Kumi ran down the hallway, she was thinking about the particularly problematic theory she had just recently thought up.
Reaching the set of doors, she opened them and peeked inside.
"Damn."
She muttered as she saw the cameras active and scanning the area.
"... It's not an outright confirmation. But it doesn't bode well."
Letting out a light sigh, she frowned as she kicked open the door and ducked behind a desk.
"Three... Two..."
She dashed out from behind the desk, landing on an office chair and using it as a skateboard.
She jumped off the chair, kicking it away and landed behind another desk.
The cameras noticed the moving chair, focusing on it for a moment.
Taking the chance, Kumi again made her move.
After all her personal training as well as her numerous runs with Vaeril, these traps and the methods needed to avoid them became second nature.
Still, the lack of a proper partner was something she took a while to adapt to. Without Vaeril, any and all mistakes became much more lethal.
Still, with little trouble, she soon reached the final stage. This time, alone.
She looked up and to the side, seeing a floating window frame, fixed and proper in appearance.
"That's a shame."
Without even casting a proper glance at the exit, she dashed straight towards the window.
Sharpened pipes erupted out from around her.
Dodging them by taking a backwards hop, she grabbed a hold of one of the spikes and yanked at it.
She broke it apart, getting a makeshift metal staff as a reward.
Hitting away the remaining pipes, she bought herself some time to focus on dodging the incoming walls.
Ducking down to dodge one and rolling to the side to dodge another, she vaulted towards the window using her metal staff.
Landing with both feet on one of the speeding walls, she immediately jumped off having increased her velocity.
A short distance remained from the window.
The pipes had re-emerged, aiming at her vitals.
Deeming it necessary, Kumi impaled her own hand through one of the approaching pipes, allowing it to drag her some distance further before kicking it.
With her impaled arm she grabbed the part of the pipe she kicked and broke it apart. Another metal staff had been gifted to her.
She fell a short distance before grabbing a hold of a different pipe, using it like a zip-line.
As another wall approached her from below, she jumped down towards it.
Piercing the wall's sides with her pipes she let it launch her up.
Letting go of the wall, she turned and grabbed onto the top of the window frame before she could be launched over it.
Kicking through the window, Kumi immediately dashed towards the reborn butler.
"Hey!"
She ducked to the side before reaching him, kicking at the side of his thigh before pulling herself towards him with her foot.
She managed to land a gut punch before the butler summoned a wave of pipe spikes, which she managed to avoid.
"Well, I'm more satisfied now."
Kumi commented as she hopped to the side, barely managing to dodge more spikes that emerged from the ground below.
They managed to slash at her left leg and the side of her stomach but for a while, she would remain fine.
"These things hurt, you know? Whatever. Before I kill you and leave," Kumi grabbed onto one of the pipes, breaking it to use as a weapon, "why have you kept us in this server, isolated from everything else?"
The butler, as if a glitching recording, spoke out in a low mutter. His voice deep yet clear.
"My task is to contain Potential. The ones with Potential are brought here and they must not leave."
The butler waved his fist as infinitely long walls started erupting out from the floor and ceiling.
Kumi ran from her location, from this moment until his death, she could no longer stop moving if she wanted to survive. Is what she thought.
"Who gave you this task?"
"Unknown."
"Are there more servers with butlers such as you?"
"Unknown"
"Fine."
As the two shortly spoke to each other, the butler didn't launch a single attack.
Kumi started sprinting directly at the butler as he responded by calling in more pipe spikes.
Before they could reach Kumi however, she leaned her body back before, with all her might, throwing the broken pipe in her hand directly at the butlers heart.
The pipe made contact, piercing straight through him.
The butler reacted to the damage, but his face remained unchanged.
"This damage doesn't do anything to you. I know."
Kumi smirked.
"When I told you I'd kill you? I lied. But I managed to break your little device."
The butler remained silent, looking up from the pipe that pierced through his body as well as the breast pocket that held the Server Reset command.
"I needed to, in case you used that thing while I was in the middle of my run. Just in case."
"You. Can not leave this place."
"Hey, don't take it personally. I haven't been here for that long so I don't hold much of a grudge against you. After all, I barely know you. But my friend does hold a grudge."
Kumi walked backwards towards the broken window, keeping her eyes locked on the butler.
"So in his stead," Kumi raised both of her hands with her middle fingers extended, "fuck you, I'm leaving."
She jumped out of the window behind her, still keeping her eyes on the butler, who began to move.
"So when engaging in a conversation with someone, he won't or rather can't attack, it seems. Weird programming decision."
She thought out loud to herself as she grabbed a hold of one of the walls that were still outside the window.
Although her hands burned at the friction of touching it, she managed to use its momentum to launch herself back onto the path to the exit.
"The damage isn't minor but my body can keep going."
She ran as she looked down at her hand that had been pierced by a pipe previously.
"Still hurts a lot."
She turned her gaze up. The exit was right there.
Few traps had even been aimed at her as she ran down the path, which she found odd.
"This could very well be a fake exit considering the lack of protection it has. But it's fine. My gut feeling says it isn't."
Kumi reassured herself as she reached the door.
Grabbing ahold of the handle, she looked back at the window where the butler stood unmoving.
She opened the exit door while keeping her eyes on him.
Glancing at the exit, there indeed was no trap inside of it.
"A lot easier than I first expected... maybe that thing I broke was more than just the reset button?"
She muttered to herself as she took a step backwards and disappeared through the door.
...
On the other side, Kumi opened her eyes.
She found herself in a familiar environment, she was inside a metal and glass tube or pod that was filled with an unknown liquid.
Her eyes were heavy and tired as she looked outside of the glass. Taking a short breath in surprise at seeing both Hilde and Ayaka outside, she realised she could actually breathe in this liquid.
Attempting to move her hand, she felt something surge.
As if her heart turned inside out, yet without any pain. This strange sensation grew and grew.
A strange colour had started emanating from her body. Rather, a mixture of colours which she couldn't properly see.
Outside the pod, she could see Hilde and even Ayaka make an emotionally mixed expression. Hilde turned and yelled something that Kumi couldn't make out.
She couldn't even quite focus on it.
She felt a strange liquid like thing start flowing out of her body, different from the liquid she was trapped in.
She remembered this feeling, although she had never directly used it. This was Mana, more specifically, her Elements.
A crackle escaped from the tips of her fingers.
This was only the beginning as a surge escaped from her.
Something deep inside her was trembling. As if a layer of something was being peeled off. It wasn't exactly painful but it was slightly uncomfortable.
This entire situation just kept making her more exhausted. As if her stamina was manually being drained.
Turning her half open gaze back to the other side of the glass, she could see a frail film of blue encase the entire machine.
There were quite a few people who seemed similar to the people who were in the laboratory from back when she was stuck in that Lotus.
The liquid she was in slowly started to drain. This, however, only intensified both her exhaustion and the amount of Elemental Mana she was emitting.
'I can't... control it well...'
Kumi had little idea on what was happening. She still couldn't hear anything.
She did notice one thing that was off, before she fell unconscious.
The Elemental Mana she was emitting. It should have the properties of Lightning, Curse and Rot. She had wanted to keep these hidden but that wasn't the point.
These Elements seemed, or rather felt, fundamentally different from their actual names.
'.... properties...'
She managed to call on her property window, yet she couldn't stay awake long enough to get a proper look at everything.
She did however, steal a glance at her Elements. Which were different from what she remembered.
At that point she had already fallen asleep, as the pod opened up and the doctors immediately got to work in order to suppress her.