Disclaimer: Forget it. You'll just have to suffer without one.
Chapter 62: The Door"Hey, guys!" Yells Touya from up front.
"Yeah?"
"We've come to a door! Only…it's just…weird…"
Kurama and the rest all run up to his position. There is indeed a huge door, but there is a strange circular blue thing blocking our progress. It flashes green and gold menacingly every now and then, and looks like the Spirit Portal Koenma opened for Hiei and I. About 3 inches width of plushy door is underneath it. Strange…why does Sensu need a fluffy door?
"Kurama, what is it?" I shout.
"Some kind of demon guard method called a Dimension Hole. Sensu obviously does not want to fight anyone who has surpassed his two strongest fighters. The coward. This must be why the demon Benuir failed."
"Benuir?"
"A demon under Koenma's control, sent to test Sensu's strength. He must have launched himself into the circle after defeating the two previous guards before the ones that you guys fought."
"So, this swirly thingy could really kill you?"
"No. It's a dimension warp. It casts you randomly into a different dimension."
"That must be uncomfortable."
Everyone swings around to glare at the owner of this comment. "Well, it's true!" Jin protests.
"ANYWAY," says Kurama in a final sort of voice, "the main problem is to figure out how to get around it."
"Well, there is that gap at the bottom. If we were tiny…"
At once, everyone stares raptly at Botan and I.
"What?" Asks Botan.
I just groan. I hate shrinking.
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"So then, tell me this twisted stupid plan again?" Says Botan.
Touya rolls his eyes. "You and Katrina are going to sneak under the Dimensional Hole thing and see if there is a way to shut it off from the back. Then we will follow."
"All right. But why is it Katrina and I and not you guys again? I for one am through with shrinking."
"I second the motion," I say.
"Well, you're the ones that have more experience."
"That's
not fair! You could learn it in three seconds, damn it!"
"I know, Botan," I hiss, "But let's just go, this
is the perfect chance to get them out of our hair."
She sucks in her breath angrily, but eats a crystal just as I do, and we shrink down to ankle height. It's no more comfortable than it was before. I think my spleen just shrunk out existence entirely. I rub my stomach.
Without once looking back, we both go under the Dimensional Hole and get a good look at it from the back. Even on the other side, the hole still makes a nasty whirring noise. I shrink away from it and touch the door, which is pretty fluffy and plush. And indeed, towering above our heads, is a huge yellow switch right in the door fabric. I can see it bathed in the blue light of the hole, and see that the switch is probably all that's keeping the Dimensional Hole in check. But there's no way I can grow upward, because then I would touch the Hole and I would travel to Zero Space, yet I can't get to the switch any other way. Botan and I start to discuss different means of getting to the switch, each idea wilder than the last. Botan even suggested that we grow wings.
"Botan, can't you just use your paddle to fly up and hit it?"
"NO! Rhiharl broke it."
"He did…?"
"Yeah, he fell on it! You know when he slumped to the floor? See? This is what's left!" She pulls out a fragment of wood.
"Oh yeah, I guess I didn't think about where the paddle went. I just assumed you had it."
She snorts. "I wish. Maybe we could grab onto the fabric?"
I shriek. "I GOT IT! I DID THIS EXACT SAME THING WHEN I FIRST SHRUNK!"
Botan looks at me in abject horror. "What are you talking---"
"Ask me later." I reach into my pocket and pull out my remaining 3 medicine bottle shards. "I used these to climb up a cloth wall back in the day, so let's go."
"Katrina, we have 3 shards."
"Yeah, let's go!"
"No, I think you misunderstand. We have 3 shards."
"Oh yeah, that would be a problem…"
"Guys," someone says from outside. "We're WAITING."
"SHUT UP!" I scream. "Anyway, how could we use these best?"
She looks back at me. "We could just use our arms to pull the rest of our bodies up. It shouldn't be hard, cuz we're both pretty thin…"
"But then one of us would get only one shard, and that wouldn't work."
In a pissed off way, she brandishes her piece of oar. "Ah…"
I really don't give Botan enough credit sometimes. Who else would have thought of using that as a shard?
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"Are you there yet, girls?"
"IN A SECOND!" Botan and I shout in unison. Pulling ourselves up has proven quite simple, but the trick is hitting the switch. We have to let go of our fragments, and then jump up and hit it. Since Botan is longer than me, we decided she'd do the honors.
"Go, Botan, go! You're almost there…"
Her fingers are outstretched, and she's just shy of touching it.
Little farther…
Her fingers a micrometer away, Botan's weaker wood shard that she was balancing on snapped. Botan is going down. We have a woman overboard. I don't have the chance to grab her wrist before she falls down, down, down.
I watch in stunned horror.
The sight of her blue hair wreathing her panicked face…
Then, I feel a huge rip on my robe, and most of the frayed material comes completely off, barely obscuring my body. Thank God I still have on this damn school uniform. "Botan!" I'm so used to her pseudo-deaths that I'm barely shaken. "Hurry up and climb, you're dragging me down."
"Forget it," she says, panting raggedly. "You touch the switch. If I move, down goes the robe, down goes me."
"It's not a rope, it's them hem of my robe!" But I can see her point. I climb up a little further. My hands are really starting to hurt. My arms will be swollen for days.
Almost there…
My fingers quiver.
Little farther…
Beep. I touched it.
Creeeeeeeeeeeaaaaaak.
The door really is opening.
I hear Botan's little gasp, and my cloak rips a little more as the door swings inwards. I hiss at her to shut up and wait for something to come out.
Nothing does.
I breathe normally again, and hiss to Botan, "That's not the switch to turn off the dimension hole. It was to open the door."
I feel her nod.
I look down. There's no way to get off.
So, I grit my teeth and force my fingers to let go of the shards. I hear her scream and she lets go of my already ripping cloak, and we both plummet to the floor miles below.
I hit hard, but my martial arts training taught me how to deal out my weight so that I don't hit very painfully. Botan on the other hand, seems to think that I may be used as a cushion.
SLAM.
Just picture me with the halo of birds around my head, Botan spread-eagled on top of me.
"That's payback for the three times you slapped me as a panther."
"Damn it, Botan, you know you did that by accident."
"No, I didn't."
"Then pay the consequences."
"AHHHHHH! OW! NONONONONONONONONONONONONONONONONOOOOOOO!"
"Guys, what is going on down there?"
A green-eyed redhead peeps his airhead underneath. "You should've…whoa. How'd you get the door to open?"
I shrug. "Picked a button. Pressed it. Voila."
Botan adds, "But the Dimension hole can't be stopped." When Kurama looks confused, she exasperatedly pops out. "Here, I'll show you. There's no switch—"
No sooner has she stepped out than the Dimension Hole expands, lowering the gap to a sliver and eventually making it disappear.
I watch in shock. No one seems to notice until seconds later. I hear frantic shouting on the outside.
I get as close to the Dimension Hole as I can without touching it, and shout, "Guys, can you hear me?"
The yelling stops. My brother says, "Yes."
"Listen, this was a trap. Sensu wanted to get me alone so he could trap me in here. I have to go alone. We don't know how to crack a Dimension Hole or if it's even possible and we don't have time to try. Let me spy on him."
"Ridiculous. It's too dangerous."
He starts to say more but is cut off from someone outside, and the deeper voice suggests Hiei. After a while, Kurama speaks again, in an unmistakable tone of great annoyance.
"We'll be working on this thing. You stay right there, do you hear me? Don't move. This will only take us a little bit."
"Right. I will." I say, with every intention of not listening. It could take them hours. I need to at least find Sensu. Stay in hiding. Maybe I can find a weak spot while I watch him. Then I can wait for the others to help me fight him.
I swing around, my heart thudding painfully and walk to the door. It swings open even farther invitingly. I hold my breath and walk through.
The first thing I notice is the huge heighten in temperature and it grows very dark again. The walls are slimy. Instead of freezing, I start to sweat almost instantly, and am soon gasping for breath. This place is like a sauna that got caught on fire. Or how most guys describe Jessica Simpson. Is Sensu a fire demon? Yeah, probably is, and he must be strong. No ordinary fire demon could take this for very long. I'm part demon and already sweating it.
Though it is very dark, I am seeing a light at the end of this tunnel. That is not figurative; I really do see something bright in the distance. That's probably where Sensu is. I can spy on him from there.
I trudge toward it, dreading inevitable heat stroke, when suddenly a wave of cold hard power hits me. Though it cools me off, it chills me to the bone. Such energy…what am I fighting?
Rejuvenated, I pick up my pace, and eat a random crystal to grow tall again. As soon as I am normal size, or so I think, I sneak towards the light, growing closer every time.
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A/N Okay then, you can all read the next battle chapter now! Go on! Scat! But I think I should have just molded this and the other chapter together. Oh well, too late now.