(78.5) Side Chapter 6 – Not so fragile
Meanwhile, in an elevator with four people inside.
*bang*,*bang*,*bang!* “Come on!!! Move you piece of shit! I didn’t survive an explosion just to die of asphyxiation right after!” screamed a station security guard with a feminine voice, banging on the elevator’s touch screen.
The elevator had stopped right after her, and three other girls got inside it and ordered it to descend.
A blue-haired girl stepped forward, warning in an uncertain tone. “Errr, Miss. that isn’t doing anything and with our duel disks we won’t need to worry about running out of air even with no vents…”
*bang!* The guard slammed her fist into the screen one more time before looking back at the girls. “And then what? Wait for us to be blown up as well? I don’t know you! Maybe ‘duelists’ can survive pure vacuum after your disks lose power.”
Recoiling, the blue-haired girl looked down, brooding. “Oh… We cannot… Then, what do we do?”
Her question left the guard looking stupidly at the ceiling.
At this time, another one of the girls stuck in the elevator sighed, ordering. “Okay, get out of the way. Let me do my magic.” She drew her duel disk, using it to project some kind of tool kit.
The guard stared at the girl with flowing brown hair and a generous chest, shuffling in front of her, quizzing. “And what do you intend to do? I don’t know if you know this, but machines don’t exactly get horny to do your bidding.”
Hearing such an uninformed remark about her choice of outfit, that being an exposing blue and white cheerleader uniform, she sighed deeply, but it was yet another one of the girls in the elevator that spoke up. “Hey! Don’t talk to Naeko like that! She may not look like it, but beneath her sexy exterior lies a genius tinkerer!”
The guard glanced at the pink-haired girl, also in the same exposing blue and white cheerleader uniform, and exhaled, looking at the ceiling, defeated. She crawled to a corner and sat down with her knees pushed together and arms around her legs. “Fine! Do whatever you want. We’ll be dead by the end of the hour.” she said, pushing her head into her knees.
Naeko simply looked at the woman and sighed to herself, but she didn’t waste any words on the washed-up guard and started working, popping the panel out, exposing the wires behind it.
The other cheerleader also shared a heavy sigh with her companion, and while she went to work on the problem at hand, the girl turned to the only one in the room who still held out hope and didn’t have ‘cheer’ on her job title. “So, Aiko, while we’re stuck here, want to tell me what all that screaming at Yasuna was about?”
Aiko, who was still gazing at the guard with her mouth hanging open, turned to the cheerleader, furrowing her brow with her eyes gazing at the floor. “Haruna… I don’t know. Do I have to talk about it?”
Haruna simply shrugged. “Have to? No, you don’t. But I’m quite curious about what happened between you three. Every time Yuumi would mention any of you, she would speak like you were best friends.”
The short, blue-haired girl drew in a deep breath through her nose before exhaling it. “Of course, she would… We acted like it when we were her roommates.”
The cheerleader, who leaned against another corner of the elevator with her arms crossed and one leg raised up, furrowed her brow. “Acted? Or were?”
Stuttering, Aiko replied. “W-We were… And I still consider Yasuna a friend… But… After Yuumi went away, she became… Well, she became too much for me and Mia.”
“How so? What did she do exactly?”
Aiko drew in another deep breath, leaning on the right wall of the elevator. “She didn’t mean to… But after Yuumi was gone, she tried acting like her—But… well, she ‘protected’ us from any student that tried to invoke a challenge. At the start, I and sis appreciated her for doing it… But then… It became too much!”
Haruna carefully evaluated what she had just said before offering. “Well, she is your senior. I remember having someone like that who would always protect me from particular nasty students. It’s normal for her to protect you.”
Aiko closed her eyes and told. “I know that, but there’s a difference between protecting us from unscrupulous yellow ranks that tried to coerce me and my sister into joining whatever humiliation club they made up and stopping us from gaining elo. We tried proving to her multiple times we were strong enough to handle ourselves, but she didn’t understand!”
Nodding along, Haruna asked. “And that’s when that duel you were yelling about happened?”
The uniformed girl nodded. “Yes… We won in a 2v1 against her… and then again in two separate 1v1 duels. Of course, they were practice duels with duel gazers. At the time, me and Mia thought nothing of it, but Yasuna kept repeating that if they were real solid vision duels, she would’ve won because we were not used to the pain.” Aiko leaned off the wall and exclaimed. “Why did that matter so much to her!? It was clear she was just making excuses!”
Haruna blinked intently before saying. “…Have you ever considered if she was right? The pain is the most difficult factor about solid vision dueling that even duelists often forget about.” She looked to the side. “Your brain makes stupid decisions when you’re high on adrenaline, or battling with excruciating wounds… Emotional or otherwise.”
Blinking in confusion, Aiko offered. “Are you okay? Something on your mind?”
Haruna gulped on saliva and shook her head. “I’m fine. Just remembered something… But don’t worry about it, we were talking about you. So, did you consider what Yasuna said?”
Aiko took a step back, leaning against the wall, sporting a dispirited look. “Of course we did. I… Well, you know that pain management class? Well… I enrolled.”
Haruna’s eyebrows shot right up, with Naeko pausing what she was doing to look back and exclaim simultaneously. ““You did what?!””
The girl in the center shivered. “W-What? It didn’t cost any DC, was a two-week course and gave me extra credit for Duel Theory… What’s so shocking about it?”
Haruna pushed herself off the wall. “Aiko, I know you’ve been in the NWDA for just two months, but there is a reason nobody takes that unless they’re desperate! Cancel that shit as soon as you get earth-side!”
Naeko further moved in to scare her about it. “Do you even know what they do there? They will make you experience every type of pain that solid vision can inflict, from having your thorax crushed to acid attacks and even third-degree burns while experiencing near fatal shocks! The best part? You could have all that done to you in a single day! There’s a reason that the course has a 92% desertion rate! Don’t let the short two-week duration fool you! Get out while you still can!”
Aiko leaned back, her eyes shooting around the room. “B-But… I’ve already completed the course…”
Haruna took a step back, her eyes opening wide and her mouth hanging open. “Y-Y-You did?”
Naeko shared the same look as Haruna. “N-No fucking way. Where’s your badge?!”
The shorter girl recoiled at seeing the two much taller cheerleaders surrounding her, but she still shuffled around and unclipped her pendulum-summoner badge, passing it to Naeko.
She, in turn, hastily turned it around, looking for that course’s completion symbol. It wasn’t difficult to spot per se; As it featured a duelist melting in acid while giving a thumbs up.
“S-She, she really has it…” Naeko affirmed, her voice weak and breathy…
Haruna leaned in. “She really does…”
Both of the cheerleaders gazed at the apparently shy, blue-haired girl, gobsmacked.
—
It took at least a couple of minutes before Naeko returned to what she was doing before, trying to get them out of this elevator before they suffocated.
Then there was Haruna, who stayed frozen, staring at the badge, even a couple more minutes after Naeko. When she finally returned the badge. She leaned back against the wall, a new opinion on Yuumi’s supposedly fragile and shy roommate forming in her head.
There was something else about the students who had completed the course that they didn’t divulge. All of them, with no exceptions, either came out too traumatized and refused to speak about it with fervor… Or, alternatively… They turned into massive masochists who would inevitably awaked some sadistic tendencies… And as Aiko herself just told them about it… Well… May god have mercy on whoever ends up being her partner…
The awkward silence caused by this revelation lasted well over 10 minutes, but it was eventually broken by Haruna trying to return to their original discussion.
She stuttered all the way. “S-So, after you… W-Well, did that… What did Yasuna say?”
Aiko shook her head. “I didn’t have time to tell her. I had my final exam a day before we were called by the Director to take part in this tournament. S-So, as we would be dueling each other eventually… I wanted to show her I could take her attacks and still go on in this duel… And you know how that turned out already.” She raised her hand, emphasizing the elevator.
Naeko sighed before Haruna could say anything. “I know. I’m trying to figure out this data-bus but there’s so many fucking wires! Why does an elevator even need a 64-bit wide bus just to communicate with a floor counter, some sensors, maybe some breaks, and a speaker? They don’t need to make this overly complicated! Elevators have been a solved technology for hundreds of years now; This is what you get when you try to innovate when there’s nothing else to improve!”
The guard — Who had at some point been called by Naeko to help hold a wire and now partially acted as her assistant—Commented. “Probably just for clout, there was a lot of unnecessary spending going around. Need I point to the giant lagoon on the pleasure deck that’s at 40% capacity on the busiest times of the year?”
She stayed silent. Obviously, she had seen that ridiculously ostentatious monument, and also noticed how badly populated it was. But she payed more attention to the reverse engineering of the elevator control bus, and soon realized. “Guys, I think this bus may be encrypted. I don’t think I can get us moving.”
A wave of coldness reached everyone stuck in the elevator.
The guard who originally shared this opinion offered, stuttering. “D-Did you try XOR? I heard that’s quite common.”
Naeko slowly turned to the guard with her eyebrows arched and her mouth open. “I’m sorry? What? Of course not! Who would use such an outdated algorithm if they wanted to actually encrypt something, watc—”
A robotic voice emitting from her duel disk interrupted Naeko. [“Welcome customer {TESTBUSREVERSE} Please select your desired floor.”]
…
…
The supposed cybersecurity expert whipped her head to the floating duel disk screen. “What?! Why!? That’s as good as not having anything at all! The only reason you would do that is to check a box off a list from marketing…” She stopped mid-sentence. In a split second, she knew how such an outdated form of encryption found itself on a top-shelf product…
Haruna stifled a laugh. “Fufufufu, so I’m guessing we can get going?”
Naeko looked back, nodding. “Yes. Are we still going to the hotel deck?”
The guard stood up. “We better. Even if the threat has already been resolved, we should still get you three to the safe zones.”
[“Thank you for your selection. Enjoy your trip.”]
The elevator music resumed, a light synthwave tune, followed by a sinking feeling of movement that everyone in the cramped chamber now very much appreciated.
< A/N: Space Station 13 - Title 2 Mark II: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XKdDchb_MEY&list=PLkjVWxqEoZvH_HF4XAP7ePcdFZbtSUhT1 >