A/N: Yet another chapter. I do have a certain fondness to this particular arc.

The next time he regained consciousness, his chest was hurting so badly. He found himself being helped to sit up before being greeted by Neon's worried face.

"Keiwa! Thank goodness... I thought we almost lost you—" exclaimed the young lady as Neon hugged him tightly.

Keiwa turned his head weakly as he was greeted by even more worried looks.

Did something happen earlier? All that he remembered was him trying to run from the monsters and then—Nothing. Did he blacked out? It was already hard for him to catch his breath normally but these vines—!

Keiwa tried to open his mouth to say something but only managed to muster a series of hacking coughs and a bunch of stray petals.

"Don't force yourself to speak—" Neon said worriedly.

"That's it!" Keiwa turned around to see Ace crouching next to him looking grim. "We have to split up and regroup elsewhere."

.

It alarmed him a lot earlier when he rushed towards Keiwa to find the man not breathing. So like it or not, he ended up settling on creating a diversion and retreated away to safety so that he could try to revive Keiwa. He couldn't exactly do it when the Jyamato Rider was nearby after all!

He had to thank his luck that he did learn how to do CPR on a person in the past, though he never had to do it on a real person before. He almost thought that Keiwa wouldn't make it... but then he was able to get Keiwa to breathe again. Still, that was such a close call—!

Ace turned his attention towards Neon.

"Na-Go, I need you and Keilow to take the kids somewhere safe and hide there for a while. I think I saw something like a chapel earlier so it should be safe." He cocked his head towards Keiwa. "I'll take Tycoon and figure out a way to undo his current sickness. He started coughing out flower petals when he arrived here, so there might be a clue to cancel that effect here somewhere."

Neon frowned at him. "Are you telling me to protect them all by myself? That's too much!" she exclaimed as old man Tanba started to mutter his apologies for being useless.

Ace smiled at her weakly. "I'm sure you'll figure out a way, I just need you to hold the fort for a short time. I won't take too long with Tycoon—"

Neon bit her lips as she glanced towards the other side of the mansion they were hiding in. There was a clear pathway that led towards the outside of the mansion. As much as she wanted to get out of this mansion a lot, going out in the open was still a big risk. They didn't know how many of the plant-like Jyamato were roaming all around the premises. She turned towards Ace.

"Ace, let's go together regardless! I don't think I could fight on my own—"

Ace placed a hand on Neon's shoulders.

"You'll be fine. Just get to the chapel and wait for us. We won't be away too long—"

xxx

"I'll let you have this guy as well, just in case. I expect that you'd be able to figure out what to do with this."

Neon glanced down towards the buckle in her hand before taking a peek in the direction where the chapel stood tall. The amount of Jyamato patrolling the surrounding area had lessened, thanks to Ace luring them away while escaping with Keiwa. But there were still a few remaining... and they needed to get past those remaining Jyamato to get into the chapel. She sighed as Neon took out another Raise Buckle that she had with her.

Here goes nothing...

Neon turned to her side as she gave Monster to old man Tanba. "Grandpa... how about you try to use this to fight?"

The old man frowned at her as he accepted the buckle.

"But Neon-chan, even if I used this strong backle... I don't think that I'd be able to properly make full use of it—"

Neon just grinned at the old man. "No worries..." she told the old man. "Remember the flag game? It'll be just like last time..." explained Neon cheerfully before waving her Beat buckle towards the old man.

.

Keiwa got off the red bike as Ace parked the bike on the other side of the mansion. They managed to lose the Jyamato that had been chasing after them and ran over a few that managed to cross their path. It was such an unexpected move made by Ace, but at least they managed to create an opening to allow Neon and the others to head towards the chapel.

And now they need to find a way to find a 'cure' to this odd illness that started the moment he ended up getting involved in this so-called Labyrinth Escape game. Keiwa turned around towards Ace as the latter disarmed and marched straight towards him.

"So Ukiyo-san, how are we going to—?"

Without warning Ace suddenly grabbed his shoulder and smashed their face against his to kiss him fiercely.