“Alright, I’m finished here. Quroe-san! Are you done as well?” shouts Kaito.
“I am!”
30 minutes have passed since the pitch black dome first erupted, trapping 24,000 people inside, where they were forced to play a killing game. After Kaito and Quroe finished tying up the twin siblings, Celia and Celio, who attacked them, they were also suddenly attacked by someone else, a man in his 30s, who claimed to also come from the Underworld, who was patrolling a different area than the twin siblings. Kaito and Quroe easily defeated the man without even breaking a sweat. They have also tied the man up.
But a few minutes later, they were ambushed by a total of 25 other criminals who all came from the Underworld, consisting of males and females of various ages. There are teenagers, young adults, adults, and there are even a few people of old age. They all ganged up on Kaito and Quroe and attacked them at the same time. Though the result of that battle had just finished, now. They easily defeated all of them, and they just finished tying up the last two of the 25 people from the Underworld. They were all gathered to sit around together with Celia and Celio.
“DAMMIT!! WHO ARE THOSE TWO? HOW ON EARTH DID ALL 25 OF US ATTACK THEM TOGETHER AND YET WE DIDN’T EVEN TOUCH THEM??” said one of the criminals, who is a male, 25 years of age.
“TCH!! I’VE NEVER BEEN THIS HUMILIATED IN MY LIFELONG CAREER BEFORE!!” said someone who is a female, 45 years of age.
“Just one of them is stronger than the Game Master himself. Good thing that none of them can enter his pocket dimension.” said a female, 22 years of age.
“Everyone! Just so you know, me and Celia used Unification, and we didn’t even land a single attack!” said Celio.
*GASPS*
Every tied-up criminal just gasps loudly at Celio’s announcement.
“Are you kidding me?? Both of your Faith powers are quite deadly on your own, and together you two have some great chemistry and teamwork. Those two things, plus Unification, still couldn’t harm them at all? What kinda joke is this?” said a 30-year-old man.
Most of them instantly have very dejected and defeated facial expressions.
Meanwhile, Kaito and Quroe are standing at a nearby building on top of the roof, side by side, observing the giant pitch black dome.
“Kaito-san, people are calling the cops.”
“Yeah! I doubt they can help, but at least they’ll take all these criminals away.”
“What about that twin, then? The twin siblings we promised to free from their ‘Master’.”
“. . .Good point. It will be a mess if we try to talk it out with the police. Plus, I have a reputation of my own. I can’t exactly talk to them as well.”
Quroe moves her head and gazes towards the twins to the left, quite a distance from the ground to the building they’re standing on. He focuses his right eye gaze on them. She raises her left arm to the left.
*FWIP*
*!!!*
“CELIA?”
Celio was startled when Celia suddenly disappeared next to him.
“EH?”
Suddenly, Celia appeared and teleported into his hand. He grabs her by the back of her neck. He walks back and places Celia gently on the roof.
“W-w-w-w-w-what are you trying to do?”
“Relax! I’m not gonna hurt you.”
Quroe turns around and walks to the edge of the roof again. This time, he gazes at Celio.
*FWIP*
“WUAH!!”
“CELIO!!!”
“CELIA?”
Celio appeared in Quroe’s hand. Quroe walks to Celia and lowers Celio gently next to him.
“W-What are you trying to do?” asks Celio.
“No, no! We’re not gonna do anything to you. The cops are coming; we can’t free you if you get caught by them.”
*!!!!*
Celia and Celio were surprised by Quroe’s words. They could not believe that he was serious about freeing them. Quroe turns around to walk towards Kaito. Celia and Celio saw that they were talking about something, but they could not hear anything.
*!*
But then they were confused, seeing that Kaito was startled by something Quroe said. Kaito, afterwards, only scratches the back of his hair as he nods in agreement. Celia and Celio are further confused by his reaction.
*!*
Then they see that Kaito and Quroe turn towards them. They walk towards them and stop right in front of them.
“We promised that we would help you, but there’s something we have to confirm beforehand.” said Quroe.
“If you’re asking for something in return, then I completely understand your position. Dealing with matters from the Underworld can get messy real quick.” said Celio.
“No, no! Not about that!” said Kaito.
*?*
Celia and Celio get even more confused now.
“Say, can you tell me again in great detail everything about what you two went through under this ‘Master’ of yours!”
“. . .”
They both stay silent as their faces clearly show that they are reminiscing about their horrible past.
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“Okay, that’s good enough. Kaito-san!”
“Alright, alright!”
Kaito summons his summoned being behind Celia and Celio. The knight raised both of its hands and clenched them into fists.
*BONK BONK*
It swings its fists down and hits Celia and Celio on the back of their heads.
*THUD THUD*
They both immediately lose their consciousness, and they fall face-first forward, hitting the roof tiles below.
“Kaito-san, that sounded bad. Are you sure they’re okay?? They’re not dead, are they?”
“Relax, Quroe-san! My Knight is only as strong as I let it be. If I made it so that he is as strong as 1g of cotton, even if he punches as hard as he can, he won’t be able to hurt or harm anyone or anything. Though there is a limit to his physical strength.”
“I see. That’s good.”
Both Kaito and Quroe open their right hands and summon the Sword of Purification.
“I kinda feel bad for them, but I still need to be careful. Even with their situations, they still grew up in the Underworld. There’s still a chance that they made up everything that they told us, and we would’ve let them go despite their crimes.”
“Good point, honestly. That thought completely escaped my mind. I was too focused on their stories to even doubt it.”
“You’re too soft, Kaito-san! I’m afraid it's caused by the way you treat your girlfriend, or maybe it’s just how kind-hearted you are, unlike me.”
“Ahahahaha! You gave me too much credit. I am in no way a kind person. Though that bit about my girlfriend is possibly true. Also, please don’t talk badly about yourself, Quroe-san! That’s harmful, you know?”
“That’s a great insight, actually. Thank you, Kaito-san! You take the woman. I’ll handle the guy!”
“Okay!”
Kaito and Quroe crouch towards them and roll their bodies over. They both stab the Sword on their chests at the same time. Their Swords quickly become blackened, and they pull them out.
“Alright, here goes!”
“*Sigh* I’m still not used to this. . .” said Quroe.
“Don’t worry! You’ll be!”
*STAB STAB*
They both point the blackened Swords at their chests and stab them into. And so, as if a bunch of videos appeared inside their minds, they received the memory of both Celia and Celio together.
.
.
.
. . . .
“Urgh. . .”
Kasumi opens her eyes.
“. . .”
She realizes that she is lying down with her back facing up, which was weird because she vaguely remembered that she fell to her back when she fell asleep.
“Hana-san. . . Luna-dono. . .”
As soon as she woke up, the first thing she did was worry about her two friends.
“Uuuuuurrrrrggghhhhh. . .”
She also feels the pain and exhaustion throughout her entire body. She slowly gets up and sits on the floor.
“Ouch ouch!”
She holds her head with her right hand as she tries to gather her consciousness.
*!*
“W-Where am I?”
She looks down, and the floor below is different than the one she fell asleep on.
The floor below is all blue, which looked like it was painted with a brush, with painted twirls all over as motifs in a darker shade of blue. She looks to the front, left, right, and above and finds the same blue color and the same twirling motifs all over. This entire room looks very abstract compared to all of the others she had seen, and she had seen almost a hundred different rooms inside this infinite maze.
“Where am I?”
But then her consciousness slowly came back in full, and she realized she was inside a metallic blue square cage without a floor.
“W-What happened??”
“Ah! You finally wake up, Coldhart-san!”
*!!!*
Kasumi heard a man’s voice. She is familiar with this sickening voice, but this is the first time she has heard it with her own ears. She slowly turns around towards the source of this voice.
“. . .”
“Ah! It’s so good to finally see you face-to-face, dear Coldhart-san! How long has it been again?”
“. . .”
“AH! I apologize! Time flows differently inside this place! HAHAHAHAHA!! How could I forget that?”
Kasumi finally saw what the Game Master looked like.
The Game Master is wearing a smiling face mask that is usually associated with the designs of the Joker. Half of the mask is black, and the other half is dark red. It has a pair of smiling closed eyes with contrasting colors, a black eye on the red side, and vice versa. It has a smile in the middle, crossing both colors where it has contrasting colors in half, just like the eyes. The Game Master wears a black top hat with a red trim on its bottom part. He has slightly wavy pale light brown hair under his top hat, where his bangs, side bangs, and the back of his hair come out under the top hat. He is wearing a bright red long-sleeved tuxedo with two tails on the back, over a short-sleeved white shirt and a black bowtie. He wears a pair of red gloves, a pair of black trousers with a pair of white socks, and a pair of black leather shoes. He’s white skinned, he’s 167cm tall, and he weighs around 66kg. His body build is thin and slender, not muscular at all.
The Game Master is currently sitting on a chair that is floating a bit off the floor, so it doesn’t have any legs. His chair is golden on its frame and purple on its cushion, as well as the cushion on its armrests on both sides. He’s sitting with his leg crossed and leaning his back against the backrest.
“Coldhart-san! You have no idea how long I’ve been waiting for you to wake up! I’ve waited and waited and waited, but you or none of your friends ever wake up! I was getting so bored that I was asleep for hours just now! And even when I woke up and was completely refreshed, none of you hasn’t woken up still!”
“Hours? You’ve slept for hours?”
“That’s right, hours!!”
“How long has it been since I fell asleep?”
“Hmm. . . One, two, three, four. . . EIGHTEEN HOURS!! ROUGHLY!”
*!!!*
Kasumi’s heart skips a beat over the Game Master’s answer.
“(Eighteen hours. . .?)”
“. . .”
“(Then, what happened to everyone else inside this maze? Especially the ones that I sent to their deaths. . .)”
“Hm? What’s this? You’re still giving me the silent treatment, Coldhart-san? Aw, come on now!”
*!!*
After being lost in thought for a few seconds, her mind finally came back to reality, and she was reminded of something important.
“W-Where are my friends? Hana-san and Luna-dono?”
“Ah, of course!”
*SNAP*
The Game Master raised his right hand forward and snapped his fingers.
*POOF POOF*
All of a sudden, two metallic blue cages appear in front of him. One has Luna and the other has Hana.
“HANA-SAN!! LUNA-DONO!!”
Kasumi gets up and moves to the door of her cage.
“Did you. . . DID YOU DO ANYTHING TO THEM??”
“R-Relax, Coldhart-san! I didn’t even touch them. I simply used my powers to bring all of you here!” said the Game Master, sounding nervous.
“Ah, by the way, your cage isn’t locked! Feel free to step out whenever you want!”
“. . .”
Kasumi looks down and checks the door of the cage. She checks that indeed her cage wasn’t locked at all. But she didn’t step out of the cage. She was wary that the Game Master had already prepared some kinda traps if she carelessly got out of the cage.
*!*
She looks towards Luna, and she is simply asleep with her face facing the floor, but when she looks towards Hana, she is heavily tied by metallic blue chains. Her hands are tied by a three-layered handcuff, her torso and legs are tied fully in metallic chains, as she sleeps sitting up with her back leaning against the cage bars.
“Why did you tie Hana-san that much?”
“Huh? Are you serious, Coldhart-san? Is that a joke or something?”
*THUD*
The Game Master suddenly gets up from his chair and walks angrily towards Kasumi’s cage. The Game Master crouched in front of Kasumi’s cage and started shouting in anger at her.
“ARE YOU KIDDING ME, COLDHART-SAN?? DID YOU NOT SEE WHAT SHE’S BEEN DOING INSIDE MY MAZE? SHE’S RUTHLESS! SHE’S VIOLENT! SHE’S SCARY!! SHE’S CHAOTIC!! SHE’S DANGEROUS!! SHE’S MORE OF A THREAT THAN ANYONE ELSE INSIDE THIS MAZE!! EVEN COMPARED TO ME AND ALL OF MY PEERS FROM THE UNDERWORLD!! OF COURSE I HAD TO TIE HER UP THAT MUCH!!! PLEASE DON’T MAKE SUCH STUPID JOKES AGAIN, COLDHART-SAN!! IT FUCKING OFFENDS ME!!”
*SIGH*
Afterwards, he stands up and walks back towards his chair to sit down again.
“Alright, where were we? What should we do now?”
“Why are we here, by the way? None of us killed two people to be rewarded with your presence!”
“Nope! One of you killed two people! It was this mentally insane red-haired chick who did it! She killed Darius and Dane!” said the Game Master, pointing at Hana.
“I know about Darius from your announcement, but who’s Dane?”
“Hm? You didn’t know his name? It’s the man that you protected from this woman! The one who’s 2,4m tall without any arms and a tongue when you first saw him.”
*!*
“He. . . died? How? She was fighting me the whole time, and then she fell asleep afterwards!”
“Not long after you two fell asleep, Dane passed away in his sleep because of blood loss.”
“. . .I see.”
“(He left his officer to die without trying to help him at all, even though he called them as ‘peers’, huh?)”
“Now, then, forget about all of that! Tell me what we should do now, Coldhart-san??”
*?*
“Do you wanna get out right now?”
*!!*
Kasumi was a little bit shocked by the Game Master’s request. It seems too good to be true in her ears; there has to be some kinda setup behind his simple question.
