"Hey, uhm...Ayuki?" "Yes, Ryuzo?" "You said you had no memories of your past. Does it mean that you don't remember anything from the moment you came here?" "Well, it's a complicated situation... I had nothing I could recall when I came here two weeks ago, but there are a couple of dreams I get from time to time about myself. It's hard to say whether those dreams are memories of my past life or not, but they are very detailed and vivid." Ayuki decided not mention Ryuzo the dreams she had; he probably wouldn't be interested in them. So far, there are a few things that they all have in common: it's about her, and it doesn't take place in Varyion. There's one where she was a small kid killing time in the playground next to her house. Her parents in the distance argued about something. It felt normal for them to be in this kind of argument where they yelled, cursed, and blamed each other. She pretended not to notice them, but she always watched them from the corner of her eyes. It wasn't really a nice dream, but it's still the only visual image Ayuki could get of her parents, so she was nevertheless thankful for having it. Another dream Ayuki had, was around the same year as the other one. She would go outside when it rained, away from her parents. They would never look for her when it rained, so it was okay to stay outside for some time. She would go to a specific place under a bridge, a place where she could cry if she wanted without being a bother to anyone. On one of those rainy days, a bald man walked close by and noticed her. He looked sad too, but he still approached her. Ayuki responded to his questions or just listen to the things he had to share. Starting from then, the conversations with him continued on most rainy days. Eventually, she didn't cry anymore and was even able to smile again. The dream was really vague on the conversation part, but it's still the most precious dream Ayuki had so far. She couldn't really feel happiness from her situation before. This changed after having this dream. She could smile again in this world too; it also thaught her how one could find consolation by just sharing your sufferings. She felt at least a lot better by sharing her problems to coordinator Klein from the first round and now Ryuzo too. "Sometimes," Ryuzo said, "I wished I didn't have any memories from the past and just start all over again. What's it like?" "It sucks," Ayuki quickly responded. "You feel dumb all the time when people talk about things you never heard about, which happens all the time by the way. It basically feels like you're a grown-up baby; as if you haven't lived before and see everything for the first time." "Grown-up baby?" He tried to hide a chuckle, but his body gave away the act. "Why did you share it with me then? I'm a complete stranger to you." "Oh, to be honest, I'm not sure myself. It was probably an instinctive decision. I'm a mouse after all." "I'm sorry, what? A mouse?" Ryuzo's confused face: a frown that made his face ten times uglier. Just what Ayuki hoped to see. "Haha, yes. You remember the cards from the first round?" "You mean that one-sided conversation thing?" That's an interesting way to describe it. "Yes, that thing. One of my cards was a cute mouse. As a mouse, I apparently make instinctive decisions." "I see." "What kind of cards did you get?" "Uhm...I only remember the last card. It was a...scarecrow." Ayuki tried her best to hold back her laughter. She imagined a scarecrow with Ryuzo's face. His black ruffled hair in combination with his eyes would surely scare something away. He's not ugly, but it does suit his personality a bit. "What does it mean?" "I live a passive and peaceful life, and...I'm basically protective over my property." Passive life? "Hmm, but coming here is rather an active choice. You must really want to protect something after all." Ryuzo remained quiet for a while. "Have you ever heard of the Crymsin?" he eventually asked. "No." Definitely not. "It's one of the worst contagious diseases that we know. Melderoy"—his voice trembled a bit—"my hometown suffered from that disease. That day is now known as the Crymsin Melderoy, but the Order hasn't given much information regarding that event. They're hiding something. I wish to know the truth behind it. That is my reason for wanting to join the Order Elites; they are allowed to go outside the city and even request their own missions." Many questions came to Ayuki's mind. Was Melderoy part of the Farenhall kingdom? What is the Crymsin disease? How many people survived it? Why do you think the Order would hide information about it? She wanted to ask those questions but refrained herself from doing so. It didn't feel right to dig more out of his past life. He already suffered a lot. "We both are aiming for the Order Elites; that makes us comrades, right? What—" "Boats?" Ryuzo said. What? Ayuki didn't pay much attention to the front, but now she saw it too. They were close to a lake similar to the one with the broken bridge. It was still a bit foggy, but you could tell that a few boats were rowing ahead. "There are more boats over there on the sides, let's go," Ryuzo said as he sprinted through the grass. Ayuki tried to keep up, but he was definitely faster. It was strange though, some people weren't moving with the boats, and other people were just standing on the sides too. What are they doing? When Ayuki arrived there, she saw Ryuzo talking to another person. "What's going on?' Ayuki asked them. "It's a loop," Ryuzo said. "People apparently keep up ending up back where they started." "Yeah, I saw the broken bridge when I was rowing," the man said, standing next to Ryuzo. He was soaking wet. "But you can't board anywhere so the only way to go up there, are the portals that randomly appear just above the water. Oh, here comes another one." The wet man pointed at a portal in the air; it stood positioned above the water. "Oh shit!" the woman said, that came from that portal, and fell in the water. So that's how this man here got wet. Ayuki looked around her. "So what now?" "Wohoo!" A loud cheer from afar. It sounded like a man that was celebrating his victory. "It sounds like someone found his way to the bridge," Wet man said. "Guess there's a correct portal after all. I'm going in again!" He grabbed one of the six remaining small boats, hopped on it, and looked at Ayuki and Ryuzo. "Don't wanna join?" "Ayuki!" Coming from another side, Ayuki saw the group of people running her way from the opposite direction. "Aisha! Everyone!" Great, they found each other. That means the only one who got separated was me. But still—that means we ended up not that far from each other—I wonder why? "Phew..." Despite Aisha's length, she's quite the fast runner, coming here before Eran could. "How are you two?" she asked. Ayuki glanced her eyes towards Ryuzo before glancing back to Aisha. "We're okay. It looks like we're quite close to the broken bridge. We need to find the right portal that will bring us to it." Aisha's eyes turned back to her regular jellyfish-blue color. "Okay, got it." They decided to take two boats with them. Irid, Aisha, Ryuzo, Ayuki, and wet-man went together on one boat; wet man was kind enough to wait a bit instead of leaving on his own. Bayne, Vanessa, Glen, and Eran were on the other one; they also decided to help wet-woman on board. What happened afterward was an unusual scene. From time to time, while they were rowing, people would plunge in the waters from different portals. Eran was enjoying this the most, laughing whenever it happened. The time, however, for them to do the same arrived. Different portals would appear, someone from the team would go through it and, like the rest, fall in the water as the final destination. The setup of the portals was similar like the previous one; you start through a random portal connected to another one that floated upside-down in the air just above the bridge, and fall in the portal below to eventually find out whether you choose the correct one. You could call it a Russian roulette; get the bridge or face the water plunge. "Hey Ayuki," Ryuzoh said. "Yeah?" "Earlier, you mentioned that cooperation was necessary for this round? What makes you so sure about that?" "Yes," Ayuki replied, "if you look at every round, and this mission too, I think cooperation is important here. The first round was about understanding your character through the interview and cards, the second was about finding your talent with the challenges, and now we're doing missions that are hard to clear. I think it's logical that the Order wants to see how we work together in unknown circumstances. Wait a sec." Cooperation... two different portals before... "The hook! I found this hook when I fell into that other portal. Think we can use it?" Aisha stared at it for a while before her jaw slightly opened. "Ah, yeah! We found a rope at our place; we can combine it! Eran! Rope! Throw the rope here." "What? Oh." Eran searched in his backpack and pulled a fairly short rope out. "Here, catch!" The rope fitted perfectly in the eye of the hook. Tie the rope to the eye with a knot and you basically had a hook line; it was definitely meant to be combined like this. This wouldn't have been possible if everyone was together or if nobody decided to grab the items. "So, we're supposed to use it." Ryuzo murmured to himself. Bayne scratched his head. "So, what can we use this hook and rope for?" "It's useful if you'll fall in the water," Eran replied. "You can pull an empty boat towards you. That will save quite some hassle I reckon." There were some empty boats around the lake. Some people must have abandoned it to use a portal. "That's true," Ayuki said, "but don't you think there's more use to it than just that?" "Like what?" "I don't know... yet." Try attaching it to the broken bridge? No, the rope seems way to short for that... "What about the portals?" Vanessa said. "Can't we also hook it to its edge and pull our boat towards it?" "Let me try. I have some experience with fishing; it may help a bit." Glen tried throwing the hook through a newly appeared portal. After a couple of misses, one attempt finally succeeded. When Glen pulled the rope in, the hook did indeed anchor itself to the edge of the portal. "Hehe, look at that. Wait... can't we use this for hanging down on the portal?" "Yeah, you may be right. Nice going, Glen! We can swing with it; then we don't need to use that bottom portal." Eran patted him on the shoulder. "What do you mean?" Cute Irid asked. "Just watch along through the portal. I can demonstrate it." Eran said as they pulled on the rope to bring the boat closer to the portal. Ayuki didn't saw Eran doing it, but through Aisha, she saw what they meant. All you had to do was to descend the rope to the bottom, swing back and forth until it's safe enough to let go, and land on bridge itself instead of the bottom portal. All the top portals weren't that high from the ground, and they were all positioned just above the broken bridge. It was a smart idea, everyone could do it, and you don't need to find the right portal, any portal was okay to use. Ayuki and Ryuzo were still there; the rest went ahead of them. "It seems you were right," Ryuzo said. "It is a cooperative mission. I just didn't want to do it before." Well, that was obvious, everyone could tell. Ayuki grinned. "Any regrets of having cooperated now?" His eyes were looking downwards. "Hmm, no, not anymore." He lifted his head up. "Before—you mentioned us being comrades. What does it require to be a comrade to you?" "Hmm, we're in the same boat, literally hehe. But seriously...uhm...we want to go outside the city, right? In that sense, we have the same goal. Shall we go? We can talk later on. The rest are waiting for us now." "Oh, yeah. Right. Sorry." Ryuzo went in first; Ayuki followed. The rest were luckily still waiting for them. Once together, they marched as a team on the bridge to the next location.