Chapter Three
"Have you ever had to break a door down before, Juudai?" Manjoume posed the question dubiously as he took the backpack from the other boy's outstretched hand. His companion turned to him with a grin and wink before pulling something out of his jacket pocket.
"Nah, I always knew guys like Kenzan who were really good at that kind of thing. But!" he exclaimed, and tinkered with the padlock for a moment before continuing. Juudai made brief work of it, and soon the lock and rusty chain that had held the access door shut fell to the ground with a clatter. He beamed, obviously quite proud of himself. "I am pretty damn good at picking locks!"
"You do this whole 'breaking and entering' thing a lot, don't you?"
"Manjoume—"
"–San da."
"Whatever," Juudai did not even bother pausing in his speech. "Why are you surprised, anyway? How'd you think I broke into the school so many times? Busted a window?"
Manjoume just shrugged as he handed Juudai a flashlight and the backpack. Inside the bag was Amnael's book wrapped in the only white t-shirt Juudai owned. The boy had promised not to miss it. After a moment of wrestling with the rusted access door, Juudai pried it open, and the two boys found themselves looking down an old, dark elevator shaft. Manjoume gave the rusted maintenance ladder a doubtful kick.
"Think it'll hold?" he asked, feeling a smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. He was excited for this, but did not want the other to know. Juudai stepped through the open door, grabbing hold of the old rungs of the ladder once the pack was secure.
"Only one way to find out!" he beamed up at Manjoume as he headed down, the light in his hand bouncing unsteadily on the walls, plastic handle clanking loudly against each rung. Manjoume flashed his own light upward, noting the ends of the severed elevator cables caught in the tracks. There were skid marks, deep gouges in the concrete, most likely caused from where the elevator had slid down to the bottom all those years ago. Then again, those marks could have been caused by the normal wear of an elevator going up and down for years and years. Manjoume did not know much about elevators, after all. "You coming, Manjoume?"
"–San da," he added, hardly aware of his own response as he joined his companion on the maintenance ladder. He grimaced at the feel of the rungs on his hands, and was glad that his tetanus shots were up-to-date. They began the descent into darkness marred only by the unsteady beams of the flashlights in their hands. After they had passed the first set of exit doors going down, Manjoume asked: "Why are we climbing down an abandoned elevator shaft with no safety gear? I mean, just to refresh my memory."
Juudai laughed, the sound echoing off the walls around them for a moment before fading into nothing.
"You said I needed a better hiding spot for Amnael's book, right? So, we're scoping out the bottom of this elevator shaft to see if it'll work."
"Uh-huh," Manjoume said dryly, not quite believing him. "Sure."
"What's wrong? You're not, like, scared, are you?" Juudai sounded downright snarky when he asked, his tone teasing.
"Don't be stupid, of course not!"
"Then stop whi– Ow! That was my hand!"
Manjoume smirked into the darkness. "Then climb faster."
"Hold up, I think this is it."
Manjoume stopped his descent, light swiveling downward as he twisted on the old ladder to look below. The top of the elevator – or, at least, what was left of it – was a mess of twisted metal, sharp ends catching the light where it fell on them. Manjoume grimaced in the dark; it did not look like it would be easy to climb. It looked slick and unstable. It looked like any weight would cause the top to come crashing down into the remains of the elevator. Juudai was fumbling with the backpack, one arm looped around a rung of the ladder. Manjoume swung the light around closer to the wall.
"Looks like blast damage took out the rest of the ladder," he noted idly, his light dancing across the side of the shaft. It was true; the ladder stopped two rungs below Juudai's boots, which Manjoume estimated to be about five or six feet above the mangled top of the elevator. With his flashlight in the backpack now, Juudai lowered himself down until he was hanging onto the last rung with one hand. Manjoume came down a little further as well; grabbing Juudai's other hand to help him down the last foot or so. His boots sounded heavy on the twisted metal, hollow as he peered down through the gaps and holes with Manjoume's flashlight lighting the way.
The elevator groaned loudly, and jerked at the additional weight, letting out an ear-splitting shriek of metal on concrete. Manjoume cursed, clamping his hands over his ears, and Juudai just barely stopped himself from falling and probably eviscerating himself on the elevator.
"Hey! Light would be good here!" the boy called back up to Manjoume, who quickly swung the light back down to his position. Juudai offered him a lopsided smile, and pointed to the old elevator. "It's just settling, no biggie."
"This thing is at the bottom, right?" Manjoume asked, worry tainting his voice. He was just starting to realize how ridiculously dangerous this was.
"Yeah, of course. I checked with the landlord lady, and she said that that's why the elevator doors in the lobby poke out the way they do; bomb went off in the elevator on the first floor."
"What about the basement, Juudai?" Manjoume's worries only grew as Juudai looked to him with confusion.
"Huh? We have a basement?"
As if on cue, the elevator lurched downward again. Juudai fell forward, catching himself with his hands and slicing his palms open. Manjoume looped an arm around the bottom rung, holding the flashlight in that hand while his other hung down.
"Come on! Grab my hand!" He shouted, his voice just barely audible over the screeching of the elevator. Juudai staggered to his feet, hurrying as best he could to get back over to the side of the shaft with the maintenance ladder. The elevator gave out another ear-piercing shriek before plummeting down to the basement just as Juudai leapt forward, his blood-slicked hands gripping Manjoume's jacket sleeve for dear life. Manjoume grunted at the weight, gritting his teeth and breathing hard as he pulled Juudai back up to the relative safety of the broken ladder. The elevator hit the basement floor with a deafening crash, the sound of collapsing metal reverberating off the walls.
They clung to the ladder in silence for a moment while they let their ears recover, at which point Manjoume promptly slapped Juudai upside the head.
"You moron," he accused, thankful that the light was pointed downward and Juudai could not see the grin on his face. "Didn't you learn anything at Duel Academy?"
"Ow! Of course I did!" Manjoume swung the light around as Juudai cried out defensively, rubbing at the ear that had been caught in the blow. At the dubious look from the younger boy, Juudai elaborated. "Like, I learned that cults and foreigners are always bad, aliens only fight for the good guys, and that I have no idea how Sameshima still has a job after all that's happened."
"I mean about buildings, Juudai. What have we learned about buildings?"
"Oh," Juudai took a moment to think back very carefully, considering both the last school year and their freshman year. As if struck by the hand of enlightenment he perked, gesturing with one hand that there was, in fact, one thing that they learned about buildings. "All buildings have basements, even if they weren't built with them? And beneath that basement is usually some kind of evil science lab and some more cultist stuff."
"Exactly."
". . . Does that mean that we have to wait for the elevator to fall down through the basement, too?" Juudai sounded disappointed, and Manjoume's light pointed down to the top of the elevator, both thinking through the likelihood of someone having made an evil alchemist hideout beneath Juudai's dilapidated apartment complex. They looked back to each other and grinned, voicing their thoughts in unison:
"Nah."
"You packed rope in there like I asked, right?" Manjoume asked as he handed his flashlight off to Juudai, who took it with a nod. There was a bit of struggling as Juudai tried to shine the light over his shoulder without blinding the younger boy; Manjoume, in the meantime, was unzipping the backpack and looking for the rope. He found it at the bottom after a moment of searching, pulling it out with one hand as he held onto the ladder with the other. Manjoume set to work tying one end of the rope to the ladder as Juudai fished his flashlight out of the bag and zipped it back up.
"Did they teach you sailor knots before or after that class you had on wrestling polar bears?" Juudai asked excitedly, shining the light in Manjoume's eyes while the boy was trying to test the stability of his knot and the rung it was attached to. Manjoume glared at him, sneering.
"We did not wrestle polar bears at North Academy," he said, for what must have been the millionth time since. . . well, to be honest, Manjoume was not sure when Juudai had decided that polar bears had been wrestled during his stint at North, but he seemed to mention it whenever he got the chance. Manjoume was starting to wonder if maybe he just liked saying that he knew someone who wrestled polar bears and won. "And I'll have you know that I was a boy scout once."
"Dude, nuh-uh. No way. You're too much of a badass to have been a boy scout."
"I don't care what you think," Manjoume huffed defensively once he was satisfied that the rope was secure and as safe to go down as could be managed, given the situation. "Now, look; don't slide down the rope. Lower yourself down, hand over hand. It's easiest if you wrap it loosely around your leg, catching the bottom with your feet. That way, you don't slip and rip all the skin off your hands."
"Did they teach you that in boy scouts?" Juudai teased, laughing.
"I am not here to be laughed at!" Manjoume erupted, punching the chuckling teen in the shoulder once, hard, before grabbing hold of the rope. Grumbling, he added sourly. "You suck. I hope you die."
"Yeah, sure, whatever, Manjoume."
"–San da!"
His boots thudded down onto the mangled top of the elevator lightly, his hands releasing the rope and pulling the flashlight from his pocket to swing aimlessly over the metal beneath him. Manjoume stepped forward carefully, trying to gauge the distance to the floor inside through one of the many holes and tears in the elevator top's surface. He heard Juudai slide down the rope behind him after a moment, followed by a soft curse and the sound of the older boy rubbing at his hands. Apparently, he had not listened to the advice above. Manjoume smirked into the darkness, and lowered himself down into the elevator.
He landed in a crouch, slowly straightening and shining his light around to get a better view of the new surroundings. There were scorch marks on the crumpled walls, which had folded up on themselves like accordions, but the floor of the elevator was more or less still intact, greatly surprising Manjoume with its uneven slopes and connecting panel work. In one corner there was something dark and burned, a misshapen lump that he was slow to identify. Squinting, Manjoume took a cautious step towards it, calling up to Juudai as he did so.
"There's something down here!"
"No way, really? Awesome! Hold up a sec," came the excited reply from above, and soon the gentle tremors of Juudai's footsteps was gone, replaced with the loud thud of his boots connecting with the floor inside the elevator as he jumped down to join him. Manjoume kept his light fixed on the lump in the corner. "Whatcha got?"
"I don't know. . ." Manjoume glanced back over his shoulder, not caring that the act was pointless. He could not see Juudai in the darkness behind him, but soon a second light joined his own, bouncing unsteadily over the curves and bumps of the thing in the corner. Juudai peered around the taller teen, but before Manjoume could say anything else, he walked over and proceeded to nudge it with his foot. "Hey! What are you doing?"
"Checking to see if it's dead. Duh," Juudai explained with a roll of his eyes and a grin, squinting as Manjoume pointed the light at his face. He nudged the lump again, dislodging a part of it. A round part from the top broke off, falling to the elevator floor with a sharp and hollow sounding crack. It rolled across the floor to Manjoume's foot, which the boy lifted slightly to halt the object. He shined his light on it, making sure to keep his weight off it as he rolled it around under his boot. Whatever it was, it was dingy grey, dirty and cracked, with a few holes in the rounder part that he assumed was the top. It could not have been a ball; there seemed to be planes and angles on the lower part, the sides tapering down to a rounded point at the bottom. There was a hole on the bottom below that point, something small and connective in nature hanging off of it. He rolled it over again to check the front. There were several holes, and Manjoume grimaced when he recognized the back-to-back blunt triangular shapes in the middle.
It was a human skull.
"See? Aren't you glad that I checked? That could have been a zombie, you know," Juudai was saying. Now that the lump had been identified as a dead body, the other boy was poking around with his hands, tossing aside the petrifying cloth that had obscured the shape before. Manjoume stepped down on the skull, his boot crushing the old bone easily with a loud snap-crunch. Juudai's grin grew larger at the sound.
"Nonsense. . . there's no such thing as zombies, Juudai."
"Uh-huh. Well, while they're sucking your brains out through your nose, be sure to remind them that, okay? And what about Abydos and his mummies? They were all dead and zombie-like. And Carmilla! She was a vampire, so you can't tell me that you don't—"
"You're an idiot," Manjoume sighed in exasperation, throwing his hands up in defeat. He crossed the space between them, taking the backpack from Juudai. Something black and grimy passed from the older boy's hands, and even in the dark Manjoume could see it contrast sharply with his skin. He rubbed his fingers together, looking at the slick something curiously. Part of it was blood from Juudai's palms, because the fool had not yet gotten around to wrapping his hands, but the other part of it – the gritty black smudging part – was not instantly recognizable. It was, undoubtedly, from the corpse. The idea that Juudai was rubbing an open wound over the old cloth and broken bone fragments without a care in the world was not surprising, but was definitely disgusting and not conducive to a long and healthy life. Manjoume grabbed him by the ear, yanking hard. "Do something about your hands before you catch something, for God's sake."
"OW! Not the ear!" the boy howled, hands immediately jerking back to his head. Manjoume released him, and Juudai moved off to one of the other corners sullenly, grumbling about how much that had hurt. With a shake of his head, Manjoume pulled Amnael's book from the confines of the backpack – which he then set down beside the wall – and walked around the dead body in search of the best spot. Under the body? No, that would not do. It was too brittle, fell apart too easily. In the unlikely event that someone else would climb all the way down here, they would instantly see that the broken body had been moved and would search beneath it. There was a moment of contemplative silence in the elevator, and Manjoume glanced back over his shoulder to his companion with worry.
But just as he did so, Manjoume was roughly pushed from the side, half turning as he lost his footing on the uneven ground and fell backwards with an undignified yelp. His back slammed into the distorted wall of the elevator, his head snapping back on his neck forcibly. He felt it strike one of the protruding edges of the crunched wall, and something wet and warm began to pour down from that spot, catching only briefly in his hair before seeping down along the inside of the collar of his jacket to soak into his dark turtleneck. Manjoume gasped, and the flashlight and book he had been holding fell from his hands to clatter noisily onto the floor, the light rolling away. His world was filled with darkness; his light not bright enough to be of any use to him now.
It was Juudai who had attacked him, Juudai who was gripping him by the lapels of his old North Academy jacket and shaking him hard. The older boy brought his face close to Manjoume's, both breathing unsteadily. There was a dull, pulsing yellow glow coming up from beneath Juudai's shirt, hovering above his heart and lending his eyes a decidedly golden tint when their gazes locked. Manjoume swallowed hard, bringing both hands up in a confused gesture of surrender.
"A-are you—"
"There's no such thing as God," Juudai interrupted, further surprising Manjoume with just how calm and serious he sounded when he said it. It reminded him of the way an adult might speak to a misbehaving child; it reminded him of the way his brothers had sometimes spoken to him when he was younger. Juudai did not sound like Juudai. His voice was lower, deeper, and flat; deadpan and solemn. Manjoume opened his mouth to put up some kind of hasty defense, but closed it just as quickly with a soft snap of teeth. Now would not have been a good time to quote John or Isaiah. Juudai leaned in closer as he continued, no longer shaking him. "Tell me you don't believe in God. Tell me there's no such thing as 'fate,' Manjoume."
"I. . ."
He did not want to lie. Ever since Juudai had forced that stupid 'brainwashed into being a cultist' idea onto him, there had been nothing but trouble. It was the perfect excuse for his actions, but it was a foul lie that tasted bitter in his mouth and burned his tongue like acid when he went along with it. The whole Society had picked up the notion, run with it like it would somehow save them from the fire when they died. Manjoume shook his head, chin dropping to rest against his collarbone. Their faces brushed against each other in the dark. But what was one more black stain on his soul, one more added shadow to his humanity? Manjoume did not know how to break the truth to his companion, and – judging from Juudai's reaction to the word 'god' – now did not seem like the right time to do so. He forced a smile, though it could not be seen, and snorted derisively, shoving Juudai off of him.
"Get a hold of yourself, Juudai; do you see any White Thunder down here?"
The tension in the air melted away with those words, and the eerie glow of the amulet beneath Juudai's shirt seemed to dissipate with it. Even in the darkness Manjoume could see Juudai's beaming grin, the white of his teeth just barely visible in the dim light from the discarded flashlight. Manjoume briefly wondered what became of the older boy's light, but dismissed the question in favor of asking something a bit more practical. "Are you okay?"
"Gotcha."
The catchphrase, coupled with the obnoxious gesture that was suddenly pointed just inches from the end of his nose, completely shattered the solemnity of the moment. Manjoume lashed out with an infuriated snarl, slapping the other upside the head. Juudai laughed, moving back and out of sight quickly as he fled from any subsequent blows. While he would not admit it, Manjoume felt a bit relieved. This was still Juudai, and everything was going to go back to normal. Or, at least, back to being as normal as things ever got for students who went to Duel Academy.
"Hey, you know, it really sucks that you dropped your light, 'cause I don't know where mine is now," the older boy lamented wistfully, tearing the bottom half of his shirt to make wraps for his hands. The fabric's abrupt ripping noise seemed impossibly loud in the otherwise quiet elevator shaft. Manjoume just snorted again. "How come we don't have night vision? That would totally have made this spelunking trip so much cooler."
"Because we didn't take that elective."
"Damn! Can we do that next year, Manjoume?"
"–San da. Juudai, if you can't stop being stupid, then just shut up."
"Yikes! Someone's grumpy," Juudai teased, chuckling to himself. Manjoume shook his head as if trying to clear it of any nonsense and get back to the task at hand. He would break Juudai's nose when they got back to the roof. Kneeling, Manjoume groped through the darkness blindly, trying to find the book that he had dropped. The light was not as important right now: they still had to find a place to hide Amnael's book. There was a scrabbling sound from across the elevator, and Manjoume lifted his head just in time to be blinded by light. One arm flew up to shield his eyes, and Manjoume let out a startled yell.
"Aah!"
"Oops! Sorry 'bout that. . ." came the sheepish reply, and Juudai quickly averted the recovered flashlight's beam. Manjoume glared at the darkened figure behind the light, lowering his arm as he did so. His hand came down on something flesh-like, covered in veins and seeming to breathe. He recoiled quickly at first, but then, as he realized that it was just the book he had been searching for, he tentatively reached out for it. His fingers touched over the t-shirt that it had been wrapped in, and he moved the cloth back to conceal that awful cover. "So, where are we putting that thing?"
"I don't know. I was hoping for somewhere that no one would think to loo—"
"The floor!"
"Huh?" Manjoume tilted his head to the side in confusion as he got to his feet, tucking the book under his arm and grabbing the backpack on his way to straightening. "What?"
"The floor," Juudai explained excitedly, the light bouncing over the cracked and broken panels as though seeking something special. "It's all messed up, so no one would know if we moved one of these panels and put the book under it. And we wouldn't forget, because we know that you always find cultist stuff under basements. Nobody would think to look there unless they went to Duel Academy!"
Although part of this logic was skewed and faulty, as was to be expected from Juudai, Manjoume had to admit that he had a point. It did not look like it would be hard to finish ripping up one of the panels and then to put it back once the book was in place. Strange. . . he had not thought that Juudai would have been the one to think of it first. Manjoume shrugged off the feeling, and nodded his agreement with Juudai's plan.
"We should go for that one," Manjoume noted, pointing to the corner opposite the corpse. Juudai's light swiveled to follow. They walked over to the edge of the panel in question, examining the damage. This was one of the few panels that had rippled, broken from the others but not cracked when the bomb went off and the elevator fell. Juudai kicked at the raised edge dubiously, as if not understanding. Manjoume continued. "We don't even have to pull it up this way; we can just push the book through the uplifted end and force it as far back as we can."
"Oh," Juudai held the vowel sound for a moment longer than normal, slight fluctuations telling Manjoume that the older boy was not being sarcastic. "Say, Manjoume?"
"–San da."
"Whatever. How do we get the book back out?"
Manjoume's head jerked to the side, and he looked at Juudai with a mixed sense of confusion and worry. Why would Juudai be concerned with getting the book back out? Amnael's book stole souls for sacrifice and housed the ancient secrets of alchemy and immortality; Manjoume was certain that it truly was the Emerald Tablet brought down from the heavens. Juudai kept his gaze focused on the floor panel, eyes narrowed in deep thought. They were both silent for a long time.
". . . We don't, Juudai. Not ever."