Cadaveo’s eyes fluttered. He had regained his consciousness from the crash that happened several hours earlier. He felt a crushing sensation in his midsection, making wheeze. He struggled just a bit, and Cooro thought he was slipping off his shoulder, since he hadn’t realized that Cadaveo had awoken. So, Cooro tried to place Cadaveo back on his shoulder by sliding him back onto it. Cadaveo heard something snap, but he couldn’t determine what the snapping noise was until he began feeling the pain. Cadaveo tried to yelp in pain, to give Cadaveo and idea of what he was having to go through, but his inability to speak prevented that.

‘Menae…’ Cadaveo willed towards her, “he’s… crushing me…’

Menae, catching Cadaveo’s mental cry for help, turned to Cooro. “Cooro, I think you’re hurting him,” she advised. Cooro looked worried, and almost afraid of what he could have done. Menae takes Cadaveo off Cooro’s shoulders, and places him on his feet. The others had stopped again, delaying their progress of reaching the school once again.

Cadaveo checks his body where the pain was. Somewhere in his chest, he could push in a rib further than what it was originally destined to go. He winced in the pain, not being able to cry out in pain. His mouth would open, but only the sound of his breathing could be heard, and nothing else.

‘Cada… are you okay?’ Menae asked, worried.

‘I… I think so,” he thought to Menae. ‘I had a strange dream though.’

‘What did you dream-‘ Menae began. Mentioning the dream had made Cadaveo think about the dream, which he unintentionally sent to Menae. Menae saw these thoughts, and began blushing at them.

‘No, don’t look at my thoughts!’ he yelped mentally, embarrassed that Menae had seen such a thing.

“Uh… Menae?” Cooro asked, trying to get her attention. For the others, it was awkward seeing two people, a shape-shifting cat and a mentally able kea, starring at each other. They knew they were having a conversation, but they couldn’t figure out what was. Cooro, however, thought he had a fairly swell idea of what the two were talking about, and he didn’t like it. After all, what was so secretive about it that he couldn’t know?

“Oh, uhh… Cadaveo and I were having a bit of a conversation. I think you might have broken a bone of his,” she notified.

“Where does he feel it?” Tenae inquired.

“In his chest area.”

“He probably broke a rib. It’s not that big of a deal. It’ll heal pretty soon, compared to how fast other bones heal,” Tenemae tried to assure, though her tone of voice just didn’t help get the right message across.

“Either way, I think you should be a bit more careful next time, Cooro. And try not to hurt Noctus, please. He’s already in enough pain as it is,” she advised.

‘Yeah. I’ll be extra careful,’ he thought to himself, relishing the thoughts of what different things he could do to Cadaveo. Alarmed, he shook those harmful thoughts out of his head. What was he thinking? He could very easily hurt someone with his physical ability. He just needed to calm down, and accept that there was nothing more between Menae and Cadaveo other than just friendship.

‘She’s hiding something from you, and you know it,’ Cooro thought to himself. The thought just wouldn’t go away.

“We’ll need to keep moving. Cadaveo, can you walk?” Gatage questioned. Cadaveo nods in response. “Then we can keep moving. If you fall behind, Menae is in charge of making sure you keep up. Cooro, please try not to hurt Noctus too much. I think we aren’t too far off now. It should be just another couple hours’ trek, and we should be seeing the school soon.”

The others, all except Noctus since he was unconscious, accepted the orders, and began following Gatage once again.