"You know… A girl I know would die of jealousy right now if she saw how close we were. Even though you are threatening me. Isn't that funny?"
"What are you talking about?"
"But in reality… I think I like that about her. Actually, if I wanted her to change because of that, could I even love her? Is not the fact that you don't want anything changed about a person prerequisite for saying you love that person, because otherwise you would not want that person, but someone like them but a little different?"
"What are you… Can you shut up?!"
"I think you can extend that philosophy even further and say, true love is when you find something completely perfect, when it clouds your vision, values and beliefs. Like a drug. Which is why, once we call in love, we end up doing the most irrational things."
"You're crazy…"
At that moment, in preparation to tighten the grip on her knife, she loosened it slightly, which Yamato instantly noticed, grabbing her knife hand by the wrist, twisting it and punching her in the stomach with his elbow. While doing that he pulled her leg away with his foot, all in one clean turning motion ending with her being thrown to the ground and her hand hitting a rock, causing her to let go of the knife.
"So easily distracted…"
Despite her recovering nearly instantly, Yamato had already taken the knife and gotten space in between them. Now face to face, both seemed to prepare for direct physical combat.
"I don't think you introduced yourself… That's pretty rude, y'know?"
"Don't tell me about what is right and wrong…"
The knife was pulled out of Yamato's hand again, back to her. She grabbed Lily by the hair and held the knife to her throat now.
"No closer, or she dies."
"…So?"
"Don't play dumb. I know you care about them, for whatever reasons… Maybe you need them… Even if it's not genuine care, you don't want them to die."
Yamato looked at Lily, then back at her, with eyes that could not care less. Even on such a sunny day, there was no light reflected by those hollow eyes which looked at his classmate. His sarcastic tone changed as well, now a fitting detachment in them. It appeared he had enough of these shenanigans.
"It appears you misunderstood… I'm almost certain you care more for them than I do. After all, did you not stop when you thought they might die, when you attacked earlier? I conclude from your actions so far that I am your sole target. Please, think back at when you shot those darts, did I make any motion to catch or deflect a dart not aimed at myself?"
"…"
"But if you truly believe hurting or killing either or both of these children, by all means, go ahead."
"You're bluffing…"
"Are you the type of person to gamble with the lifes of innocent bystanders?"
He eyes focus on hers, which were somewhat cold, but not in the sense she tried to make it seem. She did not want to kill them. Much rather, she could not do it, even if she had no other choice.
"No… You're just as much a child as they are. I do wonder… What could you want from me? We never met before, so it can't be revenge. Unless you are avenging someone else's misfortune supposedly caused by me… No, that's not it. What a mystery you are…"
He took a step towards her, which was when she bagan to realize that her hostage would get her nowhere. Maybe it would be best to retreat? However she felt like that would prove to be difficult. So attack it was!
Charging at him, more defensively than she wanted to, she tried stabbing him in the arms and legs, or at least inflict minor cuts, however all were redirected or blocked with such a casually disappointed expression, that she began losing hope altogether. But she would not give up that easily.
"You know… We don't have forever. Class 2 will not hold them off for much longer. And once Yuki gets here, trust me, when she sees you pointing a knife at me this exam will be over for entirely different reasons… So if you don't mind, just give up and answer my questions."
"I'm not scared of you."
"Do you know the difference between bravery and not being scared?"
"What are you on about now?"
"If you risk your life despite low odds of winning or even surviving, that's brave."
He kicked her knife out of her hand and as it flew back to her grabbed it mid air and used the motion towards her to stab through the palm of her hand.
"However not being scared even though there is no chance for victory at all… That's just the fantasy of bravery."
She clenched her teeth while suppressing a scream of pain, but eventually charged at him with all the strength she had left, ramming him to the ground and just pulling the knife out of her hand into his shoulder. Yamato did not make a single sound at the injury. At least his head landed on his jacket, which he has previously thrown to the ground. Though he put his hand there as well, just to be sure.
She let out a sigh of relief as pinned him down beneath him.
"I guess I am brave then…"
"Almost…"
His hand on the jacket beneath his had slapped onto her thigh, which would have been a weird way of attacking her from this position, were it not for the poisonous dart which was still in that jacket and now in her thigh, which had her unconscious almost instantly.
"…Great, now I'm injured and my shirt is bloody. Whatever…"
He pushed her off him and got up, though his shoulder was already limiting his movements. He took the jacket off the girl which had so stubbornly refused to introduce herself, and ripped off a enough material to use it as a bandage, since his own jacket had been in contact with the poison and the dart was stuffed in it for a while, so he did not take any risks with it. After pulling out the knife and using the best healing magic he had access to on it, and on the hand of the girl, he wrapped the material around his wound and there was enough left to tend her wounds too, so he did that as well. However now he was running out of time. Yuki would soon reach him and she would not walk past a couple of logs again like last time. And there was the small problem of everyone being unconscious for who knows how long. But it would not be that long until sunset, so that was something. He had already not slept last night, so he really needed to this time. Though if really not possible, he could push through one more day too, despite how much labor he had to do lately. He only saw one way out, and that was to carry everybody. The rude girl, which is how he would refer to her from now on until she introduced herself, preferably with her real name, on his back and Andrew under one arm and Lily under the other. Together they were weighing about 150 kg, which was quite the luggage. It was probably worth mentioning that Yamato had used up all of his mana in the construction last night, and barely regenerated anything because he had not rested since this exam bagan. Otherwise he would have used magic in the fight just now, or literally now when he had to carry three people. It obviously slowed him down significantly, but he seemed to manage keeping a distance between Yuki, who still had not caught up yet, but was presumably getting closer by the second. After a while however, he needed a break. It was getting darker, but he somehow managed to regenerate mana in the 20 minutes he was resting under a tree, which was where he spotted another cave, high enough to actually stay undetected this time. Of course, he spotted it. But only because of the angle he was looking up at. This part of the canyon was not exactly straight, and there were a lot of ledges which made it barely noticeable. Unlike their previous cave which was on a flat wall. Now with a little mana, he could fly them up one by one, starting with the twins. But of course, nothing was easy today, as when he went down to get the rude girl, he ran out of mana again. Which of course only left one option. He had to strap her to his back and carry her up manually by climbing the wall. Of course, by now it was completely dark, and it would be a real challenge, but maybe if they were to fall he could muster one last spell to not die falling down. He used the last bits of rope he had left from his construction project of last night to securely tie her to his back, which surprisingly made he think of Yuki and how she would say something like "I love this!" Or something, if she were in her position. However he wanted to get up as soon as possible to finally get some sleep, and started climbing. Because it was his lucky day, it began raining too. But he pulled through. The rock, although not as easy to grab on because of the rain, was not as difficult to climb as he thought it would be, since there were so many ledges where he could take a break. Somewhere on a third of the way up, his luck reached its peak when… Someone woke up, in the middle of him pulling up to the next ledge.
"Ahhh! What are you doing?! Get me down!"
"Stop moving, or you'll throw us both off the cliff!"
"Why are we up here?! I don't want it be up here!"
"Since you are awake now, just fly us up please."
"Like I would help you!"
"Then help yourself, it makes it easier for me too…"
"I… I don't want to!"
"…What?"
"You heard right! Don't tell me what to do!"
"Are you fucking… Wait… Don't tell me you can't fly…"
"I have different strengths, okay?! I usually stay away from high spaces like cliffs! And I sure as hell did not want to get dragged up one while I was unconscious!"
"Great, just great… Just… Don't fucking move or do or say anything that bothers me…"
"How are you even climbing with your shoulder…"
"I said don't say anything."
"…"
With the peace and quiet now restored, he could finally focus on not dying to a cliff and eventually reached the cave entrance, where he cut the rope to her and leaned against the wall. She immediately jumped away from him but he did not even look at her and just leaned against the wall.
"Why did you do that!?"
"Shh… They are sleeping… Or still knocked out because of you… Probably both… Just relax… Or get lost, or whatever…"
"Are you falling asleep?! I will stab you!"
"No you won't…"
"You don't know me!"
"Pft… I know everyone I meet…"
"You're the worst human alive!"
"That's uncaled for… And a little random… I'm guessing it has something to do with why you're after me in the first place… That's a whole different topic though… We talk tomorrow… If you're still there then…"
With that he fell asleep, leaving her in confusion, though he was certain she would not do anything, as she still seemed to be weakened by the poison, and now with mixed feelings too.