The Final Games Begin

Welpen: “Where is Astro, Izumi? I’m getting worried. What was that all about?”

Izumi: “He’ll be here. I don’t know about that room though. Weird. I’ve never seen that. Probably some big space to have them killed in a special way. What a strange thing though.”

As they spoke, Astro entered the room with Naoki and Souta. They were the last 3 everyone waited on.

Astro walked over to Welpen and didn’t speak a word. He knew a menacing threat when he heard it. Death Bringer was 100% serious about what he said. Having felt the dark magic from before, he knew to keep his mouth shut. After all, there were a handful of people here who had just experienced the same thing.

Welpen: “Astro!!!!! Where were you? Where did you go?”

Izumi: “Yeah. I’d like to know that too. In all the times that I’ve played, there has never been an option where the players go into a different room for something. What were you guys doing back there?”

Astro: “Nothing. We walked into a dark room and then all of a sudden I was walking back here. I don’t even know if I got killed for death tokens or not, although I’m assuming I did.”

Izumi: “Hmmm, interesting.”

Welpen: “Astro, these games are almost done. Only 2 more left to go. I’m so excited. Then we can get to the tournament and win and go look for Isara somewhere else…Hey Izumi, are you competing in the tournament?”

Izumi: “Hmph. Of course I am. This tournament isn’t held very often. I have some death tokens saved up over the years, but the tournament date is so random that I did spend a lot throughout the years. Regardless, I still have a good amount to get stuff that I need for it.”

A small laugh started to echo near them.

“Hahaha…”

They kept talking, but the laugh got louder and louder.

“Hahahaha. Haahahahaha. BWAHAHAHA!”

Behind them, the man with flat black hair and glasses perked up in his chair and pushed his glasses up to his eyes.

“I cannot hold back any longer. Behold! For I am Octavious Iji!”

The 3 of them stood there without saying a word. They were baffled at the man and what he did. He was wearing an all black priest looking outfit, but cut off at his hips to look like a warrior gown. Small gold stripes decorated it and around his neck hanging down was a brown dream catcher. His eyes were all black except for a little white on the edges.

Octavious: “I hear you were going to the tournament and couldn’t resist. I almost blurted out earlier when we started the card game. I wanted to say something so badly, but I shut my mouth. BUT! I cannot resist. I must be your partner in the games. Oh, please, please, please, please, please!”

Welpen: “Sure! You can come with us.”

Octavious: “Well before you say no…Wait! Really?! The world has given me both of you!”

Izumi: “You are crazy Mr.”

Octavious: “Crazy? Who’s crazy? Not me. I’m not crazy.”

Astro walked back to his seat as he spoke.

Astro: “Sure. We’ll take you to the tournament. You’re interesting. Meet us the day after tomorrow in front of this building.”

Octavious’ face lit up. He jumped up and down. He was nothing like he had been in the past games. He was very quiet and blended in with the wall. It was a total 180 in everyone’s minds. Death Bringer came over the loudspeaker again.

Death Bringer: “Ah. We are almost done with the games today. Only 2 to go. I’m very saddened by this event ending today, but we must continue on and bring the games to an end soon. However, this game will count for both the 6th and 7th game. So, this unfortunately will be the last game intertwined with each other. I will explain each game separately when the time arrives. We are going to continue our theme of luck with a very simple game. In a moment, a large glass bowl will fall from the ceiling. In that glass bowl will be 98 keys. You may come up at any time to go and grab a key. In doing so, you will return back to your seat. 5 different doors will then appear in the middle. Even though every key looks the same, only 5 of those keys will access those doors. Now, please select your key when the bowl falls.”

A large fish-like bowl made out of glass came down in the middle of the room. It was huge and had many keys the size of 2 hands in it. Each key was painted black with the end painted red with a white skull image attached. Everyone ran out of their seats to grab one. A few stayed back though, including Welpen, Astro, and Izumi. Eventually, they made their way over to the leftover keys. A few people still had not chosen, so they randomly picked what they wanted.

Welpen: “Oh! Look! My key is really cool. It’s all curvy and different colors.”

Izumi: “They all look like that you idiot.”

Welpen: “Oh, that’s right. Hehe. So…What do we do now?”

Izumi: “We go back to our seats you idiot. You don’t listen.”

Welpen: “Oh…I don’t listen at all. You’re right.”

As everyone returned to their seats, the glass bowl headed back to the ceiling. In place of it were 5 different doors with all differing designs and colors. From left to right, the mere sight of them confused everyone that looked at them. The themes of each had no correlation with each other.

The first door was shrouded in all white. Different colored paint splattered across the plain looking door. At the top, a single rose hung down just above the handle.

The second door was even more appealing. It was slated in gold and shined so bright that the heavens could probably see it. The room lit up from its eeriness just with this one door. Small curved designs spread across while straight golden lines mixed in also stretched from the hinges.

The middle door matched the energy of the room previously. It also matched the mentality of most of the players in the room. Painted directly on the front was an hourglass with nothing in it. Four red soulless eyes also sat in each corner of the door. Right below the hourglass was a tongue five times the size of a human that stretched out enough to where you could easily touch it. Even getting close to the handle would be close enough. Purple flames sparked out from the bottom in short bursts matching the darkness of the door. Despite Welpen hoping his key didn’t match that door, it seemed everyone else awaited their turn to get a crack at it.

Next to that door was even worse. Rusted chains hung down the sides of an oval looking door. It was transparent, but you couldn’t see through the other side. Wet seaweed ran along the edges as mushrooms with eyes and mouths followed your every step.

Finally, the last door all the way on the right was a standard looking dungeon door. It was brown with grey locks, but small strikes of lightning jolted at the doorknob as if you’d be shocked when you touched it.

Death Bringer: “Alrighty! I cannot wait. After I explain the rules, I will not have contact with any of you inside of the doors however we will be monitoring you for our own pleasure of enjoying the spectacular show you all will be putting on. As I said before, this will be the last game, so please give it your very all before it ends. When this game is over, you will automatically be given your death tokens and appear outside the locked doors like always. You may not enter until next week.”

Kunikise: “Hey! You stupid idiot! How is this the last game when it’s the 6th game? Explain right now!”

Death Bringer: “Ahh. I shall explain now. I apologize for the inconvenience. Kunikise you are always a valued customer here. This is not normally how we do things, so I shall explain. Before you are the 5 doors as I mentioned. Each of you will come up individually to check to see if your key opens one of the doors when your seat lights up. If it does not match, then you will go back to your seat. If it does, then you will remain at the entry of the door while it opens. This means that you are selected for that door. The benefit of this is that you may pick who you bring with through the door. This is labeled as the 6th game of luck. Whoever pulls the 5 keys gets 5 death tokens automatically before the start of the 7th game.”

Kunikise: “Huh?! That’s ridiculous. That’s not a game. All I did was pull a key out of a bowl. How is that a game?!”

Death Bringer: “Ahh. I apologize again for the inconvenience. Normally, this wouldn’t be the case, but we changed some things this time. Rest assured, the games will be similar to the previous format next week. Now, please everyone, please wait until your seat lights up green to go and check each door.”

The first seat to light up coincidentally was Kunikise’s. He jumped up out of his chair in mixed emotions and walked to the 5th door first. It didn’t work. He shifted over to the left to the 4th door where yet again it didn’t work. He repeated this process until the key didn’t work for any of them. He then became very angry and wouldn’t move from the spot while he complained.

Death Bringer very shallowly threatened him in a tone that wasn’t that frightening to not alarm the other players. When Kunikise wouldn’t move, something strange happened that Astro specifically looked at. He was shifted in the air back to his seat very quickly and couldn’t move. He struggled in vain, but was restrained in his chair. Before he could keep thinking, his chair lit up second. He ventured over to the first door on the left, but his key wouldn’t fit. He continued just like Kunikise to the end, but it didn’t work. He wasn’t disappointed at all, but rather walked back to his seat and sighed in a tiresome way.

Other players' seats began to light up, but nobody’s key would fit. That is, until Violet went. The first door worked with her key. She complained at how boring the design was, but was happy that she got death tokens and got to pick her team.

More people went up when their chairs lit up green. Hoshi took a turn at it, but came up short. Eventually, Souta cockily approached the doors. For some reason, he knew as if he’d have a key that opened one and he was right. The door next to Violet opened for him. She stuck his tongue out at him as he did the same back.

Right after Souta, Naoki was selected to come up. To no surprise to Astro, his key fit as well, but he didn’t think anything of it at this point. He figured that at least for this round, this was a mere coincidence despite their previous luck. They were not separated with different doors. Naoki’s key opened the far door on the right. Tatsu was up next with only 3 more people to go. It was either Tatsu, Welpen, or Izumi who had the key to the last 2 doors. Tatsu giddily raced over to the doors and tried his key in the 4th door. It didn’t work. He shifted over to the middle door and waited for a second before inputting it. It worked. He jumped up in joy.

Tatsu: “HA! I can pick you now Kunikise. We’ll run this stupid little gauntlet.”

While all this was going on, Welpen was sweating. Izumi didn’t care because she was bound to pick Welpen anyways. It didn’t matter who had the key or who got the death tokens, but Welpen stared at the door like it was a recurring nightmare he had every night in his dreams.

His chair lit up.

He slowly walked over to it and inserted the key to the slot. He turned it and it worked. The door opened for him. He hesitated to say anything, but as a little time passed, he jumped up and behind and screamed, “I did it!”

Izumi clapped in awe as others looked at her weirdly. Death Bringer spoke once again quickly.

Death Bringer: “From left to right, please pick your teams before I give the final explanation.”

Violet picked Hoshi right away. Souta looked at Astro, but respected his wishes and what Naoki told him before, so he passed on him so Welpen could take him. He took Kael for his fire spirit earlier. Tatsu picked Kunikise and Welpen chose Astro instead of Izumi, but she understood. Naoki quickly took Kanna for a similar reason to Souta’s. These 5 people stood up and walked over to their designated teams.

This process repeated until everyone was picked.

There was an odd amount of people, so the first 3 doors ended up with 1 extra player, but as Death Bringer explained the rules, nobody knew if that was good or bad yet.

Death Bringer: “Congratulations on the 5 of you that guessed the correct keys. Now, we are going to follow the theme of luck for the last game, but there must also be some skill involved. As many of you have played these games before, this is not how we normally do things, but a big tournament is coming up that many of you may choose to compete in, so we wanted to give the opportunity to increase your score drastically. In this round, you will all be…fighting to the death.”

Welpen’s eyes lit up as if he meant literal death. Even Astro’s eyes widened for a second thinking about what the outcome would be for Welpen. Death Bringer explained further.

Death Bringer: “Please do not worry. The same rules apply from the other rounds. You will not literally die, but figuratively like the other rounds. You will regenerate just like before, but kills and deaths will be worth points. Every single kill is worth 5 points. Every death is worth 1 point. The roles are reversed in this round and the rule of a weapon only being allowed to affect you once is also wiped out. It is a free for all against the teams you selected.”

Souta: “So…If I kill 1 person repeatedly 10 times, then I get 50 death tokens?”

Death Bringer: “That is correct.”

Souta: “Naoki! We’re gonna be rich.”

Naoki: “I have a question too. Can we team up with others and can we kill our own team members?”

Death Bringer: “Yes. You may do whatever you please. You may run and hide or you may chase someone down forever. If you wish to make a team, then there will be an option above your heads. However, if you do this, then you may only kill each person in your party once, but you may disband at any moment, which will allow you to kill them endlessly. The game ends after 30 minutes. Oh and one little tip before you enter. Try and avoid the events that unfold.”

Kunikise: “Events? What events? Hey! Answer me!”