Kuroko Takes The Headpat Test

The Old Hunter stood in the center of a clearing, staring ahead, a cloudless night sky overhead and the wind softly rustling in the trees.
The training camp and test of the Demon Hunter Club members had just concluded a short while ago with a fair amount passing, but something was still amiss.

“Who wanders the woods at such an hour, do you not fear beasts?” he spoke just loud enough to be heard as a foot stepped from behind a falling leaf. Then another and as the leaf hit the ground, there she stood with a smile on her distorted face.

“I think beasts would not dare tread here with you present, Mr. Old Hunter sir.” Kuroko mused, facing the tall man in his old fashioned, dark leather clothes. “All the cells in my body are telling me to run, that’s for sure. So I just want to make it very clear that I do not have any ill intentions… this time. I just watched for a bit and thought, how hard could this be?”

“You are not part of the Demon Hunter Club and alone it will be considerably more difficult.” the Old Hunter responded as he could already guess where this was going. He hadn’t moved from his spot and yet Kuroko still felt like walls were closing in on her from all sides, only amplified by her Spiritual Aura.

“Well, I did hunt a demon before… kinda.” she shrugged and looked off to the side for a second. “...If that really was a demon. I’m still not entirely sure. Anyway, I don’t mind the difficulty spike, not that I have anything to lose by failing. I just want to see how I measure up against them… after recent events. Would you allow me this favor?”

“Fine then, do your best. The test starts… now.”

Kuroko quickly made multiple springy steps backwards and moved around a tree.
“He didn’t follow.” she immediately thought to herself. Despite trying to keep up her usual confident outer appearance her body betrayed her with a drop of sweat forming on her forehead to contrast her smile. “Not that it matters.”

An instant later her hand simply reached out from behind the Old Hunter’s head.
“One and done.” she thought, her grin widening as her fingers were about to touch down. Yet without even turning his head, the Old Hunter’s hand had wrapped around her wrist, somehow before Kuroko or her instincts were aware of it. Then he began to pull her forward.

“H-he is dragging me out from impossible space!” the president of the Paranormal Investigation Club was stunned as her body slowly emerged from nothing, but she wasn’t done yet. She stretched her fingers, slimming down her hand, before she pulled her arm back, her wrist slipping right out of the hunter’s grasp.

Kuroko jumped backwards while the Old Hunter spun around to follow up, stoic as ever, despite this little trick she pulled. As he reached out again he let go of the metal bracelet in his hand, revealing how she had managed to escape. “I knew that thing would come in handy.” she thought with a panicked smile.

The Old Hunter took a step forward, extending his arm towards her, while she kept retreating.
“Hah, made you move.” slipped her smiling lips like a habit she just couldn’t get rid of even now and one that she instantly regretted as the hunter fell into an unnatural sprint.
Between the trees, through the forest they raced, Kuroko always a step too slow despite abusing her ghost eye to its fullest to keep up with this kind of speed in the first place.
Yet whenever she emerged he was already there, his hand now more like a foreboding blade hiding in the dark and ready to strike.

Then it happened. Kuroko dashed out from beneath falling leaves, but this time the Old Hunter wasn’t there. Then, leaving her not a moment to rethink her actions, he emerged from the same place directly behind her.
Kuroko’s eyes went wide. “He followed me through the Vanishing Poi-!?”

Now was not the time to be conservative anymore. Despite all her best interest, she pulled the Thunder Lance from her pocket, as she let herself fall backwards to win even a single moment of time, and thrusted it towards the fingers of the Old Hunter. And just then, spun it around in her hand. “Come on, hit!!”

But the Old Hunter suddenly just stopped. And Kuroko landed with a dull thud on her behind, still holding the Thunder Lance the wrong way around in her hand. A moment later she already felt a soft touch on her hair.

The hunter straightened himself, turned around and began walking off. “You aren’t the first one who tried to get me to use an artifact.” he explained calmly, yet somehow not as cold as before. “The bracelet actually got me, never saw that one before. Smart move… Miss Utsuro.

Kuroko just sat there, dumbfounded, looking up at the night sky. She blew a few strands of hair out of her face, before an awkward smile graced her lips. “Complete loss, huh?”

The Headpat Test - Today’s Result:

Kuroko Utsuro, President of the Paranormal Investigation Club - Failed.