Naroki and Sumitsu had left Goji's hospital room and meandered the corridors looking for a place to grab a bite to eat without any sense of urgency.
At first, it struck Naroki as odd seeing each room exhibiting a different time of day and different atmospheric intensity. Still, after a while, he found the randomness of it all quite charming. Beside each door was fitted a device that named the planet, time zone, and climate being simulated inside.
Elven nurses busied themselves about the halls, each dressed for a seemingly different climate, some ready for tropical summers, others bundled up for a bitter winter. The tournament caused quite a commotion. While some rooms were for the competitors, most of these rooms were filled with spectators who had gotten carried away with their rowdiness.
A nurse wheeling a muffin the size of a small chest of drawers on a floor cart passed them by in a bit of a hurry. Naroki wondered who that muffin was for. He noticed the small girl with the fiery orange hair walking beside the muffin was the same girl who had been selling concession muffins to spectators earlier. She must have a big customer. He considered buying another muffin or two from her.
Burdened with the knowledge of Naroki's feelings towards her, Sumitsu found herself questioning and second-guessing her behavior and mannerisms around him. She wanted to avoid causing him pain. She hoped to stay friends with him. She rehearsed and played out scenarios in her mind, each one seeming to spiral into a quarrel where she'd lose his friendship completely.
She did not like the direction her thoughts were going. She couldn't imagine a life where he wasn't her friend. The idea of it nearly brought her to tears. And a face ready to cry was the last thing she wanted Naroki to see. Oops.
"What's the matter?" Naroki asked her, seeing the tears starting to well up in her eyes. "What's wrong?"
"It's been a long day. And I'm just so happy that you…" she paused, "that both of you are safe." I was just imagining that…"
Naroki assumed she meant if one of them had been killed in this tournament. His heart swelled with compassion as it dawned on him how hurt she would have been if she had lost either one of them. He wordlessly placed a hand on her shoulder to show his support, and she immediately rushed in to embrace him.
In the hospital corridors, Naroki cradled Sumitsu in his arms as she clutched him tightly, silently weeping into his shoulder. She needed this, the feeling of warmth and comfort from someone near and dear to her, and the thought of how much this could hurt him only made her need it more.
Unfortunately for Naroki, if he had any idea what Kyou and Mai were up to, he might have been able to stop her and rescue Goji from within that giant muffin. Here's how he got in there.
Moments after Kyou, disguised as a nurse, got Naroki and Sumitsu to leave Goji's hospital room, she hatched her plan. Her first step was to try to reason with him. She would soon learn how futile that effort would be.
"Champion. I have to warn you," Kyou said with grave seriousness.
"Warn me?" Goji scoffed. "About what?"
"Your life is in danger."
"Really?" Goji wasn't sure about this elf, the doubt unmasked in his voice and on his face.
Kyou removed her mask and left it dangling off one of her long, pointy ears.
"I know you. You're that judge," Goji accused.
"That's right," Kyou confirmed. "Now, some people are going to try to kill you."
"What people? Why?"
"It's complicated. I can explain on the way."
"On the way? Where?"
"To my home world, Sagesse."
"You're an elf. Elves are from Vechnost. This is your home world." Goji's trust in this judge was dwindling. "Something's not adding up. You're lying to me."
"I promise I'm not." Kyou was getting more stressed, occasionally glancing at the door to the room.
"What are you afraid of?" Goji badgered her. "That you'll get caught?"
At that moment, Mai walked in, wheeling a floor cart with a giant muffin underneath a tarp.
"What is that?" Goji asked.
"A disguise." Kyou was a bit exasperated that Mai brought in a giant muffin rather than something a bit more inconspicuous, like a medicine cart. "Get in."
"I won't."
"Stop being stubborn. I'm trying to save your life here."
Goji's protests were stopped by a doughy arm launching out from the muffin. The muffin's large chocolate chunks reorganized and formed the shape of eyes and teeth of a maw that opened up and shot forth several more doughy arms to grab Goji, bind him, and pull him into its mouth. Kyou was fixed to the ground, paralyzed, watching as the muffin swallowed Goji whole.
"Well," Kyou said, shaking off her dread, "that was horrifying. We are going to have a discussion about your inventions, Mai."
"Yes, boss," she replied in her thick accent.
Kyou refastened her mask and pushed the floor cart out of Goji's room and down the hall. Mai followed close behind. To Kyou's surprise, Mai had made such an impression with her selling of muffins at the Tournament that not a soul questioned the existence of that muffin in her presence. Occasionally, people would look enviously at the muffin, but no one dared try to stop them.
Kyou's mind was racing to try to keep up with this new change in plans. She hadn't counted on taking Goji hostage. She needed to hurry to get to Mai's ship. This would have been so much easier if he were cooperative. Perhaps if she had been thinking clearly, she would have remembered the new route she planned on taking to avoid getting seen outside Satori's window. Instead, she fell back on the old route she had been planning on before Goji upset everything with his meteoric rise and victory. It wasn't until she was in clear view of Satori's window that she realized her mistake, and had to continue through the adjacent courtyard, hoping in vain that she wouldn't be seen.
But Satori had seen them. And she was smart enough to realize what Kyou was up to. She watched the pair of them attempt to carry off that giant muffin. They were heading directly towards the spaceport. She had to be sure, though. She set off for the hospital.
Naroki and Sumitsu had found a cafeteria and were seated at a table, eating some local fare, when Satori burst into the room. Naroki tensed up when he saw her; he did not feel safe around her without his sword.
Sumitsu felt Naroki's tension and looked up. She wasn't afraid of Satori herself, but she could tell things weren't going to go well. The warrior priestess had worked herself up to a frenzy, and when she locked eyes with Naroki, she approached aggressively.
"Where is he?" she growled.
"Goji?" Naroki asked, more bravely than he felt.
"Obviously." Her patience was wearing thin.
"In his room?"
Satori rolled her eyes. "Which room?"
Sumitsu stood up and fixed a stare at Satori. "What business do you have with the Champion?"
Satori suppressed a flinch at the word 'Champion.' "I think he's been kidnapped."
Sumitsu immediately dropped her 'tough girl' pose and rushed past both Naroki and Satori directly to Goji's room. The other two followed close behind her. She suppressed a shriek when she saw the bed empty. She looked around the room and down the hall for any sign of Goji. Naroki looked too, always keeping a worried eye on Sumitsu.
When they turned to confront Satori to find out what she knew, she was gone. They shared a momentary glance, then both ran towards the hospital entrance.
Satori had left the hospital immediately. She had seen enough. Goji's compatriots weren't pretending; they had no idea where their friend was. Kyou had attempted to secrete him away. She must have known such a dishonorable defeat would require a challenge. This outrage is unforgivable, even for her friend.
Satori returned to her apartment, gathered some of her personal belongings, and went straight to the spaceport.
Goji struggled and squirmed inside the chocolate chunked muffin. His muffled cries never penetrated the crust. His ride was pretty bumpy as Kyou grew ever more nervous.
"Go handle the prelaunch sequence." Kyou commanded Mai, who nodded and ran off ahead. Kyou glanced around nervously, pretending everything was normal. All around here, people were eyeing the muffin with covetous glances. Although she was drawing unwanted attention to herself, it wasn't the kind she thought. Everyone wanted a piece of that giant muffin. No one suspected she was using it to kidnap someone.
She quickly ascended a ramp into a small freighter-class ship. While the ship had roomy accommodations: half a dozen bedrooms with private baths, a fully stocked galley, a cargo hold, and all the things a spaceship needs to get from planet to planet, it was dwarfed by the luxury liners that had transported thousands of people from the various worlds in their star system. If those were cruize ships, Mai's ship was an RV.
Kyou had rolled Goji's muffin into the ship's command center, where Mai had rushed through starting up the spaceship. She was hopping from station to station. The vessel was best piloted by four people simultaneously, and Mai was running around being all four people at once.
Kyou was about to ask how she could help when Goji howled with primal rage and burst through the top of his muffin prison, immediately drawing the attention of Kyou and Mai. "I'll handle this, you get us off-world," Kyou ordered rapidly.
"Aye, Boss." Mai hopped into the pilot's chair and continued the launch sequence.
Goji lunged at Kyou with a haymaker. Kyou deftly blocked by jabbing two fingers directly into the crook of his elbow, then jabbed a few more pressure points to cause Goji to fall to his knees.
"Look, I'm sorry about all of this. I really am. If we had more time…" she laments. "But we don't, so right now I'm asking you to stop resisting and let us rescue you!"
Goji would not be swayed. He mustered what strength he could to fight the paralizing effect Kyou's hits caused and ran from her. He was off like a shot through the rest of the ship. While it wasn't a terribly complicated layout, Goji kept making wrong turns until he found his way to the cargo hold with the ramp still down. He ran as fast as his injured legs could allow. Every breath ached. He didn't let the closing ramp slow him down. He was going to escape, just like all those heroes he read about. He wasn't going to slam right into the wall.
He slammed right into the wall.
Then he collapsed onto the floor.
He was too late. The ramp had closed. He was trapped. He slowly clawed his way up the wall and back onto his feet while he looked for a way to open the ramp up again. He saw Kyou standing on the other side of the cargo hold by a control panel. She had closed the door on him. He gritted his teeth and was about to lunge at her when he could hear someone call his name. He looked out the nearest window, and that's when he saw her.
Naroki and Sumitsu had followed the trail of people craving muffins that led from the hospital to the space port. They managed to identify which ship Kyou had boarded by the people still talking about it. Now they both cried out Goji's name, hoping to get his attention.
Through a window by the ramp, Sumitsu and Goji's eyes locked.
Then the ship began to lift off the ground.
They were too late.
A whirlwind of rage and dispair overwhelmed Sumitsu's heart. If she were a full-fledged Avatar, it would be nothing for her to rip this ship to shreds and rescue her fiancé. But she didn't have access to the full power of her deity. She fell to her knees and soul-crushingly wept. Anyone in earshot instantly wept in sympathy for her pain. Naroki knelt down beside her and put an arm around her shoulders. She leaned in to him and grabbed a fistful of his shirt while she cried.
Satori looked on and saw the whole event. A single tear fell down her cheek. She didn't want to cry, but as a Templar, she was powerless against the grief of an Avatar. A few minutes later, she boarded the purple one-man fighter she arrived in and was flying into space after Goji, leaving Naroki and Sumitsu behind.