[center][img]https://i.imgur.com/h5xf31C.png[/img][/center][hr][i][b]//Night 0 | Location:[/b] Nameless Forest - Clearing[/i]

It was curious thing, how time flexed and fluctuated as it continued its path down the stream. In one moment, seconds could be draw out to weeks, and in another, hours could be condensed into a single phrase. The Sun, if it was truly the Sun that all the students were familiar with, fell soon, casting a summer’s blue into the deep magenta hues of twilight. Open skies invited foreign stars whilst whisking away the dry heat that had once been so oppressive but remained now only a pleasant memory. It was something else that Hiroshi had warned them all about. The heat that remained upon the surface of the clearing would be reflected back up if there were no clouds blocking the way.

It would be a cold night for the students who had been dressed with the expectation that they’d have a home to return to, and despite the Shelter-Building team’s best efforts, despite the abundance of tools they had, it was still a tall order to create a shelter large enough for twenty-eight adolescents, some of whom were well above the average size of a Japanese middle schooler. They had no ropes for lashing things together either, so while Rin’s theories about knots could’ve been helpful, there were few places for actual application. In the end, the best that they accomplished was a simple lean-to utilizing forked branches and thick brush. Leafy branches served as a springy, but uncomfortable mattress, and more of them were set up within the charred frame of the bus. Perhaps five people could fit inside the lean-to; the rest would have to make do.

Fire, however, wasn’t nearly so big of a problem. While Kumi was complaining about blisters and Juro was picking out splinters from his palms, the firewood gathering team returned with two armfuls of wood each. Without an axe, they couldn’t come away with a thick log or anything and without a way to more effectively carry wood, they were limited by the length of their arms, but regardless, it was enough. Juro caught a flame from the smouldering remains of the bus while Sasuke and Ayana continued to make more trips to gather more wood. By the time night had fallen, they had enough to at least seen them through the night. And with the blaze cooking up the flat rocks that Kumi had found, she was ready to start cooking.

And thankfully, there was indeed something to actually cook.

The processing of the two wolfbears had been a messy task. Without a spare change of clothes or even an apron, Hana cautioned both Tsubasa and Kogen about being careful. Getting dirty here would mean that the stench of death would cling onto them for a fair long while, unless they were willing to sacrifice some water. With Kogen’s strength however, they were able to gut the beasts and drain them of their blood a good distance away from the clearing. Skinning was a more difficult task and the trio had practically mangled the first wolfbear owing to their inexperience. The chuuni of the trio, however, made an important discovery: the hooked claws of the wolfbears were wickedly sharp, somehow even sharper than Hana’s knife. Though they didn’t have an edge, they were still good enough for roughly parting flesh. And the claws were good…then so were the teeth. Incisors were popped out from the bloody gums, the longest of them nearly the length of Hana’s index finger. It was a grisly task, perhaps even more disgusting than simply butchering the beast, but she continued on. There were tools to gather, tools that could make future forays into this matter easier.

Between Kogen’s silent schemes and Hana’s silent craft, Tsubasa was the only one that remained focused on the task at hand. Though the meat stank and would likely be stupidly tough, they still had a lot of it, and the fur, though bristly, may make for a decent enough blanket too, once they had the time to scrape the fat that still adhered to it. Perhaps it’d be better tomorrow, once they had more daylight to work with.

Perhaps tomorrow, there would be more bottles of water to fill too.

Though Masami set a good pace once the water-searching team’s method was settled on, and though Kunio, Masato, and Shun were all capable of keeping up with that pace, it had still taken them far too long to find water. They had to be on the lookout for more monsters, after all, while their own fumbling through the woods would no doubt have scared away any prey animals in the vicinity. The occasional stints of tree-climbing that Kunio did to try to get a vantage point was ultimately for naught as well, with the forest itself serving to mask any sound of running water. They were fumbling in the dark, figuratively. Soon, they would be fumbling in the dark, literally. It was a stroke of luck then, when two hours into their search, they came across a small, running stream. The flow was languid, the water was murky, but none of them were willing to leave empty-handed. So on Kunio’s recommendation, they drained the clear, filtered water that was in their own canteens, and then filled it with the stream. Maybe if they followed upstream, they would find its source. Maybe if they followed it downstream, they would find a reserve.

Of course, no one back at camp was really willing to try out the water they brought back, not after Asahi’s inventory count proved that everyone had water (some even tea or miso soup) and that most of them had their lunch boxes too, filled with nutritious, filling meals!
Except for Ayano, who was dieting. She combined bentos with Fujita.

Kumi was at her element now, searing steaks of gamey meat on hot rocks, using fire-hardened sticks to flip them. She received the murky water gratefully from Masami, washing her hands off with it as she continued to work with Tsubasa and Sohei to manage the fire and the cooking. With bento lids gathered up, Daisuke went back and forth, delivering cuts of wolfbear meat to the students gathered around the fireplace. It couldn’t be considered peaceful, really. But it was an illusion of it, at the very least. Some compassion was all you needed to calm the howling mind.

...

And that was what Duncan awoke to.

Like the others who had been injured, he found himself looking up towards a lean-to, his head propped up against his schoolbag. Haruko looked down upon him, her large, blue eyes blinking twice, before she squeezed them shut, as if holding back everything that she wanted to say.

Instead, she flashed her teeth pulling out his box of smokes from her own skirt’s pockets.

[b]“No smoking until after you get something to eat and drink, ok? Maki, Daisuke! He’s up!”[/b]

It didn’t take long for familiar faces to gather. Maki hobbled over, her arm wrapped up in a rudimentary splint as she chewed on an oversized rice ball, nudging Duncan’s side with her foot as she greeted him. Daisuke dropped by too, the relief in his gaze far clearer as he did the wholly-heterosexual way of hugging someone: clasping their shoulder before offering them a plate of meat.

[b]“Good to see you up. If you think you can chew, try this. Otherwise I’ll see if someone’s still got some miso left.”[/b]

...

By the fire, Kumi bemoaned the lack of a pot, while Tsubasa carved more strips of meat out for cooking. Sasuke watched the treeline in muted silence, chewing on a skewer of tough wolfbear flesh while tactfully ignoring the glances that the gourmet girl snuck every once in a while. Masami herself was eager to spark up conversation, but had ended up being relegated to snapping branches to halves in order to make them easier to burn. Cooking was serious business after all. Though the eye may wander, the mind shall not.

...

Mayumi, Hiroshi, Hana, and Juro made for a strange quartet under normal circumstances, mostly because of the inclusion of Mayumi, but their discussion was nevertheless spirited. Hana provided the experience, Juro served as a middleman, and Mayumi and Hiroshi both appeared to have very different ideas behind what was reasonable to expect. Regardless of what the topic of the conversation was, however, it was clear to any onlooker that despite not wanting the weight of responsibility to be automatically hoisted upon Masato, the gawky student council member [i]also[/i] didn’t want the biggest weirdo of the class to take on the mantle of leadership either.

...

For all the self-esteem and confidence that he had built up over the last year with Ayano, Fujita was still but a fledgling popular kid and he certainly wasn’t all that at ease when his girlfriend was cuddling up against him while [i]her[/i] best friend watched with a wry smile. Ayane had a mature charm that Ayano didn’t, and the population quotient only continued to rise when, after a moment’s pause, Ayane waved towards Ayana, the cutesy-klutz who still scored in the top five of the cutest girls in class. Perhaps in times of disaster, one naturally sought to rekindle their relationships with family. Perhaps she was just making sure her half-sister didn’t slip up and knock over a lean-to or something. Regardless, Fujita was soon to be the sole guy in a trio of very attractive ladies, and it was all he could do to search for help, any help. If only his Master would answer his silent plea! If only Yuki was up and about.

...

But Yuki wasn’t. Neither was Yuudai. And while the rest of the students could feign ignorance, Tsubaki couldn’t. It was all they could do to press clothes against the wounds, hoping the blood would clot, before using travel-sized containers of hand sanitizer to clean up what they could. Yukiko tried to help where she could, but honestly, she couldn’t do much. They didn’t have the medical equipment to treat injuries like these. They didn’t even have a pot to boil water with, to disinfect banadages in. It was all Tsubaki could do, dabbing the sweat off the foreheads of the two boys while Yukiko stoked a smaller fire between the four of them, hoping that the warmth could help stave off the chill of the night. It was too dark, at least, to make out the true state of their wounds. That was both a blessing and a curse. What use was water if they couldn’t drink it? What use was food if they couldn’t eat it?

...

Akito watched that unfold from a distance, watched the girls’ and their futile efforts. It brought a scowl to his face though, and he slipped into the carcass of the bus, claiming the first bed of branches for the night.

...

As for the Ito twins?

[b]“Bro, ya gotta get to doing it.”

“Now? Kunio, you want me to do it now?”

“I mean, when else are you going to?”

“Maybe after we get out of this alive?”

“Big maybe, at this point.”

“Sheesh, someone’s feeling grim.”

“I’m just saying, don’t leave regrets, yeah?”

“Yeah, but still. Who’d do a confession [i]now[/i]? I don’t want all this to be a suspension br-”

“Thinking too hard, man. Gotta move on from headbutts eventually, you know?”[/b]

They, evidently, were talking about love.