This was going great. First they manage a dead end and now they are flanked by boiling to death or frying to death...
"There is really no way of avoiding this situation is there?" The young arcanist sighed. The riddle on the wall played itself over and over in his mind, oddly enough the riddle was reciting itself in Inuzuri-taichou's voice.
Daichi regarded his partner. "What's your take in this?"
The bottom nearly dropped out of Ilsa’s stomach when Daichi started talking. Once she realized that he had not actually made a statement, the tall shinigami heaved a huge sigh of relief. "Well, since this riddle’s answer must be phrased as a statement, we should probably avoid making statements when we talk, shouldn’t we? At least until one of us has an answer, which must be neither true nor false, right?”
Neither true nor false... Ilsa shut her eyes and tried to ignore the ominous gurgling and splashing to either side of her. She had heard a riddle like this before, she was sure of it. Sayis-taichou wouldn’t really boil or fry us. I’ve heard the stories about him. If even half of those stories are true, he’s got a clever and devious mind. So the answer to this riddle will be something like the last riddle. Obvious if you look at it the right way, it’s just that most people don’t.
"Which shall it be, Daichi-san? Oil or water? They don’t get along, though, so if we can somehow make our answer include both, we might get out of the trap, right?”
A memory tickled at the back of her mind. Someone had definitely told her this riddle before. Oil and water, true and false... Ilsa scowled, trying to dig up the answer.
As the Flames button was pressed in, all of the flames in the room immediately went out, leaving the duo in darkness. Filled with a brief, strange sensation, a shocking rush of cold assaulted them. It took only a second to realize that it wasn't truly cold: it was the sudden absence of roasting heat.
No sound came out of the blackness until Mitsuyo finally lifted a hand and cast Ghost Fire once again, filling the area with light. They were in a completely different area of the maze, in an alcove between two hallways. On one side, there appeared to be more writing on the wall.
Either not recognizing or not acknowledging the significance of that, Shukumei stepped cautiously ahead for a closer look. Frowning, Mitsuyo jumped ahead, about to shout at his partner for moving.
The instant he moved forward, though, stone spears shot up from the floor, blocking the path behind them.
Once they were trapped, it became apparent that the 'hallway' it had seemed was much smaller than expected, ending in dead ends both ways. Mitsuyo growled something under his breath. Seeming unshaken, Shukumei leaned forward and read the words engraved in the stone.
An apparent contradiction By air and sea I'm measured I was used in old addition I safeguard something treasured I am a simple homophone; can you clearly see? If you answer negative; this was written all for me.
Another button sat below the riddle, and Shukumei forced it into the wall with a loud grating noise. All around the room, a metal and stone clattering filled the room, chains and spikes and rods dropping from the ceiling and hanging, shaking in a sudden wind that filled the small corridor. On either side of the downward sloping floors, water began to fill the lowered squares, rippling and twisting with the wind.
Talk in questions? That was a very, very clever idea. After all, making a statement now was potentially deadly.
"Well...we could always say nothing, couldn't we? I mean then we are neither lying or telling the truth, right?" It seemed like a completely viable option. However, if they chose that route then they would sit here until Inuzuri-taichou was forced to come find them, which would mean they lost.
They have to answer.
"What if...what if we make a statement that is paradoxical?" Daichi opened his mouth to explain then closed it real fast. If in his explanation he made a true statement then into the oil they go. He looked over at Ilsa and gave her s confident smile. "Trust me, okay?"
What happened next took all of the arcanists courage. He walked to the riddle wall and stood before it so close his nose almost grazed the cold stone. He took a deep breath and called out his statement.
Ilsa hesitantly opened her eyes. Nothing appeared to have changed. She exchanged a confused look with Daichi. His answer should have worked! After all, if ‘I will be boiled in water’ were true, they would be fried in oil. It was an answer that was neither true nor false.
Perhaps there was some clue in the room itself that they had overlooked. Ilsa sent one of her three balls of yellow Ghost Fire floating out into the room, keeping the other two parked above Daichi’s head. Following the tiny light, Ilsa scrutinized the walls, the floor, even the ceiling for something they had overlooked. Nothing except bare stone, the carved riddle, and the still-rising pools of water and oil on either side of the room.
"Ugh. If those pipes don’t shut off soon, we’ll be walking in a mess of oil and water, won’t we?” The blonde shinigami paused, brow furrowed in thought. "Hey... if we’re not standing in the oil or water, we can’t be boiled or fried.” She held her breath, but no shower or fountain of water or oil erupted to magically punish her for making a statement. Ilsa groaned and smacked herself in the forehead with the palm of her hand. "We didn’t actually need to talk in questions if we wouldn’t be endangering ourselves by making the wrong statement. We have to be in the oil or water!” Grabbing a surprised Daichi by the arm, Ilsa ran over to the water and splashed in.
As Daichi stumbled into the water after Ilsa and the words left her mouth, the water abruptly began to bubble. The water grew warm and then hot, steam pouring up around the pair. Daichi was the first to turn and try to turn and jump back out the way they came in, but instead slammed into a wall that hadn't been there before.
In the few seconds it took for panic to set in, Ilsa had grabbed her partner and yanked him out of the water. The pool of water itself had settled on a hot but not quite lethal temperature: a threat, or perhaps a joke?
The two shinigami looked around, finding themselves in yet another unknown stretch of tunnel. It took Ilsa a moment to realize, though... there was light, light besides her own Ghost Fire.
She extinguished the flames and immediately their eyes rose to the ceiling at the back wall: sunlight streaming down, illuminating a ladder.
"LIGHT!” Ilsa squealed with joy, sounding more like a delighted schoolgirl than a six-foot-two warrior of souls. "We’re out, we’re out, we’re out!” She ran over to the ladder and began climbing at top speed. The simple pleasure of being able to completely straighten out her spine, and knowing that she wouldn’t have to hunch over again in a few minutes, nearly brought tears to her eyes.
The evening air of the Tenth Division compound had never smelled so good. Grass, fresh earth, night-blooming flowers starting to open... all of the scents that Ilsa had never realized she was missing until she emerged from the sterile underground passages of the maze. She inhaled a deep, appreciative breath as she set foot on the surface once more.
The climb up to the surface seemed longer than the entire underground adventure. The light burned the shinigami's eyes as he emerged from the underground world. A great sigh of relief escaped from the boy's lungs.
"So that's it then?" A small wave of accomplishment lifted the stressful weight of the training exercise off his shoulders. Smiling, he watched as Ilsa stretched out her cramped back and breathe deep the smell of fresh air. As great of a learning experience that is all was, it was good to be done.
With a small and discrete motion, Daichi bowed to the opening that the pair crawled out of and offered up a silent thank you to the experience and the great mind behind it: Inuzuri-taichou.
"Congratulations!" Sayis called out from nearby. Arms folded across his chest, he was grinning. Somehow he had expected that Ilsa and Daichi would be the first to finish... though he hoped that Mitsuyo and Shukumei would gain more from the experience. Those two were making better progress than he anticipated, also.
Flicking his head toward the second exit, the grey-haired captain said, "Let's wait a few more moments to see if the others make it out. While we do that, though: how did it go? Was it too easy?" He leveled a direct look at them. "Did you learn anything?"
A number of smart remarks immediately came to mind as Ilsa massaged her aching neck. I learned that my captain has a warped sense of humor, I learned that I hate riddles even more than I did before, I learned that being tall is extremely painful when traveling underground. There was no way that Ilsa would ever actually say such things to her captain, though.
Besides, she had learned a few things from the maze. Sayis-taichou’s training methods were certainly unorthodox, but they were effective. “No, I would not say that the maze was too easy, Captain.” Ilsa couldn’t keep a certain amount of dryness from her voice. “It wasn’t what I had expected. When I imagined a maze with traps, I thought of physical traps. Crevasses, rolling boulders, that sort of thing. The kind of problems that can be solved with direct application of kidou.” Her cheeks heated up, acquiring a depressingly familiar tinge of pink. “I suppose I should have known better.” She shrugged. “But now I do, so I learned something."
Ilsa turned to smile at Daichi, then returned her gaze to the captain. “I’m glad that Daichi-san and I were together in this. I don’t think either of us would have got out this quickly on our own. We would have found the answers eventually if we were each working alone- neither of us are stupid- but it was a lot easier working together.”
Shukumei wrapped his arms around himself in an attempt to keep himself warm from the sudden lack of heat.
It feels so cold. Perhaps this means we're close to the end of this maze? Oh, I hope so!
Yet it was not quite that simple. Whether it was idiocy, luck or inevitability that lead Shukumei to take several steps forward and activate the trap, he got them stuck in a rut (much to his and undoubtedly Mitsuyos dismay) with water rising and winds blowing; not to mention random objects protruding out of the ceiling.
Shukumei shook his head sharply left and right, staring at the numerous events happening in the room.
Water rising, wind blowing, objects falling, swaying in the draft oscillating around the room.
No exit, just another trap. I should have seen this coming. And what the Hell did that riddle mean? I've never been good at these sort of things.
"So, Mitsuyo, got any bright ideas regarding this one?" Shukumei asked in as calm a tone as possible. Given the situation, his tone was still shaky enough to be vaguely noticed but still calm given the rising water levels.
Once the healthy light of his Ghost Fire was flickering overhead again, Mitsuyo tucked his arms under his chest. Perspiration dampened his skin, his bangs stuck to his forehead in uneven clumps, and the wind now dancing around their new prison (because this was not where they'd been before, that was for sure) was quickly turning that cooling mechanism into a chilling mechanism.
Of course, the sudden cold was rather insignificant when compared to the lazy rising of the water level in the room. Mitsu wasn't really sure how good he'd be at solving riddles while trying to hold his breath.
The redhead began systematically chewing on his bottom lip as he studied the accompaniments. Stormy-green eyes scanned the ceiling, took in the medley of objects hanging there and swaying in the unnatural breeze, and then jerked down to fixate on the new riddle.
What if I can't solve this?
A small pull of his teeth, and the cut in his lip reopened. Mitsuyo swallowed, pressed the sleeve of his kosode to his mouth to hide the bleeding, and read.
When he had finished, a thick wave of alarm scrambled his thoughts. He pressed the palm of his hand more firmly against the bottom half of his face, furrowed his brows, and went over it again.
If you answer negative; this was written all for me.
All for what?
If he answered negative...
It's all for naught?
There. That.
Naught. Naught.
His hand moved away from his face as realization struck.
I am a simple homophone; can you clearly see?
A homophone.
Not, knot, and naught.
"Knot. The answer is knot - or, well, any homophones for it."
Not sparing Shukumei a glance, Mitsu uncrossed his arms and jabbed at the second line. "Starting here. Naught - like in 'all for naught,' sorta - can be used as the number zero, right? And then," his finger slipped to the next line, "you can use a 'knot' to tie something - to protect it. The homophone line was just a hint - and 'not'," he skipped down to the last line and tapped his index finger against the wall. "'Not' is a negative. All for naught, that's how I figured it out."
Out of breath, heart thumping with equal parts excitement and anxiety, the shinigami moved his finger back up to the first line. "This," he said, "is the only part I don't get. How can a 'knot' or 'not' or 'naught' be used to measure anything by air or sea?"
His gaze trailed over to Shukumei, then fell past him.
"But how do we give the answer...? The only idea I have is-"
As he spoke, Mitsu began to move. His eyes had caught on a length of braided rope, dangling over the water. It was long enough that he could reach it and...
The small redhead sloshed out into the water, scowling (fuck it was cold). With jerky, nervous movements he tied a knot in the rope. A simple, amateur's knot that he hoped would work (if this was even the right answer).
Waiting for the embarrassment to kick in, Mitsuyo took a few steps back.
"There's our runner-ups, now," Sayis remarked, watching as the diminutive redhead came hurtling up his own ladder, followed shortly after by Shukumei. "Congratulations!" he called out. "Unfortunately, you didn't quite make it."
Immediately, Mitsuyo's expression darkened. The little red-headed thundercloud grumbled as he stomped over, his wet sandals squelching and ruining the effect.
Once all four were gathered in front of him, and as the small crowd of spectators slipped in closer, Sayis began talking. "Ilsa and Daichi were the winners today, but I hope all of you gained something from this. I kept the difficulty muted today, since this was the first run, but I'm still proud that both groups managed to finish with relative ease. The fact that you did so suggests that you were able to adapt to the adverse conditions quickly in order to work together with someone you didn't know.
"Those are the sort of traits I want to foster in this division.
"Before I end up making a big speech out of this, though, let's move on to the awards." Sayis grinned and reached into his haori, slipping his hand inside the writing case sewn there. He kept his hand closed, showing only the nondescript black cords hanging from it. "As Ilsa mentioned, I didn't include any physical or dangerous obstacles today. Too often in this organization, we are taught as though fighting is our only solution, our only goal. Today's test was about following the light of reason..."
Sayis pulled the first cord from his hand, holding up the trinket at its end between thumb and forefinger. There, attached in some undefined way to the cord, the captain held a miniature example of Rikujoukourou, the six tiny beams of light glowing faintly. Draping the band around Ilsa's neck, he pulled his fingers away, revealing a speck of bright blue flame, a tiny sample of Ghost Fire. "...and finding the spark of inspiration."
He draped the second pendant over Daichi's head.
"They're not quite enough to light your way, but maybe they'll serve as a reminder that you already know how to light your own way."
Turning to the others, Sayis started to say something to brighten their spirits -- they had, after all, been very close behind. "Shukumei, Mitsuyo, you both did-- Wait, where are you going?"
Mitsuyo was squelching off through the grass, headed toward the bunkers. "I had so much fun, that was very interesting, I'm going home!" he yelled over his shoulder with a terse wave of his hand.
Sayis blinked then looked at the other three and shrugged. "Well... in any case, good job. Be ready for next time: it should be a bit more of a challenge." The captain grinned, looking at Ilsa in particular. "Though I may have the ceiling raised, make it so you can stand up."
With a laugh, he explained, "Otherwise it might be hard for you to run."
Shiny sparkly necklace! And it wasn’t just metal or glass, the tiny Rikujoukourou and Ghost Fire actually looked like real kidou! Ilsa beamed happily as Sayis-taichou put the award around her neck. Then, of course, she couldn’t resist picking it up and examining the decoration from all angles. How did he simulate transient kidou in a permanent form? Or semi-permanent, at least. How did it attach to the cord?
She looked up from poking the miniature Ghost Fire at the words ‘have the ceiling raised’. "Captain, I will happily run through the maze if that means I can move down there without killing my back!” Ilsa winced as the words brought her attention back to her cramped muscles. "Good night, Sayis-taichou, Daichi-san, Shukumei-san.” Saluting the captain, the tall shinigami started walking back toward the barracks. A hot bath was definitely in order.
I wonder if it would be tacky to wear my award to the next maze run?
