The vote was 2-0 in favour of 'Betray'.

Phi's finger stabbed down onto the terminal screen… onto 'Betray'. It was the only sensible choice. There was no way she could trust Tenmyouji to vote ally.

"Round one of the Ambidex Game has been completed," said the announcement voice, "Results will be displayed in the warehouse."

Phi trudged out of the AB room as a wave of – was this… guilt? – swelled inside of her. If Tenmyouji had chosen 'Ally'… Phi's body started to shake. She couldn't bear to show such weakness in front of Sigma, but her body wouldn't stop.

Sigma came up behind her. "I was angry when you voted 'Betray'," he said, "But now, I… just know… that Tenmyouji betrayed too. I think you made the right choice."

Phi wondered how Sigma was so certain. He couldn't have felt that way back in the AB room, else he would have voted himself without waiting to discuss it with Phi. Perhaps he was just trying to be kind, but there was a spark of confidence in his eyes – even his artificial eye – that suggested otherwise. Maybe next time, she would lose the game of Rock, Paper, Scissors intentionally, just to evade the stress and guilt of voting.

Before she could calm herself, however, Zero called to them. "Wasssuuuuup! Siggy, Phido! We're about to announce the results!"

Everyone else was already standing around Zero, and Sigma and Phi rushed over to join them. This was the moment where they would find out if her decision was correct, or if her terror was justified.

With a fanfare, Zero began. "Ambidex Gaaame! Round One!" Giving a mocking bow, his avatar vanished from the screen to be replaced by an orderly table of results:

Player-BP-Vote-Change-Results

K - 3 - Betray - +3 - 6
Clover - 3 - Betray - +3 6
Luna - 3 - Ally - -2 - 1

Dio - 3 - Betray - +3 - 6
Quark - 3 - Betray - +3 - 6
Alice - 3 - Ally - -2 - 1

Sigma - 3 - Betray - +3 - 6
Phi - 3 - Betray - +3 - 6
Tenmyouji - 3 - Ally - -2 - 1

There was an uproar as everyone comprehended the results. Three people were now hovering precariously on one bracelet point, a complete sweep of successful betrayals.

Phi expected Tenmyouji to confront them, but he barely reacted even once he'd read the results. "I got… betrayed?" he muttered softly.

Somewhere behind her, Sigma whispered, "He chose 'Ally'? Why…? He chose 'Betray' last time…" Phi had no idea what he was on about. His certainty that Tenmyouji had voted 'Betray' had been conclusively proven wrong, but Phi couldn't imagine what Sigma meant by 'last time'.

From the confused expression on his face, neither could Tenmyouji. "Huh? 'Last time'? What are you talking about? You two are the ones who chose 'Betray'. I should be asking you why?"

Phi decided to come clean. It was only moments before Sigma blamed her anyway, so she might as well appear honest. "I pressed the button. I was sure you were going to vote 'Betray'.

Tenmyouji snorted. "I can't believe you. I'd never choose 'Betray'. I trusted you two. And this is what I got."

"I apologise," Phi said.

"Not good enough," Tenmyouji snapped, "I'm never trusting either of you again. This isn't over. Just you wait." Saying that, he marched forcefully away from them.

Phi turned to focus on the two very similar arguments that were happening among the other trios.

"Hey!" Alice shouted at Quark and Dio, "What the hell is this?!"

Dio started stuttering, "Hey, look lady, I-I was gonna choose 'Ally', I swear to God. But just as I'm about to do it, this little bastard gets in first and presses 'Betray'."

"What?" Quark asked incredulously. He pointed his finger accusingly at Dio, staring furiously, and was about to give his own side of the story when Dio talked over him rudely.

"Come on. Really just gonna try and play it dumb, huh? You're a manipulative little twerp, aren't you?"

It wasn't very convincing. Everyone could tell that Dio was only describing himself.

Even Alice could tell. She pushed Dio to one side to give Quark room to explain the truth, asking, "Quark, is he telling the truth?"

"No!" Quark shouted, "I didn't do anything! I didn't have a chance to do anything before Mr. Dio pressed the button! How could you do that, Mr Dio?"

Alice nodded, then turned to Dio. "Just you wait, Dio," she said. Though Alice had clearly pinpointed Dio as the cause of her drop in BP, she didn't press the matter any further, instead walking over to where K and Clover were justifying themselves to Luna. K and Clover were at least presenting a united front to Luna.

"We aren't trying to blame you…" K started.

"But, I mean, if you just think about it, wouldn't it just make more sense to choose 'Betray'?" Clover concluded.

Luna stood in stunned silence for almost half a minute. "Forget it. I understand now. It was silly to trust you guys."

With all three arguments concluded, there was nothing to do but carry on with the Nonary Game.

Alice turned to the screen, where Zero's rodent-like avatar was waiting for them smugly, and checked her bracelet. "Zero, our bracelets say the next round starts in an hour. How do we get through the next set of doors downstairs?"

Zero giggled. "Maybe you don't get through those doors. Maybe you have to stay up here, forever, with meeeeee! Won't that be fun?"

Alice answered confidently, "You called this 'Round One'. Where there's a round one, there's a round two."

K interjected, "Besides, didn't you say the goal of the AB Game was to get nine BP? That's impossible without a second round."

Zero pouted, his elaborate hat drooping to one side. "You lot are no fun. Yes, there's a second round. There!" Suddenly Zero perked up. "Yes, you get to vote again, loads more juicy betrayals! Just as soon as you get the AB gates open again.

Clover made a quizzical little squeak. "But… they're already open!"

Zero mimed slamming his head into his hand. "Whoopsie! Lemme just clooooose them!" On Zero's cue six pairs of doors whirred closed.

Once all the doors were fully closed an announcement played through the speakers. "Round two of the Ambidex Game will be the Moon round. Moon keys will be required to open the gates."

"So those Sun keys you have are just compleeeeetely useless now," Zero concluded, "Weeeell, I guess you could throw them at each other, or use them to pick your teeth, but other than that they're useless."

"So, how many times do we play the AB game?" Dio asked.

Zero shrugged. "Dunno? As many times as you need to? I plan on keeping this party going until somebunny opens the Number Nine door. It could be next round! Or you could get stuck below 9 BP, where everybunny just keeps going back and forth, back and forth, winning and losing points… After all, if no one has nine BP the door can't open… Round three, Round four, Round five… Round 100, Round 2000… you might even go all the way to Round 17,179,869,183: things get really weird if I get that high. I really, really hope it doesn't come to that."

Sigma, a curious look on his face, asked Zero a question. "There's rules about who can go through the Chromatic doors, right? Like, you have to have three people exactly. Are there similar rules for the Number Nine door?"

"Nope! There aren't any rules about how many people can go through that door. It could be one person, or two people, or even all nine of you." Zero frowned. "Just one thing, though, Siggy… All that stuff about how you have to have three people to go through the secondary Chromatic doors. Maybe it's not… 100% true. You just need to have the correct three bracelets. As long as the scanners see the right combination of bracelets… the people don't matter."

"So you're saying these things can come off?" Sigma said.

"Tell me how I take it off!" Quark shouted, pulling at his wrist.

"Well, there's two ways," Zero explained, "First is to escape through the Number Nine door. Soon as you do, you're free to go, none of my business, no more turbocuarine hanging over you. Second… well the second's far more enjoyable."

"What's the second way, Zero?!" Dio yelled, "Tell us already!"

Zero chuckled deeply. "Oh, B.O. I think you already know. Do you really want to get rid of that bracelet? It's easy. Nothing to it.

"You die.

"Now if we're lucky, we might see a few of them come off during the next round!" Zero giggled at his thinly veiled threat. "If I had to guess, it's gonna be Moony or Alas or Tenmyouldy…" – Zero grinned maniacally at the three people who had been betrayed in the first round – "or even all of them."

Zero then explained that anyone whose BP dropped to zero would be punished just as harshly as if they'd broken the rules.

Alice scolded Zero passionately. "What the hell! This is important stuff! Why didn't you tell us earlier? You were supposed to tell us the rules, not hide them! Is there anything else you've conveniently left out?! It's not fair to make us play the game without explaining all the rules!" This didn't accomplish anything. Zero was an AI, and a malicious one at that, and was unlikely to be swayed by anything they could say.

Instead, Zero carried on with his spiel. "The next set of Chromatic Doors you'll be going through are downstairs," Zero continued to explain, "You already saw them, right? There should have been three: red, blue and green. That means to get through, you'll need bracelets in cyan, magenta and yellow. But wait! You already have those bracelets!"

Phi looked down at her wrist automatically. Her bracelet had been updated with her new score – '6' – and as Zero had implied the colour of the text had changed: it was now cyan.

Sigma muttered, "Hmm, mine changed from red to magenta." That was a surprise. Phi had expected the pairs to stay the same.

As it was, not only did the pairs not stay the same, but whether someone was a pair or solo changed as well: Phi's new partner was Luna. Phi wasn't sure what to make of that. Sure, Luna was a pleasant person to be around, but she still seemed to be the type who would only ever vote to ally – even K's and Clover's blunt explanation of their betrayal hadn't disabused her – and while she hadn't mentioned anything she had glanced down disapprovingly as Phi met her eyes. Phi expected that this could cause some unpleasant friction next time they were in the AB room. However, instead of worrying about it, Phi turned to the immediate concern, which was finding out how everyone's bracelets had changed:

Sigma's new partner was Clover; they were the magenta pair.
Alice and K were the yellow pair.
Tenmyouji was the cyan solo.
Quark was the magenta solo.
Finally Dio was the yellow solo.

"When did they change?" Quark asked Zero.

"Back when the AB gates closed. As soon as the gates close, your colours get all shuffled up automatically. The pair and solo assignments hop around too," Zero explained, jumping around the screen to illustrate his statement.

"Now, with all that explained… I must bid you adieu. Sadly…" – Zero's lip trembled – "we may never meet again. There's not really anything for me to facilitate anymore. I'll never see you guys…again!"

There was awkward silence.

Suddenly Zero burst out laughing. "Did you really think I was gonna cry! I hate you losers. Anyway gooood luck. I may be gone, but I'm always watching. Have a nice tragedy!" With that, the mouse disappeared from the screen, never to be seen again.

Good riddance.

Quark was the first to speak. "So… what happens now? We've still got a while till the Chromatic Doors open." In fact, they had three quarters of an hour.

Alice took charge. "We should go and see if we can find any other exits," she commanded, "Maybe there's a vent or a disposal chute or something. I for one wouldn't mind examining the other rooms."

"Let's split up," Phi suggested. She estimated how much time they would need to get down to the Chromatic Doors. "Let's meet in front of the Chromatic Doors five minutes before they open."

The group split up. Phi decided to head back to the infirmary. She would have time later to visit the other rooms; for now, the search would be more efficient if there was someone in each room who had searched there before, who could guide the others. She arrived to find Alice leaning over the body of the old lady. She must have rushed here in advance of the others, hoping to get some time to examine it alone.

"So, you find anything else?" Phi announced her presence. She smirked as she saw Alice tense up; as she had expected, Alice hadn't wanted anyone to see what she was doing.

"Nothing," Alice said tersely.

Phi peered past Alice at where the body still lay next to the ADAM. "So you didn't notice that she was killed without a struggle, probably by someone who ambushed her from behind? And you didn't…" Phi lifted up the woman's left arm carefully and presented it to Alice. The blood splatter there was interrupted by a uniform band of clean skin. "… notice this mark on her left wrist either?" A sudden spark in Alice's eyes confirmed Phi's hypothesis: Alice had noticed both of those things but, for whatever reason, she was trying to conceal what she had found.

"Well, fine. I did notice that," Alice stated levelly, "But you didn't notice that her body was moved into the AB room from where she was killed. Unless you actually though you could stab someone in the heart without their blood going all over the walls?"

Phi allowed Alice her small victory. She had missed that. Still, she had discovered something very interesting. Alice was far more competent, even highly trained, than she was letting on. Phi was almost certain that whatever Alice was hiding, it had something to do with the conversation with Clover that Phi had heard just the end of. 'Headquarters'. That was what she had overheard Alice saying to Clover. Phi stepped even closer, resolving to interrogate Alice about the identity of her mysterious organisation.

"Hmph! You're not gonna give her even the slightest bit of privacy, are you?!"

Now it was Phi's turn to jump. She spun around frantically to see Tenmyouji advancing from the direction of the yellow door, Quark tagging along behind him. Sternly, Tenmyouji instructed Alice and Phi to move the body over to one of the other beds, on the far side of the plastic divider that split the room in two. Once they had done so, Tenmyouji turned his focus to the divider; it was far too large for the frail old man to move, but he tried anyway, and succeeded in moving it just enough to shelter the old lady from the gaze of anyone coming through the door. Once he had finished he turned back to the others.

"So, did you find anything in here? Or were you just planning on disrespecting her all day?" he asked angrily.

"You don't think working out who killed her is important?" Alice said.

"Hmph." Tenmyouji refused to respond to that; instead he stared, unmoving, straight at the screen, as if he could still see the body on the other side.

"Hey, Miss Phi, Miss Alice," Quark said politely, though without much of the cheer that had characterised his voice earlier, "Can I help search, too?"

Phi grinned at him. "Sure!"

"Well, okay," Alice said. "There's a lot of things we need to look under. You should look under those for us. I won't. Sure, I have a perfectly lither and supple body, but there's no way I'm ruining my knees by crawling around on them down there."

Phi, Alice and Quark searched the infirmary thoroughly, taking care not to disturb Tenmyouji from his sullen vigil beside the lady's body. After several minutes with nothing to show for it, Quark gave up. He approached Alice, a concerned look on his face.

"Miss Alice…" he started hesitantly, "You did believe me, right? You didn't believe what Mr. Dio said about me?"

Alice stared past him coldly. "I don't really care what happened in there. All that matters is that I'm on one BP now, and I have to think about getting more in the next round."

Quark turned his eyes down dejectedly and wandered away to the other side of the privacy curtain.

Alice strolled away towards the exit door. As she left, Phi realised that this was the perfect moment to confront Alice about what she was hiding. However, as Phi turned to follow Alice, she was startled by a sudden shout from Tenmyouji.

"You're not going anywhere!" he commanded. Phi froze in place at the tone of his voice; when she recovered Alice had vanished. There was nothing better to do than see what Tenmyouji wanted.

"I am sorry… you know, about earlier…" she said hesitantly.

"I… can't care about that anymore. I need to think about the next round. You're the smartass who's working out which doors we can go through. What are our options?"

"Well, you've got a choice between me and Luna, Sigma and Clover, and Alice and K. Which…"

"No!" Tenmyouji snapped, "Not just that. I need to know what it means for Quark."

Phi quickly worked out what he was asking for. "If you come with me, Quark goes with Sigma and Clover. If you go with Sigma and Clover then Quark goes with Alice and K. Finally, if you go with Alice and K, Quark comes with me and Luna."

Tenmyouji groaned. "That's a tough decision…"

Phi nodded at him sympathetically. "Yeah. It is, isn't it?"

Tenmyouji shoved her backwards. "Damn you! You're half the reason it's difficult. You betrayed me. You don't get to talk about it."

Phi recovered herself, this time at a safer distance. She searched frantically for a change of subject. "So… where do you know… her... from?" Phi pointed obliquely at where the old lady's corpse lay behind the curtain.

"What's it to you? Who says I do know her?"

"It's really obvious," Phi replied, "Did you even see how you reacted when we found her?"

"Hmph. Fine. I knew her," Tenmyouji grumbled, "Her name's Akane Kurashiki. I can't tell you any more than that, though."

"Why not? Anything we know about her could help us find out why she's here and who killed her…"

"Zero killed her. And I can't tell you anything else because Zero threatened to kill Quark if I did."

"Wait!" Phi said excitedly, "You mean you've talked to Zero separately to the rest of us! What were they like? Did you get any clues about their identity? Do you know what Zero's goal is? Why…"

"Stop!" Tenmyouji roared, "Are you trying to get Quark killed?! Did you even hear what I said? I can't tell you."

"I don't believe you. For all I know, you're Zero, and this 'they'll kill Quark' thing is just an excuse to keep secrets from us."

"Hmph! First you betray me, then you start accusing me of stuff like that. If you're gonna act like that, you should just leave." Tenmyouji turned away from her with disgust in his eyes. The conversation was over.

Phi fled the infirmary with a bitter taste in her mouth. Her best chance of finding out more information about Zero was gone because Tenmyouji wouldn't cooperate. As all her hopes of subverting the Nonary Game decayed in her mind and spiralled away from her, they were replaced by a pure and fierce blinding headache; Phi stumbled into the opposite wall cradling her head in her hands. She rammed her head against the metal surface and waited for the agony to go away.

When the pain finally subsided, Phi looked up to find Luna standing next to her. She had no idea how Luna had got there.

"Oh! Are you alright, Phi?" Luna said to her, her voice echoing in Phi's ears, as she supported Phi with her arms.

"Yeah, I'm fine," Phi said, trying to keep her voice under control, as she brushed Luna's hands aside. She stretched out her back, trying to stand up straight even against the residual aches.

Phi decided to make the best of Luna seeing her in pain as they strolled towards the lounge. After all, Luna was her partner for the next round; they may as well discuss their strategy and choice of solo. "So, the three solos are Tenmyouji, Quark, and Dio," she said, "What do you think of them? Which one should we try to partner up with next round?"

Luna turned to her serenely. "Phi, I think you should make whatever choice you think is right."

"Really? No opinions whatsoever?" Phi asked sarcastically.

Luna struggled to reply. "I… think you should make whatever choice you think is right," she repeated herself.

Before Phi could ask her what she meant by that, they reached the lounge. The door slid up to reveal Sigma, Dio and K leaning against the bar and chatting. Phi glanced past them at the rack of bottles. She hadn't been able to get a good look at them earlier, but after the stress of the first AB round, the bar was starting to look very inviting.

"Oh, hello Sigma. Did any of you find anything?" Luna called to the three of them.

By the way the three men were standing around, Phi thought it was very unlikely they had. "You were actually looking, right? Hey. Answer me."

Sigma looked sheepish. "Oh, uh, well, I mean, we weren't wasting time… I was just asking them what they found."

Phi raised her eyebrow suggestively.

"… which was nothing," Sigma finished.

Before Phi could tell Sigma off, K started speaking. "Phi, Sigma, you were two of the people searching the infirmary, weren't you? Ah, was there anything interesting in there?"

Sigma responded, pulling the newspaper article they had found in the infirmary safe out of his pocket. In the excitement and terror of the past hour, it had slipped Phi's mind, but its macabre report soon returned to her memory. "Oh, yeah. I almost forgot," Sigma said, holding out the paper in the direction of K, Luna and Dio, "It'd take too long to explain. Just have a look at this."

Luna took the paper and read the article out loud; with each despairing word everyone's expressions sunk. Even K, whose face was hidden behind his armour, seemed paralysed.

"Is there a chance… I mean, I certainly hope it isn't the case, but… Could it be that this facility is, in fact, one of the quarantine locations that clipping mentions?"

It didn't seem very likely to Phi. There weren't enough of them, for one. More importantly, Alice – Phi was increasingly convinced – seemed like some sort of government agent and was as confused as the rest of them: either she had been pretending perfectly from the moment they met, or Alice – and, by extension, the government – weren't involved. Finally…

"Then… you're saying we're all infected with this Radical-6 virus?" Luna asked shyly.

"I dunno," Sigma replied, "It doesn't really fit. I mean, none of us have any kind of symptoms, right?"

Phi wasn't sure that was quite right. She still had no idea what had caused the headache that had gripped her earlier. She hoped it wasn't because of some sort of super-virus and she was tempted to not mention it at all, but after excoriating Tenmyouji for hiding things from her, she could hardly do the same here. "Well, I do feel a little strange. I've lost my balance a few times." There. That was a way to say what happened that didn't portray her in too bad a light.

None of the others seemed to believe her symptoms were those of a world-destroying disease. "That's probably just because you were asleep for so long," Luna explained.

K seemed heartened that his grim hypothesis had been dismissed by the others. "Are you suggesting our incarceration here has nothing to do with this article?"

Finally Dio chimed in from where he had been standing quietly in the corner, "Yeah. It just doesn't add up. The order's backwards. Maybe if we'd been thrown in here after this virus started spreading… But right now it looks like we were abducted before this thing turned into a pandemic." He gestured extravagantly. "How's that make any kind of sense? Besides… you found the article in the safe, right? That means Zero Sr. put it there specifically so we could find it and read it. So that we'd think that this place is a quarantine facility. So that we'd think what Zero wants us to think. This thing is just a… a prop. Something to set the scene. Zero's trying to freak us out. That article is a fake." Dio snatched the article out of Luna's hand and turned it over, presenting the back to the group. It was matte black. "See? There you go. Why would a newspaper just be black on one side?"

"Well, perhaps there was an advertisement there," K suggested half-heartedly, "Some sort of full page ad, with a black background."

Sigma immediately overruled him, "No… I'd bet you money an article like this was front page news. It's too big of a story. And I really don't think they put full-page ads on the back of the front page."

They had arrived at a consensus. The facility they were in was not a quarantine zone. However, before anything else could be said, Tenmyouji burst into the lounge with stark terror in his eyes.

"Luna!" he shouted desperately, "Thank God! You're a doctor, right? You have to come with me! Quark… Something's wrong with him!"

All six of them raced towards the infirmary, where they met Clover and Alice. Quark was lying motionless on the bed next to the ADAM. Luna waved Tenmyouji away from Quark as they entered the room, in order to give herself room to work, before once again picking up the scanner of the ADAM. Once she was done diagnosing Quark she stared at the screen, turning deathly pale as she read the results.

"I… I know what's wrong with him. I feel so terrible saying this, but… Quark has an infection. A viral infection. Radical-6."

So the newspaper had been telling the truth. There was no way to get around it. Even if the ADAM was also lying, it was too much to believe that Quark had coincidently succumbed to another debilitating disease.

Tenmyouji sunk to his knees beside the bed. "Quark can't be… There must be something we can do! How can we cure him?!"

Luna read the results of the ADAM once more, double-checking everything it said. "The ADAM says that there's an anti-viral serum called Axelavir. It's the only way to counteract Radical-6. If we can inject him with some, he should… he should be okay." Unfortunately, there was no such 'Axelavir' to be found in the infirmary, either during the original search, or after.

Tenmyouji turned away from the bed and stumbled into the centre of the room. "Then Quark's… he's going to… Oh God no…"

"Quark!" Alice shouted, pointing at the space that Tenmyouji had just vacated. Quark was standing stiffly beside the bed, a weary and vacant expression marring his once cheerful face.

"Get away from me!" Before anyone could react, Quark yelled inhumanly. His hands swept up purposefully, and Phi suddenly saw that Quark clenched a scalpel between them, the blade aimed directly towards his own chest. "I'm sorry Grandpa," he muttered, "I have… have to… I have to escape. Like this!"

Quark drove the scalpel in towards himself. Phi didn't react in time; she was frozen by shock. Sigma was not. He leapt across the intervening space and grabbed Quark's hand at the last moment, throwing them both across the bed. Quark struggled, his entire body shaking furiously under Sigma's grasp, but though Sigma was old, he held on tight.

It took the others a moment to realise what exactly had happened, but before long Phi, K and Dio were also restraining Quark, and with the pressure relieved from Sigma he was able to force the scalpel all the way away from Quark, Clover knocking it safely out of his hand. Quark's shouts were getting increasingly shrill and frantic, and it was clear that Quark would not calm down. There were only two possible ways this would end before the Chromatic Doors opened. One was not tolerable. The other…

"Luna! Are there any tranquilisers in here?" Phi asked, "Hit him with some!"

Luna arrived next to her wielding an injection gun. After an intense effort to immobilise Quark's leg, Luna struck, injecting the contents of the gun into a vein. After a few agonising seconds Quark relaxed; he soon fell mercifully unconscious.

Luna checked that Quark was okay using the ADAM, then turned to the others. "He was so strong. I think that might be the virus's fault. It probably attacks the part of the brain that governs reason. Without anything to hold it back, his body was using every ounce of strength he had."

"So when Quark tried to kill himself, was that because of Radical-6 too?" Clover asked.

Luna agreed that it probably was. She asked the others if they had heard anything about Radical-6. One by one, they explained that they knew only that which had been explained by the newspaper article Sigma had found, until…

"I have heard rumours about a virus being used as a new sort of bioweapon," Alice volunteered. Suddenly, everyone was asking her questions, but she waved them aside dismissively. "As much as I would love to explain more, I'm sorry. Time's up." She was right. According to the bracelets, only five minutes remained before the Chromatic doors opened.

They rushed to the elevator and rode it down, Tenmyouji carrying Quark in a fireman's lift; he had refused to let anyone touch the boy. As the elevator doors let them out and they spread out into the room, the three Chromatic Doors slid open invitingly.

"Chromatic Doors have opened. Five minutes remain until Chromatic Doors close."

Phi immediately took charge. She had been mulling over the new set of colours in her head and, once again, had calculated the only three possible options:

Option A:
Phi and Luna went with Dio through the Green door.
Sigma and Clover went with Tenmyouji through the Blue door.
Alice and K went with Quark through the Red door.

Option B:
Phi and Luna went with Quark through the Blue door.
Sigma and Clover went with Dio through the Red door.
Alice and K went with Tenmyouji through the Green door.

Option C:
Phi and Luna went with Tenmyouji through the Red door.
Sigma and Clover went with Quark through the Green door.
Alice and K went with Dio through the Blue door.

Before Phi could even take another breath after explaining, Tenmyouji voiced his opinion. "The way he is right now, someone's going to have to carry Quark. I just can't afford to give him to someone I don't trust."

"Quark is a solo, as are you, Tenmyouji," K stated, "Solos can't enter with one another. You do remember that?"

"I didn't say there wasn't anyone I trusted. There's one person… Clover. I can't tell you why I trust you, but I just know you'll keep Quark safe."

Clover gasped with shock. "Really?! That's great… Wait. My partner is Sigma. Are you sure you want me to take him?"

Phi remembered her conversation with Tenmyouji earlier. He must have realised… "Tenmyouji, that's option C. That would mean you'd come through the red door with me. Are you really…"

Tenmyouji interrupted her, "That doesn't matter now. I have to keep Quark safe."

Phi accepted his response. "Okay, option C it is."

"No." Just as Phi thought people were agreeing with option C, Alice contradicted it. "That means I'll be stuck with Dio. There's no way in hell I'm going to let that that happen."

Dio snorted derisively. "Who do you want to go with, then?"

Alice smiled. "Isn't it obvious? Quark."

The moment the name had left her lips Tenmyouji yelled with anguish. "No! This is exactly why I can't trust any of you!"

As Tenmyouji said that, another announcement reminded them of the time ticking down. "One minute remains until Chromatic Doors close."

This was bad. If they couldn't agree in that last minute, they would all die. Looking at Tenmyouji's tormented expression, there was only one option Phi could, in good conscience, support. Option C. The question was how to enforce that option on everyone else without the slightest possibility of further dissension.

"We don't have time to argue this. Let's take a vote. Those opposed to C?" Phi said loudly.

Perfect. A classic 'qui tacet consentire'. This way, anyone who was the slightest bit indecisive would stay silent. As Phi had expected, only Alice and Dio voted against.

"I assume anyone who didn't raise their hand is all right with option C, then?" Phi concluded.

With the choice settled, Phi watched as grateful relief spread across Tenmyouji's face. Phi didn't know why Tenmyouji trusted Clover, but she could clearly see that he believed Quark was as safe as he could possibly be.

After betraying Tenmyouji, that was the best she could do.

This fanfic has branching storylines. To keep track of the various storylines, a link to the Flow Diagram is provided in my Author Profile.