Tale of Discovery

"I found nothing. Perhaps it was just my imagination."

In response to my words, Joijiro says,

"Okay. Let's go back now."

I do as he says and follow behind him. While I'm doing so, I take glances around to see if the girl will pop up out of nowhere and shout something like "Father!".

I shudder just at the thought. Screwed. I'm definitely screwed if that happens.

------

Once the time arrived, we woke the girls up.

After taking several minutes to prepare themselves, the girls finally come out of their tent.

"Let's go fish our breakfast!", Nao immediately exclaims as she drags the fishing equipment we got behind herself.

We all then head towards a nearby stream.

Focusing my perception and vision, I perceive trouts swimming peacefully in the stream.

Once we've all readied our fishing equipment, we begin fishing. For this occasion, Misa has taken control of Yusa's body once again.

Several minutes later, Nao is the first one to catch something, and the moment she does so, she gleefully shouts,

"A rainbow trout! I fished a rainbow trout!"

Misa is vexed by this for some reason and says,

"Just wait, I will fish a bigger trout!"

Joijiro seems to enjoy the competition, as he fixes his glasses with the tip of his middle finger and states,

"I won't lose either."

Ok, this somehow became a competition... Huh? What is that?

I sense the presence of someone in the bushes nearby. Why are they there? It doesn't matter. As long as they don't do anything suspicious, I don't care.

After a while, Joijiro and Misa both managed to get a trout while Nao got another one. As for me, I got nothing...

No way in hell I am going to let it end like this. I place my fishing rod to the side, attracting Joijiro's attention as he says,

"Giving up?"

I snicker at his comment and reply,

"Watch."

As soon as I say so, I grab a stick nearby, take a throwing posture, and focus my eyesight on the trouts in the stream.

They all react differently to my actions. Misa watches me, amused by my actions, Nao furrows her brows, while Joijiro straight up begins laughing. Heh.

Recalling the rainbow trout Nao fished earlier, I find several of them.

Waiting for the right moment, I throw the stick with an incredible amount of force. Everyone is visibly stunned by the speed of the stick.

Laughing boisterously, I roll up my uniform and sleeves, then jump into the stream. Grabbing the stick, I slowly raise it for everyone to see.

At the end of the stick, there are two rainbow trouts. Hehe. These enhanced senses are sure handy.

"No way.", Joijiro says in a defeated tone.

"Bullshit luck.", Misa asserts.

Nao makes no remark but only grins. Impressed? Of course you would be.

Victoriously getting out of the stream, I suggest,

"How about we start cooking our game now?"

They all agree, and so we move to the river bank and set up a campfire. We begin preparing the trout and once it's ready, we dig in.

"Rainbow trouts are tasty. Here, Yusarin, have some.", offers Joijiro.

"I'm not Yusarin!", came a sharp retort.

"I'll let her have this one.", she mumbles before relinquishing control of the body to Yusa.

As soon as she is back "awake", Yusa looks around like a curious chick, while Joijiro extends his arm offering the trout to her.

"Can I eat this?", she asks when she catches sight of the trout.

"Of course," replies Joijiro.

After a while, Yusa asks,

"Umm. Are we going to be staying here again, tonight?"

"Yes, do you have a problem with that?", inquires Nao.

"I was thinking that it would be nice to take a bath...", says Yusa.

"No worries. I have one prepared. Follow me.", Nao states before dragging her away.

I look in their direction once before I look at Joijiro. He just shrugs and says,

"Don't ask me. I have no idea what she's talking about either."

After a while, Nao returns.

"You were saying something about a bath?" I ask her.

"Girls only. You guys can later take a bath in the stream."

"..."

------

It's gotten dark. Joijiro and I are cleaning our bodies with the cold stream water. Under the dark, I look at Joijiro's body. One word- Ripped. Why does this weirdo have such a body? I curiously ask him about it. He replies,

"I had to train my body to be able to use my ability properly."

Aha. Makes sense. He did it to increase his chances of survival. I say to him,

"I understand."

He looks my way for a few seconds and says,

"You could be the same, you know? In the future, you might have to go through something that is completely out of your expectations."

Pfft.

"As if. An ability to possess people for five seconds has no dangers other than how vulnerable my body is while using it."

Joijiro glares at me for a few seconds. He opens his mouth as if wanting to say something but decides against it.

"Speaking of which, when do abilities go away?" I ask.

"It should be gone by the time we graduate from high school.", he replies.

A few minutes later, we are done and head back to the camp. We discuss over our stay here and I ask for her consent to leave for a day. The reason for that is Ayumi. I am really worried about her. I call her from time to time whenever I have free time, but that still doesn't help.

"I can't let you do that," Nao says,

"Besides, I'm sure everything will be over by tomorrow.", she continues while slightly grinning.

------

"Father."

I hear a voice calling out to me within my sleep.

"Father."

I gradually lift myself from the bed and look around for the source of the voice, but can't see anyone other than the sleeping Joijiro.

"Meet me at the meadow."

The voice is within my head... I can tell that it belongs to the little girl that I had found in the forest. Nevertheless, this reminds me of Juno...

Getting out of the tent, I carefully look around and make sure that everyone is sleeping through my senses.

I head toward the stream. Upon arrival, I see the little girl standing there. The moonlight shining over her head.

I focus my eyes on her. The moment I do so, the girl seems to get covered in veins as I see them extending from her feet all the way to her head. Golden-coloured veins. This reminds me of myself.

She slowly turns around and says in a clear voice,

"We can finally talk, Father."