“Lover and Hater of Tower of Hate and Love” (65.1) (Oka)

"This will be an advanced challenge, so I'll ask one more time before we start," Caya said. "Are you all sure you want to do this?"

“This is important enough to me that I’m missing a Zeta party," I said. "I'm still in."

"Sorry you have to miss that," Caya said. "This is the only time I'm available this week."

"It's cool, thanks for taking time away from the co-principal business for us!" I said.

We were in our adaptive gear and waited in the void entry building as Caya explained what we'd be doing. A few others elected to join this impromptu class. Lillia, of course, which I was glad about as our double team moves helped us get one of the few wins against the devils at our first test against each other. Amara and Michi were along as well. Amara stretched as she got ready.

"We're missing the party too," Iris said.

"Yeah, but we already said we wouldn't go," Maia said.

The duo sat nearby watching us. I don't think Iris and Maia were actually there to train, but likely saw the group forming and wanted to observe.

"An odd assortment here, huh?" Iris said.

"Sure is," Maia said.

"If you're not going to join in, quit adding commentary!" I said.

"This will be like the dungeon crawl missions we've done in class, but with an increased difficulty," Caya said. "You'll arrive at the dungeon with minimal instructions on how to proceed, but you'll be able to communicate with us from our base at the start of the dungeon. Pretty basic stuff, you all know the drill."

"We do!" I said. "And this will help us do better against the devils?"

"That's up to you," Caya said. "If you half-ass this, you probably won't get much out of it."

"Kay, how about like three-quarters-assing this?" Iris said, which I found real rich because I never saw her giving more than a quarter of a butt for any training type activity.

"You might get some results," Caya said.

With some fang scrapes on the rosin that sends us between worlds, we were off. This particular void dungeon was an overgrown stone building in a misty jungle. Switching from our home's climate to the void was always strange, especially if the place we traveled to had a totally different one.

The building kind of reminded me of Tesata. Not a place I wanted to think about at any time, but the aesthetics were the same. My boarding school where I was raised wasn't in a jungle, just on a small isolated island in the middle of a lake, with similar stone walls and nature overtaking it.

Caya set up a home base at the start of the dungeon, which looked like rows of fancy desks with monitors on them. Dr. Diast usually just came with us when we went on void expeditions, so I hadn't seen these more high end ones much.

"Where's our table?" Iris asked.

"This is the part where I convince you to join your friends," Caya said. "I could also use a secret power of mine that fires a laser from my eyes that not only hypnotizes you into doing what I want, but also tells me all your secrets."

"That...hm," Iris said.

"Maybe she's bluffing," Maia said. "Teachers can't do that. Nobody can do that."

Caya's expression remained blank.

"Kay, we'll go!" Iris said. "I don't need anyone figuring out our secrets like that."

"She probably can't even do that, but...sure, whatever," Maia said.

"I can't, you're correct," Caya said. "And it would be a grievous misuse of my faculty role, but I hope you'll still come with even after I say a vaguely threatening joke."

"Fine, fine, we're still gonna!" Iris said. "Even if you can't do the laser eye thing, the fact that you came up with that whole scenario means you could really mess with us other ways, I bet."

Lillia and I led the group ahead, not wanting to waste any time. Void dungeons, from my experience so far, were mainly a mix of puzzle rooms and battle rooms. This one was a battle room, an open space with void monsters waiting for us. They were of the goopy variety, and all of them had the shape of open hardcover books with spiderlike legs.

I drew my bloodsaber, but I wouldn't need it for this room, because Lillia was a step ahead of all of us, sword drawn as she ran through, before we could even utilize one power of ours she'd done a lap through, slicing about five in half already. Her second lap was less graceful, with her stabbing downward, turning the void monsters back to their natural goop state as she screamed "Die! Die! Die!" over and over. Michi, Iris, Maia, Amara, and I watched, stunned as the ground was gradually covered in void monster sludge, spreading like blood. A few of the remaining blobs didn't melt as fast as she wanted so she swung her bloodsaber like a club, knocking them into the air, misty rain of their remnants falling down on us.

"Working some aggressions out, I take it?" I said.

"Something like that," Lillia said as she pressed her glasses up, getting back to her usual composed state almost as quickly as she'd left it.