"Okay. You may pass. But you must do one thing for me first though." Mr. Kobayashi said.
Smiling as always, Fuji asked, "And what will that be?"
"Well, the life of a security guard tends to get a bit boring, you see… so we guards of the vaults amuse ourselves with games and challenges. Now, if you leave one person here to take my challenge, I will gladly let everyone else pass."
"This sort of reminds me of the show The Crystal Maze," Momo said. "You know, the one that people go about taking weird challenges in rooms and get locked in if they fail. So, do we get locked in the room if we fail too?"
"Of course not. We don't have any rooms to lock you in," Mr. Kobayashi said matter-of-factly, "If you fail, I will simply kill you!"
"Now this is reminding me of SAW…yeah, that movie in which a hell lot of people die…" Momo muttered.
"I want to know why we had been robbing a bank in such a practical way and yet are going to do something very much like RPG now." Ryoma, who was always sensible, said.
"BECAUSE I'M A FREAK! HAHA!!" Mr. Kobayashi said and began to laugh like a maniac.
"We haven't agreed to take your challenge at all." Fuji pointed out, smiling.
"If you don't agree, I'll send you to the police station." Mr. Kobayashi said, smiling in turn.
"It's better to get sent to the police station than die. It's not like we have done anything very wrong yet…" Ryoma replied practically.
Eiji put in, "No, we need the money! I'll take the challenge!"
"Wow, Kikumaru senpai, I didn't know you love Oishi-senpai that much," Ryoma rolled his eyes.
Eiji cried happily, "Just imagine, with all the money we can get new clothes and all the candy and toothpaste we want!"
"Don't you care about Oishi-senpai AT ALL?" Ryoma sweatdropped, "And besides you can't enjoy the new clothes and candy and toothpaste if you are dead."
"You have a point there," Eiji frowned in thought. "But I still think we should do it. I'll take the challenge!"
"No, I'm the buchou. I will take the challenge," Tezuka said.
"I want to take the challenge. It's bound to be fun," Fuji said.
While everyone got into a heated argument about who should be the one to do it, Kawamura offered quietly aside to Mr. Kobayashi, "I'll take the challenge."
"Okay," Mr. Kobayashi shrugged.
Momo shouted, "Not fair! That's cheating!"
"Senpai, you are still mada mada dane, so let me…" Ryoma cried.
"Too late. He's already logged in." Mr. Kobayashi said.
"What does it have to do with logging in?" Ryoma sighed, "Kawamura senpai…"
"Just go, guys. I'll take care of this." Kawamura said, putting on a brave smile. This scene resembled the supposed-to-be-touching scenes in battle comics when one of the characters sacrificed himself to stay behind while the others went on to complete the mission in every way, except that this was not a battle comic and the mission was robbing a bank instead of something noble, like rescuing the princess.
"Taka-san, please take care of yourself," Fuji reminded. This was one of the rare occasions where he was not smiling. At all.
"Taka-san, you must catch up with us as soon as you completed the challenge!" Eiji said, wiping a tear from his face. "I believe that you can do it!"
"Kawamura," Tezuka said with a shaking voice, "yudan sezu ni ikou!"
"Senpai, you are so great to be willing to sacrifice yourself for everyone…" Momo sobbed emotionally.
Ryoma glared at Momo, "Why are you talking as if Kawamura senpai would surely fail?"
They all turned to look at Kawamura sentimentally for one last time, and went on with determination to succeed.
If this were a supposed-to-be-touching scene in a battle comic, there would have been sad but beautiful elvish music playing in the background, but as this wasn't one, Kawamura and Mr. Kobayashi were left staring at each other in silence.
"Okay, now, kid," Mr. Kobayashi finally began, "I aspire to sell pancakes after I retire, but I can't do that without some money. Therefore, your challenge will be to sell all these matches for me. The time limit is 510 months!"
"That is quite a long time limit…" Kawamura thought to himself, but took the large bag of matches and started selling them anyway. He did not succeed in selling any at all, because there were apparently no other people around to buy them.
"Well, maybe they will sell better if I demonstrate how they are used," Kawamura took out some matches and tried to light them. All in a sudden, a voice in his head told him that matches felt pretty much like very thin tennis rackets in his hand.
"BURNING!!" He yelled and burned all the matches. Therefore, he had failed the challenge.
"You burned all my matches! I spent years making them, with my own hands!" Mr. Kobayashi screamed, weeping hysterically. What a crazy man.
"If they were that precious to you, you shouldn't have given them to me in the first place…" Kawamura said, trying to comfort Mr. Kobayashi even though he knew that he was crazy. Kawamura was just nice in this way.
"You have failed!" Mr. Kobayashi bawled. "You must die!"
And with his anguished cries (Kobayashi's, not Kawamura's), Kawamura was transformed into digital information and his body disappeared slowly in to the atmosphere. He managed to leave a dying message, "Do it, guys…do not let me down!"
"TAKA-SAN!!" Everyone heard this since they hadn't gotten very far yet, and all screamed his name so loudly that there were echoes everywhere.
"Don't worry, people," Inui, whom everybody had already forgotten, said, over the wireless radio, "He was just transformed into digital information. I am sure that I can make him come back. You guys go on and take the rest of the challenges."Eiji cried in dismay, "There are more challenges?"
"According to my data, the guards in this bank enjoy designing challenges like in role play games, and actually think that their games are the most effective protection of the bank. When there are intruders, they will give out the challenges." Inui explained.
"We were here to rob a bank! Why do we have to play role-play games?" Eiji complained, as if playing role-play games were even more terrible than robbing a bank.
"Anyway, you guys must do your best," Inui said, comfortably safe in his chemistry classroom.
"Yeah, you guys must watch out for yourselves!" Momo said, looking at everyone with sad and worried eyes.
"Stop acting like you were not coming with us!" Everyone shouted, and they all whacked him on the head.
The Crystal Maze/ A show that I watched a lot in elementary school. They actually had a Chinese version… you know, they got people to voice-act the contestants. It's weird watching them speak Chinese while they were so obviously English, but boy it was fun to watch. You can check it on Wikipedia if you are interested. Sadly they don't have it on TV in our country anymore…
To the anon. reviewers:
Shourin: Oooh! Thanks!
Forgotten hyoshi: Oh, so I actually got it right! The Hiyoshi in the musical is awfully cute (and he sings pretty well… as a matter of fact, all Hyoutei sings well), so don't worry, I won't ever forget Hiyoshi.
Terrfomp92: Yes, I have seen the movie. It is funny. Ryoma and his brother were throwing tornadoes at each other and Tezuka destroyed earth and all the dinosaurs. It was such a stupid movie that I liked it a lot. Thanks for the reviews!
To be continued. Reviews are very welcome!