THE LAST KEEPER-Chapter 202. RESTLESSNESS

Sagiri tried to calm himself and regulate his breathing, but he could not get rid of the visible restlessness that was suddenly hanging around him. He had been resting for half an hour now, and darkness had blanketed the horizon, yet he knew he could not keep resting for long, however. Not knowing your surroundings in a place like the outer nonagon. Even resting for a few minutes the last time almost cost them a life. He pushed his senses out, but there was nothing. It was silent, almost too silent, and it made his restlessness rise. N’varu, Kaka, Maita, and Zolinka were on the first watch, and he had a bad feeling about it. They were not far off, but they were at least over fifty feet away.

"Kiuga. Pull them back," Sagiri said, and Kiuga did not even question him before he put two fingers between his lips and sucked in air. A whistle loud enough for the boys on patrol tore the silent night for a moment before there was silence again. Kiuga knew better than to question sagiri by now. There was silence for a few more minutes before there was movement. Kaka was the first one to arrive silently. Maita arrived two heartbeats later, and five more heartbeats later, Zolinka burst into the small clearing in front of the cave.

Silence

There was more silence as the group waited for N’varu to arrive. Everyone had gathered at Kiuga’s whistle, even those not on watch duty. Another few moments went by, and N’varu still did not show up. The restlessness Sagiri had been feeling had festered into full panic. He pushed his senses out again, but he could not perceive N’varu out there as if he had just varnished. He knew N’varu was able to hide his presence sometimes, but now could not possibly be one of those times.

"Impossible!!" Sagiri said in a panicked tone.

"What is it?" Kiuga asked with urgency. In the first few minutes of silence, a dozen or so runner hare rabbits had been caught in the traps, and now they were going even more wild than ever with fear.

"I can’t perceive him. It is as if he had vanished," Sagiri said.

"You said you can only perceive the living..." Ulekai started, and everyone turned to him.

"Shut up!" Maita was the one to snap at him.

"He was scouting the area we came from," Bukata said.

"Aren’t the instructors supposed to know where we are and the watchers circle?" Zazarie wondered out loud. Just then, everyone looked down at their sigils on their chests, and they were dead.

"W-What? What is happening?" Ulekai said in a broken voice. Right at the moment, a green flare tore through the sky far away. Seconds later, white flares went off, making the sky light up like daylight all over the place. The closest one was some 20V out. This was the signal that the instructor was supposed to respond in case the watcher’s eye was down. Their firing in response was them showing their positions around the perimeter. It was now barely eight, and they had four hours on them before the exam could come to an end. No red flare had been fired yet, which only meant no team had forfeited the test or collected a thousand tags yet.

"I think the watcher’s eye is down," Banga said, the fact that everyone already knew.

"Didn’t that rank one innovator say the watchers circle could not go down unless..." Zazarie started, then trailed off.

"You think one of the field anchors has been messed with?" Bukata asked.

"Sometimes, every machine can fail. The eye has been watching more than a thousand of us and even instructors, perhaps it needs a reset," Banga said.

"That does not explain N’varu’s absence. I don’t like the coincidence," Kiuga said.

"Perhaps he went to relieve himself," Ulekai said, and it sounded as if he wanted to convince himself of the best possible excuse for Nvaru’s disappearance.

"N’varu could never go anywhere without Sagiri. He is basically his shadow," Kaka said, and everyone nodded. Calling N’varu Sagiri’s shadow was the most accurate description of a sand shade.

"I will go look for him," Sagiri said, and he meant it.

"No, you won’t," suddenly a voice said from behind the tree line before N’varu emerged. He looked like he had been in a rough battle, and he was staggering over. He had a couple of dozen tags on his wrist.

"Why do you look like that?" Sagiri asked, hurrying over to help him. 𝒇𝒓𝙚𝒆𝔀𝓮𝓫𝒏𝓸𝙫𝓮𝓵.𝓬𝙤𝙢

"I might have gone further off to track a movement and ended up falling into a swamp a bit east of where we were. Indeed, it’s as sagiri said. There were snakes in that area, swamp snakes. Turns out they had hunted, drowned, and had been feasting on the rabbits, and I collected this," N’varu said, lifting his hand to showcase the bands. Sagiri helped him sit by a thick protruding root before he stepped back.

The story N’varu was saying did not sound like N’varu at all. It sounded like something Kaka could do or Maita.

"You are lying," Sagiri said after a moment. He had known N’varu long enough, and that man usually gave nothing away and was tight-lipped, but feelings could not lie. However, right now, N’varu had hidden them together with his presence.

"I might have to agree with Sagiri on this. N’varu, you are patient and calm as an assassin, as Lotaga said. There is no way you could have followed a sound and fallen into a swamp." Kiuga said.

"Zolinka, check him," Sagiri said, and before Zolinka could move, N’varu lifted his hand.

"I have said I am okay. Whatever I might be hiding or not will not affect my performance as a squad member. We have tags to collect, and we have already caused too much commotion." N’varu said, and if anyone thought he had been hiding something before, now they were sure he was hiding something. It was also quite a coincidence that he was gone when the watchers’ circle was down and just happened to come back right on time as the sigils lit up again in response to the watcher’s eye.

Sagiri was not convinced, and neither were most of the squad members, but they chose to let it go. They resorted to setting traps and lying low just outside the root cave and on top of it. An hour ticked by, and then another, and soon it was ten with only two hours to go. In that duration, they had collected more tags, and now they were at 76 each. Sagiri, however, was not concentrated on the test. Things he feared were going too well that they were at risk of going bad, or perhaps they already had. His restlessness had grown even higher. He kept his eyes on N’varu, who had his eyes closed the entire time, and even more odd, he had not moved a muscle. His heart was beating more slowly as if he were sleeping, yet Sagiri knew he was awake.

Silence prevailed, matching Sagiri’s restlessness, then suddenly something broke the silence. Well, his silence and he shot up to his feet, startling six runner hares that were almost entering the trap, and they bolted in a blur, blending into the night.

"You finally came."