Tayte slowly opened her eyes to a cavernous ceiling decorated with golden stalactites.

Her face was masked with bandages with only her eyes and mouth free—like an Invisible Man costume afraid to go all the way. Her hair was kept contained in a stitched beanie that covered her ears as well.

She looked down and her torn jacket blanketed her body. With a strenuous effort, she was able to sit up, and the jacket fell off revealing a new fleece jacket she was wearing underneath.

“This is why I pay close attention to my preparations,” an austere, but whiney voice said.

Tayte looked over to her fighting partner and he sat on the wooden platform, observing a slant gravestone. She turned her gaze back to her new dark green jacket and as she raised her right hand toward the zipper—she saw it was completely wrapped in bandages, her fingers and thumb clasped together like a poorly designed oven mitt. With her good hand, she unzipped the jacket and she found herself in a white camisole underneath.

“Um…!” Chris exclaimed.

Tayte gave him a blank look.

“I had to remove the long sleeve shirt you were wearing so I could get to all the wounds…”

She removed her jacket and examined the bandages patched all over her arms and pits. Lifting up her camisole a bit, she found more on her stomach, and then she checked her black tights—they were soaked and there were bandages under the tears.

“Although, I couldn’t do that…” Chris said.

Just as she was about to get up.

“Stop!” Chris shouted. “I know you not listening to a word I said is kind of our dynamic or whatever, but for the love of God, just stay still, Tayte! You lost a lot of blood and I used up all the gauzes and every last drip of Nether-Mums I brought with me. Please, just don’t move!”

Tayte froze, staring back at a concerned Chris, and relented peacefully. “Okay.” She put on the green fleece jacket and lay back down, staring at the golden ceiling as she zipped up the jacket all the way.

“You know…” Chris started. “I was so focused on which gravestone would be the best to go with that I didn’t realize that Takato had already chosen one and left. I only realized my stupidity when the gravestone broke in half out of nowhere and lost its glow. And then, you shot of the hole.”

Tayte scanned the area, finding Chris’s backpack near her and a water-resistant bag with a large medical kit spilling out of it.

Then, she found a hole in the center of the wooden platform they were on, followed by two gravestones, and the mossy door behind them.

“Takato must’ve found you on his way back and carried you up the rest of the path leading to the lake, and helped you access this area. How he did that without being swallowed in by the water is beyond me,” Chris explained. “Maybe, you already had your Relic in hand and he just let you sink in the water? Either way, I’m sorry… he could’ve killed you so easily. I guess this is the greatest proof that all that he really wants is Domingo’s head and our cooperation for it.”

Tayte caught Chris looking back at her with an arched brow. She knew what he was thinking. He was expecting a follow-up question or for her to perk up, energized by what she just heard. But she didn’t feel the need.

“Okay.” Was all she managed in a feeble voice.

“So… you beat her?” Chris asked.

“I killed her…”

“Well… that’s how these Trials work when you knock somebody out. I don’t think that really counts as killing them—”

“No. I didn’t knock her out to win. I killed her. That’s how I won…”

Chris rose to his feet and studied her.

With her vision getting blurry and her eyes burning up, she turned her head over to him. “Chris…” she said, her voice breaking. “I didn’t do it for fun.”

Chris’s eyes widened and he rushed and kneeled down to her. “Hey, hey, hey… forget about what I said—”

“I killed her, Chris.”

“You had no other choice. I’m sure that you gave her the option to forfeit her Relic—”

“You know what’s really the terrible part?” Tayte interrupted and sat up. “I didn’t ask for her to forfeit her Relic. Not even once.”

Chris was lost for words.

As he should.

A different set of switches were flipped to release the adrenaline through her body. She was trembling and extremely alert, and unable to feel the throbbing agony underneath the myriad of bandages that covered her body—but the adrenaline felt in no way euphoric.

To her detriment, she was sobbing again. She was convinced that she let it all out during her episode out in the mountains.

There was still so much bottled up. More cracks on her mind’s damn were forming, and gallons of the held-back river of emotional turmoil still needed to be let out.

Tayte knocked her head back as she gave out a loud cry before pushing her face into Chris’s chest, blubbering more than she ever had before. It was embarrassingly noisy and… pathetic.

But it felt good once Chris wrapped his arms around her and brushed her back. She tried looking for a reference in her memory and she found an image of her and Chris hugging in the aftermath of Melissa’s demise. She went in deeper and came up short. Realizing…

She can’t remember the last time her dad hugged her.

“I want to quit,” she said.

And then there was silence.

Her cries subsided and were replaced with steady breathing. She found herself having difficulty processing what she just said. If she actually said it all…

“My uncle committed suicide,” Chris outed.

Tayte pulled back, feeling his arms detach, and studied his doleful face. Wondering if this was some crude attempt at humor rivaling her father’s to change the topic.

Being the emotionless, heartless monster she was—proving Tatsunori and her mother right. She had no way of knowing for sure.

“It was a fatal mix of stimulants and depressants,” he added.

“No. They said he died of a heart attack—”

“I was the one who found him. I was the one who called the ambulance, and I was there when they declared him dead.”

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“But… then why?”

“Because if the rest of my family knew… he would be seen as weak. ‘Uncle Davis was depressed’, ‘he couldn’t deal with the symptoms, so he just offed himself.’ Yeah, it wouldn’t be taken well by family members. According to my mother.” Chris shook in place after finishing. A mix of sadness and anger was brewing in him.

“But the coroners told us—”

“My mom… paid a lot to get them to change that report. She couldn’t let anybody know the truth and threatened to disown me if I ever said anything. ‘It would tear this family apart,’ she said. For fuck’s sakes… that’s what we’re supposed to take away from him killing himself?” Chris closed his eyes and let out a troubled breath. “He… never said anything. I’m not trying to make him sound like the bad guy here, obviously. It’s just that… it’s just that… it’s just that he never said anything!

“And he told me that we were going to go on adventures together. First, it was because I was too young to become a treasure hunter like him, and then when I got old enough, it was because I wasn’t ready. So I had to prove him wrong, and what better to do that than uncovering the secrets of the Tombstone Trials myself, hm?” He forced a smile. “So, I got involved with Post Mortem, and I was going to do the one thing he never could… and then he leaves us… he leaves me. Alone. There was no note, but the circumstances I found him in told me everything I know, and then I searched his things, browser history… Why didn’t he ever tell me anything about what he was going through? No hints leading to that day. Nothing. I thought I meant at least that much to him. I thought I warranted some kind of farewell from him. Not even a lousy goodbye message. He was just gone. But maybe… there is a more specific reason why he did it.”

“And you want to ask him,” Tayte said.

“I just want to see him again. Talk to him, and understand… why he did it. I miss him so much.”

Tayte didn’t know what to say—no—she didn’t want to say anything. She had enough of the sorrow and didn’t want to contribute to prolonging it any longer. Yes, Chris needed to be consoled… but she just wasn’t the right person for the job.

For a moment, Tayte wondered if it would be possible to continue pursuing a career in the death industry after all of this was over.

Would that even be possible?

And then a macabre wish started to form in her mind. Maybe the best outcome for everybody would be for her to meet a gruesome end chasing after the rush she perpetually craved like the monster she was.

Her eyes settled on a peon-top gravestone, and an even more macabre wish appeared in her mind alongside the thought of Chris’s uncle.

“So, how do we get out of here? What’s the catch?” She asked.

Chris looked at her and perked up as if contaminated by the same urge to just move on from the forlorn feeling and work on getting out of the place. “They are… sacrifices we have to make in order to move on. There were four when I got here, and now there’re just two.”

Tayte scanned the gravestones. “Eight broken pieces. In total, they make ten, so it’s to make sure that each Fighter makes a sacrifice.”

“And by the looks of it, they break after a sacrifice has been made or… after a Fighter dies.”

Tayte eyed the Lugandan words on the gravestones. “The words written on the slab. They are hints on what the sacrifice is, right?”

“Sure, but they are pretty damn vague.” Chris pointed at the peon-top gravestone. “That one says… ‘What you offer… is to find trouble expressing the Nankasa in the palace of the very happy King. One must find new ways to get from one point to another.’” He sucked in his teeth, making that awful sound while glowering at the stones. “Even if my translation may not be the best. It is still nonsense. And the other one says…”

“I’ll take the peon gravestone, and you take the slant one,” Tayte said.

“What? Tayte—”

“Chris, you will never be able to find the best solution possible. There’re only two options. There’s no point in trying to figure out who takes what.”

Chris sighed. “You’re right.”

“Do you know if these sacrifices are reversible?”

“No. I don’t, but my intuition tells me… they are definitely not.”

“But this means that every other Fighter who is still alive has sacrificed something. If we could figure it out… it will be a game-changer.”

“Yeah, it would be. Okay, let’s do it.” Chris stood up and held out a hand for Tayte.

She grabbed onto it with her left hand and they moved up to the pair of gravestones.

Chris stood in front of the slant one, and Tayte in front of the peon-shaped one. They exchanged looks.

“Tayte,” Chris said, “is there by any chance you could be…?”

“Yes. I’m scared,” Tayte said as she slipped her hand out of Chris’s, “but it is inevitable, so there is no point in dwelling over it.”

Just like death, she thought but feared to add it into the sentence.

“Lukwata,” Chris called and pulled his Relic out of his torso. He pressed his hand into the face of the shield and smoke emanated from out of it and formed the world map.

There was only one glowing dot in Africa, and two in Asia. Chris raised his hand up to the Asian continent and pinched out in the east like he was maneuvering a touch screen laptop.

The smoke became just a map of an island country that made Tayte twinge all over.

“Japan’s next, huh?” Tayte muttered.

“Yeah. Adisa and Mayumi have probably already reached the final Checkpoint by now. Waiting to see who will be their grand opponents for the finale.” Chris pressed the shield and the map dissipated, and then he put the Relic down.

Tayte moved without a word and crouched to the peon gravestone. She fixated on the handprint on the granite base.

Chris crouched before the slant gravestone and raised his hand with an open palm. “Let’s do it together.”

Tayte looked over to him and raised her left hand. “Okay.”

“1…” Christ started.

“2…” Tayte followed.

“3!” They both shouted and planted their hands over their respective gravestone’s handprint.

For a moment, it seemed that Tayte’s hand fused with the gravestone’s handprint. When she was finally able to pull her hand back, a splitting headache surged, and some new information forced itself into her brain like a download from a malicious source.

Abruptly, the pain subsided, and the information sat well within her head without any further crisis. Tayte brought herself back to her feet and shared a look with Chris as he got up.

She could tell that by the brave face he was putting on—he now, just like her, knew the penalty he would have to endure for the rest of the deadly competition.

The mossy door roared a rumble and opened up, revealing a smaller cavernous room where a Tombstone Checkpoint sat with only four of the skulls lit up.

And then the slant and peon gravestone broke in half.

Chris backtracked to reequip his backpack, and then picked up his shield and moved up to the room.

Tayte summoned her Relic and followed.

The enervated duo plonked their Relics onto the Tombstone Checkpoint and the fifth and sixth skulls lit up.

Another mossy door in the new room revealed itself and slid open on its own—the mountain summit was on the other side.

They walked through the door and were welcomed back into nature with the biting chill of the night.

Tayte turned back and saw a stone door frame with the Tombstone Checkpoint’s room on the other side.

The structure decomposed and disappeared into ashes that were blown away by the wind quickly.

“The descent is just as bad as the ascension…” Chris alerted.

Tayte crossed her arms and shivered. “Let’s get moving…”

And the two began their silent descent.

###

Tayte and her companion, by some will of an overseeing force, were able to descend Mount Muhabura in the dead of night without any complications. Maybe the mountain animals were warded off by their poignant stench—they do say the happier the cattle, the better their meat tastes.

After the successful descent, Tayte and Chris walked along the empty road.

An obnoxious car horn coming from behind halted their walk.

They turned back and Vanessa was rolling up the road. It stopped by them and Ryder climbed out, wearing a pink coat and black slacks.

“Took you long enough,” Chris said, putting his cell back into his pocket.

Ryder’s face fell as he stared at Tayte. “Oh, my… Tatyana-Darling.” He ran up to her and hugged her.

Tayte barely moved as she was suffocated in his embrace.

He let go of her and stepped back to study her. His expression turned grim. “Tatyana… you know—”

“Don’t.” She interrupted, raising her good hand. “Just… please. Don’t.”

Ryder silenced but his look remained.

“Old man Schmidt is going to leave tomorrow,” Chris said, “so let’s go back to the hotel.”

“Actually,” Ryder said, dejected. “I just got a call from him and he is taking off early with or without us. In just a couple of hours. He’s got some business in Shinjuku to take care of. I suppose we can just let him leave and wait until—”

“No,” Tayte interrupted once again. “Let’s pass by the hotel, pick up our stuff, and go meet up with him.” She started walking towards the van and stopped as she realized she wasn’t hearing any footsteps. She wheeled back to the two, frozen in place. “Well, let’s get going.”

Chris and Ryder shared a look.

“Tatyana…” Ryder started. “Why don’t you ride up in front with me this time?”

“Okay,” Tayte said and let herself into the shotgun seat.

The trip to the final location was underway.