ways that you won't be able to use those "capacities" of yours."

Unscathed by the persistent tide, my bare toe finger from my feet felt the rising potency in the malevolent water's frequency.

"Eh... That would be slightly troublesome, would it not...?"

Even though he replied to my serious sentence, all Sagasuga limited himself to do was to examine the tide's elevating frequency with his left hand, letting it slip finger by finger through the simple action of down falling his posture while allowing his left knee to hit the rocky ground. Correct; we were being blessed with a rocky surface this time around. Ecology from ecology.

"It doesn't have to be troublesome if you just join the Hideout. They wouldn't be happy to hear that you were on the verge of betraying them, you know...?"

I did the same as him, but I took the extra step of tilting my head to the horizon ahead of me. Soon enough, the tide would stop. Unless it actually just fell somewhere else.

Further details such as the unbearable water noise and droplets of water being splashed on our faces went unchecked as we kept our conversation rolling.

"I wouldn't lose to you in a war for an image. You're aware, right?"

"Sagasuga, this already is an image war. If I had to call this exam by a name it would be: Image War."

Retracting my hands from the violent stream, I allowed my upper body to feel a bit of water by rubbing the water on my hand to it.

"True. Well, if you won't tell me anything, then I won't cooperate. Such a shame though. Just imagine how fast we could progress if we limited our cooperation to ourselves."

"Do you dislike the tasks of a leader, Sagasuga?"

Once more, Sagasuga slicked back his curtain hair, making visible the edges of the curtain hairstyle itself in the broad middle.

"No way. But I dislike leading a weak task with weak people."

"No qualms about insulting them whatsoever. Can I expose you for the sake of fun, Sagasuga?"

"You wouldn't do that. If their moods go out of control, then it doesn't benefit you, right?"

"True."

So, no deal from him.

Thus far, two people have rejected their entrances to the Hideout, those being; Daniel and Sagasuga. Yet Daniel was fine with being a temporary member for two times, but Sagasuga was smart enough to know that doing so would put him at a disadvantage.

I was going to demand his three words under my own possession, should he had said yes. Making seven words in my possession. Knowledge of such words might not be enough, so the materialistic possession of them could come in handy. Surely he thought of that, no doubt.

"They end here. Now, what could've been his path, Kawahara?"

Witnessing the end of the shallow footsteps and the closure of the wide but desultory stream's horizon line, Sagasuga wondered the same as I did.

"Let's see..."

Envisioning the scenario that was ahead of us was no longer necessary. Therefore, I took a step right next to the edge of the rift; almost inviting myself to fall to the rocky concrete below. Though I have no way of knowing how many meters the difference between this rift and the concrete below is, I would imagine it would be around 20-25 meters, if not 30. It appeared that the ultimate purpose and the essential reason as to why there was an abundantly coherent stream all along were because it would turn into a dead-end; an eggenthal tremendous waterfall blessing the pacific water below with a tragically destructive impact made from the stream's abnormal frequency alongside its abysmal density.

Mirrored to the appearance of an oasis yet not.

Mysteriously enough, Sagasuga was already implying that the individual could have chosen the path of jumping from all the way this surface above to the end below. It is not possible through just a simple jump. But, to confirm something, I leaned in further, which was indicating that I could fall below.

"Dude, be careful. You're not going to recover if you fall..."

I ignored Sagasuga's warning and took a further peek at the structure that was on the waterfall's right side. What I found, through kneeling down and feeling with my two hands were rocks with different shapes, indicating the obvious path to the individual.

Steadily breathing the far clearer oxygen free to take from the emitting impulsive waterfall on my side, I returned to my previous position and talked to Sagasuga who was waiting for an answer.

"It's possible that the individual climbed back down. Check it below, if you aren't a little pussy."

"Really now?"

"Yes, really."

But Sagasuga wasn't moving from his position at all, which made me question his stance.

"Not gonna check?"

"I see no reason for you to lie."

"Aren't you just afraid of me snatching your bag from behind and kick you from the waterfall? Sure, I can't kill you, but if you stay alive, it's a different story."

I was just joking at this point. I am extremely positive that he would be able to reverse the tide if I tried such a stupid action on him.

"I really hate to break it to you, but... I have the rock-climbing experience, so I could just revert my position to below to dodge it."

"Eh, realllly? Wanna give it a shot then, smartass?"

I closed in my distance but Sagasuga just kicked the waterfall's tide with his right foot while turning his back on me, precisely because he recognized that I already had a path in mind and that it was just a joke. By going to the left side of the waterfall, we would look for a way down.

Silently, we continued to venture the edge of the waterfall by rapidly crossing the tide. Otherwise, we might have been caught in it. It was respectively deep as it went all the way to my waist. Sagasuga, who was on his uniform pants enjoyed the consequence of being wet.

"What's the reason this time for not taking your pants off?"

"I don't need a reason, it's just part of the process. You have a leaf skirt which frees your movements, Kawahara."

Nothing else but a self-made leaf skirt full of leaves attached to strings in order to keep the structure stable and strong. That was my alternative to wearing the uniform pieces, which Sagasuga just kept on denying to take off.

"Wuss. Are you afraid of exposing yourself physically? Are you creating a window of opportunity for you to reveal your body to me just because you are secretly more ripped?"

He looked back at me and my body before replying, which implies he did take my question seriously, but his expression was that of a jester.

"God, no way. How many gyms hate you, Kawahara? Oh, a hill. So there is a way down. How fantastic."

"Yeah, let's go there."

Roughly a few meters away from the waterfall's stream, we began to witness a path that would go downhill; all the way to an avenue that would most likely open our way to the rocky concrete below.

"You haven't been here, right?"

"Have you, Sagasuga?"

While descending, I observed that Sagasuga also didn't feel the necessity to support himself on the trees in order to maintain his balance, as he already could without the help of the trees. Even if this hill was very inclined. The noisy monotonous waterfall on our right side started to show its side. We could further look at a feathery scenic length present throughout the entirety of this strangely luminous waterfall.

"I have not. So, in just a few hours, we have discovered a mangrove forest, a coastal littoral forest, and now a stream that ends on a waterfall alongside a cliff? This is the first cliff you have witnessed, yeah?"

"Yeah, this is about the first inclined area that I've seen this tilted."

This is the absolute truth. I may have witnessed two waterfalls already, but this one didn't exactly have a dead-end, unlike the oasis. By going down and down the hill, it became pretty clear that this was just yet another conjunction of water supplying another tide. However, since the structure was inclined in the first place, it would naturally turn out to be a waterfall.

Internally, my leg muscles were starting to physically alert me of the necessity of resting for a bit. Considering that, by the time we reach the bottom of the cliff, I will find something to rest on.

I think a few hours have passed since our departure, so it should be 9 am, I believe.

And then, we reached the bottom and felt the rocky structure on our feet.

"Our search was fruitless in the sense where we couldn't find the person behind this, but on the other hand, we already discovered three different places."

Balancing the loss and win, Sagasuga adjusted the reality to his liking.

The reason as to why he was already admitting that we couldn't find the person behind this was because we were permitting ourselves to believe that there aren't any footsteps that could be tracked in a ground that is made of boulders of all shapes. It became impossible.

I wanted to keep on searching. I wanted to simply hurry up and get to the other side of the river to see what sort of path he could've taken through the simple method of looking for his footsteps yet my body demanded a rest.

Realistically speaking, traveling on an island isn't that hard. However, if you go and adventure it at absurd pacing; elevated and highly frequent, then, by not taking breaks, you are killing yourself.

"........." x2.

Our reactions were immediately silent as we began to realize that this wasn't just any waterfall. This fountain was particularly blessing a specific creature outside.

"For fuck's sake, I wanted to rest... Just a bit..."

Lamentably, I complained with my eyes marked on the scenario ahead of us. In particular, the stream of the fountain crushing its liquid waves on an uncaring animal who I was having trouble honestly identifying.

"What are you talking about, Kawahara? Even I am tired, but he couldn't have gotten far."

"I know... Oh shit, its eyes are on us. You might wanna make a run for it."

Slowly advancing from the waterfall's base, an animal that resembled a bear but had ears and a mouth that did not correspond to that of a bear but to a...

No, no, no... Kappas don't actually exist, I'm tripping. I must be... Yet, every time I glance back and forth to its mouth which is adjoined with his nose, the belief gains a brutal amount of credibility even if it goes against common sense.

"But we haven't spotted a single animal thus far, Kawahara... Not even in the lake... Isn't it breakfast time?"

Sagasuga, with a low smirk on his face, permanently crossed glares with the animal residing close to the waterfall's base, resembling a bear, for the most part. I was going to suggest simply avoiding a fight with it, but the Ka------- bear, felt challenged by Sagasuga, who was not showing any signs of backing down whatsoever and was further adjusting his sleeves from his uniform, all the way back, fearlessly.

"Grrrrr..."

[https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/810323018014261321/813412141251690546/Sagasuga_Vs_Kappa.png]

"Kawahara, I'll handle it. In the meantime, leisure towards the end of this tide and find its end. Don't go towards the other side of the forest in the hope to find the person because surely..."

"Yeah... We've been set up. Out of all the things..."

A bear waterfall...