Gamemaster's Fall

Kamiko

"Before we proceed," Kurama interrupted Machiko's glare, "we must go over what we know of our enemy. We know there were seven of them to begin with. Yusuke took out Doctor."

Hiei added, "And I did away with Sniper."

I wondered how literal that was.

"Yes…" Kurama went on. "Seven minus two leaves five."

Botan gestured at Seaman. "And Matari's with us now, so that makes four."

"We know that they'll head back to Demon's Door Cave. That's where we'll go to intercept them and retrieve Kuwabara."

When Seaman told us about how Gourmet's power worked, Botan wasn't the only one to flinch – my colors flashed in a kaleidoscope of negative emotions.

I didn't like where this was going, at all. Especially not the two-days-until-Hell part.

Machiko was still sitting on the floor where she'd fallen. She was probably waiting until she could get her tail back. I was fine leaving my wings alone – technically I'd come down to the others earlier with still-tattered wings, because they'd been whole enough for my backwinging to work. That had been on par with a controlled fall.

The wind picked up.

"There's that familiar wind again," Hiei suddenly said, sounding nostalgic. "I think two days would be overly optimistic."

Thank you, Hiei, that makes me feel so much better.

Yusuke, Kurama, Hiei and I were going to go into the cave first to scout it out. Then Seaman volunteered to go and lead the way.

Hiei almost made me laugh. "And why…the hell should we trust you?"

After a hesitation, Seaman answered him. "Because I'm more…indebted to Mister Kuwabara than anybody."

Yusuke said the kid could come along. Then…

"Yusuke. Do you remember the last time you rushed into something without thinking?" Genkai stated.

"Which time was that?"

I face-palmed, causing a handprint-shape on my face to change color to a shade closer related to orange.

Well, we turned to go. Then I heard a single call. "Kamiko!"

I paused, glancing over my shoulder at Genkai. "Hm?"

"Keep hidden. From what I've observed from you, you don't actually know how to fight."

I nodded. "That was already part of the plan, but if this plan works we'll need to schedule self-defense lessons with you at the least."

We went off. "Guys," I looked at them. "If necessary, I think I can manage to hide all of you behind my wings, should we need to avoid notice." Actually, I'm pretty sure I could only manage to hide two…but I was at least going to offer…

"Thanks," Yusuke shrugged, "but I'm not sure that'll be necessary."

When we got to the cave…Kurama almost set me giggling. "So this is the entrance to Hell. Somehow it's drearier than I expected." Then he looked at Seaman. "Matari, approximately how long will it take to get to Itsuki?"

"If we proceed quickly, but with caution, it should take us two hours to get there."

Yusuke all but threw a fit. "What?!"

"That is…" Seaman looked worried, "if we don't encounter any problems along the way."

After a minute of silence, Yusuke demanded, "Well, what are we waiting for?"

It was rhetorical, but Hiei answered it. "You to stop talking."

"Then let's go – now!" That last word of Yusuke's was said through gritted teeth. I faded out, and we went in. Our shadows were long on the ground, so I dropped to all fours and creeped that way instead – the fewer tall-people shadows were seen, the better.

When we ran out of outside light, I stood up again, but got close to the wall.

Then we came to a fork in the tunnel. Yusuke asked which way, and Seaman answered, "To the right."

I was on the left wall. I slipped to the other side so that I'd stay with them. Kurama dropped a seed, and it grew quickly into a pretty glowing flower that he called a lamp-weed so that we could find our way out again.

It did crazy things to my shadows.

Then we went further in. After a few paces in darkness, Kurama looked in my direction. He caught me staring. "Are you all right, Kamiko?"

"I'm…I'm fine."

"You…might want to keep your eyes mostly shut while we're in here. Your eyes…glow, a little, in the dark."

My eyes got bigger. "They do? I didn't know that. It'd probably be brighter if I was in demon form." Then I let my eyes fall mostly shut and kept walking.

I stayed with them carefully as we went through more tunnels and Kurama dropped more seeds. Then Seaman suddenly stopped us when we were nearing the halfway mark. A door was ahead of us that didn't belong!

Then the door started talking like a video game! Something about a goblin king, or seven heroes or something…

"That's peculiar," was Kurama's only comment.

But the voice triggered Yusuke's memory as to where he'd seen the door before – a special video game called Goblin City.

I let my color darken and lighten strategically about edges of my body like an outline. "This is probably somebody's territory, which means it doesn't matter overmuch if I'm camouflaged or not, they'll know I'm here."

Then the twerp declared that we needed seven people to even enter!

I rolled my eyes. But…

Kurama looked at my glistening form. "If I'm reading your color correctly in this light, something's troubling you. What is it?"

I was quiet for a minute. Then I finally sighed. "I…don't play video games…and I'm not a fighter."

We went back to get another couple of people. Once we left the cave, my color change was more noticeable: an uneasy pale version of the tunnel's badly-lit walls.

When we went back in, we brought Genkai and Kaito with us.

I closed my eyes for a second while the automated message played again. "The only way I can do any good is if I get a flying game. You know, one of those things where the entire point is to avoid obstacles and hit your head on stars?"

Yusuke glanced at me. "I thought you didn't play video games."

Kurama looked at me as well. "And I thought you'd only truly flown once in your life."

"I didn't say I didn't know about different kinds of video games; and I also definitely said that'd be where I'd do any good."

We went in…to a large near-empty room, where the only occupant was a kid in an odd costume.

"I may be small, but my game talent is huge!"

Yusuke's probably the only person in this entire room who's played the game before. Sheesh.

Oh, Kurama's played it, and so has Seaman, and so had Kaito…and Genkai! That last one surprised me along with everyone else.

As for ability…Yusuke usually got stuck in the middle, Genkai had made it to the end about twice, Kaito's done well, and I quote, "seventy-six percent of the time," and Kurama…had about the same skill level.

It was decided that Genkai, Seaman – I had a hard time thinking of him by his actual name – and Yusuke would take on the first three challenges, while Kaito and Kurama would hang back and wait.

I sat down on the floor against the wall, vanishing completely from sight as the spinner started. "I'll wait here."

"Sports – Tennis – Level 7!"

Seaman volunteered!

Gamemaster pulled a bad joke greeting Seaman, Seaman shook hands with his demon opponent, and the tennis match started.

It was like watching TV – and Seaman was one of the stars!

When Seaman finally won, he delivered a line to the little kid. Somehow, I figured Gamemaster would blow it off.

The spinner was started again.

"A classic battleship-fighter game," Genkai sounded so pleased with herself. "I could beat these games with one hand stuck in a vise!"

Well, I thought as Genkai stepped forwards and took her place at the game controls, let's see how good she is.

And suddenly Genkai was put in a helicopter to play the game! My long hair whipped backwards, and I suddenly felt an extra set of eyelids close – and yet I could still see!

I've got a third eyelid like birds do! How come I've never noticed this? …Because I've never flown faster than a person could walk before, and when I'd gone into that dive with tattered wings, my eyes were narrowed in concentration, so the third eyelid couldn't close.

Well, at least this means I don't have to blink…I'm watching this with my eyes closed! I should take up gaming myself, I'll probably be unbeatable thanks to this little trick!

And it was a good thing I didn't have to blink – Genkai was amazing at this game!

"Geez, Grandma…you hiding some skills under that witch-hair?" Yusuke sounded impressed.

"I had to have something to do on rainy days!" was her only retort.

When she won the game, the Gamemaster had one remark that was part impressed, part insulting. "Hey, you're pretty good for an old nobody!"

The spinner started up again after Yusuke insulted the twerp back – "Take your dunce horns and go sit on a time-out!"

"Action-battle," I heard the first call and I figured Yusuke would take this one. "King of the Mountain, Level 1!"

Sure enough, Yusuke went up. …Actually, considering the other two who were to fight the weaker demons had already gone, maybe it was a good thing Yusuke's challenge was a fighting game.

Yusuke won…eventually. He didn't do as good as we'd hoped, but at least he won.

As he walked away from the controls, he had one remark. "Please…I've had crazier fights in real life!"

I cocked my head. "Maybe you should teach Machiko!" Maybe Machiko should have come along – she's probably snuck out of the house to play video games with her allowance more often than I've run to the broom closet to hide a color-explosion!

That's an exaggeration, but probably accurate enough. What's the game? Demon City? Yeah, I've played that. And yeah, I knew about the third-eyelid thing, I use it when I'm running...and yes, when I'm gaming. Got a couple of high scores thanks to it.

Then Gamemaster ditched his robe to play the game with us himself. Kaito's only quip was that it would have been more authentic if he'd kept the robe on.

Kurama nailed it. "The other three rounds were necessary to follow the game's script…but this is the part of the game he's looking forward to."

Then Kurama told Yusuke that he'd need to start working on a Plan B, in case he and Kaito failed to beat the Demon King! I stood up and tapped Kurama's shoulder, still camouflaged. "Kurama? If nothing else, Machiko's played; she can probably channel her spirit through me and run one final round. She didn't tell me how good she was, though, so…"

"I understand."

I just stood there off Kurama's shoulder as the spinner started again.

The spinner turned up the Master Quiz game, and the kid started complaining about it being his least favorite.

Kaito took the kid on. I was worried, and it was causing my color to start graying. (In case people are starting to wonder why I keep mentioning gray as a worried color, when earlier I'd said gray was exhaustion, it mostly depends on the rest of the colors; if it's a light gray, it means worry. Medium gray is exhaustion.)

"He just said this was his least favorite game," Kurama remarked. "Yet he still seems happy and at ease."

The twerp…apparently didn't use his power much, according to Seaman; Sensui hadn't wanted him to.

Kaito did well at first…because the kid stepped back and let him answer a few questions without participating. But suddenly he was whipping Kaito at the game - completely! Hiei was going to try to unplug the game, but he was reminded of what happens when one acts outside the rules of a territory. He still tried slashing the screen, but it kept on working.

Then Kaito lost. That was when my color went white.

After an odd remark from Kurama, though, Yusuke got me to giggle and my color to return to normal. "You know, Kurama, I'm going to start charging you money for being vague."

The kid wasn't going to kill us – not if we opted to keep playing! This was a stall, not necessarily a kill-shot!

Hiei had one remark as he walked over to the wall and sat down. "I know as much about games as I do about hugs and puppies, and care for them even less. Wake me for the end of the world."

I glanced at Kurama again as the spinner started yet again. "Kur…a…ma…"

"Yes, Kamiko?"

"You're…planning…something."

"Calling it a plan would be an exaggeration, but yes."

The spinner stopped. "Puzzle, 3-7, Level G. Which one of you will play? There's three left…and one of you's actually sleeping! Not that I couldn't beat you at 3-7 in my sleep!"

"I'll do what's best," Kurama said, before starting forward.

"Kurama, hang on!" I caught his wrist and he looked back.

For a moment, we just stood there. My color had gone from normal to something just a shade darker than what I'd labeled "flesh tone." "Um…"

"Yes, Kamiko? I still have to play, you know."

"I know, um…" Finally, I made up my mind. I gave him a quick kiss on the cheek. "Good luck." Then I ran to the wall and sat down next to Hiei, my color very definitely turning my "shy" hue of pink.

Gamemaster had one response to that. "Bleh…girls!"

I listened as Kurama asked just the right questions to learn that the kid knew nothing of what was going on, and then hit the kid with the knowledge that he'd die if he lost here.

Well…Gamemaster needed to know that eventually…still…Kurama, you're fully capable of being ruthless. And yet…I wouldn't take back that kiss; I still loved him.

I watched as Gamemaster's board filled up slowly and he kept missing moves. If he somehow comes out on the other side of this mess alive, I hope his memory gets erased – no kid should have to live with the knowledge that they could die until they're at least sixteen!

Kurama won. More appropriate to say…Gamemaster lost.

The whole place went bang, leaving us back in the cave complex again.

Kaito and Genkai went back out, taking Gamemaster's body with them, and we five resumed our trek. I kept casting glances at Kurama. His face was hard…angry.

He hadn't enjoyed doing that, not in the slightest.

We went into the final cavern. By this point, I'd abandoned camouflage in favor of white; white as pure-driven snow.

The stark-white of complete and utter terror.