The chapter title is a translation of part of a line from the song 'Inori Uta' by Nagi Yanagi. Kind of random , but whatever. Hope you enjoy the chapter.

Things could have been much worse.

Things could have been much, much worse. When Suzu ran to get Janus, and he discovered the door wasn't locked, they could have been confronted with a dead body. Instead, it transpired that during the course of the night, Akaya had fallen ill, and was now in the throes of a raging fever. So while it wasn't good, things could have been much, much worse.

They were all crowded around her bed in the infirmary, while Kosuke took charge and fussed over her.

"It's a good thing you raised the alarm when you did, Isaki-san." Kosuke commented "Her prognosis for recovery is pretty good, given her previous injuries."

"What's her leg got to do with this?" Akihito asked.

"She was in a weakened state." Kosuke said simply.

There was a silence for a small while, and then Chihiro spoke up.

"Erm…I'm not sure it's the right time, but I-I think we found something yesterday on the laptop. Mirai-Chan and I, that is. Well, it was Mirai-Chan, really. " Everyone stared at Mirai , who was busy trying to annoy Makoto.

Kyouko took charge.

"Then I think we should have a listen. Can you bring it here?"

"Erm….the place we kept it is probably a better place to go…" Chihiro reddened.

"That's fine too. "

"Hold on! What about Kiyomizu-san?" Akihito asked. "And Kobayashi-kun , for that matter?"

"Suzu could take notes or something." Janus offered. Suzu nodded in agreement.

Akihito considered this.

"In that case , could you take notes for me too , Isaki-san? I'm staying with Kiyomizu-san." His voice left no room for argument , and so the others left to go and see what Chihiro and Mirai could have discovered.

…

Chihiro balanced the laptop on her lap , while she sat down next to Mirai on the bench. The others gathered around behind them , so that they could see the laptop screen.

The laptop came to life happily.

"Hello , Master! "

Chihiro typed in a greeting , ignoring the questioning looks from the others. Her cheeks went pink.

"Why does it have your face and voice?" Arisa asked bluntly.

"Erm…." Luckily, she was interrupted by Alter Ego asking what she wanted. Chihiro typed the question in quickly.

Alter Ego processed the question and then said.

"Hello, everyone! It's good to meet you all. Erm…I did tell Sakamoto-san that I've still got a lot of encrypted files to process, but I have managed to find a few things. The first of which is this letter…or rather, parts of it. The file was corrupted. "

Alter Ego's face was replaced by what looked like parts of a Word Document, with many bits blacked out.

Kyouko mouthed some of the words then gasped.

"Naegi-kun, do you recognise this?"

"Eh?" Makoto leaned forward and scrutinised the words. "Oh! Some of the wordings are a bit different , but yeah!"

"What are you two on about?" Arisa asked.

"We found a letter in the library the other day. It was similar in content to this one." Kyouko stated. She didn't explain anything more, necessitating the others to read it for themselves.

"What's this about…does this explain why the internet is down?" Emi demanded.

"Who said the internet is down?" Kyouko asked. "We are simply unable to get to it." She let that sink in.

"So…what does that mean , exactly? Is this a past incident , or is this just a fake letter?" Emi asked.

"I don't know."

"Hey , Fujisaki-san , can you find out when the document was made?" Janus asked suddenly.

"Sure." Chihiro typed quickly , and soon had an answer. Except that it didn't really answer anything.

"March 9th, 2014?"

"Wait , what?" Shika shrieked , as a chorus of astonishment went around the room. "But…but we've only been here ..what , two weeks? Surely it should still be January?"

"Are you sure?" Kyouko asked.

Chihiro nodded.

"100%. I know it doesn't make any sense , but…"

"No , no. If that's what you've discovered , there has to be some explanation , somewhere. But anyway , did you find anything else of importance?" Makoto asked.

"Erm… most of the other files I found were even more corrupted than this , but I managed to glean something pretty important. That is , the principal of this school-not Monobear , but the actual teacher , is somewhere within this building."

"Eh? You mean the freak who trapped us in here is here?" Arisa asked.

"Yes. The principal is a male , mid-thirties , possibly very early forties in age. He is in the school. Status , unknown. That's all , really. "

"So , if we were to track down this guy…but he could be anywhere! This place is pretty big!" Janus exclaimed.

"I'll find him." Kyouko said. The steeliness in her tone surprised everyone. "I'll definitely find him. "

"Kiri…giri...san?" Makoto stuttered a short while after a silence had fallen.

Kyouko said nothing else.

"Damn…..this is actually crazy." Emi said. "Somehow , that brings up more questions. Was the principal responsible for this? Who is he anyway? I can't recall his name. Surely that'd be something I should know?"

"I don't know his name either." Janus said.

"Neither do I…" Chihiro said. "Did you find anything relating to his name?" she asked Mirai.

Mirai shook her head in response.

"Oh , this is too CREEPY! First the weird sounds from upstairs , and now this?My brain hurts!" Shika complained.

"Excuse me? Weird sounds?" Arisa asked.

Shika blinked. "I didn't say anything earlier?"

"Clearly not." Emi deadpanned.

"Well , for the past few nights , I keep hearing weird moaning noises coming from above me . Sometimes the noise makes words –'no' , to be specific." Shika explained.

"Are you sure the noises are from right above you?" Makoto said.

"I am sure!" Shika protested.

"Is there anything above the dorms though? Directly , I mean." Kyouko wondered aloud.

"I'll check." Eirik said curtly , taking out his ElectroID. After a few clicks and beeps , he had an answer.

"There isn't anything directly above the dorms."

"So we're haunted!" Shika shrieked.

"Don't be stupid." Janus said. "There's gotta be an explanation somewhere, right , Kirigiri-san?" Suzu gave him a look, and he backtracked a bit.

"Sorry. It's just-ghosts, really? Does that fit , with anything , at all?"

"I think if Kiyomizu-san were here , she'd probably disagree with you." Emi pointed out.

"Why?"

"She's a parapsychologist, remember? As in paranormal?"

"Oh."

"Well, if that's all, then I think I will continue my investigations. " Kyouko decided "Thank you, Fujisaki-san, Sakamoto-san." She left swiftly, Makoto following soon after.

After a few moments of awkward silence, the others left too.

…

He sat at the foot of the bed, and chatted to her randomly, about everything and anything ranging from his past exploits to what he had last seen on TV.

But eventually, his motor mouth got exhausted, and he just sat, and looked at her as she slept. His instinct was to try and smooth out the troubled look on her face, but that would have just been embarrassing, especially if he got caught doing so. So he just sat and watched her, his feet swinging absently.

…

The rest of the day dragged along, everyone doing their own thing for the most part. Akaya's fever seemed as if it had gone down, but according to Kosuke, she wasn't safe yet.

Dinner was a sombre affair. Very little chatting went on, and of course, the absence of Akaya was felt-especially as it meant her safety could not be accounted for. It wasn't that they didn't trust Kosuke , but with all the revelations and questions swirling around , they were aware that anything could happen.

And when they went to bed , practically all of them kept their ears open for any noises, any voices that would come from above them.

…

Emi arrived first for breakfast. She had been up all night , as she was unable to sleep. The atmosphere had gotten to her , and she swore she had heard the noises that Shika had been describing the day before.

She was cooking herself an English-style fried breakfast when some of the others came in.

"Good Morning! Want me to make you guys some?" she asked fake cheerfully.

"Yes please!" Akihito said , jumping up and down like a manically happy puppy.

"That would be great, thanks." Makoto said. Suzu silently gave her 'yes', and Janus and Kyouko politely declined her offer, and went to get their own breakfasts. Eirik merely ignored her.

Once she had made the breakfasts, she served them, then went to sit at her usual table, eating her breakfast with one hand , and sketching in her corpse-free sketchbook with the other.

Eventually, all of them (save for Akaya and Kosuke) were at the table.

"So…we're all accounted for?" Shika asked hopefully.

"Yeah. I went to check in on the two of them before coming here." Makoto said. "They're both fine. But Kobayashi-kun seems overworked. "

"Perhaps we should take over for him, maybe get him to go sleep or something." Akihito suggested.

"Erm, do we look like doctors to you?" Arisa asked acidly.

Akihito rolled his eyes in an exaggerated manner.

"Well, obviously medical stuff he still has to do. But how hard can watching over someone be?" he said.

"If you think he'll agree, good luck with that, dude." Emi said half-jokingly. She knew that Kosuke practically coveted his responsibility of looking after the infirmary, and anyone who needed to be taken care of.

"It's worth a try, isn't it? " Makoto said "If we don't help each other, then we won't be able to survive, or escape."

Eirik made an annoyed sound at that. Chihiro looked at him anxiously, whereas Mirai just looked curious.

"Well, to an extent he has a point, I think." Janus said. "I think I'll go try and reason with him after breakfast. He isn't Atlas, after all."

"Eh?"

Janus simply stared at them, as if he couldn't figure out their confusion. Again, Suzu seemed to be the only one who wasn't baffled. By now, this little detail did not surprise her.

Emi watched her classmates, then gave up and went back to her breakfast.

…

When Kosuke woke up, he felt more refreshed than he had done for a very long while. When Janus had first approached him, and arrogantly ordered him to rest he had felt affronted, and had reacted as such.

A heated debate had gone on between them for a while, but eventually, Kosuke had conceded the point. If he made a fatal mistake because of overtiredness-well, that would be the worst thing. Not only would it potentially have implications for his career and good name, but he would have never been able to forgive himself. Especially when it came to his classmates. Despite everything, he had come to care for them in his own way, especially since he'd had to treat most of them recently. And Janus had been one of the ones who were kind enough to help him clean out the infirmary that day.

So he had apologised and surrendered his infirmary to Janus, while he retired to his room.

And now he was feeling fresher than he had done in a while.

He initially thought he should head straight back, but decided to get some food instead, to keep up his energy. So that is what he did.

When he did start making his way to the infirmary, he could hear quiet chatting. Curious, he sped up. He cautiously pushed the door open and peered around it.

Akihito and Janus were having a conversation, and clearly whatever they were talking about was funny, as Janus laughed at one point. But what was astonishing was that Akaya was awake and joining in the conversation. She wasn't laughing, and she still looked incredibly weak. But she was awake, and the fact that this had happened earlier than Kosuke had predicted was a good sign.

Perhaps it was even a sign of hope.