Next Target

Next morning, everyone had gathered in the cafeteria to discuss what they should do next. While Makoto had participated in the conversation, his mind mainly focused on what he should be doing on his end. Having fun along the way was, all right, but Makoto steeled his mind to not swindle from his top priority that was getting everyone out safely.

After secretly scanning through the rules one more time, Makoto thought that it would be best for him to complete at least one action for everyone so that he can get the 24-hour time limit and he can take things at his own pace. “Might also be able to have more fun that way”, Makoto thought before stopping himself, “No, getting everyone out of here safely comes first, C’mon Makoto focus”.

He also knew that he had to act fast, he only had 4 hours to go before the time limit was up, so he decided on his next target – Celestia Ludenburg. Mostly because everyone else had already left for their daily search and she was the only one left in the cafeteria.

Although Makoto knew that her action would not be easy to accomplish, sooner or later he would have to deal with it. “Hey Celeste”, he said as he approached her. “Hmm”, was all that she mustered out as a reply. She was too busy drinking tea and shuffling a deck of cards to give more than a second’s worth of attention to him.

“Okay”, Makoto’s mind got to work, examining Celeste’s aura, “If I just try to tickle her with brute **** alone, she’d probably grab my hand before I even get to touch her and then the best case scenario would be she would just leave me with a slap on my face, but the worst case (and more likely) scenario would be that she would just **** me here and begin the killing game anyway. I need to think of a way where I can naturally touch her without her minding, then I should be able to accomplish the action easily”. Makoto rattled his brain to find a way and soon noticed the deck of cards she had and came up with an idea.

“Hey Celeste, you seem have a lot of practice dealing with cards, do you happen to know any card tricks”, Makoto asked innocently. “Well”, Celeste finally looked in his direction, “Although they are not my specialty, they have intrigued me from time to time, thought I can’t say that I’m particularly excited about those”.

“Well then how bout we make a bet”, Makoto suddenly said. Celeste’s eyes opened wide now and it seemed like she was paying full attention to Makoto. “I’ll do two tricks, and if you can figure out how each trick is done, then I’ll make you a cup of tea whenever you ask for the rest of the day”. “Oh, how interesting, but let me warn you, my taste in tea is very specific and I’ll have you continue making that tea until it reaches my highest expectations” she said with a normal smile and Makoto felt a very sinister tone in it, “Okay let’s begin”

“Wait, you’re not going to ask what’ll happen if I win?”, Makoto asked with genuine curiosity. “My dear, Makoto” Celeste continued in her smiling persona, “I’m the ultimate gambler, and I know your type of people from experience, there is a very negligible chance if any at all that I’ll lose against you. However, in the unlikely event that I’ll lose, let’s say that I’ll help in searching”.

This deal was highly one-sided because Makoto was sure that even if he won, she would just roam around instead of searching but he needed to go through with his plan. “Okay, here I go Celeste”, Makoto said with clear hesitation in his voice.

He did his first trick where he revealed a card Celeste picked without knowing it. “Amateur, my dear”, Celeste said as soon as he ended, “Your slight of hand was obvious, your lack of hand-eye coordination was evident and don’t think I did not notice that peak at the bottom card, in short your skill level was that which even a 5-year old can beat”. Makoto had to take a few minutes to process the information she gave. He knew that he wasn’t going to be good, because he only learned a few card tricks to impress his little sister a few years back, but Celeste did not hold back in letting him know that.

“Okay time for my second one then”, Makoto said. “By the way, might I ask why you came up with this bet”, Celeste asked. “Oh, I just wanted to test out my skills against someone of your level”, Makoto answered quickly. “Oh, interesting, well then, let’s carry onward and see how your luck panes out against me”, Celeste ended with another smile. Although Makoto said that, his real mission was accomplished. It seemed that Celeste indeed believe that Makoto was about to show her another trick.

“Okay Celeste, I need you to pick a card, see it and shuffle it back in the deck”. Celeste did it and handed the deck back to Makoto. “Okay now, what if I said I can pull the card you shuffled out of your ear”, Makoto said after putting the deck on the table. Celeste, intrigued by this, said, “Okay, let’s see how you pull it off”.

Makoto approached her. As he did, he was sure that Celeste could not figure out how he would do it because he really did not do any fancy tricks and did not have anything in his hand. Soon he was close enough to touch her ear and he knew now was the only time to strike, Celeste would not allow him to get any closer to her in any other situation. Within a blink of an eye, he aimed at her neck and started ticking it. “H-Hey, y-you…”, Celeste was clearly caught off guard, which was the perfect moment for Makoto to use his other arm to tickle her armpits. Makoto hoped with his life that cleanup time, would start soon because if she recovered from this, she would actually kill him.

Makoto closed his eyes afraid to open them. However, he did not have to wait long, because he soon heard her say in a monotone voice, “Action Successful! Active trigger unlocked: Ace up your sleeve! Cleanup time: Fifteen minutes”

Makoto, relieved to hear that, started to wonder why the cleanup time was so long, before he realized that Celeste had knocked over her tea cup in the attempt to push him away and it was spilt all across the table. “You gotta be kidding me”, Makoto said aloud, knowing that no one could hear him.

Before dealing with that mess, Makoto concluded it would be a good idea to look at Celeste’s trigger and her next action. He opened his handbook to see,

(1) Celestia Ludenberg: Have her drink a cup of tea from which you drank out of {without using her trigger} (Blue)

This action did not as evil as some of the other ones, so Makoto was glad to have a break. “Oh Yeah, I should check her trigger too”, Makoto thought aloud.

Celestia Ludenburg’s Triggers:

Ace up your Sleeve (Active): If you hold up an ‘ace of spades’, playing card in front of her she will go mindless till you stop showing her the card. In her mindless state, if you say any command, she will do it immediately after coming out of this state. This only works once per day.

“Okay this can be useful”, Makoto thought, as he drifted in the infinite possibilities that he can accomplish with this trigger. He suddenly slapped back to reality, “Wait, why am I thinking along those lines?”, he checked the time to discover he only had eight minutes left and a mess to clean up. He took the 'ace of spades' card out of Celeste's deck and kept it for himself and then examined the mess. He really did not want to use up his daily trigger of Celeste for her to ignore this mess, so there was only one option left for her to not suspect anything. “Okay, gotta clean up fast and replace the tea”, Makoto groaned. Looks like he ended up making her a cup of tea after all.