[PLACEHOLDER]

“Alright. The next hint is the last one. I’m more than ready to get this thing over with so just give it to me. What do I need to do?” Henry asked Gimei.

“Ehem!”

Sorry. He asked Kimei.

“Thank you. It’s a good thing I went with you. What I wrote on the paper hinted at a big final fight between us that would take place on the school’s roof, but what I got from these past trials is that you wouldn’t really… be able to win…”

“You already know me so well!”

“Lucky for you, I have found an alternative. To the grotto!”

*Insert a three second transition of Kimei’s face spinning over the loud sound of a trumpet*

“I discovered this while you were taking the first trials,” Kimei said while sliding down the hole-entrance. She landed feet first in the grotto, swiftly followed by Henry, who landed face first. “I was readying the costume when I noticed that some of the books in the bookshelf had melted.”

“Melted?!”

“They’re fake books made of plastic. Look at this!”

She moved the shelf, revealing a second secret passage.

Henry got close to the wall’s hole and a whole haul of heat hit his hace. I mean face.

“What’s down here??”

“Why don’t you go explore?”

“Because I fear death.”

“I went there and survived. I don’t see how it could be a problem for you.”

“You underestimate me.”

Kimei pushed him inside the wall’s hole.

They descended further down into the earth, following a natural tunnel, as the walls turned from soft dirt to solid rock. At first, the heat grew, while the light dimmed. But as their descent came to an end, the light began to rise back up. Only this time, it had gained a redder tint.

The tunnel opened up to a cave, a massive one. Multiple stories tall, with pillars of rocks as far as the eye could see, and absolutely filled with lava. Small volcanoes bubbled with molten rock, excitedly spilling their contents in the pools that formed around them. Boulders were pushed around by the burning flow like logs in a river. Particles of ash danced around the cave, lighting up and burning out in small flashes of orange light. Waiting in front of them was a rocky path that the surrounding lava had eroded into a bridge.

“Nope.”

Henry immediately tried to leave, and Kimei immediately stopped him.

“Alright, your last trial is to get the last number! I have placed it at the end of this path. If you manage to bring it back to the grotto, the rite will be completed, and the phone number will be yours!”

“Are you really sure you’re not trying to kill me?”

“A good adventure never ends in death! Except for life, the greatest adventure of them all.” She proudly looked into the distance, which in this case was a small lavafall.

“This is liquid hot magma!” Henry cried out, not knowing the difference between magma and lava. “You want me to seriously risk my life for this?”

“What better way to do a finale? Don’t worry, I remember our deal. If anything happens, I will scatter your ashes over the Tokyo Big Sight.”

“Do you not care about human life?”

“I care about human living! And it’s time to make you live for real!”

She grabbed his arm and ran over the rocky bridge.

“You are a sick person!”

The walkway was large enough to make Kimei overly confident and Henry overly anxious. But walking wasn’t the only hardship of this last trial. A gap, splitting the bridge in two. It was a short gap, one you could easily clear with a long step, but it also hung over a pool of crazy hot soup.

“First obstacle!”

“No, the first obstacle was shutting off my common sense.”

“Fair enough. Second obstacle! You must clear the chasm!”

“Ok, if I really have to do this, it will be easier if you just pick me up and throw me over it.”

“You need to conquer your fears!”

“I disagree! My fear of falling into a pit of lava should stay very intact and independent!”

“Is that how you want to live your life?”

“I don’t care how, I just want to live my life!”

“You will, once you get over this gap!”

Kimei cleared the gap with a small jump. “C’mon!” She held out her hand to him.

“…you’re lucky I value holding a girl’s hand as much as I do my life."

Henry grabbed her hand, closed his eyes, reopened them immediately because keeping them closed was actually scarier, took a deep breath, regretted it because the air was very hot, grew tired of all this, and finally made the leap.

“Yes! You did great!"

Kimei cheered and held his hand tight.

"Now do it again!”

Kimei turned around and showed him how a second, larger gap they had to jump to get back to the bridge.

“What?! ...wait. You’re telling me that what we’re standing on right now is a platform held up by a singular rock pillar?!”

“Possibly.”

Henry jumped immediately.

“That’s the spirit!” Kimei followed him.

Their descent continued, until it didn’t anymore. The last number stood in front of them, placed carefully over an elevated rock. Its glimmer greeted them, shining the light of the lava on its lucid surface. A small statue in the shape of an eight made of solid gold, both bigger and shinier than a flashlight.

“Wh- How did you get that?!”

“I made it myself!” Kimei’s nose grew with pride. “I used the lava of this cave to make it.”

“I’m going to be honest, that barely answers my question. Is that gold?!”

“Maybe. ALthough, I was told that not all that glitters is gold, and more importantly I’m not a rock expert.”

“So maybe all of this lava is molten gold?! Do you not care?”

“You shouldn’t go on adventures for the treasure, but for the adventure itself! Now go get that treasure!”

She gave him a little push to the back. Henry turned to look at her with a gaze that said “are you crazy don’t push me while I’m standing on a walkway of death”.

“But I’ve got to say, this does look very cool.”

He approached the golden eight and stretched out his hands to grab it. Then he stopped.

“Wait a second. This is not a trap, right?”

“Smart question! But no, I do not have the skills or lunacy to build rolling boulders-style traps inside a lava cave.”

Henry did not trust her, but he changed his mind as he remembered that she was just a highschooler and they were beneath a school in the middle of Akihabara. Remembering this gave space to a plethora of questions related to realism and suspense of disbelief but, like a good boy, both he and the audience decided to ignore them.

He lifted the golden eight. Surprisingly for him, but unsurprisingly for anyone else, the idol was quite heavy.

Then the cave started to shake.

“You betrayed me!” Henry was distraught. “You were the chosen one!”

“I didn’t do anything! We’re in an underground cave filled with lava! I’m sure it’s not that weird to have some small earthquakes.”

“Oh… Shouldn’t we run then?”

“Most definitely.”

They dashed back through the bridge. The lava beneath them rumbled and bubbled, growing more and more uneasy as the seconds went by. With a roar, one of the lakes in the cave blew up. The small eruption was like a cap getting blown off, letting copious amounts of lava inside the cave. The floor behind them began to get consumed by the hungry, melty rocks.

They ran, leaping over cracks, dodging falling rocks, ducking under flowing arcs of lava, and performed all other kinds of over-the-top actions that you see in movies. They jumped the two gaps again, but this time Kimei pushed Henry to make sure. They were about to reach the tunnel leading back to the grotto, when a second quake hit them.

Henry would have lost his balance if not for Kimei holding him, but the sudden shock made him drop the statue.

“No!” Henry screamed at the statue, which tumbled towards the edge of the rocky bridge.

“No!” Kimei screamed at Henry, who jumped after the statue to try and save it.

She had managed to grab his hand, but Henry was now dangling over a seething death pit, golden eight in hand.

“I can’t pull you up, you’re too heavy! You have to drop the statue!”

Henry looked at her, then down at the eight.

The two loops of metal shone in his eyes. The statue was an impressive feat, but still a simple object. Probably worth a lot of money, but nothing when compared to a human life. And yet, there was something in the way its golden light met his eyes, something in the significance that holding this statue had. Henry looked at the shiny eight, and was left enchanted.

“What are you waiting for?! Just let it go!” Kimei screamed, desperate.

Henry could feel, no, he knew the eight was looking back at him.

“The eight is mine.” He brought it closer to his chest.

“What?”

“I won’t throw it away! Not after all I’ve done to reach this point.”

The earth continued to shake. Kimei’s grip was getting weaker.

“I can’t hold for much longer!”

Since the plot has been overly action packed for what is supposed to be a comedic high school story, we will now have an intermission. Please put on your most comfortable clothes, set the temperature of the room as to feel slightly warm, ready a warm beverage of choice, put on a playlist of relaxing music, lie down on your softest piece of furniture, if you have a pet with fur, place them on your lap, if not, acquire a pet and/or fur, avoid doing it with a fish or any other water-based creature, close your eyes, envision a wait I realized that if you closed your eyes you can’t read this part, I’d tell you to open them but that wouldn’t work, I will wait for you to realize that you don’t have any instructions on what to do next, and hopefully open them, I trust that you will realize that in a short amount of time, please don’t fall asleep, you’re going to open your eyes sooner or later, even if it might be the next day, you might wake up in the morning, confused about what happened while your brain reboots, but then realize that you’re late for school so you forget about your situation and rush to change your clothes, skip breakfast since it would take too long even though you need that energy to focus during the lesson, you manage to properly wake up during the third period, but still don’t pay attention to the rest of the classes, because you don’t really have a reason to care, then go back home when school is over, maybe hang out with your friends, who are we kidding you’re wasting time on social media, and reading the first chapters of four different stories that you know you won’t continue, do homework if you remember, then after dinner you remember you were reading this web novel, but you want to continue this one because it’s so funny and well written and intriguing, so you go back to where you left the day before, but you reread a couple of the lines since you don’t remember what you were reading just before falling asleep, you go back to the beginning of this intermission, and when you close your eyes, you fall asleep again, beginning the cycle anew, that would be unfortunate, but you might also realize that you can’t read this with your eyes closed and open them immediately, in which case you are probably waiting impatiently for the relaxing part to start.

I would now start with the relaxing intermission, but we’ve run out of time. Back to the regularly scheduled nonsense.

Kimei, holding onto Henry, holding onto the golden statue, hanging above certain doom.

“I have a plan!” He screamed.

The heavy air dancing around him flowed through his nostrils, burning inside his lungs. Just the push he needed.

He swung his body left, then right, and continued until he had enough momentum to swing his arm in the air. 

He let out a scream as he throw the golden eight over the ledge. Now being able to use both hands, he tightened his grip and pushed himself on the bridge with the help of Kimei’s strength.

Henry triumphantly picked up the trophy.

“I’m impressed.” Kimei said, looking at him incredulous. “You were so cool that I would almost say it was out of character for you.”

“I’ll pretend that’s a compliment.” Henry reacted in the usual way.

Acting as a lead into the next part of the story, a second eruption rumbled the cave and sped up the flow of lava.

Henry and Kimei dashed towards the exit. Black smoke began replacing the air, moving as if chasing them up the tunnel. A final explosion pushed them over the rest of the climb, eventually launching them out of the tunnel and back into the grotto, roaring in synch with their screams.

They lied on the ground, grumping and slightly concussed. The back of Henry’s uniform was sizzled, and part of his shoes had melted. All of the plastic armor on Kimei was blown off, and her mask was nothing more than an oddly tight scarf. But they were safe. Aside from the black smoke slowly filling the cave.

“This was too close.” Said Kimei, with guilt in her voice. “I... I wanted us to experience the excitement of true danger, but I never... I don't want you to get seriously injured. I'm sorry...”

Henry was about to wholeheartedly agree with her, when he looked at her face. She was sad. She sounded sad, Henry understood the logic behind her sentiment, but seeing her eyes… He felt something was wrong.

"I agree, I also don't want me to get hurt. But..." he couldn't believe he was about to say it, "I would lie if I said I didn't have fun. I never thought or hoped life could be this exciting. I’m not saying I want this to be a daily, or weekly, or monthly occurrence. But a life-threatening adventure might not be that bad once in a while."

“Thanks…” It took her some time to answer.

She was thanking him, but the frown on her face didn't go away. Henry thought he said the right thing, but he didn’t feel any better about the situation.

"…Wait a second!!" He gasped in an exaggerated manner.

"W-what?"

"Your mask!" He pointed at her bare face, "You’re telling me Kimei's real identity was Gimei all this time?!"

Henry was not a good actor, or liar.

Still, Gimei smiled.

"... That's right! I was the one that retrieved the ancient sword that created a pact between me and the alien race of overlords that seeks to increase their power and—"

Lava began spewing out of the hole.

"It would be smart to leave the grotto." Henry interrupted her.

"Very smart!"

They were now in the field next to the school. Not  worrying about the realistic amount of time the whole rite should have taken, the sun was setting to fit the mood of the scene.

“I was hoping to have the final ceremony in the grotto, but a bug infested field will do the same. Can you give me the golden eight a moment?”

He passed her the statue. It seemed lighter when Gimei was holding it.

“As a symbol for completing the rite, I award you, Henry…”

“Tailer...”

“I award you, Henry Tailer, with the honor of the first golden eight of adventure! First of many, I am sure.” She ceremoniously handed him back the statue.

“I am never doing this ever again.” Henry gladly accepted it.

"All that is left now for you, is to call my number."

“Of course! I almost forgot.”

Henry took out his cell phone and, after a little bit of struggle finding something that he had never used, the dial screen, he inputted the number, pressed the call button, and

"The number you dialed does not exist."

…

Silence.

"Are you sure you put in the right number?"

"How could I have made a mistake?! It’s ten eights in a row!"

"What? No, the seventh number is different."

"...What did you say?"

"You should have gotten it. It was the number in the non-euclidian club."

Henry froze.

"I skipped that one..." He barely moved his lips.

"Oh... I guess you can't join the club then."

The synapses inside of Henry's brain ceased to function. A faint sound could be heard, muffled behind Henry's thick skull: that of a computer shutting down.

He started to chuckle. His face didn't move much as the low-pitched laughs escaped his mouth. His eyes rapidly darted around the eyeballs as if in a REM sleep. He began to tear up.

"I-I-I guess I could make an exception and let you join anyway?"

A computer startup sound echoed inside Henry's head.

"Really?"

"Of course! You did complete most of the initiation rite after all. I’ll tell you what, since you worked so hard, I’m going to give you an extra reward. Just ask for anything!"

Henry suddenly became very serious. He straightened his back and stared into Gimei’s eyes.

“Used underwea­—”

She slapped him.

“Naked apron pic—”

She slapped him.

“Step on—”

She slapped him.

“Bathwat—”

She slapped him.

“Feet—"

She slapped him.

“I could honestly take this as a rewar—”

She slapped him multiple times.

“Ok, ok, stop! I get it! I guess I could ask for… Your phone number?”

“Ooh, smart! It could have been smooth if it wasn’t for your… failed attempts.”

They took out their phones and exchanged contact info.

“8888881888…. Seriously?”

“Funny, isn’t it? I didn’t choose my phone number, but it feels like it was made for me!”

Henry saved her as “first harem member”.

“I don’t know why but I suddenly feel a slight sensation of disgust in my stomach.” Gimei said.

“It’s probably all the fumes we inhaled in that cave. We should go home. I have a new school uniform to buy and a bed to collapse on.”

“You’re right. See you for tomorrow’s club activities!”

Henry stopped her. He stared into her eyes and slowly shook his head left and right.

“Fine, we can take a day off.”

“Or ten.”

“We can negotiate tomorrow.”

They waved each other goodbye, and awkwardly walked in the same direction for a minute before going separate ways. A flock of birds flew away from the school, as the sun set and signaled the end of this overly eventful day, only partly covered by a black column of smoke.

POSTFACE

- NON-LEGALLY BINDING INFORMATION

Nose grows with pride: In the Japanese version of Pinocchio, lying is good. That’s why Pinocchio’s pride increases with every lie he tells, together with his attack and defense stats.

8888881888: Please do not call this number. I have not checked whether it is a real number or not and I would like to avoid legal troubles.

REM sleep: Who is Rem?