As a quick note, "bold text like this surrounded by quotation marks is through electronic communication, usually Lippo to the applicants." (Published May 10th, 2015)
Akumi dispassionately observed the blood dripping from the three inch deep hole that she had punched into the brick wall before turning to the bald ninja that she was stuck in the room with.
"Okay, what's going on here?" she asked. Instead of replying, a speaker from the corner of the room answered.
"My name is Lippo, the examiner for this phase. You will be taking the trial by partners. We will have all sorts of tests, ranging from agility, to strength, to puzzles and patience. Please continue through the path to your right. "
The brick wall slid to the side, revealing a corridor lit by torches. Hm, I wonder if I could kill the ninja and then bust my way to the bottom. As if reading her mind, Lippo added on to his first statement.
"Also, both you and your partner must survive this phase to pass."
Well, damn. There went that idea. Walking down the corridor, she began observing her surroundings. Noticing the cameras in each corner lacking any blind spots, she extended her en outwards only to see that there wasn't anything else around them.
"So, what's your name?" Hanzo's voice interrupted her concentration, causing her nen to snap back towards her.
"Akumi." Before he could ask her any more questions, the pair entered a room containing nothing but two other people, hidden in the shadows.
"You must defeat both prisoners to pass."
The shackles restraining their feet and hands clattered to the ground, allowing them to step forward into the light and reveal the faces of a boy and girl.
"We are the Tsumura twins," said the girl who stood on the left. "We are here for arson and causing the deaths of over one hundred people. Our sentence is one hundred fifteen years and for every hour we delay you we get a year off our sentence. If you both die, we get seventy two years off. We are ready to start at any ti-"
Her voice cut off suddenly as a long red dagger appeared in the girl's forehead. Her brother stared, incredulous, as her body fell backwards with a loud thump. His gaze flew to the figure on the right who was twirling another dagger in her right hand.
"What?" Akumi asked, ignoring the shocked expression on the brother's face. "She said we could start at any time. I thought I would just hurry it up." She had to fight a grin that was trying to show itself on her face.
The brother, whose expression had morphed from shock to anger, grabbed the dagger that was lodged in his sister's forehead and charged. He slashed wildly, giving her ample time to disarm him, though she merely laughed at him while he continued to chase after her.
"Aw, is the little brother mad that his wittle sister got killed?" She taunted, putting on an exaggerated frowny face while dodging a stab to her face. Before he could take another swing, a blade stabbed through his chest from behind. He hung in the air for a moment, comically frozen before dropping to the ground, dead. Behind him stood Hanzo, whose face had taken on an uncharacteristically serious expression.
"We don't have time to play around like that," he said, before walking towards the exit. "There's no telling how long the other tests may take."
His complete change in personality left Akumi staring in confusion at him for a moment before continuing after him. Did killing the prisoner really affect him that much?
"What's the matter baldy?" She asked. "You look like someone who just found out that someone murdered your mother."
Hanzo paused, as if just realizing how serious he had begun to act. "Sorry," he said, turning around to reveal his normal grin. "Back in the village, we had to act super serious all the time back during training years. Force of habit I suppose."
"What exactly did you train for?" Akumi knew it could take a while before they got to the next area, so she decided to entertain herself for a while.
"Oh, ninja things." Like that was any description. As if sensing her annoyance, he continued. "Mainly things like staying hidden, sneaking up on people, weapons. That sort of stuff. What about you?"
She paused, thinking of an answer that would satisfy his curiosity without telling him too much. "All sorts of assassination techniques. Mostly combat oriented, though there was other stuff like poison and recon. The usual."
Hanzo began to reply, but she stopped paying attention when she felt nen in the air. Immediately, her senses expanded outward, trying to grasp for any clues as to what the cause was. Her eyes went to the wall, which upon inspection were covered in nen writing.
"Partnerships are based on trust, where the best act like siblings and the worst like two enemies. Do you trust your partner? And do they trust you? You will be given the option at some point to severely handicap your partner. The choice is up to you. They do not know of this."
She scowled at the message while her mind went into overdrive, trying to figure out the best scenario. Ninja boy is strong enough that he'll realize something's up, even without the assistance of nen. Most likely, it'll be near the end of the tower. That means I'll have to build up trust up while I can.
Her eyes flew towards the camera placed in the corridor. She gave it a meaningful stare before turning back towards Hanzo, showing no indication of what had just transpired.
"Lippo," called one of the prisoners sitting in front of a screen. "Applicant 63 saw the message."
"Very good," he replied, turning his attention towards the monitor that showed the dysfunctional pair. "Thank you Gaho."
He continued studying the pair, taking note of the stare that 63 gave the camera before turning his attention to his own computer, where he began typing a message to Beans.
Beans, applicant 63 has seen the message, and seems to have
"Lippo?"
The man in question had to hold back a frustrated sigh as he turned his attention back towards Gaho, whose face was contorted in a way that suggested he was thinking too hard for his own good.
"Yes Gaho?"
"Why did you change up the outline for this trial?" Gaho paused, trying to come up with a way to word his question. "I mean, this was originally just a fighting trial, with multiple opponents attacking a pair of examinees. Why change it to include all of these complications and teamwork trials? And the message? Only one applicant knows nen, and it just..." He trailed off, letting the thoughts that were going through the other four aides' minds be voiced aloud.
Lippo, whose annoyance had quickly disappeared, turned his full attention towards Gaho. It wouldn't do for them to learn of the small storm of interest that's bubbled around 63.
"Nen users tend to have their exam changed up a little bit," he lied. "Like how 44 is getting the combat section with the examiner from last year." He kept his voice normal, seeing if anyone would call him out on his fib. He hadn't changed anything for 301, the other nen user who had pins in his head. No one said anything about his lie, though the unspoken question still floated around in the air.
Ignoring the now-awkward atmosphere, Lippo restarted his message to Beans.
At your request, applicant 63, Akumi Chisio, has seen the nen message that you told me to relay to her.
He paused in his typing, hesitating as to whether or not he should ask why Beans wanted to test her morals when both of them were fairly confident of the outcome. After another moment of hesitation, he added another sentence to the message.
Is there any particular reason why you wanted to test her morals when both of us are fairly confident in her lack of a moral compass?
Especially considering most of us are in agreement with Menchi that she burned her own parents and house to a crisp…
"Who burned their parents to a crisp?!" cried Gaho, a look of incredulity on his face.
Woops. Didn't mean to say that out loud.
He clicked the send button on the message before turning to Gaho, who looked like he was about to have a panic attack - which was odd considering that, if Lippo remembered correctly, was in the prison for being the interrogator to some bigshot mafia member.
"No one," Lippo said, giving Gaho a blank stare that said to shut up and do his work.
Apparently he didn't get the message. "No… you said they burned their house and parents to a crisp." He waved his arms around frantically, as if trying to dispel some imaginary flames. "It was that applicant wasn't it! Number 63! She's a crazy killer just like Togai!"
Togai, whose station was right beside Gaho, looked at the man with a slightly offended look on his face, before shrugging it off and going back to trying to kill an unlucky trio that had stumbled into the path of agility.
Lippo had to hold himself back from slamming his head into the keyboard in front of him out of frustration. He held up a hand, stopping Gaho who was now blubbering nonsense.
"Gaho," he began, enunciating each syllable in the prisoner's name. "Shut up and do your work." He would have said more, but a ding from his earpiece told him that a message from one of his important contacts had just arrived, saving Gaho from most likely being thrown back into his dingy little cell.
Chairman still hasn't figured out the final phase yet, and he's just asked me to test the morals and likeability of applicants that will most likely to make it to the final phase. I've been trying to get him to plan out the final phase but you know how he is. I'm pretty sure he's sleeping right now.
A quick glance at the clock showed that it was way past any decent time that someone should be sleeping. Leaning back in his chair, Lippo turned his attention back to the monitor with Applicant 63 on it, who had just entered the the room to the second part of the trial. He grabbed a hardcopy of the script before flipping the microphone on.
Welcome to the next part of your trial by partnerships. In front of you is a pair of handcuffs, which you will use to chain yourself to your partner. You will then climb down the ladder and begin the agility and teamwork section.
Akumi paused in her mental musings of ways to murder the ninja beside her, reaching for the handcuffs. They were made of the same material that the watches were made of, and a quick glance with the use of gyo showed a thin nen coating that protected them from breaking. The chain was a meter long; plenty of room to move around, but still short enough where they would both have to be mindful of each other in order to prevent dislocating an arm or wrist.
Hanzo stared thoughtfully at the cuffs before turning to Akumi once again.
"Left or right handed?" he asked, holding both arms up to demonstrate his point.
"I throw with my right hand," Akumi said, procuring a dagger out of nowhere and tossing it in the air.
"I do too. That's a pro-" He stopped mid-speed, eyes widening at a sudden revelation. He turned towards the corner to their right, addressing the speaker that was nestled tightly against the wall, "Oi, examiner guy, you never said anything about what body part we chain, correct?"
Taking the lack of an answer as confirmation, Hanzo locked one handcuff around his left ankle, handing the other end to Akumi to put on. After clicking the lock shut, the pedestal that held the handcuffs was replaced by a ladder going down.
"How are supposed to get down that with our ankles attached? Neither of us are short enough." Akumi looked down the ladder, hoping that they could jump together, but all she saw was a deep pit with no bottom that she could see. Hanzo peeked over her shoulder and, seeing the same thing she was, abandoned the same idea that she had.
"Wait," he said, snapping his fingers and pointing to Akumi. "I have an idea."
…
"Move back, you're crushing me," Akumi said, trying her hardest to not touch her back against Hanzo's chest as they climbed down the ladder.
"If I move any further back, I'm gonna fall off." He replied, glancing downwards to see if they had arrived close enough to the bottom to jump. They hadn't. Akumi snorted inelegantly.
"Well you can either back off or turn your head, because if I feel your breath on my neck one more time, you'll find yourself without lungs to breathe with."
The bickering pair of applicants were slowly making their way down the ladder by sandwiching Akumi between Hanzo and the ladder, enabling both of them to climb down at the same time with the short chain between them.
"This would be so much easier if you would stop complaining. It's not like any other way would have worked; you're barely five feet tall and I'm almost six feet."
"Fuck off, I'm five foot two, thank you very much."
Lippo stared bored at his screen, eyes flickering every once and a while to the large countdown in the front of the room. 71:02:54
"Sir," said Gaho. "Applicants 63 and 294 have almost reached the bottom of the ladder."
"I want the controls, Gaho," Lippo said, pulling up the pair on his center monitor. "You keep watch on 44."
He watched carefully as the pair jumped the last five meters, landing in synch on the floor. Even though there's a great deal of animosity between them, after twenty minutes together, they've already managed to begin working together better than some in weeks of each other's company.
He opened up the command script for the ten kilometer sprint down the tower, thankful once again for having a spatial nen manipulator to adjust the dimensions of certain paths down the tower, such as this one, which would move them in a slow, narrow spiral down almost a third of the outer sector of the tower, and having them run down a tall, straight corridor through the inner sector. Selecting a five by five meter square directly in front of the pair, he typed in the first command. Floor: spikes, two meters
The only thing that saved Hanzo from being skewered through the torso was Akumi stumbling when he began an eager sprint down the corridor. The chain on the cuffs went taut as Akumi's right leg slid out from beneath her, causing Hanzo to trip and fall face first. Suddenly, he felt wind whistle past his bald head, and looking up, he saw a row of spikes barely ten centimeters away from his face.
Akumi watched as the spikes retracted back into the ground, eyes peeled for another trap. "That was a close call baldie. Car-"
She was cut off as a line of darts flew her way, which she barely dodged, leaving a vertical line in the wall behind her. A quick look with gyo showed that the entire room was doused with in, nen that was invisible to a user unless gyo was used.
"Well shit," she said, helping Hanzo up while keeping watch around them. "What's next? Giant swinging axes from the ceiling?"
A jolly Lippo answered her from a speaker that was attached to her watch.
"Not quite."
The next thing Hanzo saw was the floor splitting open to reveal a pit before Akumi pulled him against the wall, barely missing an axe that came swinging from a pit in the ground that hadn't been there five seconds ago.
"What the fuck are you tryi- SHIT!" Akumi was cut off when the pit suddenly burst into flames, leaving both her and Hanzo slightly singed. She had the time to flip off the camera that she knew was somewhere, before running off at a dead sprint, Hanzo close on her heels.
Some part of her processed the sound of laughter from the speaker on her wrist, but the thought was quickly dismissed as a barrage of arrows flew towards them. She and Hanzo flew opposite ways, only to crash to the ground as the chain was pulled tight. Hanzo was lucky and managed to avoid any damage, but Akumi only had enough time to throw up a hasty ko in her left arm to shield it from the nen coated arrow that stabbed into it almost instantly afterwards. Expecting the arrow to leave only a small scratch after being guarded by her nen, she wasn't prepared when it almost went completely through the bicep, the foot long shaft several inches deep in her arm.
Ignoring the pain, she broke off the shaft and pulled it out, ignoring the wet sound that it made as it slid free of her flesh.. She took a few precious seconds to let the blood flow outward and form a thin layer over the hole that that would hopefully protect her, though she was doubtful her blood shield could stop it completely if her ko, hasty though it had been, had barely stopped it from going completely through.
They both got up and kept running, an understanding passing between them. The time for bickering was over, and the only communication needed between them were simple gestures with the occasional exclamation as an obstacle came their way. After evading more lethal traps than there were in the Zoldyck basement, they came to a stop a maze of wires running horizontally in front of them.
Turning around, she saw that the last thing they were running from – a giant boulder – had disappeared, allowing them a small respite.
"I guess we have to get through this," Hanzo said, wiping off the small amount of sweat that had beaded across his skin when fireballs had started flying towards them.
"Don't touch the wires," Akumi said, watching as one of Illumi's needles was sliced cleanly in two when she pressed it against the cable. Turning around, she had to stop herself from yelling out expletives towards the examiner when she saw that a wall had appeared behind them and was slowly moving towards them. "Shit, the wall's moving, we have to go."
After turning around and having to hold back a swear himself, Hanzo followed after Akumi, moving between wires and trying not to get cut.
"How long do you think we've been running?" He asked, staring back at the wall, which was slowly closing the distance between them.
"I think somewhere along five kilometers." She looked down to check the watch. "All in around twenty minutes. The clock says 70:39."
"How long do you think the maze is?" Hanzo asked, looking back at the wall. They had started the maze with a ten meter distance between them and the wall. They were two minutes into into the maze of wire and he swore that the wall had already eaten up half a meter of space.
"Too long," Akumi said, looking back at the wall. She didn't see an end to the wires, and the wall was slowly catching up. "We need to hurry."
She sped up, forcing Hanzo behind her to match her pace. More time passed, and shallow cuts began accumulating across their skin. They eventually reached a small space inside the maze where they could both pause, and while they were in it, the wall forcing them forward seemed to have stopped.
Hanzo began tying the more severe cuts up with some spare cloth while Akumi concentrated on the blood she was slowly losing. Normally, she would have been able to stop hundreds of cuts from bleeding at the same time, but she had also been running a thirty meter diameter of en around them since almost being skewered by another volley of arrows. She was confident that nothing else was there except for the wires, but she would have already lost her arms on more than several occasions to wires that she had missed. She wasn't able to keep up the en, gyo, and move quickly through the wires without injury.
Hanzo watched in slight fascination as a red coating began to cover both of his partner's arms and legs. He was about to question what was happening in front of him, when Akumi began to speak.
"Hanzo, given the circumstances we're in, where neither of us are allowed to kill the other, do you trust me?" She had a calculating look on her face and was looking at one of the deeper cuts on her right arm instead of at his face.
He took a moment to pause and assess the situation. "Well, that depends. What do you want to do?"
She paused, trying to think of how to properly explain her blood manipulation nen without confusing him, while still managing to keep her skills mostly in the dark. "At the speed we're going, we're gonna get cut up into pieces by the wall and wires before we're even close to finishing. We have to move faster, but right now that's impossible without cutting off something important."
Hanzo gave a nod, and made a gesture for her to carry on.
"I have an…" she trailed off for a moment, feeling the hairs on her neck raise when she thought of saying nen. "... ability, where I can protect the skin from being split open as badly. The wire is too sharp to protect us completely, but it will stop the most severe cuts."
"So a shield? Like the stuff you're covered in?" he asked, gesturing towards the red layer on her.
She glanced down before shaking her head. "Not like that. I don't have enough focus right now for that. Think of it as a reinforcement to your skin."
She watched as Hanzo pondered over the problem, before being given a small nod.
"Okay, what do we have to do?" He asked, taking a step backwards when she pulled out a long dagger. "Whoa, what ar-"
"Calm down. It's only transferable by blood. Give me a sec." She paused, searching for one of the larger injuries on her. Finding a large one on her right bicep, she let the layer of blood retract from that area and moved most of the nen in her reserves in the blood surrounding the gash. "I need to cut open your arm." Seeing the expression on his face, she added on to her statement. "I need a large opening to work with, and it's the best position."
She held the knife up in the air while waiting for his arm. Giving her his left arm, he watched as Akumi sliced a thin but deep cut going from his elbow to right below his wrist.
Cutting up Hanzo was risky business- way riskier than she had hinted towards. Her blood was naturally type B, and if he didn't also have type B blood, then the blood wouldn't mix and his body would reject it, most likely killing him in the process by bleeding out through the long cut in his arm. She also had to focus on the nen inside his bloodstream in order to have it clot the wound. Otherwise, he would bleed out anyways.
She also couldn't just inject straight nen into his bloodstream. Nen was specific to each person and as volatile as hers was, it would cause him to go into shock and seizures before dying. The one time she had done that on a mission as an experiment, Illumi had almost shot ten needles into her face for doing it. The guy she had done it to wasn't even their target and didn't stop screaming for an hour and completely blew their cover. So she didn't do that anymore.
She tested Hanzo's blood type for a second, panicking. Shit. Of fucking course, he has type O blood, the rarest type. Okay, it's been years since you tried this Akumi. Change the blood type as it flows between your cut and his. No big problem, just gotta change the chemical composition of almost ten percent of your blood. No probs. She ignored the voice in the back of her mind that told her she was gonna kill the guy.
As if sensing her panic, Hanzo opened his mouth to say something, only to be interrupted by Akumi, who spoke through gritted teeth.
"Don't… say anything. I need to… concentrate." She felt a sweat breaking out. It had been a long time since anything had caused her to panic like this. The last time was when she had taken some of Illumi's needles and built a pyramid out of them, only to be caught and forced to run around as he threw his entire collection of them at her. He had a very large collection.
The first few drops fluctuated between something that wasn't even considered a blood type, and the ones following were only slightly better. After a few tense moments, she managed to get something close enough to type O that it wouldn't kill him, though she was sure that his body wouldn't be happy for the next few days.
I've spent almost fifteen percent of my blood already. I'm gonna have to be careful. I usually pass out somewhere along the twenty percent mark.
After feeling the lightheadedness that was often associated with blood loss, Akumi stopped the blood and let her blood shield cover the wound up, before looking up at Hanzo.
"You're probably going to feel weird," she said, noticing the slight grimace on his face. "That's what happens after you get a blood transfusion. We'll have to wait ten minutes for everything to spread out, and then we're starting back up. "
After ensuring that the blood had spread out to protect most of his body, she started moving again. As soon as they both left the small sanctuary in the middle of the wires, they heard the sound of stone against stone as the wall reappeared… half a meter behind them.
"FUCK, RUN!" she yelled, and began weaving between the wires at a breakneck speed. Dizziness forgotten, adrenaline began to pump into her system, and she let her instincts guide her through the maze of wire. Hanzo was right behind her, focused purely on weaving through the small openings.
After putting enough distance between them and the moving wall that they weren't in immediate danger of being sliced to bits, Akumi took a glance at her watch. 70:03 She looked behind her towards Hanzo to see that he wasn't faring too well. Though the blood had helped strengthen the blood vessels and in turn protect the skin, he was still covered in cuts, many of which were still bleeding. The wall was now a safe five meters away, and the adrenaline was finally making its way out of her system, letting the dizziness come back in full force.
"Is that… movement?" Hanzo pointed a finger in front of her face. Following his line of sight, she saw a small glimmer as something moved off in the distance. If we have to fight in this, we might as well kiss our asses goodbye.
They approached cautiously, letting the wall behind them close the distance from five meters to two.
"Are you serious?" she asked, upon seeing the source of the movement. No, she would take fighting in the wire maze over this any day.
"The wires are moving?!" Hanzo looked like he was ready to punch the wall as he saw the scene in front of him. Sure, there were barely a third the amount of wires as behind them, but one wrong calculation would definitely leave them missing a limb.
"Wait," he said, turning back around. "Where did the wall go?"
Turning around to confirm his statement, she tapped the screen of the watch, which now read 69:47.
"Hey, examiner guy, what happened to the wall?"
"It's gone. You just have to go through this part." That voice was way too happy for her liking. "Don't lose an arm!"
She let a growl of frustration out before looking up at the wires. They weren't moving too fast, but they still let out a small whistling noise as they passed her.
"Well, looks like we're running again," she said, turning towards Hanzo, who had taken the break to tie up some of his cuts. He had more skin covered by makeshift bandages than not at that point. They began running through the wires.
Things had been going fine as the two managed to move together and avoid the wires, until the chain connecting them screwed them over. They had managed to work out moving together with the chain while dodging a section with flying fireballs before the wires, and now moved without paying much mind to it.
A wire that was going vertically came towards them, and Hanzo sidestepped it, allowing to go between them. At least until it hit the chain. For half a second, Akumi had the vain hope that it would cut through the chain or stop, but that hope quickly vanished when her right leg disappeared from under her, dragging her backwards on her back. She heard a thud as Hanzo fell down beside her, and they were quickly being dragged towards a wire that would definitely cut her through the middle.
Hanzo clawed at the uneven ground, trying to find a hand hold, before gathering his senses and flipping on his back, digging in the blades hidden under his wrists to stop him. Meanwhile, Akumi managed to get the blood that still covered her entire body seep into the ground, before making it solid, effectively gluing her in place.
The only other wire that was in the immediately vicinity was the one moving from side to side above them, which wouldn't hurt them as long as they didn't stand up. They were in a stalemate, the vertical wire continuously pushing forwards, only held back by the combined strength of the two.
"Akumi, I can't move," Hanzo said, eyes focused on the wire a meter away that would easily cut him in half.
Silence met his statement, as Akumi's mind raced to figure out what to do, still on her back. She glanced from the wire to the ground and back again.
"I have an idea…" she said. "But it's insane."
"We don't have a choice at the moment."
"Point taken. Hold on tight."
After seeing him tense up, she slowly began to sit up, the blood on her back moving to her bottom to keep her in place. She was sitting straight up, her knees bent to hold her back. If she took any blood from her bottom, she would lose her grip and go sliding before being cut to ribbons while if she took the amount of blood she was going to need from her bloodstream, she was sure to pass out.
"Hanzo, I'm gonna need to hold onto your shoulder for a minute." Not waiting for a response, she reached her hand out onto the cut before pulling the blood that was hers out from him.
"Akumi, what are yo-"
"Hanzo shut up. I'm trying to save our lives."
The blood she pulled out was enough to create a two centimeter thick glove around her right hand. Shifting her weight onto her feet, she let the blood holding her to the ground move to just her soles, creating a thick layer that went deep into the ground to hold her in place.
She grabbed the wire, forcing the blood to become as dense as possible and focus on her palm and inside of her fingers. And then, she slowly began moving.
"Uh Lippo sir?" Gaho said, turning to face the man. "Your eyes are super big right now."
Lippo ignore Gaho, more focused on trying to not let his jaw drop as he watched Akumi Chisio hold the wire in place with her hands. Once he had managed to snag the wire between her and applicant 294, he was sure that it was game over for them, and though they had managed to grab the ground like that, he had never thought they would get out of it. Until Akumi had grabbed the wire without hesitation and held it in place.
He watched in shock at his monitor as she walked around the wire, the blood she was manipulating under her feet cementing each step while she held the wire in place with her hands. He had been impressed by the blood transfusion, shocked at watching her pull blood from her partner, and now he was straight up floored that she had the strength and nen ability to make her blood strong enough to hold back the wire, the wire that could cut through bone, metal, and diamond with little resistance.
Oh she's good. That girl is good.
After escaping her closest brush with death since threatening Illumi with using Killua as a training dummy, Akumi and Hanzo moved through the rest of the wire maze with ease, their close call making them more focused than ever. After reaching the end, the chain attaching them together fell to the ground, no longer binding them.
"I'M FREE, BITCHES!" she yelled, before grabbing the chain and throwing it back in the corridor of hell and wire.
Hanzo let a small grin appear on his face, before letting out a tired laugh. "Well that was rather intense. I didn't expect that to be as bad as it was. Thanks for saving my ass back there."
She was about to reply when Lippo interrupted her, his voice coming through the watch, which now read 69:03.
"Congratulations on making it through there, though you did have one close call. The next trial tests your logic. Continue through the door on your left."
She noticed two large doors, one on each side, though she was sure that they hadn't been there before. Hanzo was thinking the same thing, and began speaking.
"Hey, there are two doors though! What are we supposed to do?"
They both waited for an answer, though they were only met with silence from the bracelet. Shrugging, Akumi turned to the left and opened the door, walking through it with Hanzo right behind her. After closing the door, they were greeted by a long corridor that had a sharp right turn in it. Before they could move forward, Lippo began talking again.
"Congratulations!"
"Wait," Akumi said. "That was the test of logic?! Knowing our right and left!"
"You might be surprised with how bad most people's sense of direction is."
"But that's it?!"
"Of course not, you imbecile. I just had to make sure you knew that first."
Before she could comment on the fact that she had just been called an imbecile, Hanzo began dragging her forward, ignoring the yells of protest coming from her.
The pair turned the corner and entered a large room, with seven prisoners standing still and a door behind them with a lock.
"Welcome," the first one said, face hidden by a cloak. "This is the test of logic. One of us holds the key, and all the others don't. It's your job to figure out who."
The last one in line then began to speak. "Three of us lie, four of us tell the truth."
Lippo joined in the conversation. "The first and last ones both tell the truth. That's the only thing I can tell you."
The last one continued. "The key is hidden somewhere on one of us. You may only ask for it from one person. If you ask the wrong person, we will all randomly switch roles and give the key to someone else and you will have to start over. We will each go down the line now."
The first one stepped back up. "I tell the truth. The key belongs to neither the arsonist nor the stalker. I have killed people."
The second one stepped up. "I grew up in a small town and loved chemistry. Three is a filthy liar."
The prisoners continued down the line, each one's explanation even more confusing than the last, until the eighth one began speaking and didn't stop for a full five minutes.
"We will repeat any information needed but we won't answer any questions other than clarification," said the first one before falling silent.
Akumi stared at the group in front of them in disbelief. Neither of them could figure this out in a year, much less… she checked her watch again. ...68:41
She looked over to Hanzo to see if he was doing any better, somewhat surprised to find him muttering to himself while writing notes on the ground. "Oi, Akumi. I got this; we had to do puzzles all the time as part of shinobi training."
Needing no other explanations, Akumi sat on the ground and started calculating blood loss. I'm probably at eighteen percent and at this point, judging from how tired and dizzy I am, I don't think I'll be of much use if shit hits the fan again. Guess I'll have to do that. And so, while Hanzo was occasionally popping a question towards the prisoners and taking notes, Akumi cut open her wrists and let the blood pour to the ground.
"Oh, Hanzo," she said. He gave a grunt in response but didn't look up. "I'm gonna pass out on you, but I'll be up and at it in around an hour. Ignore the giant pool of blood around me." That seemed to catch his attention. He turned around, only to see his partner he needed to survive in order to pass the third phase pale white and sitting in the middle of a puddle of her own blood.
She closed her eyes and let the darkness take her. I'm tired.
"LIPPO!" Gaho had been watching 63 and 294 in the puzzle room while Lippo had gone to get coffee, only to find that 63 had cut one wrist wide open and had already started on the next. "LIPPO. 63 IS TRYING TO KILL HERSELF OH MY GOD WHAT DO WE DO THIS ISN'T SUPPO-"
Gaho was silenced as Lippo threw his jumbo thirty-two ounce mug of coffee at him to shut him up, before rushing to the computer and dialing Bean's number.
"Play back the footage! I want audio on the main speaker!" The monitor in front of him showed the live feed while the main one showed the recording that was being played back. What the hell is going on? She might be a psychopath, but I didn't think she was this mentally unstable.
Beans answered the phone while Lippo was typing away frantically. "What is it?"
"Beans, I need a psych evaluation of Akumi Chisio immediately."
"What happened?"
"She just cut her wrists open and is now bleeding out over the floor." He heard the sound of the phone clattering to the ground followed by sound of someone three feet tall sprinting out of a room.
He looked down towards the live feed to see Akumi saying something while seeming unconcerned that she was bleeding out. I know she manipulates blood, which is obvious from the last trial, but what is she doing getting rid of it? She's lost… probably twenty-five percent at this point. Anything around forty and she'll die.
Lippo called out more commands. "Play the audio back from when she was talking! One minute rewind!"
"I'll be up and at it in around an hour. Ignore the pool of blood around me." Lippo's panic stopped dead in its tracks.
"I need a nen recording of what just happened now!" Immediately, a video popped up on the screen. A quick glance at the live feed showed 294 shaking the limp body. Blood loss most likely at thirty percent.
His mailbox popped up, indicating that the prisoner in the puzzle room was asking what happened. He sent it to Gaho to answer for him before watching the nen video feed. After cutting her wrists, he watched as her ten got weaker and weaker, before disappearing completely. Holy shit, did she actually kill herself? He looked at the puddle, and fast-forwarded the video to current time. Thirty-five percent blood loss.
"Lippo, its Beans. Just got the psych evaluator. Says she shouldn't be suicidal."
Lippo, meanwhile, was ignoring Beans, eyes wide in amazement. A wave of nen had exploded from her body, so much that so that half a second later, he could feel it from above. 294 was thrown backwards, along with all the other convicts in the room. They hit the walls, instantly knocked out upon impact. The only one that didn't pass out was the fourth prisoner, but they still sat in the corner, dazed as they tried to regain their bearings.
"Lip-"
"Gaho."
"Yes sir?"
"Shut up."
Akumi slowly came back into consciousness, stock still as she took in her surroundings. She could hear the sounds of steady breathing, and the smell of blood surrounded her. The sound of soft snoring caused her eyes to snap open, revealing Hanzo to be out cold.
She tried getting up, only to realize that she was surrounded in a pool of drying blood.
She turned, facing one of the prisoners that was against the wall. She recognized them as the one that did the introduction in the beginning of the trial. She walked over and squatted down to the ground, waiting patiently as they woke up.
"Morning sunshine," she sang, poking them in the nose in the process. The prisoner, who she realized was a girl, slowly opened her eyes, only to give a start as she saw Akumi right in front of her face. "What's your name?"
"M-Mei," she said, eyes trained on the ground where blood had congealed.
"Well M-Mei," Akumi gave a grin as she laughed at her own little joke. Mei had to stop herself from cowering in fear. "Tell me this. Is there really a key?"
The girl paused, staring for a wide eyed moment at Akumi before nodding her head vigorously.
"And who might have it?"
"I d-d-don't know."
Akumi let out a sigh of frustration, before flicking a knife in front of the girl's face.
"I'm gonna ask again. Where. Is. The. Key."
She stared in fear at the knife while words spilled from her mouth. "I don't know! Kensu was supposed to have it pop up magically at some point but he wouldn't tell us how! He would say it was magic! Don't kill me!"
"Well, I'll get to Kensu at some point. Why are you here in this prison?"
"I just stole a lot of money from the sparkly guy and he got really mad! I don't know why they stuck me with murders!" Mei was close to tears as Akumi began twirling the knife in her fingers. "But Kensu won't give you the key unless you solve the puzzle! Mr. Examiner guy told him that he would let us both out if we could delay you until the end of the seventy-two hours. Broth-"
She clamped her mouth shut as she realized what she had just slipped up on.
"Oh," Akumi said curiously, tilting her head to the side. "Your brother is Kensu? Well that makes it easier!"
At this point the other prisoners were all fully awake and listening intently to the conversation.
"Okay Kensu, where are you? Come out before I kill your sister here."
Mei's eyes bulged open and she tried to escape, only to be pushed back down to the ground onto her stomach after trying to get to her knees. Akumi sat casually on top of her back while picking off a flake of blood that was on her shirt, though it was completely soaked in it.
Seeing that the brother wasn't going to answer, she grabbed Mei's right hand and created a small cut in her pinky. Cutting open her own pinky, she let nen slowly flow from her to the girl. Immediately, Mei began thrashing, feeling the malicious nen flow quickly through her bloodstream. Akumi stayed sitting on top, bored as she watched Mei try and relieve the pain. She stopped the nen when it reached the girl's arm, allowing the girl a small respite. Mei turned her face upwards towards one of the prisoners in the corner.
"HELP ME BROT-" She was cut off as Akumi got her answer, letting the nen continue through the girl's body and causing the sister to cut off mid-scream as her system began to shut down.
Akumi turned towards the older boy who she assumed was Kensu. She could see the look in his eyes as he stared at his sister, who was still laying on the ground underneath Akumi, convulsing every once and while. They were the exact same as hers: cold, calculating, and lacking any sympathy.
"I'm guessing that you aren't going to help your sister from the look that you have on your face." Akumi said, getting up as Mei's body slowly stopped twitching.
"Damn right," he said, giving a maniacal little grin. "She's the reason we got stuck in this place to begin with. Fell on her face while running from security and took me down with her."
"I get it. Sibling problems are a pain in the ass sometimes."
"Yeah. Anyways, I can conjure the key. Can you that body to stop twitching? I can't concentrate with that thing moving."
Shrugging at the request, Akumi stabbed down into the spinal cord with the knife she still had in her hand. Immediately, Mei's body went limp. Akumi stared at it for a single moment before looking up, only to see that Kensu had a blade sticking out the pit of his stomach. Behind him stood a prisoner with a deranged look in his eyes.
"How could you kill your own sis-" He was cut off as Akumi threw her dagger between his eyes, watching as he dropped dead.
"Come on!" she yelled, raising her arms in exasperation. "You had to stab him before I got the key. Lippo, why the hell am I with all the crazies?" She ignored the fact that she was one of those crazies too.
Seeing that it was too late for the brother to do anything of use, she left him on the ground, walking towards the lock on the door.
"Oh you've gotta be kidding me. I've wasted," she looked down at the watch, "nearly an hour in here." She had expected the key to be some weird contraption, or a large tile. What she didn't expect was an old fashion padlock that she could open in seconds. She kicked out in frustration, accidentally cracking through the skull of one of the prisoners.
She walked over to the nearest puddle of blood and let some of her nen flow into it, before directing a thin, coiling stream of blood into the keyhole, where it adjusted its shape to the inner workings of the lock. Her key formed, Akumi turned the solidified blood and opened the door, moving to walk through it before the crackle of a speaker stopped her.
"Forgetting someone?"
She paused, before running back to the unconscious form of Hanzo. She poked his cheek, trying to wake him up quietly. Unsuccessful, she then gleefully slapped him across the face.
The effect was immediate. Hanzo jumped, slashing upwards before even opening his eyes. She caught it with a nen-reinforced hand, shaking his arm back and forth.
"Come on dumbass, time's a wastin'." He blinked for a moment in confusion, before
letting an embarrassed grin appear on his face.
"Sorry, I'm getting …" He trailed off, seeing the scene in front of him, which was composed of four corpses, one with a dagger in its head and another one without any head at all, and two others face down on the ground in puddles of blood. "...had some fun while I was asleep?"
Giving him a bright smile that was only reserved for use after her "fun" sessions, she nodded before skipping out of the room, Hanzo trailing close behind.
Lippo was at the edge of his seat, tufts of his purple hair in his hands as he stared at his monitor. Akumi and Hanzo had passed all his tests with flying colors, and were nearing the bottom of the tower and the clock only said 66:31. After Akumi had managed to get the pair out of the wire maze, he had taken it as a personal challenge, and had thrown everything at them. The maze that had taken days to construct was finished in barely an hour thanks to Akumi's en, and the duo was currently breezing through the combatants.
Gaho interrupted his mental rant. "Sir, an applicant has reached the agility section. What do you want to do wi-"
"KILL HIM, I DON'T CARE. I'M NOT LOSING TO THEM." Shrugging his shoulders, Gaho turned back to the monitor, throwing volleys of arrows at the unfortunate examinee.
Lippo turned back to the monitors, only to see Akumi dancing around her opponent while Hanzo snuck up and stabbed them in the back.
He snapped.
Frankly, Akumi was getting bored. They had faced their third serial killer in a long line of combatants, and both were getting somewhat fed up at the repetitiveness of it all. The pair was standing in a room composed of only a platform in the middle of a deep pit. She stepped over the most recent corpse- formerly a war criminal- and began to follow Hanzo down the stairs, only to be interrupted by the Lippo.
"The next fight is your final one before clearing the tower."
"Finally!" She exclaimed, leaping in the air. "Are we going to finally get something interesting?"
"I hope that you will find it so."
She could hear the barely concealed irritation in his voice, and let a grin appear on her face. Hanzo stopped as he turned the corner, Akumi barely managing to stop herself from crashing into him. She stood on her toes, peeking over his shoulder to see what had caused him to stop.
"Oh shit," she said, first quietly before growing in volume. "shit, shit, SHIT!" She grabbed onto Hanzo's collar before running back up the stairs and through a corridor towards the room they were at before, a stampede of heavily armed combatants on their tails. Normally this would just be a bit of sporty fun, except that from each of them Akumi could sense an aura of nen.
"WHAT THE HELL LIPPO?" she yelled, cutting open both wrists to let blood cover the ground of the hallway. "THIS ISN'T INTERESTING, THIS IS FUCKING RIDICULOUS!"
The stampede of fighters turned the corner, only to be stopped as the blood on the floor shot up into spikes, surprising the first few. The rest managed to guard themselves with nen, barely slowing down. Three down, twelve left. She turned to see Hanzo preparing to charge. He won't stand a chance against nen users, no matter how good of a fighter he is. And he has to survive for me to pass.
"Sorry Hanzo," she muttered, kicking him in the side of the head, managing to knock him out in a single blow. She saw his eyes widen in surprise, before closing shut as he tumbled to the ground. She caught him before he could tumble off the ledge to the pit below and left him on the ground, moving to stand in the middle of the room.
She let the blood on her hands form into sharp claws before stabbing through the chest of her first opponent and throwing him over the ledge. She needed to keep the floor clear when fighting this many nen users.
The next one came at her, beams of nen shooting from his hands as he tried to burn a hole through her center. She jumped to the side, grabbing onto another opponent and using him as a shield before throwing the now burned corpse at him, kicking both of them over the edge.
Two others came up from behind her and grabbed her arms, muscles flexing as they tried to snap the bones in half. The claws immediately morphed into liquid to cover her skin, hardening to form a thick shell around her arms before they could successfully break them. She ripped her left arm out of the man's grip before he went tumbling over the edge, the other one following closely behind.
Barely a moment later, a deep gash appeared in Akumi's side as a conjured katana was swung at her, followed by another one. She raised her arms, the blood shield protecting her from the downward strike, only to slowly melt away as the corrosive aura of the left katana ate away at the hardened blood. Holding back a curse, she jumped back only to be caught by another opponent, who wrapped their arms around her before losing a head to a knife in her right hand.
She ripped out three piercings in her right ear and formed three whips, using them to grab onto the acid-covered katana before forming a glove to grab hold of the other one. Using her forward momentum, she tackled him off the ledge, both of them tumbling through the air, before the three whips dug into the side of the wall, stopping her fall.
She climbed back up, peeking over the edge to see the remaining five nen users surrounding the unconscious form of Hanzo. Holding on with her arms, she grabbed ahold of three of the fighters' ankles with her whips and pulled them over the edge. The two that were left quickly backed up, before standing in the opposite corner.
Akumi's eyes narrowed as she took in her opponents, a man and a woman. These two were much stronger than the rest, and she knew that simple tricks like before wouldn't work on them. Controlling all of her blood outside her body, she separated it into marble sized spheres and then condensed them so that they were rock solid. A red cloud of blood bullets surrounded her before rushing towards her opponents, who were reinforcing the ken around themselves.
The blood bullets crashed into the pair, unable to break the defenses, though they did throw the two nen users around some. Akumi forced the bullets to move faster, concentrating fully on speeding up the projectiles. Time passed, one minute after the other as Akumi forced the bullets to go faster and faster. The battle had slowly turned from a battle of combat to a battle in endurance. And she had no idea who would win.
She felt sweat starting to accumulate as she realized that they were at a stalemate. Apparently her opponents did too. The woman, in a split second decision, sprinted forward and, ignoring the bullets, crashed straight into Akumi. They both tumbled over the edge, Akumi barely managing to grab onto a handhold that whipped past her face.
She let herself breathe out a small sigh of relief. She could handle broken bones, cuts, even internal damage. But turning into a pancake against the ground? That was something that went beyond her nen abilities. A normal fall, she could survive; she could have lived jumping from the top of Trick Tower. But she knew Lippo had come up with some way to counteract her jumping to the bottom, and she wasn't stupid to find out what that was.
A hand grabbed her right ankle, forcing her to look down to see that her opponent had managed to grab a different hand hold and was trying to take Akumi down with her. She kicked out with her leg, wincing when she felt her ankle crack when the woman tightened her grip on it.
Looking up, she saw her opponent's partner standing above her, gathering nen into his hand. Of course, I have to be fighting an emitter. She glanced down to see a very nasty looking needle in the girl's hand. And apparently a manipulator. She lifted her right foot before smashing in the girl's head with her left boot. With a long screech, the girl dropped.
Not sparing a moment to enjoy the sound, Akumi summoned her blood – which was still floating in the air – to fly back to her and form a large shield in front of her just as a huge ball of nen barrelled straight towards her face. There was an explosion of red mist as the nen collided, but her shield held firm. Then, forming claws, she quickly climbed up the side of the platform, only to have another ball of nen staring her straight in the face upon arriving at the top.
She barely had the time to awkwardly dodge sideways, her legs still over the edge. Another one flew towards her, only this time aiming to take the platform itself. Finally managing to stand up, she jumped upwards, grabbing ahold of the man's arm and throwing him as hard as possible. She watched as he crashed into the wall with a sickening crack, forming a crater before his body fell into the abyss below.
Letting out a breath that she didn't know she was holding, Akumi walked over to a puddle of blood on the ground and focusing her nen into it, before moving it to Hanzo's unconscious form. Letting it form a mesh underneath him, she flicked her hand, the blood floating in the air to carry Hanzo in a makeshift litter.
She let out a small noise of annoyance upon lifting him. Even though she wasn't carrying him, she could still feel how heavy he was.
"Damn baldie," she muttered, beginning to walk out of the room, Hanzo's floating form behind her. "I think you need to lay off of the sushi."
Instead of receiving a reply from Hanzo – not that she should have. That kick would have him knocked out for at least half an hour – Lippo answered her. "Well, Akumi, it seems you handled that well enough."
She made a rude noise before giving the universal 'fuck you' sign. "Well enough that I've lost almost fifteen percent of my blood, sure."
He ignored the gesture. "In any event, you will soon be passing an empty room to your right."
Sure enough, Akumi could see an opening in the corridor. She gave a noise of confirmation, not paying much attention. Lippo had said that the previous free-for-all had been the last test, so she was just waiting to get out of the damned tower.
"You have the choice of depositing your unconscious partner in the elevator, which will take him to the top of the tower where he will have to go through an entirely new trial. This will not impact you in any way for finishing the tower, and continuing down the corridor will reveal the exit."
Akumi stopped, turning to the elevator that was to her right and looking between it and Hanzo. When she was told of the opportunity to betray her partner, she had assumed that she would do it. But now... Dammit baldie, you were actually useful.
She tilted her head to the right, weighing the pros and cons. If I force you back to the top of the tower, it will most likely get rid of you as competition. Usually only a handful of applicants pass each year. It would be nice to get rid of any competition that I could.
She tilted her head the other way. On the other hand, I don't like such terrific potential going to waste. He'll be gifted in nen once he learns it. And it would be a damn shame to see someone with his ability fall so easily.
Then again, this is Hanzo. Hanzo who won't shut up, thinks the universe is there at his beck and call, and knows nothing of subtlety.
She looked down at Hanzo, before muttering a 'fuck everything' under her breath.
"Goddammit!"
I'm back! With a 10k chapter! So things started out pretty slow when writing this, but then I have a six hour car ride and five thousand words popped out and the other five came trickling in after that. As always, a giant shout out to my beta, breather, who I am eternally grateful for. Seriously, she does so much for me and frankly, I don't know what I would be doing without them. Updates on chapter progress can always be found on my profile, and I am happy to say that the wait will be no where near as long as the last two chapters were.
Reviews are welcome, and I do reply to most of them! :D Favorite and follow too! PM's are also welcome, if you have ideas for Akumi. Though I have a rough outline for this entire story, you never know what can happen.
Stay fabulous my lovely readers.