A.N.

I was very happy to see this fic get the response that it did. Good to know others out there share my love of Ib. ;)

Just as an FYI, I will need to tweak things in the story here and there. Fun gameplay doesn't always translate smoothly to a written story after all, and some puzzles may get solved differently because we are working with two trained adults rather than a little girl.

The two pros should have smacked into the floor, but instead they felt a freezing shock. It was like falling into ice water but without the wetness. Everything went black for a moment, and then they were standing on a set of stairs, holding each other and gasping in shock.

"Hizashi!"

"I'm fine! I'm okay. I'm confused as all hell, but I'm okay. Are you okay?"

"Yeah, pretty sure."

"Holy crap what was that? What is this place?"

Shouta took his first real look around. Everything was blue. The walls were a deep blue, like the water in the painting, while the steps were just a few shades lighter. There was enough light to see, but he couldn't see a source for it. He looked behind him and found only another wall, no sign of how to get out. Hizashi felt the wall with his hand, then rammed his shoulder into it.

"Yep, it's solid." He said in a tight voice, rubbing his shoulder.

"So the only way out is through." Shouta said looking down the stairs. Hizashi gave a grim nod, and the two started down.

It didn't take them long to reach the bottom. The first thing they saw were two paintings on the wall, one had brown rocks floating in a red background, the other had the same rocks over a blue background. They both stood a ways away from them, not trusting any painting to be just a painting anymore.

The stairs also ended in a hallway. There was no option to go forward, so they had to choose which way to turn.

"I think I see something on the walls over there." Hizashi said, pointing to their left. They walked down a little ways and, sure enough, there were the same blue letters on the wall, now barely visible against the dark background.

C M

O E O E

M C

That one word was repeated over and over again. So, it was a pretty good bet they were supposed to go this way.

They walked down the hall until they came to the end, where there was a door with a small table sitting in front of it. On the table there was a vase with two flowers, and a sign hanging just below it. The sign was entirely in English, so Hizashi bent down to read it.

"You and the rose are unified. Know the weight of your own life." Hizashi frowned. "We're unified? What's that supposed to mean? Does this...place, person, whatever it is, want us to take the flowers?"

"There is one for each of us." Shouta pointed out. The flowers were both roses, one black and one orange. Carefully, Shouta picked up the orange rose by the stem.

"Oh no you don't." Hizashi plucked the flower out of Shouta's hand. "The black rose is clearly meant for you, which means this one is mine."

Shouta rolled his eyes. "I was just getting a better look at them. Trying to figure out if there was anything weird about them." He picked up the black rose anyway though. It was a rather small rose, but it was in a state of full bloom. Hizashi examined his own rose, then shrugged.

"Looks like a typical flower to me. But it must have some significance if they are 'unified' with us...oh! Shouta, could you put this into my bun? I could do yours afterward."

"What?"

"It would be awkward to carry them everywhere, especially if we have to use our hands for something. But if we put them in our hair we won't have to worry about losing them."

That was a good point, especially since Shouta worked his capture weapon best with both hands. After a couple minutes of fiddling Shouta had gotten the orange rose to stick in Hizashi's bun and Hizashi had braided the stem of the black rose into Shouta's messy locks. Hizashi looked incredibly pleased with his work.

"Let's get this table out of the way." Shouta said, turning away so he could hide his slight blush.

They opened the blue door and walked in. There was a portrait of a woman on the wall in front of them; she had tan skin, her eyes were closed, and her gray-blue hair actually fell out of the picture and past the frame. They walked in, looking around for another clue. The first thing they noticed was another sign under the picture.

"When the rose wilts, so too will you wilt away." Hizashi read. "Okay, so roses are definitely important here...though I'm really not liking the implication of wilt away. Maybe we should put them back in the vase so they don't dry out?"

"There wasn't any water in that vase."

"Really?"

Shouta was about to reply, but then he felt his foot hit something. He looked down and saw a small blue key sitting in front of his shoe; it nearly blended in with the carpet. He bent down and scooped it up.

"Ah!"

"What?" Shouta instinctively grabbed at his capture weapon.

"The painting opened its eyes." Hizashi said faintly. Shouta looked at the woman, and saw that her eyes were open and looking to the side, and that her smile had gone from pleased to manic.

"Um...hello?"

The painting did not respond. They both hurried out and down the hall.

"Well that was pointlessly creepy." Hizashi grumbled.

"The creepy part maybe, but the room had a point." Shouta said, holding up the blue key. Hizashi raised an eyebrow.

"Clues leading to a key that we'll almost certainly need to use. This is like a psycho version of an 'Escape the Room' game. Only now it's 'Escape the Gallery'."

"Maybe this is all someone's version of a marketing campaign." Shouta suggested dryly. He smiled when the comment made Hizashi chuckle, but the sound was soon replaced by a sigh.

"And now the stairs are gone, because of course they are." He touched the wall anyway, to make sure it was solid and there was no chance of going back that way. Once he did that, there was only one thing they could do.

They continued down the blue hallway until they came to another door. It looked just like the other, except it didn't have roses sitting in front of it. Hizashi stepped forward to try the handle.

"Yep, it's locked. Would you like to do the honors Shouta?"

Shouta unlocked the door and they stepped through.

Well, now instead of everything being two shades of blue everything was two shades of green. The dark green went off in two different directions once again. They could either go to the right, or go straight forward. The right had colorful paintings of insects, while in front of them there was a short pillar with a plaque on it.

"Yeesh, I've heard of artists having 'blue periods', but not green ones." Hizashi chuckled at his own joke as he walked forward to read the plaque. When he got done he frowned. "'Beware the edges'. What's that supposed to mean? Beware of the hallway edges? The painting edges? Door edges?"

"Considering how things have been going, let's go with 'all of the above'."

The pillar itself was right in the center of the forward hallway, meaning to go that way they'd have to get close to the hallway edges as they passed it, so they decided to try going right first. They made sure to stay in the middle of the hallway, and eventually reached a green door. They went through carefully, and found themselves in a room with a deep, black hole in the middle of it, and a door visible on the other side.

The hole may have been a problem for most other people. However, since both Hizashi and Shouta had been through the intense Plus Ultra training that was UA, they were able to take a running start and jump over the pit without any trouble. The next room was a dead end, it's most notable feature being a statue that stood at the end of it. It was one they recognized from the original gallery; it was like a mannequin that had no head, pitch black skin, and was wearing a red dress.

"Aha!" Hizashi cried out. He pointed to a spot of the floor near the statue's feet. Just visible against the carpet was a light green key. "Just like in the other area." He strode forward and picked it up. A soft thump made him look up.

"Was that statue always that close?" Hizashi asked.

Shouta had no time to answer before a feral his rang out and the statue was sprinting at them. Hizashi shrieked, and almost tripped over his own feet in his haste to turn around. Shouta grabbed his arm and pulled him along. They quickly ran to the next room, with the statue hot on their heels. The two pro-heroes didn't hesitate to jump across the hole, and the statue followed them. But, either because it didn't have a head or was too heavy to jump, it ran right into the hole. It clattered loudly as it fell, and they heard it shatter after several seconds.

"I hope that thing wasn't really alive. That would be a bad way to go." Shouta commented. Hizashi nodded mutely, and Shouta looked at him.

"You alright?"

"Oh sure, I deal with statues coming to life and chasing me all the time." Hizashi said with a dry chuckle. "Seriously though, I'm okay, just coming down from the shock. I know we're supposed to be ready for anything as pros, but some things still catch you off guard, you know?"

"Fair enough." Shouta said with a nod. "At least we know to be on the look out for that now."

They made their way back down the hall to the intersection with the pillar and plaque. They carefully walked past it, eyeing the nearby wall, but nothing happened. Maybe the warning about edges was for later on.

Just as they were thinking that, they stepped past the pillar and into the hallway proper. A black hand shot out of the wall with a rattling gasp. They both jerked away, but not quickly enough. The skeletal fingers grazed Shouta's arm and he let out a cry of pain.

"Shouta! Are you okay? Let me see it!"

Shouta allowed Hizashi to pull up his sleeve and look at his arm. The sleeve itself hadn't been damaged, but there was a thin, red welt running down the length of his forearm.

"Doesn't look like it broke the skin. Does it still hurt?"

"Not much."

They stood in the middle of the hallway now. Apparently the black appendage could only reach so far. It certainly wasn't a human arm; it's fingers were too long and crooked, and it moved like it didn't have an elbow.

"Right, so, stick to the center for this hallway." Hizashi said. As they stepped away, Shouta noticed that there was a black rose petal laying on the floor beneath the hand. He patted the side of his head, making sure that his rose was still secure.

Four more hands tried to grab them as they walked to the end of the hallway, and each time they had to resist the urge to dodge. Doing that could have taken them too close to the other wall, and into the line of fire. Finally they reached the end where, surprise, surprise, there was a green door that needed to be unlocked.

Taking a deep breath, they unlocked it and went through.

A.N.

In case anyone was wondering, I chose the rose colors for Aizawa and Present Mic based off both their hero outfits and the meaning behind the roses.

Orange roses are associated with enthusiasm and energy, and if there's anything that Mic has in abundance it's enthusiasm and energy. I also thought orange kinda matched the glasses he wears in his hero outfit.

For Aizawa I had a hard time deciding between peach and black. Peach symbolizes modesty, genuineness, and sincerity. Aizawa's desire to stay out of the limelight as a hero speaks of modesty, and while he's not above lying to his students he is very genuine in his care for them and sincere in his defense of them. And a light color like that would be a good contrast to his usual look. But in the end I decided on the black rose. First of all because black would so obviously be his color based on his outfit. Second because of the meaning behind it. Black roses are often associated with death or mourning, but they can also stand for 'the beginning of new things and major change. Black roses inspire confidence by signaling the birth of a new era'. This way the rose symbolizes his eventual role in the canon story, him being the home room teacher of a new class of future heroes that will change the world. Plus it can also foreshadow all the trouble that role brings him.

fiftyflowers com blog/rose-color-meanings/