The screen changed again, but Tenko, before even looking at them, touched the screen of her Monopad and navigated to the messages part, intent in establishing a connection with Kirumi.

But it was at that point that the Multiplicity Game showed yet another one of its fangs.

When she tried to message Kirumi, she saw that her name (and all the others as well) was grayed out, and trying to touch it elicited the message "While in a Challenge Room, connections can only be established between Commanders and Subordinates".

Tenko checked the forum almost without thinking, and saw that it was also blocked. Suddenly, she remembered about that Commander – Subordinate link function she had seen earlier, and Tenko's mind worked in overdrive, making connections about what she knew of the game.

The word that came to her mind was "Factions". The fact that the way to make teams was based around commanders and subordinates meant that the power in each team would be concentrated in the hands of one person, and that would pave the way to the development of factions, instead of allowing the Ultimates to actually team up and try to help each other.

And factions would definitely start forming. Considering how important it was to pass through the Challenge Doors, the ability of being able to obtain help while inside them was simply too valuable to pass by.

It was yet another sign that the players were being set up to work against each other.

All those thoughts passed through Tenko's mind so fast that only two seconds had passed on the timer when she looked at it. The Detective spared a thought to wonder what Kirumi's reaction would be, before looking at the screen and focusing.

The screen had a few words on it:

"Hello, Detective. Choose which one doesn't belong."

And after that he saw row after row of code numbers, all of them in the form of (letter)-(number)(number). One example was M-15.

The timer started going down, and Tenko looked around the screen in vain, searching for some other clue that she could use to solve the mystery. She didn't find anything, nothing that seemed out of place and could be used as a hint. So she changed her focus.

Tenko knew that this was one of the challenge rooms, so it was fairly likely that the whole room was part of the challenge. Tenko looked around herself. The only things of note in that room were the posters depicting groups of people. She examined them closer, looking for patterns.

She didn't have a lot of luck. The groups of people didn't have a consistent ratio of men and women, didn't have a consistent color, didn't have a consistent theme. Some of them were groups of similar people, like soldiers, while others had a variety of people with a diversity of professions. Some included people of similar ages, like a graduation photo, while others had people of disparate ages, like a photo of a family.

Even the angles the photos had been taken from where varied. Some were taken from very close while others from far away, some were taken from the front, while others from above. And while Tenko managed to find a few patterns, she was pretty sure they were coincidental.

And time was passing. Tenko now only had three and a half minutes left to complete the challenge. Fear start creeping up upon her heart, but she forced herself to calm down and think about things from another angle.

She didn't seem to find patterns on the posters, but perhaps it would be possible to relate the posters with the codes on the screen? At that thought, she suddenly had an idea. Tenko looked for the highest number code, and found out that it was C-35.

She looked around the room at the posters, and soon found what she was looking for. The most numerous group of people on any image was a poster of a crowd of people on a street. Counting the people, she found out that there were exactly thirty-five of them.

"Crowd" and "Thirty-Five" = C-35. It seemed to hold up, but Tenko decided to check whether it was a coincidence or not. She looked around and found another poster with a group of twelve soldiers, and turned back to the screens to look at the codes.

In just a few moments, she found it. S-12, which could mean "Soldiers" and "Twelve". Feeling like she was on the right track, she decided to try the opposite direction. Tenko randomly chose one of the codes of the screen (D-18) and looked around the posters to look for something that fit.

After just a bit of search, she found a poster that depicted a group of eighteen dancers, which completely fit the pattern of the D-18. Feeling excited now that she had solved part of the puzzle, Tenko dived into trying to match codes and posters.

She did it fast, using every ounce of concentration she could afford to put into the task. However, Tenko still reserved a tiny bit of attention to look at the timer, and it was that bit of attention that snapped her out of her reverie when there were forty-five seconds left on the timer.

The Detective came to a horrible realization: There were too many posters and codes, and she simply did not have time to match each and every single one of them. Tenko felt an icy grip of panic trying to take hold of her heart. She could not think. She had not idea what to do.

At that time, she remembered the words of her teacher:

'Hyperfocusing is a dangerous habit to have. It makes you unable to pay attention to anything except what you are thinking about.'

And feeling a burst of inspiration, Tenko did the opposite of what she had been taught to do and deliberately hyperfocused on her task.

And suddenly, there was nothing in the world, except her and the question. Tenko didn't feel the cold of the manacle on her arm, she forgot about the looming time limit, and she simply dedicated herself completely to solving the problem.

What hints did she have? Posters and codes. What was the question? Which one doesn't belong. Can you figure out any poster that specially doesn't fit in? No. What else could the question be referring to? Since I'm also in the room, it could refer to me. That would mean the number would be 01, are there any codes with that number? Yes, four of them.

At that point. Tenko's brain entered into a new line of thought. What are those five codes? C-01, T-01, D-01 and U-01. Can you discount any of them based on the posters? No, because there are no posters with only one person. Which of the letters could refer to you? C could be Chabashira, T could be Tenko, D... Wait, the question referred to me as a Detective specifically.

So the answer must be...

Tenko snapped out of her focused state and pressed the D-01. There were only five seconds left on the clock.

The timer stopped and the screen turned black. A moment later, words appeared on the screen:

"CONGRATULATIONS"

Tenko looked at those words, almost unable to comprehend what was going on. Her arm was freed at the same time as her Monopad beeped.

She looked, and saw a message saying that the reward had been added to her account. After that, Tenko got up and left the room, walking slightly unsteadily.

As soon as she left, Tenko came face to face with Kirumi, whose face was full of concern.

"What happened? I couldn't reach you with my messages."

Tenko opened her mouth and began to speak, finding a bit of focus on the act of explaining the situation to Kirumi. She talked about the commander subordinate issue and her thoughts on it, she talked about what the room was like and her experiences on the challenge. She was talking about how she left the room and found Kirumi when she lost control.

Tenko collapsed, emotionally speaking. The whole situation combined with what she had suffered inside the challenge room was simply too much for her. Tenko crouched on the ground and began crying softly, her mind a complete mess.

At some point, Tenko felt arms being wrapped around her shoulders, and then she began to cry loudly, giving freedom to every bit of her emotions. She didn't know how long it took, but eventually Tenko recovered her calm, and managed to say "It's okay."

Kirumi still took a moment to release Tenko from her embrace, and looked at her with concern. The Detective slowly got on her feet and took a deep breath, before managing to give Kirumi a reassuring smile.

The Entomologist seemed relieved, and then she asked Tenko:

"Is there something else you want to talk about?"

"I guess I should look at what I earned with that." Tenko said, and navigated the screen of her Monopad.

Kirumi went to her side to see what was going on. First, Tenko saw that the promised ten thousand Monopoints had been added. Then she went into her "storage" and saw the promised item. It looked like a jigsaw piece, with some designs etched into it, but Tenko felt that she would need more pieces in order to have any idea of what it meant.

"Anything else to do?" Kirumi asked.

Tenko was about to say something, when she saw that it was already dark. She must have been really out of it to not notice, even if they were inside a building.

"It's already late... So I think it's best to go sleep and resume things tomorrow." She said.

Kirumi nodded, seeing the logic in that. The two set up a place and a time to meet (the time based on the time remaining of the individual objectives) and then went together to the dormitories.

The two entered their own rooms, and Tenko fell down on her bed, thinking about everything that had happened in that single day.

Finally, her thoughts turned to Kirumi, and Tenko felt grateful that she had managed to team up with her. She couldn't imagine what it would be like trying to deal with all of that alone.