Archive of Our Own

If Junpei knows anything about these loops, it’s that he hits the ground hard, and it never gets any less painful. 

“Ow! Fuck!” He crashes to the floor, punishingly hard. He always lands on his right shoulder, and his temple always grazes the ground. So, without fail, every time he lifts his head and sees the room shaky and scribbly, he thinks he’s given himself a concussion. 

And then he remembers where he is, and exactly how long he’s been here.  

This time, he doesn’t haul himself up from the floor immediately. The pain ebbs away, and nothing replaces it; no splitting headache, no aching wound to the side where an invisible knife is still lodged in him. It’s… nice, as nice as things can get in the Nonary Game time loop. Even if he has gotten used to the sensation of his skull being cleaved in two, it doesn’t mean he likes it. He’d almost forgotten what it was like to not walk around with a pseudo-migraine.

Except, honestly, he’d have preferred things to end as they tend to do than whatever the hell happened earlier. He can’t wrap his head around it. He doesn’t want to wrap his head around it! What just happened goes against everything he’s been certain of these loops, scrappy as his memory of them have been! 

Clover covered in blood is not an unfamiliar sight. That image is burnt into his brain and even if he knows it well, it isn’t a comfort. Clover covered in blood is synonymous with Akane being dead. Clover covered in blood usually means his own imminent death, but that’s the least of his concern. 

Junpei keeps coming back. 

He doesn’t know how. He doesn’t know if Clover somehow dragged him into it, but then why would she do that? Just to keep killing him? She doesn’t seem to enjoy it anymore than he does. 

But in the last loop, Clover covered in blood hadn’t meant the usual things at all. 

He’d hardly had time to process what was going on. One moment he was sitting against the wall of one of the little rooms he’d been ordered to search, waiting for their allotted hour to finish, or for Clover to find him -- whichever came first. He’s not picky. The hour had been cut short by Lotus screaming bloody murder down the corridor, calling everyone back to the hospital room. 

Part of him knew then, scrambling up from the floor and running down the corridor, that it was to do with Clover. Everything different is always Clover’s doing, and he was yelling reassurance to her before he’d even taken stock of the situation. 

Not that the situation was difficult to piece together: Clover, trapped behind Door [3] where her brother is always chucked into. She must’ve tried to grab the bull by the horns and gotten thrown in with him for her trouble. Junpei had thrown his hand against the RED, and yelled at Seven, Santa, and June to follow suit. Ace had stood there, staring with pinprick eyes and a slack jaw. Junpei knew then what had happened without anyone needing to spell it out. 

Clover had fallen out of the room, putrid smelling, baring her teeth, and boiling over with rage for Ace. Junpei hadn’t taken in the details of her blistering anger: he knows what Clover looks like when rage seizes her, but he had caught and held onto one key phrase. 

“No more problems if the little bitch from nine years ago isn’t here!” 

There’s something Clover isn’t telling him. He knows that something happened to her nine years ago, but the full picture keeps managing to elude him. He’s sure that he’d be able to put together a rudimentary picture if only his memory would cooperate! 

He remembers that Snake is called Light. Clover’s freakishly wide eyes at his name cuts through the fog that pervades most of his experience of the loops. Did she tell him? Or someone else? He knows that she wants Ace dead for more than just the obvious reasons, and he’s gotta believe that whatever happened nine years ago has to be connected. If Ace is evil now, it doesn’t take a stretch of the imagination to believe he was evil almost a decade ago, either. 

Junpei, though, hates Ace for all the obvious reasons. That’s why he’d swung for him hard in the last loop, but it hadn’t done anything to alleviate the claustrophobic frustration, nor the tang of fear that he’d have to go through this time loop without Clover. 

And what the hell is happening to Akane? 

Does Clover even know what happened? Does she somehow have a hand in it? No. She can’t, right? Just like how she wouldn’t have pulled Junpei into this loop on purpose. She wouldn’t do that! She just-- 

Junpei runs a hand over his face. The window has already splintered, water gushing in through the porthole. He can feel a thin layer of water soak through the back of his jeans. Still, he doesn’t get up. 

Clover had exchanged brief, remarkably civil words with Santa, and then suddenly taken off running at full pelt with no hope of capture. 

Junpei had started after her before he realised what he was doing, spun on his heel and returned to Akane’s side. Well, he would’ve, but Akane had vanished in the five minutes he took his eyes off her. All that remained was Santa, knelt beside the bed she had been lying on, too weak to even lift her head. He was mumbling something, holding a knife. The one from the kitchen, or his own personal item? Junpei doesn’t know, doesn’t really want to know. 

He had yelled something at the other man, but he didn’t have time to throw out accusations before the world had dissolved, and he had fallen out of bed. Again. 

Which brings them here. Water level rising, a big fuck-off [5] on the door, and a patchy memory. For the first time, he’s sure he remembers everything. At least everything that’s important. If he could just get Clover to open up to him… 

He hauls himself up with a groan, his joints protesting all the while. The water splashes up his legs, but he’s already kind of damp and uncomfortable from his fall, so he doesn’t complain too much. Again, at least he’s not trying to battle a literal head-splitting migraine. 

He moves like a zombie through the dingy bedroom, going through the motions of the escape. Junpei wishes he could remember the codes for the briefcases and have to skip the rigamarole of unscrewing the photo frame and fishing out the note from under the pillow. Thing is, he doesn’t have to think about these movements. His body guides him to all the clues, the sequence of events ingrained in his muscles, but the sequence of numbers hasn't stuck in his mind. 

He’s finding that to be the case more often than not: the body remembers, but not the mind. How can that be possible? How can Junpei know where he’s going or how to act without thinking about it? Still, the impulse is irresistible, and Junpei tends to trust his gut most days than not. Today’s no different. 

He works out the code to the briefcases by looking at the note and guide, but feels no epiphany about it. He sees the numbers 0263 and feels the queer, fed-up relief of finding your keys after misplacing them for an hour. Stupid, really; he should’ve known. 

He plugs in the numbers, opens both briefcases, gathers what's inside and does the necessary maths to open this hulking iron door. On the other side of it, up a few winding staircases, will be what he expects: six strangers, Clover, and Akane. 

Akane, who will be perfectly intact. It’s a brand new day. Nothing bad has happened. He hears Clover’s voice faintly in his head, though he doesn’t remember her saying these words: ‘just another nine hours of the worst night of our lives.’ It sounds like the sort of platitude they’d feed each other in order to keep going, and Junpei tries to convince himself of it now. Just another nine hours. This one can’t be as bad as the last, or as bad as the one where everyone… 

He shudders, not only because of the frigid sea water lapping at his legs. 

He doesn’t know what happened last time, but Clover might. Clover always knows more than him and this time, Junpei’s determined to get in on the joke. 

Clover is tucked up on the staircase when he staggers onto the deck. Her eyes dart up when he moves towards her, still feeling like a zombie. Oh, yes, the body remembers -- the body wants a god-damn respite from this loop. 

She’s a sweet girl, and Junpei knows it. He’s struck with the image of her manic, bloody and armed, hunched and shaking like a leaf, anyway. Then it dissolves, and Clover is chewing her nail, lost in thought, innocent of all wrongdoing. Sometimes, Junpei wonders if Clover remembers him as her victim before her friend. 

“Hi,” he sighs, but doesn’t collapse in a heap next to her. Clover likes to hammer in the importance of their pretence: they don’t know each other, and they need to act like it. Right now, Junpei’s fine with that. He’d worked himself up into a state while climbing the stairs. 

Clover’s hiding something, playing her cards close to her chest. She’s drip feeding him information as and when she deems it necessary, like Junpei’s gonna go running off and doing something stupid with the facts. All he wants to do is get out of this hell hole! He wants Akane out of it, most of all! Why can’t Clover understand that? All she wants is for her brother to be safe. Why is it so strange to imagine Junpei has someone he wants to protect too?

 He would be able to do that if she started trusting him! He doesn’t know why she can't do that; they’ve been here together this long, haven’t they? Junpei trusts Clover, trusts her far more than any rational person would, considering she’s buried an axe in his face more times than he can count! 

“Hi,” Clover replies, equally as dreary. “You alright?” 

“No,” he answers honestly, and a little more forcefully than he intended. “I’m really pissed off, actually.” He scrubs his hand across his face, fingertips coming away oily. He grimaces. 

She grimaces sympathetically. “We can talk about that,” she promises, turning her head around to check her surroundings on both sides. More than a few of their group are coming down the stairs, marking their conversation as unsafe. Behind the stairs, next to the elevator,” she instructs. 

Junpei nods, still scanning the figures of Lotus, Snake, Santa and-- 

June. 

His shoulders sag with relief, watching her mill about the deck above. The others pass by him and make some remark about his arrival, all to move quickly onto the numbered doors. Junpei pays them no heed, words sliding off him like water. It’s all he can see now, total tunnel vision. There’s just Akane Kurashiki moving, in a light.  It never gets any more fantastic. The spell is always cast on him, like it's the first time seeing her. 

How could he ever have forgotten? 

He moves towards her, inextricably bound to her. Part of him just wants to touch her, to see for himself that she’s really here. The last loop has not bled into this one. She is not part spectre, or part ghost. She’s real, really, really, real. 

Akane has paused halfway down the stairs, similarly caught by him. Before, a few loops ago, he was frozen because he couldn’t believe there was someone he knew here and he told himself he wasn’t confounded by her beauty, or something silly like that. Except now… well, it isn’t her beauty, per se. His amazement is still always to do with the fact that Akane Kurashiki is in front of him. Though, she is sort of unspeakably beautiful, but that really is a silly thought. 

The ship rocks and Akane stumbles down the last few steps, tumbling into him. Junpei lands on his back for the second time in less than an hour. Body moving without command again, his hands settle on her waist, quietly stroking the cotton of her dress as if to keep her steady. Junpei’s sure that if he weren’t in a time loop, he’d never have the courage to touch her like this. Junpei’s been here with Akane for long enough that some of his jittery nerves around her have dissipated. That, and the selfish security that this will probably never matter because in nine hours he’ll wake up back in that bedroom and Akane will never know his hand on her. 

This touch must inspire Akane, too, because she cups his cheek gently when she says, “Oh my gosh... Is that you, Jumpy?” Junpei’s certain she’s never touched him like this, because he would absolutely remember it. He just would. 

“You’re really here,” he whispers, not thinking again. Does he ever, he wonders? His mouth’s a runaway train. “Akane, god, I can’t believe it.” 

She blinks at him, maybe thrown off by such an earnest reply. “I can’t believe it either,” she says, sentiment almost drowned out by the crackle of the loudspeaker. 

The jolt back to reality drops Junpei’s hand away from Akane, and Akane scrambles to her feet. She helps Junpei up and the two of them stand just apart, flushed pink. Junpei casts his gaze over to the group at large: most of them have gone pale with the distorted announcement. Clover and her brother stand near one another, but Clover’s eyes are just as unseeing as Snake’s. They’re glassy and looking off into the middle distance. Junpei would wager she didn’t even flinch when the announcement startled everyone else. 

The announcement is familiar, as a lot of things that he hasn’t memorised but undoubtedly experienced before are. It’s about what you’d expect for an introduction, even for a scenario as bizarre as this one. 

The words are difficult to make out for someone like Junpei, who watches everything with subtitles. He manages to catch the most important parts of it, though, but by now he’s got the gist about how this whole thing goes. 

Zero says, among other things, “I mean to have you participate in a game. Some of you, I know, are familiar with this game. The Nonary Game. It is a game...where you will put your life on the line.”

Junpei sweeps over the crowd, trying to pinpoint any reactions that aren’t confused fear. Familiar with this game, huh? He looks at Clover, impassive and dead to the world even with her brother right beside her. He’s sure she’s familiar. 

He looks down at the floor. If he looks at Clover too long, he thinks he’ll begin to hate her, and he doesn’t hate her. He doesn’t want to resent his best friend here. Forgive the phrase, but he wants to be in the loop. 

After the rules, and some small amount of disagreement, they agree to split up and keep looking. Junpei supposes this is when he’s supposed to find Clover behind the stairs, next to the elevator. By the time he orientates himself and convinces himself that Akane won’t vanish if she’s out of his line of sight for a minute or two, Clover is already waiting at the elevator. 

There’s really only one question worth asking her, and they both say it at the exact same time, in the exact same cadence: “What the hell was that?” 

He almost scoffs. Clover’s asking what the hell happened? Clover, who was at the heart of it all? What could there be that confuses her? The thought of it is dizzying, and he’s sure it shows on his face because Clover clicks her mouth shut. 

“No way. Me first,” he insists with a slight shake of his head. Clover hands her hands up in a brief mock surrender before dropping them heavily to her sides, before deciding she wants to cross them over her chest. “What the fuck happened last loop?” 

Clover cringes inward, tightening the hold she has on herself. “I’m sorry, alright, that I didn’t tell you what I was gonna do. I didn’t want you getting thrown behind Door [3] for no good reason but Ace--” 

Junpei goes to interject with so much force that his voice cracks. He stammers out the rest of his protest, waving his hand sharply as if to erase all of Clover’s lacklustre explanations. He knows why Clover would put herself in the way of Door [3], even if he hates the idea. That is not what he’s asking!

He snaps, ”That’s not what I’m talking about! I’m talking about how it ended!”

Clover leers at him, and jabs a pink bejewelled nail into his chest. They’re kind of sharp, so it hurts a bit. With just as much force, she snipes at him, “Did you kill yourself? Because that normally works!” 

“No!” he shouts, then tries to quieten down as he realises where they are. He wouldn’t kill himself! Why would he kill himself! He doesn’t have the nerve to do that, that’s why he gets Clover to stick an axe in his skull when they need to reset! He hisses, “No, I wouldn’t-- What the hell happened to her, to-- to June!”

“What do you mean what happened to June?” Clover fights back. She fiddles with the pompom on her jacket, worrying the string around her fingers. “She got a fever, didn’t she? She had the same one earlier.”

“She vanished!” Junpei tells her shortly.

Clover stares at him, eyes as round and blue-green as a globe.

He explains tiredly, cycling his hand through each point. “I followed Seven and Lotus when you took off sprinting -- what the hell was that about, by the way? Don’t think I don’t have more questions -- but I couldn’t find you. You’re fast as anything, Clover, Jesus. When I went back to the hospital room she wasn’t there.” He grimaces at the memory. What could have happened? 

Clover argues impossibilities, “Well, maybe she tried to follow me, too!” 

“Do you really think she was in any position to be walking around?” Junpei hisses. “She could hardly stand. Besides when I came back, Santa…” he trails off and shakes his head. “He was by the bed I left her in, just hunched over it. I yelled at him, I think. I don’t-- Where did she go?” He wishes Clover knew. He knows she has more answers than him, but if she had all of them, they probably wouldn’t be in this mess. Even so, the secrecy needles at him. He can’t believe he misses the time he thought he was the unluckiest guy in the world, not caught up in the most batshit insane conspiracy time loop ever. 

“What did Santa say? He must’ve seen where--” 

“She didn’t go anywhere!” Junpei protests. “She didn’t walk off-- where would she have gone?” He swallows thickly and slumps against the ornate metal gate. The thin metal presses uncomfortably against his shoulder, and even through his shirt he can feel its numbing cold. There’s nothing else to do but to put his head in his hands and agitate the ends of his hair, like any amount of fidgeting will soothe him. “He was just crouched there, mumbling something. Saying ‘She’s gone’, over and over. I think… I think he was holding a knife. Do you think he did something to her?” He asks, looking up briefly. It’s the first time saying the words out loud, and he hears them for what they are. He sounds like he’s grasping at straws. If Santa had done something, there would’ve been evidence. Blood on the knife, blood on the hospital floor, a guilty look in his eye. Junpei would’ve noticed it, but there was no evidence. Akane had just… vanished. She wasn’t anywhere. 

But he promises hypothetical vengeance against him anyway, “Because if he did, you seriously won’t be able to stop me like the other times.” 

Clover shakes her head. “No, no, I don’t think Santa would’ve done anything.” She bites her nail and speaks around it. “He protected me a few loops ago. I don’t think he’d change so suddenly.” 

“You said he was Zero,” Junpei protests, the fact springing to his mind. It’s a pitiful accusation at best. They both know that Ace is the one they really have to watch out for. If Santa as Zero really wanted Akane dead, why go through the bother of orchestrating the Nonary Game? Why not just kill her before all this? 

“Yeah, well,” Clover answers uselessly, shrugging like she’s trying to stretch a muscle. She bites down harder on her nail. “At this point, I don’t know who’s who and where anyone’s allegiance lies,” she grumbles. “I just know I don’t like Ace.”

“You and me both,” Junpei agrees.

The lapse into silence. Junpei’s burning to ask Clover questions about what words she exchanged with Santa, but he thinks he’d be better off talking to a brick wall than Clover sometimes. He doubts he’d get a word out of her. Worse, she’d probably clam up and retreat into herself even further, where Junpei has no hope of helping her. 

Clover, though, has some questions of her own. 

“Hey,” She starts without any preamble. “Can I ask you an awful question?” 

“Horrifying start,” Junpei comments. “Depends.” 

She cringes, all too aware that what she’s asking is an overreach. “What’s June’s name?” 

Junpei looks downwards, scuffing his shoes. He chews his lip, refusing to lift his head to Clover’s gaze. “Why’d you wanna know?” He mumbles. She hasn’t been concerned about anyone else’s identity. (Probably because she already knows half of them, a spiteful little voice adds) What makes Akane so special to Clover? 

She squirms a little. “I just think it’d be useful. Maybe Seven’s right. Maybe if we connect the dots…”

Oh, that’s rich coming from her! Junpei has to bite the inside of his cheek so as not to laugh. He rubs his face again, trying to hide his sardonic amusement. That, and he’s still half convinced that he can peel away the layer of exhaustion. He chooses his next words very deliberately. “You mean what happened nine years ago.” 

Almost instantly, the colour drains from Clover’s face. “What?”

His eyebrows fly up into his hairline, surprised that she would feign ignorance even at this juncture. God, what does he have to do to earn a bit of honesty and trust from her? 

He explains, a little impatiently. “I feel like you forget I also remember things. You called yourself the ‘little bitch from nine years ago’. So, you know Ace. Your brother is Light and… you wouldn’t have told me that, so I have to assume that someone else here knows him, presumably from nine years ago.” 

“I want to tell you, I do,” Clover trips over her words, finally, finally admitting that something did happen nine years ago! Caught in the trap of her own words, she fails, and Junpei cuts her off as she attempts a new sentence. 

His eyes narrow to suspicious slits. “Who else do you know?” 

Clover lets out a frustrated grunt more at home to a boar than a young girl. “I don’t— it’s not that simple! It’s this game, this boat, this—“ she groans, louder and more anguished than any noise Junpei would be capable of. “I told you before. It’s my brother who knows things, and I’m just… I’m just…”

Junpei nods, pieces coming together. He is utterly certain when he speaks. “I think you’ve played this game before.” Clover keeps her face impressively placid, that unfeeling mask slipped back over her features. Junpei honestly can’t tell if he’s on the right track, but there are no alternatives. He continues, “Zero said some of us are familiar with this game. As in, multiple. You played it. I have to assume Snake too.”

In a strangled whisper, Junpei gets his confirmation. “I don’t know how to talk about it.”

Though that confirmation should be like sunlight breaking through clouds, the first glimmer of truth he’s had in ages, it only serves to bristle him. It’s a discomforting feeling, spreading through his body like a rash he knows he mustn’t scratch, mustn’t be annoyed at Clover for withholding, but it’s so difficult not to be. 

He tries to keep his voice steady. “Does Snake?”

Clover’s back to fiddling with her pompom, and looking nervously around for any of their fellow abductees. She answers hurriedly, “More than me, yeah, but he— he thinks I’ll die if he speaks on the game. You’ll have to try really hard to get him to speak.”

“I’m going through Door [5], then.” Junpei decides. If Clover won’t or can’t, speak about whatever happened nine years ago, then he’ll have to find someone who can. Snake is as good a bet as any, and hopefully less reticent than his sister. Though he remembers how Snake always staves off telling the rules until the last possible moment, to the point of the Ninth Man’s death. If anything, he’ll be more stubborn. Still, Junpei is too: he has to exhaust every possible angle before he gives up. 

Clover automatically protests. “Junpei—“

He knows what she’ll say. He knows her that well. “Hey, I get a choice in these things too!” 

Clover scowls, only for a flicker of a second, before she pastes on her pretty, placid look again. She prompts him, once again, as if Junpei could distract her so easily. “Please tell me her name.” 

Junpei grimaces. What harm could it do now? Any more loops and she’d probably figure it out on her own. Hell, Akane is happy enough to give it up when they’re going down the line, choosing codenames. “Her name is Akane,” he sighs.

Not good enough for whatever line of investigation she’s pursuing. “Her full name.”

Junpei scuffs his shoe against the tile again, rubber sole squeaking with the friction. “Kurashiki.”

He chews his lip as Clover mulls over the new information. He expects some sort of revelation, a gasp, the final piece of the puzzle slotting in, but she hardly reacts beyond blinking a few times. Her eyes dart from side to side as if she’s reading something, perusing her own thoughts. Then, very anticlimactically, she thanks him for the morsel. 

Junpei can’t help but roll his eyes. “I’m going through Door [5],” he reminds her. 

I’m going to find out what happened to you, he thinks. So I know why we were taken here.

And then, another thought, even quieter, so I know how to help you. 

He shakes it off as he walks away. Sentimentality might get him killed. In Clover’s case, it seems to keep making her a killer. He can’t seem to hold it against her, though. 

From there, things proceed as normal. Junpei doesn’t even have to bargain his way through to Door [5]. Clover shuffles over to Door [4], and Junpei offers himself up to be the third member of the Door [5] group. Snake hesitates before he puts his hand against the scanner, like he’s expecting Clover to jump in with a protest and wants to give her as much time as possible to interject. 

Clover keeps statue-still with a dour look on her face, not watching Snake and the rest of them go through Door [5]. Whatever she’s thinking about must be taking a toll on her, but Junpei can’t imagine that there’s anything new to think about. The two of them are running around in circles, chasing their tails, chewing their legs off just to keep their minds occupied. It’ll drive them mad soon, if they aren’t at that point already. 

Junpei remembers Door [5] well enough at this point, though not as well as Door [4]. He gets the general idea about the puzzle behind the first-class cabin, as well as the casino after that. He hopes that this knowledge is enough to buy him some time to talk to Snake without arousing any suspicion in Seven. He trusts Seven, at least more than he trusts Lotus or Santa or Ace -- that last one goes without saying -- but he’s aware he still needs to tread carefully. If it took this long for Clover to impart even the slightest information to Junpei, he should at least try and respect that and not go spreading rumours around. 

Though he remembers Door [5] and the first-class cabin, he’s always taken aback by its interior. Aside from the grand main central staircase, there is nowhere else in the entire ship so beautiful. Even despite the ship's incredible age, these rooms show no sign of wear and tear. The carpet is plush enough that he feels his shoes sink into it with every step, and the dark wooden floorboards shine like mirrors. The incredibly soft and fancy bed is immaculately made up, and the vanity doesn’t have a single smudge on the glass, or chip in the white painted wood. It’s a nice room. Junpei wouldn’t mind having a long nap if it were here, and not the hospital floor. 

It’s a better place to die than the foul bathroom that Snake… 

Junpei looks over at Snake who’s inspecting the room, fingers running over the body and the keys of the piano. 

That’s just the thing, though. Snake didn’t die in that bathroom, not last time at least. That he had managed to decipher through the rest of Clover’s shrill nonsensical shrieking. The body that ruptured behind the door wasn’t her brother. He didn’t catch the name, but that hardly matters to Junpei. Which begs the question -- where did he go? 

He pokes his head out into the corridor to make sure that Seven is still in the lounge, and then shuts the door tight, holding the door knob in case of any unwanted intrusions. Then Junpei remembers exactly how much brute strength Seven possesses, and he’s kidding himself if he thinks he can keep a door shut against him. Junpei drops the doorknob and retreats further into the room, where there’s less chance of being overheard. 

“Snake?” he begins, in that octave-too-high way, blatantly about to ask a nervous question. 

“Yes, Junpei? Have you found something?” 

He slides his hand under the pillow and retrieves the glass plate under it. He rubs his thumb against the engraving of the music notes. He sits down on the bed. “Yeah, but that’s not what I wanted to ask you about. You’re Clover’s brother, aren’t you?” 

Snake sighs and turns around to face Junpei. “I believe we went over this at the start of the game. Regardless of our looks, Clover is my sister. Do you want to dispute that?” There’s an icy edge to Snake’s voice. Junpei also remembers other loops spent in Door [5] where Snake assured him that in a fight Snake would undoubtedly win. Junpei’s not looking for a repeat performance. 

“No! No, I believe you about that. Jesus, I definitely believe you about that.”  He fiddles with the glass some more before deciding he better get it out now. “So, you know what happened to her nine years ago, is what I’m asking?” He glances up at Snake, ready to brace for impact. 

A muscle in Snake’s cheek tics and he reaches up to swipe his thumb across it. While Snake may have chosen his codename for dice, he speaks low and venomous like the reptile now. “I’m sure I have no idea what you’re talking about.” 

“I know you want to protect her--” 

“You have no idea what I want,” Snake interrupts him. “And don’t speak on what you have no idea about.” 

Junpei grimaces. “Look, you aren’t going to get her killed by talking about it. She told me you wouldn’t talk because you were scared. I’m in this stupid loop with her, okay? And I just want to know what happened. I need to know so I can do something about it. She said she doesn’t know how to talk about it, so I need you to! Please, Snake.” He swallows thickly. “Light,” he bargains. 

“So you can do something about it,” Snake repeats back with a slight scoff at the end of the words. “You intend to go nine years into the past and somehow change it? I would very much like to see you try.” 

Junpei can’t stop fidgeting as he gears himself up to speak. The once lush room seems suddenly stifling. He shuffles in his seat, balanced precariously on the edge of the bed. He bounces his knee. “What happened to her? She played this game nine years ago, didn’t she? Didn’t you?”

Snake settles against the side of the piano and crosses his arms. “You seem to have worked out an awful lot, Junpei. What do you want me to say?” 

Frustration bursts out of Junpei and grips him by the throat. He had a plan to be persuasive and lowkey, but that flies out the window as he grips the glass hard enough he’s surprised it doesn’t shatter. “Would the two of you stop being so secretive! I want to help her! I want to get out of here! I don’t know how to do that when she’s carrying this around and I’ve got no idea how to tread around it!” he exclaims. “In, like, an hour you’re gonna be out of this game and she won’t have anyone except for me! And I don’t come up to scratch! Can you please, please, just give me a hint!” 

A flicker of amusement passes over Snake’s face. “Ordinarily, I’d think you were trying to threaten me. Seeing how Clover has also predicted my imminent demise, I’m more inclined to believe you. Perhaps there is a ring of truth to you being stuck here.” He runs a hand across his face, pushing up through his hair before he drops it and there is no sign of anguish across his handsome face. Junpei’s beginning to get a little spooked by how the siblings are so capable of wiping emotion off their features. 

He continues, “Let’s say, hypothetically, this game was played nine years ago. And in this hypothetical situation, my sister was a participant. Maybe I was, too. Would that clear anything up for you?” 

Junpei makes a face, but his hands relax now that he seems to be getting somewhere. “Why are you talking hypothetically?” 

Snake covers his mouth to stifle a shocked gasp of laughter. “Junpei, did you mishear Clover when she told you I have been threatened with her death if I speak on this? She wasn’t lying. I honestly don’t care what you think, I will not gamble recklessly with her life.” 

“Right, yeah.” He wets his lips, and sets the glass aside. “Of course not.” 

There’s another beat of silence, and Snake sighs again, like he’s conceding to a fight Junpei didn’t know they were in. “She doesn’t remember.” 

“What?” 

Snake waves his hand around for emphasis. “If she hasn’t told you, it’s not because she’s stingy with the details. It is because she does not have functional memories of this hypothetical scenario. It’s true for a lot of the awful things she’s suffered. Much of my sister’s past is punctured full of holes, though she has tried to recall the worst nine hours of her life, all to no avail. I have no doubt that she wants to tell you everything and unburden herself -- and you! -- but she has very little to tell. You would think her a liar.”

“I’d believe her!” 

Snake shrugs, a movement that looks strange on his normally rigid posture. “It wouldn’t be enough for you. I know it wouldn’t be. You’d want more to satiate your curiosity, and she would turn herself inside out trying to remember it. I don’t want her to remember it!  Try to imagine it: the worst day of your life reduced to a series of vague impressions, and a lingering dread. Waking up screaming, and not even remembering the nightmare.” The words look like they take significant effort to speak. There’s a cord attached to Snake’s jacket, and he idly twirls it round his finger, not dissimilar to how Clover fidgets with her pompom. Definitely siblings, Junpei thinks fondly. 

Despite the difficulty of explaining, Snake forges ahead. “Now, imagine coming back to it. Imagine getting stuck here for as long as she has been, forced to play this over and over again. I wanted her memories to stay buried. It was the closest thing to peace she could ever attain, and it has been taken from her. I wish nothing bad had ever happened to Clover, but failing that at least it had happened to me too. Right now, you are the only other person this is happening to.” He nods to Junpei. 

Junpei protests, “But I don’t know anything about nine years ago.” 

Snake makes an expression that conveys just how stupid he thinks Junpei is. It looks very similar to his resting face. “Junpei, I think that’s why she likes you.” 

Junpei frowns. Snake takes pity on him. 

“You trust her, don’t you?” Snake doesn’t wait for a reply. “Trust between previous participants would be a given, but I’m sure that the imbalance of memories would nag at my sister. You trust her without any shared past, just because of what she has done up to this point. I’m sure that means a great deal to her.” He smiles sadly. “You are right, of course: very soon, I won’t be here. She won’t have anyone except for you. I need you to do what I cannot.” 

“Which is?” Junpei leans forward in anticipation. 

“Be there for her.” 

Junpei wants to say more, to see if he can’t wheedle any more details out of Snake. He hasn’t come away from this with any more answers than he started. He was pretty certain that they had played the Nonary Game nine years ago, and while Snake has confirmed it he feels like there has to be more to it. 

Clover would have been nine. The sudden realisation chokes him with emotion. Younger than when he and Akane looked after the rabbits, and younger than when he got his ass beat saving a kitten. Those ordeals were frightening enough but to be nine, kidnapped and afraid and forced to play this game? To grow up knowing that your house isn’t safe, and you could be taken at any moment and there was nothing to do to stop it? How-- How does that even affect a person? How can you even accept that as your reality, and all before middle school? 

At that moment, Seven chooses to come through the door, the rest of the music scores piled in his hands. 

“Hope to hell you guys have an instrument in this room, otherwise we are done for,” Seven comments with a deep chuckle. “Though, there’s one stuck in the fireplace I haven’t been able to get at.” He looks between the two of them. “Hey! You two doin’ anything or just moping?” 

Junpei flashes him the sheet he’s got. “I got one here. I can go get the one out the fireplace,” he offers, rising from his seat. 

“The piano is out of tune,” Snake mumbles. “Someone else will have to play it.” He stalks off towards one of the walk-in closets, hand trailing across the wall. There’s another glass plate in the cupboard in there, Junpei’s pretty sure. There’s also the safe, with nothing inside it. Junpei has never figured that one out, but safes are pretty standard for first-class cabins, he reckons. Snake never concerns himself with the safe either. The only reason Snake has to be so confident is if he had been here before. 

Which, well… Junpei knows now that he has. 

He also gets the horrible feeling that, even without being stuck in a loop, the kids who played this game nine years ago never really left, either. 

He keeps to himself in the casino, generally being helpful and as pleasant as he’s capable of being. Seven informs him about the rules of baccarat, and it kind of goes in one ear and out the other. He can’t bear to look at Snake, knowing what he went through. 

Guilty nausea entwines itself in his intestines. A wasted trip behind Door [5], but more than that he’s wasted Clover’s precious little time with her brother. Snake has asked him to be there for Clover when Snake couldn’t, but Junpei’s just gone and robbed Clover of what time they did have! He shouldn’t have done it. It was wrong, and spiteful, and mean. He’s supposed to be her friend. This isn’t what he should do to her, not after everything they’ve been through together. Clover had tried to explain and he hadn’t listened because Snake was right, like always: it wasn’t good enough for him. 

His mind made up, Junpei jabs the sequence into the slot machine. He’s going to look after Clover. Not that he wasn’t before, but he’ll do it better this time. This time, she won’t even want to take the axe. This time, they’ll find Snake. There can’t be many places he could be; this ship can only be so big. They’ll get out. 

They will. He squeezes his eyes shut. They have to. 

The slot machine rings out to jubilant success.

Junpei’s lying on the floor again when the bell chimes through the ship, signalling an end to their hour of searching. He’s been paralysed the entire time, bracing himself to hear Lotus bellow through the corridors. This time, maybe, was different: Clover did have a bomb in her gut this time and got blown to kingdom come alongside her brother-- 

No. The man behind Door [3] is not Snake, Junpei reminds himself. He trusts Clover about that. If she says it isn’t him, it isn’t him. He’s missing, not dead. He has to hope that the same thing happened to Akane last loop, even though he won’t get a chance to confirm it. 

Junpei wishes that there was an alternate path where they really could find the guts of the REDs in these measly rooms. That way, Clover would never have been left alone, which means Clover would never resort to the axe, and Akane would always, always be safe. 

He also wishes that there was a place alone for him to scream really, really loudly, but that’s asking for too much. Maybe next loop he’ll let it out in the third class cabin. He shakes himself out as he hauls himself off the floor. No more loops, he chastises himself. This is the one. They’ll find Snake and get through the [9] Door and everything will be good enough to let them out. 

He hopes. 

Clover hasn’t shared any theories about how to break the loop, but the logical answer is to win the game. Clover won’t let the game end if Snake dies, so if Junpei can find Snake alive… 

It’s a good plan, he assures himself as he walks into the large hospital room. He’s predictably in last place, slow to move and loath to keep playing the game again. Lotus, Ace, Santa, Seven, June, but neither Snake (who he didn’t expect to be here) or Clover (who he did). The five already there are gathered around the [8] Door, chattering in animated tones. 

“Hey!” Junpei calls, waving his hand. “What’s up with the REDs?” he asks, feigning ignorance. “Did someone fix them?” He comes up in front of Door [8]. 

Lotus frowns and answers, “Well, that's the thing. We don't know. When I got back, it was already like this.”

Junpei puts on a frown, pretending concern for the REDs but in actuality feeling concern for something different. He looks back towards the double doors at the back of the room, willing Clover to walk through them. He doesn’t think he was particularly late getting here. While Junpei’s slow to start playing the game again, he’s always gotten the impression that Clover wanted to get it over and done with. She’s not normally late, but he can’t properly recall any other instance of this particular moment. 

He clears his throat when it's clear Clover isn’t coming. “But, Clover and Snake aren’t back yet, are they? Maybe they fixed them. They were searching together, weren’t they?” The way he stammers over his words betrays his uncertainty. 

“Maybe he got lost?” Akane suggests sweetly. She looks back towards the doors, and then back to the group, eyes landing on Santa, which spurs him to talk. 

Santa snorts. “Yeah, well, that seems likely. Dude can't see. I don't know how he gets around in the first place…” He pulls on one of his piercings, the perfect picture of carelessness. 

How can this guy be Zero? Junpei bristles. 

“He was with Clover!” Junpei insists. “How would she get lost?” 

Lotus shrugs and looks towards the functional REDs. “Well, if they don’t come back, we’ll just have to go on without them.” 

“No!” Junpei and Akane exclaim in unison. Akane goes on, “We're not leaving two people behind! We should go look for them!” She looks back to Junpei for assent, and he nods enthusiastically. 

“You guys can do what you want, but I’m going to go look for them.” He directs this to Lotus, most of all, “Good luck getting through the [9] Door with half of us missing.” He takes Akane by the hand and pulls her away, and she comes without protest. 

“I can’t believe them!” Akane whispers, just out of earshot of the others. “I mean, how could they even think--” 

Junpei shakes his head, endeared to her selflessness. She’s hardly changed, even after all these years. Always rooting for the underdog; always unerringly kind. “Hey, don’t worry. I’m sure they’ll come to their senses soon. Seven’s a good guy.” He pushes the double doors open with his shoulder, taking them back into the corridor of doors. 

Junpei doesn’t remember which rooms Clover and Snake were allocated. He curses under his breath. He thinks for a moment and then the worst possible option hits him over the head. Shit! He whips back towards the hospital doors. Did Clover get stuck behind Door [3]? Why wouldn’t she have yelled? She would’ve yelled. 

“You didn’t hear anything weird before I got to the hospital room, did you?” he asks Akane. 

She thinks for a moment, and shakes her head. “No, nothing. Lotus was already there when me and Santa arrived at the same time. She didn’t say anything about any strange noises.” She blinks her deep grey eyes and Junpei loses where he is momentarily. “What were you expecting?” 

“I don’t know. Maybe Snake and Clover got through a numbered door, but…” he trails off and waves his own watch in front of them. “The rules wouldn’t let that happen.” 

“They’ve gotta be here somewhere,” Akane promises, extraordinarily optimistic. She squeezes their joined hands, sending frizzes of electricity up Junpei’s arm. It’s not the time or place, but he can’t help himself. Even after being in Akane’s presence for so long, sporadic and spotty memories aside, he still feels utterly twelve in her presence. 

“We should probably split up to cover more ground,” Junpei suggests. “Especially until the rest of them get over here, alright?” Truth is, Junpei’s beginning to fret that something bad has happened to Clover and he really doesn’t want Akane to be witness to it. 

She normally joins Junpei halfway through the initial search. Aside from the last loop, he can’t remember the last time he went to the hospital room alone. He has terrible visions of Clover dead on the floor, a knife stuck in her side, or some sort of overdose with foam bubbling out her mouth. 

He shakes his head. That’s not what happened. Why would anyone go through the trouble of killing her where she’d be so easily found? He’s been through enough variations on the theme -- he knows what’s in the realm of possibility and what is not. 

“Yes, that’s a good idea,” Akane agrees. “I’ll yell if I find her, and if not we should meet up before we move on. By then, someone will have found her.” Her words are soothing. Junpei squeezes her hand again before dropping it and moving down the right side of the corridor, as Akane takes the left. 

He has a few false starts, opening doors into nothing but empty, dusty storage rooms. He’s sure that Clover was assigned these rooms. There aren’t many to go through, and the logic of probability dictates-- Yes! 

On his third door, it swings open to yet another miserable storage room full of shelves and cabinets that likely only store out of date medicine and other drugs and equipment. More importantly, at the centre of this beat up room, is an unconscious Clover. He wishes he could say she looked asleep, but she’s splayed out at odd angles like she’s a doll thrown by a tantrum-ing child. 

Fear wells up in his chest like vomit. His breath seems suddenly impossible to catch. 

He’s at her side before the door has even swung closed, kneeling near beside her. He looks her over, and he’s so, so grateful to find no wounds or even a malicious bruise. No drug induced foaming, either. Is that good enough? Is she really okay? Did she piss Ace off, and this was the result? 

He makes an unwilling, uncomfortable noise, high and reedy in his throat. 

Please, god, let her be okay. He doesn’t know how long she’s been down for the count, and she hasn’t started stirring yet. He doesn’t know if he should be panicking, but Clover seems to be the only person routinely capable of inducing this sort of nausea in him!

He prods her, to no avail and calls her name. “Clover? Clover, hey, wake up. Shit, please wake up,” he begs, shaking her shoulder with reckless abandon. “Don’t leave me here, alright?” At the end of his pathetic pleading, he sees her eyes flutter and her muscles spasm as she’s waking. A tiny moan of what Junpei hopes is grogginess, but might be pain. “Wake-- Oh thank God,” he gasps as her eyes open fully. 

They slide lazily over to him. Part of her fringe obscures his vision, but she sees clearly. “Junpei?” 

He nods and answers, “Yeah, yeah, it’s me. Shit, I thought… I thought Ace, or Door [3]… You alright? You hurt?” He prises her up from the floor, a hand wrapped around her bicep. She sits up with a wince, looking a little woozy but no worse for wear. 

Clover nods weakly. “Yeah…” For a moment she’s quiet, thoughts whirring over in her busy mind. Eventually she settles on the most important issue for her. “My brother,” she starts falteringly. She says these words not just to tell Junpei, but to tell herself too. As if speaking them aloud and putting them out in the world will ensure their reality. “My brother is alive.”

While he’s sure that’s true, and Junpei’s still thinking about all the nooks and crannies he could be hiding in, he feels the need to tell her, “He’s missing,”

She meets his gaze. “Which isn’t dead.”

He nods. “We should… we should still act like he’s dead, though, right? Otherwise it’d be weird.”

“He’s alive, right?” Clover searches for affirmation. “He was alive the last time, so he’s… he’s gotta be. Say he’s alive?” 

“He’s alive,” Junpei echoes, truly believing it. They’re at the point now where Junpei wouldn’t senselessly lie just to spare her feelings. They deserve the truth, the whole truth. “He has to be.”

Snake would not leave Clover for anything in the world, not if he couldn’t help it. He made that clear as day in the first class cabin. Junpei is the only person who can offer a hand to Clover now and understand what that means, all the ramifications and weight of it. 

The sight of her, dazed and confused, still so scared and still only concerned about her brother’s wellbeing rouses something unnameable and too powerful to fit inside his body. It burns his nose like he’s about to cry, but he hasn’t done something so outwardly emotional in ages. 

She’s so young, he thinks. Stupid thought, really, he’s only twenty-one but it still seems so unfair to him. Her second Nonary Game in ten years, all before she can drink. He tries to imagine himself at eighteen going through this, but he struggles to envision himself getting off the floor of the third class cabin at that age. And here Clover is, getting up time and time again. 

The only thing he can think to do is grab her and pull her into a close embrace, holding her tight enough that she might feel all the love he has for her, and it might provide her some strength. And it is love, in a sense. It’s a kind of love. Probably the type that she could find in the clover-leaf. Junpei has always had miserable luck, and he knows no gods, and this loop is wearing him down to cynicism, so faith and hope aren’t something he can easily supply. He can probably love her okay, though. That’s easy enough. 

He burrows his head in her shoulder, and her hand comes up to pet the back of his head.

I’ll be your brother, he promises her soundlessly. I’ll be a bad one compared to Snake, but for the time being, I’ll try to do it for you. I’ll be your brother, just for a few hours. I’ll do what he can’t: I’ll be there. 

“I’m gonna get you outta here,” he promises in a rough voice, more into her jacket than the space between them. For that, she hugs him back properly with both arms around his neck.

“He’s alive,” Junpei swears to her, grasping Clover’s shoulder because he can’t reach her hand to give a reassuring squeeze. He promises her the things he should’ve promised ages ago, “We’re going to see him again. We’re going to see him again and we’re going to get out of here. We’re gonna get out of here, Clover.” 

“How do you know that?” She asks, voice tremulous. 

He pulls away from her, moving his hands up to cup her round face. Her cheeks are so cold, and the blusher beneath his fingers feels waxy. He tries not to peel one of her little stickers off, careful with where his hands are. She needn’t lose anything else. 

“I’ve decided there’s not another outcome,” he tells her firmly. “So we’re getting out of here.” 

He slumps forward, resting their heads together. His hands drop away. It’s nice being able to touch someone like this. This sort of casual contact, strange and unbecoming -- the two of them trying to grind their bones together so they know they aren’t alone -- wouldn’t be welcomed by anyone else. Even Akane, who he’s known so long; they’ve been apart for so many years, it would cross a boundary they need to work up to. A boundary they cannot work up to, because Akane’s memories and picture of him keeps resetting, and his grows ever expansive. 

“Two more doors to go,” Clover tells him. 

“Three,” he corrects her. “Because we’re getting through the [9] Door.”

Wherever it is, Junpei is sure that this is the one. 

Door [8]… Door [8]… Door [8]…

Junpei remembers too late what the trick of Door [8] is, sharply reminded by the overhead gate clanging down and separating Clover from him and Lotus. 

“What the hell?” he yelps, more out of shock than an actual question. “What happened?” 

Lotus expresses a similar worry, which is probably the most concern for another player they’ve eked out of her to date. She tells Clover that she’s smart enough to figure a way out of there, and that Santa apparently found himself in a similar predicament earlier, which amuses Junpei. It’s another of Zero’s twisted little puzzles, and so far every problem has had a solution. This one won’t be any different. 

Clover skips down the steps, looking a little less worried now she’s had a vote of confidence, and Junpei and Lotus get to work searching their side of the laboratory. Lotus spends most of her time fiddling with the monitor in the corner, while Junpei rummages through cabinets and shelves. He procures a bottle of ethanol, and a power cable that Lotus turns her nose up at. 

He yells through the bars to Clover, asking her to search for an adaptor, which she finds easily. At the gate, they exchange items. Clover gets the ethanol, and Junpei gets the prong. 

“There’s a stain on the table,” he points out needlessly. Clover must have every room in this place committed to memory ten times over. “I reckon this’ll get rid of it.” 

She nods, looking at the little bottle. “Yeah, I know.” 

He asks, surreptitiously as possible, “You’ve been here before?” 

She frowns, more confused than cross. “We both have.” 

“That’s… not what I’m asking.” Maybe it’s wrong to ask her about the first Nonary Game, even in such veiled language, but it’s less for the information she may or may not be able to provide, and more to communicate with her that he knows what’s happened and he doesn’t hold it against her. 

“I don’t know,” she tells him. “I don’t… I don’t think so.” She looks back at the laboratory room, surveying the table, sink, and mannequin on the bed. Junpei tries to imagine a nine year old Clover tramping around the mess of wires, trying to clean up an ink spill, or restarting a computer. It’d be funny if it wasn’t so awful. But if she says she wasn’t in Door [8], then she wasn’t. Maybe Door [7], or even Door [3], if they still had all their party members at that point. 

He hopes so. The idea of a little kid dying in this game makes him feel like he’s been sucker-punched. 

“Alright,” he murmurs. “I trust you.”

She’s about to leave before she turns back and asks for his notebook. Junpei acquiesces, seeing as he’s got no need for it and he has the vague impression that Clover used hers a hell of a lot more than he ever has. Where’s hers? Oh, whatever. 

He retreats back to Lotus and the monitor, handing her the wire with the adaptor and then taking it back when she makes a face that’s clearly meant to convey that she’s not getting on her hands and knees to plug the monitor in. 

Once the screen lights up, Lotus smiles and cracks her knuckles like she’s warming up for something. She even twists her back, to an incredible popping noise.

“Alright. Let’s kick some ass,” she announces. 

 Then, her fingers fly across the keys at a blistering pace, letters and numbers moving up the screen so fast that Junpei can’t make sense of them. If they came to a stand still, they’d probably still look like gibberish to him, anyway. 

“What the hell?” Junpei yelps, for the second time in this room. “I’m sorry-- What? How can you type that fast?” 

She laughs a little, smug pride. “Didn't expect that, did you?”

“Of course I didn't! What kind of job do you have?” 

Lotus gives a little shrug of her shoulders that doesn’t impede her typing in the slightest. She answers, “I'm unemployed at the moment.”

“And you spent all your free time practising your words per minute?” 

“No, I could always type this fast.” 

Junpei turns around to see if Clover is seeing this, but of course she isn’t. She’s curled up at the foot of the gate that blocks her off from the rest of the world, head tilted down like she’s deep in thought, or napping. The only proof that she’s awake is that Junpei can see her thumb run across her knuckles in a self-soothing motion. 

Junpei turns back to Lotus, who’s begun to fill the time with an explanation about computers and monitors and a million other things that fly over his head. Ridiculous theories about how the human mind is just an output device, and higher cognition takes place in some central hub… Junpei would love to hear what excuse she cooks up for Junpei and Clover being stuck in this loop. She attributed a glitch in the matrix to Seven’s amnesia and sure! Maybe, if he’s being really generous, he can wrap his head around that thought process: cut the cord, and the information doesn’t transfer. Is he supposed to believe that he and Clover -- and only them! -- are caught like a stuck record, two dead pixels in an otherwise moving picture? 

Sorry, but he just doesn’t buy it. 

Lotus considers her crackpot conspiracy a little further, humming in thought. “I guess people with prosopagnosia could be suffering from the same thing.” 

Junpei screws up his face, searching for the term but comes up empty. He’s watched a lot of bad TV in his life, and specifically a lot of melodramatic medical dramas. He can’t think of what prosopagnosia is at all. 

He expresses this to Lotus in fewer words and she graciously explains it to him, albeit with a bit of condescension first. 

She slows down her typing, but it’s still faster than anything Junpei could ever achieve. “Well, put simply, it means a condition where the mind can't distinguish between human faces. In other words, my face would look the same as Clover's, or even yours.” 

(Junpei doesn’t take any pleasure in the thought of looking identical to Lotus.) 

“I didn’t know that was even a thing that could happen,” Junpei admits. “Kind of crazy to think about, really.” 

“Isn’t it?” Lotus agrees. “So, like I said: someone with prosopagnosia, or face-blindness, might just have a broken monitor.”

“Don’t tell me you really believe that?” 

Lotus shakes her head, earrings clinking against each other. “Not really. I was just kidding for about half of it.”

Junpei rolls his eyes, and Lotus finishes her program with a flourish. 

Shortly after, the PC’s puzzle is solved with the help of Clover’s note, and not much help from Lotus (aside from getting the monitor to work, Junpei grants her), and the last of the lockers are opened to them. Inside, the Earth key! Plus, another smaller one. 

Just as he slips the two keys inside his pocket, Clover pipes up. “Hey, Junpei?”

He spins on his heel and comes up to the gate, crouching down to be closer to her level. “Yeah? You okay?” 

She blinks at him. “When you went through the [5] Door with my brother… Did he say anything?”

Junpei answers, “A little. Not much. He talked about you a little bit.” 

“Me?” 

“Yeah.” Junpei doesn’t know why she sounds so surprised. Every other word out of Snake’s mouth indicates he’d lie down in traffic for her. He doubts he’s ever seen someone love another person so completely. But Snake isn’t here to confirm that, and Junpei has to take up the mantle. He slips his hand through the gate and takes Clover’s hand in his. Even her hands are cold. He tacks on, “I’m sorry I went through Door [5].” 

“It’s okay. Really.” She takes to swiping her thumb over his knuckles like she’d been doing to herself earlier. 

He shakes his head, and genuinely means it. Clover’s sweet for trying to spare his feelings, but he just shouldn’t split the siblings up for the little time they get. “It isn’t. You should get to stay with Snake.” 

“Thanks,” she sniffles. 

Speaking of Snake, there’s been a question he’s been meaning to ask, but there’s never been a good time. Not that now is a good time either, but it’s probably the best they’re ever going to get. Going through Door [5] gets him curious about the man, about his past and his protectiveness of Clover, and how he’s so confident in himself despite not being able to see the world. 

“Was…” Junpei starts, immediately regretting opening his mouth. Too late to take it back, but he tries to soften his indelicacy. “Um, I don’t know if this is a good time. Was your brother born without…” he gestures vaguely to his face. 

Clover bites her lip, and Junpei hopes that’s to stifle laughter. “You’re talking about his eyes?” 

“Yeah, I guess.” 

“Well, he has eyes. They just don’t work anymore. He wasn’t born blind.” Here, she adjusts their hands and Junpei thinks she’s going to pull away, but she reconfigures them so their fingers are laced together. “When he was a kid, like really young, he was in a bad accident. A car accident,” but she chokes on the explanation. 

Junpei hastens to give her an out. “We don’t have to--” 

She shakes her head and cuts him off. “No, you asked. I should answer at least one question you ask me.” Junpei’s stomach knots with the same guilt from the casino. He wishes he could take it back. She doesn’t need to force herself to give him anything in the name of fairness. She continues. “After that, he couldn’t see. It was really bad. And they had to amputate his arm, too. His left arm, it’s a prosthetic, you know? Like, it’s plastic. You can’t tell but, but I can. Because he’s my brother.” 

Yes, if he thought that Snake was the only one to love another person so completely, Clover is his only competition. He’s never felt unfulfilled being an only child, but there are moments in the face of their tidal wave-like force that makes him feel like he’s missing something. The closest he’s ever come to feeling love like that is Akane, maybe. He thinks he feels it sometimes, here, with Clover, but he can never be too sure.

 “You really love him, don’t you?” he says, because love is not a big enough word, but they are yet to invent a better one. 

“With all my heart. More than anything.” 

Nine hours is a long time to be without your heart, he thinks. And a time loop, to boot. 

“I know. I know you,” he assures her. “You’d do anything for him.” He squeezes her hand. He wishes he could do more, but the only thing to do is to play this game. “I’m going to get you out of here.”

Why Clover suggests they look behind Door [3] is utterly beyond Junpei. Some masochistic impulse, he’s sure. There’s no reason to look behind Door [3] time and time again when they know what’s behind there. In fact, there’s now less reason for them to look behind the curtain! They know that body isn’t Snake, and from the way Clover was speaking last time, it doesn’t sound like they should be mourning him. 

If Clover, Ace and Seven go through Door [3], the rest of them will be paraded through the gruesome scene. Junpei’s sick to the back teeth of corpses and the stench of death. He’s sick of the sight, the smell, the feeling of them, sick of the colour red. He hopes he never sees another dead body for the rest of his days. 

He loses the fight, though admittedly he didn’t put much of one up. Seven crumbles away under the slightest pressure of big wet eyes and a pleading voice. As much as he antagonises Clover, he’s secretly a soft touch. Junpei would think better of him for it, if it didn’t mean another glimpse at the chunks of organs and flesh the mystery man has become. 

Clover, Seven and Ace split off to search Door [3], and Junpei, Akane, Lotus and Santa go investigate where the keys they’ve found thus far lead them. Lotus had said if they were lucky, they might find Snake, but Junpei knows they won’t. It surprises him that she even thought about Snake at all. 

Santa and Lotus go up, to where they’ll find Door [1]. Junpei and Akane descend to where Door [6] awaits them. Only a ten minute search, in and out. Unfortunately, Junpei knows how much can go wrong in ten minutes. He shakes his head as soon as he thinks about it. He’s not falling victim to that sort of thinking, not now. Don’t look back; don’t get lost. 

He follows Akane dutifully all the way to the elevator; the same one he and Clover had argued by earlier today. The same one they always argue by. She slides the key card through the scanner. The doors rumble open, but Akane doesn’t step into the waiting elevator. 

“June?” Junpei asks, touching her shoulder lightly. “You alright?” 

She blinks back into reality, reaching her hand up to her shoulder to pat his concerned hand. “Yeah. Of course.” She pauses and looks over to him, blushing pink as a flower. “Actually, could you stop calling me by that code name when we're alone?”

Junpei slips his hand off Akane’s shoulder, but she follows him down, fingers lightly caught in one another. Junpei feels his face heat up, a long buried flare of emotion. He thought he was getting used to being in Akane’s presence again -- he’d even worked himself up to calling her Akane in his head, and not keeping her categorised solely as June! -- but that one easy request from her has knocked over his precarious house of cards. 

He nods before he’s even thought about it. God, he can feel his ears heating up, how is that even a thing that happens to people? He resists clamping his hands over his ears, mostly because that would mean he’d have to move his hand away from Akane’s. Desperately twelve, forever. 

“Um, yeah. Sure, I can do that. I can do that… Kanny.” He cringes internally as soon as the childhood nickname leaves his mouth. He doesn’t know why he chose that one. Well, he couldn’t call her Kurashiki -- that’d be even more awkward, and brusque too. Besides, Akane’s been calling him Junpei, or Jumpy -- never Tenmyouji. He could call her Akane, as he had done when they first saw one another, but there’s something shamefully comforting about being called Jumpy by her. He hopes calling her Kanny does the same thing. 

It must do, because she smiles pure and true, voice hitched in a shy half-laugh. “Thank you, Jumpy.” 

Junpei steps towards the elevator but Akane grabs his arm before he can get his foot past the door. “Oh, please wait! I’m not sure about this…” 

“Huh? Come on, let’s go,” he says. There’s nothing to be worried about. The elevator will lead them down to E-Deck, prove the existence of Door [6] and then they can get back to the others, and Junpei can get this perverted parade of corpse viewing over and done with. 

He tries to move forward again, but Akane tugs insistently on his arm. “I said wait!” she protests. 

Ohh, Junpei thinks. She must be embarrassed of being alone in the elevator with him. That’s kind of cute… Albeit, a little silly. The elevator isn’t that small, and they wouldn’t even be very close. Not unless they wanted to be. 

“I might get wet,” Akane warns him in a wary voice. 

Junpei coughs violently into his arm, and realises they’ve had this conversation before, so he diverts his train of thought swiftly. He digs out his notebook to draw her a diagram to sate her fears. 

Returning to the hospital room for this never gets much easier. The fleeting joy the four of them manage to scrape together with their discoveries pops like a balloon the second they look at the ashen expressions of Ace, Seven and Clover. All three of them look like they’ve seen a ghost. Clover has something balled tightly in her fist, but she looks at it with no love.

He wants to comfort her, but it isn’t her brother so what comfort is there to give? He needs to find Snake, and he needs to find him soon. He’s been whittling down the avenues he could be hidden behind. 

He can’t be anywhere near Door [1]: Clover would have found him by now if that were the case. 

Junpei’s only been through Door [2] once, and has no plans to ever again. He’ll only venture into the pit of this beast if his hand is forced. Last time, it resulted in the worst loop here, the first one he can remember. Trial by fucking fire, he thinks bitterly. They checked all the cells there, he’s sure. Snake wasn’t there. 

Door [6] is the only remaining option. Beyond Door [6], there must be some room off to the side where Snake has been spirited away. If Junpei goes behind Door [6], he might be able to find Snake and bring him back into the fray. It’s a slim hope, but it’s their only hope. The way the votes land means Clover will never go through Door [6]. So, Junpei will have to. 

As Junpei’s group is ushered into Door [3], he steels himself for the smell. It never gets any easier to bear, and he despairs to think of Clover’s initial foray here, believing this rotting pile of meat was her brother. The stench is thick, so thick it feels fuzzy on his tongue. It’s sour, and smells of fish, feces, and burnt meat… Part of that might just be the decrepit toilet they’re standing in. Junpei hopes it smelt even fractionally better when Clover was trapped in the moment of the explosion. 

He glances at the body periodically, only allowing himself milliseconds of actual viewing at a time. He categorises it easily enough; it’s the same sight as all the other times. His torso tore like it was flimsy as a sheet of paper; ribs jutting out of that hole, poking against Snake’s distinctive jacket. Blood and guts and yellowish fat cling to the wall, dried hard like cement. His bracelet is missing, that’s different, but it’s always been blown to bits too. Functionally useless. 

Junpei strains to make sense of the concavity of his skull. He’s trying to point out any distinguishing features, namely his hair. Snake had a distinctive shade of ashy grey-blonde that he doesn’t see often. Junpei hopes he can see a wisp of hair to prove this is someone else, but the sight makes him sick and he can’t stand to study it any longer. 

Lotus is the only one to manage words. “No mistake about that. It's Snake…” She covers her mouth with her hand, and convulses like she’s about to throw up but she keeps it down and straightens up. 

“Poor bastard,” Santa mutters and takes a few paces backwards, heading for the door. 

Junpei follows. 

Getting Door [6] is easy enough. Junpei’s not above cheating in this matter, or really any others. So, sue him if he surreptitiously robs monopoly money from the bank. It’s not like he plays many board games these days, he may as well have fun when he does. Like here, it’s more important that he gets his way than it is to be fair.

He hasn’t exactly shared his plan with Clover. There’s a reason they debrief behind the stairs every loop; there’s never another time they’re reliably alone. Of course, there’s Door [1], or maybe [7] or [8], but by then it’s far too late. He hopes she knows he isn’t trying to leave her all alone. He wishes she could come through Door [6] with him, but like he said: the votes don’t align. 

The door after the DEAD is a monstrous, heavy thing, easily a ton of iron. No doorknob, only a bar to push. It squeals open to a gargantuan room, sprawling with mechanisms that reach up the ceiling, and a catwalk circling it. It’s this catwalk that they emerge onto, shuffling in single-file it's so thin. They manage to descend the stairs and reach solid ground. 

Ace is informing them that this must be the engine room, which makes sense to Junpei. A ship as labyrinthine as this one would require a massive input of fuel, and a massive room to do it in. His neck is craned upwards in awe when he hears a noise behind him. 

Quick as anything, he whips his head around to see Akane collapsing to her knees. Junpei goes cold as the grave and rushes over to her. He wraps his arm around his shoulder to steady her, but while Junpei is freezing with fear, Akane is burning bright with fever again. 

He curses under his breath, his mind flooded with the last time Akane suffered from fever. It had happened again earlier, when the Ninth Man went behind Door [5], but that always happens! It was something he was prepared for, but a fever this late in the game…? If he lets her out of his sight, will she vanish again? 

“Is it your fever?” he asks, but he’d have to be blind, deaf and dumb to not know what was happening. He helps her sit against one of the machines, what looks to be a conveyor belt. He strokes the hair out of her face, and she smiles weakly. The skin on her lips split with such a small movement. 

“Ah.” She struggles to speak even that. “Yes… I think it must be… But I'm fine. Please, don't… Don't worry about me. I’ll be fine after some rest.” She tries to smile again, but she gives up. Her eyes are empty, glassy and dull. 

“Are you sure?” he asks her in a whisper. “It’s just a fever?” 

“Just a fever, Jumpy,” she promises. 

It pains him to have to leave her here, but there’s nothing else he can do. If he has any hope of trying to medicate her fever, they’ll have to get back to the hospital room and that means they’ll have to escape this room. He has to trust that this is just a regular fever, and that her vanishing had no correlation. 

He looks back at Ace and Santa, who both wear faces of concern. 

Junpei nods firmly. “All right, let's get started.”

While the engine room may be massive, there isn’t all that much to do in it. Most of the room is taken up by the actual engine, and the rest of the space is open and clear, save for a few crates that Santa digs through. Junpei fiddles with a switchboard on the wall, which does nothing. Ace inspects the triplet gears in their alcove and reports back: bronze, silver, and gold. 

It’s only when they’re up on the catwalk, going back and forth between the winches and each other to argue about if someone broke the wheel off, does it feel like they make any progress. The ‘broken’ -- he did not break it, Santa, it came off all on its own, and he’s the only one to blame if he’s Zero! -- wheel attaches itself to the winch nicely, and they’re able to lower the box down to the ground. 

Ace sticks his head over the catwalk, and Junpei gets the overwhelming urge to push the man over, but manfully refrains. Junpei pokes his head out too. The box has landed not too far away from Akane, still sitting against the wall with her head lolled downwards. Still there, he assures himself. Just a fever. Even so, it’s a thin comfort: it’s clear she isn’t getting any better, and it had taken the three of them a shamefully long time to work out what they needed to do. 

Ace leans back from the railing, but Junpei still fantasizes about tripping him up. He tries not to actively daydream about hurting Ace, but he makes it difficult to abstain. Clover’s warned him against it, but she’s the one that’s killed and been killed by him. She’s suffered because of him more than anyone. Shouldn’t she want Junpei to do the deed? 

Oblivious to Junpei’s hatred, Ace acts as the concerned citizen. “What could be causing this, I wonder. Illness, perhaps?” He sounds kind, but Junpei knows it’s an act. 

Santa pitches in from a little ways away, desperately unsubtle about his eavesdropping. “Nah, it's gotta be exhaustion,” he calls over. He sounds confident and certain, more than Junpei is. Santa’s got the benefit of not remembering the last loop where Akane’s fever manifested and promptly spirited her away. Santa had been deeply affected by it, he could tell that much, despite his cavalier attitude towards life and death. 

He continues his explanation, trampling over Ace’s illness theory. She gets dropped into some weird-ass ship, forced to play some messed-up game. If you think about it, it's a lot weirder that we aren't freakin' out just like her, you know?”

This time, Junpei resists the urge to grab Santa by the shoulders and shake him and shout: YOU PUT US HERE, ASSHOLE. He settles for grumbling under his breath and scowling. 

Ace has no such compunctions with Santa, and asks him for elaboration. Junpei’s still seething quietly, so he only catches the tail end of the conversation.

“--We're just guinea pigs,” Santa finishes. 

“More like lab rats in some bunk experiment,” Junpei complains sullenly. The time loop he and Clover are stuck in might make an ounce of sense if it turns out this is all some sort of ridiculous, elaborate science experiment and they’re the poor bastard lab rats. Maybe it’ll turn out that the others are experiencing the time loop, too, but they’re too embarrassed to come out and say it. That’d at least mean he and Clover are the smartest of the bunch. 

…Probably not. Akane likes conspiracies and myths so much that she would’ve been the first to bring it up. She’s always been smarter than him, anyway. 

Santa shrugs. “Maybe. I mean they experiment on rats all the time, don’t they? Listen to this…” 

Junpei listens to some bullshit thought experiment for the second time today, and the millionth time in however long he’s been here. There’s nothing remotely interesting about the experiment Santa describes. It sounds like the run of the mill torture those rodents are subjected to all the time to test cognition, memory recall, or shampoo brands. Telepathic rats are laughable. 

Why threaten the rats with drowning, if it makes no difference to the experiment? Wouldn’t it be better to just… bait the rats with something at the electrified exit? Seems nicer to the poor things, at least. Junpei wishes there was a reward for him waiting every time he and Clover fucked up… It might make the whole nightmare a little more enjoyable. 

He asks Santa as much, minus the part about him and Clover. 

Santa lets out a grim bark of a laugh. “Easy. When the chips are down, either you crack, or your mind focuses, and pulls up what you need. That's why the rats had to drown. They had to be in danger. There had to be an emergency for inspiration to emerge.” Santa scans the room over the railing, eyes catching on Akane’s semi-conscious form. “They had to be scared of death to do something.” 

With that, Santa skulks off downstairs to dirty his hands with the newfound box. 

Junpei stands there for a moment, pondering. Death, for him, has stopped being a daunting thing. After all, he keeps coming back, and so does Clover. He can run this rat race as many times as it takes before he emerges. His death doesn’t frighten him.

He follows Ace and Santa down.

The box contains part of the console that must be inserted into the empty space next to the conveyor belt. Junpei shunts it in and flicks a few of the dials until something happens. The conveyor belt coughs to life and churns its gears, unloading a chunk of coal into the box at the end. 

There’s really only one thing that can be done with a bunch of coal in a steam engine room, so they get to work. 

It doesn’t take too long until they’ve managed to open the door.

Now up by the exit with the discs properly inserted, Junpei can’t help but cheer. He gladly takes the opportunity to flee the company of Ace and Santa, returning to Akane’s side. He doesn’t care what the pair of them do. As far as he knows, Ace has never attempted something while inside a numbered door, which means he’s safe to retreat. 

It’s kind of exhausting trying to keep tabs on everyone, and wonders how Clover ever managed on her own. He feels like he’s being pulled in a dozen different directions, spread too thin and still not doing enough. 

As soon as Akane sees him, she tries to stand, unsteady as a newborn fawn. He reaches out to steady her before either of them can speak a word. 

“Hey, you okay, Kanny?” He adds that last part quietly, just in the hopes it makes her happy. He lopes his arm around her waist, still afraid she might take another fall. It’s good to feel her, though, to know she’s real. Junpei feels his heart forced up into his throat thinking about the possibility she could disappear without warning and unthinkingly tightens his hold protectively. It only lasts a split second before he apologises and loosens his hand, though he doesn’t dare drop it. 

Akane nods. “Yes. I'm fine now. I'm sorry I made you worry.” She definitely sounds better. “You’re such a worrier,” she chides kindly. He pokes her forehead in retaliation, offering her a smile. 

She returns it, mouth no longer so badly chapped, and cheeks no longer scarily pale. 

He feels much better seeing her smile, and tells her the door is unlocked and they head over. He only drops his hand from her as Santa comes into view. He’s hunched over on the staircase, while Ace is nowhere to be found. Junpei assumes he’s gone through to the next room to get a headstart on proceedings. Even more curious, is that Santa isn’t just lazing about. He’s studying a square of paper with deep creases in a cross shape. His expression is unreadable, but Junpei’s seen enough of Clover now to say that it’s similar to the look she gets when she talks about Snake and he’s not there. 

“What are you looking at?” Junpei asks. 

Santa answers without looking up, voice quiet. “It's a photo. It's my sister.”

Akane perks up. “Oh! Santa, I didn’t know you had a sister!” 

Santa nods, a tiny, economical motion. “Sure did. Kid was as cute as a button.” 

“Ohh.” Akane nods knowingly. “She was only an inch tall.”

Santa shoots her a stony glare and she shuts up. He sniffs, and despite his next words being bizarre, he does not crack a smile or laugh. “I was her Santa Claus.” 

Junpei steals a look at Akane, who doesn’t seem to know whether to laugh or console Santa.

Santa goes on. “We didn't have parents. They bought it in an accident when we were still kids. So I had to be like her dad.” All the while, his eyes never leave the well-loved photograph. Christmas, too. Saved up all year for Christmas. We were dirt poor, but that wasn’t gonna stop me giving her a good Christmas. Every year. Every single year. I didn’t miss one.” He swallows thickly, and the walls of the ship groan and wail as he takes a breath. Junpei doesn’t have the heart to interrupt. 

“But one year… This one year, she doesn’t ask for anything like that. She said: I don't want any presents this year. Instead, I want you to make my wish come true. My wish is that we'll be happy like this for a really, really long time.” His grip tightens, and the photo crumples in his fingers before he comes to his senses and delicately smoothes it out. He always holds it in such a way that Junpei is never afforded a glimpse at his little sister. 

Because that’s his little sister. No one else’s, he thinks, helplessly reminded of Snake’s words in the first class cabin. I wish nothing bad had ever happened to Clover, but failing that at least it had happened to me too. Looking at Santa looking at the photo, Junpei gets the sudden feeling that something very, very bad happened. 

“But I couldn't make that wish come true. Some Santa I am…” His eyes are clearly wet, but they staunchly refuse to fall. Junpei doesn’t think he’s ever seen Santa sad in any of the loops. Though sad is a paltry word for the resigned anguish on his face. Junpei wishes he could relish in Santa’s misery, knowing it is the misery of the man who trapped them but he can’t rouse the emotion up inside himself without feeling a knife twist. 

Akane, stronger than Junpei could hope to be, asks the scary question. “What happened to her?” 

Santa’s bottom lip actually trembles, but he wipes his face so forcefully it could be mistaken for a punch. When he drops his hand, he looks the same as always: bored and vaguely pissed off at the world. 

“She died. Killed, nine years ago. Nothing to do about it now, huh?” He folds the photo back up quickly, and stands suddenly. “Come on,” he demands flatly. “Let’s go.” 

He takes the steps two at a time, and slips away. 

Ace is really bad at sorting through the headshots, but Junpei is really bad at trying to manoeuvre the Pushmaster 5000, so he can’t give him too much shit for being slow. He spends enough time randomly plugging in directions with nothing but prayer that Santa, who’s usually happy to let Junpei make a fool of himself, shoves him aside and starts to solve it for him. 

Junpei looks down at the storage room from the tower, wondering why Ace had a problem with such a simple puzzle. It wasn’t as if the headshots were indistinguishable. They were actually kind of good-looking. He frowns, ruminating on Ace’s claim that his vision was blurry from fatigue. 

Junpei has pulled enough all-nighters in college to know that there’s some truth to the claim, but he’s never said anything before. Besides, Junpei assumes that everything out of Ace’s mouth is a lie now. His vision can’t be that bad. He would have at least been able to put Clover in the right place. 

Unless… he remembers what Lotus had been saying in the laboratory. How people could have prosopagnosia -- the inability to recognise faces. He squints at Ace, who is sitting down on the stairs resting. He looks awful, and somehow even more depressed than Santa had earlier. 

Could that really be the case? 

“It was not that fucking hard,” Santa scolds him, having programmed the Pushmaster 5000 on the first attempt. He stomps away, yelling at Akane and Ace that the crates have been moved now, no thanks to Junpei. 

They’re already gathered round the coffin, about to open it when Junpei gets down the stairs. 

Junpei joins them, very graciously not tacking on that Santa only knows the solution to the puzzles because he’s the one that put them here!!! He’s learned them!!! Nine years ago he-- 

Oh. 

That… that can’t be the case, can it? Was Santa also one of the people involved in the First Nonary Game? It would make sense, wouldn't it? 

Santa opens the coffin, but Junpei finds it difficult to pay attention to what’s inside now that he’s snagged on this little pearl. 

Zero had to have known about the first Nonary Game if he warned Snake against speaking about it, but Santa is around Junpei’s age if he had to wager. Nine years ago, that would make him twelve or so. Junpei’s never heard of any Nonary Game, and he imagines it would have been kind of a big fucking deal if it got out! Which means the only way Santa would’ve known is because he was in it. 

And… does that mean… his sister? Nine years ago? 

He glances at Santa, but is surprised to see him handling a golden gun of all things. 

“Are you… going to take that?” Junpei asks, more than a little wary. 

Santa sets the revolver down. It appears to be an old, heavy-duty object, save for the gaudy colour. Junpei can’t tell if it’s real or not, but thinks it’s unwise to guess either way. 

“Oh, fuck no,” Santa says certainly. “As if I want to be on the wrong side of this thing.” 

“Maybe Zero put it here to make us fight?” Akane suggests. “Whoever got their hands on it would have a hugely unfair advantage…” 

Ace nods. “In that case, we should most certainly leave it here. I, for one, have no desire to let Zero control me.”

Santa agrees, “As if I’m letting that prick put one over me. Don’t leave that key behind though, Junpei, alright?” Santa warns as he hops down from the boxes, headed towards the door. 

“Huh?” Junpei’s still a little dazed from his newfound conspiracy, and only now sees the rusted key in the coffin too. He grabs it and shoves the coffin lid back as best as he’s able, hurrying over to Santa. He wonders if he can get a quick question about the first Nonary Game in, but Akane is right behind him and he doesn’t want to arouse more suspicion than he’s worth. 

Akane presses the button on the elevator, summoning power back into it. On the other side of the metal gate, is the one they came down earlier. As Santa said, they’ve made a loop. Junpei has to stifle an agonised laugh. Junpei knows plenty about loops. 

Ace contemplates their situation and then poses the question, “What do we do? Should we return to C Deck?” 

Junpei wars with himself. On one hand, he’d like nothing more than to regroup with Clover and the others, partly so he can see her again, but also so he can get Akane out of range of Zero and their resident spree killer. On the other hand, the whole reason he chose Door [6] and put himself amongst said mastermind and spree killer is because it’s the only place he can think to find Snake, and there’s still another hallway to look down. 

He wishes it weren’t the case, but he’s past the point of wishing this wasn’t happening. It is, and has been for a while, and he ought to get used to the craziness being thrown at him. 

He shakes his head and points down the corridor. “We need to look down there, first. It’s like a jigsaw puzzle. We need all the pieces before we try to put it together. There might be something there. Even if there isn’t, don’t you want to make sure?” 

“I agree,” Santa says and goes on ahead. Akane agrees too, but she’s frowning a little. 

The corridor isn’t very long, and doesn’t take much time before they’re at another door. This one is unpainted and unremarkable, but it stirs a sense of dread in Junpei regardless. If Snake isn’t behind this door, he’s out of ideas and useless to Clover. Still, Junpei has faced much scarier things than a simple door lately, so he exhales and pushes the door open before he has a chance to overthink. 

Inside, it is impossible not to notice: the [9] Door, the elusive treasure they’ve been searching for this whole time, finally revealed to them. Like all the other doors, the number is drawn in rough red font, nothing that denotes it as overly special, but all the same. This is what has been hanging over their heads for hours, none more so than Clover and Junpei’s. 

He feels grateful tears try to work their way up through his body. 

“Jumpy!” Akane yelps. “Look here!”

He spins around on his heel, too taken in by the initial discovery to properly survey the room. There, following Akane’s shaking pointed finger, is a second door with the number [9] splashed across it. It is a single door, not nearly as imposing as the double doors at the centre of the room, but undoubtedly a numbered door in its own right! 

Santa’s words are breathless. “There were always two doors.” 

Always a way to get everyone out. Always a solution. If they had all just kept their heads and worked together… He looks down at the floor, because if he looks at Ace, he will do something he isn’t proud of. If he hadn't been so hell-bent on trying to kill Snake, they could’ve all escaped! But now the numbers are fucked! They’ll still have to leave people behind! 

Those tears of relief transform into tears of despair, but he refuses to let them fall. He hates Santa just as much for this, too. He almost wishes there weren’t two doors, just so he wouldn't have to come to this revelation. Snake isn’t here… He doesn’t know what he expected. Snake, to be sat in one of the pews, confetti streamer in hand, dressed exactly as he was last seen? The body in Door [3] was wearing his jacket. Snake, offering them congratulations? 

He wishes Snake were here, for a thousand, thousand reasons. 

Santa’s voice breaks through his thoughts. “So... What are we going to do, Junpei?”

“What the hell do you mean, ‘what are we going to do’?” But as he’s saying the words, the necessary equation flies through his head. 

1 + 3 + 5 = 9

He fails to hold in a derisive scoff. “We’re going back and telling the others.” His tone brokers no argument. “As if I’d want to escape with just the two of you and leave June behind.” 

“Are you sure?” Akane asks, stammering. Her voice gives away more than her words ever could. 

He sees out of the corner of his eye Ace and Santa nod, agreeing not to abandon Akane, but the mere suggestion has Junpei rattled and a simple nod doesn’t do much to settle his nerves. 

It’s Santa who offers reassurance first, “It's okay. You know there's no way we'd leave you behind.” He gives her a friendly pat on the shoulder as he passes, back towards the exit door. Santa’s always the first to leave a room, and always has the route to the exit worked out, Junpei thinks. He moves like a man who’s being hunted. Junpei doesn’t know why; what natural predator does the man who put them here have?

Ace follows, echoing a similar sentiment about how they won’t leave Akane behind; they need to find Lotus, Seven and Clover before they make any rash decisions. Akane trails along after the two men, and tugs Junpei’s sleeve to start him up. 

It’s only then, lifting his leaden head, does he take stock of the room they’ve found themselves in. A red carpet runs between the rows of dark wooden benches, starting at the big [9] Door all the way up to… 

A coffin. 

Placed atop some sort of altar, but to what end is beyond Junpei’s pay grade. Strange banners line the alcove, as well as tiny flickering candles. The room smells like incense, a scent Junpei has always found cloying, but he can’t figure out where something like that might be burning from. 

A coffin… Bewildering as it is -- why the hell would a coffin be here -- it is the only hope Junpei has. He actually manages to clear his throat of the sticky fear that clogs it to speak when Santa’s rough tone cuts through the relative peace of the chapel. 

“Hey, Junpei! The hell are you doing? Let's move!”

Junpei starts towards the door, eyes still glued to the coffin. 

It has to be him. And Junpei has to come back for him. 

He tells himself that it’s better he doesn’t peel Snake out of the coffin, that he should wait until Clover is with him for them to reunite. It begs the question whether or not Snake is actually in there, but Junpei needs him to be. They must’ve searched every inch of this ship by now, and Snake is nowhere else. This is the last hiding place. This is the only hiding place. 

He’s not enough for Clover on his own. He needs Snake to come back. 

Clover needs Snake to come back. 

Seven and Lotus are already on C-Deck when Junpei’s group spills out of the elevator, and Clover isn't with them. Junpei cannot say that fear wells up in his throat, because it hasn’t had a chance to stop choking him. His entire body feels numb, and he feels faraway from himself. It’s as if he’s watching this happen to another person, Seven and Lotus frantically trying to explain the situation. 

Clover had escaped the room first, and Seven and Lotus hadn’t realised. Though they’d only now arrived at the staircase, and hadn’t looked very far, it didn’t calm Junpei. Who could say how long Clover had been missing. 

But no, he tells himself, the words washing over him. Ace has been in his sight the entire time. There’s no chance that something bad has happened to Clover. Wherever Clover has run off to, it is for an important reason and now… 

He flashes a glare at Ace, who doesn’t notice. 

Now, he’s in a race. 

He hardly feels Akane’s hand in his as he grabs it and pulls her towards the big hospital room so fast, it borders on sprinting. He doesn’t know where the others have splintered off to, and it hardly matters. He knows Clover best out of everyone here, and he prays that gives him the edge in this search. If he can get to Clover first, tell her about the coffin, maybe… 

He doesn’t know! He just knows he has to get to Clover! 

Akane searches around the hospital room, looking under beds and screeching them across the floor as she searches in a hurry. 

“The shower room!” Junpei calls, beckoning Akane over. “Come on, she might’ve tried to-- to see her brother!” 

It’s a white lie. He’s got a good feeling that Clover would’ve come back to check on the body here, to double and triple check that it isn’t her brother. She had said it wasn’t Snake after Junpei had come out of Door [3] earlier today, but a once over is rarely good enough for Clover. She likes to be reassured beyond reasonable doubt, and she trusts herself to do the job best. Junpei won’t be surprised to get into Door [3] and find Clover wading in the blood and guts, just to look for a mark of a stranger. 

Where else would she want to go? 

Akane makes a face somewhere between distress, queasiness and sympathy. Her lip catches under her teeth. Junpei hates to do this to her. He knows how badly she takes death, as well as the associated mess of it. They both know there’s only one terrible thing to see in the bathroom, but they have to see it through. Junpei, has to at least, for Clover. 

“Please, Kanny,” he whispers, and she takes a strong step forward. 

They slip inside the room, and Junpei holds his breath for more than one reason. 

His gut instinct has let him down, though. Clover is nowhere to be found. He has to be sure, though, and checks behind the partition. Akane wisely stays back, looking a little green. As he expected, the only thing here is the dead body: a shattered skull, transforming his insides into a pulpy mess of brain, bone, and viscera. The left arm is twisted into a horrific, alien shape, the bright white of the ulna shining through the remains of skin and muscle. 

Of course. If Clover had seen this on her first viewing, she wouldn’t have to come back to make sure. There’s nothing more damning than that shard of bone, a bone her brother does not possess. Junpei gambled wrong. He tries to think about where to look next, but he had been banking heavily on this guess. 

He and Akane head out, back towards the hospital room and through to the corridor. Both he and Akane open and check every door, every corner, in case she might return here. This was, in a sense, the last place her brother was alive. Maybe she’s trying to let that feeling seep through her but-- 

No luck. 

They make it back to the central staircase with nothing to show for their efforts except strained lungs, burning calves, and a disturbed stomach. Junpei can taste blood in his mouth for how much energy he’s exerted. 

Seven appears at the top of the stairs, then and bellows at them. “Where the hell have you been?” He looks pale and drawn, nothing like the man Junpei has come to know. There has been nothing in all the loops this far to shake Seven so badly, except maybe the discovery of ‘Snake’s’ body--

“No,” he says aloud before Seven can impart his terrible, evil news. “No, don’t say it,” he asks. 

“Clover… Clover is dead.” He pulls his hat off his head, respect for the dead. “In the first class cabin. Middle of the--” 

Junpei tears up the stairs. 

It’s happening to someone else. 

This isn’t happening to Junpei. Junpei Tenmyouji has gone somewhere very far away inside himself, and he’s not coming back. Whoever is seeing this isn’t Junpei. It can’t be him, it isn’t happening to him. It’s-- It’s laughable to think that this is happening to him, because this never happens. 

If Clover dies, it is because everyone has died. Clover doesn’t just-- Clover has never--

His senses are malfunctioning. He cannot hear anything except his heartbeat. The world around him is muffled and empty, even as his fellow participants mill about in horror. His sight definitely isn’t working, because this isn’t happening. 

Clover is not curled up in the middle of the bedroom floor, a terrible gash down her back, just below her shoulder. She does not have one arm stretched out towards the door like she wanted to crawl into the light, and she does not loosely grip the axe with the other. Her shoes do not have blood drying on the soles, and her blood is not seeping into the carpet, hideously darkening the pink shade. 

He moves his mouth to speak, but no words come out. He kneels next to his friend, and presses two fingers against her neck. She is still pleasantly warm, but there is no pulse. Junpei’s face spasms. 

He has failed her, in the worst way possible. 

He glances at the axe she had taken with her, and knows that he failed to make her feel safe, too. For all his promises of protection and assurances that this would be the loop that they escaped, she hadn’t believed him. She had still tried to take matters into her own hands. She wanted the axe to protect herself, because she knew Junpei wouldn’t be able to protect her. 

She was right, of course. Clever, dead Clover. She always knows more than him. 

He thinks about what she had accused him of hours ago, and he wonders… 

Should he just kill himself? 

He doesn’t know how to do this without Clover. He’s put his trust in her for everything, and now she’s left him in the deep end, because he never bothered to figure it out for himself. He didn’t think he’d ever have to do it without her. Truth is, though, their group never stops when one of them dies. They pick themselves up and keep going: the Ninth Man, ‘Snake’, and now… he has no doubt that they will stand around in shock for a little while, and then make the journey down to the [9] Door without another thought for her. 

He knows he won’t kill himself, however. There is still Akane, and there is still a promise he made to Clover, albeit a few loops in the past. If he knows where Snake is, he is honour-bound to pull him out of the darkness. He mustn’t give up, at least not yet: there are still things to do, and he won’t betray Clover even in death. 

Everyone else eventually filters through to the large living room, and leaves Junpei, still unable to utter a word, sitting next to Clover. This is all a very, very bad dream, he thinks absently. It’s not happening. It is simply not happening. 

“I’m sorry,” he croaks. 

Seven knocks on the door frame, signalling his presence. “You alright, man?” 

“What do you think?” Junpei asks. 

“Couple of things I wanted to show you,” Seven answers coming over to the opposite side of Clover’s limp body. He turns her outstretched hand over, prising open her fingers to show Junpei that she’s got a note screwed up tight in her hand. “I haven’t looked at it. Didn’t want to disturb the scene, y’know? Basic stuff. Just… the two of you were friends, or something, right? Thought you might know more about it than the rest of us.” 

Junpei peels it out of Clover’s hand and opens it up. On it, are two cryptic sentences: Truth had gone, truth had gone, and truth had gone. Ah, now truth is asleep in the darkness of the sinister hand. Seven’s hunch was wrong. He has no idea what these words mean, either literally or why Clover thought them significant to pick up. 

He folds it away, and asks his own questions. 

“Why’d you leave this door unlocked?” Junpei asks. “You always jam the door. Why?” 

“Always?” Seven questions. “I mean, I guess I jammed Door [3]… Are you tryin’ to say I did this?” 

“No,” Junpei answers. He knows who’s guilty here, and Seven is innocent as they come. “It’s a genuine question. It’s not like we were gonna come back through here except…” he pets Clover’s hair. He can’t find it in himself to be disgusted by her corpse, or the blood pooling beneath her. It’s still just Clover. Poor, sweet Clover. 

Seven jerks his thumb over to the side door, still left open from when Snake searched through it. “The safe. Come here,” he orders, and it’s easier to do as he says than it is to summon up resistance. Junpei heaves himself to his feet, noting distantly that the cuffs of his jeans are speckled red now. 

He follows Seven to the side room, and they face the small, metal thing of such intrigue. 

Seven explains, “We couldn't open it when we were getting through this room. I figured there might be something pretty important in it. I couldn't stop thinkin' about it.” Seven gives it a generous shove, as if to show off the sturdiness of the little box. Definitely locked, Junpei notes, the same way it’s always been, hasn’t it? 

There’s a fine dusting of rust beneath the lock, though. Like someone opened it, checked its contents and locked it back up to cover their tracks. The sort of thing that Clover tends to do, constantly checking the clarity of the truth. 

And…

This note was found in Door [1], the door Clover goes through more than anyone. She would’ve figured out what it meant. Is it possible that Clover has opened this safe before, in one of the myriad loops either before or after Junpei joined her in this time-bullshit? For most people, one look would be enough, but Clover would probably keep coming back over and over… 

Which probably means this note and this safe must be connected. Junpei can’t think of another reason Clover would come back to this room, unless it's to check things she already knows. 

He manages a weak smile. Still helping him out, even now. 

The only thing to figure out is the meaning of the note. 

The sinister hand thing is easy. This thing strapped to his left wrist is pretty goddamn sinister, and there’s not much else at play. Actually looking and fiddling with the bracelet reveals that the two little nubs on the sides can be clicked and messed around with. But knowing that the bracelet can be altered is useless if he doesn’t know how he’s supposed to alter it. 

Truth had gone… truth had gone… 

Oh, the truth has gone, alright. The truth has been smothered to death and hidden away, never to goddamn return. They stabbed the truth in the back and left her to rot on the bedroom floor, for what? For what! 

“What you thinkin’?” Seven asks. 

“I’m thinking that there’s nothing right about this!” he hisses. “My friend is dead and I’m-- I’m solving puzzles? She’s left me, and I’m still trying to play this game?” He shakes his head. “Whatever. Just… whatever.” 

He clicks the protrusions back and forth. Truth had gone, truth had gone; Nothing’s right and Clover’s left him. Right, left, right, left. Agitating the buttons just for something to do, the same way he’d incessantly twist a Rubix cube around as a kid. 

A sequence of numbers flash up on the face of his bracelet, surprising both him and Seven. 

“Hey, what are those numbers?”

Junpei doesn’t answer and plugs in the code again. The same numbers flash by, and now Junpei’s sure of what he needs to do with them. Clover must’ve done this before, probably more than once. Maybe some of that knowledge is bleeding through whatever crazy time loop situation they’re in. 

He hunches over the safe, inputting the numbers to the right, to the left, back and forth until the catch releases and the door can be pulled open. There, instead of jewels or a wad of cash is a single note in neat typewriter font: 

Fact #1
The Nonary Game was played once before, nine years ago.

Fact #2
The person with the number [2] bracelet attended the game nine years ago.

Fact #3
It was planned by the following four people:

Here, it lists a bunch of names that Junpei either doesn’t recognise at all, or only faintly recognises. The smart money, though, is betting Ace is the CEO of this Cradle Pharmaceuticals, Gentarou Hongou. 

The first two facts aren’t newsworthy. The note ends with a few short sentences. 

I must punish them.

For the innocent lives they sacrificed.

This is the only warning they will receive.

That innocent souls might be saved, I now state the truth.

Junpei resists the urge to ball up the paper and throw it across the room. Innocent souls saved… It makes him sick. Clover is dead. A little girl is dead, and this Zero -- the man next door -- claims to care about innocent lives. But it wasn’t Santa that killed Clover, it was Ace. It’s always Ace, and Junpei never does enough to stop him. 

He disgusts himself. 

There’s a sound from the bedroom, and Junpei thinks a miracle has happened, until he hears Lotus’ voice. Behind her, muffled through the wall, there’s the slight clamour of their companions trying to convince her not to enter the crime scene, which she has patently ignored. 

“Junpei-- Seven--? Where the hell are you two?” She snaps, but there’s no real heat in it. 

Junpei shoves the note in his pocket and steps out into the bedroom at large. Lotus is there, pressed against the wall and doing her damndest to not look at Clover’s curled form. Junpei isn’t capable of pretending Clover isn’t in the room after all they’ve been through together. She’s no stranger to him, and he won’t treat her like one. So, morbid as it is, he sits back down next to Clover and pets her forearm. The blood has crusted into the carpet by now. 

“Junpei, Clover told us something in Door [1],” Lotus starts in a low voice that won’t carry through the halls. “About who she thought killed her brother. And I don’t think it’s a coincidence that--” She gestures shortly to Clover, but still doesn’t look down. It means she doesn’t look at Junpei, either. She tells all this to Seven. 

“I know who killed Clover and Snake,” Junpei says, calmly. “And I can prove it.” 

Lotus makes eyes at Seven. “Was it--” 

“I can prove it,” Junpei answers firmly again in lieu of an outright answer. He looks up at Seven. “That’s what you’d do, right? Beyond reasonable doubt, and all that?” 

Seven gives a stiff nod. “Son of a bitch,” he mutters. “Yeah. You wanna do it here?”

Maybe they could kill him now, and Junpei would like that a lot but… Clover wouldn’t want that. Well, that’s not necessarily true. He’s sure that Clover would want Ace dead a thousand times over, but she made it clear that she never wants Junpei to deal the killing blow. It’s the sort of obstacle that would have never occurred to Junpei, but Clover’s kinder than him. Clover wants Ace dead in the way she wants lightning to strike him, or a freak accident to occur. She wants him dead via an act of god. 

“No,” Junpei answers. “Let’s all go to the hospital room.” 

Junpei is beginning to hate every inch of this ship, and nowhere more than the hospital room. It's become their unofficial meeting point throughout all the loops, which inadvertently means he keeps receiving bad news here. Snake’s vanishing, Clover’s occasional disappearance, Akane… The point is, nothing good has ever happened here. 

Junpei’s hands shake in his pockets as he affects casualness. He doesn’t know if it’s from anger or nervousness, or some unholy amalgam. He breathes through his gritted teeth, and goes over what he knows, and what he can prove. 

WHAT HE KNOWS: 

• Ace has prosopagnosia. 
• Ace killed ‘Snake’ and Clover. 
• Ace is Gentarou Hongou. 
• Gentarou Hongou organised a Nonary Game nine years ago. 
• Snake and Clover played it. 
• That’s why he killed them: cowardly paranoia. 

HERE’S WHAT HE CAN PROVE:

• All of it. 

Of course, he doesn’t really need to prove it. Junpei knows the truth, and Santa surely does too, being Zero. Seven and Lotus suspect Ace, but they may need more proof than just Clover’s words and a terrible coincidence. 

Really, Junpei is only going to go through this make-believe court for Akane’s sake. He doesn’t want Akane to think he’s cruel and lashing out. Akane’s sense of justice is fierce, and she always wants to think the best of everyone. She had advocated for Ace when he tried to act the hero at the second set of doors. She’s always been like that, always looking out for others. Junpei has always admired that about her. 

It is Akane he’ll have to prove this to more than anyone. 

He can’t accuse Ace outright, however. He’ll weasel his way out of it somehow, and Junpei will be back at square one. No, what he needs to do is lay a trap. Brute force won’t serve them here, sorry. 

The group look at him expectantly. 

“Before we get started, I want you to do something,” Junpei announces to a series of wide eyes. 

He instructs Seve, Ace, and Lotus to place their hands on the RED outside Door [3]. It takes a little cajoling, but they do. Surprisingly, it's Lotus who acts first. Junpei wonders what exactly Clover had said in Door [1]. Junpei waves his bracelet over the scanner and pulls the lever. Predictably, Door [3] opens like a hungry mouth and the stench of death wafts out. 

Junpei turns back to their small gathering. 

“Ace, I’ve got a question.” 

Ace inclines his head. 

Junpei asks, bluntly, “Who am I?”

Ace lets out a bizarre little laugh. “What sort of question is that? You’re Junpei, of course. Who else?” 

Junpei puts on a theatrical grimace. “Unfortunately, that’s wrong. I’m Santa.” 

“Excuse me?” Ace splutters, voice tinged with confusion and just a little fear. The others seem equally confused. Santa seems especially shocked to find out he’s someone else. Ace protests, “You are not Santa!” 

“What makes you so sure?” Junpei frowns. 

“You’re wearing Junpei’s clothes!” 

Junpei shrugs. “Swapped  them.” 

Ace goes on insisting. “Your bracelet number, then! If you were Santa you’d have the [3] bracelet, and the door wouldn’t have opened. You have the [5] bracelet! You’re Junpei!” 

Junpei nods. “Exactly.” 

The remaining colour drains from Ace’s face as he begins to realise what's happening. Everyone else looks totally, helplessly lost, except Lotus. Comprehension is dawning on her face, putting together the same pieces that Junpei had in Door [6]. 

“Sorry for tricking you,” says Junpei who isn’t sorry at all. “Most people would’ve said one thing when asked why they knew I wasn’t Santa.” Junpei glances at the real Santa, paler and sharper than him in every way from his nose, to his eyes, to his elbows. Junpei turns back to Ace. “I don’t look anything like him.” 

Ace squirms, and Junpei closes the trap. 

“You have prosopagnosia, don’t you?” 

Ace grimaces. “Very well. Yes. I cannot differentiate human faces. Did my medical history require such a ridiculous farce? Do you intend to mock me?” 

Junpei does his best not to hear Ace’s voice. He tries to keep telling himself that it’s happening to someone else, not to Junpei. If it were happening to Junpei, he’d try to punch Ace. Again. 

Junpei spits out, “The man who killed Snake had prosopagnosia. And by that, I do mean you killed him, Ace.” 

“What evidence do you have?” Ace sneers, but his face is a very peculiar colour. 

Junpei repeats, “You have prosopagnosia.” 

“That’s your only evidence?” Ace looks around, trying to summon up some solidarity and discredit Junpei’s accusations. “Are you saying that people with face-blindness are predisposed to murder? Junpei, they call that prejudice!” 

“No, I’m not that stupid,” Junpei snaps, now unable to keep all his hatred for Ace contained. “Because let me tell you this: the corpse in the shower room isn’t even Snake!” His restraint slips, and Junpei’s mouth starts running away with itself. 

“Snake doesn’t have a left arm -- Clover told me so! -- but the body in there sure as hell does!” He flings an accusatory finger back towards Door [3]. “That man in there definitely isn’t Snake! But he’s wearing his clothes! You all saw the jacket!” 

Ace is muttering deliriously to himself, but the world is roaring in Junpei’s eats. If anyone has an objection or comment, Junpei doubts he’d hear it. 

He continues his tirade, “They were different people! Even wearing the same clothes, they were different people! I think only someone with prosopagnosia would’ve made that mistake! But you were so desperate--” 

“What motive could I possibly have?” Ace protests. 

“Oh my god!” Junpei shrieks, this close to tearing out his hair. “Take your pick! Snake knew your past, and hated you just as much as Clover hates you! You’ll do anything to escape it! You’d kill anyone!” 

“No, wait,” Lotus interrupts. “Past? What past?” It's the first time anyone other than Ace or Junpei has tried to speak. 

Junpei knows its rude, but he flings the crumpled note from the safe towards her. She catches it like a pro baseball star and unravels it to read it aloud. She barely gets past the first fact before she’s openly swearing, but she finishes the note. 

“What the hell is this?” Lotus demands. 

“Oh give me a break!” Ace roars, before Junpei can answer. “Why should I indulge your fit of hysterics, or that bullshit note! Zero is trying to frame me, and you are playing right into his hands. I don’t know anything about this Nonary Game from nine years ago--” 

Junpei jabs a sharp finger at him. “Don’t you fucking lie to me.” He’s no longer shouting. Instead, his voice has dropped to a tight, enraged hiss. “Don’t you dare stand there and feign ignorance. My friend is dead. Admit to it. Know when you are beat.” 

Junpei wipes his face, every inch of skin doused with sweat. He tries to plaster on some of his previous nonchalance, but everyone knows how deeply this has him rattled. His mask has slipped too far. “Besides, you said ‘me.’ You admit that you are Gentarou Hongou.”

Ace shakes his head, still trying to backpedal, still believing that he can one-up Junpei. He can’t. He won’t. Junpei refuses to let this go, no matter what. “So what? You have an invented motive, but no means. I can’t get through Door [3] without an accomplice.” 

“You could,” Lotus accuses darkly, “if you had the [9] bracelet. I was the first one to get to the first-class cabin after Seven found Clover. I knew then… What Clover had said… She said you had killed her brother, and you had done it with the [9] bracelet.” She nods, weary recognition of Clover’s deductions, and their inability to act sooner. “I checked the hallway in Door [5] before anyone else got there. The [9] bracelet was missing.” As if to prove her story, Lotus lifts her heel up. Sure enough, the sole is stained a garish red. Her face contorts in cold fury. “She probably went there to check the same thing, but you got to her first.” She barks a harsh demand of a question. “Did you kill Clover?” 

It's not a question Junpei needs to ask. He knows the truth, but the others need to know it too. 

He checks on Akane, but he needn’t have worried. If her disgusted expression is anything to go off of, she hates Ace as much as anyone. 

Nothing remotely human can be found on Ace’s face. He looks like he’s made of stone or steel. His eyes are cold and clear, and his face is eerily still except for his lips moving to speak a simple confession. 

“Yes.” 

“Why?” Lotus grits out. 

“Because she was Snake’s sister. It was likely that he told her something. When I confronted her, it was true. She knew far more than she should’ve. More than even you, Junpei.” 

It’s no revelation. It just makes Junpei’s heart twinge. 

If Ace feels even the slightest amount of remorse, it never shows. He finishes, “I admit it. I’ve lost. I have lost, completely and utterly. Don’t misunderstand, though I haven’t lost to you, Junpei. I’ve lost to Zero.”

The room dwindles into a heavy, shocked silence. 

Ace smiles flat shark-like. “Oh, come now! Why are you so upset that I killed the little bitch? Clover was nothing to you! A stranger you only met a few hours ago! Am I wrong?” 

Maybe for everyone else…

They’ve only known her a handful of hours, but for Junpei Clover has been the only constant in this whole horrible experience. She’s his only true friend, the only person who can even hope to understand him. And Ace has ripped her away from life. It rings hollow to say that she’ll come back. She has always been there. Junpei never thought he’d have to go on without Clover, despite her multiple warnings. He just assumed… 

But she’s really dead, and the game is still going.

And everyone’s shouting in protest to Ace’s accusation, Santa, Seven and Lotus each. Only one of them moves, however, and it’s Lotus. She raises her fist and drives it directly into Ace’s nose, expensive rings shredding through the skin of his cheek. 

Ace wipes a trickle of blood away. “I confess, I rather like a tough woman…” he mutters. 

“Oh! Have another one, then!” Lotus goads, and raises her arm again. Before she can throw another punch, Ace wraps his fist around her arm and tugs her in close. Her back is suddenly pinned against Ace as his arm snakes round her middle to pin her in place. In the same motion, his other hand produces something from his pocket. 

A gun. 

The revolver from Door [6], which Junpei should’ve caught but he was too preoccupied with all his burgeoning theories! He should’ve known! Why did he think he could take his eyes off Ace, even for a moment? He is paying for it dearly, now, over and over. 

Ace points it at Lotus’ temple. “If any of you move, I will shoot. You should know by now that I mean it.” 

Lotus has the sense to listen, and doesn’t fight against her capture. “Where the hell did he get this gun from? Seven?” 

Seven shakes his head, dumbfounded. 

Santa’s face twists up as he admits, “Door [6]. We found the gun in the coffin in the cargo room. The bastard must've grabbed it when we weren't looking. Fuck!” 

Ace nods, like Santa is some sort of star pupil and he, the pleased teacher. “Indeed I did. That was a pretty serious mistake, you know. Just saying you intended to leave it behind…” He tuts, but the act doesn’t last as it spills out into a short, derisive laugh. He shoots Junpei a pitying look. 

“Well, that’ll be all. I’ll be on my way now to the [9] Door. I have everything I need, after all.” As he speaks, Ace begins backing toward the door, practically dragging Lotus with him. He calls out, “Don’t play the hero! Move, and I'll pull the trigger. I don't need her alive to open the door, you know.” 

Junpei doesn’t doubt it. No one else is willing to call the bluff, and rightly so. 

Ace forces Lotus to open the door, and then they’re gone. 

They give it a moment for Ace to vacate the area before leaping into action to pursue him. Threat or not, they can’t just let him escape with Lotus so easily. 

But the moment Junpei lays a hand on the doorknob, there’s a familiar sound behind him. He looks over his shoulder and Akane is halfway to the floor, looking worse than ever. In fact, she looks so ill that Junpei could compare her to last loop when she lay on a bed, minutes before she vanished. 

“Oh Jesus! Santa swears and rushes over to her side to help her up. “Your fever is really bad,” Junpei hears him say. “Are you okay?” Santa helps her to a bed, even though he has to pick her up bodily to do so. If this annoys him in any way, it never shows. 

Akane tries to speak but her breathing is dry and shallow. It rasps into her every word. “I’m okay. You should… be worrying about Lotus…” It’s clear that it takes all her strength to talk. The worst thing is that Akane’s right. Junpei knows that there is little he can do for Akane’s strange fever except pray that it does not take her away. Lotus’ problem is one they might be able to solve. 

Akane’s eyes drift over to Junpei, as if sensing his paralytic indecision. He doesn’t think he has it in him to see another person die, or vanish. 

She offers a smile, best she can. “I just need… a little rest. Like last time… Remember?” 

Seven adds, “Come on. She’s right. Think about what Ace has done so far. You know he won’t let Lotus walk away once he’s got what he needs.” 

A flurry of images barge into the forefront of Junpei’s mind. Not all of them he remembers, but he’s certain they happened: Lotus, bloodied and dead in various different locations of the ship and her bracelet nowhere in sight. 

“Goddamn it!” Junpei shouts. 

Santa urges them to leave and promises to stay with Akane until she feels well enough to follow after them. Junpei knows every precious minute he spends protesting is another minute Ace gets closer to the [9] Door. Still, he wants to disagree with leaving Santa in charge of Akane’s care. He’s Zero, for crying out loud! 

But he remembers what Clover had said earlier today: Santa wouldn’t have done anything to Akane. Santa had protected Clover with his life, once upon a time. 

He doesn’t have time to argue, so he trusts Clover -- maybe he trusts her too much -- and takes off after Ace with Seven. 

It doesn’t take long until they reach the chapel room. There’s no sign of Ace or Lotus, and a quick look at the smaller [9] Door confirms where they’ve gone. 

“Shit!” They both curse. Junpei follows up with, “What are we supposed to do now?” 

Their digital root doesn’t add up to [9]. There isn’t anyone left who does either. Even if they had Akane and Santa it wouldn’t make a difference, not unless they had Clover and Snake-- 

Snake!

Junpei’s head whips round to the coffin perched high up on the altar. It is unchanged from when Junpei initially found it, though so much else has changed in the short period of time. 

“We have to open the coffin!” Junpei tells Seven straight. 

“How?” Seven asks incredulously as he approaches the altar with an uncharacteristic air of nervousness. 

“By force!” 

Seven laughs, like that’s never going to happen. 

Junpei stares at him like he’s grown a second head. Where’s all that bravado about his strength gone now? He has no problem throwing himself at the numbered doors! “What are those muscles for? Show? We won’t know unless we try!” Junpei exclaims. “‘The only necessity for success is the willingness to suffer a thousand failures!’”

Seven is still eyeing the coffin warily when he asks, “Who said that?” 

“I don’t know! But it’s true! We have to try!” 

Just then, a forceful noise sounds from inside the coffin. It’s the unmistakable sound of knocking. Ordinarily it would probably frighten Junpei to death, but now it only spurs him on. 

He and Seven pull with all their might on the lip of the coffin but it refuses to give way. All the while they strain to force it open, the knocking gets louder and more insistent. 

“See? What did I say?” Seven doesn’t sound pleased to have been proven right. “The only way this coffin is opening is with that.” He points to the keypad attached to the side of the coffin. 

“What the hell is the code?” Junpei asks, not expecting an answer. 

Credit to him, Seven still offers one. “The same numbers you were messing around with in the first-class cabin>” 

“Those numbers were used for the safe,” Junpei argues distractedly. He’s trying to recall a string of numbers long enough to plug in. Has he seen a number like that? Even if he had, would his swiss cheese memory deem it important enough to remember? He can’t think. 

He wishes Clover were here. 

Seven doesn’t let it go. “But it might be the same here! Why don’t we just try?” 

Junpei’s still only half listening. “Because it’s ridiculous? It’d be a waste of time.” 

Seven gives him what’s meant to be a light nudge, but feels more like a shove. “The only necessity for success is the willingness to suffer a thousand failures!” 

“Who said that?” Junpei frowns at the keyboard, and decides that no, he hasn’t seen any number that fits the criteria. 

“You,” Seven answers seriously. 

Junpei plugs in the numbers from the safe. Seven’s right: they don’t have any other ideas, and they may as well give their only hint a shot. 

1 4 3 8 3 4 2 1…

There’s a flash of green, and a click of a latch releasing. With a heavy shunt, the lid of the coffin detaches itself and slides off, falling behind the altar. Like a phoenix rising from the ashes, a man brought back from the dead, Snake sits up, looking only a little dazed. 

Junpei exclaims delightedly, the anguish of the moment dissipating now that Snake has been found. “Snake! You’re really--” 

Seven acts like he’s seen a ghost and yells, “You!” 

“Ah,” Snake smiles, a little lackadaisically. “Junpei and Seven? Is that you?” 

“Yes! Yes, it’s us!” Junpei nods feverishly. 

Snake turns his head to the left and to the right, as if he’s looking around the room but Junpei knows that can’t be the case. He must be listening for anyone else who might be trying to keep their presence hidden. “Where are the others? Are they elsewhere?”

It’s only then does Junpei realise what a strange outfit Snake has on. Obviously, Zero hadn’t gone through the effort of buying clothes for Snake’s body double and had instead stripped Snake for every square inch of fabric on him. He’s now dressed in a set of thick cult-like robes, jet black with blood red accents, including unfamiliar insignias. He has no shoes, but he still has his [2] bracelet. Zero saw fit to recreate that, at least. 

“They’re upstairs,” Seven explains, voice softer than anything Junpei’s ever heard from him. Junpei looks at Seven, trying desperately to catch his eye. Seven doesn’t shy away and they share a hard, painful look. In that moment, they both understand that neither of them are to tell Snake about Clover. 

They take a moment to explain the situation to Snake, but he doesn’t even try to act surprised for Seven’s benefit. Doubtless, Clover has taken great pains every loop to fill him in on the impending situation. He’s probably known that Ace was his would-be murderer before he even met Ace. 

Snake, in exchange, briefly details what had happened in the corridor, but they’d gotten a pretty identical story from Clover earlier. He doesn’t shed any light on the situation, and when asked about the first Nonary Game, plays dumb. 

He frowns. “Um... What are you talking about? I apologise, but I have no idea what you mean.” 

“But the note--” Seven protests. 

“I really have no idea,” Snake insists, and refuses to compromise on that position for anything no matter how many times Seven asks, or tries to trick him into revealing the truth. 

As happy as Snake’s return is, it doesn’t change their most pressing issue and has, in fact, kind of made it worse. Ace is still getting away with Lotus’ life in his power, and the three of them still don't have a digital root of [9] between them. If Akane made a miraculous recovery, everyone but Junpei could journey on, but she’s still nowhere in sight. 

“What are we supposed to do now?” Junpei asks again. He’s grown too used to Clover having a game plan, and Junpei being happy to listen. “We still can’t get through the [9] Door…” 

“Our digital root equals [5],” Snake unhelpfully supplies. Junpei had missed him. 

Seven perks up. “Oh... Hey, I just remembered something.” He starts patting himself down, searching for some mysterious item. In the overpowering silence of the chapel, his movements make a faint, uncanny echo. “Aha! Here!” He produces a numbered bracelet and for a stomach churning second, Junpei thinks it will be Clover’s. 

2 + 4 + 5 + 7 = 18
1 + 8 = 9 

But it isn’t that at all. Seven’s too good to even think to do that. On the face of this bracelet is [0]. Junpei knows where he got it from. He’s seen this bracelet a couple times now. This is undoubtedly from the fake-out captain in the Captain’s Quarters. Seven and Lotus would’ve brought up the presence of another person, dead or alive, by now, so Junpei supposes that Clover did something to hide him away. In a way, Junpei’s initial fear wasn't wrong: Seven did get this bracelet from Clover. 

“Oh… The zero bracelet…” Junpei mutters. 

“What the hell?” Snake butts in. “I’m sorry, what? Zero’s bracelet? Where did you get that?” 

If Snake could see, Seven would have instantly given the truth away. His face twists like he’s sucked a sour lemon and he looks away from him. “Uh, Clover gave it to me.”

“She did?” 

Seven shrugs awkwardly, more like he’s trying to get something off him. “Sure. Found it in the Captain’s Quarters in Door [1], and she asked me to carry it for her. Said it was too bulky for her to be luggin’ around.” 

It’s a passable lie, and Snake seems to swallow it too. 

“You two should go on ahead then,” Junpei manages, despite how much he absolutely does not want to get left behind. “You need to get to Lotus and Ace as soon as possible.” 

“Very well,” Snake says as Seven goes, “Are you serious?” 

“No! Yes! I don’t know!” Junpei complains. “Does the RED even pick up that bracelet?” he asks. 

Seven scans it, and an asterisk does pop up. This bracelet is the real deal. Seven and Snake scan their bracelets too and just before he pulls the lever, Seven assures Junpei they won’t take off without him. Junpei thinks its a stupid promise, but appreciates it all the same. 

He needn’t have worried, though. The RED blares out a cutting error noise. 

“How come that didn’t work?” Seven frowns. “It definitely registered. I saw those asterisks.” 

Snake mulls it over, before saying, “Maybe it isn’t registering as a [0], then? It’s coded to act as a different number?” He gestures to where Seven is staring dumbstruck at the hopefully not malfunctioning bracelet. “We should try some other combinations, and it may reveal itself.” 

“Um,” Junpei begins. There’s not many combinations they could try with the four of them. It wouldn’t take long, but Junpei would love to get this on the first try. “Well, Snake was in the coffin… Maybe we should imagine that we… didn’t find him.” He winces, and turns to apologise to Snake, who brushes it off. 

Seven, Junpei and the bracelet scan together. If this works, the bracelet’s true value will be a [6]. Junpei knows, logically, that the bracelet has to be a copy of one of the numbers already in play, but he doesn’t like that it’s [6]. That’s Akane’s number, and he doesn’t know what the implications of two [6] bracelets would be. Granted, there were technically two [2] bracelets, counting the mysterious corpse in Door [3]… It could mean nothing. 

The door opens, confirming the bracelet’s number. 

Maybe Zero is just some sort of savant and knew that Junpei and Seven would be the ones to pursue Ace. So far, stranger things have happened. It’s a belief he’s willing to subscribe to for the time being. 

The door swings shut. 

Somewhere below them, there’s the sound of groaning metal. Faintly, water rushes through the cavern of the ship, rising up and telling them one thing is certain: their time is up. Normally, after a bout of this the noise would settle as the metal eased into place, but it doesn’t stop now. It’s like a cold and lonely wind howling through the ship. 

“That’s not a good sign,” Seven says, a little obviously. “Our time’s up.” 

“What does that matter?” Snake complains. “We know the door can be opened! We have to go and follow Ace and Lotus!”

“We’ll be leaving you behind,” Seven points out. “Are you really okay with that?” 

Snake offers a wry smile. Somehow, through all this, he still looks smug. Impressive for a man with bed hair and the stupidest outfit ever conceived. “Oh, I have my ways.” He stretches his left arm out and feels his way to the bracelet and his slender wrist.  “A last resort, but if this isn’t a moment for last resorts, when else?” 

There’s a horrible crunch. 

The three of them take off down the hallway, the rules of the numbered doors circumvented by Snake’s gross display. Of course, Junpei’s pretty sure that the bombs are yet another ruse devised by Zero -- he’s beginning to think that Zero doesn’t actually want anyone dead, but that thought brings back the memory of Clover, so he stops thinking about it -- but he hadn’t had time to tell Snake that before he was breaking his wrist. Plus, it would only invite questions about how Junpei knew. They don’t have time for that. 

“Why didn’t you do that earlier, kid?” Seven asks as they run, hardly even out of breath. Junpei doesn’t know how he can make leisurely conversation at a time like this. Junpei genuinely thinks he’s gonna hurl. 

“Prosthetics are expensive,” Snake says. “What if I broke it? Besides, I don’t think anyone would take kindly to that party trick. You would have suspected me of being Zero, and I didn’t like my chances of playing this game if that was the conclusion you all came to.” 

They skid down a set of stairs that seems to keep going and going, all the way to what has to be the bottom deck. Despite being in the belly of the beast, Junpei can see no sign of the flood that must be on them soon. He won’t look a gift horse in the mouth though, but when they get to the end of the stairs, Junpei is beginning to wish for the water. 

Before them is a huge iron door, like a garage. A sign in huge warning letters reads ‘INCINERATOR.’ There’s nowhere else for Ace and Lotus to have ended up. They will be behind this door. 

Junpei reads it aloud for Snake’s benefit. Almost as if a switch was flicked, his face crumbles. “There ought to be a lever by the door. I suggest you pull it,” is all Snake says in response. 

Seven shoots him a look. “How did you know that?” 

“Another of my little tricks,” he says in the same way he had claimed ignorance of the first Nonary Game. They won’t be getting anything out of Snake about it any time soon. 

Junpei tugs on the lever and the incinerator doors grumble open. The noise is hellish, groaning worse than the ship has been. The metal squeals like nails on chalkboard but it does make way for them. 

Junpei almost wishes it didn't. 

Inside, Ace still has Lotus at gunpoint and it’s clear he hasn’t let up even once; a painful dark bruise is forming against her temple where the gun has been firmly pressed to her. She’s pale and sweating -- more fear than exertion -- trembling in every limb. It’s obvious even from this far away, but Ace’s warning rings in his ears. If he tries to step in, will he simply shoot Lotus? Lotus must have the same thought because her eyes are bulging her head, trying to communicate a thousand pleas and bargains with a single petrified look. 

Behind them, an even more disturbing sight: another [9] Door. 

…Why?

 Before he has time to question it, a terrible klaxon shrieks through the incinerator telling them a terrible fate: “Emergency incineration command has been acknowledged. Automatic incineration will take place in nine minutes.” 

Junpei freezes. Oh, he would much prefer the rushing water now. In a few short minutes… this room will be engulfed in flame and razed to the ground. If they’re stuck in here when those nine minutes are up… Junpei doesn’t even want to think about what that would do to the human body. 

Ace lets out a twisted laugh and his manic smile cannot reach his eyes. Junpei never knew a smile could be so terrifying, too sharp, too white, too wrong. Something is wrong with the fear centre in his brain, Junpei thinks. Oh my god. How can he be pleased at this? Junpei can’t even die properly and he’s still too scared to move. He wants to! But his feet just won’t obey. 

“Oh my... How exciting. You've run quite a show here, Zero!” he shouts up into the ceiling, but Zero is not here. He snaps his head back down to the motionless trio. “What’s the matter? Too scared to understand? It said--” 

“It said that the incineration system is about to activate.” Snake cuts him off. His voice is clear as a bell and does not show fear. “In nine minutes, this room will be engulfed in flames.” 

Ace’s demented confidence falters as Snake speaks up. Not that he relaxes enough for Lotus to get free or for any of them to make a move. “Who…?” 

Snake presses his hand to his chest, mock offense. “You don’t recognise me? I’m hurt. It’s me, Snake.” His voice is dripping with sarcasm. Junpei wishes he could take pleasure in this little game. It must be hugely satisfying for Snake to be able to play cat and mouse in this way, just as Clover took a terrible pleasure in screaming and running after Ace with an axe, once. Catharsis is the word that comes to mind. 

Ace sneers. Lotus flinches against the renewed pressure of the gun. “Ah, yes… So you are alive.” He makes a disgusted noise at the back of his throat. “I’m… so glad to see you, though your strange attire had me confused.” 

The grinding of Snake’s teeth is nearly audible. 

Ace continues, counting up the trio. “If you don't mind my asking, how did you get here? The three of you couldn't have opened a door with a [9]…” His face lights up. “Oho! Did you use Clover’s bracelet?” 

Snake is already a very pale man, but that remark blanches all the colour from him. He is whiter than white, closer to a ghost than a human. His cheek spasms uncontrollably, out of control from the time it had in the first-class cabin. This time, he does not bother to massage the tic away. 

“What did you say?” Snake demands. 

This may as well be Christmas for Ace. “Oh! They didn’t even tell you? Why, that’s not nice, Junpei.” His voice overlaps with Snake’s increasingly loud interrogation about why on earth they’d be in possession of Clover’s bracelet, and what does he mean, what happened to Clover? 

“Tell me!” Snake shouts across the room. He doesn’t sound angry, though. He sounds like a little boy, fearful and begging. Pleading isn’t something Junpei’s ever heard, nor expected from Snake. He doesn’t like it at all, and his chest is tightening like a vice as they approach the inevitable. “What happened to Clover?” 

Ace’s smile goes crooked, and Junpei’s heart goes into freefall. 

Junpei starts mumbling then, a tiny quiet prayer for himself. “Don’t tell him. Don’t tell him. Keep your mouth shut.” But he can’t keep it in, just as he couldn’t keep his head in the hospital room. Without realising it, his words grow louder and louder until he is also screaming and begging Ace not to impart the horrible truth. 

Don’t tell him. Please, don’t tell him. Clover isn’t even really dead. She’ll be back soon, she’ll be back so, so soon. I can get her back right now if someone just hands me something sharp, or if Ace turns the gun on me. If we just wait a few minutes, she’ll be back with us. Don’t tell him. Snake will go insane, because I feel insane and she’s not my sister, not properly. 

I failed her. I failed you, Snake. I keep fucking this up no matter how many times I have to get it right. I got you back, but I had to give up Clover to do it. I hate it. I hate all of this. I’d rather have her, and I know you would too. I wish it were me. I wish it were anyone else. I couldn’t protect her. I couldn’t be there. I was wrong. I was so, so wrong. 

This can’t be happening. This isn’t happening to me. 

And it isn’t. It’s happening to Snake. 

Ace’s smile rises impossibly higher, twisted like a fish hook and just as sharp. He obviously takes great pleasure in saying, “Clover… died.” 

Snake shakes his head. His hair falls into his face, obscuring parts of his features but Junpei doesn’t need to be able to see Snake properly to know how he’s feeling. Junpei had felt a fraction of it an hour ago. 

“No…” he stammers, for the first time. Always so cool, calm, and collected, Snake is now deeply shaken to the point of losing the power of speech. “No, you’re lying! It’s a lie… It has to be a lie…” 

Ace chirps, “Oh, I assure you it’s the truth. I killed her myself, you see.” 

It’s the nail in the coffin. Junpei knows there is no return from this confession. There is no possible string of words in any language ever invented that could dissuade Snake from his total, obliterating rage. The man’s face is no longer deathly pale. Now it is mottled a furious red. The colour rises up into his cheeks and his whole body trembles. 

Clover stews in her rage. Hers is a slow acting poison, building up and up until it was impossible to ignore and death spilt out the top. She’s the true snake of the pair of siblings; lying in wait for an opportune time until she can find her fangs, the axe. Only then will she strike. 

Snake… Oh, Snake… 

His is lightning in a bottle. Long unseen and difficult to come by the genuine artifact, but when it strikes it is pure and blinding. Snake’s anger is precise and deadly, suddenly called upon. Snake will not wait, now that he knows the truth. Ace is a lightning rod, and Snake’s anger has been focused solely on him. 

He knows, with utter surety, that Ace is going to die. 

Ace loses himself in reminiscing about the moment of Clover’s death. Junpei had been hearing his voice for some time, but it’s only now he hears the words. “My first thrust went right between her ribs. Her flesh was so soft. My knife slid in so easily. There was no resistance.” He lets out a sigh. “That feeling was… I confess, I feel rather excited. It is a powerful memory.”

Light’s eyes flutter open and he blinks. “I’m going to kill you,” he states as the incineration alarm warns them of their ever-shortening time limit. “I… am going to kill you…” His words are guttural and barely audible under normal circumstances, but here they are clearly heard.

Ace raises an eyebrow. “Oh, please do. Come now, I’m waiting. We don’t have much time, you see.” 

“Don’t do it!” Junpei begs. “Snake, listen to me, don’t do it! Don’t listen to him!” 

Seven echoes his remarks, the first time his throat has come unstuck for this showdown. “He’s screwin’ with your head, kid. Stop it! Just stop it!” But it’s unsure if those last remarks are meant for Ace or Snake. 

It doesn’t matter. Neither of them are listening. 

Ace continues to goad him into attack and Junpei and Seven try to bargain with Snake, but he is in his own private world of rage and no words will reach him. His limbs tremble with rage and his feet shift on the concrete of the incinerator floor. Something irreparable has broken inside him, the same thing that breaks inside Clover every time she thought she had failed to protect her brother. There will be no reprieve, and Junpei knows he’s beyond saving but he owes it to Clover to try. 

She had asked him once before, that even if she died it was important to her that Snake got out of the Nonary Game regardless. He’s thinking of that now. He hasn’t stopped thinking about Clover for a minute since he found her. He knows what Snake is about to do, but not because of any prior experience. He just knows Clover, knows the love they have for each other and the lengths they will go. 

Junpei knows what it is to care about Clover now.

So he knows what Snake is about to do. 

Junpei doesn’t stop him. 

Snake moves like lightning across the room with a horrible, wretched scream. For a moment, Junpei truly believes that Snake will do the impossible, but Ace turns the gun on him in an instant and doesn’t hesitate to squeeze the trigger. 

The almighty shot is like no noise Junpei has ever heard. It deafens him for a second as it riots through the enclosed space, and then there is the noise of tearing flesh and a body hitting the floor, hard. 

Another scream cuts through the chaos and for a moment, Junpei thinks it must be his own, but then Lotus is screeching across the room as fast as her bloodied sandals will take her. Her eyes are wide with terror, but the fear does not slow her down even as she gets closer to Junpei and Seven. She ducks behind the pair, her nails digging into Junpei’s forearm and those pinpricks of physical pain force him to reckon with the fact that he is here, and this is happening to him. 

He can hear Lotus whimper frightfully when Ace shoots them an evil look and outstretches his hand. “Give me the woman,” Ace demands, not sparing a look at the corpse at his feet. 

Snake is curled up in the middle of the room looking somehow simultaneously angelic and like a shrivelled up bug. Junpei cannot see any blood, but there must be. It must’ve just absorbed into the thick material of his robes, creating the illusion that he is unharmed. 

Junpei swings out a protective arm to create a bigger shield for Lotus to hide behind. The announcement warns them that only five minutes remain. 

Ace sighs frustratedly, like this is all no more than a big misunderstanding. He drops his outstretched, empty hand, and raises the gun instead. “I see. You leave me little choice! The rest of you must die. Fortunately this gun has five bullets left: one for Junpei, one for Lotus, and three for that oaf.” He gestures at Seven harshly. 

Junpei doesn’t care about the bullet. He’s been stabbed, slashed, and drowned. A bullet’s a mercy compared to the incinerator. He only wonders what the sensation will be like when he wakes. 

Behind Ace, an unholy miracle is taking place. Snake is slowly rising to his feet, but he is rising. Junpei makes a strangled noise and points at the man. Ace spins, and for the first time his composure breaks. 

“What…? No! No, that’s impossible!” 

Snake doesn’t care about what is possible and what is not. With a staggering effort he lunges towards Ace with his arms outstretched looking every bit like a zombie.  His fingers momentarily grasp the edge of Ace’s sleeve, but slip as the man staggers backwards away from the unnatural pursuit. 

The revolver cracks the air five more times, the bullets promised to Seven, Junpei and Lotus embedding themselves in Snake’s torso. Ace doesn’t miss a single shot. It’d be hard to, this close. 

Snake collapses to the floor again. This time blood seeps out from under him and Junpei can see the places the bullet ripped though his body cleanly -- fabric flaps across his back in sporadic intervals. 

Three minutes. Junpei feels Lotus tug insistently on his sleeve. 

Even this is not enough for Snake, though. Even as his body is punctured and pouring out blood, he crawls forward on his stomach. His eyes are open wide, the same blue-green as his sister’s, the colour of the ocean and his are vicious whirlpools of hate. 

“I’ll kill… you… I’ll… kill you…” They’re the only words he’s capable of and he continues his impossible advance towards Ace. His arms outstretch to ensnare Ace’s leg and he pulls him forcefully to the ground with a strength that should’ve been robbed from him with the first gunshot. 

Ace kicks and screams at Snake, but Snake does not relent. His arms remain twisted around Ace’s calf and thigh, fingers clenched tight against his trouser leg. Snake even manages a bloodied smile as his words are choked with his own blood. “We’re going to burn here… I am going to kill you…” 

“You’ll die with me!” Ace protests, still stamping at Snake’s face, shoulder, arm, anywhere that he can possibly kick. It does nothing, as Junpei, Seven and Lotus watch on in a sort of awed horror. “You don't have to die. You can be saved! Just...let me go!” 

Snake laughs. “I have it on good authority that I'm not supposed to be alive…” His hold on Ace tightens. “Pathetic. Begging for your...life…” 

It’s too much for the three of them to watch any more and they break out into pleading, trying to persuade Snake to let Ace go. He’s done enough -- this is enough, he has to let go! They only have two minutes until… They have to leave together! 

Snake shakes his bruised face. “I'm going to...take him with me…” Ace protests with a further barrage of cries and kicking. “I couldn't...save Clover. My sister died...because of me… It’s only meant to be… me, who dies.” He laughs weakly. “Perhaps… she will forgive me… in the afterlife.” 

Junpei could get him out now if he tried. He wants to. There is nothing more he wants than to be able to drag Snake out of this incinerator in his miraculous state. He doesn’t care if Ace lives or dies, so long as he can secure Snake’s safety. He should have stopped him when Snake ran at Ace the first time. He should’ve stopped him if he knew. He knew it wouldn’t end well, suicidal and sacrificial, because nothing matters if Clover’s dead. 

He could prise Snake off of Ace’s leg. It’d be easy with Seven’s help. He looks so frail; he can’t have much more strength left. The gun has no more bullets in it, so that isn’t a threat. He could. He should. It’s what Clover would want -- it is ostensibly her dying wish, and Junpei knows it. 

He turns to Seven to tell him this plan and… 

No words come out. Not even a choke. 

The alarm sounds for one more minute until the incineration process begins. Seven and Lotus cut their losses and abide by Snake’s words. They scramble backwards towards the exit, shouting for Junpei to do the same but he’s stuck in place, watching the horrific struggle that he knows he can stop. He knows he can pull him out of there and he wants to, he wants Snake alive more than he wants Ace dead. That’s an easy choice. 

But if he gets Snake out of here now, he is beholden to escape… If they escape, the loop may snap shut like a bear trap. Clover will be dead. Clover… dead, forever. Snake, alive in Clover’s place. They’d both hate it, but he has to… he has to honour Clover… 

But she’s dead. 

He throws himself towards Snake and Ace, all rational and logical thinking abandoned. He doesn’t want anyone else to die. He doesn’t want Snake to die; Clover’s brother, the man they’ve been fighting tooth and nail to save this whole time. Junpei can’t find him and then discard him like trash! 

He manages two steps before Seven has him in a punishing hold, keeping him back. 

“Don’t be an idiot, Junpei!” He roars, pinning Junpei’s arms and hauling him backwards. Junpei thrashes against his hold but it’s useless, totally useless. Snake’s mistreated body gets smaller and smaller until Junpei is on the other side of the door, and can only witness it through a tiny window. 

Even through the thick metal, it is hotter than anything he has ever experienced. 

He stands there for what feels like hours. 

Eventually he summons the energy to tear his eyes away from the tiny window. He turns and starts walking up the corridor they’d come from. He doesn’t have much of a plan. Anywhere other than here is good. It’s only when Lotus and Seven, both looking exhausted, ask where he’s going, does he invent an answer. “You stay here. I'll go get Santa and June.”

They’re the first words out of his mouth, so they must be true. He starts to trudge down the hallway, and doesn’t look back at Seven and Lotus. He doesn’t hear their footsteps. They aren’t following him, possibly because every step feels like an impossible mountain to climb. Junpei doesn’t blame them. He doesn’t blame anyone except himself. 

Why hadn’t he said something? 

Why hadn’t he acted sooner? 

He tortures himself by replaying the moment of crisis in his head, but no matter how he imagines it, he can’t get himself to move even with the power of imagination. In every permutation, Clover is still dead, so Junpei doesn’t move. He could’ve done more, but that would’ve invited the closure of the loop and Junpei… Junpei couldn’t risk that. 

Clover’s still dead. 

Now, Snake really is. 

Somewhere down the corridor, there’s an elevator no one had noticed in the rush to find Ace and Lotus. He regards it impassively, then presses the button beside it. The doors open without a moment’s delay and Junpei steps in. 

The elevator lets him out into the hospital room. He calls out for Santa and Akane, eyes scanning the room all the while. Neither of them are anywhere in sight, nor do they answer his shouts. He frowns. The only emotion that weasels his way into his leaden heart is worry. 

Where could they have gone? 

Well, the answer to that is obvious, Junpei assures himself. They said that they would make their way down to Door [9] if Akane was feeling better, so that’s what they must've done. 

It takes a herculean effort, but Junpei gets himself down to the chapel room. His body doesn’t feel like it belongs to him, and he doubts it ever will again. Junpei’s not sure what it ever felt like. He can’t remember what it felt like. All he can remember is the way Snake’s voice had trembled with rage and grief when he condemned himself to the slaughter, all to kill a man who will be back tomorrow. 

Of course, Snake and Clover will be back soon but it does alleviate his aching heart or his stiff body. He feels like rigour mortis is setting in, and he’ll be more fit for that coffin than anything else. 

Junpei pushes his way into the chapel, half expecting to find neither of them there.

Except…

“Kanny!” Junpei yells, not caring about whether or not anyone is in earshot. 

In the middle of the room, between the gleaming pews, Akane Kurashiki is lying on her back so, so still. Fear stabs at him, but he didn’t know another icy knife of fear could fit in his wrung out body. He goes to her as fast as he’s capable of, hands skimming her frantically as he looks for the tell tale sign of life. 

Her chest rises and falls in staccato breaths and some of the tension releases its grip on Junpei. 

Her pretty face is deathly pale, and her mouth has been bleached of its rosiness to leave only a chapped, cracking wasteland. She looks like she’s made of wax and the fever she’s suffered has burnt her down. Her eyes are blank and cloudy, and Junpei frets that they see nothing. 

He wraps an arm around her, sitting her up half in his lap. He had expected heat to radiate through her clothes. They’re damp with sweat, but she’s frighteningly cold. She’s even colder than Clover had been, lying on the first-class cabin carpet. 

He’s been here before. This is what happened last loop, in the hospital room. She’s fading. Junpei doesn’t know how to bring her back. Junpei doesn’t even know what’s taking her away.

“Kanny? Kanny, hey, talk to me.” He gives her a little shake, like all she needs is a good scare to wake her up properly. “What happened? Where’s Santa?” 

Her eyelashes flutter, and she manages a tiny, happy smile. “Oh… Jumpy, you’re here…” 

“Of course I’m here,” he assures her. “I’m here. Always here… Never should’ve left you alone,” he apologises. He presses a kiss to her hairline, the only thing he can do for her now. Oh, how he’s longed to have her near, but not like this. She smells like ash. 

She nestles into him. Junpei wishes she wouldn’t move. He’s sure it takes more effort than it’s worth. “Jumpy… I’m sorry.” 

Her voice is so faint, like music playing from another room. 

“I don’t think… I’m going to make it…” 

He shakes his head. “No, no, please… No, not you too.” His eyes fill with tears, and he hates it. He blinks them away. He doesn’t want anything to blur his view of Akane, not now, not ever. “I’ll save you, I will, I won’t let you die! You can’t die!” His voice cracks. 

“I know…” she whispers. “You’ll always rescue me, Jumpy… like when we were kids…” She shakes, and Junpei thinks she’s trying to laugh. She whimpers in pain. “Thank you… for everything. I'm so glad I got to see you again…” 

“You’ll see me again,” Junpei swears. “You will… Fuck!” he swears under his breath. “What’s happening, Kanny? Why is this happening?” There’s nothing even remotely similar about this loop and the last. There’s no common culprit for why Akane would… 

How is this happening? 

“Jumpy, did you know… You meant a lot to me when we were kids… I've liked you for a long time, Junpei... A really...long...time…” Her voice fades away, dwindling into nothing. She relaxes into his arms, like the whole time she hadn’t let herself rest entirely. 

The last light inside Junpei goes out. 

He wants to wake up from this now. 

There’s a crack of static from above his head, and a voice cuts through the room. 

“Game over,” it announces. Junpei hasn’t heard that voice in hours. It is not the clinical sweetness of the incinerator’s announcement, nor is it one of his fellow players. Except… it sort of is. 

Junpei looks up at the ceiling and shouts. “Zero! Santa, you bastard, where are you?” He scans the ceiling for where the noise might be emanating from, wondering if he can’t break it and permanently shut it up! 

The voice continues, “I am right here. I've always been close to you.” 

“Santa, I’m going to kill you!” he shouts at the ceiling. “What the hell are you talking about! Be a man and get out here!” 

The voice, obviously not pre-recorded, ignores him. “No matter. I will tell you again. Game over. This game has ended.”

“It’s never fucking over,” Junpei weeps, clutching Akane close. “I wish this game would end, I wish I knew what you wanted,” he hisses, but he doubts Santa can hear him, wherever he is. “How am I supposed to win this?” he calls out. “What did we do wrong! I found Snake-- I found--” His voice drops back down. “I still couldn’t protect her… or Clover…” 

Zero, Santa, whoever is on the other side of the speaker answers, “You chose the wrong path. This path was inevitable, however. Admit defeat.”

Know when you’re beat. That’s what he had demanded Ace do.

Junpei doesn’t have an ounce of fight left in him. Perhaps if this was his first time in this game… but it isn’t. It won’t be his last, either. He might go on for years and years in this place, forced to watch the people he cares about die over and over and over again. 

Still… it’s a bitter pill to swallow. 

Zero continues, melancholic even through the static. “Where there is shadow, there is light. Where there is light, there is shadow. So it goes.”

“What the fuck are you talking about?” Junpei spits out. 

“The loser has been decided,” Zero replies. 

“No… No, maybe this time I’ve lost… but next time, or maybe the time after that…” he murmurs. “We will win. We are going to get out of here. I’ll get Akane out of here. Clover, Snake, everyone… I’m not losing.” He looks up at the ceiling, choosing a fixed point and levelling his stare there. He does his best to look Zero in the eye. His lack of fight doesn’t have to negate all his determination.

 If not this one, then the next. And if not that one, the one after that. Clover will never have to play another minute of the game that ruined her life, and Akane will never be afflicted with fever -- not if he can help it. He’s choosing that. 

This is the worst thing that could’ve ever happened. It won’t happen again. 

There’s a long beat before Zero speaks again. “No. You misunderstand. You haven't lost. I have lost.” With that, the speaker cuts out with a high pitched whine and then there’s nothing else. 

Junpei breathes out through his teeth, when he’s frightened by a loud slam of the door. Santa? Who else? Everyone else is dead or downstairs. He shuffles Akane off his lap and places her extremely gently against the side of one of the pews. 

“I’ll be one second, just one--” he promises her, giving her a reassuring squeeze on the shoulder that he knows she can’t feel. Somehow, she manages to nod in recognition and that gives Junpei hope he didn’t know he was capable of. 

He steps out into the hallway, hoping to catch Santa. If he catches Santa-- he doesn’t know what he’ll do, but he’ll sure as hell be demanding some answers. There’s nothing, though. Just a slight breeze from some unknown source. 

He slips back inside, but when he turns, Akane is missing. 

He doesn’t have the energy left to be surprised. The same part of him that knew he was condemning Snake to death when he did not move, knows that the moment he turned away from Akane, she would be lost to him. Part of him knew… and he did it anyway. 

The tears finally fall across his face, carving crystalline paths down his cheeks. The sensation is wet, and cold, and he feels numb all over. 

Akane… 

Akane… Where are you… What’s wrong? Is there something you aren’t telling me…? 

He walks over to the place he left her and touches the wood gently, like some faint imprint or echo of her spirit resides here. He knows she isn’t. Right now, she isn’t anywhere. 

But soon… Soon, she will be on B-Deck with all the others, and she will trip down the stairs and Junpei will catch her. They’ll do this all again: just another nine hours of the worst night of their lives. 

Akane Kurashiki will be alive, though. That’s all that matters. 

Clover, Snake, and Akane, will all be alive. 

There’s a faint hissing at his feet and a plume of white smoke, like a geyser fountain. The smell is strange and familiar. He knows it mixed in with the stale smell of his apartment, lingering in the dusty side room he found Clover in and now he knows what it smells like intermixed with sandalwood and incense. 

When he wakes, he’s hitting the punishing concrete of the third-class cabin, and there’s a bruise on his head.