It was as if nature was playing a cruel joke with Taro at this point. The downpour never stopped. The intensity of the rain increased instead. Rather than walking out in the open without giving a damn, he was constricted under an umbrella, slightly worried that the rain might ruin his dress. The rain phobia that he formed back in Wados wasn't helping the case in any way, shape, or form.

Anyway, what was thought of as a light shower ended up becoming one of the biggest rainfall that Kerala had experienced in recent years. It was so big of rainfall, that several of the areas there started flooding. The state had to declare it as a natural disaster; the worst one in recent years. To think that it started with a drizzle of rain.

Taro thought it would happen though. He knew that rain is a wicked thing that does stuff like this. Thankfully for the residents of the Holy land, there wasn't any flood in their area. Also, the rain subsided for a few good hours. So, Taro and company thought that it would be a good time to go out.

Since a natural disaster was announced, the schools were naturally closed, so they had a lot of free time, thus the plan to walk outside was formulated. Even the MIB was closed due to its proximity to a beach and the ones in the facility had closed the underground pathway shut and moved away from their base until the water receded. So, it wasn't just Taro and his teacher squad, Lonappan and John were free as well. Thus, the plan of loitering around had more members than ever.

So, they were about to leave the room, when Thankappan asked them to stop for a while before heading out. The guys knew what was going on. This usually meant that Shivani was going out as well. M'Baku, who previously wanted to stay back and sleep, noticed this and fetched his leash to Taro. The Wadorian then clipped the leash to the chain in M'Baku's neck and waited for Thankappan to open the door. Yet again, the numbers of the outgoing team increased.

After a few minutes, Thankappan opened the door and coincident.. deliberately met up with Shivani. Noticing that they got out simultaneously on a non-school day, Shivani got literal chills in her spine. The more she glanced at Thankappan, the more she saw a creep in him.

Anyway, at least she had something to be happy about since she saw that Charlie was going out as well. "Hey, guys! Where are you going?" She asked, while gently stroking Charlie's head.

"Ah, we were just going out on a walk. What about you?" Taro asked.

"Hmm... Is that so? Mom told me about how our old.. real home just got flooded. So, I was just gonna check it out." Shivani replied.

"Old home?" Taro asked.

"Yea, that's where we used to live." She replied.

"Did you sell it or something?" Taro asked.

"Nah. We just don't live there anymore." She replied.

"Huh.. But why?" Taro asked.

"Well, that's a place that gets flooded a lot. Like, even when a natural disaster of this level isn't announced, that place would get flooded. That's how our old home rolled." She replied.

"I see. That's why you shifted to here, huh. Makes sense." Taro nodded his head.

"By the way, I'm kinda interested in seeing your old home. So, since we're just loitering around aimlessly anyway, we'll join you on your journey to your old home!" Thankappan proclaimed as if they were going on a journey to find the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.

"That's fine by me. There's actually a shortcut to my home if we head in the path of our school. However, I'm pretty sure that shortcut is flooded by now. So, let's go the roundabout way, through Mundur." Shivani spoke.

"Fine by me." Thankappan spoke as he led the way. The others followed him as well.

Meanwhile, Shivani was glancing towards Taro time after time while they walked. More specifically, she was glancing at Charlie, whose leash was in Taro's hand. "What? You wanna walk him around?" Taro asked, to which she didn't speak a single word. Instead, she vigorously nodded her head.

Taro sighed. "You should've just asked, you know?" He spoke as he handed the leash to Shivani. "Charlie likes you as well. So, he would be totally fine with you taking him around. I mean, he won't run around like a crazy person and will totally act like a good boy. Won't you, Charlie?" Taro spoke as he glared towards M'Baku. The canino wanted to shake his head and say roger, however, Shivani was by his side, so he couldn't do those stuff. Instead, he slanted his head like the dogs do when they hear something weird. This earned cute points with Shivani, as she headed down and hugged him tightly. He smiled like crazy, unbeknownst to Shivani.

While that happened, he did feel like someone was glaring darts at him. However, when he looked to the front form where the glare came, no one seemed to be looking at him. Even though that was the case, he knew exactly who it was though. It wasn't that big of a surprise to him.

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Once the squad reached the front gate of the Holy Land, they were joined by Lonappan, who headed straight towards John and walked beside him. He wanted to shield the MIB veteran of anything that would possibly jog his memory. Even if it does jog his memory, with his position beside John, he could always flash the neuralyzer on him which he was currently carrying in his pocket.

Thus they headed towards Shivani's old home... Or at least, that's what they planned initially, but they felt weird about how Shivani was the only woman in their squad right now. Lonappan told that he could bring his wife on this walk as well, however, the squad felt weird since none of them had ever held a proper conversation with Mrs. Lonappan. Thus, that notion was thwarted. So, instead, they headed to the school, hoping to meet the only woman they know of.

"Hey, guys.. And Shivani! Wow. It's just that.. this is really an odd combination. How come you guys are together like this?" Rita, the vice principal asked. She was one of the people that Taro sought to avoid, however, this time around, he had no choice but to do this. However, Taro swore to himself that he'd try having a decent conversation with women from now on.. Then he wouldn't have to call upon Rita like this.

"Well, we're kinda like neighbors. So, we ended up meeting each other." Taro replied. One could sense literally no energy in his reply.

"Is that so? I never knew that." Rita replied as she fixed her gaze at Taro. Ever since they came to the school, Rita had her eyes fixed on him. Although the others found this simple since they couldn't manage to function under such a sharp gaze, they were kinda pissed off about how she viewed them as if they were mere bugs.

"Yea.. So, you see. We were about to head to her old home and see how much it flooded over there and we suddenly thought of you. So, you wanna come with us?" Taro got straight to the point. Although, he did not mention that the invite was merely out of obligation.

"Oh, really? I'd love to head there with you!" Rita spoke out of elation as if Taro just invited her to an amusement park rather than a flood-affected area.

"Ah, that's good. Great, in fact! I'm really happy to hear that." Taro gave out an awkward smile as he spoke; quite a different complexion compared to Rita opposite him, who was giving out a bright smile. He felt it.. That this journey was gonna be hell for him.

And he wasn't wrong about that at all. During the entire journey to Shivani's home, he could feel Rita's stare towards him. Not only did she stare at him like that, she actively tried to converse with him, which kinda made him uncomfortable, since he actually didn't want to talk with her. However, since she was trying to invade his private space, he tried invading someone else's by getting in a conversation with someone else, hoping that she would voluntarily walk away from him. However, that's when he noticed that the others were keeping a distance from him. They betrayed his trust in them. Each time he stepped towards them, they increased their speed. And when he finally caught hold of someone and forced them to speak, Rita would interfere and shorten up the entire conversation by saying that someone else was calling for them. And since those guys didn't want to hold a conversation with Taro in the first place, they would happily act along with Rita's lies and run far away from the Wadorian. So, in the end, it looked like he had no choice. He was stuck with the crazy woman, who's supposed to be the vice-principal of a school.

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