Floor 25 - Chapter 5 - Close Your Eyes

About an hour earlier

As they walked through the catacombs, Rain had reservations about the plan - not least because she was in charge, for some unknown reason. In terms of their group, and though Jet and Koharu would both refute it, there was a chain of command - Jet in charge, mainly due to coming up with the plans, Koharu if Jet wasn't available for whatever reason, then...

There hadn't been a situation where neither of the pair were acting as leader before, she realised.

Still, she'd chosen not to speak up, given the dire straits they found themselves in.

''This place gives me the creeps...'' Lisbeth grumbled. The blacksmith might have been an expert in metallurgy and forging, but combat? Not so much, but then, she wasn't along with them for her combat skills (or at least she hoped not, anyway - Lisbeth was still at least five or ten levels below any of them), but because she was the closest thing to an engineer they had, and that skill was absolutely priceless right now.

''It is only a graveyard, you understand?'' Sanya seemed far more at home in the sewers come mausoleum that they found themselves journeying through than she had any right to be. That also being said, she reminded herself that her best friend had always had a penchant for the macabre, so she wasn't exactly surprised at that, just mildly perturbed by it. ''It is hardly as if the skeletons will come to life to stop us...'' Her shoulders drooped. Did she always have to tempt fate like that? It wasn't as if it would be anything close to the strangest of opponents they'd faced in the steel castle...

Meanwhile, about a hundred yards ahead of the small group, a number of piles of bones began to form into a creature.

''You were saying?'' Philia almost looked smug at what she had no doubt was vindication in her mind. Sanya, probably wisely, chose to keep quiet on that one, though the look on her face was somewhere between disgust and annoyance. The same look she had whenever she was told that her and Jet had to work together, come to think of it...

Though they could play the blame game later (and it was probably best not to tell Jet that he solicited the same reaction from her as a giant undead rat at all), there was still the less than small matter of the almost skeletal rat creature in front of them, looking really rather angry and now with health bars. ''Well, girls, I believe we've found the field boss.''

''It just had to be a rat, didn't it?'' Philia now had the same reaction as Sanya, and she remembered just how little she cared for rodents of any size - much less those that had to be measured in metres. ''Bigger issue though, that thing doesn't look like it's got too much to slash at, and only Liz has anything like a hammer.''

The pink haired blacksmith suddenly looked extremely sheepish, and she couldn't blame her. Whilst the field boss was (in theory anyway), at a lower level than them, the fact it would require more blunt force attacks than sweeping slashes, as she, Philia and Sanya specialised in, was far from ideal when the only person in the group optimised for such a strategy was currently looking as if she wanted to run away from the thing they needed her to hit. ''I'm up front for this, aren't I?'' Lisbeth seemed resigned to her position in the fight.

''Yes, but we'll do our best to keep its attention.'' Rain gave her best attempt at offering commands, before everyone took up their positions.

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The Centurion Rat, as it was apparently called, was a surprisingly easy fight, Rain thought as her blades held back the skeletal paws of the creature. As she did, Lisbeth had put herself back into position, and with one effective sweep of her hammer, plus a sickening crunch, sent the three-metre-long rat skidding along the floor of the catacombs, now with a clear fracture in its head where her hammer had brained the creature.

With that though, they'd fought the rat down to the final of its three health bars, and it clearly knew it was going to die - though now, it had decided it was taking them with it. Although it lacked important things such as skin, eyes, organs, it still had a considerable mass to it and if its charging attack made contact with any of them, it was certain to throw them back considerably, and in Philia or Lisbeth's cases, possibly outright kill them. Not only that, but it was now moving around so erratically, that other than that charging attack... it was nigh on impossible to pin it down long enough to create an effective opening for Lisbeth!

It was then she thought back to the Thirteenth Floor, and the fight against the Pyroville and the Flame Shooter - maybe that charge attack could be parried!

''Sanya, I have a plan! When it charges, go for your strongest skill when I do, and aim it at the rat!'' Sanya looked conflicted momentarily, but soon nodded along in agreement.

''Understood.''

She called over to Lisbeth to tell her of the plan; ''Lisbeth, be ready to attack. We're going to do something to slow it down!''

''Whatever you plan to do, be quick about it! It's getting ready to charge!'' Lisbeth shouted back, as she moved away from the water beside them.

The familiar animation of the rat's charging attack began, which meant...

3...

2...

1...

''Now!''

In the split second it took for the creature to be in range, their pre-skill motions had synchronized, and rather than hitting them... it ran headfirst into a trio of blades, all with considerably more power than an average person, and almost bounced off the recently introduced wall of steel in front of it. That bounce back was just long enough, and disorientating enough, that Lisbeth had managed to sneak around it, and with the same superhuman level of force that only a sword skill could produce, her hammer dropped onto the skull of the rat, completely shattering it into an uncountable number of pieces.

The now decapitated rat lasted for around five seconds more, before it too shattered into pixels, and everyone could breathe slightly more easily again.

''That was ballsy, Rain...'' Philia raised her hand to hi-five her, and she returned the gesture. ''In a good way, I mean.'' She quickly clarified.

''All of you are mad, I'm sure of it.'' Lisbeth mumbled again, almost as if being around them had driven her to madness...

''Perhaps, but it certainly proved an effective strategy.'' Rain smiled, as they carried on through the tunnels…

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It hadn't taken long before they'd found themselves where they needed to be; a room hidden roughly where the map said it should've been. A few metres to the east of Jet's cross, but near enough right, anyway…

The room they found themselves in was something that she was sure didn't belong in Aincrad. It felt more like it belonged in a sci-fi game, than a fantasy one, as the walls and floors were pure, clean white with not a single mark on them, as if they were disinfected regularly, and with a thick smell in the air, one that she recognised as disinfectant. The temperature in the room was almost ridiculously low, almost matching Christmas at home...

And when home was Siberia, that was a telling indicator of just how cold it was! Even Sanya found herself shivering slightly, whilst Philia and Lisbeth were actually shaking.

''Yeesh, w-why's it so c-cold?!'' Philia muttered, as the door closed behind them.

''They must be keeping something in here, something that needs to be cold.'' Sanya answered. ''Though, those drawings we saw, they showed nothing of the sort, did they?''

''Girls... you might wanna see this!''

''Chto eto za chertovshchina?!'' Sanya exclaimed as she walked in the room, and Rain found it hard to disagree with her... just what in the mother of God was that thing?!

Towering at least twice, and probably thrice above them, a machine that resembled a massively scaled up version of the thing in the drawings, plus a load of tanks feeding in and out of it. Only a single control panel though, and Philia had already gone to check it out before she'd finished looking it over. The ginger girl looked almost as white as the room as she pulled her head back from underneath the panel...

''Err, Philia, are you alright? You appear to have gone the colour of a sheet...''

''There's a bomb in here.'' She nodded, clearly anxious. The news of that didn't dawn on her quite as fast as she'd have liked, but it did dawn eventually...

''Let me guess, it's wired to the stop button, isn't it?'' Lisbeth asked, clearly done with today. Philia didn't answer but nodded in confirmation.

''So, if we should press that button...''

''We die. There's enough explosive under there to take out the machine...'' There was a moment of hope, before Philia burst that particular bubble. ''but it'd take us with it.''

Whilst she and Sanya looked over the crudely wired device under the control panel, Lisbeth was the next person to speak up. ''What if we bypass the button? Disable it without turning it off?''

''It could work.'' Sanya stated, with the confidence that came from someone who had once rewired a plug, and not nearly burnt down her house. ''But we would need a way of doing such a task.'' She then pointed out, and everyone fell silent again, as they thought of how not to create Aincrad's biggest bomb. Rain took a glance at the book, and more importantly at the sketch of the Dream Catcher. Two of the tanks were full of waste products generated by the machine, and if what Kizmel had told them was right, those waste products were extremely reactive...

''Nightshade!'' She exclaimed, rocking back on her heels. ''That black gunk, it's volatile!''

''What, like gunpowder?''

''No, err, Sanya, remember your bottle rocket?'' She asked, remembering her friend's attempt to launch a rocket into low earth orbit as a child. Unsurprisingly, it failed to reach that altitude, though it did succeed in shattering her bedroom window and leaving a large dent in her wooden door.

''I would rather forget that, but...'' Sanya winced at the memory, but she did know about it at least. ''I understand the thinking behind it.''

''Philia, reckon you can get the door open again?'' She asked, and she almost immediately offered a joking salute in understanding. ''Sanya, Lisbeth... we're going to re plumb this thing...'' Considering the smirk that she was sure was now on her face, she was entirely certain she'd spent enough time with the knight, as his mannerisms were starting to rub off on her.

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Lisbeth was a tinkerer at heart, she had always known that much.

She'd settled on crafting as her main source of income in Aincrad for that reason - she loved creating things. Her father had shown her his workshop as a young girl, and she'd spent many a happy hour in their shed, helping him with various DIY projects. Many of them had major flaws in them but hadn't deterred her; she'd just keep tinkering with the basic designs to make them sounder or experimenting with new construction techniques to make them work.

Blacksmithing was like that, she'd realised. Her materials may be sound, but if her technique was poor, then the final result was generally poor. Today though, she was using a bit of knowledge she didn't realise she even had - plumbing.

Which was a completely different beast altogether. Technique didn't matter here - after all, their aim was to break something very thoroughly, and if Sanya's description of the chemistry was correct, there wouldn't be enough of it left to repair - but materials really did. The Nightshade was a truly awful substance to work with; it was corrosive enough to have melted the plastic tubing in short order, requiring a glass pipe to be borrowed from another part of the machine to avoid turning her hand into sludge.

Having eventually plumbed the machine in the new way, which was to direct the Nightshade away from its tank, but into the Salt instead, causing a chain reaction that would produce enough of a thermal runaway to destroy the machine, whilst the metal door would safely contain the fire behind it, the girls admired their handiwork...

Or at least, they did until they actually saw how volatile the new mixture was. Upon the first amounts of Nightshade making contact, it burst into flames behind the glass. Not a massive fire initially, but the type of fire that would easily require immediate evacuation... a fire that was now having the equivalent of petrol poured onto it, constantly.

''Sanya...'' Rain did not sound happy at her friend there...

''I may, perhaps, have underestimated how reactive that this would become in higher quantities...'' Sanya, for once, broke from her almost apathetic demeanour, and seemed genuinely panicked.

''So, you're saying it's about to explode?'' Philia asked, catching the meaning behind the words.

''I am saying that the door, perhaps, will not actually contain the fire...'' And with that, she understood the panicked attitude. ''and that happen to be in a draughty set of tunnels, where the Coanda effect is likely to become a significant issue for us.''

''Okay then, so... new plan.'' Rain nodded in understanding. ''Run!''

Lisbeth did not need to be told twice, as the glass began to crack violently.

She had only barely passed through the closing door when she heard the glass shatter, and the trifecta required for an inferno came to be, oxygen being added to the blazing liquid as it spilled onto the floor.

This wasn't going to end well, she realised...

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Being chased by an inferno had its downsides, Rain thought - the chief amongst them being the inferno chasing you, with absolutely no remorse nor care for your stamina.

She'd also decided that she was never letting Sanya anywhere near chemicals again for as long as she drew breath!

The sprint through the tunnels felt far shorter than it had been on the way in; although she reckoned the lack of monsters blocking their path probably had something to do with that. The few that had survived their inbound charge, had fell behind when they, like them, realised that staying here was a very bad idea unless they happened to be fireproof, but also happened to have shorter legs than they did, and so, had been cremated practically...

''How do we get out of here!?'' Lisbeth yelled from the middle of their formation.

''In the water!'' Philia shouted, as an orange flash came from behind them - the sign that the fire was about to flash over, and that they would soon be very warm... and turned to ash in the process.

With no thoughts about her safety, she threw herself off the ledge besides her, and into the water, making sure she was fully submerged. It was an unpleasant experience, especially with her full combat gear on, but it was a far safer option than the alternative of continuing to try to outrun an ever-increasing fire.

Above her head and on the surface of the water, the flames licked their way throughout the tunnels unrelentingly…

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After about an hour of very long dives, and short surfacings, the fires had died down in the sewers enough that the girls could at least walk through them, rather than swim through them.

Sanya had made her displeasure at swimming in sewer water very known, but it had been Lisbeth who'd shut her down; pointing out that it had been her miscalculations that had forced them into the water in the first place.

Rain would've let out a slight laugh at the indignity in Sanya's expression, but she was absolutely exhausted and needed every bit of energy she could muster, just to keep on her feet as they neared the end of the tunnels. After this, never mind a bath, but a nice, comfy bed and a day of doing absolutely nothing at all sounded like the definition of heaven to her…

"Hey, girls? Look at the sky outside!" Lisbeth seemed genuinely ecstatic, as the sky began to brighten, with even a rainbow starting to form in the distance. "We actually did it!"

"We did, yeah." Philia, who looked just as worse for wear as her, gave the blacksmith a high five in celebration.

"Perhaps we should work together again sometime." Sanya said, hiding her own glee at their success.

"Maybe under slightly lower stakes next time?" Lisbeth laughed along as they emerged from the tunnel. Far from what they were expecting, but the town was just as damaged (though she noted a lot of it was fire damage, so no prizes were on offer what, or who, had caused that damage…) as before, whilst the massive crowds had all but disappeared again.

"Err, where are the others?" Philia asked, looking around. She took a moment to do the same thing, and couldn't see them at all, before checking her messages. One new message from… Kizmel?

Putting aside that Kizmel, the NPC, had access to the messaging function for a moment, she tapped the message. It simply read "Please meet us at the Theatre Ruins, as soon as possible.", and she reckoned she wasn't getting that day off tomorrow…

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It had been over an hour, and Koharu felt her hands becoming bloody raw as she dug frantically through rubble. Some part of it was adrenaline still pumping through her system, in the same way as mothers could somehow muster the strength to lift a car off a baby, but she'd later attribute most of it to a sheer stubborn refusal to accept that Jet was gone. His HP bar was still present on her HUD, though critically low, and with what looked to be every status effect now present, but it was greyed out – a sign that he was unreachable, somehow.

"Koharu…" Kizmel placed a hand on her shoulder whilst she kept digging. "I do not doubt that he survived. After all, he has survived some… remarkable things, but at this moment, I do not think our efforts to locate him would be anything but vain. You are clearly exhausted, and I do not imagine young Seven is any better of a state either." She spared a glance at the girl, who was doing her best to remove smaller amounts of rubble, though to no avail.

"Yeah, you might be right." It hurt her to admit that, but even trying to stand was proving to be a challenge, forcing her to rely on Kizmel to keep her stood up.

"Well done Sanya, you blew up the whole town." She heard Lisbeth say from somewhere in the distance.

"How would I have known that-" She defended, before setting eyes on them, with her eyes widening in horror. "Good lord."

"Are you-is everyone okay?!" Philia rushed over, and helped to support her, whilst Rain rushed over to Seven, who looked as if she was about to drop in exhaustion.

"What happened?!" Lisbeth looked aghast, as she examined some of the rubble. "Well, it collapsed, I can see that, but…"

"We… we fought the Sandman. It went as well as you could expect." She wasn't definite on that, but she was sure she could sense a hint of sarcasm in there.

Surprisingly to her, it was Sanya who bought up the absent member of their group. "Wait, where is the knight?" An awkward silence fell over them and lingered for a few seconds. "Oh." Sanya vocalised, the situation setting in.

"He's still alive, I'm sure of it!" She told them. "I can still see his status bar."

"He's buried then…" Lisbeth stated, a grimace on her face at understanding that. "Koharu, I hate to admit it, but that's a lot of rubble… we'd need everyone to even stand a chance at finding him."

"I suppose we shall get our chance to convince them tomorrow then…" Sanya stated almost knowingly. "The guilds are meeting for a strategy meeting in the theatre tomorrow." Everyone present spared a glance at the pile of rubble that had once been a theatre, and then back at Sanya.

Somewhat surprisingly, it was Kizmel who spoke up first. "Somehow, I do not imagine that will be possible."

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As a young knight, Kizmel had suffered her fair share of commanders that, to quote the absent human knight, were "as much use as a chocolate teapot"; an image she found rather amusing.

Had she been forced to endure any of the guild leaders as commanders, however, it was very possible she may have chosen the easier option and simply walked onto the battlefield unarmoured waving a signal flag to tell her opponents of her location at all times. After all, it was quite possibly a safer option than any of the diatribe the three main leaders were continuing to spout…

Far from assisting them in trying to rescue the possibly trapped Jet, they were far more interested in forming what she'd heard referred to as "kangaroo courts" (although she had no understanding of what a kangaroo was, nor why it should be on trial in the first place, she had nodded along in understanding that human language was… not the most straightforward of things) and making an example of those who they'd perceived to have slighted them.

The latest example of this was ongoing, as they criticised their group for being so "gung-ho" and charging into battle with no understanding of what was happening – a rather rich display of hypocrisy if ever she'd seen one, considering the usual strategies demonstrated by them usually amounted to "charge the enemy and do not die".

"This is ridiculous…" She groaned, as Lind offered up his own theory for why they'd done it – completely wrong, as was par for the course from the blue-haired guild master, but sadly, he was entitled to speak.

"I agree. This is just a waste of time." Sanya spoke up. "If you will not help us, then we would rather you remove yourselves from our path."

"Oh, ya don't want our help now then?" Kibaou asked, and she felt her disdain for the guild master increase.

"We would appreciate it, but you don't exactly seem to be offering it…"

"We'd appreciate the entire truth too, but you don't seem to be offering that either…"

Almost in unison, the girls reacted with anger and scandal. "Excuse me!?"

"I beg your pardon, guild masters…" Kizmel had training on her side, and so, she held her nerve slightly better, but still let her anger show through. An angry Pagoda Knight was not an enemy one should aspire to have…

Kibaou carried on his ill-advised comments, "That Seven gal, she shows up outta nowhere, an' yet, ya just adopt her like some kinda stray. Bit suspicious, if ya ask me…"

She looked over to Rain, who looked to have reached a state of anger that had no name; beyond even that of apoplexy, she appeared to be ready to reach for her swords. As if to pre-empt that, she turned to the redhead. "Rain, you are the better person her. I see no reason to sink to their level…" She held back a comment about how unsure she was that such a level was obtainable in the first place.

"She is just a child who happened to have come across us. I do not see what is so suspicious about that…" Sanya told them, an edge to her words that just dared them to challenge her on that particular subject. An edge she'd seen plenty of times amongst the young and the brash of the Pagoda Knights; an edge that was usually beaten out of them eventually…

It was also an edge that no one was too eager to be on the receiving end of, as the murmurs of the crowd faded and left an atmosphere that you would need that edge to cut through…

To her surprise, it was young Seven who spoke up first, her voice racked with guilt. "I... I think the boss's behaviour might be my fault."

"Umm, why?" Koharu asked, as confused as everyone else around her.

"A victim of circumstances, I think. I was too busy attempting to find a back door, that I interfered with certain variables, some of which related to a boss that was left unused. I fear that I caused the system behind the game to recognise it, and develop the floor around it..."

"Seven..." Rain muttered, her eyes closed in disappointment.

"Be that as it may, it does not change the situation." Sanya said, before summarising the situation. "We are still facing a vengeful near-deity, that may or may not be wearing the form of one of its many victims..."

"Sorry, but we're gonna gloss over th' fact that she might'a caused all them deaths!?" Kibaou interrupted. "Not least ya own friend!"

"He isn't dead!" Koharu shouted over him. "I know he isn't!"

"Fo'give me if I don't share yer enthusiasm." Kibaou muttered angrily.

"Loathed as I am to admit it, Kibaou is right." The small grimace on Heathcliff's face told her that he truly meant his disdain towards the man with the Napoleon Complex. "This girl, Seven, she has meddled with things that she had no understanding nor rights to be meddling with. She endangered every single person on Aincrad, because she thought she was clever..." For the first time, she'd seen the eternally stoic Heathcliff offer any emotion; in this case, fury. ''Because she deemed herself more intelligent than those who developed this world, she has perhaps broken this world! Yet you defend her!'' Kizmel put aside her thoughts on the stoic man and considered his words. A small number of details conspired in his words to sow the seeds of distrust towards him:

The first, and most heinous of these to her, was how he truly did consider this world of hers a game. She knew that the world she lived in was not the home of the warriors of mankind, and whilst that had taken a while to get used to, it had helped to no end that human warriors like The Concord, Kirito and Asuna all viewed this world of equal import to their own. They had never once given her the impression that they viewed their mission to climb the Sacred Tree as mere ''a game'' - whereas Heathcliff spoke as if it were not just his opinion, but the truth.

The second was in the content of his speech; he called for justice against a child. Whilst she did not understand what Seven had done that could be so heinous (she honestly didn't understand what Seven had admitted to in the first place, which added more questions to the seemingly ever-growing list), but his intent was clear; Seven was a criminal who should be punished.

Worryingly though, the crowd hadn't picked up on such a detail, and small mutterings amongst those gathered were unsure what to make of Heathcliff's outburst. Some thought he was absolutely right, and were now becoming increasingly lionized and vocal, after his speech, whilst others assumed he was exaggerating his point somewhat, but still agreed with him to some point.

She didn't fit either camp. In fact, she'd witnessed Seven try to sacrifice herself for them, before Jet had stepped in. She may not have known anything about her, but she wasn't the devil spawn that Heathcliff seemed determined to portray her as.

Though something else that concerned her, the rhetoric that Heathcliff was using there was, in her limited understanding - gleaned from conversations with Koharu - identical to what had happened with Sanya less than a month earlier; only this time, the person involved was far less capable of defending themselves. Seven wasn't defenceless by any means, but she was, to use a term that she'd heard thrown around, more of a support class than a frontline fighter.

Seven had chosen to throw herself to the Sandman, facing it down more valiantly than most, despite her young age.

"Nijika… Seven, kakaya ona tebe?" Rain looked down at her feet slightly, whilst Sanya kept her gaze fixed on her. Neither girl spoke, but there was a look shared between them that almost seemed to confirm something for Sanya. "Esli pozvolite?"

Rain gave a small nod, and Sanya hesitated for a moment, looking for the words no doubt. "I believe that she is Rain's sister. Estranged sister, but her sister nonetheless."

"So, when you took off?" Philia asked, quietly.

"I... my head was a mess. I was angry, sad, scared, confused, I didn't know what to do. Jet, he talked some sense into me, before the shadows came anyway."

"So, he knows that Seven's your sister?" Lisbeth asked.

"Yes." Rain answered.

"Maybe that's why he was being protective of me, he didn't want her getting hurt again..." Seven spoke sadly.

"No, that was just him being him, Seven. He'd do that whether you were a complete stranger or, well..." Philia comforted her.

"Can we stop talking about him in the past tense, please..." Koharu asked, almost unheard amongst the crowd.

"E'rryone! Shut the hell up!" For once, the "walking mouth" that was Kibaou proved useful, as the crowd fell to quiet murmurs rather than the shouting match it had been previously. "She's a kid, the hell is wrong wit' ya!? We ain't monsters, we're supposed ta be out here lookin' out fer e'rryone else!"

"I agree with Kibaou, this is out of line Heathcliff!" Diavel tried to take charge of the situation... "What you are implying is that she deserves worse than a red player!"

"Perhaps people in glass houses should not be casting stones, Diavel."...only to get swiftly shut down.

Kizmel had not seen all that much of the rivalries of the human guild masters; not since the West Mists at least, where things had gone… badly wrong, to put it politely.

"I beg your pardon!?" Diavel asked, scandalised.

"You understand perfectly well. You play the role of the regal knight, and yet, you are more deceptive than any spymaster."

"True, but he's not the only one with secrets, I imagine..." A new voice came into the argument, one she knew very well. He was alive!

"You... you ain't dead!?" Kibaou stammered, clearly shook up by the knight's reappearance.

"Rumours of my death were greatly exaggerated, Kibaou..." Jet stated, a confident smile on his face. "We can handle the situation with Seven later, I think, but right now, I believe we have a boss to worry about, do we not? And very little time to do anything, so I think we should make haste!"

"Jet!" Koharu, now with a new look of life in her eyes, rushed over to the knight... who turned away from her, and continued to walk. "Jet!"

"Hey! We're talking to you!" Philia managed to place a hand on his shoulder, before it was thrown off and he turned to face them. The look on his face was something she'd never seen before, a look of simmering rage personified and the wounded look of betrayal…

"And I have nothing to say to any of you!" He roared back, and even she felt herself become more tense. She could only imagine how Koharu felt at that moment, and it was not a good thing, she knew that much. "You betrayed me; abandoned me when I needed you most!"

The more he spoke, the more something felt… wrong, to Kizmel. She had seen Jet angry before, and it was far from a pleasant experience to be on the receiving end of, no doubt, but that was a rage she'd seen reserved for his enemies. For his friends though, he'd told her once the story of a kind and noble healer who travelled the world and even further afield, and one quote that summed up the older healer perfectly; "You betrayed my trust, everything I stood for. You let me down.".

When asked why the healer chose to help despite this, their response was simple: "Do you really think that I care for you so little that betraying me would make a difference?"

Considering that he'd chosen to support Sanya, rather than overrule Koharu's decision to invite her into their group; she truly believed that was the knight's philosophy on the topic of betrayal – an understandable anger, but he would still help them, despite it.

"Hmph, nothing to say to even defend yourselves." He muttered. "Perhaps it wasn't me who should stop deceiving himself about delusions of heroism…" And with that, he walked off, leaving the group in a stunned silence…

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Some time had passed, and the gathered force had found their way into the labyrinth.

"Well, that was unpleasant." Despite her helmet obscuring her face, he was sure Liten wasn't happy under there. Despite everything, she did get along with their group quite well, and watching it explode like that probably wasn't something she'd have wanted to see.

"Ya said it." Kibaou almost winced at watching the knight dismantle his (now former) friends. Despite everything, he wasn't even sure he agreed with him on that – they had gone to get help to find him, and based on the wreckage they'd seen, he didn't disagree with them there… "Ya think yer might'a gone a bit OTT on 'em?"

"Some people are too far gone." Jet stated coldly, and he spared a glance to Lind and Diavel, both of whom seemed more than a little unsettled by the knight's new, colder demeanour, though none chose to express it in any significant way. "The boss should be a relatively simple affair for such a gathered force like this. It is far from tough; a few solid strikes should end its existence with the right weapons." He explained.

"And those weapons are?"

"Slicing weapons mainly." Jet continued his explanation of the boss they were about to face. "Blunt weapons will just pass through it harmlessly, so be sure to keep anyone with a blunt weapon to the back."

"I do have to ask the question, how are you aware of its tactics?" Diavel asked cautiously.

"It's simple." Kibaou realised just how big of a mistake they'd made in trusting "the knight", as his eyes changed colour. "Goodnight." The flat expression on his face morphed into a predatory smirk, as "the knight" cracked his neck, and summoned a group of minions to its side…

It took less than a minute for the clearing group to descend into chaos, and amongst them, the creature formerly known as Jet reappeared at will, resembling some form of twisted Grim Reaper, putting people to sleep…

A Dream Reaper.

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The only words that could really summarise the mood amongst the former members of the Concord were five very simple words: "what the hell just happened?"

Whilst Seven and Koharu both looked as if they were ready to take the blame for everything, the rest of the group had reactions ranging from Lisbeth storming around the room, threatening to bludgeon the knight if he so much as looked in their general direction, or to insert her hammer somewhere, and then use him a lower cost windvane, to uneasy quiet from the other former members.

"Koharu?" Philia said, interrupting their moping.

"Huh?"

"You get the feeling that something really isn't right? Like, a pit in your stomach that just won't go away?" Philia asked.

"Like right now?"

"Glad I'm not the only one who thinks something is wrong then."

"I accept that I know him the least out of everyone, bar perhaps Seven, but... he did not sound correct. Almost as if someone is trying to impersonate his way of speaking, but with their own words..." She thought aloud. "At least, that is my opinion."

From across the room, an older woman entered the room, and started to speak. "Well, I can understand why he trusts you all. Very astute…" She wore a long flowing purple dress, with lavender hair down to her ankles, with strange… were they angel wings, in her hair, near her ears. Amongst other things Sanya noticed of the woman was the fact that she wore no shoes whatsoever, and her eyes were a deep purple too; and despite trying to, she could barely manage to maintain eye contact with her…

Above her head was the first sign that something was not as it seemed; her cursor was a deep blue.

"Excuse me, ma'am, but who are you?" Kizmel asked, attempting to be polite.

"The most important person in the room at this very moment." She answered, an uncaring and arrogant attitude in her answer.

An answer that sat poorly with all of them, and Lisbeth retorted with a sense of scandal at the egotistical answer she had just offered them. "Excuse you?!"

"As I happen to know where your friend is, and I do not mean that loathsome creature that left prior to my arrival…" She explained, and Sanya felt the pit in her stomach be upgraded to an abyss in real time. Her fears were well-founded, and that creature was not Jet, but rather… Oh. "If you happen to have any allies who were not amongst that group, I advise you invite them to join us. We shall need them, possibly more so than ever before…"