Chapter 13: Foiling The Hydrokinetic's Plot!

Chapter 13: Foiling The Hydrokinetic’s Plot!
I
“Speaking of a spicy ramen bowl challenge,” Hina said brightly, still beaming at Junshin fro his last comment to her. “Let’s go to the noodle shop together! We can eat, gather our strength, and then strategically plan how to get our Criminal X after we capture the Hydrokinetic.”

“Don’t you think that this slows us down?” Kanna complained, though unfortunately, while she was flying through mid air, her stomach started to gurgle unpleasantly. “Eh…maybe I could go for the pork tonsatsu ultra spicy ramen bowl! A couple of rounds of those and I’ll be great after this battle!”

“Don’t you think we should stop and eat first if you’re hungry, Kanna?,” Junshin said, thumbing in his pockets for leftover yen that could be used to pay for his own meal. “So while we’re going to eat our ramen and hangout, Rika could probably have reported back to Reito and lined up those criminals for him. Do you think we should wait for her?”

“No way, I wanna catch the Hydrokinetic as soon as possible!” Kanna said as she blazed ahead, seeming to not take no for an answer when it comes to her desire to fight and beat down the criminal that invaded their home turf. “Eating happens later, and besides, I’ve survived on less and worked on a battle with an empty stomach? Isn’t the motto the ANGeLS can do anything?”

“Before we have a formal battle and eat at the ramen shop, please at least eat this on the way,” Hina said as she created a granola bar with plenty of fruits and nuts and chocolate chunks for Kanna to eat to replenish her energy. “I can make as much as you want, but make sure you have room later for when we’re eating at the noodle shop!”

“Thanks, Hina,” Kanna said as she unraveled the granola bar’s wrapping and started totear into it with vigor. “You’re a life saver!”

Hina giggled, then smiled. “I’m here to feed the weary and hungry on the front lines, while provided medical assistance should they need it.”

“I’ll take some carrot sticks,” Junshin said.

“Do you want some ranch dip with them?” Hina asked.

“No thank you,” Junshin said. “Just plain.”

“I’ll make them extra sweet carrots while being nutritionally balanced so they tasted good!” Hina said, and she conjured up the carrots and handed some to Junshin, who munched on the carrot snacks and thought as he ate.

“Hey Shizuya,” Hina called back over her shoulder as she watched the Comokinetic user looping and spiraling around in crazy acrobatics in mid air playfully. “Wanna snack?”

“I’ll take some chocolate,” Shizuya said with a smirk, before Hina conjured up a chocolate bar for him and he unraveled the wrapping and started to eat the succulent sweet treat.

While they flew and ate, they arrived at a suspicious location. Having finished their snacks, they scouted thee perimeter and positioned themselves in hidden spaces where the Hydrokinetic could possibly be returning to, though they also anticipated he could be anticipating an ambush and alert more people on the inside to come out and take care of the four troublesome kids who would hope to capture and subdue him. Shizuya positioned himself at the entrance, keeping a look out with some astral projection entities and sentries, while Kanna, Junshin, and Hina were hanging out somewhere a little further outside, waiting for the Hydrokinetic’s arrival. He mostly likely would’ve been traveling through an underground reservoir, trying to remain undetected and unhidden, though unearthing the land just to search for one criminal didn’t seem to be efficient, even if they did turn up results.

So they would wait.

The silence suffocated them with thick shrouds of tension that couldn’t be cut with a knife, and Junshin held bated breath as though the Hydorkinetic could submerge from one of the underground water reservoirs and materialized as his person in front of them. He clenched and unclenched his hands into fists, trying not to white knuckled his fists with tension and anxiety as he bit his lip and went to get his gun from the holster on his hip. He inserted a cartridge, clicked the silencer, and aimed it in a direction where the Hydrokinetic could possibly be. Even if the gun wasn’t effective to the water construct form, it would be a cheap shot to force the Hydrokinetic to resort to that form out of a panic so that he didn’t feel the pain of a bullet in the brain. Junshin pointed the puzzle left, then right, scoping out the area as he walked toward the edge of the perimeter where he thought the Psion would be likely to appear.

Nervous, Junshin-kun? Hina asked.

Yeah, Junshin thought, frowning. I’ve got a bad feeling and I just can’t shake the tension off. LIke he should’ve arrived her at this point, or he’s around, but he’s not coming up.

Think he’s onto us? Shizuya asked as he had his ghost sentries patrol the insides of the hideout, which, apparently, was empty.

He would’ve let his goons on us, though Shizuya reports there is no one inside the hideout, Kanna said with a sharp, terse tone.

The Hydrokinetic was probably the distraction to make sure that his other buddies removed locations, Hina said. The hideout might be worth investigating though.

I’ll keep a sharp lookout for the Hydrokinetic, Kanna said. Hina, be my backup support. Junshin, Shizuya, go into the labyrinth and scope out what the hell’s in there.

You’re not my mother, Shizuya said, though he grinned as he floated down the corridors of the hideout and was looking for evidence and clues that were left behind by the Psion criminals that they could use as leverage against them. Hey, Junshin, you think that they’ve got any special sort of plans for us?

Well, thinking on it, Junshin said in a reflective way. The Criminal X was spreading delusion like psychosis symptoms through Tokyo an giving ‘compellations’ to play on ritual induced suicides. The regular world wouldn’t be able to prove that it’s not simple suicides…though Natural and Psions are at the height of their tension right now, even though Kazuki did all those heroic feats. His award ceremony is meant to ease the people’s minds about Psions, but…

People fear what they do not understand, Shizuya said while shaking his head. C’mere for a sec, Junshin!

Yeah? Junshin thought as they scouted an office with several papers and interlinked computers. If there’s data on here that we could extract.

They might’ve wiped everything clean while we were battling, though it’s still worth checking out and using a ‘psi scan’ on, Shizuya said. Hm…checking the conventional way or checking with the psychic residue?

I’ve got a bad feeling about this, Junshin thought to Shizuya as they entered deeper into the layout, scoping out the area for certain ‘surprises’ that the bad guys could’ve left behind for them like bugs or bombs. The tension lay thick in the air, and Junshin almost suffocated on it, feeling like the anxiety squeeze his chest and the four corners of the walls and ceilings press in on him in a claustrophobic sense of dizzying nerves. He needed to keep his cool. What would Kazuki do? He wouldn’t lose his nerve here, no matter how dangerous it was, would he? Junshin didn’t know. Kazuki wasn’t stupid—he wasn’t reckless, but he was so strong that he learned that nothing could touch him as long as he kept a calm head and acted to save the lives of the people.

He needed that mentality now, though Junshin wasn’t sure where he would draw upon that well of courage that he needed to have the same mindset and bravery that his brother had. Shizuya performed the ‘psi-scan’, looking for the tell tale signs of psychic residue left behind by Psions that humans and conventional technology couldn’t pick up but it did send interference to their signals as ‘noise’, and Shizuya frowned a bit as the silence continued to linger.

So far the ghost sentries haven’t picked up anything, Shizuya noted. If they did leave a bomb behind, it could be a psi pressure bomb…and we’re trapped right in it.

Better us than the girls, Junshin thought to Shizuya, while Shizuya looked thoughtful for a moment.

Hina’s atomokinetic abilities could probably be better at dismantling bombs and fission nuclear energy though, Shizuya said. Whatever it is that they’ve been hiding, they’ve certain scoured the place and left no stones unturned. Tch, here I thought we were going to discover something exciting. Though it looks like, for now, there are no bombs. Or bugs. Of the psychic or physical kind.

Hey, Junshin, Shizuya said as he took out a flash drive from a hidden compartment somewhere that he fished from a drawer. We’ll take this back at least. Even if there might be innocuous looking data on it, we can probably discern some patterns on it if we investigate close enough on it. Or if there is data wiped clean, we have our evidence that something fishy was going on in this facility.

Do you think there are hidden compartments or secret rooms somewhere around here? Junshin asked, while Shizuya floated to a stop and looked hard at a space in-between the walls. What is it?

Could be nothing, maybe, Shizuya said with a casual shrug, though something told Junshin that Shizuya was lying. Even though Shizuya wasn’t nervous and had the same conifdecne and bravery his own brother exhibited at times, Shizuya was no fool either. There could be someone examining their moves even if there WAS no psi scans or bugs. But what was this sense of unease that they felt, of being watched, even if there was no signs of physical or astral presences here?

Hey, if you checked out the Bingo Book, Junshin said, recalling the list of names that he saw on there. Do you remember the dossier of criminals that were listed there?

There are tons, though most are usually low-level mooks that aren’t really worth bagging but we clean up anyway in case if our lower level students can’t catch ‘em, Shizuya said. Also, Junshin? You need to relax more.

I can’t help it, Junshin said as he frowned not at Shizuya, but at himself. I’ve always been a bundle of nerves, or so my brother tells me. He tells me to let loose and relax.

Dontcha think you should be following your brother’s advice? Shizuya said teasingly, before sobering up. Regardless, we’ll take this flash drive with us. And maybe you can check one of the office computers for data or statistics or something that looks outta place.

Right, Junshin said, feeling his stomach cramp with nervousness. I’ll check it out.

Junshin went to one of the computers, booting up the power source, wondering why the bad guys would leave something like this behind unless if they were in a hurry to relocate and not get caught, though he wasn’t sure that any data would be left behind even, especially if they kept their operations secret. Once the login screen showed up, Junshin used the workplace code password that was used for these office buildings and entered into the home screen, checking through the data and finding nothing of particularly of use or note…though that uneasy feeling that settled over him him would not go away.

Junshin’s cellphone buzzed in his pocket.

He fished it out, before he put the square screen on his palm and put it on speaker phone so that Shizuya could hear too.

“I need you to get out of there and report back to me what you’ve found,” Rika’s voice said through the phone.

“Rika?” Shizuya said questioningly. “I thought you said you WANTED us on this mission.”

“A matter of great urgency has come up,” Rika noted. “Be sure to pass this message to the others as well.”

“Could you at least explain what this matter of great urgency is? We’re kind of in the middle of investigating something here,” Junshin said, biting his lip.

“It involves the gas capsule,” Rika said mysteriously over the phone. “It’s already being invesitgated at SeRAPH and you’ll find out what’s inside when you come here.”

“Can’t you just tell u—“

A click, and Rika ended the conversation.

Shizuya furrowed his brows a bit, thinking for a moment. Junshin thought as well, before saying. “Should we really go back and see what’s in the gas container? Or do you think it’s a trap?”

“But if we disobey orders from the higher ups,” Junshin said hesitantly. “We would be in a lot more trouble for sure. And probably get Rika reprimanded even more.”

“Well, at least we’ve got a flash drive full of data, so that would work for the time being,” Shizuya said. “Good thing Hina thought to give this to us!”

“That’s pretty useful, her ability of hers,” Junshin said with a fond smile, before they floated out of the computer room, pretty much considering that the facility was a dead end to further investigation. When they amde their way to the outer area where Kanna and Hina were guarding the entrance, they immediately pointed their guns in Junshin and Shizuya’s direction, before visibly relaxing.

“Sorry,” Hina said. “Nerves. That Hydrokinetic can come up from anywhere as his water construct.”

“Yeah,” Junshin said. “I got the spooks too. Apparently Rika gave me a message on my phone to report back what we’ve got and see what’s in the gas container.”

“Haa?” Kanna said, seeming disappointed. “She’s really cutting it off like that?”

Shizuya shrugged. “Orders is orders. Besides, you don’t see that Hydrokinetic anywhere, do you?”

“Why don’t you and Junshin-kun make it back,” Hina said kindly. “While Kanna-chan and I wait here. We don’t need to go back all at once. Besides, we’ll wait an extra thirty minutes. If nothing else happens, we’ll come back. We’ll take all the chewing out needed later.”

“If you’re sure,” Junshin said, before Hina conjured up more carrot stick snacks for him.

“Here’s carrot sticks,” Hina said, before she conjured up more chocolate for Shizuya. “Have some chocolate too!”

“Gee, Hina, you know when I’ve got a sweet tooth coming on,” Shizuya said with a grin, before he unraveled yet another chocolate bar and began to eat. “We’re gonna get to SeRAPH and report what we’ve found.”

“Right,” Junshin said, before they all launched off and flew toward SeRAPH.

In the middle of flying, the greenery, temples, towers, and buildings turned into a blur as they swept past in the air, and Junshin could feel his hair whipping behind his face. He still couldn’t help but feel that sense of unease, like there was some sense of something they were overlooking. Though Junshin and Shizuya made it back to SeRAPH headquarters, where Rika was waiting.

“Rika, you called?” Shizuya said.

Rika raised a brow.

“No.”

“Wha?” SHizuya said. “Now is not the time to be joking, Rika.”

“You know I don’t do jokes,” Rika said with a frown, before she said. “You said I called, right?”

Junshin and Shizuya nodded.

“Could be a Technopath user,” Rika murmured to herself, before she said. “What about Hina and Kanna?”

“They wanted to stay behind in case if the Hydrokinetic showed up,” Shizuya said, before he paled. “Oh shit.”

“Oh shit indeed,” Rika said solemnly, before they went to the main computer room of SeRAPH and saw a shadowed figure on the screen, presumably Nagisa and an unknown second figure who was manipulating things behind the scenes.

“You’ve done well to go according to our plans,” The Hydrokinetic said with a chuckle and a smirk. “We have your two friends with us. Here, you can see for yourself.”

Hina and Kanna were shown on-screen, bound and tied up in straightjackets and collars on their necks to suppress their powers. Junshin frowned, before he clenched his hands into fists and trembled.

“Hina! Kanna!” he shouted.

“You want them back?” the Hydrokinetic taunted. “Then we want you, Fujimoto and the Walking Calamity. It will be a hostage exchange, if you will.”

“If we fulfill your request,” Rika said calmly. “Will you promise not to do anything to those two girls?”

“Oh yes,” the Hydrokinetic said. “You will see that our guests are taken well care of—as you will be.”

“It’s not hubris when I say this,” Rika said calmly. “But you cannot contain me.”

“Perhaps not,” the Hydrokinetic said. “But we can use the people around you to manipulate things into our favor, yes?”

Rika said nothing, keeping cool and calm under pressure, though Junshin noted that her jaw slightly clenched when she eyed the screen where Hina and Kanna were held hostage. Though the Hydrokinetic wanted Rika and Junshin in exchange, they wouldn’t be walking in willingly. Yet, despite knowing this would be a way to release Hina and Kanna from their hostage situation, they would be well prepared for a trap or an assassination attempt within. Junshin knew that. Rika knew that. Yet they still aligned together on this—they had to do something about HIna and Kanna.

“We will meet,” Rika said. “And you will release Hina and Kanna as promised.”

“Well, aren’t you an obedient little girl?” the Hydrokinetic said with a taunting smirk on his face. “There’s someone who wanted to meet you. Which was why this arrangement was set up.”

“Mm,” Rika said in contemplation. “They wanted a personal meeting with me?”

“Indeed,” the Hydrokinetic said. “But there’s no showing who they are till we do the hostage exchange, correct?”

“Fine,” Rika said, before the telecommunications clicked off and smoothed over her wrinkled brow. “They got us.”

“It was our fault…” Junshin said, looking ashamed.

“No,” Rika said. “It was my failure to keep contingency measures in place for scenarios like this. To think that they would have a high level Technopath user on their side…but then it does make sense, all things given.”

“Do you know who this Technopath user could be?” Junshin asked curiously.

Rika gave a curt shake of her head. “We will find out, soon enough.”

They walked outside of SeRAPH, away from the premises to the meeting point where the Technopath hacked their phones and couldn’t be traced. A mysterious insignia for their logo appeared on Junshin’s phone in the text app as the criminal named Narada.

“Narada…” Junshin said, recalling his various books and tomes at home about information behind a mythological lore heavy name such as this. “From a Hindu text, I believe.”

Rika nodded.

“Narada Muni is a sage divnity who was a traveling musician and storyteller who carries news and enlightening wisdom. He was considered the first journalist on earth and was a universal divine messenger that was revered among the gods as a network of divine information.”

“That confirms some information,” Junshin said with a nod. “Though we might need to do a little more investigation so that we have the full story.”

Rika said nothing, as they flew toward another designated spot that ‘Narada’ told them to go to, which was away from SeRAPH. They were sure the street cameras were keeping surveillance of all their activities, and that the unknown criminal behind Narada was watching them very carefully. When they reached another hidden, secluded area, they were chauffeured to a secret area, blindfolded, before they made their way toward a hidden lair where the Hydrokinetic and an as of unknown yet figure loomed in the background and shadows.

“Welcome,” a distorted and modified voice said through the computer monitors. “You have come as requested. You’re trusting ones, aren’t you?”

“We came here for the agreement,” Rika said. “You will release Hina and Kanna in exchange for Junshin and I.”

“Yes, they are safe and well,” the voice said through the screens. “However, I hope that you don’t find yourselves too much at ease yet. There is something I have to request of you.”

“What do you want of us?” Rika said with a guarded look on her features.

The voice laughed. “Not to worry, it’s about preventing a crime. A crime I might commit, should you fail the proper countermeasures of doing so.”

Junshin noted that Rika’s jaw clenched again very subtly, even though the rest of her features remained schooled. Her hands stayed still at her sides, not clenching into fists, though a slight twitch indicated that it took all her restraint to hold back. Even though Junshin knew Hina and Kanna for a short amount of time, Junshin knew how precious those two were to her—they worked together, laughed together, bled together, and now Rika is coming to their rescue.

The Hydrokinetic hovered above one of the hostages, grabbing Hina by her long, brunette, hair and twisting it.

“You gave me such trouble, you little shit,” the Hydrokinetic said.

Hina said nothing. She didn’t cry, didn’t move, did nothing but fall limp in the Hydrokinetic’s hands. She gave a meaningful glance toward Rika, who nodded curtly before she went to the Technopath that was manipulating the screens.

“What crime do you want me to prevent?”

“A cyber crime, actually,” the Technopath said. “I’m going to reveal all your secrets to the world if you don’t comply with what I say. Though I’m not entirely unreasonable. Are the ANGeLS the heroes they really say they are?”

“I would believe so,” Rika said with a slight, furrowed brow.

“Then…you understand what you must do,” the Technopath said. “I want you to save me. Despite knowing the fact that I’m a criminal.”

“Well of course, we’re not brutes,” Rika said. “But we can’t let you get away with your crimes, either. But no, we won’t let you die.”

The screens flickered all around, before the Technopath said. “Very well. Then I want you to release me from this organization…if it is within your power to do so.”

The Hydrokinetic attacked without warning, aiming to flood the screens and electronics with electronic voltage. Rika immediately negated the Hydrokinetic’s abilities with her Infinite Telekinesis, though Rika called out to Junshin, saying, “Release the hostages while I get the Technopath and rescue them!”

“Right!” Junshin called out, before he first removed the Anti-Psionic Collars first from Hina’s neck and then from Kanna. After he did that, he unleashed the bound arms behind them from the straightjacket's, to which Hina flexed and tried to move her originally bound arms.

“I need to work and flex my muscles a little,” Hina said, before she immediately tended to Kanna, who winced.

“Shit,” Kanna said. “I’m guessing Shizuya stayed at SeRAPH to watch the whole thing or to make sure nothing suspicious happens there, eh?”

“That’s about right,” Junshin said. “He has a home turf advantage there and plus the criminals won’t think of attacking there when there are the teachers.”

“For sure,” Kanna said. “If Reito can kick an entire classroom of student’s asses with his abilities, then I’m sure these criminals would be nothing.”

“Hold up,” Hina said, as the Hydrokinetic looked toward them with a crazed look in his eyes that meant he scented blood.

“Okay, you little shits are gonna get it,” the Hydrokinetic said. “She deliberately left the Calokinetic and the Atomokinetic behind so I can’t just flood the control room with water to fry you to death.”

Hina pounded a fist to her palm, before she said, “We’re here to rescue someone, so we will. It’s a coordinated effort that we’re working together.”

“Haa?” Kanna said, as she turned and looked toward Hina and Junshin. “That wasn’t part of the plan at all! Why don’t we just haul ass out of here after kicking THIS guy’s ass?”

"Because,” Hina said calmly. “We promised to help Rika-chan and we know her principles on the matter. Someone asks for help, we help them, as long as it’s within good intentions.”

“But how do we know this Technopath is a good guy? He could be using more trickery and illusions or whatever and lead us into another trap!” Kanna cried out, before she started to tug at her hair and groan in frustration while Junshin and Hina ran ahead to where Rika ran down the corridors following the Technopath’s signals. Junshin and Hina and Kanna followed afterward, the Hydrokinetic shouting in frustration after them for ignoring him though they knew that he couldn’t turn into a water construct with so much electronics around without suffering damage. Rika must’ve used her own Technopathy skills from her Infinite Telekinesis in a versatile way to track him down in this huge hideaway, stowed away in a room where he was probably hidden with lots of computers and wires and a ‘mother brain’ network that allowed him to connect to the Styx Circuit or the Mother tree network of Tokyo.

“How long are these corridors?” Junshin asked, running in a seemingly endless stretch of hallway that seemed to have no end.

“The enemy must be using distortion of senses through electronic transmission,” Hina said, thinking about it. “Making it seem like the hallways are stretching on forever and ever into one seemingly endless Eischer style like labyrinth.”

“So what do we do to figure out the puzzle of this?” Kanna said while folding her arms across her scrawny chest. “I’ve never liked Eischer.”

Junshin got the feeling that Kanna didn’t like much of anything, but what did he know? This was just his first day on the job, and it was quite a hectic one at that. Still, the Hydrokinetic was in hot pursuit behind them, while Kanna kept guard at the rear to ward him off while Junshin hovered somewhere between Hina and Kanna to mediate attacks on either side while Hina was charging forth toward where Rika went. She immediately rounded a corner, disappearing and crouched behind it to hide, and Junshin crouched alongside her while Kanna tried to appear over the top of their heads seeing in this Eischeresque distortion hallways.

“Are we…” Junshin said, checking the shifting distortions of the environment flickering and wavering in and out of solidity and constructed reality. “In a video game or virtual reality?”

“Looks like the Technopath wants us to solve his puzzles before we get to him,” Hina mused, before she said. “So luckily, I’ve played some action/adventure games like this before, and I’m sure it will be something that will be tripped out with more traps and explosions than a Bond movie!”

“How do you know it would be like that?” Kanna said. “It could possibly be the wrong genre-savvy that you’re talkin’ about—wait, hold up.”

They all stopped, listened, and Junshin staggered back as he triggered tripwires and lasers that activated when he triggered a panel on the polished floor. Hina pulled Junshin back telekinetically with a little more force than needed while Junshin back flipped and landed on his feet.

“Phew,” he said. “Close one there.”

“There might be a way to deactivate it around here,” Hina said. “Though I say we use the blunt forward approach and just go straight on ahead.”

“You mean using heat manipulation from our respective abilities?” Junshin asked.

It made sense. After all, he was a Rank 5 Calamity Pyrokinetic, and Hina was a Rank 5 Atomokinetic, and Kanna was a Rank 5 Calokinetic. They could all technically sear the heat so high that the infrared lasers couldn’t detect them and trigger the alarms, or create thermal masking or interact with the technology itself on an electromagnetic spectrum. There was also the Hydrokinetic to think of too, who could bypass like they can and knew the layout better, though the only way was to press forward at this rate.

So they cloaked themselves in their respective abilities high heat signatures and thermal cloaks to make their way through the infrared devices. Gunfire rattled out from robot sentries, causing them to perform gymnastic maneuverabilities to dodge out of the way as the bullets pinged against the walls and ground where they were moments before. The robot sentries started to emit pulsating waves of energy that was maddening and disorienting to the brain and ears, causing Junshin and Hina and Kanna to cover their ears and wince.

“Damn,” Kanna said. “These damned robots are rattling around my skull!”

Hina paused for a moment, trying to recover her senses for a moment, before saying, “Hold on, I’ll just take a moment until I can deconstruction the mechanisms in the robots so that we can pass—oh!”

Hina held her head, though apparently she couldn’t concentrate enough to visualize the robot’s structure and anatomy to deconstruct it from its core component parts. So Junshin immediately just combusted the robots, grinned cheekily, before saying, “Faster to just blow em up.”

Hina smiled sheepishly before she said. “You certainly took care of it faster, yes, but I would’ve had it in a moment.”

“Come on!” Kanna urged them onward, rushing them ahead as they ran through Eischer like staircases and lost their sense of direction more than once because of the shifting dimensions of the game, though eventually Junshin started to discern some patterns in the shifting dimension and noted the certain corridors that they’ve entered through consistently led to certain areas. While he counted and traced their steps, he was sure that the others were visualizing and mapping out the constantly changing landscape in their mind as well.

"We could fly through these corridors,” Hina said hesitantly. “But I’m afraid it will become much too disorienting and hard to ground oneself through these constantly shifting landscapes to keep track of each step and flooring.”

“Technically, yes,” Junshin said. “Though somehow I think that that the ‘game’ won’t let us fly, either.”

“Who wants to test it out?” Hina asked brightly, before everyone looked at each other.

Kanna turned her nose up to the air. “Certainly not I. So that leaves you and Junshin, Hina.”

“Well, okay,” Hina said in that same chipper tone, before she looked toward Junshin and said. “Do you want me to go for it or…”

Junshin swallowed, before saying, “I’ll do it.”

“I’ll be here to catch you with my vectors if things go south,” Hina said.

Junshin trusted her. He had no other choice, especially since the situation had a ticking clock that was running minute by minute here. He jumped/flew from one stair corridor to another, which shifted and reflected the entire perspective and nearly caused Hina and Kanna to drop down on the stair landing he was on currently if they haven’t caught themselves in time. Hina flipped and landed on her feet, lithe as a cat, while Kanna just barely stopped herself from falling at such a high height by propelling her feet with Calokinetic fumes.

“So we can fly, technically, but shifting from one staircase this way and that way shifts the entire perspective,” Junshin said. “What is a consistent theme that we notice from all this?”

“The perspectives are always changing, but there’s a consistent pattern to them,” Hina said. “If a video game didn’t have consistent or solid grounded rules, it wouldn’t be fun to play. Perhaps this gives us a note about who this kind of person is that we’re dealing with?”

“Our lives are at stake here and Hina is having way too much to be worried about it,” Kanna groused, though they continued their journey through the corridors to find Rika. “I feel like we’re running/flying in circles around here! Someone let us outta here!”

“Hm,” Hina said as she tentatively took a step in and out of one doorway to another. “It doesn’t seem like there’s a consistent path through the doorways themselves, though it seems like the pathways are done through RNG factors, which actually isn’t random at all, but generated through pseudo random number features.”

“What makes you think this is a Pseudo Random Number Generator rather than a True random Generator?” Junshin asked.

“Though the doorways and patterns of the stairs may shift each time we enter through them, we need to find a puzzle piece to solve the whole scenario and unlock the mystery behind the room, ne?” Hina said with a wink. “Like in video games.”

“Sounds like someone is a hardcore otaku,” Kanna groused, but she seemed to be getting into it. “I noticed it too. That the patterns in these Eischer whatever you call ems are kinda like having randomly generated backgrounds but there’s only a set amount of backgrounds being generated at different times.”

“So to do this, we need to find a key or ‘anchor point’ that destabilizes this mechanism,” Junshin said thoughtfully. “Oh! Check this out.”

In the middle of the room they made their way towards, they saw a video game consoles and controllers wired up, showing three screens playing pixelated versions of themselves in the game.

“Think we should waste our time playing games?” Junshin said. “Or is this the key to the puzzle?”

“Who knows, we won’t know until we find out,” Hina said cheerfully.

“Hm,” Junshin said as he observed his pixelated character standing alongside a Hina pixelated and Kanna pixelated character. He tentatively pressed a button, and the Hina pixelated character gave a punch to the Junshin character, as well as the real life character giving him a punch in the gut.

“Oof,” Junshin winced. “Okay, I know what that button does. Is there a way to draw up the tutorial in this thing?”

“Though while we’re in this room, there is three players and only one character controllable at a time,” Hina noted. “It seems like we’re going through a fight simulator next.”

“A fight simulator?” Junshin said. “You mean, kind of like the Exams they have at SeRAPH—“

“But who or what are we going to end up fighting against?” Kanna thought aloud.

Junshin shook his head. “Dunno. But we gotta make it through this before the Hydrokinetic comes to us.”