Façade - Hero's Lies Arc

Hiroshi took a deep breath and entered the cave. He felt the walls with his hand, feeling its rough edges. Looking up to the ceiling, he noticed the formation of stalactites, dripping with calcium carbonate. There seemed to be no foul play here. It was definitely a natural forming cave. 

The plip-plip of the calcium carbonate into a small pool echoed around the cave, almost making Hiroshi shiver. The cave seemed to be tight in places, and lizards crawled through all the nooks and crannies.

Hiroshi managed to squeeze through a small gap and burst out into a big, open room. Something seemed off. Two big, wooden doors faced him, with two statues of women praying on either side. The double door must have been fifty feet high, with the handle being circle shaped, almost like door knockers.

“Wow, talk about cliché, huh?” Hiroshi scoffed.

“What do you mean?” Kuro-Yami asked, still looking around the room, scanning for any dangers.

“Can’t you see? The room is a perfect square. This wasn’t natural selection, nor was it done by dynamite. This was perfectly cut, maybe by an attack fused with manna.”

“Of course, this is staged as well,” Kuro-Yami nodded, suddenly understanding Hiroshi’s reasoning.

“It is. In fact, I bet…,” Hiroshi was about to continue his train of thought, but he walked directly onto a pressure plate. He immediately stepped back at the speed of sound, just to dodge some flimsy arrows that came out of the wall. “Huh, those arrows look way too weak to actually hurt someone.”

He picked up one of the arrows, that had snapped as it hit the opposite wall. He felt the head of the arrow and he almost burst into another fit of laughter.

“It’s foam!” he smirked. “This cave would be a lot more fun if these things were real, wouldn’t it?”

Kuro-Yami laughed. He was getting happier by the second. Hiroshi was losing all forms of sympathy or understanding. To take the world as his own, he needed to be heartless and ruthless. No one could or would stand in his way, and those people just made him soft.

Hiroshi, with assistance from Kuro-Yami, flew over to the door and smashed his way through the oak door. He didn’t have a single scratch on him as he moved into a much thinner room. He felt the walls again. They seemed wet from the condensation build up. This cave had been here for thousands of years. At that moment, Hiroshi heard a mechanism begin to start whirring. He looked up, closed to where the ceiling and the wall joined. A pulley-system had let go of…well, nothing.

He thought nothing of it, and he pressed on. He continued making his way down the narrow hallway, feeling an unnerving presence up his spine. Caves were always creepy places. Was someone, or something, watching him? He couldn’t tell.

He was too busy being in a daze to notice the wooden track that sloped downwards, further into the cave. Hiroshi saw a big boulder blocking his path. He took a deep breath and unsheathed his sword. With a swift motion, he slashed downwards, cutting the boulder perfectly in half.

“I suppose Kage’s training is definitely working anyway,” Hiroshi smiled to himself, but immediately kicked himself in the foot after. He wanted to stop thinking about them, but somehow, he just couldn’t.

Was life worth living with them? Would they even accept him back? Probably not. The human race was very unforgiving in his old world. In some cases, it was justified. Other cases, not so much. He shook his head and focused once more.

He noticed that the boulder was sitting perfectly on the tracks. Another fake trap to deceive the public? Most definitely. It would also explain the empty pulley system. It must have been what set the boulder in motion.

That was when Hiroshi looked up and saw Grant, Eve and Schulz all staring at him in confusion.

“Oh…hello,” Hiroshi said awkwardly, rubbing the back of his neck. “Fancy meeting you guys here.”

“Who the hell are…I mean, are you lost young man?” Schulz barked out. The new room that Hiroshi had walked into was large and open, with a gaping entrance into seemingly another room.

“Stop the façade, Schulz. I have been tracking you for the past two days. The cameras? The fake traps? Come on,” Hiroshi laughed at him, pointing a finger. “I can’t stand fakers.”

Back in the capital, the people looked at their screens in shock. They had been told that the Love Crystal was virtually unfindable, and it was a miracle that the three heroes even got a hint at its location.

Alexander gasped. That young man! Shinigami from the Great Encounter Battle Tournament! Alive and well! He didn’t know whether to be happy or sad. On one hand, he was glad, as he gave him a great show. On the other, he had almost been killed by him. Alexander was stunned into silence. What did he mean by ‘façade’? He noticed the crowd getting uneasy.

“Who is that guy?”

“Wait…he seems familiar…”

“Yes! It looks like Shinigami from the Tournament six months ago!”

“Oh, him? What a nasty piece of work!”

Alexander had no idea what to say. The people didn’t know the true power he possessed, especially not the power of the God of Darkness inside of him. If they knew that, the world would be turned upside down. The Gods would become untrusted by the public. A PR disaster.

Back in the cave, the conversation started heating up.

“Just stay back, kid. Go home, if you know what’s good for you,” Eve hissed at him in disdain. “You are going to ruin my beautiful moment.”

“Shut up, Eve!” Grant told her sternly. Hiroshi smiled. He had them on a tightrope. It was only a matter of time before…

“Ah, do you have something to add, woman beater?”

…he added a couple of details of his own.

The camera’s picked up everything. The crowd looked at each other. What? Grant? He couldn’t be!

“That’s not true…wait a minute…aren’t you her new boyfriend? What lies has that bitch been spewing about me?!” he screamed out in anger.

“Grant, stop!” Schulz begged, but there was no getting through to him.

“What does it matter? Everyone will be manipulated by the Love Crystal’s power! Does the act even matter anymore?” he asked Schulz, not bothering to hide his true self anymore.

Hiroshi clenched his fists in anger.

“What the fuck did you just call Wisteria!?” Hiroshi looked at Grant with death in his eyes. “She could have defended herself at any moment. Hurt you back, even. And yet, she was too sweet to do anything about it. I’m not that sweet.”

“Grant, you idiot!” Schulz yelled out, backing into the gaping entrance to the next room with Eve. “He’s going to ruin everything! Slow him down!”

Schulz ran with Eve, deeper into the cave. All the drones followed them, except for one. Hiroshi pointed his hand at one, with an open palm, and shot pure darkness out of it, hitting the drone and causing it to short circuit. It stayed, frozen in place, but still was recording the footage. It aimed right on Hiroshi and Grant.

Wisteria watched on, her hand covering her mouth.

“Oshi…"