Night 60: The Sphinx's Chamber

[requitedfate]

[from here]Another door that closed and locked behind them. This time there were no other doors to draw the eye. Instead, the one thing Shiina had never wanted and never believed she would see was now in front of them. This time, she didn't hesitate to reach out and take Shou's arm

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[hiddenbadass]

This way was as good as any, Mike supposed--except for the locking doors bit. When the first door locked behind them, Mike had jerked around to stare at the door. He had even gone to try it wordlessly.

It was at the second door closing behind them that Mike was pretty damn sure that going down in the basement was a bad idea. He wasn't a coward by any means, but getting stuck in a room with a huge, probably man-and-turtle-eating beast wasn't exactly a good survival strategy. His eyes were in fact going wide. Oh, this was bad. Very bad.

Mike shushed Shiina when she started speaking, his own voice a whisper. "Don't wake it up. We gotta find a way outta here. Now."

Yup, they were all going to die.

[oneman_onekill]

The instant he entered the room, Niikura's eyes were drawn to the thing that even he had been skeptical about: the sphinx. It was real. The source on the board hadn't lied. There actually was a sphinx down here. His heart was racing; his mind was exploding with a thousand emotions. Was this what fear really felt like? Not the kind that made his eyes widen, the kind that rose up out of a certain protectiveness, no, could this be real fear? The kind that only emerged when faced with something far more powerful than oneself...

If it was, it certainly felt good. His lips curved into a sharp grin as Niikura took a step forward, mesmerized. He felt like laughing, it was that ridiculously amazing.

"No," he said softly, yet in a firm enough voice that said that they were going to be here to stay--or, at least, that he would be there to stay. "I didn't come all this way--we didn't come all this way just to turn around. 'Sides, the other door's got to have somethin' behind it just as challengin' as what we've got on our hands here; we might

[damned_monsters]

Don't wake it up would prove to be faulty advice. The sphinx was fully conscious from before the trio strode in, and in all honesty, it was doubtful if it did actually ever rest. And yet, as still as the statue it was at times, it froze, waited until all three had crossed the threshold before exhaling a wave of heat and annoyance, eyes whisking over them, and apparently, coming away unimpressed. At least in these, there existed fear. There had been little enough of that lately

[requitedfate]

Leave it to Shou to step up to the plate like a boss and never show the least bit of regret. He was actually smiling about having run into a honest-to-God man-eater. Even a veteran fighter like Mike wasn't stupid enough to try dueling with a beast like this. Shou could be such an idiot sometimes!

But Shou was Shiina's idiot, damn it! She wasn't going to let him walk into danger on his own. She had promised him that and she wasn't one to back down on her word.

She shuddered at how the Sphinx glared at them, feeling sickly and cold even after the rush of heat. Still, she stood her ground just a half-step behind Niikura. "I won't turn back either."