The presence of the kitchen behind her gave Utami chills down her back. But it was time to move on. They had to figure the rest of this out in a matter of hours; the school bell had given its fifth chime already. What's past was past. Ahead was [Door 8].

"Okay! We ready?" Pear hopped right up to the RED, pushing her jangling jewelry back to better expose her [bracelet].

"Uh, sure." Lucky stepped behind her as she verified.

A gloved hand pressed against the RED, then Five's gauntlet just above his wrist, then Utami's own hand. She pulled down on the lever, and [Door 8] swung in. Pear ran through, the rest of the group coming after her before the door could shut itself. The metallic clang echoed from all directions, leaving them in a dimness only lit by the reddish skulls on their bracelets.

"Over here!" Five's voice came from Utami's right. She craned her neck to see the red light of the DEAD some ten feet away.

Footsteps thudded and squeaked as the four of them hurried over.

Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep. Clack.

A dying noise accompanied the disappearance of the bracelets' beeping, the skull on Utami's wrist fading into a neutral [3].

"Okay." Utami backed up, managing not to bump into anyone. "Now, where are the lights?"

Lucky's voice came from ahead, his shadow blocking the DEAD's light. "There aren't any switches on this side."

"I'll try the other, then." Utami held her arms out, bumping into two of the others before she reached the cold metal of the door. Her fingers trailed it until she reached the other side. She swept her palms across the flat but rough surface and only found a metal plate about the size of her head screwed tightly to the wall.

"Waaagh!"

Pear's shriek was accompanied by a crash, followed by the sound of clattering and rolling.

"Pear?" Lucky called, his voice changing in volume as he turned away from Utami.

"I'm okay! I just tripped on something." Pear shuffled something that sounded close to the floor before a beam of light suddenly shot across Utami's sandals. "Uwa!"

The group followed the beam to its strongest point—it came from a single circle, Pear's fingers lit up red by its edge.

"A flashlight?" Five approached, his canvas shoes casting tall shadows. "Was there more than one?"

"Sounded like it." Utami drew towards the only light in the room like a moth, kneeling on the polished, wooden floor. It only took a little bit of rummaging around before her hand ran into something soft.

"Sorry!" Lucky pulled his hand away quickly, snatching a different flashlight. Utami shrugged and picked out hers as Pear lifted the lit one into the air. The devices weren't that hard to figure out, so soon four beams of light were sweeping the room.

It was a large basketball court, a basket on each end as well as four smaller ones that hung from the ceiling along the sides. Bleachers ran most of the length of the sides, though the set by the [numbered door] was retracted into more of a wall. A large scoreboard hung against one corner, all of its lights of course off. Some metal plates were on either side of the extended bleachers, but only the last corner held another door.

Bleachers—numbered door—goals—scoreboard—open bleachers—the outside door.

SEEK A WAY OUT!

Utami started by examining the metal plate by the [numbered door]. It was just the size she had felt it to be, the flat surface only broken by a screw in each corner.

"Huh? They're all different..." She prodded at the screw heads in case she was mistaken, but no two had the same pattern.

"That doesn't strike me as something normal," Five said, scratching the lower edge of his scar. "It's probably part of a puzzle."

"Hooray, more puzzles." Utami tried spinning one of the screws using her fingernail, but if she tried any harder she'd only injure herself.

"Four screwdrivers, huh?" Lucky ran his gloved fingers over the plate. "Slotted, Philips, square recess, spanner. I'll keep an eye out."

Pulling back, Utami shined her flashlight over the collapsed stands.

"Hopefully there's nothing on top, because there's no way I'll be able to climb this. It's just tall enough I could fall and break my neck trying."

Keeping the circle of light ahead of her, she walked down the side of the bleachers. At the very center, a laminated piece of paper was attached to the stands at eye level.

"THIRTY DEGREES FROM CORNER," it read.

"Hmm." Utami pulled it off, checking the back, but that was the only information the paper held.

"Thirty degrees..." Pear rubbed her lower lip. "Does it mean an angle or temperature?"

"Unless we find a thermostat, I'm going to guess angle," Utami replied, putting the paper away.

She looked over the rest of the bleachers, but nothing else caught her eye. Hopefully she wasn't missing anything due to the darkness...

The exit door was in front of her now, so she took a good look at doorknob wouldn't turn, but what may have been a keyhole was covered with a circle of metal. Wires ran from the circle to a pad implanted on the face of the door.

"Looks like a four-digit combination. Although there's an Enter key, so it could be less..." She tried the Enter key by itself, just in case, but all that got her was an angry buzz from the device. "Fine, then."

She came around to the closest goal. All of the lower surfaces were covered with blue padding. Utami felt around for a seam and tried to pull.

"Aah!" She nearly lost her balance as a sudden rip of Velcro loosened the padding in her grip.

"Whoa! Everything okay over there?" Lucky drew a finger across his eyebrows.

"I think so." Utami nodded at the goal. "Do you want to help me poke around in here to see if we're supposed to take this off?"

"Sure."

With a little grunting and scooting around, the pair was able to peel the blue cover off the very base of the goal. Utami shined her flashlight across the exposed black surface back and forth until something gleamed back.

"Hey!" Lucky cried. "We found one! Good job, Cera."

Utami bent to pick up the red-handled screwdriver and turned it in her hands.

"That one is the Philips," Lucky said, squinting at the tip. "It doesn't look like one of those that come with multiple tips... I guess that would be too easy."

Utami kept a tight hold on the screwdriver as she sidestepped the pile of padding to keep searching.

Now was as good a time as any to check the floor. Various straight and curved lines cut across it, some of the formed shapes colored in with orange paint. It looked like a normal basketball court, as far as she could tell. She wasn't exactly the right height to be too invested in that sport...

"Huh?" She stopped, the beam of her flashlight focused on a dark spot. She scurried forward, keeping the black plastic something in her sights. "What the heck is this thing?"

Pear stepped up, leaning in to investigate. "I mean, this is the school gym, right? There are probably one or three more of those if they're the holes for setting up nets."

"Nets?" Utami knelt by the plastic circle about the size of the bottom of a cup.

"Yeah! Volleyball, badminton..." She frowned. "I don't think you'd want to play tennis on a slick court like this, but you could probably set up one of those nets, too. You know, I bet it would be fun. As long as the ball still bounces normally—"

"We're trying not to die here, Pear!" Five heaved a sigh. "Okay? I can take some of that, but please, try to stay a little bit more focused if at all possible." He rubbed his forehead with the back of his hand. "Your voice gives me a headache, honestly."

Utami crinkled her nose. "What a gentleman. You're never going to get a girlfriend if you act like that."

"Wha—Who said I don't have a girlfriend?!"

Pear snickered. "We can tell, Five. Are you ready to get back to the investigation now?" she singsonged.

Five shoved his hands in his pockets and sighed. "Yeah..."

With that out of the way, Utami pried her fingers under the curved notch in the edge of the plastic. It came up easily, the lid flipping over to reveal something inside.

"It's not that deep, thankfully." Utami slipped her fingers in and pulled out some sort of crystal prism. "The flat surfaces are teardrop-shaped. Something like confetti is inside, but it isn't shiny, and it's not distributed evenly."

Lucky adjusted his gloves. "How do you even make stuff like that? I know there's glassblowing, but..."

"It's probably too smooth for that," Utami said as she stood. "I guess they can melt it into molds and just throw in some paper bits while they're at it."

"But wouldn't the paper, like, catch fire if it's that hot?"

Utami shrugged. "I don't know. Maybe they soak it first. Maybe it's not paper. We'll just have to look it up once we get out of here."

"Ah, yeah..."

Utami scanned the court again, but Pear was already investigating another pole spot.

The girl with the star shirt shook her head. "Nothing here. Let me check the other half of the court." She made two more stops before declaring her lack of success.

Utami adjusted her grip on the flashlight and moved on to the wider set of bleachers. She opted to check the floor beneath it first, carefully navigating between two rusty-looking metal supports at the tall end.

"It's a spooky and mysterious feeling... Ducking around all the thin metal girders in the darkness, only one beam of light giving me any idea what's going on..."

She stepped forward, her pulse loud in her ears, her breath and footsteps the only other sound.

Something slammed into her back with a scream, making her scream. The something then backed up, giggling.

Face red, Utami turned to shine her flashlight directly in Pear's eyes. "What was that?!"

"You're the one who said it was spooky. You practically asked for it." Pear's grin was cheeky, even with her eyes squinted shut against the bright light.

Utami thunked the heel of her palm into the other girl's forehead. "If you jump me again, I'm taking your flashlight."

"Fair enough." She shielded her eyes with her hand before stepping back.

With a sigh, Utami continued her search as her heart rate returned to normal. Nothing was on the ground or attached to the stands but the metal struts. They weren't entirely regular, but she could still navigate them. She turned her flashlight above her, to the underside of the bleachers, but didn't see anything unusual as far as she could go without having to crouch.

"Am I going to have to crawl all the way under these?" She swept her flashlight across the lower part of the stands, but their stair-like structure kept her from seeing anything that might be attached to the bottom. She paused. "Hey, Pear! Come and check this out, will you?"

"Hmm?" Pear hurried over, her heels clacking on the wood. "What is it?"

"I don't know." Utami waved her flashlight across the first few rows of seats. "Will you check out the underside of those?"

Pear frowned, pushing the backs of her wrists against her hips. "Why do I have to do it?"

"Because you're four years younger than me." She blew a stray strand of hair out of her face. "C'mon. It's not like I'm just going to slack off while you're looking."

"Okay, okay." Aiming her flashlight to the heavens, Pear scuttled towards the lower part of the stands.

Utami left her to it, ducking around to the outside room. As she cast a look back across the struts, she frowned. They really weren't the same all the way across. Wasn't that strange?

Sweeping the beam of her flashlight over the individual metal strips didn't reveal anything, so she backed up to the wall, letting the weaker light spread out. A shadow was cast on the far wall, but it was too faint and blurred to be of any use. She tried changing the angle of the flashlight, but that only made it worse.

"Well, I'm doing something wrong... Either this doesn't mean anything, or I need something more than a flashlight."

She let it be for the moment and moved on to the other large goal.

"First things first..." She tugged at the blue padding, but it didn't give so easily. "Huh? This one's a bit stiffer..."

She pulled harder, struggling especially with her sandals giving little purchase on the waxed floor, but the padding wouldn't budge.

"Lucky? Could you give me a hand with this? It's not coming off like the other one."

The boy perked up from where he stood waving his flashlight at the ceiling, and he hurried over.

"Urgh..."

Even with their efforts combined, the padding wouldn't give.

"I guess there's nothing hidden under this one," Utami sighed. Backing up, she looked over what parts of the goal she could get to. Nothing seemed strange about the net, but something was off about the glass backboard.

"Something's disturbing the light near the top. I can't see it from down here, though... And how am I supposed to get way up there?"

Frowning, she went to the side of the goal to look for some way to lower it, but she wasn't even sure if it was adjustable.

"Um, Cera?" Lucky had surfaced at her right, gripping one of the smaller sections of the padded support. "I might be able to get up there. Just, if whatever you're doing isn't working..."

Utami stepped back, shining her light on the point of interest. "Go right ahead."

Lucky nodded, setting up his flashlight glass-up beneath the hoop and stepping to the left of the goal. Sucking in a breath, he ran straight for the wall, taking two steps up it before launching himself into a backwards flip that landed him on the section of metal just behind the backboard. He carefully shifted from his landing crouch to a standing position and turned to reach over to where Utami's flashlight shined.

She blinked, lowering her arms once he removed whatever was up there. "Um... What was that?"

"What was what?" Lucky frowned, sitting on the neck of the goal and looking over the item in his hand. "I don't know; some kind of glass..."

"No, I mean, what was that?!" She motioned to the wall and where Lucky was now sitting.

He smiled a little. "Would you believe, I used to be a gymnast. That's where the flip came from, at least. I still do a little parkour, but... My two best friends and I were going to win all of the Olympics." He sighed. "And then a bad injury took me down before I got too far."

Utami pulled down on the bottom of her hoodie. "Did you hurt your hands?"

"Aah?!" He gripped his right hand. "Yeah..." He let out a breath. "I... screwed up majorly messing around on a pommel horse and broke two bones in my hand, and one in my wrist. But I didn't think it was that bad, and the biggest competition I'd ever had the chance to participate in was about to start after warmups... So I really ended up screwing things up more without seeking treatment immediately. I mean, I can still use my hand all right, but it gives me trouble sometimes. And my parents yanked me out of gymnastics immediately."

He looked down at some spot of the floor that wasn't illuminated. "I guess that was the first of it."

"The first of what?" Utami responded.

He blinked before turning away so he could hop down safely. "Oh, nothing."

"So I take it you've got some nice scars on that hand?" Five approached, his hands in his pockets and his flashlight tucked under his arm.

Taken aback, Lucky folded his hands behind his neck. "Um, yeah."

Five smirked, tilting his head towards Utami. "That's what you thought, right? No reason you would have guessed his hands otherwise."

Utami nodded slowly, her gaze unavoidably drawn to the odd gash crossing Five's face. "How about your own scar, if you don't mind me asking?"

"Oh, it's no big deal." He shrugged. "It wasn't an accident, after all."

"Huh?!" Lucky hopped back, his arms splayed for balance.

"What do you mean, it wasn't from an accident?" Utami leaned towards Five, her free hand fisted.

He lifted his eyebrows, a thin smile on his lips. "If it wasn't an accident, then what does that make it?" He turned around before she could answer. "Now come on. The clock's still ticking."

Utami and Lucky exchanged a look as Five walked away, but neither said a word.

Five's scar... He had done it on purpose? Or... somebody else had?

She shivered, her grip on the flashlight tightening. It was more important to search the room right now. Maybe when they got out she could ask more about it.

She had already given the room a once-over, but she hadn't found the code or more than one screwdriver. Her attention fell to the circle of glass in her hand. It was curved, thinner at the edges but not enough to cut anything.

"Is it a watch glass?" Five looked over her shoulder.

"A... watch?"

Five shook his head. "No, a watch glass. Like... you use it to block off vapor or to crystallize chemicals on."

She turned it in her hands. "Have you found anything like that?"

"No. Maybe it's not a watch glass, huh? 'Swhat it looks like, though." He frowned, crossing his arms.

Utami slid her fingers over the glass once more before holding it directly up in front of her flashlight. The beam scattered into a bright field.

"Hey!" Immediately she stepped back over to the side of the spread-out stands. Staying a bit closer this time, she shined the light through the lens. Crisp shadows hit the back wall.

"N15? Is that what it says?" She made a mental note of the shadow before turning back to the court.

"Cera! Guys!" A thump. "Ow!"

"Pear?" Utami went back to the underbelly of the stands, where the other girl was snaking out from beneath the second-lowest level. Coughing, Pear waved an arm; when Utami aimed her flashlight, a gleam came from a metal shaft.

"There was one on the very bottom row pretending to be one of the supports." She pulled herself a little further before Utami helped her up. "It's square. You're the one holding on to all of them, right?" She tossed it to her.

"Apparently," Utami said as she caught it. The tip was indeed square—it probably fit in the slot Lucky had dubbed "square recess."

"Just two more to go!" Pear piped, rolling her shoulders back. "Let's get at it! We'll be out of here in no time!"

"We've searched most of the room already..." Utami shook her head, as Pear had already fled the bleachers to look elsewhere.

In the meantime, Utami looked over the things she'd gotten from this room. The note from the collapsed bleachers caught her attention.

"Thirty degrees from corner... Is it how I'm supposed to shine the light? But I was able to find the code in the stands by pointing the flashlight at it head-on. Something else, then...?"

She stepped out to the heart of the room before remembering the glass object. It had a corner.

"Let's see." She positioned herself to shine the light towards the blank, white wall, turning the glass prism in her hands. "Thirty degrees from the corner... I'm not sure which direction, but I can try both."

Going to the left shifted the shadows on the wall, but they remained formless voids cast from confetti. She carefully turned the glass the other way, about sixty degrees total. A little shifting, and a large "7" appeared in the shadows, a smaller "ROW" and "LEFT" above and beneath it.

"Row 7, left..."

"What is it?" Lucky had come up next to her to squint at the shadows.

"I've found two messages, and we're missing two screwdrivers."

Pear joined the group, spinning her flashlight in her hand. "What have we got, then?"

"One is 'row 7 left,' and the other is 'N15.' "

"N15?" came a voice from above them. Utami took her gaze off the prism's shadow to check out the top of the stands. Five was a few rows up, leaning over the railing on their side.

"Yeah. Does that mean anything to you?"

Five nodded, his curls bouncing. "The seats have numbers and letters. I'll jump up to N15 now."

"So that's that one. What's 'row 7, left'? There aren't any rows that aren't the bleachers, right?"

Utami turned her flashlight back onto the prism, but the message was the same. "It could be the other bleachers."

Lucky frowned, rubbing one of his sideburns. "Do we have to figure out how to un-collapse them? That's a pain..."

"Well, let's get over there and see," Utami decided, putting away the prism and striding to the other side of the gym.

Lucky made it over there first, shining his flashlight on the left edge of the stands. "One, two..." He moved his free hand up from the bottom until he made it to the gap above the seventh row.

Utami aimed her flashlight around his hand until she got a reflection.

"It's way back there!" Pear exclaimed. "How is Lucky supposed to stick his hand in that far?"

Lucky reached regardless, but he couldn't get any more than his wrist between the stands. "Maybe we really do have to spread it out."

Utami frowned, backing up. Her arms may have been slimmer than Lucky's, but that wouldn't make a difference if she couldn't get her wrist through. And to be honest, she didn't really want to go around shoving her hand in dark crevices.

Instead, she turned around. "Five? How's it going up there?"

"I'm at N15, but I'm not seeing the screwdriver."

Utami's brow furrowed, and she hurried over, her footfalls on the steps clanging and vibrating the whole bleacher. Five took a step back as she approached, aiming her flashlight at the red plastic where he pointed. Indeed, a little "N15" bulged from the plastic on the front side. Since it was a bench, it was a bit odd to have seat numbers, but they looked manufactured, and all of the bars of plastic were cut into seat-sized sections.

"Let me see..." She ran her hand across the rough surface before sweeping light over each wooden side. Finding nothing, she felt around the edges.

"Ah?" She gripped the bottom curve of the plastic where she felt something like little tabs. Pushing them in, she lifted. The seat came off with a click, and she staggered back to set it down on N14. Five eagerly shined a light on the exposed surface but had to heave a sigh.

Utami only had to glance to know why. "Still no screwdriver. But what is this?" She felt over the wooden squares in a 3x3 grid, sans one square. She couldn't pick them up, but she could slide them.

"You've got to be kidding me." Five sat down, still pointing his flashlight at the wood. "A slide puzzle?"

"Hmm." Utami turned around, kneeling on the row below the puzzle. "I just have to push these around until everything's in the right place, right?"

"If it's a normal puzzle. There's not much of a picture on it, but I guess you can tell where the wood grain matches up."

"All right. Let me give it a shot." Utami leaned over the puzzle, sliding the boxes one at a time and hoping she wouldn't lodge any splinters in her fingers for the effort. Thanks to the relatively small size of the puzzle, she was able to align the wood grains in just under a minute, leaving a gap in the middle.

The grid immediately clicked, the squares popping up like they had been spring-loaded. Utami ducked out of the way initially but looked again. The grid itself was what had become dislodged; she was able to dig her fingernails under one edge and pull it free.

Finally, a slotted screwdriver sat in the square recess below.

"Yes!" Utami snatched it up, running her fingers over it as if to make sure it was real.

Five got to his feet. "Good job. Hey, Lucky, Pear! How are things going over..." He cut off, blinking, and Utami followed his gaze.

Lucky and Pear were no longer standing in front of the other set of bleachers.

"Over here!" Pear's voice came from the right—the other large goal. "I thought something about the hoop seemed funny, so Lucky's checking it out."

Utami hurried down the stairs and over to the goal, where Lucky tangled his fingers in the net, his ankles crossed above the neck of the support.

"What's so weird about it?" Even though Lucky had his flashlight aimed at the net, Utami added her own light to the mix.

"It's kinda thin and flat," Lucky said, wobbling a bit where he half-hung, "but mostly the orange paint is kind of cheap and wearing off. Right, Pear?"

The girl with the [2] bracelet nodded. "That's what I thought, anyway. What do you think? Can you get it off?"

"It's screwed on," he called back. "Um—" he waved at Utami with one arm before shaking his head—"Cera. You have the Philips, right?"

She nodded. "The cross one?" Pulling it out, she got on her tiptoes and stretched her arm towards the suspended boy.

"Yeah." He had to let go of the net altogether to come down and reach the screwdriver, but he pulled himself back up with the bottom of the backboard. Letting out a breath, he gripped the screwdriver in his left hand and reached for one side of the hoop, then the other. The orange ring came clattering down moments later.

"So what makes this so special?" Five stooped to pick it up before jumping back. The hoop attacked his metal gauntlet, vibrating as it hung off the edge of it.

Pear's eyes went wide, and she hurried towards him. "It's... a magnet?"

Utami gripped the free side of the hoop and yanked it off Five's armwear. "Feels like it. And I'm pretty sure I know what to do with it."

She went straight to row 7, left and positioned the hoop in the desired slot. She only had to push it halfway in before a dragging sound ended in a clang that sent a wave of motion through it. Upon removal, a screwdriver clung to its edge.

With a laugh of victory, Utami ripped it off, dropping the hoop and hurrying to the front door. It didn't take much concentration to match each screwdriver with its screwhead. With her on one side and Five on the other, four faint pings hit the ground in no time.

The panel screeched as she pulled it off, revealing two light switched and a small level with a flat handle. Each switch turned on half of the lights in the gym in a checkerboard pattern. The lever turned on the scoreboard with an ear-piercing blare.

"Ay!" Pear's hands flew to her ears, but the buzzer turned off as soon as it had started.

Panting, Utami whipped around to take in the little bulbs of the scoreboard.

HOME: 99

AWAY: 99

QUARTER: 9

TIME: 23:57

Lucky, who had joined them since, blinked. "Nine quarters?"

"I don't think that's the part we should be worried about," Utami said, putting the metal panel down and jogging to the other side of the court. Facing the lock, she pressed [2], [3], [5], [7], and [ENTER]. The numbers immediately disappeared, but a quiet click came from the doorknob. Utami wasted no time in turning it and throwing the door open.

YOU FOUND IT