Chapter 37: 35 : The Apefly of Naraka

Soon after the team fell into the endless hole, Tsuki found herself alone, as if the others were devoured by the crawling darkness. She was attacked on all sides by long spears in the form of arms that jumped from unknown faces in the walls. She did her best to twist her body to avoid those approaching weapons and was successful at first but after the next volley came her way, her blood was drawn.

None of the weapons went as deep as to cause real damage, stopping after piercing the skin and retracting instantly. They were like needles which caused more pain than anything.

“What! GET AWAYS!!” screamed Tsuki who waved her long glaive toward the next wave of spears. She was still in shock as things changed too fast: from walking and talking calmly with one another to falling into a pit of spears with walls covered with scary faces. “Maikai! Vergeltung! Fi!” she tried to call for the others, but no one responded to her. Instead, the sound of a spear breaking the air rang by her head which she barely had the time to respond to by cleaving it with her glaive.

Her quick fall caused the blue ribbon in her hair to react. It had been dormant since the time she escaped the abomination made of mouths that broke the sky after using all of its power. In the cavernous hell of spears, a soft wind covered the young girl who began moving with more ease. Although she wasn’t able to dodge everything, her movements almost looked like a dance as she cut her way around while taking minimal damage. She slowed the speed at which she fell to avoid a coming wave and drew a circle of white and black petals that glued themselves to the burning walls.

She had spent some time wondering about the flowers she created whenever she attacked something with her weapon. They didn’t do anything, and she never intended to create any of them. But they still drained her when they were created, which made the glaive worthless as it tired her just for an aesthetic effect. There had to be something more to those flowers and right now, Tsuki was trying to invent a use for them. The ribbon’s wind cleared her mind, and she came up with a solution as if it was intrinsic to her soul. She instinctively moved some kind of power, the thing Folkvang was unable to detect, which was pulled by the flowers sprouting from her left shoulder. This strange and unknown essence moved from flowers to flowers as if they acted like organs refining what came in them into something more complex. That newly refined essence reached her fingertip which she released.

All at once, all the flowers and petals she had ever created, no matter how far they were, were duplicated by absorbing the surrounding matters and expanding far-reaching roots. In this hole she was falling in, the walls all got covered in flowers that caused the faces which created spears to crumble like dry dirt. By waving her hand down, those flowers that were blooming with an intense will were ripped from the walls and caused a waterfall of petals to follow the girl. She was surprised at how strong she really was and even felt it strange. Thinking back to when she came to this world, her body was so weak she was unable to walk for a long time. It was odd how fast she was improving but this could only be considered a blessing right now as more danger was waiting below her.

She saw a small plaque on the wall in the short instant where nothing came for her that said: Krimisha. She didn’t know what it meant but the loud buzzing of insects that were getting louder might be what it was referring to. This time, she wouldn’t be able to cover the walls with flowers as dark clouds of insects surrounded her in the air. The group she came with didn’t matter to the girl anymore; she was solely focused on getting out of this hell alive.

Tsuki tried to empower the ribbon to create large gusts of wind and push the insect away. Although it was successful, the insects were so many that some managed to latch onto the girl’s clothes. They had small mandibles that clamped on the fabric she was wearing and began crawling toward her soft skin already wounded by the spears. She hated it, the feeling of them crawling all over her body, and wished she could melt and get away from them. On this, she remembered how Folkvang had transformed into dying leaves. If only she could do the same thing, she saw it happen once. So how hard should it even be? She magically grew flowers a moment ago.

She focused and time seemed to stop. A singular petal, long and thick. She focused on the veins detailing this new tender flesh and how soft the skin was. Her mind looked down at the small tip where all petals met and made it stronger and heavier while painting it white: a white that fades into a soft black with some lines of various colors. She imagined this one small petal becoming two, becoming four, becoming eight…until she could create a garden out of them. Then, she focused her mind on them as she released more of the strange power refined by the flowers on her shoulder.

In that short instant, the girl exploded into thousands of petals that mixed with the downcast from before. The insects stuck in this storm were shredded and absorbed by the ravenous petals newly created.

‘Vahnijwala’, she saw written on a new plaque and felt an intense heat damaging her new body and instinctively changed back to her original. The hole had changed into a sea of fire with blazes threatening to devour her body and leave her charred. “Transmutation!” she instantly commanded as she forced the earlier petals into a protective shell. It wasn’t the best, but it offered a layer of air between the infernal heat.

She luckily managed to escape the sea of fire moments after her cocoon was broken in, but her breathing was rash and wild which made her panic more as below her was a dark red mist she instinctively understood shouldn’t be breathed in. ‘Avata-nirodhana’, said another plaque. But she had already learned how to deal with it as she let the ribbon in her hair dance and create strong winds that dispelled the gas. She fell without having to hold her breath in the miasma that would have otherwise melted her lungs.

But here was the next challenge in the form of a dark-red pool waiting patiently for her to crash against. She was forced to slow herself so as to not die and thus landed delicately on the liquid surface, the wind keeping her in suspension. But before she could think of what to do next, a heavy object came from above and caused a torrent of red liquid to splash all over the girl as it went deeper uninterrupted. It was her backpack she lost when transforming into a bundle of petals. Surprisingly, it had survived the burning heat by itself.

As she realized she wasn’t wearing her backpack, she realized that all her clothes were gone and thus forced the white and black petals remaining in a simple dress that could cover her shame, not that there was much to see. Too young, always sick, and malnourished, Alice’s body could never really grow but Tsuki found it pleasing that she had managed to put some meat on it. Still, as the girl saw her own shame, she also saw something she despised and understood she needed to use: those gnarly mouths imposing themselves on her thigh were salivating at the poll.

“FINE!” she responded before spitting the iron-tasting liquid that got in her own mouth and jumping in the pool of blood.

The maws growing on her leg greedily drank the blood such that it created a downward suction pulling her at great speed. She hated that feeling similar to drinking something hot and sensing it go down her throat. Last time, when those disgusting mouths drank bucket after bucket of water, she could only feel the liquid go inside her leg by two to three centimeters (about one inch I think) but now it felt as if there was an empty river passing through her body that was being filled. But no matter how much those mouths drank, the surface they took was too little and the blood they drank only managed to seep into the strange riverbed.

This fall only lasted for a minute at most and the plaque drowned in blood that said ‘Rudhirándha’ was replaced by another. ‘Dandasuka’ it said. Tsuki was expecting something awful after escaping the pool of blood, but there was nothing else. She looked around her and saw thousands of holes in the stone walls with nothing inside. They all felt vile to look at, as if something would simply lunge at her at any moment and…nay, she understood how devious those holes were in an instant. This place was an illusion that would make the victim think they were attacked by the most venomous snakes. Forced to protect themselves from all sides and go insane by the fear of something slithering close by.

The girl found it strange. It was almost like all those places were simple imitations of something more insidious. All of those zones only lasted for around a minute. If her entire fall would have only been one of those things, she might have simply died or gone insane. Even now, she could feel the illusion trying to pull her in, weakening as below was a pit of rocks similar to the one she had thrown herself in after failing to escape with Alice. ‘Avicimat’ was the name of this place Tsuki saw.

She didn’t even have to try to survive this as she simply used the wind and the petals to slow her fall. BAM!! Her heavy bag fell just next to her. She inspected the inside quickly and was pleased to see everything inside still intact, even the tea set was fine. “Good job, Cyclogo!” she said pleased after petting the plush of the one eye-cat inside.

She had survived many tribulations, but one still stood in front of her, maybe there were more of them but right now; a heavy door made of copper blocked her path. ‘Raksogana-bhojana’ was inscribed on the strong metal showing many deep claw marks.

The door was heavy, but once she placed her hand over the sculpted face of a feasting demon, it opened by itself. A pungent odor quickly escaped the room and almost made her sick on the spot. It was the smell of something rotten which was disturbed. She wanted to see what was causing this smell, but the room in front of her was filled with darkness so pure that it threatened to eat the light around her. She had no choice, she had to go inside…

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After taking out the mysterious lamp she got along Cyclogo and tying it to the shaft of her glaive, she entered the room while trying to not listen to her fearful heart.

Once inside, the door closed by itself and groaned loudly - which it hadn’t done when opening - as if to wake something up. Tsuki found herself surprisingly strong by surviving everything before but felt powerless when her lantern managed to shine over what was inside…

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After 15 minutes had passed, the trio of Hoomaikai, Vergeltung, and Fi managed to join back together. All three were slowed down by an outside force when they came to the end of the pit without having to face anything. Only Vergeltung had a door which, unlike Tsuki, was made from twigs. Once the cat went inside, he was faced with a large passel of hogs. The ground was hard to walk on as pits of mud were in multiple places.

The cat didn’t know how to react at such a scene. There was a door at the other end and the first time he tried to reach it, a pig pushed him into the mud. He wanted to hit the darn pig with his blazing rod, but it was already gone when he managed to clean the mud from his eyes. The same thing kept happening over and over again until he reached the door but to his horror, it was locked. A message was carved on the door which simply said: “Only those clean can leave this place.”

The cat cried when he saw a basin of clean water from the entrance and went back dejected. He kept challenging this room until he managed to ride a cute pig above the pits of mud. It was to say that Hoomaikai and Fi, seeing the cat riding his mount like a king, made them laugh.

“You better give it a name before Tsuki sees it,” said Hoomaikai.

“…” the cat dreadfully realized the issues and froze after panicking that the strange girl would pop at any time and call the pig ‘Globastata’ or whatever her imagination decided. “Freddy,” responded Vergeltung after some time.

“Hmmmm, I guess that works. Anyway, what took you so long and where is that silly girl?”

“I didn’t see her. I fell for some time and before I realized everyone was gone.”

On this, the three talked about what they had experienced, and the two girls found it strange that only the cat had to do a weird kind of challenge.

“What if she’s also stuck with those pigs?” asked Vergeltung.

The first to react was Hoomaikai who felt as if the girl would have attacked the pig and made a bloody mess for some reason. “Don’t tell me she’s really stuck and can’t get out?” she said just before inspecting the area.

They were in a circular room with multiple doors all made from impossibly hard metal. Nothing differentiated them other than three, those they came out from, were still open.

“Feel nothing, empty,” said Fi who touched one of the many doors. She went around and found nothing of interest. “Empty pocket. They lead somewhere else. Fi will find where those pockets are.” The spirit was in her own world and didn’t explain much to the confused animals behind her.

The snakes, the pig, and the cat all looked at one another not knowing what they were supposed to do in this situation. They simply looked toward the spirit that was slowly spinning clockwise in the air hoping she could find where Tsuki was.

“This!” said the spirit after some time. She went toward one of the doors and tried to open it to no avail. Five minutes had already passed by since the cat joined the group, meaning that Tsuki might have been stuck in her room for ten long minutes. “Fi’s opening it.”

The little spirit managed to force it open and the group was assaulted by the repulsive smell that permeated the dark room. Vergeltung and his pig instantly backed up as the smell affected them greatly. It was to the point that the pig fell on its side out of confusion. Only Fi and Hoomaikai were able to handle the smell since both of them were simply unable to smell anything but before they could get inside, out came Tsuki. She was bloodied and tattered. Large chunks of meat were missing from her as if something tried to eat her alive.

The girl pointed inside the dark room with pleading eyes before crumbling onto the ground…Tears appeared in her eyes when she saw a plaque in this new room that said: Vaitarni. She thought she might be able to heal herself, but she was completely drained, and darkness filled her mind. The girl quickly lost consciousness as dark blood left her body from her many wounds.