Rangers Endgame

Chapter 117: Vault Security

Kiyoshi had never believed in a god or deity that some people wanted to. It seemed improbable, perhaps even impossible, for any higher being to exist in a world where poverty crippled lives, where thieves would evade the law, or where trauma would claim the life of an assaulted victim.

The only thing deserving of his trust was the justice system. But a deity? How could such beings exist in a broken world?

Although he knew the Savior asked him if he was familiar with the term, his true intention was to challenge his belief.

Maeve, Akane, Matoi, and Kakkona all glanced at each other with uncertainty, also realizing the underlying meaning in his words. The Savior studied Kiyoshi's expression carefully as the Sentinel considered.

"I don't entertain the notion of a higher being," was all Kiyoshi could respond with.

The Savior nodded with understanding. "In a world such as this, it is common to rule out the possibility. However..."

"You claim to have already seen it." Kakkona finished.

Kiyoshi couldn't tell what his colleague was feeling, as his expression was a mixture of various emotions, but it appeared that the most prominent was doubt.

Kiyoshi's skepticism warred with fact. He didn't want to believe the words of a man who'd used the masses as test subjects to grow stronger. But he also knew that the visions of Foresight weren't to be taken lightly.

"My research has yielded limited information about these deities, as they are far older than humanity and disappeared before our kind sprouted into a civilization," the Savior continued, his multicolored eyes trailing down and off to the side thoughtfully. "Although I am unsure of what will bring about a resurgence, I do know that the world will plunge into a fate worse than death."

Although faint, Kiyoshi detected something in him that he wasn't expecting. The slight tensing of his shoulders, the creasing of his features, the waver in his voice. He was desperate.

He turned and approached the Vault door, gazing upon its runic surface. By this point, Matoi had managed to activate the majority of the runes, but the trial and error had clearly drained him more than he anticipated. Kakkona laid a concerned hand on his shoulder, but Matoi looked back at him with a weak smile coupled with a reassuring nod to signal he was nearly finished.

Maeve stepped forward. "If you turn yourself in, you can bring your statement to the council. If what you claim is true, surely they will formulate a solution." She said tactfully.

The Savior glanced over his shoulder with a tilted head as if she'd said something ridiculous. "A solution?" He stepped aside and gestured towards the iron door. "That is already underway. I am certain you can imagine a deity's power given its title. There is simply not enough time for mankind to grow naturally to match its strength. So as a countermeasure, I created the Hope Elixir in an attempt to bolster our progress to combat it."

The runes on the ceiling lit, and Matoi held his breath. With a series of confident flicks of his wand, the orbs snapped from one rune to the next, donating their radiance in one final push to unlock the path forward. The runic symbols jumped to life in a wave of light across the floor, walls, and ceiling, and within moments, the barrier flickered before dissolving into embers.

The Savior showed no indication of his nerves taking hold of him as the barrier fell away. Kiyoshi raised his infused shield while Kakkona did the same with his ignited fists. Maeve stepped in front of Akane and Matoi, sword drawn, and they all went inside the spacious room cautiously. Even when the Savior turned his back to them regretfully, their steps were still slow and deliberate.

Kiyoshi gestured with his head to Kakkona to stay on his right while he motioned to Maeve to arc to his left. Akane and Matoi stayed further behind as the others closed in on the Savior, the man responsible for the unnecessary loss of rangers and innocents.

"Savior," Kiyoshi started, injecting authority into his voice. "Your crimes of unethical experimentation and the production and distribution of an illegal substance have been noted by the council, and you are to be brought before the magistrate for trial. You are under order to comply."

Kiyoshi signaled Kakkona and Maeve to advance. As the three of them made their careful approach, the Savior remained facing the Vault, eerily unbothered. He calmly raised his hand and pressed his middle finger and thumb together, his cool baritone voice carrying the crushing weight of death.

"Such a waste of your last words."

At the simple snap of his fingers, the area exploded into a jagged field of jutting spikes. Instincts took over as Kiyoshi's body moved to evade, leaping back to avoid the erupting floor. Spikes hurtled at his flank, and he narrowly swung his shield to deflect them. The sheer force of the lethal blows sent him hurling, and he had a clear view of the chaos.

Even with Kakkona's agility, he struggled to track the deadly speed of the spikes. Lines of red sliced across his body as he bounced from one spike to the next while bashing away the spikes he couldn't avoid.

For the first time, panic threatened to push through Maeve's features as she spun and twirled within the speeding maze of death. She, too, accumulated cuts over her body as her athletic grace was strained against the never-ending onslaught.

As Kiyoshi landed, he was once again bombarded with another assault that would've skewered him had he not just barely managed to raise his shield. Cracks webbed across the infused alloy as the spikes smashed into it, and he tumbled back. As he righted himself, he was forced to lunge away as the baleful forest of amber-gleaming spikes arced back to ram into where he once stood.

There was no room for a counterattack, no moment for retaliation. Only a continuous storm of crashing earth and screeching radiance.

Through the barbed terrain, he caught a glimpse of the Savior, his cold eyes and regal posture never wavering. With a casual lift of his finger, pillars of earth and marble rocketed from all angles, pummeling Kiyoshi's defenses.

As he was sent soaring after a pillar bashed into his shield, another pillar appeared in his path. Without being able to dodge in midair, he raised his shield again and braced for impact. Before the pillar struck him, seams split across its surface, and spikes spiraled around him from every direction. His heart leaped into his throat as he couldn't protect himself against them all.

As he was nearly impaled from all sides, flames of radiance yanked him from space, causing the spikes to crash into one another with a horrible crystalline shriek. With a flash, Kiyoshi reappeared beside Akane and Matoi on a perch. He finally had a moment to calm his breathing.

Thankfully, the bombardment ceased, and when he somewhat gathered himself, he took the time to assess his surroundings. In a far-off corner to his right, he saw Maeve supporting herself against a pillar, a bit shaken but alive.

To his left, he found Kakkona on ground level. He leaned against an arcing spike, clutching a gash on his arm. Kiyoshi kept scanning the wild arches and jutting spikes, but he lost track of the Vault during the madness.

He turned to Akane. "Do you happen to know where the Vault is?"

"I couldn't tell you." She answered, gripping her forearm to tame her startled nerves.

He looked over at Matoi, but the rogue shook his head regretfully.

"Kakkona, do you have a visual on the Vault?" Kiyoshi asked into his communication artifact.

Kakkona ducked to scan what was in his visual range but sighed disappointedly after a few seconds. ["I've got nothing."]

Kiyoshi then looked in Maeve's direction, and she met his eye. Though Maeve didn't have a communication artifact, she would've made some kind of indication that she knew where the Vault was. Instead, she was silently awaiting instruction.

He regarded the misshapen room distantly while forming a plan of action. Retreat wasn't an option. The exit was nowhere in sight, but the Savior likely sealed off their escape route anyway. It was clear that he could only manipulate matter within a set radius, meaning they were safe so long as they didn't step foot inside his range.

The gnarled obstruction hindered their vision, and moving throughout it could prove dangerous without knowing the exact range of the Savior's field. Akane could teleport around the edges to scout, but, again, her field of view was blocked.

After a minute of consideration, Kiyoshi pressed on his communication artifact. "Kakkona, we need to get a visual. But the only way to do that is to pressure the Savior into rearranging the room again."

["Are you suggesting what I think you are?"]

"Yes. You, Maeve, and I will attack him at once—" Kiyoshi glanced at Akane. "—while Akane scouts for the Vault. Once she finds it, she'll send Matoi to unlock it."

["Understood."]

Matoi nodded firmly, and Akane signaled to Maeve to get her attention. Without using her ability, Akane made a brief hand gesture to her. The Saberclaw leader nodded with understanding and turned her attention to what Kiyoshi figured was the Savior.

Suddenly, the radiance blanketing the twisted field began to vibrate, and the earth responded to its command. A large portion of the room began to disentangle, and the pillars and spikes receded to reveal the Savior.

He didn't attack, didn't speak, just stared. The heavy pressure of his quiet gaze seemed to intensify as he invited any who dared to rush into the path he'd deliberately opened for them.

Kiyoshi hesitated under the foreboding weight before steeling his resolve and signalling to Kakkona and Maeve.

The three of them launched toward the Savior at once, and just as Kiyoshi expected, the room roared to life again at the flick of the Savior's wrist. Barbed spikes glinted with deadly intent as Kiyoshi deflected their attacks. Kakkona's and Maeve's forms flickered through the contortions of bludgeoning pillars and racing javelins.

Flashes of Kakkona showed him sliding and ducking under the raging terrain bent on eviscerating everything in their path. Maeve tried advancing, but the impossible number of spikes rushed to intercept.

Before the tangled maelstrom could devour her, a flash of amber snatched her from reality and plopped her at Kakkona's side. Together, the duo naturally slipped into a devastating combination of overwhelming power and graceful finesse that reflected years of experience fighting alongside each other.

As they closed in on the Savior, Kiyoshi snapped back to his own obstacles in his way as a pillar suddenly launched skyward from beneath him. Spikes peeled off from its elongating neck and aimed to skewer him from all sides.

Pushing more radiance into his shield, he encased himself in a bubble before leaping off the platform. The spikes drilled into the husk he'd left behind, shattering the pillar.

While in midair, he caught a glimpse of the runic iron door. It seemed like Akane saw it too because her eyes widened, and she hastily warped Matoi to it. The rogue had just started working on the door before Kiyoshi landed with a roll on a pillar that was racing sideways.

The Savior's eyes glanced to his left at Matoi, then at Akane for the briefest of seconds before snapping back to Kiyoshi speeding towards him. The Sentinel conjured another bubble around himself, leaving behind radiant husks to stall the spikes. With a sweep of his hand, the Savior launched a tsunami of barbed rubble towards him.

Instead of retreating, however, he placed his trust in Akane and lunged into it. As expected, he was pulled from space, stomach reeling from the odd sensation, and dropped off after the tsunami had passed. The wave of rubble solidified into a wall behind him, blocking off Akane's field of vision as he wound up his sword to strike at the Savior.

Kakkona and Maeve blasted through a pillar behind the man and prepared to strike him down as well. The Savior was wide open and exposed as the three closed in, but even then, he showed no signs of growing panic.

The glow of his rings intensified as he retracted his radiance from the room, grinding the feral earthen contraption to a halt, then outstretched both palms towards Kiyoshi and his comrades. Just as they unleashed their combined might, their attacks slammed into thick barriers of white-gold.

Torrents of wind flared from the collision, the sheer force whipping their attire and splitting stone around them. Kiyoshi's eyes shot wide in both frustration and surprise, as not only did the barriers absorb the tremendous shock from the combined might of two Sentinels and an S-rank, but the barriers didn't so much as crack.

With some effort, the Savior pushed forward, and the barriers catapulted the three backwards. With cat-like reflexes, Maeve landed on her feet onto a flat plane jutting from the wall. She jumped down to Kakkona, who'd rolled atop a steep ravine next to her. Kiyoshi deliberately skipped from one surface to another, distributing his kinetic energy to slow his momentum before coming to a stop on the ground.

His body complained with every movement, but he held firm. Judging from Maeve's panting and Kakkona clutching his side, fatigue seemed to be grasping at them as well.

"Perhaps you thought me to be ignorant, Sentinel Kiyoshi." The Savior finally spoke, his words frigid. "That will certainly not contribute to your party's survival."

He raised his hand again, and the three dropped low to prepare for another attack. But nothing came. Instead, when he rotated his hand, the section of the room to his left unraveled to reveal the Vault door, and Kiyoshi's eyes went wide with horror. Because before the runic door was Matoi's body, hanging limp on several spikes jutting from the floor.