Chaoskouji

Arc 3 Chapter 8 - Collapse

The sun rose on the fourth day of our island exam, and with it came the end of my laziness. The time had come to begin making moves once more, and any time to remain at rest in my hammock was past, at least for the most part.

The promise of excitement wasn't the only thing brought on by the rising sun, however. It also brought a return to the ordinary Class D that I had grown accustomed to over the past few months.

That being, I woke to the sound of arguments.

It hadn't been the most comfortable night, due to being forced to sleep against a tree on the ground while Kikyou slept in my hammock, but there wasn't anything I could do about it, besides waking her before anyone noticed.

I reached up and gave her a light shake, followed by a nudge to her cheek.

"Kikyou, time to wake up. Everything's falling apart without you."

Her eyes slowly opened, as if reluctant to wake from her sleep. She'd slept silently for a solid eight hours, with barely any movement, showing just how tired she was.

"Hmm? Kiyotaka... what's going on. Why am I in your hammock?!"

Despite how tired she was at first, at the realisation of where she'd been sleeping, Kikyou woke up fairly quickly.

"You fell asleep, and this was the easiest place for me to put you. Now get down and make them shut up."

Kikyou finally looked around the campsite, and noticed a small group of our classmates standing around the cooking area yelling about something. As usual, it was a divide between boys and girls on either side of the debate, with neither side using any sort of logical reasoning.

"Well?"

We didn't have time to waste. Not only was the class unity collapsing in a rather pathetic way, with a new person joining the conversation every few minutes, but if Kikyou was caught having slept in my hammock, it would be an unnecessary situation to clear up, something which I didn't have the time nor inclination to do. Plus it could drag her reputation down, which was one of the main benefits in keeping her around.

In the end, the calculations all resulted in the same conclusion. Kikyou needed to hurry up and fix the situation.

"How do I get down?"

Oh. That was a factor I hadn't considered. For me it was easy, simply climbing up and down the trees, but for Kikyou, someone who I suspected hadn't spent much time out of Tokyo in her life, it wasn't an ability she'd developed. Sure, she was relatively fit, above the average of girls her age I suspected, but that didn't translate into being able to climb down trees.

What to do...

"Jump down, I'll catch you."

She looked at me dubiously. From the hammock, although it was only hanging a little over a meter off the ground, it was still a decent distance to drop down.

"Are you sure?"

"We don't really have time to sort out any other way, unless you want me to climb up and carry you down?" That got a glare in response. Good. An angry Kikyou would be much more proactive than a scared one.

She spun her head around quickly, making sure there wasn't anyone watching or had noticed, before swinging her legs over the edge and dropping forward into my waiting arms, where I caught her in a hug just off the ground.

"See, I told you I'd catch you."

"Ugh, let go you pervert."

She pushed herself away from me and out of the hold I had her in. To be fair, it was a rather intimate embrace, the result of catching and pulling her into my chest, but I had no hidden intentions behind it. Whatever got Kikyou into action the fastest was all that mattered to me.