“If you want us to save your asses, I suggest you shut up and listen close. I know how we can escape this swamp,” Natsukawa commanded. “As you likely know, those chains are our ticket outta here. We'll split into two groups of three, one led by myself and the other by my friend here.”

“Nice to meet you both!” a chubby man to Sada’s left said. He had brown hair, his bangs parting in separate directions. Spikes adorned his thick thighs, similar to the one on her forehead. His pudgy hand was outstretched, which Sada looked down at with confusion. Another American by his accent and behavior.

“Eh,” Sada replied simply, flicking her head upwards in a casual greeting.

The man quickly retracted his hand and smiled nervously, his beady eyes darting around like those of a rat.

“My name’s Dennis. Dennis Morin.”

Sada cocked her head.

“Moron?”

The black man immediately held his mouth closed to keep from bursting into laughter as the bearded man smiled at Dennis’ hushed stammering.

“M-Morin… It’s French…” Dennis stuttered out in meek correction.

Sada nodded along. She understood perfectly, but decided she liked the sound of “Moron” better.

“Pay attention,” Natsukawa snapped, drawing their attention back to her. “I suppose before we continue, we should introduce ourselves. I’m Natsukawa.”

“Sada,” the fiery-haired girl said.

The black man crossed his arms and sighed, taking a moment to casually touch the spiked horns running along his collarbone like a necklace.

“Neon Deon. I know, I know, little nickname I picked up back in the day. If we get out of this in one piece, I can tell you all about it~” Deon said smoothly, winking at the ladies.

—Maybe death isn’t so bad in comparison.

Next they all looked towards the bearded man who slowly looked at them all and finally huffed in annoyance.

“Ali Satish,” he said gruffly.

Sada noticed that like the others, he had tiny horns going up the bridge of his nose and forehead.

—There’s some kind of pattern here, but what could it mean?

Natsukawa nodded in understanding, turning her attention to the last man slumped against the trunk. He had remained so quiet the entire time she nearly forgot his presence.

“Alright. So we have Dennis, Ali and Deon… What’s your name?” she said looking at the quiet man. He never made an attempt to establish eye contact and was shaking ever so slightly.

Sada saw it right away however. He was shell shocked.

“… Hello? Can you hear me?”

“That's Donato, man,” Deon said. “We barely got that outta him earlier. Fool is useless as far as I'm concerned.”

Natsukawa’s eyes widened.

“Hey now, no one's useless! We’ll need everyone’s help to get through this!”

“Natsu…” Sada chimed in. “He’s done for. A liability.”

Natsukawa went to open her mouth in retaliation, but halted midway and paused. After a brief moment of silence, she had her answer.

“I’ll take Donato and Ali on my team. Sada, you’ll be in charge of Deon and Dennis,” Natsukawa decided. “Both teams will approach that fat monster and flank the opposing side. Divide and conquer. If everything goes well, we’ll be able to reach the chains behind him.”

“What about that giant-ass hunk of metal he’s tossing around?” Deon said.

“That’ll be the hardest part. Once we clear his range on that, we’re golden.”

Sada made a half-glance at her newly appointed partners. Neon Deon and Dennis Moron. She’d much prefer working alone at this rate. Natsukawa meant well, but she was too trusting. Something about people who radiated altruism like her just didn’t seem natural to Sada.

“Oy, Morokin,” Sada said with her arms crossed.

Dennis looked at Sada for a moment and then pointed to himself.

“You mean me? Morokin, that sounds s-so cute and exotic, just like you—”

She cut him off and turned her attention to Deon.

“You too, Neon. Listen close, because I’m only saying this once. We’ll flank that fat one from the right. Natsukawa and her team will flank from the left.”

She looked toward Natsukawa for approval and received a nod in return.

“Good, let’s not waste anymore time. Who knows what else this place has planned for us.”

Sada immediately turned and stepped out of the tree trunk, making sure not to splash in the gore below.

Dennis and Deon followed behind, with Dennis clumsily trying his best to be as stealthy as possible. Natsukawa and her two trailed behind.

Mezu was perched on his hind legs, sniffing the air and occasionally feasting on some of the viscera below. Gozu was still sitting in place, motionless with his blade in hand.

Sada crouched down into the sticky blood, adding another layer to the dried muck still clinging to her body. The men in her posse followed along as Sada looked to her left, spotting the three ahead in the same position.

It was time to pray for a miracle and hope this worked as planned.

Sada got onto all fours and began crawling through the blood. Meter by meter, they slowly made their way closer to Gozu and the remaining chains near him. She could feel the gaze of the men ogling her rear from behind. Even in the face of death, men couldn't stop thinking with their dicks.

Suddenly she sensed something stop behind her.

Dennis had froze in place with a horrified look on his face. A pale green tint washed over his face as he discovered a disembodied head inches away from his own, staring up at him with its lower jaw missing.

Deon’s eyes grew wide and placed a hand on Dennis’ shoulder. He shook his head wordlessly, as if pleading for Dennis not to make a sound. Sada turned to see and knew what was going to happen. Shock made her freeze and dread the following moments to come.

Dennis proceeded to vomit up what little contents his stomach contained in front of him, despite his attempts to keep his mouth shut. Deon tried to clasp his hands over Dennis’ mouth, but Mezu had caught the sound from across the field and began bounding over to investigate.

Sada didn’t know what to do. She considered just abandoning them and making a sprint toward the closest chain, but Mezu would definitely reach her before that could happen.

Natsukawa noticed this predicament as well as her own team began to panic. Noticing a severed arm close by, Natsukawa picked it up and with all her strength, hurled it to her left and away from both teams.

The arm landed a good several meters away from them with a loud splash, sending Mezu skidding to change direction and seek out the new sound.

Natsukawa motioned for Sada and their teams to hurry and immediately Sada began crawling towards freedom once more.

That’s when Sada noticed something far worse in store.

Mezu was far off, pawing the swamp waters for the arm and growling. However, Gozu’s head was now locked onto Natsukawa.

He must have seen her throw the arm.

Natsukawa saw this too and this time, there was nothing left to use as a distraction.

Gozu’s beady eyes flashed and he wordlessly raised his arms, lifting the bus-sized slab of metal behind his shoulder.

Sada recognized the position of the blade. The demon was going for a swiping slice, likely to cover the most distance at once. She motioned for her team to stop moving and hoped Natsukawa would lie down entirely with her posse to avoid the sweeping attack.

Natsukawa however had another plan in mind.

She quickly signaled for the two men behind her to rise as she leapt up from her position and began sprinting toward Gozu’s position.

—This chick has to be insane!

Gozu locked eyes on Natsukawa and she began to close the distance. With a mighty swing, the monster swung his blade toward her and the other two while Sada and her team remained behind in safety.

Natsukawa was anticipating this and signaled her team to fall down as she lunged forward into a prone position; burying herself in the bloody mud.

—Damn she has some massive lady-balls trying to close the gap like that… Hold up, what are they...?

Despite Natsukawa taking the prone position as the blade’s swipe neared them, her other two teammates had other intentions.

Sada noticed they were trying to outrun the blade instead, trying to sprint toward the nearest chains feet away.

Gozu his muscles tightened up as the momentum of his blade carried the makeshift sword through the air even faster; its weight slinging it through its current arc.

Ali and Donato looked to their right just as the colossal sword passed their peripheral vision. In one split second, Sada saw their running bodies split into a blur of meat and blood as the metal cleaved them both in half.

A second later, Gozu’s blade continued its trajectory until it reached its end; embedding itself into the quarry wall with an ear-splitting clang.

Mezu howled in pain as it leapt up and clutched its horned head while Gozu tugged trying to remove the blade from the rock.

Sada felt herself smiling as she began moving again, watching as Natsukawa shimmied underneath the massive blade and toward the chain that her unfortunate allies tried in vain to reach.

This was her plan all along. She counted on Gozu swinging the sword into the wall, removing the weapon from the game while also deafening Mezu in the process. The brave girl was stirring something up inside Sada. Was this admiration? Maybe something else entirely.

Natsukawa stopped and turned as she signaled Sada to continue with a smile. She grabbed ahold of her chain and began her ascent into freedom. As she rose higher, she threw her fist toward the sky.

It was a sign to keep moving forward. A sign of victory and hope for the remaining three humans left in the swamp of blood. This was the push Sada needed as she reached the outside of the sword. All they had to do now was shimmy underneath and reach the final three chains.

Two of the chains had vanished however, corresponding with the deaths of Ali and Donato. The only three remaining were to the left and right of Gozu, with the final chain located directly behind his back.

As Sada began to crawl under the sword, she felt a pair of strong hands take ahold of her matted hair and lift her up. Taken by surprise, her head was swiftly slammed against the blunt end of the sword.

Sada immediately felt her vision grow dark for a moment as her head felt fuzzy and her ears began to ring. On her hands and knees, the same pair of hands pushed her face-first into the bloody liquid as she struggled to breathe. She kicked and tried to unpin her body, but a second pair of hands forced her down.

Four hands… her own allies. Deon and Dennis.

Dennis looked at Deon with unsure eyes, having joined Deon on instinct. Deon just looked down coldly at Sada’s back until she stopped moving. Taking his hands off her, he looked at Dennis with an emotionless face.

“I’m not going behind that thing, are you?” Deon whispered.

“B-But she’s one of us… This is all over once we escape anyway…” Dennis murmured shakily.

“Ain’t no telling what’s up there. She’s too smart to let live… besides man, crazy bitch rubbed me the wrong way. Probably kill us if given the chance.”

Dennis paused and relented to Deon’s warped logic as the two men left Sada behind in the blood, crawling under the blade just as Mezu recovered and began to run over to inspect the massive sword in the wall.

Splitting up as Gozu still tried to remove his favorite weapon, Deon and Dennis took the chains on each side of the obese demon and rose up to safety.

However, one chain still remained behind Gozu. The last one in a quarry of one-hundred grooves.

Sada came to seconds later, inhaling sharply and trying to subdue her coughs as Mezu clawed at the sword embedded in the wall. Luckily for her, the scraping of his talons against the metal drowned out the sounds of her coughing.

Sada rolled over onto her back, her entire body now slathered in the varying shades of crimson.

She was all alone, just as she had always been. While the memories of her past remained fuzzy and elusive, she knew in her heart that this feeling was a familiar one.

—I knew trusting anyone here was a mistake...

A light began to come into focus against the large suspended platform that blotted out the sky above. A light coming from another familiar image, a burned girl whose body was still aflame.

The girl on fire hovered down until she was floating above Sada, her body feeling warm from the heat of the flames. Neither Mezu nor Gozu seemed to notice the girl as her smoldering gaze darted to Sada still lying in the bloody swamp.

“You know what you must do now…” the cindered waif said. “Live... continue to struggle. So that you may destroy any who betray you.”

Sada’s sore eyes blinked and within that briefest of moments, the girl was gone.

Her fingers curled into a fist as she turned over onto her stomach, determination burning in her eyes. She had to live, she had to keep fighting. Deon, Dennis, Jimmy. She was sick of the betrayal, she couldn’t rely on anybody. Even Natsukawa’s kindness could extend so far. Then there was the matter of the people responsible for her being here.

She didn’t need anybody to get through this trial. She’d conquer it by herself, the way she always had.