The day was ten days before the end of the summer vacation. The Atom was taking all the Electrons of the first year to the Mountain regions of Eritia. Every Orbital had separate buses in order to transport the Electrons. The buses were very modern, and they all were colored gray.
Kanao was sitting at the back of the bus along with Kanabe, Mai, Kimada, Yahiko and Iraka. Mai and Kimada looked very excited, while Kanabe and Kanao were lost in their thoughts. On the contrary Yahiko was sleeping, leaning on Kanao and so was Iraka, but not leaning otherwise Kanao would smack his face.
Ms. Jigoro stood up from her seat and looked at the Electrons.
"Listen, Electrons of S-Orbital." She called. She looked at those sleeping princes and told the other to wake them up.
"Yahiko, wake up." Yahiko opened his eyes as Kanao woke him up. "Ms. Jigoro is about to announce something." He looked at the teacher who was looking at Iraka. Yahiko noticed Iraka was also sleeping and so he pinched hard to wake him up.
"Ouch! What are you-" Iraka noticed others were looking at him and realized that the teacher was about to announce something. So, he stayed silent.
"Alright. Now, do you Electrons know where we are going?" ms. Jigoro asked. Kimada raised his hands.
"Kimada?"
"We're going to the Mountain regions of the country."
"Right, then. Allow me to announce this." Jigoro started as she got her attentions. "You are going to give the next special test there. All of the Electrons of the first year are giving this test.-
"Now, about the test, this is a survival skill test. The Atom will observe your survival skill along with a special task. There you will be staying for seven days starting from today. Every Orbital and the Nucleus will be considered as separate teams. There are separate different locations for each team, and the teams have to locate all of them as a side quest"
Of course, there had to be teams cause this test was going to be something that may raise the Orbital Scores (Os). Therefore, there were five teams called Team S, P, D, F and Nucleus.
"Every team should have a leader with green leader card among them. But here's the catch, there will be a special leader with a red leader card among the five and only the teachers and the special leader will know about that. Other Orbitals including the Nucleus will have to guess the special leader."
"Teach," Kimada raised hand. "What about the special leader? Will he also have to guess one?"
"Of course. Otherwise, it'll be odd to others. Plus, no teams can reveal their leaders' identity. If anyone does it, they'll have to face the consequences like expulsion. But if there is any emergency situation, the leaderships can be changed."
"Ms. Jigoro," called Izana. "What are we gonna achieve or loose in this test?"
The teacher was going to that point, but Izana was too curious. Yahiko knew Izana was overacting her fake nature and when Izana looked at him, he simply ignored her.
"Fake enough." he tapped on his lap and Kanao saw it. She was confused for that line.
"I'm getting right there, Inomiya. For any to team guess the special leader right, will gain 30 Os and if they guess it incorrect then they'll lose the same amount. The special leader's team will gain 50 Os if they win and if they lose, they'll be down by 30 Os. The Atom will provide you only tents, restroom and some important equipment. But the uses depend on you Electrons.
Of course, the reason to take this test was to check the Electrons' adaptabilities in different situations. Kanao was thinking what type of drugs the teachers consume to think of such test, but she couldn't blame them as it would turn out very effective in the Electrons' future life. Basically, this test equaled an Electron's physical and mental strength, endurance and adaptability on the top.
"Now, about the personal gains," spoke Ms. Gigoro. "The leader who gets the special red card, gets 5 million Hp and the leaders of the teams to guess the right special leader, each of the members will have 1 million Hp."
It actually meant that if someone from the Nucleus was the leader and someone from F-Orbital was the one to guess that one special leader from the Nucleus the red leader would get 5 million Honor points and the one guesser would get 1 million.
"Teach," Kanabe raised finger and Jigoro looked at him. "What about the winner and looser electrons? What are they getting?"
He had a point which Jigoro was intending to say but as always there was always someone who wanted to know things beforehand.
Kanao didn't even had to speak as most of her classmates were asking questions which she had. But she noticed that Yahiko was still lost in his own thoughts which she wished to learn but now what important was to her was the teacher's words.
"The winners will get 500,000 Hp and the losers would lose 200,000. But the leaders are the exceptions in this case. The leaders if they can't guess or figure out the red leader, they'll lose 500,000. So, even if you don't have the red leader among you then fret not, you can still gain much if you win but lose less but a slightly heavy amount of Hp."
After hearing all of those, Kanao had already visualized her roadmap to winning. She knew that the obstacles were more than she could have ever wanted but this was out of her concern now. Her biggest priority for the roadmap that she had visualized was the teamwork of the classmates that she needed and the whole Atom knew that Orbital-S was the only one with the Electrons who weren't likely to be working in teams or as a team as well.
After a while, the Atom arrived at the spot with all of the first years. Electrons got out of the buses and chatted on the situations they have to face eventually.
The teacher of the Nucleus yelled "Attention!" so loud that Mai thought there was a sonic boom of a jet. But, lucky for her it was just a teacher. After that BIG "Attention!" everyone gathered in class order.
"Listen, you Num-nuts!" he yelled again.
Kimada whispered, "who is he calling Num-nuts?" in a way like the teacher was calling him that.
Of course, he's calling you a Num-nut. Sanji thought with a smirk.
"I hope that you all heard the explanations of this test from your homeroom teachers and if not then I won't be explaining it to you a second time. But that's not important."
The other teachers brought some cardboard boxes.
"These are special watches by the Atom which has trackers for each Electrons. -
The teachers gave one to each Electron as the teacher explained.
"If you get lost in the woods, get sick, or in any emergency situations then press the red button on the left and you'll be notified to the teachers. Remember, do not loose these or you'll pay consequences."
After this short and so called "Attention!" by that Nucleus teacher, every team headed for their destined locations. But the leaders stayed behind to grab their cards. The leaders got their cards very secretly of course one at a time.
Team S' leader was Kanao as she already had talked about her early plans on the bus back then. She then went to her team's basecamp and as she reached there Kanabe quickly approached her and Yahiko behind him.
"Got the card?" Kanabe asked.
"Yeah. Sorry but I'm not allowed to show it."
"That's fine. How there's a signal in these mountains?" Kanabe said as he looked at his watch showing his location.
"Oh, by the way, this is our spot."
"I can see"
Kanao noticed that half of the students were setting up the tents. some were collecting firewood and some were collecting water from the river that was flowing by their location. The current wasn't that much high as there clearly was a wooden dam. This was premade by the Atom years ago since other classes had also been here to give the same test on their first year.
"If that dam breaks, this place is gonna be a hell of water." Kanao said as she assumed the river's previously currents by calculating.
"True, sis."
"Kanabe, call the others."
after Kanabe gathered others he said, "We need to plan this test."
"What do you mean, Kimada?" asked Izana.
"Listen, we need to locate other locations and complete the side quests. We also need to learn who the red leader is. We will be sending a spy or whatever you call it, to figure out the red leader among the other teams by doing observations."
A plan like this was pretty decent but some still had doubts. but after a moment of thinking they all agreed to the plan.
"And I don't want any outsiders to know about this." Kanabe added.
Even though the plan and the condition were simple, Yahiko had a doubt and he looked at that doubtful person. Yes, it was Izana. He clicked his click pen in morse code, but it was so fast that Kanao couldn't understand what t was.
"Yahiko, I want you to do the regular inspection in these mountains and observe." Kanabe told him. "Plus, every day, you'll change your partner."
Yahiko nodded affirmatively and sighed.
"He can't even talk then how his partner will understand him?" Zaya Housa, a fellow girl, asked. She had her point.
Yahiko pulled out his notepad and click pen and clicked the pen in morse code, looking at Kanao.
"He's saying that he can write fast and smoothly." Kanao translated. "But, why him?"
"Is there anyone who knows silence more than him?" Kanabe smiled.
Kanao wasn't sure if her twin brother had made fun of Yahiko or told the fact of him being dumb could be helpful.
"Makes sense," said Kimada.
Yahiko simply just sighed hearing his part of the plan that the twins had made. Then he put back his items.
"Yahiko, who are you taking with now?" Kanabe asked.
At first, Yahiko was just simply looking at others he looked at Izana, but because of their odd relationships he chose not to take her since it's only day 1. He looked at the boys, but it seemed like none of the boys were interested. Then he turned his glaze at Mai, and her eyes made contact with him as well. They both nodded in agreement.
"Well, then Mai it is." Kanabe went back to his tent to get his stuffs and others left as well to their positions.
"Yahiko," Mai spoke. "Shall we be off now?" Yahiko nodded affirmatively in response.
"Well, Kanao, see ya later." Mai said as she followed Yahiko.
Kanao looked a bit sad and seemed like she had something to say. Maybe, she wanted to say goodbye to Yahiko, or maybe she wanted him to take her instead of Mai, or maybe she just wanted to say "Take Care" to him. There were many confusing thoughts going on her head at that moment. She couldn't decide what was happening.
Maybe, next time, even only for once he'll ask me to be his partner. she thought and clinched her fist putting it on her chest.
"Oh, I feel your pain, sis." Kanabe appeared out of nowhere and spoke, giving her a jump scare with a bonus mini heart-attack. Kanao, blushing red, was a bit mad on this and punched Kanabe on his head.
"Shut up!" she yelled. But Kanabe was Kanabe. He simply laughed.
"Anyways, I'm gonna head out for some fruits." she left. And Kanabe had left to the opposite of her for his stuffs.
Kanao here was still lost in her thoughts.
Why didn't he take me? Does he like Mai? No, it can't be! He did say that his emotions don't work in these things. But what if Mai started liking him? Nooooo! I can't take that! Her face turned red as she thought these.
But there was something that made her worried deep inside more than these near to impossible thoughts about Yahiko. She would aways thing what could possibly happen to someone that they had to become emotionless.
Yahiko had always been with her since her day one on the Atom. There wasn't that much of interactions that he had made with other than his friends that he assumed to be. Kanao of course knew the fact that Yahiko despised Izana. Although she never got the chance to know that really happened that night between those to, Kanao had figured that Yahiko now openly would tell Izana to get out of his sight.
But Yahiko only knew how hard it was for him to pull of the delay trick he had used. Izana had always thought that Yahiko will always be honest. So, she assumed that he was being honest. Even if he was lying, she had evidence such as her dress and his pen to use against him to expel him from the Atom.
But little bit the whole Atom never knew, there was a shadow dwelling among them which had his eyes on everyone, including that Two-Faced Bitch, Izana Inomiya.