Chapter 9

The ship was slowly approaching the Test Zone.

The tension inside the compartment could hardly be touched. Just as Androssi had said, someone among the Regulars had guessed what would happen at the beginning of the test, and had told the others. But, as if in mockery, the platform inside the ship was rather small, and the eleven Regulars were not exactly huddled together, but they couldn't move more than a foot and a half away from each other if they wanted to. But that didn't prevent a semblance of a boundary from forming between the Monsters and the rest of the regulars.

Only Androssi and Hizu were unaffected by the tension. The princess simply swayed from side to side, twirling the shrunken needle in her hand and languishing in boredom, while Hizu could hardly be bothered with anything at all. At times it seemed to Rachel that the boy had not changed his expression since they had first met. Rachel herself was nervous, but in her case no wonder. Despite having two of the strongest competitors on her side, she was not immune to the occasion. Somewhat reassuring were Guide words.

"Arrived. Thirty seconds to move." Rachel looked out the window, which was just around the corner, and saw a large metal black cube below, standing in the middle of a soaring desert island. It was about to start. The girl mentally began to count down the seconds...

Teleportation.

A moment of blindness, and Rachel felt herself being dragged back by the scruff of her neck. Blinking, the girl braced herself for a fight (as much as possible in her case), but instead she was met with absolute darkness. "Night?" Quite possibly. The Ranker said the area was safe, but he didn't mention that the "Day" timer couldn't expire in the starting area.

A cry of pain was heard.

Rachel barely restrained herself from activating the lighthouses. The light from the them was likely to attract regulars and give away her position, so the best thing in her position would be to stay still and listen to her surroundings while her eyes got used to the darkness.

There were sounds of blows and shrieks, and then...

Rachel felt something cold near her neck while a hand clamped over her mouth. Before she could even try to get out, a familiar voice sounded above her ear:

"Don't move, or I'll cut your neck." Juga. It was him. Barely had she realized it, the chameleon shouted as loudly as possible: "Stop or she dies!"

Rachel froze. Her gaze ran from side to side, hoping to find help, but in the darkness it was impossible to see even herself. She involuntarily tried to twitch, but the knife blade against her neck touched her skin, clearly demanding that she should stop.

"Let us light the scene," said Juga quietly.

With those words, the lights came on, illuminating the center of the room. Since it was still technically "night" in the room, he used his luminary. Alas, it was not powerful enough to illuminate everything, and so some of the participants were still either in or near darkness. The same Hizu, for example. Juga didn't want to admit it, but he was scared out of his mind right now. Like the first test. Like all three weeks of the Position Test. His hands were shaking. But it wasn't the first time, and he knew how to fight it. How to fight those much stronger than you: just find the right "leverage," and then "use it" right afterwards.

"Oh, really? Hostage?" pulling the needle out of the unlucky Regular's body, Androssi muttered. Not far from her lay another bloody body. Even though the participants tried to stay as far away from the Trio as possible, they couldn't get very far after the teleportation. Juga bit his lip. The princess was standing closer than he would have liked, but even so he would have time to cut before she got any closer. Hizu might have been the problem; the bodyguard was standing too far away, and the chameleon could barely keep both Regulars in his sight. "And what makes you think that's going to work?"

"Judging by the fact that you're standing still after all, it works." Juga chuckled nervously. He felt like the king of the situation: everything was going just as he expected. Well, except for the fact that there was a little more loss.

"Well, just a little, I haven't solved this riddle yet, and I wouldn't want to interrupt. On the other hand, I won't risk my life for it." Androssi shrugged her shoulders and tilted her head. "Yeah, and I wasn't planning on leaving anyone alive outside my team, either. So…"

Chameleon tensed. She's bluffing, right? Inhale. Exhale. Juga looked at the Princess again, but she seemed to be ignoring the hostage situation, boredomously poking the dead participant's body beside her with a needle. Mocking. Waiting. The hell with her.

"My terms are as follows. You stay in this room until the end of the exam, and then Rachel won't get hurt." Juga finds out from the Ranker how many points are given for passing each room. And if the Trios don't leave the starting area, then the Chameleon will have a chance to go to the next floor, leaving these Monsters here. Downstairs. "I don't think that would be difficult, right? Especially since you have enough points to..."

"God, that's it? Your whole idea?" said Androssi interrupting Juga which made him tense involuntarily. "I honestly thought you were smarter, but in the end you're just an idiot as the rest of the Regulars here."

"Wh-what are you?" the chameleon squeezed out, not noticing how white the knuckles clenched the knife and how the blade lightly pierced Rachel's skin. Even so, Juga could still see Hizu standing at his side in the periphery of his vision, he hadn't moved an inch since the conversation had begun, and that was comforting. A little. This whole conversation is taking longer than calculated.

"None of you have thought to try to team up with us--okay, almost none. It might have given you a chance not only to survive, but to start climbing the Tower further..." The princess threw up her hands. "Well, this place full of dumb people, so no surprise here".

"You forget yourself, Can't you see the situation you're in?!" suddenly, even to himself, Juga erupted, and he impulsively waved his knife in the Princess' direction. "That bitch's life is in my hands!"

"Is it really? " Princess's smile turned predatory. "Tell me, you know what positions can do, don't you? After all, you are Lightbearer."

"What are you..." Something in Juga's subconscious was already beginning to sound the alarm. Was he missing something? He shouldn't be. For some reason, however, his heart starts beating faster.

"Well, tell me, what position does Hizu have?" Juga's heart skipped a beat. He realized. Glancing sharply in the direction where Hizu was supposed to be standing, he saw only a smudged shadow. The bodyguard was not there. The realization came instantly, but there was no point in doing anything.

Someone's strong hand squeezed his limb with the knife. His heart skipped a beat again. Juga's body became paralyzed.

"I'm going to die," the thought crept up as if to finish Juga off. Fear and terror were replaced by empty apathy. The chameleon fell to his knees, unresponsive to anything. His eyes were devoid of meaning.

He didn't move, not even when the terrified Rachel picked up the knife.

He didn't react when she began to plunge the blade repeatedly into his chest.

He didn't lift a finger until the moment he died.

Because IT was looking at him.

Darkness covered the room once more.

***

"Well, we're done here..." murmured Androssi, pulling the needle out of the tall red-skinned Regular's back. Some participants, realizing where this was going, decided to seize the moment and run to other rooms, but they never made it to the door. The lights in the room came on, while the Princess frowned. The moment Hizu reached Juga, it was as if Androssi had been transported back to her past. What was happening bore no resemblance to those events, but the fear she felt was the same. Plus another oddity to add to Hizu's and Rachel's oddities.

Exhaling, thereby dispelling the excitement a little, the Princess turned to her... team. Rachel was still sitting there, staring at Juga's chilled body. Anayuma was there, too, and for some reason she looked terribly depressed. Hizu, as if nothing had happened for the last five minutes, looked around with a stony face.

"Welcome to the Tower, gentleman and ladies," Androssi said as she approached the group, wearing her usual smile. Rachel turned her head languidly toward the princess. She stared at the girl for a while, and then just as listlessly nodded and began to rise. The blonde's gaze was still frightened, but she seemed to come to her senses. "I'll remind you that we still have a task."

"Miss Androssi..." Anayumi appealed in a husky voice. During the hostage situation, one of the Regular decided that Juga's plan had succeeded, and on the sly decided to get rid of her to have a chance to go to the floor above. She... she didn't mean to kill him, but when she was cornered, she had to attack back. Anayumi wanted only a slight intimidation to break free, but instead the shinsu went lower than intended and pierced the head of the Regular. Squirrel had seen others killed, but she never thought that she herself would ever kill someone, and now her condition could be described in one word: "shitty. "Do we have to fight the Ranker? Do we have to do anything?"

"Nah, I told you, everything else is just a way to earn extra points," Androssi said with a wave. "There's no point in sitting around moping, either. I'd say it's time to get used to this kind of crap; it's everywhere in the Tower."

"I'd rather not get used to being held hostage," Rachel giggled while nervously touching her neck. And then she exhaled sharply. "But Androssi's right, we might not have to fight the Ranker or we might not meet them at all in the time, but we can sit and think about what happened later when we're done with the test."

Hizu only nodded at these words, continuing to watch as the black thread that stretched from the blonde to the boy's wrist drained away and then disappeared altogether. His fingers trembled, and it seemed as if a knife had recently been held to his neck, but at the same time it was all so... familiar? It didn't matter. All that mattered was that the subject was alive, and also a new memory. A memory of a pile of dead peoples.

"Okay..." Anayuma's voice clearly read disagreement, but she didn't argue with the majority, instead climbing with Rachel's permission to the top of the lighthouse that the blonde had called for.

"Well, in that case, let's hurry up, we've lost enough time as it is." Twirling the needle, Androssi looked at her watch. The timer showed that the Regulars had just over twenty minutes left. Rachel nodded and stepped inside the lighthouse, whereupon it soared, ending up above the heads of Androssi and Hizu. Even though the Princess was in a hurry, they still had to take a few seconds to make the connection between their watch and Rachel's light, and then the group headed toward the nearest passageway...

...Androssi exhaled deeply, trying to calm her irritation. As luck would have it, all the rooms she encountered contained challenges that were impossible to simply jump through. It was either a maze or a puzzle, and it wasted a lot of time. The map with the "schedule" of the rooms, obtained in one of Rachel's rooms, did not help either; it only saved a little time and did not go into the "night" room. As a result, there was virtually no time left, and the current room would be the last room, for they would obviously not make it in the remaining four minutes.

The whole room consisted of movable hexagonal platform pillars, going up or down at different speeds. Perhaps if they looked closely, they could spot a certain cycle and make a convenient path from the entrance to another exit... or just fly to or inside the light. Either way, it will take all the time they have left and they may well not even make it in time, for, according to Rachel, it will be night in this room in three minutes and it will close.

"I see the Ranker in the center!" came Rachel's voice from the clock; however, Androssi herself had time to notice Hax jumping on the platforms. Four minutes "is very little, but still something. An involuntary smile of excitement appeared on Androssi's face.

Hax looked lazily at the hopping Princess approaching. Following her, keeping pace, was Hizu, who had already activated the Blur. The yellow beacon with Anayuma on it was moving in parallel and at the same time at a considerable height from the Regular, but trying to keep as far away from Hax as possible. Not wanting to just stand there and wait, the Ranker began to move toward the participants.

Immediately as her foot touched the platform, Hax had to swerve slightly, letting a volley of shinsu pass her. While Anayuma charged another baang, Ranker dodged another shot, this time from Hizu's side.

By this point Androssi had already reached the Hax platform and was stabbing with the needle. The Ranker, not to waste unnecessary energy in a forceful confrontation with the Princess, only deflected the blow, unwittingly noticing where and how she could attack back. Unfortunately, the rules forbade doing so during the "day," so Hax was left to fend off Androssi's attacks in frustration, and dodge the occasional shinsu beams from Hizu and Anayuma, who successfully found an angle in which they did not risk hitting their teammate.

Princess was strong enough, after all Zahard's blood gave her an undeniable advantage in this regard, but the girl's skills were clearly lacking. Mostly just basic strokes combined with brute strength and dexterity. The floor up to the twenty-fifth floor might be enough, but beyond that she might have problems.

Realizing that the needle would do nothing, the Princess jumped to the edge of the platform and, with a quick nod to Hizu, threw her weapon at Hax. The Ranker swung the flying blade away in a sweeping motion, but that was the moment the bodyguard used to leap from his platform, simultaneously raising his hand to strike.

Hax took a step to the side, moving out of the path of the blow.

Androssi was already on the interception, swinging her fist. With a yelp, the Ranker was forced to let go of the needle and turn around to block the blow. And almost immediately she twisted in a wiggle, avoiding a blow to the back from Hizu. The prohibition of attacks in response actually restrained the Ranker much more than she thought at first. In the past minute alone, she'd had to spend a quarter of a baang just to block or evade blows that wouldn't have even happened if Hax had had the chance to strike. One could, of course, run from the Regulars by jumping on platforms, but then her reputation and pride would already suffer... Ranker running away from the contestants. Yep.

Both Regular seem to have been well aware of that, and took full advantage of Hax's stiffness. Except that Anayuma was finally exhausted and could no longer form even a weak baang.

Androssi, shouting something, rushed into the attack again. The girl's hand-to-hand combat skills were clearly better, but Hax was worried about someone else. Hizu. Despite the fact that the Princess was unleashing a torrent of blows on the Ranker, it left little problem for the curator of the Oodles to avoid or block them, but the kid's occasional lunges were quite problematic. Unlike the sparring with the Princess, the guy was clearly not holding back now, but at the same time it made his punches predictable enough: neck, throat, chest, head. However, they did not make them any nicer, and Hax moved around the platform as if unintentionally, so as to narrow down Hizu's opportunities to attack as much as possible.

However, Hax did give him credit: the boy was adjusting to the pace and the situation very, very well. Too well, in fact. Now it seemed that the guy had fought alongside Androssi all his life, he was so good at picking his moments to attack. It didn't matter if it was a volley of shinsu or a simple hand strike (and often both at the same time).

Seizing the moment, Hax was able to break the distance between the Regular and called out the clock. The timer showed a minute and three seconds. In those three minutes, the contestants were able to make her spend most of her available reserve. Monsters indeed. The remaining shinsu, however, was enough to knock them both out, but not enough for the hovering luminary.

The lights in the room went out, but the platform on which the Regulars and the Ranker were still lit by Rachel's glow. During the battle, the blonde kept her eyes on the timer and turned on the lantern function on the beacon ahead of time.

"My turn," said Hax a little more excitedly than she should have been. The handler glimpsed Hizu disappearing into the darkness: most likely he'd applied Black Scout, one of the scouting skills. Almost guaranteed to try to attack, using the element of surprise.

"That's will be... "Androssi was about to say something, but the Ranker was already beside her. With difficulty, but the Princess managed to block the first blow, and she barely had enough speed to evade the second. She was saved from the next by her activated hairpin: very strong hovering shields, able to shrink or increase their size depending on the user's desire. Up to this point, she had only used them as a simple decoration.

"Nice toy." Hax slipped into the gap between the exposed shields with ease and, evading Androssi's elbow, delivered a rather palpable blow to the solar plexus, even for the Princess. To the brown-haired girl's credit, the attack wasn't enough to put her out of the game, and she tried to counterattack and break the distance at the same time.

The lights suddenly went out, taking the Princess by surprise.

Because of that, she didn't see how Hax was in position to intercept the retreating Androssi. There was no chance to block or evade the attack.

"Ugh..." Not only did the Ranker's blow hit her ribs, but the Princess was thrown to the side of the platform, causing the girl to hit her shoulder some more. Trying to rise, ignoring the pain in her ribs, Androssi tried stand up but froze in place.

The lights over the platforms were back on, and the Princess saw a rather... curious sight. That's putting it mildly. Hax was standing in the same place from which she had struck the blow, while at her side was Hizu, whose fist was pressed close to the Ranker's mask.

"Wow..." Apparently, Hax was about to say something, but that was the moment the guy chose to fire a volley of shinsu at point-blank range, the result of which was a tarnish on the Ranker's mask. It didn't take long for the response, and with three sharp blows Hizu was literally hammered into the floor of the platform. Seeing that the Princess was in no particular hurry to lift, and there was barely ten seconds left on the timer, Hax exhaled and shook off her clothes. "I think you did quite well, I'd say A+. Too bad it's the final exam, if only there had been more time... Mm, never mind, though. Should I congratulate you, I guess?"

The question went unanswered. From the ceiling of the room flew several pale yellow lights belonging to Lero Rho, and within seconds the Regular and the Ranker were moved to the ship. Before she left, Hax cast one last glance in the direction of the unconscious boy. She'd expected him to use the darkness to attack, but the handler had clearly underestimated Hizu's stealth skills. Could that jerk Quant really be capable of teaching the Regulars anything?

***

Third Floor

"Oh, you're finally here," came a voice as the group of four Regular appeared on the teleportation pad. As soon as the Regulars' eyes adjusted to the bright light, a picture of a small complex-city appeared before them. At the same time, a fair-haired girl, a head shorter than Rachel, was standing right in front of the participants and studying the arrivals intently. Apparently this was their escort. "My name is Su Ami. And you, miss Rachel, are indeed have an interesting team."

"Um, what do you mean, Miss Ami?" a bit surprised by this statement Rachel asked her Guide.

"Well," Su Ami shrugged her shoulders, and then extended her hand and began pointing at the Regulars: "Irregular, Princess Zahard, and Po Bidau Bellerir's toy, even an ordinary Regular looks a little too unusual here. Perhaps this assignment won't be as boring as I thought it would be. Anyway, let's talk about it in a better pace, I recently bought a house nearby."

No one argued. After all, this fleeting encounter had raised quite a few questions, and the answers to some were better not voiced in a public place like this. Not that there were a lot of people on the street now, rather the opposite: no one was seen around the site at all, but it didn't hurt to be overly cautious.

"Bingo," Rachel heard behind her, and when she turned back she saw Androssi smiling broadly and clearly pleased.