"Niko!"

A familiar feminine voice called out through the slowly brightening stone corridors.

"Niko, are you okay, Niko!?"

Several hurried footsteps approached where Niko and Shoki stood, who were still observing the stone painting.

"Yeah, i'm fine, i'm fine!"

She was embraced by a heavily fretting Hannah.

Gary and Zatoichi approached gingerily from behind her.

"You ran off without telling me, and then we got attacked by those weird painting people, i thought they would attack you too. I'm so glad you weren't!"

She held her embrace whilst speaking in obvious relief.

"Oh, yeah we were attacked by those too, but Shoki took care of them in less than a second flat. He was awesome!"

A proud smile covered Nikos face, as if she had been the one to accomplish the task herself.

"What!? Are you okay. They didn't hurt you, did they!?"

She was touched and observed from every single angle by the overly worried Hannah, who checked for any possible injuries.

"It seems you weren't injured atleast..that's good.."

Hannah sighed in relief and stood up.

"I guess i should thank you for saving little Niko, so thank you.."

She unwillingly adressed the man who was too busy closely observing the painting to take notice of their presence.

"Ah, don't bother talking to him, he's been obsessed with that painting since we first found it....Maybe Shoki really likes architecture?"

Niko explained in wonder.

"I'm glad ojou-chan is safe, good thing you were with boy, even for me handling strange demons was not easy"

Zatoichi cracked his neck whilst holding out his sheathed sword with his left hand.

"...Really? because Shoki killed them all in the moment it took for me to blink!"

Niko bragged again.

"Yes, yes, your boy is very good, is good that he protected you"

He patted her head, and continued towards Shoki.

"What you looking for, boy?"

Zatoichi was completely ignored by Shoki, who seemed to be almost in a sort of trance, watching the stone drawing, attempting to figure something out.

"Uh...anyway...me and Hannah managed to translate some of the texts before we were interupted"

Gary opened up his laptop, which Niko assumed was the first thing he saved when they were attacked.

"It said something along the lines of.. Ascend and descend: descend with nephthys, sink into darkness with the night-bark. Ascend and descend, ascend with Isis, rise with the Day-bark. 

He read out the small sentence they had managed to translate.

"…Nephthys....”

Shoki muttered whilst moving his fingers over the large stone drawing.

"...hmm?”

His fingers stopped over a particular spot, where the womans left hand was seemingly curled into a fist.

"….There is a slot here...?”

Niko overheard the mutterings of Shoki, and ran up to him, looking around him in order to see what he was observing.

"Oh, that slot, maybe...?"

She took out the small strange handle she had 'acquired' earlier, and pushed it into the slot.

"...What are you doing!?”

Shoki grabbed her hand, but it was too late, she had already slammed the handle into the slot.

The painting infront of them began to crack.

No, cracking was the wrong word, as the crack that appeared in it was long and extremely straight, going right through the middle.

The now separated stone wall infront of them began to split even more, the ground vibrating with power, and the ceiling raining down small pieces of stone and dust.

Eventually, the wall stopped moving, and now where once there had been a painting, lay an open square hole with a large staircase leading downwards.

“Niko, good job, what did you do!”

Gary clapped her on the back, causing her to almost fall forward.

“A thiefs secret!”

Gary received a mischievious smile from Niko, whilst they both admired her work.

“So, shall we head inside..?”

Niko asked, turning around to observe everyones expressions.

Zatoichi nodded confidently, his hand on his sword.

Gary was nodding eagerly, looking forward to finishing up and getting back to civilisation.

Hannah was looking reluctant but more or less willing.

Whilst Shoki was as usualy...gone?

“Shoki, where did you go?”

She looked around, expecting him to pop up from some corner as he usually does.

Light footsteps could be heard from beyond the staircase.

“That bastard, he went without us, lets go catch up!”

Niko turned and headed down the stone staircase, expertly dodging Hannah who attempted to stop her.

Her footsteps echoed as she got further and further, the footsteps of everyone else barely audible behind her.

“What's this..?”

She stopped infront of a faded wall that seemed to contain some sort of painting.

“Shoki..?”

Looking around the small space, Shoki was nowhere to be found, which was strange even for Shoki, who was an expert at evading peoples eyes at the most awkward moments.

Due to the space below the staircase being quite narrow and cramped, causing any attempts at blending in with the dark quite useless.

“Where the hell did he go!”

Looking around frantically, her eyes were naturally drawn to the only object of interest in this narrow space, the old wall with the faded painting.

She held her flashlight with one hand, whilst holding her hand infront of her so at to not trip, getting closer to the wall.

Upon closer inspection, the painting still looked as faded as it did before. It was more blurry than it was faded however, as if it was covered by a thin sheet of water.

Niko attempted to dust off a certain part of the painting in order to get a better look at it.

She expected the feeling of cold stone and dust covering her fingers. What she instead received was the feeling of cool water covering her fingers.

Surprised at the unexpected sensation, she reflexively attempted to pull her fingers back.

Her fingers refused to move.

No matter how much she struggled, she could not pull her fingers away from the painting.

Infact, it seemed her fingers were actually slowly sinking into the painting, small ripples appearing around her fingers as if the wall was made of liquid.

“What the...Guys, Guys HELP!”

She pulled at her stuck hand with all her might, yelling as loud as should could.

“Niko, what's wrong?!!”

Gary appeared from the staircase, Zatoichi closely behind him.

“I'm stuck, it's sucking me in, help!”

She pointed towards her immobile hand, whilst pulling with as much strength as her meager muscles could.

“What the hell? here grab my hand!”

Gary reached out towards Nikos free hand, grabbing and pulling as hard as he could, but he quickly stopped once Nikos arm began to make strange stretching noises.

“That hurt...”

Find this and other great novels on the author's preferred platform. Support original creators!

She looked at him through teary eyes whilst making sure her arm was not broken.

“Sorry..but who cares about that, how did you get stuck in the first place!?”

“I don't know, I touched this wall, and it started sucking me in!”

“What the hell!?”

“Yeah, and it still hasn't stopped, help me! Please! Before it sucks all of me in!”

They attempted pulling with their combined strength once again, to no avail.

“It's now up to my elbow...”

She gave her slowly disappearing arm a frightened look.

“Ojou-chan, am sorry, if we cannot pull out, it best if we cut before pull in rest of you.”

Zatoichi who had stayed quiet up until now, spoke up. Slowly drawing his Japanese sword, and brandishing it above himself.

“No, No, NO!”

Hannah finally appeared from beyond the staircase, grabbing a hold of Zatoichis ready arm, preventing him from finishing his strike.

“Uuu...If Shoki was here, he would know what to do...”

Niko looked helpessly around, hoping to find Shoki standing around somewhere, in his usual melancholic manner, ready to help at a moments notice.

“Where is Shoki anyway, maybe if he was here to help us, with our combined strength, we could pull Niko out!”

Gary looked around, obviously frustrated and extremely concerned for Niko.

“Isn't that his footprint over there..?”

Hannah pointed at a nearby footprint in the dust covering the floor.

“Yeah..i'm pretty sure that's the type of shoes he wears..wait..why is half of the footprint gone into the wall..?”

Niko muttered to herself, slowly realising what that meant.

“Shoki was sucked into the wall!?”

Niko immediately began to walk into the wall, causing more than half of her body to go beyond the wall.

It felt cool and relaxing, similar to a warm bath, if one could get the same effect from cold water.

“Niko NO!”

Everyone grabbed onto the half of Niko that had yet to be sucked in, preventing her from going further in.

“Stop it, let me go, I need to go help Shoki!”

She attempted to struggle against them, but the combined strength of the three were far superior to her inferior childs body.

“I have to go save him!”

She continued to struggle, aware of the fact that it was useless.

“Niko, what the hell, he could be dead for all we know, who knows what happens when you get sucked in!”

Gary scolded her, his grip on her strengthening with the strength of his rising emotions.

“Yes, He right, is still chance, if we cut off arm and leg, you still survive”

Zatoichi was grabbing onto Niko with one arm, whilst brandishing his sword in the other.

“No, NO CUTTING HER, and NO going into the wall either!”

Hannah was adamant about not following either of those options, wanting to bid her time until they figured out another solution.

“Look, guys, there's no other way, the wall is already sucking me in, and seems like i'm not able to pull myself out again, so I have only once choice.”

She attempted to reason with the frantic worried adults before her.

“We can just wait until we go back to the city and get someone who can help!”

Hannah said, her voice betraying her doubts.

“With how quickly it's sucking me in, we wont have time for that, so it's better if I just go fully in, and try to help Shoki on the other side!”

“Fine, but if you're going, then i'm going!”

Gary released Niko and walked forwards towards the wall.

“Gary, stop it, what if something bad happens, you still have your career that you worked so hard for, stop being silly, you've watched too many drama movies”

Niko dismissed his actions, with a casual wave of her free arm.

“No, I have decided, I don't care about that, if you die under my watch without me doing anything about it, it means I lost a client, and I swore to never lose a client on my path towards being number one. And I also swore to never lose my best friend again.”

Niko received an unusualy serious and determined look from Gary, causing her to swallow all her words. As Gary slowly reached out and placed his hand upon the wall, it too beginning to suck him in.

“If there something beyond wall, you need someone who can fight against Akuma, incase boy not there, so I go too, for glory of clan of parade of shadows”

Zatoichi also stepped forward and placed his palm onto the wall.

“T-then me too!”

Hannah stepped forwards, but was stopped by Zatoichi.

“Ane-san, is best if you stay here, we need someone on this side if things go bad and we stuck underground. You find someone to break wall, while we go with girl, Ok?”

He explained his plan to her, which she reluctantly agreed to, nodding slightly.

“Okay...But take care of Niko okay..?”

“Of course, girl is safest when with me.”

“And take of yourself too..”

“I will.”

With that she turned around and walked up the staircase, unwilling to look upon their disappearing forms.

“Hey, don't I get any dramatic goodbyes?”

Gary complained from the side, receiving a swift kick to the shin from Nikos still free leg.

“They were having a moment, idiot!”

Niko snapped at him, before looking over at Zatoichi to see if he heard them.

Zatoichi looked unaware of their little comedy act, and turned towards the both of them.

“So let's go?”

“Yeah, let's go find Shoki!”

“Yeah sure..”

And with that, the three of them began to slowly push themselves into the wall, the feeling of relaxing cold water overtaking their senses the further in they went.

Niko took a huge breath upon pushing her head beyond the wall.

She quickly ran out of breath however, and upon exhaling, realised she could breath fine underneath this strange water.

Looking around she saw the faded painting that stood upon the wall.

She attempted to walk back towards where she came from, but realised there was nowhere else to go besides the faded painting infront of her.

Slowly inching closer towards it, She felt as thou she was walking through water, the painting slowly got clearer and clearer, the fogs surrounding it fading away, getting replaced with details and colour.

And as the painting infront of her finally completely filled with colour, she saw a sight that would make even the most magnificent sights of the world combined, pale in comparison.