Miso closes his eyes.
Calming darkness and complete silence. His sense of touch wasn't there either, so this way Miso felt like he was floating in space. Alone. Without people laughing at him. Without people telling him how much he sucked even after he worked really hard.
He wished he could last like this forever. But he knew he'd have to open his eves and release the sense-sacrifice.
He gave himself a few more seconds of peace.
He released his sense sacrifice.
The quietness was immediately replaced with loud laughter.
"HAHAHAHAHAHA!"
"DID YOU SEE HIM FALL DOWN? THAT WAS SO FUCKING FUNNY!"
"HE GOT HIT IN THE NUTS! DID YOU SEE THAT?"
"Hey-hey kid!" Mr Patti speaks between giggles. "Nice-nice try….hahahaha!"
Miso could taste blood in his mouth. Probably because of the ball hitting his mouth.
His nuts hurt really bad.
His stomach felt sore. His back hurt.
"Thank you sir." Miso couldn't even pretend to laugh. He was numb to all of it. He's been humiliated so much that he became desensitized to it. He just wanted to go home.
He trudged back to his seat.
Of course, every test taker was laughing as well.
Cristopher, Wei Lim, Johann, everyone.
Except for Ichika, who just put her head on her hands.
Then, he feels a bit of rage.
He's worked way harder than any of these fucking kids to get here. And yet they don't look at his struggle, only what he's done.
Anger starts trickling into him even faster.
Fuck these fucking kids. He will get into AAD University and show them, no matter what. He'll become a hunting monster, an S tier Hunter.
How dare they laugh at him after he's worked harder than them?
DO YOU WANT TO BECOME STRONGER?
It was the voice of a lady, and Miso heard it inside his head.
Who said that?
A beautiful lady leans against the fence. Nobody else notices her. Something might have angered her because she looks murderous.
What…? Who is she?
Johann stands up – still laughing - and walks to Miso.
He puts his hand on Miso's shoulder. "HAHAHA! Bro, that was so embarrassing!"
Miso's face is darkened by shadows. Johann cannot look at what expression Miso is making now.
"Why did you even take this test? You're too shit to join the hunters bro."
Johann's laughing face suddenly becomes serious. Miso has never seen Johann look like this before.
He leans closer to Miso, and says,
"Trash like you should just quit."
The shadow covers the immense rage emanating from Miso's face.
Miso looks like he's going to kill someone.
Miso is staring at the lady. I want to get stronger.
She disappears. And Miso feels something similar.
The feeling of a new feature awakening.
The dash has finally arrived.
His ability is now fully complete.
Everyone who watched the second test are finally starting to calm down, but sniggers can still be heard here and there.
But Miso doesn't care anymore. Quite the contrary, he feels an immense sense of power. He can now dash up to 50 meters at once at about 70 kmph. And if he remembered right, every 5-meter use will be replenished in 1 second.
He has waited for so long for this one moment. He is now complete.
"hahaha…..anyways, umm…." Mr Patti manages to control his laughter. "Next is the 400 meter dash."
Miso's eyes light up and a grin forms on his face. He'll show them.
"Everyone, come here." Mr Patti points at the corner of the field. "You'll be running around the field two times."
Ichika gets up and walks to the starting point with Johann and Wei Lim.
"Why's the weirdo smiling?" Wei Lim asks, looking at Miso.
"Retard's lost his mind." Johann says. "Ignore him."
But Ichika feels a sense of unease. His eyes look different and he's oozing with confidence. She's never seen him look this confident. Does he have a trump card?
"Ready?"
Everyone takes their positions. Miso is at the corner, next to Johann.
"Try to keep up, bro." Johann – now beet red – grins at Miso. "You can't fuck up simple running, right?"
Miso grins back, "Just shut the fuck up and watch."
Johann smiles even wider. "Ooooo. I can't wait to watch what dumb shit you're going to pull off now."
Miso stays silent, but a smile forms across his face.
Ichika watches Miso intently. What is he going to do now?
"START!" Mr Patti yells and everyone prepares to sprint.
Ichika takes her eye off Miso for a moment, then-
BOOM.
Like a bullet being shot out of a gun followed by a huge CRASH.
It came from where Miso was.
Ichika's neck snaps to Miso's direction but he isn't there.
WHOOOSH
A gust of air hits Ichika and wherever Miso was is covered in a cloud of dust.
He couldn't have-
Ichika looks in front, does Miso have a speed increase type ability?
No, he's not in front either. Where is he?
The dust clears, and there he is. Ichika sees him, outside the field.
Miso broke through the fence surrounding the field and crashed into a pole. He's bleeding at the head and looks like he's unconscious.
Miso couldn't control his dash well. He accidentally dashed to the right instead of going straight and hit the metallic fence at 70 kilometers per hour and easily went through it, breaking the fence. He somehow managed to stop the dash right as he hit the pole, but he was a bit too late.
Silence.
Then everyone roars in laughter again.
"OH MY- OH MY GOD!" Johann cries tears of laughter. "IS THAT WHAT HE MEANT BY SHOWING ME SOMETHING??! HE DID SHOW ME SOMETHING HILARIOUS!"
Wei Lim sniggered a bit. "Hehe.. is he fucking up on purpose?"
Everyone was laughing way too much to be helping him. Everyone except Ichika, who was horrified by what happened.
"WHAT ARE YOU GUYS DOING?" She vaults over the fence and went to pick him up. That's when she got a better look at Miso's right arm. It didn't look too good. It was bent unnaturally and the skin was turning red. The front part of his head looked smashed in and it was starting to leak blood dangerously fast. He's fractured his skull really bad.
Oh god, it looked disgusting.
Ichika knew she has to get him to the hospital immediately.
Stay calm.
"SOMEONE CALL THE AMBULANCE!" She yells, the realizes nobody is doing that. Everyone's still laughing.
"HE'S BLEEDING!" She yells and this seems to snap people in action.
The people suddenly realized how serious the situation was.
"Oh fuck, she's right."
"Holy shit, call the ambulance."
A lot of people whipped out their phone and started calling for help.
Okay, now she just has to stop the bleeding with a cloth. But applying too much pressure on a fractured skull might end up doing more harm than good.
Where can she find fabric? She looks at herself.
Uggghhhh….this is going to be nasty.
She pulls off her stockings quickly and puts it on her hands to lift Miso's head and put it on an elevated surface. Getting someone else's blood on oneself is dangerous. She learnt it while she went to a hospital to learn first aid once.
Then she puts the stockings lightly on the smashed part his forehead. She didn't know what to do here, but she suspected that pressing the cloth on a fractured skull might only make things worse.
"SOMEONE GET A FIRST AID BOX!" She yells. Just in case.
A few kids run into the school building to find one.
The atmosphere turned from hilarious to tense.
She's done everything she could do. Now she only has to wait for the ambulance.