The gates finally opened up for all of the contestants. As soon as the gate finished opening up. Everyone ran out into the arena to begin the first stage of the trial. The arena happens to be a forest that has been known to be the filled with a lot of low grade spiritual creatures and the forest isn't small but it's gigantic that it has been said to be the length of 50 acres. While everyone was frantically running around trying to find spiritual creatures, Sabito's team had a plan that they thought of before going into the arena. Sabito's team decided to split up into two groups, Group A and Group B. Group A consist of Sabito and Aoi while Group B consist of Hanako and May.
Aoi brought her café special walkie talkies that are usually used by her family while they work in the café due to how large the café store is. She gave one to Sabito and one to Hanako so that each group can communicate with one another while searching for spiritual creatures.
The two groups finally split up to find some spiritual creatures to eliminate so that they can get points for their team but they had a late start and some teams had a good score of 10 – 16. Sabito spotted a group of Spiritual creatures in the middle of the forest and using his technique, he created a small barrier around them, allowing him to crush them up. Gaining his team, 5 points right out of the gate.
Hanako and May found a team getting chased by a group of spiritual creatures while they were finding their own spiritual creatures to eliminate. May quickly wears her fox mask and leaps forward saving the team from the spiritual creatures. Hanako quickly materialize a blood sword and started to slice up those spiritual creatures. He managed to get 3 points before 6 points were stolen from him. Hanako was pushed back by the attack that eliminated the spiritual creatures and gets knocked onto a tree. The strong gust of wind that he got push back by was from Souta Dazai.
Souta Dazai was holding onto a huge boomerang which Hanako assumes is his weapon that works with his spiritual technique. Suddenly… Souta throws the huge boomerang at Hanako and Hanako barely avoided it.
"What the hell are you doing?!", Hanako asked Souta with a panic expression. "You're in my way! The only way for you to not do that ever again is if I knock you out stone cold.", Souta replied to him with a smirk on his face. Behind Souta was one of the contestants… it was one of the members from the team that May saved. He was bruised and injured badly from getting attacked by Souta. "What in the world did you do to him?!", Hanako asked Souta. "He was in my way… So, I obviously had to beat him up for it", Souta said to Hanako as he laughs menacingly. "Well… Time for you to out too", Souta says as he creates a giant gust of wind and throws his boomerang at Hanako at high speed…
Sabito and Aoi has taken out a few spiritual creatures since the game started. They both got their team at least 10 points each which is enough to put their team on the top 4 list on the leaderboard. Suddenly… a giant log comes towards them at high speed. Sabito quickly hold onto Aoi and created a barrier around them to protect themselves from the incoming log. The incoming log was stopped by the barrier before Sabito quickly destroys it while still being in the barrier with Aoi. "Oh god~ He's way too close to me", Aoi thinks to herself as she slowly turns red.
After the log got destroyed, Sabito puts down his barrier. "Sorry for having to do that Aoi. I didn't had enough time for us to evade the log, so I'm sorry if you were claustrophobic." Sabito said to Aoi and apologized to her for being in a tight space. "I-it's okay… Hey! At least we're safe right", Aoi said to him as she looks away to calm herself down. But suddenly… The ground beneath them turns into quicksand! A spiritual creature turns the ground beneath them into quicksand which the both of them are unable to escape. "Well- this is bad", Sabito said to Aoi. "You think-", Aoi said back to him… "Take this!", a mysterious voice was heard by the two of them before witnessing the spiritual creature getting crushed by a giant hammer that was made out of kinetic sand…
A giant boomerang comes towards at Hanako at full speed! But before it can hit Hanako, May, jumped in front of Hanako wearing her armadillo mask and quickly makes a shield surrounding her and Hanako. The boomerang hit them and knocking the both of them down into the depths of the forest. The both of them land on the ground hard but the fall was soften by the shield created by May.
May's face was super close to Hanako's face which made the both of them turn red before May puts down the shield to release them from the awkward situation. "I nearly kissed him! Wait… maybe I should have kissed him", May thinks to herself while covering her red face from Hanako. "She was so close to me! Why was I turning red? We've been friends for so long but why did this made me blush… I should apologize to her.", Hanako thinks to himself as he calms, himself down.
But before he could go to May to apologize to her… Souta jumps down to the two of them. "There's no way for the both of you can hide from me now!", Souta said to the both of them is a sadistic way while having a huge smirk on his face. "Who says we're gonna hide from you", May says to him as she puts on her tiger mask. The mask that took her about a month to create and master as she dawns on the mask and giant spiritual claws appear on both of her hand and she is ready to bet the living hell out of Satou. Hanako is also prepared to fight as he materializes his blood sword once more. "Oh, hell yeah! This is gonna be fun when I beat the living hell out of you two", Satou says in excitement ready to beat them up. "Keep talking idiot! We aren't going easy on you.", May said to him in a snarky way...
The quicksand floor from beneath Sabito and Aoi's foot turned back into the normal forest floor as the spiritual creatures was killed by the mysterious figure. "Are you guys okay?", the mysterious voice asked the both of them with a concern tone in the voice. The mysterious figure jumped down to check on them. "Thankfully, I was in the area to save the two of you… I don't think we fully met yet but I'm Himiko Manami!", the mysterious voice revealed herself to the two of them and was found out to be the same Himiko they saw in the waiting area.
"Thanks for the help Himiko-san.", Aoi thanks Himiko with a warm smile. "So, how's your team going right now Himiko?", Sabito asked her. "Oh, we're doing good except someone isn't here right now", Himiko says in distress. "Who isn't with you? Is it that guy who randomly attacked our friend, Hanako earlier?", Aoi asked her and she nods indicating that Satou isn't with his team right now. "Well- to be honest, he's always like that. We really need to make sure he doesn't randomly split off from us.", Himiko said to them while nervously laughing.
"Oh yeah! Where are the other two members of your team?", Himiko asked them in confusion. "Oh, we split up into two groups to cover more ground in the forest to gain more points", Sabito explained to her about the plan that they are doing for the first stage. "That's a smart way to get a lot of points.", Himiko said Sabito.
"I wonder what those two are doing right now", Aoi thinks to herself while watching Himiko and Sabito's conversation as she slowly pieces the puzzles to find out that Himiko is Satou's team leader.
May quickly dodges one of Satou's wind gust before launching at him to attack with her claws. She successfully landed a few attacks before getting pushed into a tree, destroying it completely. "May! Are you okay?", Hanako exclaimed to her in distress. "I'm okay. You continue fighting", May says to him as Satou began to attack Hanako with his giant boomerang. Hanako dodged his attack and got back at him with multiple quick swings from his sword and a swift uppercut as well to knock him down a bit. Hanako was about to tend to May before he got attacked again by Satou. Hanako with quick thinking used his spirit technique to forcefully move May's body to move towards Aoi and Sabito's direction.
"W-what are you doing?!", May questioned Hanako's decision making. "I'm keeping you safe and sound from this idiot. Now go help out Sabito and Aoi get some points while I deal with this idiot", Hanako explained to her his plan and Satou wasn't having any of it. Satou quickly tries to chase down May before Hanako quickly grabs onto him and throws him in the opposite direction destroying multiple trees and spiritual creatures in the process. Hanako with this weird tactic got his team 10 points on accident. "I'll make sure to stop you- right here, right now!", Hanako says to Satou as he prepares to attack him.
Sabito, Aoi and Himiko are having a normal conversation until suddenly… May appears behind them being bruised up from her fight against Satou. "Omg May! What happened? Where's Hanako", Aoi asked her in a panic state. May being very exhausted said, "We got ambushed by that Satou idiot from earlier and currently Hanako is dealing with him. That idiot even beat up another person". May faints onto the ground due to exhaustion. Aoi and Himiko tends to her wounds. Sabito look at his watch and see that they don't have long before the first stage is over.
But suddenly…. A loud monster like noise can be heard from the distance. A flock of birds runs away from the noise… What could it be…