The news came to Sakura just as she started her shift in the new shaft. Toku's parents had been arrested. They were assigned the shift before hers, and soldiers had come just minutes before and taken Toku's parents away. The new shaft was buzzing with the news.

Toku had been gone for two days now. Sakura had searched for him the best she could. She had even gone to the King's Corridor to ask the guards if they had arrested him. No one knew anything—or at least no one was letting on that they knew anything.

As Sakura worked, her analytical mind churned through the information she knew. Toku's parents had been arrested. This probably meant that the soldiers also did not know where Toku was. She could not imagine Toku's parents being a part of some plot--but they were connected to Toku, and she already knew that the soldiers wanted him. Toku had also talked about a surprise visit by Leicho Gin. Such a visit could just be a coincidence, but such a coincidence seemed unlikely.

No, Leicho Gin definitely is involved, thought Sakura.

Aleric was the first to be arrested. Rumors were already flying about the great battle between Aleric and Gin. If the rumors were to be believed, it had been a mighty alchemists' dual in which Leicho had come out on top. First Leicho shows up to test Toku's alchemy. Then Aleric is arrested. Then they come after Toku. Toku disappears and as a result his parents are arrested.

But why? What was going on?

Putting her pickax down for a moment, Sakura put her hand to her head. I just don't have enough data.

After finishing her shift, Sakura headed over to the Skie, as she always did. Aleric's lab was on the way, and as she passed the imposing wooden door (now repaired), guarded by two of the king's soldiers, she felt a rush of sadness. As she sat at a small table in the back of the Skie, Sakura found it impossible to enjoy her drink. Toku was missing. Her friend was gone and everything was all wrong. In low spirits, Sakura drug herself to bed that evening. She felt helpless, and her worry caused her heart to ache.

Just as Sakura was finally passing into sleep, she awoke with a start.

"What am I doing?!" Sakura yelled at herself. "Why am I sitting around here sulking? I'm not helpless! My friend is in trouble, and I'm laying around in bed? That's just stupid!" New found resolve filled her heart. "Just like Dad used to say—If you can't do nothin', do somthin'!"

Her mind was working quickly now. Fatigue from the long day slipped off her. She went to her closet and began rummaging through the boxes of her well-organized belongings. Finally, in a box labeled "Technical Documents" she found what she was looking for. It was a long tube of rolled-up paper. Taking the tube from the closet, she unrolled it on her bed to reveal a complicated blueprint. Quickly taking in the lines and diagrams, Sakura snapped her fingers. "It's perfect! It couldn't be in a better place!" she said to herself.

After several more hours of drawing up plans, making calculations, and examining the blueprint Sakura finally allowed herself to hop back into bed. It was difficult to get to sleep, but she knew she would need all the rest she could get over the next few days. Finally, with only a few hours remaining before she would need to wake up for her shift in the new shaft, her thoughts slowed down enough that she could drift off to sleep. However, even in her short dreams calculations were being made.

Sakura's work in the new shaft went painfully slowly. Her shift was from the third bell to the eighth bell, one bell break, and then work again from the tenth bell to the twelfth bell. Sakura thought about using her break to start to put her plan into action, but thought better of it in the end. One bell would not be enough time to get much done, anyway. Still, the last bells after her break were the slowest she had ever experienced in the mines.

Finally, she was off work. But, instead of following the rest of her crew up the shaft and to the Skie, she pretended to have left behind her lunch box. The next shift was scheduled to be brought down soon, so she had to work quickly now. Grabbing an alchemical mud-bore tube from the equipment at the bottom of the shaft, she worked her way about a quarter the way up to where the hard granite gave way to a brief section of soft clay. The new shaft was being dug so quickly, there were several sections of clay veins that had not been reinforced.

Using her pickax, Sakura dug out a small hole, just large enough to insert the cylindrical, brown tube of the mud-bore. Once the tube was in place, she inserted the bore fuse, lit it, and backed away from the wall. There was a nearly imperceptible pop as the mud-bore cracked open. Almost instantly, the clay surrounding the mud-bore poured from the wall in a pile of muddy sludge. A small cave was left, just tall enough for Sakura to step into it standing up.

"Well, it's a good start for now. I wish I could do more, but there are other plans to be made first," Sakura said to herself.

Just as the next shift of miners began their descent into the shaft, Sakura quickly covered her small beginning of a shaft with a wooden wall brace. Now even the sharpest of miners would only think that someone had finally taken the time to brace up the clay wall properly. No one would suspect a new shaft was being dug.

For the next week, Sakura gave all the free-time she had to working on her calculations and digging in her new shaft. At first, the work was very difficult. The only time she knew the area around her diggings would be clear of other workers was in-between shifts. She resorted to stealing more mud-bores to deepen her shaft without making too much noise. On her third day of working, she was nearly noticed by a miner taking a little longer than usual to exit the shaft after the shift was over. Luckily, Sakura covered herself by looking busy and cursing a bit at the wall brace. The miner did not seem to notice anything unusual, and he casual walked passed and continued up the shaft.

By the fourth day, Sakura's new shaft was deep enough that she felt confident to continue digging even after the new shift started. On that day, she slipped behind the wall brace, carefully replacing it once in the new shaft, and waited for the miners to make their way down to the fresh diggings far below. When the first sounds of clinking metal and churning rock reached her ears, she too began her work.

Sakura's digging went quickly after this. She worked double shifts every day—one shift on the Lower Kingdom's new shaft, and one shift on her own new shaft. The only problem she ran into was what to do with all the earth she was displacing. This problem was quickly solved when she realized that she could just fill up a cart with earth and carry it up at the end of the shift, along with everyone else. No one seemed to notice her, and certainly no one was going to ask her where her dirt came from.

By the end of the sixth day, her shaft descended deeply into the vein of clay. She had distanced herself perhaps four hundred meters from the main tunnel. By her calculations, she was about halfway done. But working double-shifts everyday was taking its toll on Sakura. She was completely worn out, and people were noticing the fatigue on her face and in her work.

“Hey, Sakura! What do you think you're doing?”

“Huh? What?” Sakura's numbed mind awoke hastily. Her pickax had been swinging without her thoughts controlling it. She was almost working in her sleep.

“Sakura! Pay attention. You almost ran your ax into the guidepost,” a neighboring worker said to her.

“Oh, yeah. Sorry, Ta,” answered Sakura. Ta was a strong, young man, perhaps twice as old as Sakura. They had worked together in the mines almost from the first day Sakura climbed down into the dark pits to help support her family.

“Listen, are you okay? You ain't looking so good. You've been half-in and half-out all day. And you weren't much better yesterday. Sure you shouldn't go get the day off from the foreman?”

“No, no. I'm fine. I'm just tired. Late nights recently, you know,” Sakura said, giving Ta a wink that could have meant anything. All the same, Ta took the wink as she knew he would.

“Ohh! Late nights, huh? And here I was worried. So, when're you gonna tell me about the lover-boy?”

“Like I would ever tell you! Who knows what you would do to him, you big lummox!” Sakura answered playfully. Ta snorted and gave a hearty laugh.

“Alright, keep your secrets. I'll find out soon enough, though. I'll bet it's that alchemist friend of yours, right? What was his name? Tofu?” The blood rushed to Sakura's face instinctively. She felt the blush burning on her cheeks. Thankfully, the corridor was too dark for Ta to see. He never would have let her hear the end of it.

At the end of the shift, Sakura once again stayed behind, saying she needed to clean out her drill and change her bits. As the last of the miners ascended out of sight, she picked up one more mud-bore and swiped the jack drill she was supposed to be cleaning. No one will miss one jack drill, Sakura thought to herself. These things are going in for repairs all the time, anyways.

It was a good thing she grabbed the jack drill, too. Almost as soon as she swung her pickax into the clay of her shaft she hit a hard vein of rock. Sakura took a few more swings and cleared away a small area of clay. She was shocked at what she saw. This was no ordinary rock vein. Sakura saw before her a smooth face of deep, black stone. She had never seen anything quite like it before. It certainly did not look like it belonged in this part of earth. It almost looked volcanic—a very dense, heavy stone, molded and shaped by unimaginable pressures.

Still, a rock's a rock!

She turned the jack drill on the lowest setting and started to pick at the face of the dark stone. The bit just bounced off and did not leave even so much as a scratch.

Alright, then. Let's go a little harder.

Turning the dial up farther, Sakura widened her stance and readied herself. Switching on the jack drill she felt the bit smashing into the rock. Her body was humming with vibration, but still the drill could not break through the face of the shiny black stone.

No more messing around!

Sakura dug foot-holes in the ground with her pickax and turned the jack drill to its highest setting. Gritting her teeth and preparing herself to be shaken violently, she turned the switch. Sparks flew from the tip of the jack drill's bit. Her arms could barely hold on, and she felt like her head was going to be shaken off her shoulders. Trying, with great difficulty, to look at the stone face, she could not even see a scratch on the rock. She pushed with all her strength against the handle of the jack drill, willing it to sink deep into the rock. The bit was smoking and burning red-hot now.

All of a sudden, the drill seemed to burst through the rock. She let go of the handle out of surprise, and saw the jack drill get sucked through the hole she had just created. Without even enough time to reflect on how strange it was that her drill should get sucked through the hole, she felt herself being pulled by some unseen force towards the hole as well. She felt like a vast storm of wind was blowing behind her and pulling her inevitably towards the small hole. She screamed as her face approached the solid, black wall, but her scream was lost in the sound of sucking air.

And then, the strangest feeling swept through Sakura's body. While her face should have smashed into the rock face, an entirely different thing happened. She literally sunk into the stone. She felt almost like she was putting her head under water, except it was far more dense. If you could imagine swimming in a pool of lead, this is something like the feeling Sakura had as she passed through the black stone wall.

And then, without any warning, she was through. Sakura found herself standing in a small, cubed room with a friendly face, twinkling eyes surrounded by a peppered beard and bushy hair, staring down at her.

“Oh, hello. I'm sorry for surprising you. But you really were making a horrible racket,” the friendly face said in a knowing way.

“Wh-wh-who are you?” Sakura stammered, backing into the wall behind her.

“Oh, dear me. Forgive me for being so rude. I'm Aleric. And I do believe, unless I am quite mistaken, that you are Sakura.”