The Hunters and the Hunted

Chapter 7 (Sakae)

Sakae watched as Baek immediately spring into action, helping Xavier as she soon followed along with the rest of her classmates. It was clear that Baek's experience and skills made him a better hunter than the students even though he was an A rank among mostly S rank hunters.
Bringing out a chain like whip with a spearhead on the end, she watched as Baek charged at the monsters.
"Everyone! While Hunter Baek is helping Xavier, we should deal with the snake crawlers to make sure that we can get out!" Jayden yelled.
Sakae looked down at her hands, her fingers gripping her katanas as she sighed. She could feel her hands trembling. Even though snake crawlers were a D rank monster and were pretty weak, they never banded together.
Snake crawlers were monsters who hunted alone and would only band together in order to defend their king and queen, but other than that, they hunted and killed other snake crawlers in order to survive.
Why the hell are they all banding up together like this? I mean they don't do this. They only band together when the king and queen are in trouble and they have to shout to the other snake crawlers to get them to protect them. They don't just stand by the king and queen all day. Plus, in this dungeon, there shouldn't even be a king and queen since it would have been eaten by the boss. So why the hell are they all together and attacking us like this? It doesn't make sense.
"Sakae, duck, behind you!" Rejean shouted as Sakae had quickly dodged the three snake crawlers who were trying to bite her as she swung her left katana, killing two of them before she stabbed the third one to the ground using her right katana.
Quickly focusing and calming herself down, Sakae moved foward as she prepared herself to kill the snake crawlers. Using her twin katanas, she rushed towards a hoard of the monsters, quickly putting her katanas in an X motion in front of her chest as she consecutively slashed five of them, before she backflipped when one darted their fangs towards her face. Quickly stabbing her right katana into the monster, she continued moving forward.
It had been twenty minutes as she continued to kill the snake crawlers, quickly glancing at her classmates, she saw them starting to get tired.
Damnit, these snake crawlers just won't stop coming. What even is this situation? Is someone controlling them? But, that's preposterous? Something like that shouldn't even be possible.
Catching her breath, she quickly stabbed two snake crawlers in a row as she quickly slashed another one in front of Xavier. "Thanks." He stated, as Sakae replied, "It's nothing."
Moving on from Xavier, she quickly was met with another hoard of snake crawlers as she quickly slashed them, the blood of the snake crawlers splashing all over her clothes and her body.
"We need to leave and meet up with the other team immediately. I've already called for help for professional hunters. They will soon be here to deal with it!" Baek yelled as he quickly as he brought the end of his whip, quickly swinging a wide arc that slashed the heads off multiple snake crawlers.
"Start moving out! I'll watch you guys!"
Sakae started to run towards the entrance of the dungeon as she killed snake crawlers along the way. Meeting up with the second team along the way where the two entrances had diverged as she watched Baek and Mr. Dall escort the students out of the dungeon while killing the snake crawlers as they eventually made it out of the dungeon, safely with everyone alive.
"What the hell happened to you guys?"
"We got bombarded by snake crawlers."
"Snake crawlers? But they are solitary hunters even though they're D rank."
"Yea, no clue why, but there were hoards of snake crawlers when we were waiting for you guys at the boss room entrance," Sakae stated as she wiped the blood off her face.
"That's strange."
"Yea."
"What about you guys?" Kai asked
"Nothing unusual happened on our part. We only heard of an incident going on when Hunter Baek had said something to teach and then we moved out. Nothing bombarded us, no unusual characteristics of the monsters or really anything," Logan answered as he glanced Xavier who was limping as Kai and Jayden helped him.
"At least you don't have a bunch of snake crawler blood all over you," Jayden grumbled as she tried wiping the blood off herself with her spit.
"How are you a hunter if you are such a clean freak about something like blood," Zoey commented.
"Shut up will you."
"Yup!" Zoey stated as she motioned her fingers to zip her lips.
"Guys, the team is here." Aaron stated as Sakae had stopped listening to the conversation, watching the sleek black car pull up as two guys walked out.
"Hello Hunter Baek, Hunter Dall, I'm Adam Knight, the manager from the National Hunter's Association's Monitoring Dungeon group. This is my assistant Hahn Cruz. Two B rank hunters and one A rank hunter have been dispatched for the situation and I will be going into the dungeon. My assistant will be asking you questions while we check out inside the dungeon."
"Can you explain to me, the situation that had happened inside the dungeon?"
"Everything was normal until we were in front of the boss's room. The dungeon's layout is spilt into two directions, so we spilt up into two groups. My group-group 1, was the only one that was attacked. Everything on Hunter Dall's side was normal and nothing unusual happened. We had arrived to the boss' room first, so we waited for group 2 to come. But, then one of Mr. Dall's students-Xavier Addams was attacked by multiple snake crawlers, which is already unusual. He had screamed and I was alerted before numerous snake crawlers came out. Mr. Dall's students and I engaged in combat and I alerted Hunter Dall about the situation so that we could get the students off to safety.
"That's odd, so Hunter Dall's group wasn't attacked?"
"Yes."
"Huh, we'll have to check that out. That's very strange. Besides that, are there any students who need to receive treatment?"
"Only Xavier Addams does, and he's currently getting treated, I believe."
"Yes, he is. You're quite lucky, Hunter Dall."
"I'm well aware of that Mr. Knight."
"We'll let you guys leave and we will contact you guys if we need any further information."
Sakae had heard the conversation as she watched Adam Knight.
"Alright class, let's get back on the bus!" Mr. Dall yelled he grabbed their attention. Sakae glanced over at Baek who was looking at her classmates.
Sakae followed her classmates as they walked back to the bus, chatter in the air as they talked about what had happened and what they were going to do for the rest of the day. Stepping onto the bus last, she glanced back and saw Baek and Mr. Dall shake hands before her teacher walked onto the bus.
The bus ride back was relatively quite when it came to Class S' standards as Zoey wasn't shouting, Jayden wasn't getting annoyed, and Damien and Logan weren't joining in on the conversation.
Arriving back at school, Sakae walked off the bus as she started to walk back to the gym where they would be spending the rest of the time before the rest of classes continued.
"So, since the dungeon was basically cancelled, we will be doing mor practical combat since we have much more time today. We'll go fight in pairs. Xavier, you can sit out if you so wish to."
"I'm good teach, if I can't handle something like a D rank monster biting me, then I won't be able to deal with higher level monsters later on," Xavier answered, a small smirk on his face.
"Alright, that's fine by me, just don't overdo it, alright."
Xavier nodded as the pairs were listed off and fights started.
When the last two names were called, Sakae had went up to Xavier as the two of them shook hands. "Alright, let's have a good spar," Xavier stated
"Same goes to you."
The two of them faced off against each other as the whistle was blown by Mr. Dall, signifying the start of the spar.
Xavier had immediately started attacking, whirling a punch towards her as he made his own body weight heavier than normal. Quickly dodging the punch, she had blocked another punch as she felt her arm shaking.
Xavier has gravity magic. It's not necessarily more powerful than other types of sub elements, but it's tricky to deal with. Gravity magic doesn't bode well for assassin types due to the large difference in how they fight. But, I do need to get better at major strength types, such as Xavier.
Trading blows with each other, Sakae dodged a multitude of strikes as she started darting around the area, looking for a weakness to exploit before she saw Xavier charge towards her, his fist ready to hook her left jaw.
Sakae's eyes widened as she moved her head back, his fist inches away from blowing away her face. Quickly using her left hand to catch his left forearms, she swiveled out of reach for another punch that was going to come. Quickly taking advantage of her position being on the side, she high kicked him in the chin before bringing her knee around like she was going to do a side kick and kneed him in the back causing him to fall as she quickly apprehended him in a chokehold. Tapping out of the fight, Sakae let go of Xavier as he picked himself up.
"You're quite good for someone who fights with swords."
"Thanks. I was surprised by your speed considering gravity magic is one that focuses a lot on strength."
Xavier laughed lightly as he replied to Sakae's comment, "A lot of people are surprised by my speed, but I guess I was probably bound to lose to an assassin type, especially considering you're also not easily overpowered through strength alone."
"If you had gotten three more hits, I would probably be out," Sakae said as she shrugged her shoulders.
"I doubt that, but thank you."
Nodding her head, Sakae left as she went to grab her waterbottle. Opening the lid of her waterbottle, she started chugging down water as thoughts filled her head.
Why did he tap out though? He's a strength type and I'm an assassian type. Usually when it comes to these fights, it's always a battle of stamina, and in most cases, strengths have more stamina than assassins due to how assassins use their mana.
He clearly still had enough to keep him going, so why did he stop? I don't really know, but I feel kind of suspicious behind his actions. I'm probably overthinking it, but something inside of my gut says it.
What if he's a spy? If he's a spy for Ichiro, then that means that he's already had a spy inside of this school for a while now. Just how long though? If he is a spy, then he has to be paying special attention to me, since it would be obvious. I don't think he wouldn't tell a spy not to look after someone so obviously in front of him.
But, he also could have not. I wouldn't put it past him that he hasn't told Xavier anything just because he knows that I might already have figured it out or something.
But regardless of that, Xavier seems a bit off. He seems to get high off a fight. It's not like the same high that hunters tend to get while killing monsters or high level opponents, but he almost seems to be hiding an intent for putting everything on the line. Like a life and death fight.
Walking towards the group, she saw Jayden who was drinking water, sweat gleaming down her face as she used her shirt to wipe some of the sweat off her forehead, showing off some of her abs.
Ok, that's hot.
Wait-did I just-Holy mother Mary of Bloody Hell, I just thought that someone was hot. Ok, I mean it's not that big of a deal that I find a classmate hot, and realistically it's also Jayden. Like I wouldn't be surprised if she has both male and female fans asking her left and right. I already admitted that she was hot, and like super pretty, but find this hot-is uh-questionable.
Goddamn Sakae, what are you thinking!
But-holy shit, I can seen her abs through her shirt which got wet from her spar. AHHHH-uuuughhhh.
Sakae could feel the inside of her head screaming at her as she continued to gulp down water, pretending to ignore the rampaging thoughts inside of her head.
"You good Sakae?" Jayden asked as she pulled Sakae out of her thoughts.
"Huh-oh yea."
Nodding at Sakae, Jayden returned to drinking water as she looked at the fights.
It was four thirty when school had been let out for Class S as Sakae was walking with Jayden, Kai, and Ashely before Zoey came up.
"Sakae!" Zoey yelled as she waved her hand at her.
Sighing, Sakae wished she could have one night of peace without any distractions.
"Let's hang out!" Zoey stated, a beaming smile on her face as she faced the two of them.
"I did not agree to this. I have to go home," Jayden stated.
"I agree with that," Sakae said as she glanced at Jayden who caught her eyes.
"Oh come on guys, you guys are no fun. No wonder the two of you belong together. You're both major party poopers."
"Huh?! We do not!"
"What? Absolutely not! Where did you even get such a statement?!" Jayden stated, a slightly disgusted expression on her face with a mix of red coating her cheeks.
"You're blushing," Zoey said in a sing-song voice as she smirked at the two of them.
Glaring holes straight into Zoey's face as she denied any sentiments of romantic attraction. "Ok, ok, calm down. It was joke. Relax. Jeez, you're so uptight."
"Like hell, you thought it was a joke."
"Ok, let's calm down," Kai said as he tried to diffuse the glaring eyes of Sakae and Jayden towards Zoey.
"Nah, let them continue. It's hilarious," Ashely said as she popped a chip inside of her mouth.
"Ashely!" Kai scolded her as she laughed in amusement. "Let's go, then," Kai said.
"Yea! Let's go!"
"I want to go home," an exasperated Sakae said as she lazily glared at Zoey for dragging her into this.
"Stop dragging me Zoey."
Sakae glanced around, noticing the looks that people were giving the group. Considering the group consisted of a laughing Ashely who was eating chips, a tired Kai, a brown haired girl who had a giant smile on her face dragging two girls who looked like they were about to kill her.
"People are staring you know," Kai stated
"Does it really matter what people think," Zoey stated, all of a sudden, the smile that was once on her face was replaced with a serious expression.
"Huh?"
"I'm saying, does it matter to you so much what people think of you Kai that it holds you back from even enjoying yourself?"
Sakae watched as Kai blinked a few times before avoiding eye contact. Jayden who was staring at Kai, her arm still being connected to Zoey's.
"I'll take that as a yes," Zoey said as she let go of Sakae's arm and grabbed Kai's.
"H-hey, what are we doing?!"
"Something that you've never tried before and said that you always wanted to do!"
"Wh-why?"
"Because we only live once!"
"Follow us! We'll be going somewhere fun!" Ashely stated as she grabbed Sakae's hand and the group was off.