A harsh, yellow light enveloped Aiko like a lukewarm blanket. She held her hand up to her eyes to block the light out, but felt her balance dramatically shift back and forth as she struggled to keep herself upright. She looked around, but nothing of interest was anywhere in sight. So instead, Aiko looked down.
Below her feet, she found herself atop a thin, clear tightrope that separated her from a dark, endless abyss.
Aiko’s heart raced while she tried to reclaim her balance atop the highwire. She could barely make out anything else in the distance, leaving her completely unable to decide whether or not to keep going.
Suddenly, something stepped out of the shadows beyond in front of her. Initially, Aiko was unable to discern whether or not it was Genjo, Ryu, or somebody else entirely. As they slowly revealed themselves, she could see that the end of the rope wasn’t quite as far away as she feared - What she now feared instead was the figure that now stood at the edge.
There was a tall, slender woman with short, blonde hair that was concealed by a black, felt flat cap. She donned a brown tweed jacket and matching slacks. The woman leaned with her right hand on her hip, on which she bore her weight. Her gaze of perpetual slyness was accented by her sharp winged eyeliner and muted smile.
“Oh, poor Aiko…” The woman’s voice was mellow and alluring in an almost seductive manner. “The damsel in distress… Awaiting rescue from her knight in shining armor.” She delicately grabbed an old-fashioned cigarette holder from behind her left ear, lit a cigarette, and took a long drag, blowing out a long stream of smoke. “What a tragic end to my most treasured performer in ages…” Taking another drag from the cigarette, the woman lightly tapped it with her finger to discard the ash. “You know, I very much enjoyed each and every moment of it - Truly, I did. You wouldn’t believe how long it’s been since I’ve met a group of such… talented individuals. I was beginning to waste away in here before you came along, Ms. Matsuura.”
Aiko shouted at her from the center of the tightrope. “Who are you? How the hell did I get here?”
She took another drag from the cigarette. “Oh, honey, that’s not your line, is it?” The woman flipped through a small, paperback playbook. “It says here… ‘Oh, Ms. Prodosía, won’t you please save me from this utterly horrible predicament?’ …Yes, that’s much better!”
“As if.” Aiko, remembering the stories Ryu had told her about Paramélisi, had an unwavering feeling that this woman was the reason for all of this. Through her panic, keeping her balance atop the rope grew increasingly difficult. “Get me the hell off of this thing.”
Prodosía cackled to herself. “Poor child… do you not recall what I told you before?” She flicked the cold ashes that remained of her cigarette, casting them into the depths below. “The knight in shining armor has yet to arrive.”
~
Pain, fatigue, and anger coursed through my veins as I continued up the stairs. Surviving off adrenaline was my last resort while I kept my vision set on the yellow light in the distance. I felt the muscles that held my legs together burn and ache as a ferocious voice inside of my head repeated the same phrase to me over and over again - ‘Save her, you fucking idiot. Fix your god damn mess.’
This wouldn’t have happened if you had watched your mouth, Genjo. She might be dead and it’s all your fault, Genjo. Why did you leave Ryu behind, Genjo? What kind of friend would let this happen?
I clenched my fists to fight through the lactic acid buildup in my legs, letting the wound on my left palm bear their burden instead.
The yellow light grew larger as I approached the peak of the stairs, casting down from above at an angle that could’ve cast beautiful shadows on the floor if there was anything in between it and the floor. Before my eyes laid a very simple sight - a thin, seemingly infinite tightrope that shimmered in the presence of the light. I bent down to get a closer look. The wire seemed impossibly thin. I’d be surprised if it could bear any weight at all.
A voice beckoned me from the other side of the abyss. “Ooh, right on cue!” I had never heard this voice before - it certainly wasn’t Ryu, and it didn’t sound like a voice Aiko had ever made up. “The Knight has finally arrived to rescue the Princess from the deadly pit of despair! Oh, the calamity! Won’t somebody help her as soon as possible?”
‘Princess?’ Talk about a dead giveaway. I shouted across the abyss to whoever was listening. “Don’t worry, Aiko! I’m going to-”
The light suddenly shone at an even greater intensity, revealing the entire length of the wire and a mysterious, blonde figure sitting at the other end in a red director’s chair. Another figure stood directly in between us, balancing herself atop the tightrope. Although her back was facing my direction, I recognized that dress anywhere. Part of me still couldn’t be sure that this was the real Aiko, but either way, she was eerily silent.
The woman across the wire spoke once more. “Quite the dilemma, wouldn’t you say, Sir Genjo?” For once, I actually wasn’t surprised that she knew my name - I guess I’ve just gotten used to it over the last few days. I chose not to interrupt her, lest I put Aiko’s life in further danger. “What will you choose? Save Princess Aiko and risk plummeting to your own demise? Or will your weakness keep you frozen in fear where you stand?”
I clutched my sword tightly in my palm. “Is that supposed to be a question? Of course I’m going to save her.”
“Oh, is that so?” The woman clapped twice and, as if on cue, the lights dimmed once again. Spotlights now cast down on the woman, Aiko and I. “Are you so sure that you’re willing to put your life on the line for someone who would never do the same for you?”
My heart sank. “...huh?” What kind of trick could she be getting at now?
I heard Aiko attempt to shout out to me, her voice faltering as it attempted to reach behind her. If only there was a solid surface for her voice to bounce off of, maybe she would’ve been more successful. “Genjo, I-”
Aiko’s voice was somehow abruptly cut off by more of her own voice. It beckoned from every corner of the void surrounding us. Disembodied speech planted the seeds of words directly into my head.
“You act like you care about me when you actually don’t. Are you happy?”
“Get away from me!”
“Anywhere that gets me away from you.”
All of those voices growing inside of my brain were unmistakably Aiko, but I couldn’t recall any of them. When did she say those things? Or were they actually just the thoughts she doesn’t say out loud?
The woman snickered. “Crystal clear, is it not? Don’t tell me you don’t understand now, Sir Genjo. Unless… you don’t want to understand.” The spotlight on Aiko focused more intently on her. “She’s turned her back on you, Knight. You’ve given her so much, and yet she’s still chosen to leave you behind… how pitiful of her.” I couldn’t believe it - I wouldn’t. I know Aiko isn’t that type of person - but then again, what do I actually know about her?
If Aiko had tried to make a rebuttal, I certainly wouldn't have been able to hear it from over here.
I tried to swallow down what felt like an enormous lump in my throat as the seeds of doubt began growing throughout my mind. “I can’t…” A tear rolled down my right cheek. “No, I won’t believe this. She wouldn’t say-”
“She wouldn’t?” The woman’s voice rose while the tips of her fingers began to steeple. Each time her fingertips touched, the sound carried all the way across the wire. “Princess Aiko, you said these things directly to Sir Genjo, did you not?”
Once again, Aiko barely moved, only swaying slightly as she struggled to maintain her balance. Not being able to see her face made it impossible to tell what was truly happening on the other side.
Another tear snuck its way out of my eye. “N-no… This doesn’t… make sense…” I resisted the urge to fall to one knee. I never remembered her saying these things to me before. Could she have said this to Ryu while I passed out earlier? No other possibility makes sense… because it’s all illogical… So why is it still getting to me?
Soon, a stream of tears crashed against the ground. “I refuse to believe it.” I repeated that statement over and over, but it became progressively harder to mean it with every subsequent proclamation.
The woman reveled in my misery with immense joy. “And thus, all has been laid bare for the world to see… Such is the beauty - yet the pain - of the truth.” She began applauding, making the spotlight focus more intently on me with each clap. “Many choose to peer at the world through glass, believing everything they see on the other side to be the truth. But what they don’t realize is how cloudy and impure the glass is.” The woman held a small crystal ball in her hand. “I prefer to tear down that illusion - all the way down to its rotten core.”
She crushed the crystal ball in the palm of her hand, sending a sharp pain through my stomach. I finally collapsed from all of my combined pain, falling down on my left knee. My vision nearly went black as I fell, but I somehow made out one small detail through the meaningless static - The tightrope had begun to wobble.
“How are we to know what is truth, versus what is falsehood? Why must they always appear the same as one another through the glass?” The woman simply gazed into another one of her crystal balls. “It is because you are all afraid of being seen as anything but a ‘pure’ and ‘transparent’ window, when you’re truly anything but.”
As the second ball crumbled in her hand, the sensation of agony from my abdomen began surging throughout my entire body from head to toe. I was completely immobilized on the ground as I dropped my sword and clutched my stomach tightly with my arms. In a brief glimpse, I could see the sway of the tightrope getting more intense.
Blood trailed from the woman’s palm. “Humans are only ‘pure’ because they are afraid of the truth.” The drops of blood landed on the shards of glass at her feet, painting them an all too familiar red. “Seeking the truth is a painful process, and those who seek it become stained the color of the agony brought upon by it. When others spot those stains, they see them as a sign to stay away, lest their own glass be stained by the harsh, unnecessary truth of how cruel your world truly is. They refuse to admit that underneath the facades that you’ve all worked so hard to build, the truth is much, much more blood-curdling than meets the eye.”
She gently set her final crystal ball down on the ground in front of her. The blood that pooled on the surface soaked into the crystal ball until the red hue had become homogeneous. “Even though this one was not damaged by the truth, it was still tainted by the misery and hardship that came before. All the more incentive to stay away from the ‘impure’, is it not? It prevents so much needless pain, allowing all to live in the comfort of the glass… Isn’t it just wonderful, Sir Genjo?”
Illusions… Falsehood… Pain… All three of those words reverberated through my mind.
I slowly lifted myself up, having few tears left to cry. Every time I closed my eyes, I was haunted by the dread in Aiko’s eyes as I stabbed her. Even though I knew she was fake, that still didn’t stop it from sending shivers down my spine. I searched deep inside of myself to find the courage to face her after what I’d done…
…until the faint sound of rustling fabric found the courage for me.
My eyelids quickly opened wide on their own without conscious thought. The intensity of the yellow spotlight had grown harsher, and the tightrope had grown restless. Overwhelmed with fear, I looked out to see if she had fallen.
Somehow, Aiko was still standing. But her arms were no longer spread out to keep her balance… Rather, they were held tightly around her abdomen.
Everything had finally fallen into place.
“To feel pain… is to exist.” I aimed the tip of my sword out towards the woman. “You… You’re not human. Whatever you are,it doesn’t change the fact that you don’t feel any pain.” I began pointing it at Aiko instead. “But I know Aiko does. That’s what makes her human.” The end of the blade once again focused on its true target. “I know the truth from falsehood now. I’m not going to fall for any more of your illusions.”
…That was only mostly true. I still thought about all of the things that the fake Aiko had said to me before. Even though I know now that they weren’t real, I knew that the words she spoke were at least founded in some truth. That woman must’ve been listening to us for hours, just waiting for the perfect chance to turn us against one another - But I wasn’t going to let her do that anymore.
For the first time, Aiko spoke up. “Why… Why do you keep putting your faith in me?” Her words were finally able to reach me. “No matter how many times I tell you no, you still choose to trust me… Why won’t you just listen to me, Genjo?”
“Because I’m stupid, okay?” My voice started to crack as my eyes found more tears to cry. “I blindly trust everybody who even slightly cares about me, and I always find some way to get myself hurt in the process.” Despite the ache in my throat, I didn’t stop shouting. “Aiko, I wish that I could know what it’s like to not trust somebody.” Eventually, my voice finally gave out.
“Genjo…” Aiko’s voice was full of remorse. “...I wish I could trust you just as much as you trust me, but…” She clenched her fists. “...I just can’t. I’m sorry.”
Without thinking, I stepped onto the tightrope and started walking towards Aiko, shouting out with a voice that barely existed anymore. “Then let me trust for you.” My stability was out of control, but I was walking fast enough that it didn’t matter. “I get it. You don’t know if this is the real me, but I know that you’re the real you.”
My legs didn’t stop wobbling. My soreness - combined with the sword in my right hand - made balancing practically impossible. “The real Aiko has seen me fail over and over again - rehearsal, staying awake in class… hell, even basic conversation…” The distance between us still felt insurmountable. “But the real Aiko never gave up on me. That’s what trust is. And I’m sure as hell never going to give up on you.”
Aiko took her very first step across the tightrope. She didn’t move forward - rather, she turned around to face me, revealing her own tears streaming down her face. This maneuver caused her to further lose her balance, but she didn’t care about that anymore. “Genjo, stop! How many times do I have to tell you that I’m not worth it?”
The distance between me and Aiko started to finally feel manageable. “Enough times for you to stay alive so I can save you, damn it!”
We both struggled to keep our footing. “Save yourself, Genjo!” My fatigue was finally setting in. Between the two of us, it was obvious who had to fight harder against the pull of the abyss.
“I’m saving you if it’s the last thing I do! This is my mess and I’m going to make things right!” An overwhelming feeling told me that my time on the wire had been spent. Beneath our feet, the tightrope glistened in the presence of our spotlights. As my legs started to give way, I was worried that our lights would never meet. In a last ditch effort, I tried reaching out to Aiko with my left hand.
We were still too far apart. All the while, the cackles of the woman on the other end of the wire were neverending. Even though I couldn’t reach her, I knew that something could. My foot slipped as I tossed my sword to Aiko before I plunged into the empty void below. One last thought rang through my head in my final moments…
It’s all in your hands now, Aiko.
~
Genjo’s sword glided through the air into Aiko’s hand. She quickly regained her balance, turning back around to face Prodosía. “What the hell is wrong with you?”
Prodosía looked at Aiko with a distorted grin. “Oh, I cannot believe what the pot is asking the kettle right now.” Anger visibility emanated from her face, which was slowly looking less and less human. “Letting your friend descend to his death… all because you choose to keep everyone at arm's length? Pathetic.”
Aiko pointed the sword at Prodosía with a glare that was filled with intent to kill. “You knew from the start that he wouldn’t be able to cross. This is all your fault, not mine.”
“So what?” Prodosía sat down, crossing her legs over one another while sharpening a long, blood-red claw. “You’ve been holding yourself up just fine. I believe that speaks more to his weakness than my intentions.”
“...That’s all you want, isn’t it?” Aiko’s eye was attracted to the glimmer of the light as it passed through the tightrope. She could see small rays of color from all edges of the wire, almost like they were diffracting through a prism. “You want to see us struggle, fight one another, and ultimately tear each other apart, all in an effort to entertain you.”
Prodosía couldn’t decide which of her various hands she wanted to hold her cigarette in. “In a certain way, I suppose I do. At the end of the day, I just find you entertaining no matter what. Watching your kind betray one another so many times, but seeing the same outcome every single time… After a while, something about human unpredictability becomes predictable. Quite funny how that works, wouldn’t you say?”
Aiko held the sword with all of her remaining strength. “I wouldn’t.” The hilt of the falchion was still warm from Genjo’s grasp. “Because there’s another outcome to all this.”
Pretending to act intrigued, Prodosía raised at least four of her grossly misshapen eyebrows. “Oh? And that is…?”
Aiko stared at Prodosía like she was looking down the barrel of a gun. She had shed her final tear. No longer would she run away from the truth. Aiko remembered the way that Genjo reached out to her - it was with his bandaged hand.
“I’m done playing your games, you scoundrel.”
~
Using the might of the blade belonging to the first one she had ever chosen to trust, Aiko sliced through the tightrope, shattering it into millions of small glass fragments. Aiko tumbled into the abyss, but she wasn’t afraid anymore. As the yellow light quickly faded from view, Aiko wondered whether or not she would see Genjo at the bottom - if there even was a bottom. Regardless, even if she was falling to her death, she was finally at ease knowing that she had finally seen through Prodosía’s lies.
The tiny shards of glass rained down around Aiko, sparkling like a sky full of stars throughout the black void. She fell facing the sky above, watching each of the glass shards find their places to call home in the sky in constellation-like patterns. Aiko found it comforting to identify various shapes that the constellations formed - a withering rose, a pair of angel wings, and even a shield with a sword crossing diagonally through it. Over time, the shield started resembling a heart instead, and the constellation now told a completely different tale - one that Aiko knew all too well.
A new voice spoke to Aiko from afar.
“Aiko Matsuura… Why do you lock yourself away from the people you love?”
Her eyes were fixed on the stars. “For my own protection. No one can ever hurt me if I stay there, will they?”
“Is that truly what you desire? To continue living your life locked in a tower, hiding away your true self, and denying yourself of a life surrounded by others?”
Aiko reached out to the sky above. “They’ve never given me a reason to step outside.”
“Do not lie to yourself, little one.”
A small blue light flickered from a star in the center of the constellation.
“The Star has chosen to bestow its light upon you. How will you choose to repay it?”
Aiko’s hand trembled. Although she was too frightened to say it, she knew exactly what she needed to do. “...I’ll never forget what he’s done for me. I don’t even know if he’s still alive, but I’m going to remember it until the bitter end.”
“...So you have chosen to let the Star free you from your shackles.”
The intensity of the light flourished throughout the sky as its hue briefly shifted from a deep blue to a viridescent green. From its epicenter, an object fell straight into the palm of Aiko’s hand. It was a small blue card which resembled those that Genjo and Ryu had shown her previously. The card bore a heart pierced by ten swords on its back.
“What shall you do with your newfound liberty?”
Aiko held the card close to her heart. She could feel her pulse finally relax for the first time in what felt like years. “Guess it’s time to find out what I was so afraid of, right?”
The card abandoned its physical form, dispersing into energy that swirled around Aiko’s right hand. Suddenly, Aiko no longer felt out of control of her own body. She floated effortlessly on the air that had previously restrained her. Gravity held no power over Aiko anymore - she was finally free. She concentrated the energy into a vortex that rested in the palm of her hand.
“Watch out, showbiz… The Mythic Matsuura is finally back.”
Clenching her fist, Aiko struck the non-existent ground below.
~
The entire void collapsed around Aiko, revealing itself to be nothing more than another illusion formed by the glass walls of Prodosía’s creation. A gust of wind erupted from beneath Aiko, sending the fragments of the illusion soaring through the air. She now found herself standing on an enormous, neon-lit labyrinth. The eerie silence told her that neither Genjo nor Prodosía were there with her.
Aiko continued to survey her surroundings with utmost caution. Various props were piled up around the corners of the walls, making the many crudely constructed sets incredibly cluttered and nearly impossible to navigate. She had developed a hypersensitivity to the movement of the air - the flow of the wind began to irritate her as she felt each and every minute breeze passing by. One particular air current felt much stronger and unnatural than the others, so she quickly followed the source of the breeze to a shoddy recreation of the top of a castle spire. Aiko busted down the door and found Ryu inside lying on the ground, clutching his head in agony.
Before she could step inside to help Ryu, another odd feeling tugged her attention away from him. “Ugh, what now?” Aiko turned around and looked up into the sky to see Genjo falling from above. “Oh, goodness gracious!” With a quick burst of speed, Aiko leapt into the air after Genjo. Her brilliantly calculated trajectory sent her flying straight at him - which was certainly necessary, seeing as she didn’t have enough control of her power to be able to change her trajectory midair. As Aiko caught Genjo in her arms, she focused all of her might into slowing their descent to the ground.
~
When I woke up, I was tightly snug between Aiko’s arms. “...Aiko? What the hell are you doing?” My brain felt dull and heavy like I had inhaled too much chloroform.
“Repaying the favor of saving my life, dummy.” Hearing Aiko’s voice return to its typical bubbly tone was nice - it sounded like she’s finally starting to feel like herself again. “Oh, by the way, don’t look down.”
In my highly suggestible state, I instantly looked straight down, only to be greeted by a 50-foot gap between us and a vast, colorful landscape below. “Christ, Aiko!” Fear quickly washed over me as I nearly jolted out of Aiko’s arms. “One hell of a way to sober me up, that’s for damn sure.”
Aiko had to increase the strength of her hold on me as I tried to wrestle myself away from her. “Well, what did you want me to do? Would you have preferred I told you to ‘get back on your feet’ or something?” Sensing that I wanted to get to the ground as soon as possible, Aiko let us descend more quickly.
Once I reached the ground, I immediately collapsed to my knees. “Oh my god,” I exclaimed as I cherished the feeling of the Earth’s force pushing back against me. “I hope I never have to go up that high again for the rest of my life.” I looked up to see Aiko standing above me as I groveled at her feet. “I can’t thank you enough, Aiko.”
She smirked as she flicked her wrist upwards, causing a miniature gust of wind to lift me off the ground. “Don’t sweat it.”
I suppressed a heart attack as I landed cleanly on my feet. “Seriously, you’ve gotta start telling me when you do shit like that.”
Aiko giggled to herself. “Alright, fine. Keep on being a baby about it if you want.” Her sarcasm never fails to hit closer to home than I’d like. “We should get back to business.” She ran over to a set that resembled a castle tower. “It’s Ryu.”
We opened the door and found Ryu on the ground. “Gosh, he looks terrible. Aiko, what’s happening to him?”
“That’s what I needed you for, actually.” She crouched down next to Ryu and looked up at me. “He doesn’t look like he’s asleep, but he’s clearly unresponsive.”
I quickly ran over to Ryu and kneeled down by him. “I’ll see what I can do.” I could hear Ryu whispering to himself in his catatonic state, but the things he was saying didn’t sound like they were directed toward himself.
“Stop making everything you do into my problem.”
Aiko moved closer to me in an attempt to hear what Ryu was saying. “Genjo, what is he talking about?”
“I’m not sure.” I kept on listening, trying not to disturb him.
Ryu kept on whispering to himself. “I didn’t think that, I just didn’t want you to abandon me…”
“Who do you think he’s talking to?” Aiko whispered to me softly.
“Shh…” I gently pushed Aiko back with my arm as I leaned in closer.
Ryu continued. “Because you’re all I really have anymore.”
I backed away from Ryu. “I think I’ve got it.”
Aiko looked at me with an expression of utter confusion. “And that is…?”
“He’s not talking to himself.” I rested my left hand on Aiko’s knee. “It’s me that he’s talking to, Aiko.”
I felt her knee wobble as she briefly shuddered. “Huh? How did you-”
“Step back.” I took a deep breath as Aiko followed my orders. “...Here goes nothing.”
I leaned in and placed my hand on Ryu’s shoulder, immediately snapping him back into reality. He looked around in a panic before eventually setting his eyes on me. “...Genjo?”
I smiled. “Ryu, you’re okay-”
“You fucking bastard!” Ryu quickly lunged for my throat, pinning me on the ground. “Who the fuck do you think you are?”
Words barely escaped my throat as Ryu kept a fierce grip around it. “H-Hey… nice to… see you too… buddy…”
Ryu’s grip on my throat tightened. “Oh no, you don’t get to play the friendly, innocent guy this time. What the hell is wrong with you?”
Aiko yelled at Ryu from the other side of the room. “Ryu! Stop this! Genjo didn’t-”
“Stay out of this!” Ryu was laser focused. Very little air could reach my lungs through his grasp. “This is between me and him.”
My eyes kept contact with Ryu’s the entire time that he was choking me. I saw a raging flame ablaze inside of them. “Ryu, I-”
He pushed down with his hand, holding the back of my neck against the floor. After a swirl of blue fire, Ryu held his knife up in the air, pointed directly at my throat. “One chance, Genjo - No more, no less.” His teeth grinded against each other in his unbridled rage. “Go ahead. Answer me.”
As my vision started blacking out into meaningless static, I managed to sputter out the only words that I still remembered how to say. “I was wrong.”
Ryu let go of my throat. There was a quiet thud as his dagger fell to the floor. “...What?”
I gasped for air while Aiko helped me sit up straight. “I…” My vision was slowly coming back in patches. “I would never think about replacing you, and I shouldn’t have ever made you think that I would, Ryu.”
The expression on Ryu’s face appeared to be stuck in a state of limbo between shock and guilt. Ryu backed away from me and Aiko as he avoided eye contact with both of us. “...How long have you known, Genjo?”
Once the fog had cleared from my eyes, I pushed myself up off the ground and approached Ryu. “Honestly, I’m upset with myself for not realizing it sooner. A better friend wouldn’t have forced you to face a place like this alone.” As I spoke to him, I couldn’t tell if I was choking up because of Ryu’s chokehold, or because my pride had become too hard to swallow. “...I had no right to get as angry as I did today, Ryu. I should’ve known how difficult it must’ve been deciding to help me and Aiko today, and there’s no excuse for me pushing you as hard as I did.”
I extended my bandaged hand out to him. “Most of all, I’m sorry that I forgot to treat you like a friend. No one is ever going to replace anyone. Not on my watch.”
Still looking away at one of the corners of the room, Ryu gently reached out to my bandaged hand with his own. “...You didn’t need to say all that. I would’ve been okay with just ‘I’m sorry’, you know.” I sensed a miniscule hesitation in his voice. Ryu’s lying to himself. What reason could he possibly have to keep holding back?
I purposefully left a moment of silence to give him some time to realize it on his own.
After about ten seconds, Ryu finally looked me in the eyes. “...You’re a good man, Genjo. Never tell yourself that you aren’t.” He heartily shook my hand, the sheer strength of which reminded me of the moment that we first met. “I want to learn how to be more open about feelings like this… Maybe even some coping methods that don’t consist of strangling people.”
Aiko began incessantly poking me in the shoulder, most likely in an attempt to signify that she was ready for us to finish our heart-to-heart already. “I don’t mean to interrupt, but-” She scratched her head for a brief second. “Okay, nevermind - I totally do mean to interrupt.” Aiko’s heels rapidly clattered against the wooden floor as she quickly shuffled backwards until she reached the door. “There’s still a creepy woman in a grody jacket somewhere out there who probably wants to kill me, so can we put this on hold for a bit?”
Support creative writers by reading their stories on Royal Road, not stolen versions.
I sighed. “Oh. Right…” I looked back at Ryu. “We’ll get you up to speed.”
Ryu quietly scoffed. “I’m sure that thing can’t be any filthier than the last one, right?”
I caught a brief mental image of Paramélisi and his claw-like fingernails. “Ryu, the bar for that is so low that the devil probably does pull-ups on it.” I gave his hand one last firm shake. “Talk about this later?”
“...Sure.” Ryu raised an eyebrow and smirked. “Later.”
The three of us quickly grabbed our belongings and booked it out of the room. All of my attempts to survey the world around us felt meaningless; We were surrounded by an ensemble of seemingly random sets and colorful props that blended together from afar. In fact, it was so random that I barely even recognized it.
“Did everything change while we were in there? Ugh, this is so stupid!” Aiko stomped her foot on the ground, accidentally sending out a small gust of wind in the process that nearly swept Ryu off his feet. “How are we supposed to get out of here now?”
I cracked my neck as I slid my headphones back on my head. “You get used to it after a while.” I brandished my sword and turned back to face the group. “Staying together gives us our best chance. Last time we split up, she was able to take advantage of us. Don’t let her get that chance again.” I hit the play button on my MP3 player and turned up the volume to let everyone else hear the start - “Killjoys, make some noise!”
Aiko’s head abruptly jerked to the left. “Hey everyone, I sense something from over there! Something feels strange about the air in that direction.”
Ryu grabbed his dagger from his pocket. “On it.” He brashly charged off down the path, and Aiko and I stayed right on his tail.
“Hey, Aiko,” I said as my breathing grew heavier. “How did you know this was the right way?”
Aiko laughed without showing a single sign of exhaustion. “Hey, nobody said anything about this being the ‘right way’. I’m trying to learn how to trust my gut more!”
Massive walls of glass suddenly formed around us, trapping us in an area no larger than my chemistry lecture hall, and a wave of humanoid phantoms seeped out of the ground. “Well, Aiko, it looks like your gut might have a stomach bug.”
“Hey! How was I supposed to know?” Aiko, shaken up from having never actually seen a phantom before, stepped to stand by my side. “What do we do now?”
I looked down at her over my shoulder without leaving my defensive stance. “Follow my lead, Aiko.” With a snap of my fingers, I unleashed Petrov and sent out a blast of energy in the general direction of a few phantoms. “By the way, the most important thing to remember: if your facade gets hit, then you also get hit.”
“Great tip! Especially since I don’t even know how to summon it yet.” Aiko stood with her back facing mine, refusing to leave my side. “Can we start with the actual basics?”
Crackling bolts of lightning radiated from Ryu sliced through phantoms left and right with his dagger. “A little help here? No rush, you two!”
I put my hands on Aiko’s shoulders. “Best advice I can give right now: Figure it out.” I backed away, gave her a smile and a couple of thumbs-ups, and quickly ran into action. Congrats, Genjo. Way to show her the ropes.
“Oh, come on!!” Aiko yelled as she resisted the urge to lose her temper. As the phantoms slowly circled around her, she just got more and more resentful. “Idiot Genjo… couldn’t even tell me how to start it up.”
“I can still hear you, Aiko.” I tried my best to keep up conversation in the midst of three different phantoms swinging at me with their razor sharp claws. “The reason I can’t tell you how to summon it is because I wasn’t there when you did it the first time. It’s something that only you can remember.”
Aiko went strangely quiet. “Genjo, what if I …don’t remember?”
A phantom that made the mistake of sneaking up on me received a nuclear blast to the face, killing it instantly. “You’re telling me you can memorize an entire scene for class in 10 minutes, but you can’t remember one pose-”
“Shut up!” Aiko clenched her fists as she yelled back to me. “I don’t have infinite brain space, dummy!” The ring of phantoms around her had nearly entirely closed in. Unable to contain her temper, Aiko completely flipped her lid. “Ugh!! I’m so stupid!!!” Aiko screamed as she stomped her heel on the ground. “...It’s not that hard, Aiko, just remember already!!” She rattled her head with her fists, hoping it would make her brain cells connect faster.
Ryu glanced at Aiko in between swipes of his dagger. “Aiko, you gotta relax. There’s no way you’ll be able to-”
Aiko furiously raised her right fist high into the air, causing a vortex of energy to spiral around it. “Feast your eyes, boys! I got your bloody facade right here!!” Her fist violently struck the ground, sending out powerful gales of wind from underneath Aiko. All of the phantoms surrounding her were either blown out of sight or succumbed to the wind itself. Green light appeared around Aiko, emanating from the ground in a circle where the phantoms formerly stood. The glass walls surrounding us shattered, crumbling in the blink of an eye.
At long last, Aiko’s facade had finally taken shape.
Aiko’s facade was veiled in an elegant, white dress that was made of iridescent fabrics, decorated on the front with various yellow gems, and had extremely puffy shoulders. A simple circlet made of pink and white carnations delicately rested upon her brunette hair, which wasn’t styled all that differently from Aiko’s haircut. The facade carried a fan made out of pure white feathers in one hand and an open playbook in the other. As the wind blew from beneath Aiko, the bottom of the facade’s dress flowed with the air. In contrast, Aiko’s dress barely reacted to the air below her, as if she was using her facade’s power to keep it in place.
Once the wind died down, Ryu and I ran straight to Aiko to help her up. Just like the day that I had first summoned Petrov, the process had momentarily drained Aiko of all her energy. Ryu put her arm over his shoulder as we lifted her. “Damn, girl. That sure was an entrance for the books.”
“Aw, shut up, Ryu.” Aiko forced us to let go of her so she could regain her balance all by herself. “Might I remind you that it was literally an accident. I couldn’t have scripted something that cool if I tried.”
I quickly stepped up to Aiko, brushed some dirt off her shoulder, and immediately stepped back. “Didn’t you give me a lecture earlier about not going off-script?”
Aiko nervously adjusted her hair clip. “There’s nothing inherently wrong with it. It’s just not cool when you do it yet.” Ouch. Aiko Matsuura’s famous sarcasm strikes again. “Anyway, are you guys proud of me? I actually have my own facade now!” She was holding back squeals of excitement as she admired her new power.
Ryu took a quick look at the facade in the white dress. “Hmm… A bit too 80’s for my taste.”
The velocity of Aiko’s palm making contact with Ryu’s face was comically fast. “Don’t you dare, Ryu Kase.” Aiko gestured towards Petrov. “Are we just gonna pretend that Genjo’s facade doesn’t have the tackiest outfit on this side of the Pacific?”
Although it could’ve been thematically appropriate to do so, I quickly shut down the impulse to slap a woman. (I mean, I’ve already been kind of a bad friend today, but even I have limits.) Instead, I took a different page from Aiko’s book and tried to give the most grossly exaggerated gasp I could muster. “Aiko! Why must you be so hurtful… I wasn’t even the one who insulted your precious…” Fuck. I don’t even know its name. Quite possibly the worst way for a bit to die.
Aiko crossed her arms and stood proud in front of her facade. “Sarah.”
I awkwardly smiled at Aiko. “...Sarah! That’s right, how could I possibly forget such a unique name?”
It wasn’t very long before I received a well-deserved smack of my own - from Ryu of all people. “Ow! What the hell? Why are you mad about this?”
Ryu shrugged. “Beats me. It just felt thematically appropriate.” Glad we all got that out of our systems. “You do have a point though, Genjo.” Ryu stared at Sarah again. “Aiko, couldn’t you have picked a name with a bit more punch to it?”
Aiko’s trademark pout returned as she looked away from the both of us. “You two need to watch more musicals.” I made a mental note to look up whatever musical Aiko was talking about when I got back to my dorm, although the name ‘Sarah’ doesn’t exactly narrow down my options.
“Guys, we need to focus.” I gathered everyone closer together so we could discuss how to proceed. “Now that all three of us have facades, I think we might actually have a fighting chance if we encounter that woman again. There’s no telling what she’s capable of, so we need a game plan.”
“I’m not sure how much help I’ll be, Genjo.” Aiko’s gaze was fixed on her glove. “I don’t even know what Sarah can do, let alone how I can contribute to a fight against something like Prodosía.”
I took her by the hand, forcing her to pay attention to my words instead. “Aiko, let me tell you a secret about Ryu and I. Neither of us have any clue either.”
Ryu slowly raised his hand. Wait, I never-”
I pushed his hand back down. “What he’s trying to say is that he’s never actually tapped into Midas’ maximum potential. The possibilities are only as endless as your imagination, Aiko.” I held my purple flame in the center of the three of us, letting it burn without unleashing Petrov. “Don’t keep that potential locked away, everyone.” I snapped my fingers to summon my facade, directing its strength to oxidize a metal shovel that was lying in one of the various piles of props around us. Once rusted, the shovel completely disintegrated. “Mold the world with it.”
With reinvigorated spirits, Ryu, Aiko and I continued to search for Prodosía.
~
For what seemed like it was supposed to be an infinite labyrinth created for the sole purpose of torturing us, I was pretty shocked by the lack of death traps or interesting puzzles. Much to the group’s dismay, I requested that we take a quick break to stretch our legs and catch our breath, to which I was unfortunately reminded that the only person who needed a break was me.
“Can you two please not rub it in?” I leaned my leg up against a wall to stretch out my calf muscle. “I’m in enough pain as is.”
Aiko pretended to stretch alongside me in an attempt to make me feel less singled out. “Don’t be so hard on yourself, Genjo! I’m only this fit because of all the choreography I had to learn as a kid.”
Ryu did not indulge in our shenanigans. “She’s right. Not everyone has a decade of physical training under their belt. It’s completely normal to be a bit out of shape.”
I leaned deeper into my stretch. “Guys, what did I just say not to do?” After enough quick stretches, I stood back up and ate a few of Ryu’s snacks to keep myself full of energy. “This labyrinth has been surprisingly boring, now that I think about it. It’s been nothing but endless twists and turns that lead to absolutely nothing… I kinda wish there were more wacky creatures giving us riddles and trying to misdirect us, or at least things that want to kill us.”
Aiko’s head perked up. “I stand corrected - Maybe you need to watch less musicals, Genjo.” Suddenly, her eye started twitching. “Hold onto your hats, everyone. Something’s changed.”
Ryu strolled off. “Thank god for echolocation. Just tell me which direction, Batgirl.”
Aiko rolled her eyes. “Ugh. For starters, you’re going the opposite way.”
He quickly did an about-face and walked back towards us. “Noted.” I followed closely behind both of them.
We were greeted by a huge neon sign that read ‘Prodosía’s Lair and/or The Exit. Which one could it be? Who knows!” in bright red text with a massive arrow pointing to the right.
The three of us looked at one another in total silence for a few seconds - then back at the sign. “So…” I broke the silence as cautiously as I could. “Where does this fall on the suspiciousness spectrum?”
Ryu quickly responded. “Five out of ten.”
Aiko also replied quickly, but waited for her turn. “I’d say it falls somewhere between ‘Dad explaining why Santa Claus is skipping our house this year’ and ‘getting personally invited to an event by the popular girl who’s never paid attention to you before today but swears that you’ve been besties for months’.” She paused for a moment, looked blankly at me, and gave a hardly noticeable shrug. “...about five out of ten.”
Under his breath, Ryu quietly whispered, “...who hurt you?”
I quickly attempted to diffuse the situation before Ryu could even start it. “Well, I guess that puts us in a pretty awkward position. How about we vote on-”
Ryu had already left. “Fuck it. What’s the worst that could happen?”
I called out to him, still standing at the sign with Aiko. “...Scary monsters trying to kill or misdirect us?”
“Sounds like you’d get exactly what you wished for, Genjo,” Ryu shouted back.
“Hehe…” Aiko chuckled as she lightly prodded at me with her elbow. “Come on, Sir Genjo. A valiant battle awaits you in the Dragon’s Lair…” She maniacally laughed for approximately four seconds before following after Ryu in complete silence.
I took a deep breath, remembered that I should be careful what I wish for, and jogged to catch up to Princess Aiko.
Before we knew it, the three of us had ended up in a completely dark, empty area. I looked around and saw absolutely nothing of substance. “Guys, I think I know which of the two options on the sign this ended up being.”
Aiko turned to me with a cheery smile. “Ooh, is this ‘The Exit’? I always thought that the sweet release of death would be this empty, but I never expected it to come so soon!” Her little head tilt at the end was definitely overkill.
I whispered to Ryu. “...Remind me to never mention the afterlife around Aiko ever again.”
Ryu whispered back. “I’ll put a post-it note on your mirror.” We exchanged a quick fist bump before quickly remembering that Aiko was still standing about a few meters from us.
“Actually, there’s one small difference between my fantasy of death and this place.” Aiko looked at her feet and clicked her heels together, failing to address the weirdest sentence I’ve ever heard in my life. “I didn’t expect the ground to feel so… maladroit.”
I paused my music. “I beg your pardon?”
Aiko cocked her head to the side. “I meant… it just feels awkward and poorly thrown together. The wooden floor is kind of an odd choice.”
“Wooden?” I glanced down at the ground and, sure enough, the floor was no different than the stage we had practiced on this morning.
…a stage?
A loud, disembodied voice laughed in an irritatingly seductive way. “Did I hear somebody say maladroit???”
Flickering neon lights of various colors instantly illuminated the entire area, revealing Prodosía sitting atop a two-story tall director’s chair. “Listen, you three… I did not waste an entire hour waiting for you to kill each other for my hard work to be treated like this.”
I tapped my foot against the floor. “I figured you would’ve spent that hour making your stage look better. I mean, your labyrinth was pretty boring…”
Prodosía’s temper was very easily pushable. “I had no time to prepare the labyrinth! And I have Little Miss Airhead to thank for that.”
Aiko gladly took a bow. “Why, I’m-”
“Don’t flatter yourself.” The chair lowered to the ground, letting Prodosía step off and confront us directly. “Oh, it’s so lovely to finally meet you in the flesh… Ryu of Normandy…”
Ryu very confusingly accepted her greeting. “Actually, I was born in Kujūkuri-”
“Oh, can it, buttshark!” Considering the circumstances, I was astonished at Prodosía’s patience.
Once again, Ryu donned a furrowed brow. “Odd that you mention that. The boys down at the dock used to-”
“I’ve waited long enough for this.” Prodosía’s urgency to change subjects told me that she regretted even mentioning Ryu in the first place. “The three of you clearly have zero intent of slaying one another anymore. That’s why I lured you into my lair, knowing that the brave…” She quickly flipped through a book before stopping on a page. “...Lieutenant Kase would blindly lead you here to your deaths.”
Ryu’s expression did not change. “Technically, as of this morning, I-”
Prodosía tossed the book over her shoulder in frustration. “Okay, you know what? We’re going off script.” She pointed at the three of us with a long, crimson claw on the tip of her finger. “Bottom line: I’m going to kill you. Is that enough character motivation for you all?”
Aiko gracefully took a step forward. “I have fought my way to your theatre of deception, across your highwire, to stain this stage scarlet with your blood. My trust is unbreakable… and my friendship as strong…”
“Don’t even think about saying it.” Prodosía began to twitch with anger.
The triumphant Aiko proudly proclaimed her resolve. “You have no power over-”
The entire stage rumbled. “Oh, that is it, you children.” A powerful force pinned us to the ground, forcing us to watch as Prodosía transformed into her true form. “You provide no more entertainment to me.” Her skin turned progressively yellow and scaly, her eyelids now closing sideways. “And, quite frankly, my mother would have scolded me for playing with my food - if it was even possible for me to have one.” As she smiled, her teeth became sharp fangs that looked sharp enough to pierce a nuclear warhead. “So I suppose the time for games is over. After all, I shan’t let my food get cold.”
The once-humanoid Prodosía had revealed her true colors - a lying, deceitful snake, bathed in the color of betrayal.
Aiko slowly stepped away from Prodosía, grabbed Ryu and I by the arm, and dragged us behind her as she sprinted across the stage. “Guess I hit the nail on the head with the whole ‘Dragon’s Lair’, thing, huh?”
I struggled keeping pace as Ryu and Aiko both had to practically carry me. “Aiko, respectfully, this was maybe the worst thing to be right about.” Petrov fired blasts of energy in random patterns to distract Prodosía and help us get to cover safely. “What’s our game plan, everyone?”
Eventually, we stopped feeling the need to hold onto each other while we ran. “Well, coach,” Ryu replied. “We figured that you would have the plan, not us.”
“What?” I ducked behind a massive pile of unused stage risers, and the other two followed. “Why does everything always fall back on me?”
Aiko put her hand on my shoulder. “If you don’t wanna be the leader, maybe try making less motivational speeches.” She smiled, patted me on the head, and went back to hiding.
I used Petrov’s energy to quickly tidy up my hair. “It doesn’t matter who makes the plan, guys. It’s about our effectiveness as a team when we execute that plan-”
“You’re doing it again,” Aiko pointed out.
Ryu nodded in agreement.
“I’m not even doing it on purpose!” I quickly facepalmed before going back to brainstorming. “Maybe the best strategy is to…”
Both of them stared at me blankly.
I took a deep breath. “I said, maybe the-”
“We heard you,” Aiko and Ryu said in unison.
“Sorry for trying to get y’all to… never mind.” I picked up my sword and stood back up. “Let’s just try killing the damn thing.”
Ryu shot back up. “Good plan.” He gave me a quick pat on the shoulder before charging out after Prodosía.
I let out a long sigh. “Aiko… I’m not so good at this whole ‘leader’ thing, am I?”
“Aw, try not to look at it that way.” Aiko spoke gently to me while trying to cheer me up. “Practice makes perfect, doesn’t it? I mean, no one learns how to memorize a script in a day!”
“Bad example.” I turned around to follow Ryu, but Aiko grabbed me by the hand and stopped me.
“Genjo,” Aiko whispered as she yanked me back into the conversation. “I think you’ll be an excellent leader some day. And when that moment comes, I’m sure you’ll know.”
I couldn’t help but smile during Aiko’s pep talks. “Thanks. I’ll keep that in mind.”
“No sweat, cadet!” Aiko tightened her glove, tried to hold back a smirk from how proud she was of creating a catchphrase, and put her game face on. “Now come on, Genjo. Time to cut the head off the snake.”
I couldn’t help but laugh a little. “I’ll follow you into battle if you promise to stop making puns for the rest of the day.”
Aiko tapped her finger against her cheek. “Hmm… for the rest of the battle.”
“Deal.” We made a quick, silent pinky promise before chasing after Ryu, who had already engaged in direct combat with Prodosía.
The sound of Ryu’s dagger repeatedly clashed with Prodosía’s dragon-like claws reverberated throughout the stage. Prodosía’s strikes were relentless, barely giving Ryu a moment to breathe as he successfully parried them one by one. Ryu’s unnaturally quick reflexes were aided by Midas’ continuous electric current, directly supplying Ryu with energy. Once he found an opening in Prodosía’s defenses, he swiftly slid between her legs to strike her from behind.
Before Ryu got the chance to thrust his knife into a weak point in the scales on Prodosía’s back, his wrist was ensnared by arms that she had hiding behind her back the entire time. Scales on the reverse side of her head quickly shed themselves to reveal a secret face with fierce, bloodshot, hawk-like eyes and a grotesquely ravenous smile. The second face pulled Ryu closer to itself and whispered, “How adorable of you to think that I wouldn’t see you coming.” Prodosía violently threw Ryu to the ground before retracting her secondary arms into her body and lunging in my direction.
Prodosía attempted to hit me with a quick slash, but Aiko successfully pushed her back with a burst of air. Aiko soared high into the air by using Sarah to create a strong upcurrent beneath her, allowing her to levitate far out of Prodosía’s reach. “Take this, you good-for-nothing wretch!” With a swing of her arm, Aiko used Sarah to fire a sharp blade of wind directly into Prodosía’s torso, making her flinch in pain. “Don’t worry, Genjo,” Aiko called out to me from above. “I’ll do as much as I can to help from up here.”
I bombarded Prodosía with three energy blasts while shouting back to Aiko. “Try flying behind her and attacking from there while I keep her distracted.” I tightly gripped the hilt of my sword as I closed in on Prodosía.
“Aye aye!” Aiko elegantly glided through the air out of Prodosía’s sight, waiting for the perfect moment to cast a flurry of wind blades into her back. Once she heard the sound of Prodosía’s claws collide with my blade, Aiko let loose the barrage of wind blades. To Aiko’s surprise, Prodosía’s second set of arms quickly revealed themselves, shielded her from the wind blades, and retracted just as quickly as they had appeared. “Genjo, we’re in a bit of a pickle here!”
“Tell me about it.” Each of my slashes against Prodosía’s heavily armored torso felt completely ineffective. “There’s not exactly much I can do down here, either.”
Fire was quickly heating up inside of Prodosía’s mouth. Aiko fixated her energy onto Genjo, attempting to create a small tailwind beneath his feet. “Get out of there, Genjo. We need to regroup.”
I jumped directly at Prodosía and kicked her square in the face with both of my legs, letting Aiko’s tailwind empower my momentum as I soared out of range of Prodosía’s sweeping fire breath. With Aiko’s help, the amount of control I had over my body while airborne was ridiculously high. I landed perfectly on my feet and slid back several meters before coming to a stop. Leave it to Aiko to make me feel like an action hero.
From her vantage point in the air, Aiko spotted Ryu lying motionless on the ground. She quickly landed next to him and crouched down to lift him up. “By the gods, Ryu! Are you hurt?”
“What gave it away?” Ryu groaned as Aiko forced him to sit up straight. “As you would put it, I got in ‘quite the tussle’ back there, didn’t I?”
“I’ll say… You’re in pretty rough shape,” Aiko muttered as she put her hand on Ryu’s knee. “Let me try something.”
Sarah became enveloped in a bright green aura that flowed directly into Midas, nursing Ryu back to health. He energetically leaped up and cracked his knuckles. “Badass! How did you know you could do that, Aiko?”
Aiko snickered. “I didn’t! I sorta just used my imagination!”
“So what you’re saying is…” Ryu clenched his fist as an idea hatched in his mind. “I can run at lightning speed?” Within seconds, sparks crackled from Ryu’s shoes. “Now this shit is badass!” Ryu got down on the ground into a sprint position and bolted toward Prodosía in the blink of an eye, leaving a trail of burnt wood behind him.
Even at lightning speed, Ryu’s dagger strikes still couldn’t break through Prodosía’s iron defenses as she blocked each and every attack with impeccable timing. Bolts of electricity wildly discharged on impact with each swing of his dagger. Amid the chaos, a few of the bolts struck some of the neon light fixtures on the wall, causing intense explosions across the stage.
Aiko landed next to me from above. “We’re not making any progress, Genjo. Not even Ryu can hit her weak point. New plan?”
From our hiding spot, both the front and back sides of Prodosía were visible while Ryu went completely berserk on her. When the explosions went off all around us, I saw both Ryu and Prodosía momentarily halt their assault as they shielded their eyes from the bright light from the blasts. Strangely, she held her arm in front of her second face for a longer period of time than she did for her front side.
“New plan,” I whispered to Aiko. “I’ll shoot in front of her. You throw something behind her.”
Aiko gave me a puzzled look. “Genjo, what are you-”
“You can ask questions later.” I readied my hand for a blast. “Trust me on this one.”
“Alright, I get it!” Aiko reached for her triangular hair clip, wound up for a throw, and tossed it like a frisbee. In a quick flash of blue fire, Aiko’s hair clip transformed into a chakram covered in sharp, curved spikes as it made course for Prodosía’s back. At the same time, Petrov let loose an energy blast that I intentionally aimed to miss Prodosía ever so slightly. Both projectiles rushed toward Prodosía at identical velocities.
Aiko and I watched as Prodosía held her arm out to catch the chakram long before she reacted to the energy blast.
I couldn’t hold back a smirk of pride. “Just like I predicted.”
“Are you crazy??” Aiko grabbed onto my arm. “You just blew our cover. She’s gonna come straight after us!”
I raised my other arm to the side and fired another energy blast at one of the lights, causing another explosion as a distraction. “Have some more faith in my strategy, milady.”
Aiko held up her hand to smack me, changing her target from my face to my shoulder at the last second. “I would if you had told me what your strategy was in the first place, Genjo.”
I rubbed the spot on my shoulder to pretend that it hurt more than it actually did. “Aiko, didn’t you notice something weird during the first explosion?”
“Something weird?” Aiko scratched the area of her head where her hair clip used to be. “...I can’t say I did.”
I turned her head to look back at Prodosía. “Look closer, Aiko.” I shot at yet another light so Aiko could view the anomaly for herself.
“I get it,” she whispered. “You were testing to see if there was a discrepancy in Prodosía’s reaction time.”
“Bingo.” I quickly fist bumped Aiko and continued my explanation. “My best guess is that the face on her back experiences time at a slower rate than the one on the front. That would explain how she’s able to react so quickly to our attacks, but also why she gets blinded by the light for longer.”
Aiko examined the walls of the stage. “And that’s why you keep blowing up the neon lights to distract her! Way to go, Genjo!”
For some reason, something that Aiko had just said caught my attention. “...Can you repeat what you said about the lights?”
Aiko looked mildly insulted that I was asking her to repeat herself. “Um, the neon lights on the wall? If we weren’t fighting for our lives here, I’d say they’re actually kinda pretty!”
“They sure would, Aiko.” I looked at her and chuckled. “If they were actually neon.”
Aiko seemed incredibly confused. “What do you mean?”
My brain completely shifted gears as a key puzzle piece fell into place. “Neon is one of the noble gases, which are supposed to be inert - That is to say… it shouldn’t be able to explode.”
Aiko let out a long, exaggerated groan. “Genjo, I shouldn’t have to tell you that right now isn’t exactly the time for a chemistry lesson.”
“Indulge me for a second, Aiko.” I grabbed her arm and used it to point at the different light fixtures on the walls. “Most ‘neon lights’ are actually filled with completely different gases. See those red lights over there? Those actually contain hydrogen. Same goes for those white lights - those are full of carbon dioxide.”
She pointed her finger at a different light fixture. “So then… What's in those blue tubes?”
My heart skipped a beat. “If I had to guess… Xenon.”
Aiko turned her head to look at me. “That’s another one of those noble gases, right? So those wouldn’t explode either.”
“That’s the weird part, Aiko.” I took one of the broken shards of glass from the light fixtures and started carving reaction schemes into the wooden floor. “Xenon can form bonds with other elements. In fact, there’s an extraordinarily explosive compound called ‘xenon trioxide’, and it tends to get a bit angry when it touches organic materials.”
Aiko studied the structure of xenon trioxide that I drew on the floor. “Wait a second, where were you going with this again?”
I stood up. “Aiko, break some of those lights off the wall, and try using the air to keep all of the gases together in place.” I held out the palm of my hand, allowing Petrov to prepare the hilariously incorrect atomic model in his own hand. As the electrons gained speed and started circling the nucleus - or rather, the single sphere that represented it - I looked over my shoulder at Aiko. “Time to make things go boom.”
“Then let’s do this!” Aiko enthusiastically blasted the lights off the wall and created a cyclone to contain them up high in the air. “For science!” I definitely appreciated the enthusiasm, but Aiko was starting to sound too excited to blow shit up.
Ryu continued to keep Prodosía occupied with his relentless onslaught of dagger strikes, buying me valuable time to conduct my incredibly risky experiment.
Step 1: Force the deoxygenation of carbon dioxide by removal of the oxygen atoms.
Step 2: Transfer the oxygen atoms to the xenon atoms, forming xenon trioxide*. (*WARNING: It is imperative to avoid premature contact between XeO3 and any potential organic compounds.)
Step 3: Form bonds between the free carbon atoms and the hydrogen gas, resulting in our organic reactant - methane.
Step 4: You may now blow shit up.
I called out to both of my friends. “Aiko, it’s showtime! Ryu, get the fuck out of there.”
Ryu dashed straight to our hiding spot in about one second. “I figured you guys were up to some bullshit over here.”
“You bet!” Aiko swung her arm downwards, and Sarah sent the cyclone containing all of the gases crashing straight down into Prodosía. A violent explosion broke out from the point of impact which could have badly burned us if we hadn’t been behind cover.
Once the explosion died down, the three of us peeked our heads out from our hiding spot to see if anything even remained of Prodosía. We all saw her body lying on the ground, covered in ash and burnt material. She slowly stood up, fixed her gaze directly at us, and turned around to show us the weak point in her armor - it was completely unharmed.
Ryu punched the wall in front of us. “Are you fucking kidding me?”
“Bravo, Sir Genjo! I must give you some credit…” Prodosía lit a cigarette with a quick spit of fire breath. “You’ve managed to outdo me on the theatrics.”
Aiko whispered to me and Ryu. “How did she survive an explosion like that? What are we supposed to do now?”
I took a deep breath and placed a hand on Ryu and Aiko’s shoulders. “...I still have one more idea.”
Ryu was incredibly tense. “Are you sure it’ll actually work?”
“It’s certainly worth a shot.” I pulled the two of them back behind cover. “Aiko, do you remember what I said about the xenon lights?”
“Yep. What’s your point?” Aiko and I failed to consider that Ryu missed my chemistry lesson, and briefly caught him up.
Ryu was silent as he took a moment to process it all. “...Correct me if I’m wrong, but the xenon only glows because you’re applying an electric current to it, right?”
“Exactly.” I pointed at the sole tube of xenon that remained on the wall. “But if we applied enough electricity to it, we could turn it into a flash lamp.”
Aiko rolled her eyes. “Could we save the flash lamp lesson for later?”
I gave Aiko a quick thumbs up and kept my explanation of fluorescence as brief as possible. “It’s more complicated than this, but for now, let’s go with this - More energy equals brighter light.”
Lightning crackled from Ryu’s body as he readied Midas for a strike. “Don’t need to tell me twice.” Midas shot a powerful electric current through the xenon light, causing the light to rapidly grow in intensity to the point of incomprehensible brightness.
Prodosía cowered in fear of the light and tried to cover her eyes, but it was too late - She had already caught too long of a glimpse, and was blinded by the harsh, blue fluorescent light from the lamp.
I picked my sword up off the ground and charged straight at Prodosía. Although the lamp started to die out from being overloaded with electricity, I hoped that her eyes would stay blinded long enough for me to close in on her.
“Argh…” Prodosía cried out. “Mark my words - You children won’t-”
Her last sentence was cut short as I drove the falchion directly through the weak point in her back.
Prodosía unceremoniously collapsed to the ground, without as much as a shriek of pain. Aiko and Ryu caught up to me and stared down at the captor that had held us in this prison. I pulled my sword out of her abdomen and watched as a revolting black liquid masquerading as blood dripped from the blade.
Aiko couldn’t take her eyes off Prodosía. “It’s… over.” She sounded choked up, but refused to let out any tears. “We can finally go home, can’t we?”
Ryu transformed his dagger back into his trusty pen and slipped it back into his pocket. “Shit, I almost forgot there even was a home to go back to. We’ve been in here for too damn long.”
I turned away from Prodosía. “Let’s go, everyone.”
“It seems that he has chosen to run away from his sins.” A slithery, unsettling voice crept up from behind me. When I looked back, Prodosía’s head spun 180 degrees around her neck, making an audible crack as she stared at us from the ground with her bloodshot eyes.
I faced Prodosía once again to listen to her final words before her imminent death. “I’ve seen you preach the virtue of trust to your people. You speak of trust as if it were the most important foundation of societal function. Yet, in the end, you have only triumphed today by backstabbing someone who was too blinded by your lies to protect themselves.”
My grip around the hilt of my sword tightened. “You brought this upon yourself, Prodosía. Why should I have a single shred of remorse for a monster like you?”
The cadence of Prodosía’s voice became more distorted and vile. “Like you’re any less monstrous than I, Sir Genjo! Be cautious, or else you might become as deceitful as the very thing you’ve sought to destroy.”
I pointed my sword directly at her. “Don’t count on it.”
Prodosía cackled boorishly, ripping through my ears like nails on a chalkboard. “He thinks that he’s capable of denying the inevitable… This isn’t over, Sir Genjo - It never will be. This curse will weigh on your conscience until you learn to be a man and face it head on. As long as you continue to run away, you will never-”
My sword did the rest of the talking for me.
I transformed the blade back into its original form and placed it in my bag. “Guys… I’m not running away from anything by doing that, right?”
Aiko took my hand. “I’m sure she was just trying to get in your head one last time before we killed her. I wouldn’t take anything she said too seriously.”
Ryu rested his arm on my other shoulder. “Only reason she called you a ‘backstabber’ was because you physically stabbed her in the back. I know for damn sure that you’re not like that.”
I looked down at the hand that I used to pierce her with my sword. I got another flashback of the expression on the false Aiko’s face when I stabbed her too. “Maybe your confidence in me is the reason that I could end up betraying you.”
“Don’t talk like that, dummy.” Aiko playfully punched me in the arm. “After everything you’ve done for us today, I really mean it when I say this - It’ll be okay.” She started running towards the backstage curtain. “Now let’s hurry up and go home!”
Ryu stayed behind with me for a second and whispered, “You alright, man? That thing was talking like it was some sort of god. Kinda creeped me out.”
I looked back at Prodosía - Even after death, it still felt like her eyes were following me. “...You’re right, it did.”
“But I know a false prophet when I see one.”
Ryu gave me a warm smile. “Hell yeah, bro. Let’s get out of here.” We both hurriedly sprinted after Aiko, making it a contest to see which one of us caught up to her first. I learned a pretty valuable lesson from that bet - Don’t let Ryu use the lightning sprint anymore.
~
The stage lights harshly welcomed us back to the real world, where spirits were high and the auditorium was as crusty as we had left it. I never thought that I would ever enjoy the musty smell of an old theatre this much, but after everything we had gone through today, I would’ve been excited even if I had stepped out into biology class.
Ryu yawned. “Well, I’ll see you back at the dorm. It was nice meeting you, Aiko.”
“It was a pleasure meeting you too!” Aiko reached up to fix her hair before realizing that she had lost her hair clip during the fight. “I guess I’ll see you in class in a couple days, Genjo. That was kinda fun! You know, in the same kinda way that weekend-long rehearsals are fun.”
I rummaged through my backpack for Aiko’s water bottle and her copy of Beauty and the Beast. “Wait, let me give these back. I forgot that I was still holding onto them this whole time.”
“Shoot, I almost forgot about something too!” Aiko hurriedly walked over to me and took back her belongings before handing me a small flier that was crumpled up in her bag. It was an advertisement for the vintage diner downtown. “I meant to ask you about this place. It looks like it’d be right up our alley, and I was wondering when you were free to check it out sometime.”
Wondering how long we had been stuck in that place, I pulled out my phone to check the time - 8:28 P.M.
I looked back at Aiko. “...Wanna see if we can get there before closing?”
“I’m game!” Aiko waved her arms at Ryu to get his attention. “Ryu, do you wanna come along too?”
Ryu shrugged. “Oh, what the hell? Count me in.”