Chapter 32 : Insecure

*A/N* : Been a while I haven't done this... Well I didn't have much time lol... Anyway...

Bad news... I couldn't write a single chapter since the start of my uni... So like for 1 week and a half now... The chapters posted were those I had written before... So welp, i'ma try to write more but I don't have enough time for it...

Just now that if I really can't i'll slow down the releases to only one chapter every Sunday, because I feel like it's the only schedule I'll be able to follow (by writing on weekends)

I hope you can understand.

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Rumi and Kurai were the first of their teams to reach the sea water, Kurai was first, even though he didn't use his maximum speed he was still far ahead of everybody else, and only Rumi was behind, close to him.

*Splash*

Not caring that they were wearing clothes, both friends dived head first into the water.

Instantly, they started swimming the front crawl, the fastest type of swimming technique.

Their quirks were rendered useless in water, indeed, let it be Kurai or Rumi, their respective quirk didn't bring any benefits to swimming faster. Well, expect the enhanced abilities.

So they had to do it the old way: only with their own strength.

While swimming with all his power Kurai was glad, 'It's good that my quirk hasn't affected my behaviour deeply.'

He was referring to the saying that 'cats don't like water', but so far he hadn't met any aversion to water; showers, swimming pools, and now sea. He was fine in all of them.

They were already 20 meters farther than the other kids when they started swimming too, and a bit further, Ryuko just got on her boat with 2 teachers supervising the first challenge.

They were there to take notes of who failed, and who won.

Very few kids had a quirk which brought them some sort of benefits under water, a small part didn't even have quirks to begin with.

Only 2 other kids were 'catching up' to the duo leading the race, one half mermaid girl who activated her quirk after having her body submerged into the water, and another boy who was launching small wind pipes from his feet while swimming too.

Although they had obvious advantages compared to Rumi and Kurai, and even if they already distanced themselves from the main pack, the term 'catching up' wasn't totally right. They could at best keep up and not get left behind too much.

That was because, even though the caramel tones kids didn't have useful quirk underwater, their strength was far, far above average.

Rumi's leg strength was amazing to say the least, she was splashing water everywhere like a boat motor. Since she lacked technique compared to him, she bet everything she had on her leg power.

Kurai, who was in front of her, wasn't particularly tired, he kept his energy for later, the swimming part was 1 kilometer long after all. He was conserving his stamina with his good technique and nice strength repartition throughout his whole body.

The race continued and some kids were already failing, having spent their stamina too fast while trying to catch up to the main lead, or because they simply didn't have enough for this race.

So Ryuko had to go and fetch them with her boat.

Some others just straight out abandoned after seeing how far they were.

The main pack was just under 600 meters of the way when Kurai reached the opposite shore first, followed closely by Rumi.

He took his time to get rid of his clothes, and only kept his boxer, letting Rumi have enough time to overcome him.

Though, he didn't mind and flashed her a smile while flexing his abs.

He only heard a tongue clicking before resuming his run too.

She probably didn't care about her clothes being drenched, so she continued and didn't stop running.

She reached first the second obstacle (the swimming part was considered as the first) called Commando Crawl and like a true soldier, not caring about the mud, she dived head first under the barbed wires, crawling as fast as she could.

Rumi tried to stay as much as she could ahead of Kurai, so she was spending her stamina like crazy.

Just then Kurai reached it too, and didn't even blink before diving.

When Rumi got out, she sprinted full force after seeing the next obstacle, a 6 meters wall was standing in front of her, and the end was even inclined backwards!

She didn't stop running and continued vertically until she felt that she was slipping, just then, the small bunny made a big jump.

Leaping in the air, she clutched on the edge of the wall and did a small pull-up to climb on what was left.

Kurai didn't imitate her, to catch up, he opted for a more direct option.

Even before reaching the tall wall, he leaped hard, flexing his quads as much as he could and managed to reach the top with his hands.

The 4th obstacle was a rope-climb where the person had to ring the bell at the top before resuming the race. Rumi was already engaging the rope when Kurai reached it.

But arm strength wasn't her forte, so Kurai actually rang the bell at the same time as her.

Both let go of the bell simultaneously, and fell down.

"Heh, 'caught you!" Kurai grinned at her before running.

Rumi only bared her teeth at him, she was trying to regulate her unsteady breath, so she couldn't lose time and answer him.

Reaching the fifth and last obstacle, Kurai paused.

In front of him was a deep cliff filled with mud and only a thin log was put there to cross it.

'Last obstacle needs a good equilibrium, huh?' As a cat, he wasn't threatened by this kind of challenge.

So instead, he looked back at the whole course, the majority of the pack reached the shore, around 60 students from the initial 80 were left. The mermaid girl and jet boy were only going through the mud.

"Oi! Show-off! Why did ya stop?" Rumi shouted at him after seeing him still.

Kurai shook his head and brought his attention back to his bunny-eared friend, "Oh nothing."

Then he smiled at her, "Ladies first." He bowed and showed her the way with one hand.

"..." But instead of walking forward, Rumi looked at him warily.

"No, go on, I'm serious!" He insisted, seeing her sweaty little frame trying to catch her breath.

"Is this a trap?" Rumi kept her guard up, already used to his pranks.

"No, not at all, I'm just leaving you a chance, since it's the only log to cross the cliff, once I set my foot on it, you can consider it my win."

"Tsk." Rumi clicked her tongue after hearing his overconfident explanation.

"Don't mind me taking the first spot!" She then overcame him for the second time of the day and delicately crossed the cliff.

Unfortunately, not even after 5 steps, she could feel her legs trembling, the log was really thin and slippery.

Rumi didn't know for how long she could keep up without falling. 'Damn! Damn! So that was why!'

She didn't know what to do so instead she brazingly increased her speed, thinking that; if she would fall soon, she just needed to reach the other side first.

It would've worked, but she slipped even more and finally, what was bound to happen, happened.

*Splash*

"HAh! You rushed in too fast, muscle-head!" Kurai laughed at his friend, seeing her white fur now brown/black, full of mud.

"Grrr!" Rumi growled at him, feeling all dirty.

"Look at how it's done, dear friend." Keeping his theatrics, Kurai walked at a normal pace, slowly and steadily.

He wanted to put his hands into his pockets, but he remembered halfway through that he threw them away after being done swimming.

In the end, he shrugged and continued, he was pretty much done.

The whole time he was crossing the cliff, his eyes remained locked on Rumi, not even looking in front of him. It was as if he taunted her.

"See? Easy." Finally he reached the other side and crossed the finish line.

"Now, come."

***

Further away, Ryuko took note of another kid giving up during the obstacle course now.

'That was impressive.'

She started remembering Kurai's and Rumi's performance earlier, it was the third time already.

She didn't know who was more impressive than the other, Rumi, who was spending her stamina like crazy from the beginning and could keep it up until the end. Or Kurai who looked like he was taking a stroll.

'Both.' She grinned. Her upbringing made her respect strong people, and she really liked to see them play, the race was very entertaining to her.

*Sigh*

She let out a tired sigh, just before, she kindly offered her help to take care of any kids who were drowning/giving up. So now, she couldn't really keep her whole focus on the game.

"Another one!" A fat and tanned teacher with short black hair exclaimed.

Nodding, Ryuko scribbled the kid's number on her notes.

"37 eliminated as of now."

The obstacle course continued for a while until the last participants reached the finish line.

Ryuko moved to the finish line too, the teachers were behind her, giving failing grades to the eliminated pupils.

"From the initial 80 students, 42 passed the finish line." Ryuko was now in front of everyone, telling their results.

"Unfortunately, you two, were the last, so you are eliminated too. The maximum number of students was 40." She said, pointing to 2 kids in the crowd.

Then she raised her eyes from her notes to Kurai.

Smiling, she declared loudly, "As for the rest… You're all qualified for the next step, I want to particularly congratulate Kurai for finishing first while breaking all the previous records!"

Ryuko started clapping loudly, she was soon followed by everyone, even the sulking little bunny.

"I also want to congratulate Rumi for breaking every record too, sadly you came second so you don't have any benefits more than this honorable mention." Ryuko looked straight into Rumi's eyes, she was quite regretful, her performance was as stunning as Kurai's but she wasnt getting anything out of it.

Rumi nodded at her, she wasn't bothered by any of this, from the moment she started this race the only thing she wanted to see was Kurai losing face. So from the moment she lost to him, she stopped caring about any other thing.

Still, Ryuko smiled apologetically and pursued her talk.

"Now, I want to ask everyone to please stand where your team is." And bit by bit, the 2 groups were formed again.

On one side, 17 yellow bandannas, on the other 23.

Ryuko counted the teams up, "Okay, done!" She enthusiastically said, giving Kurai his yellow bandanna.

He actually stripped it out during the race earlier. Quite ironically, Kurai was in the yellow team, with a yellow bandanna complementing his shining golden orbs and Rumi was in the red team, and it was also complimenting her blood-red eyes.

Ryuko then continued her referee role, she was really enjoying this.

"Alright, since Team Red are more, they'll keep this island, and a fire camp has already been made as a reward for winning the first challenge."

She turned her head toward Kurai, feeling a bit bad for them, "As for team yellow, you'll need to go to the next island just there."

She pointed to a barren island a bit further away.

"And you'll need to make the fire yourself." She kept looking at him in the eyes, but she didn't see any fluctuation.

Nothing.

He wasn't shocked nor depressed, like she thought.

`Is he used to this?' She hoped for him.

Kurai didn't say a word about that, he was indeed quite knowledgeable about survival stuff.

He was raised in a forest, with mercenaries all around him, so of course, he had to learn very soon how to take care of himself in the wild.

Though, he couldn't help and blurted out his usual cheeky comment, "You should definitely prepare the next reward for us, I don't know… Chocolate sounds good." Then he turned back, waving his hand at the shocked dragon.

A bit further away, Rumi was observing their interaction, but because of the noise around her she couldn't hear them talk.

"Grrr!" She let out a frustrated growl, scaring her teammates even more than before, well, not that she cared to begin with.

She couldn't help but feel weird inside her. Weird at how Kurai was socializing with people so fast.

Weird at how he was becoming friends with that blond haired chick so fast.

Or weird at how he was distancing himself from her. Even though it wasn't his fault.

Seeing him come closer to her, she didn't know what to say. What would she do without him? Could she really tolerate those weaklings? She couldn't yet find the answers to those questions.

How would she fare alone, without his broad shoulders helping her? Without his banters or pranks to lighten up the mood?

'I have to do it alone?... But Can I?' For the first time, she doubted herself.

She had so many questions and fears but they all remained hidden deep in her mind.

Kurai now stood in front of her, "Ayo, you've been pretty lucky, if the fire wasn't in the reward, I doubt your team would have ever made it, heh." He chuckled at her.

Rumi sneered, "Like your team could ever start a fire too, tsk."

She didn't want to sound so grave and venomous with her words, she herself didn't know why she said that.

Kurai shrugged, "You'll see…"

"Anyway… you shouldn't cause trouble alright?" He continued to say before leaving with his team, who was already swimming far ahead.

"..."

Rumi had her tongue tied, she wanted to say so many things to him, but in the end her mouth remained agape, without any sound exiting it.

She wanted to ask him to stay with her.

She wanted his presence near her to help her reign over her mind.

She wanted his warmth to appease her weary mind during the future lonely nights.

He was always a reliable friend, someone who wasn't scared to take responsibility. And most importantly someone who made her days fuller.

Even though they would fight or argue sometimes, they never meant it, and in the end they'll always laugh and joke at or with each other.

'What I'ma gonna do now?' Looking back at her teammates, not a single one appealed to her.

That's how…

In the end… She noticed that...

She just wanted… '...—to be with you.'