Who'd call at this time of night? Please tell me this isn't another trap.
Kaito looked at his cellphone. It was only Nonoha. Phew. It would be comforting to hear her voice.
But why would she be calling now?
"Nonoha." Kaito spoke into the phone.
"Kaito! You have to come to the school right now. There's an emergency?"
"What is it? Another challenge?"
"They've got another victim of their experimental rings."
"Shit. Who is it?"
"I'll explain when you get here, you have to hurry!" She hung up.
Okay…
Kaito was already hurrying, of course. He rushed to put his clothes on, and then he darted out the door and ran to school. Why was Nonoha there already and not me?
Kaito arrived at the school and saw a large square delineated on the ground.
Nonoha was on the other side. She was breathtakingly beautiful in the moonlight, her hair, which she wore down, blowing gently in the wind. Wait, why was her hair down, though? She almost never went out without her hair band. Something was off...
"Nonoha, what's going on?"
"I told you, Kaito. The Orpheus Order has another victim."
She held up her left hand.
An Orpheus ring.
Kaito was shocked, enraged. Of course they would go for her, I shouldn't be shocked, they've shown there aren't any depths to which they wouldn't stoop, and they know she's the one person I care about more than anybody—
"We're going to do a puzzle together, Kaito."
"Freecell!" Kaito shouted. "Show your despicable face! You've crossed the line!"
"If you want her back, you'll have to defeat her, Kaito." The voice came from above. Kaito looked up and saw Freecell and rest of the Order standing on the roof of the school.
"Get down here!"
"Oh, no. I think we'll watch from here. This is between you and Nonoha."
"Where is everybody else?"
"Don't worry. They're fine." Nonoha spoke again. "They have no idea this is going on. Like Freecell said, this puzzle is between you and me. I'll show you I'm not the helpless girl you think I am." Her voice sounded the same as always, but her words—This isn't Nonoha. It's the ring.
Isn't it?
Nonoha pulled a controller from her pocket. She pressed a button, and the square of ground fell away, revealing a lava pit underneath their feet.
The fuck? How did they get lava here?
Nonoha and Kaito now stood at opposite edges of a square. Cracks appeared, dividing the "playing field" into a 21 x 21 grid of cells. Some of the cells—about half—fell open like trap doors. A control platform rose in the center cell.
"Here's the deal, Kaito. Each turns lasts 15 seconds. At the end of each turn, the configuration is going to change. If you try to move at any other time, other than at the turn boundary, the cell will open up and you'll die. An announcer will announce the configurations in advance. It's a race to the center. Loser dies. Any questions?"
"Nonoha, you have to come to your senses—"
"No questions, then." She pressed another button.
A timer was projected onto the side of the school. It read 15 seconds and counted down. So this would let him know when the turn boundary was.
As Nonoha had claimed, a robotic voice began to speak.
"The goal square in the center will be safe in every configuration, regardless of the instructions."
"The next configuration will be a checkerboard, with the all corners safe."
"The next configuration will have every other north-south row safe, with the outer rows being safe."
"The next configuration will match the Ulam Spiral, with primes being safe squares. 2 is to the East."
It spoke quickly, so that it could finish all its statements before one turn had passed, but Kaito was able to take it in. So the speaker would be giving configurations a few in advance, which would allow him to plot a path. It was likely to get more complex as it went on.
The turn changed, and Kaito jumped diagonally.
He looked at Nonoha. She had jumped two squares forward. Of course. She can actually jump that far. She saw him looking at her, and broke into a maniacal grin.
The speaker gave another configuration, and Kaito took it in.
"Nonoha! You—you—" What? What do I say to her? How do I make her snap out of this? Nonoha was always so dependable, he didn't know how to deal with a rogue Nonoha…
"Kaito!" She yelled back in response. She didn't anything else; she was just teasing him, mocking him.
The game continued for a few turns. As expected, the descriptions got more convoluted, but they also got more sparse. This prevented both him and Nonoha from advancing very quickly, and Kaito's ability to plot paths seemed to even out against Nonoha's ability to jump farther.
After a few iterations, the announcer announced two configurations in one turn. Now it was four ahead instead of just three, which meant Kaito had more to remember, but he could plan better. But this was starting to push against limits for what he could remember. Without supernatural help, anyway.
Nonoha looked unperturbed.
If I don't figure something out, one of us is going to die. I can't let that happen. We need to reach the center platform at the same time.
Or he could convince her to take off the ring, although that hadn't worked with anybody else.
But what could he say, other than plead?
Appeal to emotions?
"Nonoha, I'm your best friend! We don't want to kill each other! Remember all the time we've spent together, think about it!"
"Oh, I remember it! All that time where you just show off your puzzle skills to me, while you know I can't do them at all, then you insult my baking, then go hang out with Rook? Who tried to kill you? Is that what I have to do to get your attention? Try to kill you? Then so be it!"
The ring had gotten to her.
They slowly crawled towards the center. Then the game through another wrench.
"The next configuration will be identical to the sixth configuration."
The sixth configuration?! Shit, which one was that? Was it the parabola shape? No, that might have been the fifth… What was after that?
The configuration changed and Kaito jumped.
"The next configuration will be a single game of life iteration applied to the twelfth configuration, where a safe square is 'live.'"
Kaito had no idea what the twelfth configuration was.
The next two were similar—variations on older configurations that Kaito couldn't remember.
The puzzle was playing to Nonoha's strengths. But it wasn't just that. From watching her, Kaito could see her getting more confident, making better moves. She was just getting better at planning ahead and making strong moves. The ring was making her better.
Or was he being too uncharitable to her? For all that she couldn't do puzzles, the girl always had an admirable amount of raw brainpower… she just lacked training.
The turn flipped, and the next configuration was the first one Kaito had no idea about. The platform beneath his feet began to open up and he jumped to an adjacent one that was closing up. He would be able to survive this way, but he wouldn't be able to plan. Nonoha would get the edge easily.
What had Jikuhawa said? The ring breaks off when its wearer loses the will to fight. But would it be a good idea for that to happen? What if Nonoha fell unconscious?
There was only one thing to do. He reached deep inside himself, and pulled out the latent power that had been inside him since he lost the ring. He felt his glow. The memories were clearer now. It wasn't that he had really lost the memories before, they were just buried deep, and by thinking through his path he could reconstruct which order the configurations had been.
The path was clear now.
He would reach Nonoha. He would try to get her to take off the ring. If she did, he would be there to catch her, and if she didn't, well, he would follow her to the center and they would reach it together, tying.
The center continued to be sparse, making it difficult to close in on the center. But it would only be a matter of time.
Still, it would be easy to predict what Nonoha would do, if she was just trying to optimize her own path forward, and Kaito could meet her there.
"Nonoha," Kaito said as he reached the square adjacent to her, a few turns later.
"You think just because you've gotten close to me means that you'll be able to tie me, don't you?"
"Nonoha. Face it, you'll never be as good as me." It felt awful to say, like he was trampling over their sacred friendship. "You're skating by on your physical skills. You'll never be able to do puzzles."
"You're so transparent. I know you're just trying to goad me into giving up. But it's not going to work, Kaito!"
The configuration switched again, and they both jumped. Each of them now one square closer.
"I'm never going to give up! I won't let them—the—" She momentarily seemed disoriented, and she blinked, and then it was gone. "I won't let you win, Kaito! I'm going to beat you at puzzles!"
Of course. Nonoha had a will of steel. That never would have worked. This was bad.
Even if they both got out of this, would they be able to get the ring off of Nonoha?
A question for later. For now, he had to deal with getting to the center with her.
Then the next announcement came.
"The next configuration will be the tile pattern on the roof of classroom 4703b. Same orientation, black tiles are safe."
What the fuck?
Kaito had no idea what the tile pattern of that classroom was. His powers—whatever you call them—had no idea, either. He had been in that classroom, but the ceiling pattern had never been stored in his brain. Not even his powers could magic the information out of nowhere.
"The next configuration will be the tile pattern on the ground at the center of the park downtown. Same orientation, black tiles are safe."
Shit.
The future path was falling apart in his mind's eye. Nonoha had a wild grin, a look of triumph on her face.
She was almost there. She would probably be there in less than four turns.
And Kaito didn't see a way.
"Well, well, it sure is funny how this turned out, isn't it?" Freecell was speaking now, still watching from the roof of the school. "We didn't consider this girl for a long time, we tried putting a ring on a dog of all things before we tried Nonoha, but in the end this useless girl ended up being your undoing, Kaito." Freecell laughed maniacally.
"HOW DARE YOU?" Kaito roared. The configuration flipped and both players jumped. The speaker began to give another description, again impossibly unknowable. "How dare you talk about Nonoha like that? She's the least useless person I know! She's always been there for me, for all of us! You're despicable for using her like this!"
Nonoha looked at Kaito again. She seemed to relax a bit, but then the configuration flipped again. Kaito jumped, no idea where he was going, while Nonoha moved with purpose.
She would be there on the next turn. There was no way Kaito could reach it.
"Nonoha, please! You have to come to your senses!" The puzzle wants to be solved, think, the puzzle wants to be solved…
But Kaito had nothing.
Nonoha jumped to the center.
She stood, staring down Kaito, triumphant, illuminated by the orange light of the molten lava below. She reached for a button the platform's controller.
"Nonoha, you can't let them win!"
"Oh no, I'm the one who has won, Kaito. For the first time of my life, I've beaten you at a puzzle." Another change, but Kaito's platform didn't move, and he jumped a square closer. Maybe he could get there... "I did it without relying on you or anybody to bail me out, I did it without relying—" Suddenly she flinched, and then look confused, and then collapsed to her knees. "I did i—no, I used the ring, I didn't, I didn't really, I—"
What was going on?
"I did let them win. I let the—Order win. I just—wanted—didn't want them to win—I wanted to solve puzzles so we could beat them, not—"
Come on, lose the will to fight, admit defeat, please…
Suddenly, the light came on in her eyes again and she stood up. "No! I'll never be defeated! You despicable fuckers can go to hell! And I don't need your fucking ring!"
And the ring shattered, and Nonoha fell again.
She collapsed all the way to the ground this time, clearly unconscious. Her head dangled off the edge of the center platform, but she was in no danger of falling off.
Kaito slowly improvised his way to the center over the next few turns. He pressed the button on the platform and the game came to an end.
