A Killer's Wrath

As we step through the bright white door that allows us to exit out from Bo’s collapsing dome, we are surrounded by what appears to be strands of black hair that covers the entire space we are walking through. The strands of hair move around slowly in all directions, meaning that standing still can easily lead to our legs being pulled apart from each other, without our discretion. The scent of olive oil mixed with a strange fruit lingers through the air, while the sounds of the moving strands creates a sloshing sound, similar to that of someone chewing five sticks of gum at once. As the three of us move forward in the darkness, trying not to lose our balance, we are eventually met by a large open space that reveals extremely high walls that are arranged neatly to make up a labyrinth below. The open path we have been following also seems to lead towards the entrance to the labyrinth, so Natalie continues to follow the same path. However, I instinctively grab her hand, and place my index finger towards my right ear.

“Listen,” I whisper softly.

Hundreds of screams, all exhibiting mass amounts of horror and agony, can be heard from inside the walls of the labyrinth; along with screams of people crying out for help.

“We can’t stay to listen for too long. These black hairs clearly want us to get in there,” Chen whispers to give notice, while moving around carefully to avoid losing her balance.

“Then we need to come up with a plan, quickly!” Natalie whispers aggressively.

“Considering both of your reactions, I see that this floor is as new to me as it is to you.” I whisper softly as I look towards Natalie, and then towards Chen, “I guess we’ll have to leave it in your hands, then.”

Chen glances towards me with a stern look, before sighing loudly. Natalie glances back and forth between the both of Chen and I, before whispering aggressively once more, “Aren’t you going to let me in what you two are talking about?!”

Chen begins to carefully walk over to my position, before moving her right hand slowly towards the crown of my head. In doing so, the dragon serpent emerges calmly, and bites the outer palm of her right hand.

“It’s strange,” Chen begins, “I never truly felt as though my mark had been removed from me, even after waking up randomly on the fifty second floor. Like a tree being cut down, but the root still remaining, Impossible to return the tree itself, but still enough to prove that it was once there.”

Chen’s forehead begins to glow the same strange purple light I had seen long ago, also returning the Chinese stone deity with an angry expression atop the crown of her head. However, the matte black claws and golden anklets that were previously on her shoulders, as well as the matte black wings that were attached to the back of her ankles once before, no longer remain.

“But at least with this, it feels like being able to return the body back…although still cut off from what it once was.” Chen finishes.

I look towards the large walls of the labyrinth below, and begin to picture the image of my marks being taken from me, “I understand,”

“Of course you would. You’re the one who cut the damn tree!” Chen snaps, moving the edge of a sharp dagger to the area under my chin.

I begin to laugh comfortably, “Oh, that’s right. I technically am the one responsible, aren’t I?”

“What? Chen has a mark now too?” Natalie asks, now appearing concerned after her constant acts of displeasure against Chen, “On top of that gift of yours, now you have a mark for yourself?”

The mark is the gift, genius…

Chen glances over towards Natalie, before retracting the dagger and moving towards the labyrinth below, “I don’t really get a say, whether I want it or don’t. It was made for me, after all.”

“Wait, what?! What do you mean made for you? Just who the hell do you think you are?!” Natalie retorts.

“Better keep up…unless you want to be an addition to the collection of voices in there,” Chen replies.

Even after everything these two have been through…from Bruno, to Lennon, and to now…

It seems they will just never be able to get along.

With Chen at the front of the party charging towards the entrance of the labyrinth, the three of us begin running through its deep halls, turning from one direction to the next. The strange black hairs that brought us to the labyrinth appear to be leeching along the sixty meter walls like parasites, leaving me with a strange feeling.

Considering where we are, and how adamant these things seemed about leading us through the labyrinth instead of allowing us to try to find a way around it…it's fair to think they would have their own tasks inside of here as well.

Suddenly, the walls of the labyrinth begin to flip and fall all around like dominoes, while some of the floors ahead resurrect upwards, and become new sets of walls in the process.

“You’ve got to be kidding me!” Natalie says as she kisses her teeth.

Of course, it wouldn’t be so simple as trying to solve a riddle. This place is definitely somewhere that wants to keep its holders locked in here for the rest of time…

A confident smile escapes me.

Shinji, Shinji, Shinji. You truly are afraid of me, aren’t you?

“This way,” Chen calmly asserts, as she moves towards the new path on our left side rather than the one on the right.

Continuing to follow Chen’s lead, we run through the deep halls of the labyrinth; still unable to see where we are headed, but trusting in the witch’s power nonetheless. However, once again, the same occurrence happens where the walls and floors of the labyrinth are flipped, trapping us in a different path from the one the witch’s power had been leading us through.

“This isn’t going to work,” I say while looking around for other options.

“This way,” Chen asserts, attempting to lead us through another path once again. I grab Chen’s hand, and point towards the parasitic hairs across the walls.

“Those things can clearly see what you’re trying to pull, and are the ones responsible for flipping everything around. If we keep relying on your power to guide us the way you have, we won’t be able to make it out of here, ever.”

“Then what was the point of returning it to me?” Chen asks while ripping her hand away from mine, “My mark-”

“My?” I interrupt quickly while leaning over her, causing her to glare at me in annoyance, “Are you speaking your native language or something?”

“...the mark can calculate the paths faster than these things can flip them around, so the more we run, the closer we are to the exit. It’s only a matter of time, so continue to follow my lead…or else.”

“Or else what?” I say with my face placed directly in front of her ticked off expression.

An immensely quick swing launches towards my jaw, but I catch it with my right hand before it makes contact, and smile from ear to ear after doing so. However, an unexpected leg swing makes contact with my private area, causing me to drop down and writhe in pain.

“As expected of my dear Chen,” I awkwardly spit out.

“Chen,” Natalie says, grabbing Chen’s attention, “You know, even before, whether it came to fighting on the front lines with Bruno, or fighting in the party we made with Lennon, you never actually fought with us. Always just playing the role of scout. That’s why I knew I could never get along with you. It’s a matter of respect. I’m sure you always just wanted to be alone, especially after Bruno took you by force. So I wasn’t completely surprised when you abandoned us. Yet, it’s always gotten to me. Why could you never fight? How could someone so blessed be so against fighting the Tori alongside the rest of us?”

Chen turns towards the new open path and begins to run, “Just shut up and keep up. Don’t go prying into my-”

“You’re avoiding them, aren’t you?!” Natalie shouts.

Chen’s running turns into a job, before she completely stops.

“Ever since we entered the labyrinth, we haven’t run into any of the Tori here. All those screams we faintly heard earlier…those were definitely victims. You and I both know that. Yet, with you being the one leading us, you seem to be obsessed with taking paths that avoid the Tori. Rather than taking any dangerous paths that may be able to help us reach the exit faster, you are so keen on avoiding them, even now!”

“And?” Chen replies as she turns back towards Natalie, “What about it? You’d rather risk fighting them with measly arrows and a couple daggers?”

“Our leader himself can clearly take them all out!” Natalie retorts.

“All the more reason why we need to keep him rested!” Chen snaps back, “Do you seriously think exhausting him before we face the next trial will keep us alive?! Even if we make it out of here, after who knows how many days or weeks, we still have to meet these damn psychopaths!”

After feeling better, I finally stand back up to my feet and hold out my hand towards Chen, “Let’s not worry about me right n-”

“Shut up!” Chen snaps towards me, “No matter how powerful you may now be, you’re still only human! Humans can get tired, and being tired will cause mistakes! Mistakes always cause lost lives here! What aren’t you two understanding?!”

Natalie and I remain silent, as we see Chen panting hard in a fit of rage. Chen turns around to face the path she had been running towards, but remains standing in place.

“Fine. Maybe I’m just giving reasons to keep myself at the forefront of the mission at hand, but I’m serious about wanting to survive all of this. I don’t know whether meeting this fool of a man standing before me was the unluckiest moment that could have possibly happened to me, but it seems that things just never go as planned whenever he’s around. Yet…if what Nakai Shinj said is true…then it means it's my ticket out here, so I’ll do whatever it takes to finally reach the first floor, and then finally reach Pandora.”

Chen points to her right side, where only a sixty meter wall lies, “On the other side of this wall is a group of Tori slowly feeding on the bones of previous victims,” Chen then points to her left side. “And just beyond this side of the wall is a different group of Tori hunting another soon to be victim.”

Chen points to the path ahead, “There is another group of Tori ahead, but we can avoid them if we reach the crossing path first, and continue forward,” Chen then points to the path behind all of us, “Or we could return back, and avoid them all together, but also be leading ourselves further into the traps of the labyrinth walls.”

Silence ensues for a brief moment, as no one knows what to say in the moment.

Finally, Chen sighs, “You’re right. I tend to avoid killing Tori. Or to be more precise, I try my best to actually avoid killing things that haven’t wrong me in any way…”

“…I was once an assassin. Doing whatever it took to handle every mission that I was assigned perfectly. And that’s exactly what I did. For as long as I can remember, I was certainly the greatest. But I felt nothing about it. Never knowing why the sense of killing brought me nothing in return. No pain, no joy, and no regret. That is until…I found out how it all came to be. How, when I was young, the organization had made a show of slaughtering my entire family in order to breathe a sense of lifelessness into my psyche. As soon as I found out, I finally began to feel a sense for something…anger. From that point, I made it a mission to slaughter them all as well, destroying the organization from within. But I didn’t stop there. I slaughtered all of their families. I slaughtered anyone they considered to be friends, including the families of their friends. No matter how many of them I killed, I seemed to want more. Like a bottomless pit, my anger just never failed to rest. I began to make excuses to target people, whether it be that they shared the last name as those that brought me this pain, or even that they had attended the same school as them. I even killed my husband, who was unaware of my real career, but would have been a liability that my enemies could use against me. All of that blood became my source of life, because my anger never subsided.”

Chen turns her head back towards the two of us, “If I go down that path again…killing others just for the sake of killing…then I’ll end up like I was once. And that is something I wish to avoid. I promised myself only to slaughter those who do me wrong, specifically. No more reason to target those who haven’t.”

The image of Chen’s crazed expression that she had when fighting Bruno comes to mind, along with the insanely quick decision-making and acrobatic movements she has been making all this time.

Her story certainly checks out.

Natalie continues to stare towards Chen with a stern look, “And that includes even killing for the sake of your survival?”

“How is it for the sake of my survival when we respawn anyways?” Chen responds.

Natalie pauses, before sighing loudly, “I guess we all have our own reasonings.”

In the midst of Natalie’s questioning, I had already been walking to catch up to Chen’s position, as Chen watched me closely as I approached her. As I reach her, I place my two hands atop her shoulders, acting as a stand-in for the matte black claws with golden anklets she previously had. Chen’s head moves back towards facing her front, and I move my head to the right side of her head.

“You talk a big game about wanting to remain civil against those that have done you no wrong…but the person I know you to be isn’t one that is afraid of anything…not even yourself,”

Chen’s right eye twitches, ever so slightly. Along the same path, and a few meters ahead of the three of us, one of the groups of Tori that Chen had mentioned before comes into sight. As soon as the Toritake take notice of our position, they all begin to speed quickly towards us.

“There’s no point in trying to hold yourself back from who you are…it’s just your nature…whether out of revenge…or out of love of the hunt…you’re a killer…”

Chen’s right eye twitches harder, as her blank stare forward remains in my sights. The dragon serpent stretches outwards, before comfortably nestling on top of the Chinese deity atop Chen’s head. In that same instance, Chen’s deity catches a bright fire…in a way that I haven’t seen since she attempted to assassinate Bruno.

My lips reach closer to Chen’s ears, as I whisper softly into them.

“...so kill…”

***

A deep voice of laughter is all that can be heard in the vicinity, as the three of us manage to find the exit of the labyrinth drenched in Tori blood. The deity engrossed with fire above Chen’s head remains the one responsible for the sound, while Chen limps her way through, as Natalie and I follow closely behind. The only sound coming from the three of our mouths are deep breaths, as the three of us are desperate to recover our stamina as quickly as possible. As we finally make it through the exit’s doors, Natalie and I collapse on the floor, feeling very much out of breath.

“That may have been the most Tori I have ever had to deal with…” Natalie faintly says before wheezing.

No kidding. As soon as we got through one large group, another group had already heard us and made their way through to us. It’s as if the black strands of hair across the labyrinth were guiding them to us. Probably even flipped some of the walls just to get them to us faster.

I place my longsword back into its sheath, and stand back up. I glance towards Chen, who has refused to let her guard down the entire time, and continues to stare forward. As I look towards where Chen’s eyes are fixated, I look to see a familiar face sitting atop an elevated throne. The surrounding area seems to be heaven like, with white clouds and a divine light situated all around us. White and gold pillars stand on parallel sides of the linear path at the center of the area, and golden rose petals decorate the white steps that lead up to the throne.

At the center of the path, lined with the tall white and gold pillars, a floor guardian stands firm. Lines of Tori blood flow from the floor guardian towards all of the pillars surrounding it, and move up into the air past the pillars, only to seemingly evaporate into the light. The only other remaining shade of darkness that can be seen is on the floor where the three of us are standing, as if insinuating that we are polluting the ‘heaven’ we are currently in.

“Praises to you. You have succeeded in reaching the thirty second floor landmark.”

“We jumped twenty whole floors?” Natalie asks with a beaming smile, “I’ve never made it this far up before!”

“Maybe if you weren’t so concerned with surviving, or adapting, then you could have a while ago.” I mutter under my breath, which results in Natalie kissing her teeth towards me.

“The nestling, Nehman Ho. Chen Xi. Natalie Varquez. You have no prior authorization to enter this fl-”

“I am surprised.” The familiar face says as he pops up from his throne, “To think even one of you could withstand Bo’s trial is shocking enough…but three?”

I crack a smile, “It should have been four. But as they say, an eye for an eye; or in this case, a soul for a soul. However…Alex…that won’t be happening this time. Because only you will be the one to die.”

Alex takes three steps down the steps that lead towards his throne, which causes the floor guardian to fade away quickly. The lines of Tori blood going up toward the pillars also fade away shortly after, leaving only the four of us left in the vicinity.

Alex looks down towards the golden rose petals scattered across the white steps, before picking up two of them and returning to his throne.

“Pipe down already, mongrel. You, no better than a dog, believe you have what it takes to defeat someone like me?”

Alex tosses down one of the petals in his hand, but it takes it time to land on the white floor that holds up his white throne. However, as soon as it does, a massive feeling of pressure occurs against my lower body, pinning my knees to the floor to the point it feels like they are about to break into it. At the same time that it happens to me, I look to my left and right and notice the same thing happening to Chen and Natalie as well.

What…is this power?!

I turn my attention back towards Alex, and notice the petal he had dropped now being grinded into dust, as it is also being pinned to the floor. Alex walks over and picks up a few more petals, before returning to his throne once more. In the same spots that the petals had been taken, other petals appear to take their place. Not long after, Alex drops two more petals, and as soon as they reach the white floor, my forehead slams into the ground, and my hands become cuffed tightly to my lower back.

What is with those damn petals?!

Alex sighs, “No matter with Bo. I never got along with the fool anyway. In fact, I always found it strange that the supreme one would align with such a jester of all individuals. Even the scientist was more valuable than the likes of him.”

My eyes begin to burn with blood, as I attempt to lift my head up to face Edgar; but the pressure pins me back almost immediately, leaving me unable to speak. I can only assume that Chen and Natalie are stuck in the exact same peril as me.

“A god, a priest, and an emperor. Things were much less of a hassle with just the three of us.”

I’m guessing this bastard is the one that used to be an emperor.

Mark of the King. Laurel wreath on his head…

Wait…

His name doesn’t end with THE GREAT by any chance, right?!

“This will be your final trial, and it will go as follows…so pay close attention to the words I speak!”

“The three of you will remain as you are, and bow in reverence to me for as long as I see fit. Once I am satisfied, I will disintegrate your bodies into dust, and return to my business. I would have loved to indulge in some fun with the three of you beforehand, which I’m sure you were all looking forward to as well. However…aside from your words of insubordination, the filthy sweat and blood that covers all of you is not to my liking. Not at all. So no fun will be had, unfortunately. It seems I will have to depend on my husbands and wives, once again.”

“No need to bother yourself.” Chen’s voice asserts, with the sound of movement evident from her wet clothes, “I’ll be on my way to kill you shortly.”

“W-what? How are you able to move?” Alex asks, seemingly stunned by the situation, “I am the only one that has rule here! This is my heaven!”

“What a coincidence,” I say while also struggling to move upwards, “I was just about to ask for the manager of this place. I have a lot of complaints to file. Rude customer service that won’t allow you to speak. Lack of empathy for those who are struggling to move. Poorly trained representatives that don’t understand what the customer wants…”

As I rise to my feet and stand tall alongside Chen, I crack another smile, “...or what the customer possesses.”

Alex appears flushed, looking around towards the petals he threw to the floor beside his throne, before attempting to throw some more. However, even after they land, he only looks back towards me and Chen to see that we haven’t been pinned down to the ground as we had been before.

“You see the thing is, I make it a mission of mine to always take anything of value I can get my hands on. And now, it seems that has manifested into a creature that adopts the same nature.” I then point towards the gold petals situated around Alex’s throne, “Those gold petals sure look real nice, don’t they?”

Alex slowly turns his attention towards the white floor that holds up his throne, and finally takes notice of the three serpents moving carefully across it, eating up all the gold petals he had thrown down. As he jumps up in fright, the white floor begins to turn into a black hole, swallowing up his throne and all the pillars and marble statues that were behind it.

Trying to escape from his peril, Alex jumps down to the white stairs while still looking at the small black hole until it fades away. Eventually, his eyes move to the white stairs, realizing that all of the gold petals scattered around it, even those that were supposed to reappear as soon as the others disappear, are no longer there; swallowed up by the three serpents before they had moved towards the ones around his throne.

“Gravity, right? It’s a neat trick.” I point out, “And with the puppeteer power your master seems to have granted to the three of you, you can even focus it on specific areas that you wish. You clearly seem to have a lot of pride to believe that would be enough to stop me. Although not nearly as much as that of your master.”

As Alex slowly turns his head to face the three of us with an angry expression, I notice his body slowly attempting to morph into that of a beast, as his paws turn into that of a large cat’s, and fur begins to grow from his body.

Right. He also holds two marks.

The mark of the king…and my mark of the beast.

Alex’s angry expression turns into a look of despair, as he looks up into the empty sky above. On his ankles are two of the three serpents, biting into them and sucking out all of the power in which he holds.

Apologies, Mr. King…but I’ll be taking that back…and taking everything else for myself.

As soon as the serpents remove themselves from Alex’s vicinity, I fall back slightly, only to find myself now seated on my new throne. I hold out my hand, and a golden petal dances from the crown of my head and lands in the center of my palm.

“You went and pissed off the wroooong person, buddy,”

I turn my hand a hundred and eighty degrees, and the petal dances into the dark floor centered around where I stand. Immediately, Alex’s legs pull him down to the white steps, fixing him onto the ground. He looks up slowly, only to see Chen’s bloodthirsty expression right above him.

“Although…I’m not talking about myself,” I finish.

In a flash, Chen whips out one of her chain whips with blades attached to the running ends , and slides it quickly across the entire width of the white steps until it slices off Alex’s head, cleanly. She draws the chains back, and assaults the rest of his body until only a pile of guts remains. Blood settles neatly all across the steps, painting a murderous but beautiful scene of red and white.

Natalie finally rises to her feet, groaning and holding her clothes tightly as she clearly still felt uncomfortable with Alex’s comments.

Chen remains covered in blood, with her fire consumed deity beginning to laugh once more.

A white door opens up in the area behind where my throne had once been situated.

Two down. One to go.

And then finally…the real king.

While still seated, I rest my head against my right hand, as Natalie walks up beside my throne and blushes as she looks towards me. Chen begins to move towards the white door, leading Natalie to eventually follow suit.

An extremely sinister grin escapes me, as my ego continues to build with every passing encounter.

“…magnificent.”