“Alright. The next hint is the last one. I’m more than ready to get this thing over with so just give it to me. What do I need to do?” Henry asked Gimei.

“Ehem!”

Sorry. He asked Kimei.

“Thank you. It’s a good thing I went with you. What I wrote on the paper hinted at a big final fight between us that would take place on the school’s roof, but what I got from these past trials is that you wouldn’t really… be able to win…”

“You already know me so well!”

“Lucky for you, I have found an alternative. To the grotto!”

*Insert a three second transition of Kimei’s face spinning over the loud sound of a trumpet*

“I discovered this while you were taking the first trials,” Kimei said while sliding down the hole-entrance. She landed feet first in the grotto, swiftly followed by Henry, who landed face first. “I was readying the costume when I noticed that some of the books in the bookshelf had melted.”

“Melted?!”

“They’re fake books made of plastic. Look at this!”

She moved the shelf, revealing a second secret passage.

Henry got close to the wall’s hole and a whole haul of heat hit his hace. I mean face.

“What’s down here??”

“Why don’t you go explore?”

“Because I fear death.”

“I went there and survived. I don’t see how it could be a problem for you.”

“You underestimate me.”

Kimei pushed him inside the wall’s hole.

They descended further down into the earth, following a natural tunnel, as the walls turned from soft dirt to solid rock. At first, the heat grew, while the light dimmed. But as their descent came to an end, the light began to rise back up. Only this time, it had gained a redder tint.

The tunnel opened up to a cave, a massive one. Multiple stories tall, with pillars of rocks as far as the eye could see, and absolutely filled with lava. Small volcanoes bubbled with molten rock, excitedly spilling their contents in the pools that formed around them. Boulders were pushed around by the burning flow like logs in a river. Particles of ash danced around the cave, lighting up and burning out in small flashes of orange light. Waiting in front of them was a rocky path that the surrounding lava had eroded into a bridge.

“Nope.”

Henry immediately tried to leave, and Kimei immediately stopped him.

“Alright, your last trial is to get the last number! I have placed it at the end of this path. If you manage to bring it back to the grotto, the rite will be completed, and the phone number will be yours!”

“Are you really sure you’re not trying to kill me?”

“A good adventure never ends in death! Except for life, the greatest adventure of them all.” She proudly looked into the distance, which in this case was a small lavafall.

“This is liquid hot magma!” Henry cried out, not knowing the difference between magma and lava. “You want me to seriously risk my life for this?”

“What better way to do a finale? Don’t worry, I remember our deal. If anything happens, I will scatter your ashes over the Tokyo Big Sight.”

“Do you not care about human life?”

“I care about human living! And it’s time to make you live for real!”

She grabbed his arm and ran over the rocky bridge.

“You are a sick person!”

The walkway was large enough to make Kimei overly confident and Henry overly anxious. But walking wasn’t the only hardship of this last trial. A gap, splitting the bridge in two. It was a short gap, one you could easily clear with a long step, but it also hung over a pool of crazy hot soup.

“First obstacle!”

“No, the first obstacle was shutting off my common sense.”

“Fair enough. Second obstacle! You must clear the chasm!”

“Ok, if I really have to do this, it will be easier if you just pick me up and throw me over it.”

“You need to conquer your fears!”

“I disagree! My fear of falling into a pit of lava should stay very intact and independent!”

“Is that how you want to live your life?”

“I don’t care how, I just want to live my life!”

“You will, once you get over this gap!”

Kimei cleared the gap with a small jump. “C’mon!” She held out her hand to him.

“…you’re lucky I value holding a girl’s hand as much as I do my life."

Henry grabbed her hand, closed his eyes, reopened them immediately because keeping them closed was actually scarier, took a deep breath, regretted it because the air was very hot, grew tired of all this, and finally made the leap.

“Yes! You did great!"

Kimei cheered and held his hand tight.

"Now do it again!”

Kimei turned around and showed him how a second, larger gap they had to jump to get back to the bridge.

“What?! ...wait. You’re telling me that what we’re standing on right now is a platform held up by a singular rock pillar?!”

“Possibly.”

Henry jumped immediately.

“That’s the spirit!” Kimei followed him.

Their descent continued, until it didn’t anymore. The last number stood in front of them, placed carefully over an elevated rock. Its glimmer greeted them, shining the light of the lava on its lucid surface. A small statue in the shape of an eight made of solid gold, both bigger and shinier than a flashlight.

“Wh- How did you get that?!”

“I made it myself!” Kimei’s nose grew with pride. “I used the lava of this cave to make it.”

“I’m going to be honest, that barely answers my question. Is that gold?!”

“Maybe. ALthough, I was told that not all that glitters is gold, and more importantly I’m not a rock expert.”

“So maybe all of this lava is molten gold?! Do you not care?”

“You shouldn’t go on adventures for the treasure, but for the adventure itself! Now go get that treasure!”

She gave him a little push to the back. Henry turned to look at her with a gaze that said “are you crazy don’t push me while I’m standing on a walkway of death”.

“But I’ve got to say, this does look very cool.”

He approached the golden eight and stretched out his hands to grab it. Then he stopped.

“Wait a second. This is not a trap, right?”

“Smart question! But no, I do not have the skills or lunacy to build rolling boulders-style traps inside a lava cave.”

Henry did not trust her, but he changed his mind as he remembered that she was just a highschooler and they were beneath a school in the middle of Akihabara. Remembering this gave space to a plethora of questions related to realism and suspense of disbelief but, like a good boy, both he and the audience decided to ignore them.

He lifted the golden eight. Surprisingly for him, but unsurprisingly for anyone else, the idol was quite heavy.

Then the cave started to shake.

“You betrayed me!” Henry was distraught. “You were the chosen one!”

“I didn’t do anything! We’re in an underground cave filled with lava! I’m sure it’s not that weird to have some small earthquakes.”

“Oh… Shouldn’t we run then?”

“Most definitely.”

They dashed back through the bridge. The lava beneath them rumbled and bubbled, growing more and more uneasy as the seconds went by. With a roar, one of the lakes in the cave blew up. The small eruption was like a cap getting blown off, letting copious amounts of lava inside the cave. The floor behind them began to get consumed by the hungry, melty rocks.

They ran, leaping over cracks, dodging falling rocks, ducking under flowing arcs of lava, and performed all other kinds of over-the-top actions that you see in movies. They jumped the two gaps again, but this time Kimei pushed Henry to make sure. They were about to reach the tunnel leading back to the grotto, when a second quake hit them.

Henry would have lost his balance if not for Kimei holding him, but the sudden shock made him drop the statue.

“No!” Henry screamed at the statue, which tumbled towards the edge of the rocky bridge.

“No!” Kimei screamed at Henry, who jumped after the statue to try and save it.

She had managed to grab his hand, but Henry was now dangling over a seething death pit, golden eight in hand.

“I can’t pull you up, you’re too heavy! You have to drop the statue!”

Henry looked at her, then down at the eight.

The two loops of metal shone in his eyes. The statue was an impressive feat, but still a simple object. Probably worth a lot of money, but nothing when compared to a human life. And yet, there was something in the way its golden light met his eyes, something in the significance that holding this statue had. Henry looked at the shiny eight, and was left enchanted.

“What are you waiting for?! Just let it go!” Kimei screamed, desperate.

Henry could feel, no, he knew the eight was looking back at him.

“The eight is mine.” He brought it closer to his chest.

“What?”

“I won’t throw it away! Not after all I’ve done to reach this point.”

The earth continued to shake. Kimei’s grip was getting weaker.

“I can’t hold for much longer!”