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"What do you desire?" The voice had asked when Baam reached the top of the tower.
"A chance to do it over. To climb the tower my way." Baam had responded.
"I hope you don't come to regret your choice, Son of Arlen."
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When Khun lost Baam on the floor of tests, it changed something deep within him. It changed something deep within all those that seemed to gravitate toward the golden-eyed boy like moths to a flame.
Perhaps it was the sudden loss of innocence, Bamm being so fundamentally different in mindset from those usually climbing the tower, you couldn't help but hold him close. For Khun, it was always those eyes. Eyes that reminded him of Maria before the tower corrupted her too. He wanted to protect those eyes, to help Baam accomplish whatever he had come into the tower to do like he didn't get to do for Maria.
Now that Baam was gone, it was a struggle for some to continue the climb. For others, it just sparked their urge to continue what he started. It was Shibisu's idea to split into two teams, claiming it was strategically better and working out floors where the whole group could reunite, but after Khun did some investigating and found out what that bitch had done, Khun had seen red.
He took the defenseless Rachel and formed a team separate from Baam's friends, justifying his decision with sound logic that they could climb faster if they weren't held back by the blonde hag. Khun didn't mind playing the long game. He didn't mind getting his hands dirty to avenge his closest friend; he had no issue with waiting until the end was in sight before snatching everything away from Rachel as she did for him.
Khun formed a team around her and used every trick in his playbook to scheme their way up the tower. All the while, he warned the other members of his ultimate plan, not the whole thing, because he would be a fool if he trusted any of them, but enough, so they knew what they were signing up for.
Each floor they passed, Khun's plan adapted. By the time they had reached the 10th floor, he had come up with at least 15 different ways he would crush Rachel's dreams. Some nights he had to convince himself to wait, the thought of killing her now and ridding himself of Rachel to be done with it. Then he would see her pathetic act and that smug smile when she thought no one was looking, and it reignited his patience; instead, he came up with a whole new way to ruin her.
By the time his team had reached the 21st floor and learned what their test was, Khun had stopped keeping track of the various ways he wanted to end Rachel. Despite the information he had gathered before coming, the test administrator informed them that they were, instead, tasked to retrieve the flower from a Zygaena. It took all of 30 minutes as they traveled further out to sea for Khun, Apple, and Rachel to dig up any other information about what they were walking into.
While the Zygaena test did not appear often, there was a bit of information about it, and it was enough for Khun to become cautious when strategizing about how to complete the task. Up until recently, there were very few who actually passed it and even more teams that died while taking the test.
"Apple, Michael, Getting, and Rachel. You guys head in first to scout our best routes, and we will wait for it to flip and enter through the bottom." Khun instructed as they finally arrived at the testing spot.
They readily agreed, waiting until they got close enough to the emerging beast before departing. As the rest of the group got ready to enter, Khun's lighthouse ran through the data he had gathered and the new information he was slowly getting from his scouts.
"Um, Knun. There's something in the water." Dan's cautious warning pulled the blue-haired male's attention away from ensuring the first half of the team had no issues making it through the Zygaena's blowhole.
"You mean besides the Zygaena? Nothing else should be in this area. Can you tell what it is?" Khun asked, making his way toward the opposite side of the boat to see the dark blob not too far from their ship.
"It's a person." Novick was the first to make out the figure, and he and Ran fished him out of the water.
They were in all black, with hair that was nearly as long as he was tall and bangs that obscured most of the upper half of his face.
"Is he even alive?" Dan questioned; Khun's eyes hadn't felt the figure since he had been pulled into their boat.
He didn't want to believe it, but there were so many similarities between the man being resuscitated by Novick, and the boy he last saw on the floor of tests. The figure sputtered, a concerning amount of water expelling from their lungs before golden eyes flickered open, the male glancing around frantically as if unaware of where he was and needing to assess the threat level before they met with blue. Khun gasped, and those familiar eyes lit up with emotion.
"Baam?" He couldn't believe what he was seeing, but after all this time, he wouldn't forget those eyes, even if his face was a bit more mature.
"Hello, Mr. Khun."