AN: First of all, I'm sorry for taking so long! I've taken a break from a lot of things. Since I had so much going on, but now that I'm back! I can finally ask the question as well! The Anime itself has ended and with this, I'm asking you the readers, if I should continue this book or end everything with this chapter here? Again I'm sorry for not saying anything about my absence. (Here is a picture I drew, that's how I feel right now.)
(Had to delete this for certain reasons)
Also starting with last chapters end, so everyone remembers where we were.
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An hour left
Almost the whole group went into another room, there in the middle was a familiar looking game.
"A real dice game?"
"I think only one person can play at a time." Himiko said.
"I think two can! Like a race or something." My eyes sparkled, usually my luck with dices was pretty good back in the days.
"Okay, let's give it a shot!" Iride went to another starting point, then we both went up to the podiums at once.
At the time we both took our places, a hologram of some sort appeared, we supposedly had to scroll on the slide next to the circle with numbers to dice from 1-9. Iride went first and immediately scored a 6.
"One, two, three, four, five, six." He counted, then Pantarou appeared before us somehow. I have to say that we're in luck that the room is big enough for him to be here. "Ooh, Pantarou! Long time no see!" It seemed like that this was a bonus field, he was allowed to advance 3 times again. "What a great start for me!"
"Indeed, you have blessed luck from the gamer gods up above Akatsuki-Kun!" To soon to be happy, after he got to his destination...we were summoned inside a battlefield! Though only Iride was inside the battle, we had to watch him from a screen.
"Those three steps threw him straight into battle. So much for having luck from those gods of yours." Anya commented, meanie.
"I'm sorry for jinxing stuff a lot, but come on. Give me a break too!" I huffed at him and focused back to the screen, seeing that Akatsuki's opponent was none other than his 'doppelganger' Punitsuki.
"It's like a family showdown or something." He said, Kudou must be used to my ranting now. How funny.
"Now that you said that, Punitsuki could be his evil twin brother or something!" They looked at them and questioned me, how were they supposed to be brothers exactly? The battle began with our slimy fellow calling for backup, from 'B' to 'F'. Iride imitated him and called for backup too, it just backfired though...betrayal!
Punitsuki H appeared!
"Guys, why are they stacking themselves on one another? Oh, big chungus!" I blurted out after seeing the smoke gone, a giant slime that didn't looked like Akatsuki anymore except for the hair. "It's, it's so cute!" The King's eyes begged to be friends, that's what the text below said at least. How can anyone not say it's adorable! And hilarious. After a while of looking at each other, Iride approached and hugged them, they became friends!
"Don't make him your friend!" Karin and Anya shouted together. The stage was cleared and we were back to the game.
"What the hell is wrong with this game?" Kudou said in annoyance, those three clearly excepted something flashier I believe.
"Come one guys, you should know by now that our Akatsuki-Kun is a pacifist, we should learn from him!" I said, scrolling down to achieve an 8. "Nice, let's move onward!" Standing on the field I'm supposed to be, a little being stood before me. It looked like...me. Before I could question or say anything, they handed me their little stem with the music box on top and smiled. I received 30 coins. "That was...something? Do you know what that was?" No one said anything, they all looked somewhere else.
Suddenly, the trio left and went on their way leaving poor Himiko alone.
"All right, let's keep this going!" Iride shouted moving forward 4 times. Suddenly, his tile glowed and some kind of void appeared, taking him away from us.
"A-Akatsuki-Kun!!" I screamed in fear, "Himiko-Chan, get the others now please!!"
00:32:13
While Himiko was running to get the others, I've tried my best to play the game and get to where he is. "Come on! Let me in, let me in!!" I was thrown out, again and again. No matter how many tiles I've gone, it always ejected me. When the others came, they've seen what was happening with me and tried to calm me down. They've changed their costumes with their actual clothes and invested the tiles.
"Akki!" Yuzu stomped a little bit on one of them.
"Where the hell did he go?" Kudou asked.
"If you mean Iride-Sama, he's alive and well." Paca stood by the entrance of the room ominously, I didn't even hear him coming...
"That's really good to know Paca-San! But can you tell us when he will come back?" I've sighed in relieved nonetheless, hoping to be reunited with one of my friends.
"I could if I'd known. However..." with one snap from his finger, the counter appeared, showing how much time we had left.
00:17:48
"This bonus stage has a set time limit. But as for this pitfall trap, it was designed so that it would be somewhat difficult to escape. All is well as long as Iride-Sama returns before the time limit, but..." no, that can't be right. My stomach started to churn around by the gruesome thought he was suggesting...
"What happens if he goes past the time limit?" Onigasaki asked, glaring threateningly at our supervisor.
"Rest assured. His life will not be in danger if that's what you're asking. However, it means he will not be able to return to your side." Paca said.
"He'll become a dropout?" Zakuro asked. Suddenly Anya, run up to him and took him by the collar.
"You bast***!"
"Anya-Kun, cut it out!" Hugging his waist, I've tried to get him off of Paca somehow.
"She's right. Every second we stand here, the time limit slowly approaches. We should be thinking about how to bring Akki back." He started to settle down again, letting Paca go.
"What if someone else played the Dice Game and then fell into the hole, too?" Himiko questioned, looking at no one in particular.
"It's dangerous, but that might be the only way." Kaikoku scratched his head in defeat.
"No, it doesn't work...for me at least...the game always threw me off when I tried." My hands were shaking In frustration, it felt like blood might spill out from my palms any second now.
"Don't worry, we can try again. But someone that has still enough coins to use." Zakuro said, looking at Karin with her bucket still full of coins. But when she tried it out, she got squashed by Pantarou.
"Sorry. I'm not so great at RPGs and stuff like that." I've patted her on the back for condolences. But suddenly, we heard the sounds of coins falling down and the jackpot sound!
"I won." It was Makino who made this miracle happen.
"Ooh! That's our Makimaki!" Roromori got excited and was probably proud of him.
"Way to go, the gamer gods are on your side this time." Putting an arm around his shoulder, I've watched how the pile of coins got bigger and bigger.
"Indeed! Not only has Makimaki one beautiful girl smiling upon him, but also the goddess of gambling herself!" Not getting what she meant at first, I realized later that she was teasing me again for getting so close to him. After that, I stood behind Himiko to hide myself in embarrassment.
"Roro-San, could that be enough?" Onigasaki asked her, everyone was watching how he got buried in his treasure.
"S-Save Makino-Kun before he drowns!" Zakuro and I chimed in, we almost weren't able to see him anymore.
We've returned to the starting point with a huge bucket, only to see that we've only made it half to the ticket itself.
"What a bummer..." sighing in defeat, I felt tears pricking the corner of my eyes. Only for a hand to land on my head to soothe me.
"Come on (Y/N)-Chan, if we double up Makino's coins, isn't it basically ours?"
"You're right Anya-Kun...we can save him if we get the other half within the time limit! But only if Makino-Kun himself is okay with that, he won the coins so..." I've looked up to him, waiting for his answer.
"Use them to save Akatsuki-Kun." Was his answer, I've thanked him not only physically but mentally inside my heart too.
"Since Makino's cool with it, I am, too." Anya chuckled a bit, smiling at his answer.
"Well, guess we've got to." Karin as well smiled.
"Yeah. No complaints here." Onigasaki agreed.
"Let's save Iride-San!" Himiko cheered.
"Let's get him out of there as quickly as possible guys. I know if we work together, we can do anything!" I held a hand up to my heart, feeling proud to be one of them.
"There you have it. What now, Roro-San?" Kaikoku asked her the final answer belonged to her now. "Doubling the amount of coins we have is much easier said than done."
"But on the other hand, all we have to do is double our coins once. We don't have to take unnecessary risks. Which means we should play a game with the best chance of winning." A game where we can easily double our coins...Ah.
"High-lo..." I mumbled out.
"Yes, two is the lowest. Ace is the highest. If the card is a two or ace, we win right there. But if it's anywhere in between, the worse it gets near the middle. Even so, the odds are 50%. I think this is the perfect gamble for us." She looked at everyone to see if anyone is against the idea, though no one was against it. "Alright, let's do this."
We went to the table and started to play, only for us to receive diamond 8...
"We got the card I was hoping to see least..." Roromori and I looked up to see that we've only got about three minutes left before Akatsuki was really trapped in there forever.
'We won't make it...we-, no, we can and will do the impossible possible!'
"What now everyone?" I asked, hoping to hear something from them, anything. "Are we going higher? Or lower..."
00:00:55
"Come on brain! Give us a miracle!" Then, as if on cue...the scene from today about our 'talk' popped in my head. How Iride and I held our hands high, our guess that Makino's girlfriend was older, in Iride's cheerful gesture and my words to say, the higher possibility! Everyone raised their hands up above and shouted.
"High!"
"Great, that settles it! We all decided that it's higher!" Dramatically pointing at him, we said our final decision to Paca.
00:00:03
Time stopped
Everything was shut down, no lights were on in any of these rooms, not even a single sound was produced right now. Only a metal door rang through the emptiness, and behind it was our precious stream-member. We all stood there with a smile on our faces.
"Welcome back, Akatsuki!" Hearing our voices, he broke into a smile of his own, his gentle smile.
"I'm back!"
Game Clear!
Paca clapped for our achievement for awhile again. And our life as a group was still there. After clearing the bonus stage, we went along the shore of the beach.
"Believe it or not, we're well past halfway done." Karin said. When I looked at my own arm, I could see that we've got to 070085261 viewers
"Smooth sailing if you ask me." Anya commented, his hands were crossed behind his back.
"Yeah! We've been doing really well!" Himiko said with joy in her voice.
"I wonder though..." Yuzu said, not really knowing if this will work out.
"It's a game he's in charge of." Zakuro doubted that it will be easy to get to the end.
"There's gotta be way more than a handful of traps." Onigasaki, added to Oshigiri's suspicions.
"Let's do our best." Aikawa said, sleepwalking with us here.
"No worries! It'll all work out somehow!" Akatsuki said, stopping on his tracks, looking back at our group.
"Exactly, we've just got to believe in ourselves!" I smiled, up to them. It feels so natural now to smile, they make me change in so many ways, in good ways...suddenly we could hear Paca's voice from the speaker. It seemed like our next stage was awaiting.
"Now then, I would like to begin Game 10." Paca's voice boomed over to us, and so, our task of getting out of here began once again.
Bonus Stage Clear!!
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