"So if we lose in a contest of strength, why not employ some good old psychological warfare?"

"Because our enemies are Samurai if or the more likely when they find out you be subjected to a type of torture never seen before."

"Then we just need to completely break their spirit before they can do anything like that."

"My friend, those tactics don't work anymore. We have to adapt."

"Right, that new project, do you think it would work?"

"Fight fire with fire."

--A meeting right before the start of project Akechi.

“So, the main problem is that whatever is generating the forcefield is not inside of the undercity, so even if I could turn it off with a program, I have no way to send it to the machine.” I say, throwing our ball back to Maniac who is laying on the ceiling of our weirdly coloured mindscape or whatever this place is.

“I see, but what if we wait for another hole to open up again and send the program then? Would that be work?” Maniac says, throwing the ball back down to me.

“Maybe, but I would have to make the exact correct program for the machine or create an AI in a small enough package size to send out through the gap and make it attack the shields.” I say, throwing the ball back up at her, trying my best to aim for her arm.

“Can you do that?” the maniac asks curiously, tossing the ball between her hands.

“Probably, but there is not much of a point to doing that, other than saying that I did it.” I say.

“Why not? If we break the shield, we could get out of here. And more importantly, we can get the people out.” She says, throwing the ball back at me, hitting me straight in my stomach.

I let out a gasp of air as the ball hits me. “That is not what I mean. It is just that if we can send a program through, why send a hack that might not work instead of just an SOS message to PsyCo?” I say, throwing the ball back at a bit of an odd angle to make her struggle a bit more.

“Ah, right, that would be the smart thing to do. Can you set it up something that would send out a message as soon as there is a signal?” she says, as she stands up to retrieve the ball that had bounced away

“I'm pretty sure I can. It is not particularly hard, but I probably have to set up some repeaters all around the undercity, which I will leave up to you, I think.”

Maniac just starts to laugh. “Good, I needed a good reason to take a stroll around the undercity again.”

“Please don’t get too carried away. It is also my body you are using.” I say with no actual concern.

“Oh, don’t pretend you are not excited to test out the teleportation stuff as well.” She says with a big smile, as she throws the ball back to me with an underhanded throw

“I mean, I am, and maybe we would already have it if someone did not want to cuddle up with her girlfriend.” I say, throwing the ball back at her, aiming right for her head.

“Like you would not do the exact same.” she says, throwing the ball to the right. It arched weirdly before disappearing behind some blotches of colour, only to reappear beside me and hit me in the side.

“I mean, maybe I would, but that does not mean I am not going to at least tease you a bit with it, you big softy.” I say, grabbing the ball.

“That's fair; how do you want to deal with that situation in the first place?” She says, and I can even feel a bit of the concern radiating off her.

“I am not sure that there is anything we can really do about it. I mean, we can wear a digital name badge or something, but I feel like people will mess up regardless, so I think we should just agree that if we have a partner, that there is a chance that they will mess up and confuse the two of us,” I say not really thinking much of it. If Katelyn makes her happy, I am more than willing to deal with some awkward encounters here and there.

Maniac groans. “That makes sense; I wish there was an easier way, but for now, just live through it. I do think you should at least talk with her a bit so you get to know each other better.”

I nod. “Yeah, I really have not interacted with her at all except for that one morning, so maybe we should sit down and chat.”

“Grab the twins, too, while you are at it. Maybe you guys can brainstorm a way out of here. And compensate for my first impression.”

“Sure, sure, leave all the meetings to me, why don’t you?” I say in a mocking tone

“Exactly, now you get it!” She says, sticking her tongue out.

I throw the ball back at her at full power, but Maniac just reaches out her hand, turning it to blue dust before it can reach her.

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“You should really teach me how you are doing all of that.” I say to Maniac, as I watch the blue dust slowly disappear.

“I mean, I just think of stuff hard, and it happens. I mean, this is in our mind. I think the strange colours all around us are just there because we did not give it any shape, but I am pretty sure that if we think hard, we might be able to shape this place into something nice.” Maniac explains, while waving her arms around, grabbing some of the red colour floating around, and turning it into an apple.

“A nice place like what?” I say, while trying to do the same trick, which apparently is not as easy as Maniac made it look. It takes most of my focus to think exactly what the shape should be like before it actually forms.

“I don’t really know.” Maniac says after I finally succeed. “I guess we can make it whatever we want. Just smash some random rooms together.” she says in a bit of a dismissive tone.

“I guess that's true. It's not like anyone will ever take a look inside of here anyways, besides the two of us.”

“Besides any supplemental entities our mind might form.” Maniac says in a pensive tone.

“You think there will be others?” I ask, curious what she would think about it.

“Not sure. Maybe I can hazard a guess as to how we got split up in the first place, but I'm not exactly sure. Who says something similar can’t happen again.” She says in an unsure tone

I take that under some consideration. Sure, having another person to share our body with might be a bit irritating, but then again, having Maniac around is really nice, so I guess that if it happened, it would not be that bad.

“Okay, let's build ourselves something.” I say with a bright smile.

Maniac nods. “That’s the spirit!” and then she turns around and looks at the ceiling. "Now, the first thing we need is a training room.”

I see and actually feel her concentrate as the space expands further ever so slowly. Beige and red mats start appearing on the walls, or, I guess, the floor. Which way is up is still very much up to interpretation. Some dummies start to form, and racks with several of our weapons appear at the side.

After marveling for a bit longer as the room comes together, I turn around as well, trying to make my own addition to the project. I create a small space with two couches facing each other at a slight angle with a fireplace to the side. I have never really seen a real fireplace, but the idea always intrigued me, giving me a warm and cosy feeling.

I start adding bookshelves on the walls filling with random books. Then, I create small windows with wooden shutters and a snowy landscape outside. I pause; snow. I have always wanted to play with snow, and now I can. I create a doorway that leads outside as I expand the landscape, putting down large green evergreen and a tall mountain in the distance.

“Well, that is quite something, huh?” I hear Maniac say with a bit of wonder.

I turn in the direction of the sound, noticing that she has not followed me into this place through the same door, but instead, she comes out of a cave on the mountain, walking sideways on its surface. I try looking past her, noticing that I can see the gym behind her.

“You really are giving gravity the finger, huh?” I say with some amusement.

“I mean, why not? This is our space. We can do whatever we want with it.” She says with a wide smile, her arms going wide.

“I guess that's true.” I acquiesce.

“You know what? Do you remember those old pencil drawings with the stairs going whatever way, upside down and to the side? Want to turn this space into something like that?” Maniac says, and I can feel her smile radiating off her even through the mask.

I mirror her smile. “That is the best idea you have ever had.”

“I know, right?” she says in a confident tone as she attaches a staircase from her cave to the trunk of an evergreen and creates a wooden door on it before she walks through it and disappears.

I decided to take a page out of her book, walking into the barn she came out of. Since the room was tilted at a ninety-degree angle, I found myself on the training room wall instead of the floor. I walk further along the wall, creating a stairway in the opposite corner and putting a door on the far wall leading into a new room. Let's do one full of competitors this time.

The two of us keep at it for quite some time, I would say hours, but it might as well be days. That is how much fun we are having with our little project. In the end, I find myself sitting on a leather couch, leaning into Maniac as I slightly pant with exhaustion. We are overlooking a more medieval-style room, and the amount of different stairs here is a piece of art in and of itself to the point that I am now completely unsure of which way was originally up.

“Well, that was fun.” Maniac says, while messing with my hair.

“It really was, but I somehow feel kind of tired after all of this.” I say, leaning even closer as I try to relax.

“Yeah, me too. This place is strange, though.” She says while staring into the distance

“Was that not the point?” I ask, a bit confused.

“Yes, but you know this place looks like you would get lost easily, but I know exactly where everything is and what the quickest route to reach every place is.” She says, giving me a look.

I frown slightly trying my best to think of where everything is. The swimming pool is right beside us. The bedroom is on the left wall, the arcade is far below us, and the garden is between the bedroom and the beach.

“I can feel it, too. I guess that's the perk to this all being in our mind.” I say, being too tired to think properly.

“Yeah, I wonder if Lyssa has some techniques or stuff so we can always keep this place active.”

I quirk my eyebrow. “Why would you want that?”

“Well, this is a nice place to hang out while the other is active, right? It means we don’t need to constantly see what the other is up to, so it is nice to have a place to retreat to.” Maniac points out.

I look around the place, and I have to agree we did a very good job. “You make a good point, something we should definitely invest in, but first, I want the teleportation equipment. We have been dreaming of that stuff since we became samurai.”

“That was like only a month ago, so it is not that long.” Maniac says with a wink.

“Don’t pretend that you don’t want it just as much as I do, if not even more.” I say in a playful tone.

Maniac raises her hands in surrender. “Okay, you got me. I really want it, since we lose most of our time traveling, and take most of our injuries while approaching enemies. A way to be instantly next to one has me almost vibrating in excitement.” Maniac says.

“That's good. Since we have been working for it for so long, I would be slightly disappointed if you were not excited.”

“Yeah, yeah, don’t worry about that. So what do you want to do next?”

“I don’t know about you, but I am tired, so I think I will head to the bedroom for a nap.” I say with a yawn, as I get up, putting one leg on the wall behind me as gravity slowly shifts direction.

“You make an excellent point. Let's go.”