With the Captains suffering casualties and heavy injuries on their side, all hope seemed to be lost... until Shinji Hirako appeared, along with the rest of the former Shinigami. Though the aid of the Vizards certainly helped to draw the battle in their favor, it seemed Aizen's power alone proved too much for them.
Rei was impressed that Makana had such knowledge to her disposal. But he should have know better, she did say she was a teacher. If each door had a roman numeral on it and each ticket had a regular number on it. If simple deduction was the case, than each ticket opened a specific door, but something came to mind that the mad man said. He mentioned if they would stay together or go their separate ways. If that was the case, then why have each person leave through a separate door?
Rei had to think for a moment. Now that he knew that each ticket went a specific door, how does the puzzle work? He went looking at each door, looking for what according to Makana was the number three in roman numerals. He spotted one with three 'I' on it. He looked to the pregnant Makana for an answer.
"Makana-sensei, three I's means three, correct?" He showed her the respect she deserved, an educator is a hard job.
Once the teacher told him yes, he tried his ticket again, but yielded the same result. Something else must be in play in order to get out. trial and error was the only thing he could come up with at the moment.
Meanwhile, through a special camera that was in the room, Hatter watched eagerly as they seemed to be getting the hang of his first challenge. He set it up easily, just activate all the doors at the same time with the correct key. Simple. They just had to get it right to move on to which ever room was next.
Oh the fun he'll have watching the mice run through his maze to get to the way home. Each door led to a different room but each room was more difficult then the last. The numbers played another role as they led to a room with a certain degree of difficulty. Alice stood behind Hatter, waiting for her role to come into play.
Mizuki listened to the history lesson. It finally snapped! "Oh! I understand now!" Mizuki raised her finger then looked at each of the doors and found the one with two 'I' on it. She tried to activate it as she did before. It opened that door, but the one on the ceiling opened up as well, just like before.
"Damn... Wait that shoulda worked... Maybe we need combinations of tickets!" Mizuki ran over to Toshioni, grabbed his number one ticket then went to the three door where the other man was. She held the two tickets, 1 and 2, to door number 'III'.... Nothing happened. Obviously she was wrong.
"Ok... Maybe not..." Mizuki went back too Toshioni and gave his ticket back then sat near him. "I'll be here if ya need me, which you probably won't. I don't seem to be helping any."
She looked at Toshioni. "Why are you getting a headache? Because of this reishi stuff? It couldn't be that bad now could it? Maybe puzzles just hurt your head!" Mizuki laughed as she tried to make the situation less stressful.
Mizuki began thinking of a way out. It was highly unlikely that they could blast their way out, nor could they just walk out... Wait... Split up? Maybe that was it!
"Hey! What if we all need to go through our own doors? Like maybe... You activate your door and I do mine, maybe they will open for good, instead of that damn ceiling door." her idea was good, but would it work?
Sentenza listened to the lesson then watched as each person tried to open a door with a number on it corresponding to each ticket. If I is one and V is five, then I need the door that says 'IV' . . . I think. Sentenza thought to himself and walked up to his door and tried to open it with the ticket. Nothing. Maybe he had the wrong door, maybe the puzzle simply wasn't that simple. Maybe both.
Sentenza sat down on the ground and tried to think through the puzzle in front of the five of them. " . . . I think the doors are supposed to open at the same time. The man on the screen said that we could go through together or on our own." Sentenza said. "Perhaps the doors are designed to open at the same time, and then we each chose a door, rather than being assigned a door to go through." Sentenza stood up then cast a glance around the odd room. "I mean, anything is worth a shot, it's not like we can make much bigger fools of ourselves than scratching our heads and staring at a bunch of doors." Sentenza said. He was trying to go about this logically, but he wasn't sure anyone that would kidnap a bunch of people for a game would expect logic for a puzzle.
Masashi told him that there was an excess of reishi. That made sense. As a Quincy, he had trained his body to soak that shit up like water. Now that seemed to be having an adverse effect on him. The buzzing only seemed to get worse. He took deep breaths and actually tried to push the reishi out of him.
"Makana-sensei, is there a way for me to expel the excess reishi from my body? This is really having an adverse effect on me. By the way, how do you know so much about this?"
"So XV would be? And how about XVII? And this one's a little trickier...XIX?"
"In that order Makana-sensei? Fifteen, seventeen, and then nineteen."
He did this to try to get gravy points with Makana. She seemed like he could help him with this massive headache. There was nothing that could really be done. Maybe if he fired A bunch of arrows. But shit, would his arrow count be increased here? That's a lot of arrows to fire. And did he really want to do it here in front of so many people? Damn.
He didn't even budge as Mizuki took his ticket. He was glad to be rid of it and good it could be put to some use. His only thought was that he could write that off with being a smartass.
"You owe me one dear."
He listened to Sentenza. The theory seemed correct in his messed up mind. Of course he was reishi-drunk at this moment and he couldn't really process much. The young Quincy figured he could throw his lot with that guy. He seemed nice enough.
"If my opinion matters, what that guy said sounds pretty correct."
"Maybe we need combinations of tickets!" said the girl excitedly. Makana watched as she snatched a ticket from Toshioni, returned to the door numbered "III" and put the tickets up against the door. "Maybe not."
Makana sighed. She couldn't think of anything. She was better for explaining mechanisms that she already knew about than she was at deciphering nonsense. This was ridiculous.
"Makana-sensei, is there a way for me to expel the excess reishi from my body?" asked Toshioni. It got the teacher's attention, and she looked to him.
"You know, I'm not quite sure what you could do about it," Makana said, bringing a hand to her chin. She started to think, wondering if maybe the boy could just sneeze it out. Yes, that made about as much sense as anything else. "I'm sure it will pass the next time you sneeze or cough. Maybe the baby's soaking it up for me...or I'm already too thrown off by her to really notice. I hope it doesn't affect anything adversely."
"By the way, how do you know so much about this?"
"You live long enough and you notice things," Makana said. She rested her hands over her stomach and smiled a little. "You get used to weird things after a while."
Makana didn't feel like disagreeing with them - it made about as much sense as anything else in the area. She found the door stuck to the floor and knealt down beside it, holding out her ticket. "Whenever you're ready."
Character List "Let's eat, Grandma!" "Let's eat Grandma!" Commas save lives.
Out of all the ideas, it would seem that trying to use the tickets at the same time was the most sound. It couldn't hurt and Makana-sensei was all for it as well. Rei liked her for some reason, maybe it was because she was pregnant. Who knew, but Rei was going to keep an eye out for her.
He stood by his door, ready to try anything. Waiting for everyone else to get to their doors and try to do the plan.
Meanwhile, in a dark room where only the lights from the screens revealed who was inside, Hatter watched with intrigue. "They solved it, smart group. Now to set up the other rooms." Pushing some buttons and turning some dials to arrange the rooms in the proper order.
Alice stood behind him, a loyal member of his oddball fraccion. She would always be by his side and waited for what ever order would come. She knew she had a role down the road with his current social experiment and would execute it post haste. Just so long as that short, pervert he picked up wasn't around.
A good idea indeed. The plan to open the doors at the same time was forged and they were going to execute it to get out alive, like they wanted. Mizuki followed suit and stood next to her door.
"Does this mean we are all going separate ways? We don't know what's in this place... Wait, you know what? It doesn't matter, forget I said anything." Mizuki stopped talking and turned to her door.
"Whenever you guys are ready!" Mizuki shouted due to the fact that her back was turned to them. She wasn't sure about this place, but she wanted to get back home. The only way that'd happen is if she got through these rooms. She looked at the ticket then at her shillelagh that she had pulled out, preparing for the worst.
In the control room...
Jinchou started to sneak up on Alice and Hatter, not so much Hatter. Jinchou had one thing on his mind... BOOBIES! He sneaked up right behind her then lunged!
"Aliceeeee!!!!" His hands went straight for the boobs, of course this probably wasn't going to work, but he tried none-the-less. Before he got close enough he tripped on himself and fell down. He sat up and looked around for a moment then back over to Alice and Hatter. He forgot why he was there in the first place! He was gonna blow stuff up!
He quickly regain his composure. "Hatter, you called for something to go boom?" Jinchou snickered at the thought of blowing something up, then his eyes drifted back to Alice. What a fine looking woman... Damn! He began to drool looking at Alice... Weird, right?
Everyone's agreement at Sentenza's idea actually surprised him, though he wouldn't complain about that. Sentenza got into position at door number IV, not sure what would come next. He imagined nothing would get as simple as this puzzle from that point on, though Mizuki actually brought up an interesting question, even if she did dismiss it as quickly as she had said it.
"I think that's a good question, actually." Sentenza commented. He was a vizard, but that didn't mean he could handle everything that could be thrown at him. "I think we should defer to Makana-sensei's judgement about how to approach grouping." Sentenza said. She at least appeared to be the most logical one among them as a school teacher.
As he sat and listened to Makana-sensei, it occurred to him that she didn't know what to do about it either. Shit, that was just great. She suggested that he would just sneeze it out. He let out a small cough. Nope, nothing. It seemed like a logical assumption that sneezing wouldn't help much either. However, despite this he had to stand up. They were going through with Sentenza's idea after all. That was good; it seemed logical enough.
Standing up slowly, he walked around the room until he found the door with the I on it. This would be his door it seemed. Leaning against the door, he pushed his head against it. The buzzing just wouldn't stop. Shit. This hurt; it actually hurt. Shaking his head against the door, he let out a small shudder.
Speak of the devil, Alice eyes went narrow with pure hate as her name was called out from behind her. The fact of the matter is, she would have killed him if he managed to even get within a foot of her bosom. Only one man was allowed to touch then and he hadn't asked yet.
She moved closer to Hatter, her Hatter as Jinchou looked at her. She loathed the way he stared at her, even when he thought she wasn't looking. She'll have to correct that drooling habit of his soon. Maybe removal of the tongue.
Hatter spun around in his chair to meet with his latest find. The young man was so excited he was drooling at the mouth. "Yes my dear Dodo, I need you to go to control room three. There, you can play with the buttons for boom booms. They won't kill our guest mind you but they would certainly lift their spirits." He told him, though a thought crossed his mind when Alice leaned in to whisper something in the madman's ear. "Oh, avoid making the rooms where this woman goes into boom." He pointed to Makana, not wanting to upset her. It might be bad for the baby.
Back in the first room, everyone managed to get to their respected doors and a chime rang through the room, like the ones in video games for a job well done. reference.
The doors opened up to reveal new path ways. Rei looked into his and it appeared to be maze like as he spotted many turns down the long hall. "We should decide now, who's going where." Rei said as he turned away from the door, but it seemed that something else was about to happen.
Pushing a button, Hatter smiled as the corridors began to suck in like a vacuum. It was really strong, sending people in every direction. Hatter didn't have the patience to allow them to come up with a plan, instead he went with plan B.
The vacuum was strong and as much as Rei tried to resist it, he couldn't hold out for long. As much as he hated to reveal this, he placed his hand in front of his face and summoned his mask. "Hold on tight." He shunpoed to Makana grabbing her gently before her door sucked the two of them in.
The others were in just as much danger. Toshioni, Sentenza, and Mizuki were the remaining three, but as the other doors started to close, the sucking force becoming stronger from the remaining doors. One by one, they all closed until the number four door remained, sucking them in without a care. the door's closed, leaving our adventurers in a path to an escape.
Rei released his mask, bringing back his normal face as he put Makana down. Their path was a white walled corridor with several other doors. Rei figured it must be the same with the others. Then he looked at the ticket and noticed a map with three dots on one spot and two in another. However, the map only showed the area they were in and not the area ahead.