Chapter 23: Challenge of the Heart Part 1
Characters (in order of first appearance):
Anko Mitarashi / Sugo Probabilità
Orochimaru / Typhonragazzo
"It's a name!" Rosa exclaimed, looking at the words underneath the table. "Even though the words are cleverly scattered, I think I can make it out."
"Well say it already!" Gelato said, noticing that Russare was starting to get the chaos under control.
"Fine, Mr. Impatient!" Rosa knocked Gelato to the floor and recited the name. "Su-go… Pro-ba-bi-li-tà. Sugo Probabilità."
Suddenly, the table exploded in a cloud of smoke, getting everyone's attention, including Russare. Nobody moved, not even Squad 7, as they were too stunned to move. Then the cloud parted, revealing a tall woman with spiky black hair and brown eyes, wearing a large brown raincoat over a small black dress that was cut low enough to expose her chest, followed by black nylon tights and heels. She stared at everyone in the room, and then down at the three kids crouched at her feet.
"Are you supposed to be there?" she asked in a harsh tone.
Gelato and the other two immediately backed away, as Russare stepped forward to stand next to her.
"Congratulations, Soldiers! You found the one who sent the letter," he said, regarding Squad 7. Then he addressed the others, "The rest of you also passed, even if you didn't decipher the code within the letter, because you were able to use Alchemy and your other skills to gather information without getting caught! But as these three demonstrated, sometimes you have to take risks in order to get out of a desperate situation."
"Thank you, Russare, I'll take charge from here," the woman said rudely. But the man just nodded and left the room. Meanwhile, the woman stepped back and said, "In case you didn't hear the pink-haired girl call my name during the commotion, I'm Sugo Probabilità, the Warden for the second challenge, which is the Challenge of the Heart, and it will take place in the Dead Man's Sewers (Forest of Death) that lie underneath these city streets. This challenge will not only test your courage, but also your ability to survive in hostile environments."
"And just what are these so-called 'Dead Man's Sewers'?" Gelato asked mockingly.
In a flash, Sugo came up behind Gelato and took out a knife. Everybody backed away as Gelato grasped the side of his cheek, and saw blood on his hand. He looked up at Sugo, and saw her licking the blood off her knife like it was the most delicious thing she had ever tasted. But she noticed his look, and grabbed him by the collar of his dress shirt, speaking to him loud enough so everyone could hear her.
"You didn't see that coming, did you? If you were my enemy, you would be dead right now. That's what the Dead Man's Sewers are: a dim-lit place filled with disease-ridden rats, flesh-eating crocodiles, and other mobsters just waiting in the shadows to sneak up on some poor b****rd wandering around down there. So the next time you underestimate something, be sure to think twice about it!"
"Y-Yes, ma'am," Gelato said, and held his breath as Sugo let go of him.
"Now that you've all heard that, you have two choices: those in favor of continuing the games, follow me, but those who value their lives more, stay here."
Nobody wanted to stay, and followed Sugo as she led them down the stairs and out of the apartment. She then took them down to the end of the neighborhood and opened a manhole in the middle of the street. Then spread her jacket out, revealing it to contain dozens of Roman-style scrolls tucked into small pockets inside. She ordered one member from each Squad to step forward and take one of the scrolls from her coat, threatening to break an arm if any of them tried to take two away. No one disobeyed her, but as one member from a Squad was about to open the scroll, she threw a knife at his hand, impaling it to the scroll.
While the man cried out in pain, Sugo explained, "Along with the scroll, which is part of a set of two, I have also given you a map of the sewers. The map is merely to help you navigate through the sewers to your destination marked on the map. You have three days to get there, but before you do, you must have the complete set of scrolls with you. If there is a triangle facing down on your scroll, that is a Land Scroll, while an upward triangle means it's an Air Scroll. You can't have one without the other, and you must never open either one of them before you reach the destination. Understand?"
"Yes, ma'am!" Everyone said.
"Good, then enter at the risk of your lives."
Then Sugo stepped aside, allowing everyone to climb down the manhole, and sealed it shut when the last person went below the street line. It was then that an electrical surge came from the bars on the ladder, which zapped the person who was still on it, causing him to fall into the murky water running next to the walkway, where everyone stood. Apart from a few electric lamps placed every few feet, the sewers were mostly dark and smelly. But as the other person struggled against the current, he attracted a few crocodiles, and was being eaten alive as everybody ran either to the left or right of the tunnel they were in, or in Squad 7's case through a small pipe where water was flowing down into the main pipe.
"Okay, genius, what's your plan now?" Tony asked as he and the others used the sides of the pipe to lift themselves above the water.
"Well, if my theory is correct, this will lead up to a bigger tunnel, therefore allowing us to get ahead of someone who might be out to get us," Gelato replied, looking ahead in the dark tunnel.
"What makes you think that? What do we have that they don't?" Rosa wondered.
"The scroll, dummy!" Tony said. "Miss Sugo said we need to have both kinds of scrolls before we get out of here, and since she only allowed each Squad to have one, this leaves them with one choice: to take the other from another Squad, even if it means killing them."
"But that is just horrible! Whoever designed these Gladiator Games really had some screws loose!"
Despite their cramping legs and the horrible smell, they soon came to the end of the pipe, but to discover that it was blocked by something. Gelato, who was in the lead, came up to the thing and kicked it away while holding himself up, but he quickly let go and fell into the water on the other side of the pipe. To Rosa's horror, the thing that blocked them was a man's skeleton, causing her to scream as it passed beneath her. While Gelato swam against the current, Tony managed to crawl out of the pipe and step into the water, which was three-feet deep.
"Gelato, you realize you could just stand up?" Tony asked loudly since his ears were still ringing from Rosa's scream.
So Gelato got up, and they both helped Rosa out. It was then that they noticed a few crocs standing a few feet from them down the main pipe, and quickly hopped onto the walkway. After running far enough, they stopped and rested beneath a lamp.
"Can I carry the scroll for a bit?" Gelato asked, holding out his hand.
"Sure," Tony said, but just as he was about to reach for it, he noticed the scar that was left on Gelato's cheek when Sugo cut him was gone, and drew his gun out. "You should have a scar on your left cheek, Gelato. Did it magically heal itself, or are you an imposter?"
Gelato held his hands up, followed by a flash of light, revealing him to be a man with short blond hair with a chin beard, wearing a gray business suit. Then he lifted his foot up for a kick, but Tony dodged it and punched the man on the side of his face, which caused him to fall into the water. A growl was heard, and then they saw the man crawling away from a large man-sized crocodile. When they were gone, Tony and Rosa ran back to the part where the water was running into the small pipe, but Gelato was nowhere to be seen.
"If he's not here, then where could he be?" Rosa asked, and then she looked down the small pipe and groaned. "Don't tell me the water carried him all the way back the way we came?"
"He did," Tony said, picking up a wet, crumbled piece of paper as it floated to the surface. "I remember giving him the map before we went down, now it's useless."
"Forget about the map, we have to save Gelato!"
"But if we go back down this pipe, we might end up falling into the croc-infested water too. There's got to be another way down there, if only the map wasn't damaged."
As they made their way down the walkway, Gelato was busy swimming away from the crocs that were now interested in another meal after finishing the previous guy. Gelato saw chunks of the guy floating down as he swam to the walkway beneath the small pipe. He managed to get up onto it, but the crocs were still swimming toward him, forcing him to jump into the pipe and crawl up it with the water being sprayed in his face. When he reached the other end and jumped onto the walkway of that main pipe, he saw two people running off in the distance, and ran after them. Though he couldn't see them, Gelato heard their footsteps, and then he saw a dark shadow in the shape of a giant snake rise out of the water next to him and swallow him whole. Quickly, he summoned all the Homunculi he could and they caused the snake's stomach to swell in size. But as he summoned more, the sides of the snake burst, and it exploded. The sound of dying hisses and guts being splattered on the walls echoed down the pipe, causing Tony and Rosa to look back.
"What was that?" Rosa asked, and then she heard Gelato crying out in victory. "It's Gelato! He survived!"
As they ran back down to meet him, they were intercepted by a tall figure who came out from the shadows, and blocked them. In the lamp's light, he wore a light-tan coat with the sleeves buttoned up to his elbows with a black turtleneck shirt underneath with matching black slacks and shoes. His hands were pale and his face was covered by a green gas mask, which only made him more intimidating to Tony and Rosa, who were frozen still by his presence alone.
"Give me your scroll," the man said, his voice was cold and throaty. He extended his hand towards Gelato, who was still standing in the main pipe alone, as he had already dissolved the Homunculi. Tony and Rosa watched in horror as two large pythons slithered out of the man's sleeves and wrapped themselves tightly around Gelato's waist, suffocating him. "Or the boy dies."
Gelato tried to struggle, but the grip of the pythons was stronger, and they even started to wrap around his hands. Then, he got really angry, and felt that cold presence again, as it enveloped him once more. He glared at the snakes, and they immediately detached themselves from him and retreated back into the man's sleeves. However, the man didn't seem surprised, and jumped down into the pipe, standing right in front of Gelato, who took out his gun and pointed it at the man.
"Alright, you creep! Show your face!" Gelato demanded.
"My face? As you wish," the man then proceeded to remove his mask, lifting it off with both hands, and tossed it aside. Gelato's eyes widened, but he still held his gun firmly, as it turned out the man had long black hair that went down to his waist, and a dead-white face with purple eye-shadow around gold snake-like eyes.
The man chuckled. "Most people become frozen when they see my face, but you are the second person I've met who hasn't flinched, keeper of the Nine-Headed Hydra."
"How did you know about that?" Gelato asked and noticed that his hands were shaking.
"What is he talking about?" Rosa said, standing next to Tony, who was stiff with fear.
"It has nothing to do with you, Rosa," Gelato replied, and then he noticed Tony. "Hey, Tony, what happened to the guy who wasn't afraid to put himself in harm's way for the sake of his comrades? Was that genuine courage, or just a fluke?"
Then before he could react, the man's hand was encircled by a gold six-pointed star as he proceeded to press it into Gelato's chest, which sent him flying backwards into the side of the pipe, and knocked him unconscious. Tony and Rosa were shocked and confused just as the man leaped out of the water and stood on the walkway just across from them.
"The boy has an interesting point." Then the man took a scroll out of his inside coat pocket, which bore an upward triangle on the cover. "If you truly are brave, try and take this from me."
This snapped something in Tony, and made him leap into the air towards the man, while making hand-signs for the Prometheus Fire spell. But by the time he breathed the fire out of his mouth, the man had leaped to the side. When Tony landed, he activated the Specchio Occhi eyes as the man suddenly vanished and appeared on the other side. He was about to grab Rosa, but Tony prevented him by shooting between the man and Rosa, forcing both of them to back away, which allowed Tony to jump between them and make a punch for the man. But the man grabbed his fist, and snakes appeared out of his sleeves once more. Tony let go and flung the snakes over his shoulder as they landed in the water. Meanwhile, Rosa went into the water, and dragged Gelato up onto the other walkway before the snakes could reach them.
While Rosa tried to revive Gelato, the man threw more snakes at Tony, who met them with a fire spell that could only be used if the enemies were in a straight line: the Hephaestus Torch (Dragon Fire Technique). It incinerated all the snakes and was aimed at the man, who leaped into the water, where the snakes Tony had thrown were gathered. Before the man could leap into the air again, Tony threw his knives at the man's coat and shirt, pinning him to the bottom of the pipe. As the snakes closed in, Tony used the Hephaestus Torch again to burn the snakes closest to the man, causing all the water to evaporate as it formed a circle around the man. Tony stepped into it, and aimed his gun, which only had one bullet left, at the man's head.
"Very good, I knew I made the right choice," the man said, holding his scroll up. But instead of giving it to Tony, he threw it into the flames, and it burned up instantly. While Tony was distracted, the man's neck stretched to impossible lengths and bit Tony on the neck with long fangs that suddenly grew out of his mouth. Then as a black downward pentagram symbol appeared next to the bite-marks, the man's fangs shrank and he whispered, "This is my reward for your courage, Tony."
At that moment, Tony collapsed and fell into a feverish sleep while the man used his stretched neck to pull the knives from his sleeves. Once they were free, he proceeded to remove the ones from his jacket and got up, glaring at Rosa as she held a gun to his face with Gelato in her lap. He wasn't the least interested, and proceeded to leap onto the other walkway, and walk further up the pipe.
"Wait, I want to know something!" Rosa cried, making the man stop. "Who are you, and what have you done to Tony and Gelato?"
"You have never heard of me? They should've taught you," the man replied, staring back at Rosa. "I am Typhonragazzo, a former member of the Foglia family, and one of the three 'Great Mobsters (Great Shinobi)' before they threw me out for human experimentation. Now, I am the head of the Suono family, with some of my loyal followers participating in these games. As for your comrades, I did not kill them, but merely rendered them useless for the time being. The boy's nature energy has been sealed by God's Mark (Five Elements Seal), and I have given Tony the Vampire's Curse (Cursed Seal of Heaven)."
"So Tony will turn into a…vampire?"
"No, no, that's childish fantasy. It only means that his nature energy and physical strength will be increased tenfold once he recovers from the initial fever, but as for his mind…I cannot say."
End of Chapter 23