"Kurai! Are you here?"
He called out as he looked to the new environment around him.
Kurai was a few feet away from them as she turned, she was covered in blood, and she looked surprised to see them.
"Matsumi?! Barghest!…I thought you two got eaten.."
"Hey! Where'd you go?! You just vanished into thin air before! And what happened to you?"
"I had to fight like one hundred things! It was crazy! Luckily I wasn't hurt…"
"Well, whatever happened happened! Now, we can keep going through the trials!"
The three had found themselves in a jungle, trees that eclipsed the skies circled them around as wildlife could be heard. Kurai was wiping all of the blood off of her before she sighed.
"Great..no direction or anything.."
"I think I can just climb up the trees to see if I can find something."
"Alright. We'll look out for you on the bottom here."
Matsumi gave them a small nod before he quickly jumped and latched on to a low hanging vine. Swinging off of it to land on a vine before bouncing up between the trees. It wouldn't take him long for his head to pop out at the top of the tree line, holding his hand over his eyes to see better.
There wasn't much to see, only the forest and a mountain in the distance.
"Just more trees! I don't see anything weird!"
"Then it's likely we're going to have to get through on foot. Theres no way we're going to get anything by just gazing on top of the trees."
Matsumi slid down the vines, jumping down back to them.
"Yeah but, where do we go? Everything looks the same."
"All we can do is move forward. We can't really gauge any specific direction to be honest..but it's better to move than to be idle in a space like this."
"Alright, just follow me!"
With a confident strut, he led the way to who knows where. Just straight in a line.
Barghest and Kurai sighed at the same time following Matsumi, pushing plants and trees out of the way.
"This is like an adventure! I've heard about stories like these! There might be some treasure hidden around here!"
"That is a possibility Matsumi. We don't necessarily know where we are so finding something ancient is plausible."
"I hope it's a skateboard! I've always wanted to try one."
"What would that even do for us right now?"
"We could have fun with it."
"Just shut up. Thats a stupid idea."
"What? It's true! You need to have some fun sometimes! It's always serious with you."
"If im not the serious one then who will be? Someone has to balance out your stupidity."
"You need to relax some time, Kurai agrees!"
"Don't drag me into this Matsumi."
"Sorry, I don't have anyone else to drag in."
He kept walking forward in silence for only a few seconds.
"Okay, how about a joke?"
"Eh..couldn't kill us right?"
"Okay, okay. So, what do you call a can opener that doesn't work?"
"What is it?"
"A can't opener!"
The second Matsumi finished his joke a monkey pounced on Kurai's face as she started screaming, frantically moving around and trying to get it off her face.
"A-AH! AH! WHAT IS THIS?! GET IT OFF! GET IT OFF!"
She stumbled around the jungle trying to pry it off of her.
"Holy-! It's a monkey!"
He chased after her with his hands reaching out for the animal on her face.
"Just stay still for a sec!"
The monkey screamed and instead pounced on Matsumi, now clawing away at the protection the backpack gave him, going ballistic as it bit into his skin.
"Ow!! You darn-!"
Matsumi punched the monkey in frustration, quickly grabbing one of its legs to slam it into the ground.
The monkey went flying and ran off. Kurai pouted, her face scratched and bleeding as she sighed.
"N-No more jokes…No more.."
"Ok, that wasn't the jokes' fault! It was good joke!"
He patted the area where the monkey had bit him, on his shoulder but closer to the actual bone instead of his neck.
"Look…"
Barghest floated over and pointed to in the distance. There was smoke going up, a sign of a fire.
"Looks like we found something."
"A fire?"
He turned to the direction she pointed.
"Let's go check it out."
Barghest and Kurai traversed the forest, going toward the fire until they reached close enough to hear and feel the fire, but still staying hidden.
"Matsumi. I need you to be quiet and careful. Don't get to excited or jump out yet."
"I'm not gonna scream, I can be sneaky too."
He whispered while staying behind a tree.
"I doubt that…but look.."
Through the bushes the three could see a gathering of people. A large amount of people around as they hummed quietly, all of them masked with older less modern clothes.
"People? Here? You think they got stuck in this floor too..?"
"That's the only possibility..but it seems like something deeper is here.."
"Yeah…like…like what…?"
The people started to speak, conversing amongst one another. Upon further examination, they could see a cross was stationed next to the fire. They began to chant, bringing someone through the opposite side of the forest. The chants continued.
"…Seems like some kind of sacrifice…This isn't good."
"A sacrifice?!"
He yelled out, once again forgetting Barghest's warning.
Barghest pounced on Matsumi and held her hand over his mouth holding him closer to the ground. The people were suspicious, but they were used to animals and other creatures moving through the bushes, that and the language wasn't native to them, so human dialogue wasn't under their umbrella of knowledge. Muffled words came from under her palm.
"Do not do that again Matsumi. I need more information."
She let him go as they continued to their ritual, hanging the girl on the cross. They pulled small ropes to hold her to the cross.
"Sorry…but what are we gonna do?"
"It depends. We need to know what the sacrifice is for..and if it'll affect us. We shouldn't intervene immediately..because we don't know what exactly we're jumping into."
"But why even sacrifice…? Everyone just appears back eventually. Raito told me."
"Those rules only apply to challengers of the tower. It may not apply to people who exist as apart of the tower..that rule also only applies to people who have only been in the tower for short periods of time. As you continue to live in the tower the affects wear off..and it eventually becomes your reality."
"You mean people actually live here? How old is this place?"
"As long as i've been alive at the least. Some people integrated here over time. I wouldn't be surprised if there were more civilizations that lived here."
"Then…shouldn't we take that girl with us?"
"Take her where exactly? Let's assume we make it to the top of the tower with her..Where is she going to go when we leave?"
"Well…I don't know. But we can't just leave her here, right?"
Barghest sighed and looked.
"Alright. We can save her."
Matsumi smiled.
"Okay, what's the plan?"
"There has to be some kind of chant or speech before she's killed. When they start we'll grab her and quickly get away."
"Got it, got it."
Matsumi paid attention to the group of people, waiting for what Barghest said to happen.