I force myself to breathe deeply through my nose, trying to calm myself down.

This is bad. I've now tried thinking of different times, different places, tried to envision my "soul" moving out of my body, and even attempted to recall the information from back when I was trying to induce an out-of-body experience in hopes that it might somehow help. I've gotten absolutely nowhere thus far, as the fact that I'm still here plainly attests. Damn it, am I really even doing anything right now? Or am I just sitting here ~imagining~ myself getting shot into a different timeline while not doing anything that would actually accomplish such? How would I even tell the difference for something like this? It's not like I've ever done this before; I don't even know what it feels like to "resonate" with someone, assuming it feels like anything at all.

Again the thought strikes me that this might not be working because esper powers don't work the way I'm reasoning, and I just plain don't have the capability to do this. But that's not particularly helpful, so I discard the thought almost immediately in favor of trying to figure out what else could potentially be the problem. Let's see… could it be the lack of pressing danger? That's supposedly what usually triggers a SHIFT, but given my foreknowledge of what lies ahead, I feel like this whole situation should qualify as danger aplenty. If not that though... I suppose in ZTD's penultimate scene, everyone was holding on to each other when they mass SHIFTed out. Do I need to be in even closer proximity to other espers for this to work? Maybe I should grab hold of Sigma and Phi or something, and then try. Now I kind of wish I hadn't chased Sigma off…

I check the time on my bracelet. Fifteen minutes left, so five minutes until Phi's meetup time. I guess I'm not making much progress like this anyways — I might as well head down now, and keep trying once I get there.

I stand, finding myself again thinking how nice it would be to kick Clover's shoes off entirely (if only the floor wasn't so cold), when my eye catches on the aluminum foil sheet covered by the glass top of the "table" to my left. It was presumably used by Sigma's group to solve some sort of puzzle when they were trying to escape from here, but something about it strikes me as important for a reason beyond that. Didn't someone do something with this at some point...?

My eyes widen as I remember. Yes, someone most definitely did — in Luna's ending, she used this to remove her and Sigma's bracelets. Aluminum foil can fool the heartbeat sensor. That was the method I couldn't think of earlier!

I open the glass cover and carefully pull out the foil underneath. I can't really take the bracelet off without causing a major commotion with everyone else, and in truth there's not any pressing reason for me to do so right now anyways… but, as Tenmyouji pointed out, there's no rule preventing us from taking things from the rooms. So, just in case…

I carefully fold the aluminum over on itself, trying to keep the sheet as intact as possible, and slide the resulting square into my empty back pocket. I gotta say, I'm getting way more use out of Clover's short shorts than I would have thought possible just a few hours ago. The rest of… her is still pretty inconvenient to be stuck with, but at least carrying things has somehow yet to be an issue. Plus the material is tight enough across the rear that I'm pretty sure the aluminum and papers won't get crumpled or torn, which is… alright, that's kinda reaching. I'm looking for any positives I can find at this point.

I briefly check out the other three rooms of the crew quarters before I go, making sure there aren't any bombs hiding under the beds, but find nothing. I suppose I didn't really expect Dio to set any, seeing as Akane is dead, but I'm glad I checked. Sure, I probably couldn't do anything about it even if I'd found one, but I'd still rather know than not.

I end up bumping into Luna and Phi on my way back to the elevator. Though it's somewhat hard for me to tell given that her default expression is a frown, Phi appears to be distinctly unhappy about something.

"Something wrong Phi?" I ask as I fall in step with them, vaguely curious.

"No." Phi bluntly replies. "Clover, you still have those files, right?"

"Yeah, they're in my pocket."

"Did you look at them already?"

I squint at her. "Of course I did. I mean, I just skimmed the second one at first, but I looked at the whole thing later. Why?"

"Just wondering. Can I see them?"

Figuring it can't really hurt, I pass the pages over. Phi raises an eyebrow.

"Where are the folders these were in?"

"In one of the AB rooms where I left them." I huff, starting to get annoyed. "Any reason for the sudden interrogation?"

Phi says nothing as we walk into the elevator and begin to descend, too engrossed in the documents to bother responding. Figures. I'm not getting those back, am I…?

Emerging from the elevator on the floor below, we find Alice, and surprisingly Sigma have beaten the three of us here. The latter gives me an odd look as I walk in, probably due to how our last encounter went. Yeah yeah Sigma, I'll apologize later, assuming I'm still alive to give you one.

"Hey guys." he eventually says. "Or, well, girls."

"Hello Sigma." Luna greets back.

I stay quiet, instead simply giving Alice a silent wave, which she returns.

To my surprise, Phi does in fact hand back the files I gave her, before finally looking around and noticing we're still short a few people. "We'll wait until the others arrive to start. No point in going over all this twice."

The room falls silent in record time. Shrugging, I put the papers away and sit myself down in front of the red Chromatic Door before closing my eyes to make another attempt at SHIFTing. Hopefully just having Sigma and Phi in the same room as me will be enough, since I don't really want to try justifying my sudden and inexplicable need to grab hold of the two of them.

Come on… come on… work…!

"…heh. Stuck in a small room, surrounded by four beautiful women." Sigma suddenly says, breaking my concentration. "This is like a dream come true. Don't worry ladies, there's plenty of me to go around..."

I open my eyes to glare at him for that. Phi makes a disgusted noise, Alice glares right alongside me, and Luna very quickly looks away. Sigma just grins sheepishly in response. Ugh, dude, even if you WERE still in your 20s like you think you are, how exactly did you expect a room of girls — well, three girls and one "girl" — would react to that kind of skeevy non-joke? Keep it to yourself, if you absolutely have to think it.

Thankfully, the awkward air Sigma just put in place is broken when the elevator door opens up again a moment later, revealing K, Tenmyouji, and Quark.

"Where's Dio?" Phi asks as they walk out to join us.

"Do we really care?" Tenmyouji "mutters" loud enough for the entire room to hear.

"We informed him that we were heading down here, but he did not seem to regard it as particularly important." K says.

Phi looks vaguely annoyed by that. "Fine. Guess we'll start without him then. First off, seeing as how no one has said anything yet, I assume that none of us found a way out?" she asks, waiting for everyone to regretfully confirm this to be so before continuing. "In that case, did anyone happen to find anything else that could be important?"

As the discussion begins, I resume my efforts, albeit with my eyes open now. It's hard to concentrate what with all the talking, but with everyone important gathered in one place this is my best chance to pull this off. Come on, SHIFT! Do it, me!

"Well, there was a newspaper clipping in the infirmary." Luna contributes. "It was an article that mentioned a plague called Radical-6 sweeping the land, killing off tens of thousands of people."

"A plague…?" Phi mutters, looking thoughtful.

"Does that mean we're in some sort of quarantine?" Sigma asks.

"I doubt it." Alice replies. "If this is all for our safety, it doesn't really make much sense that we're being forced to play a game that could kill us. Besides, a disease that dangerous would have made national news. Has anyone here ever heard of it until now?"

Silence and a smattering of no's is the response. Alice crosses her arms. "Didn't think so. For all we know, that article was planted by Zero to throw us off the trail of whatever is really going on here. On another note, K want to share what we found out?"

K nods. "It seems as though we may all have been unconscious for quite some time." he says solemnly. "While I cannot remember my own kidnapping, Alice and Sigma were abducted on two different days."

The statement prompts the two of them to share which days those were, which Phi nods in agreement with.

"I wasn't taken on either of those days." she says quietly. "We can't have been out too long though, or our muscles would have degraded... anything else?"

"Well, the infirmary has both Soporil and Tubocurarine in stock, not that we need any more of those." Tenmyouji puts in. "Doesn't look like the place has been used too much. Far as I could tell, everything is fully stocked."

"Yes, I noticed that as well." Luna adds. "It's very well supplied. You should be able to treat anything short of a fatal injury there."

"Well, maybe you could." Tenmyouji replies. "None of the rest of us have medical training-"

The elevator door opens again, and Dio swaggers in like he owns the place, halting all conversation as everyone naturally turns to look at him.

"What? I'm here before the doors opened." he says defensively, shrugging. "I miss anything?"

Phi just looks at him for a moment, her expression unreadable, before replying. "Not really. We were just about to discuss the files you were so interested in earlier."

"Oh, so we're FINALLY going to be allowed to find out what's in those things, huh?" Dio places a hand on the tip of his hat and smiles smugly. "'Bout time."

"Unless anyone had anything else to add?" Phi inquires, eyes sweeping the room. "We've only got a few minutes left until the doors open, so make it quick."

No one has anything to say, least of all me given that I'm sort of occupied at present moment, so Phi continues. "Alright then." she says, withdrawing a golden folder from within her clothing… and immediately handing it to Sigma. "Sigma, you take over."

"Wha- why me?!"

"I've done the talking up until now." Phi answers plainly. "Now it's your turn."

In other words, she doesn't want to be in charge for the moment. Fair enough I suppose, I wouldn't want to be doing all the talking either.

Sigma stumbles over his words for a second before starting in. "Okay. Uh… if everyone remembers, Zero Jr. called these 'secret archives'." he says, brandishing the folder. "They seem to have been placed inside the room safes, and are accessible through an alternative combination you can find in each room. We have three of them right now... unless someone got the one from the infirmary?"

Phi speaks up again. "I tried, but couldn't. I'd guess we've been locked out since the initial team to go through didn't get it while escaping."

"Oh… I'm sorry…" Luna apologizes.

"It's okay Luna." Sigma reassures her. "I'm not really sure how helpful these are anyways…"

"What do you mean?" Dio says crossly, pointedly glancing at me. "That rabbit sure as hell kept acting like they were, didn't he?"

"Well…" Sigma waffles. "…you'll see. Anyways, inside each one is a single page of paper with small tidbits of information on it." An embarrassed expression crosses his face as he apparently considers something. "Uh, why don't we start with the ones Clover has, since she found the first one."

Everyone turns towards me, causing me to send Sigma another glare. Really? You're passing the buck to me now? I'm already racing the clock as it is. Gah…

I have a large sigh and stand up, pulling the files out of my pocket and unfolding them again. "The one from the AB room was basically just an overview of terms about the Nonary Game. It's literally all stuff Zero told us about immediately after we got out. Well, what isn't random trivia and bad jokes, anyways."

I pass the page to Tenmyouji on my right, with the intention of having the group pass it around to look at. "The one from the lounge is essentially the same thing — we all know pretty much everything in it already. If you were wondering what Zero was talking about earlier, it does mention the death-by-BP thing, but I didn't do more than skim it before leaving the lounge, so I didn't know. Tenmyouji and K can back me up there."

I pass the page to Luna this time, on my left. I probably didn't really have to mention the BP thing, since no one has even asked about it since the warehouse, but I'd prefer to cover my bases.

"Sigma, back to you." I say as I sit back down and resume my silent endeavor.

Sigma fidgets, looking somewhat embarrassed. "Er… could everyone just take on faith that the only important thing we found in the archive from the crew quarters is that there are seven types of Chromatic Doors? The rest of it is kind of useless, not to mention boring-"

"Oh but Sigma, that's not true at all." Alice cuts in, making Sigma appear to briefly panic. "It also mentions something called 'Erotic Units' and Tenmyouji's collection of adult films, doesn't it?"

Tenmyouji stumbles in place, while Sigma looks visibly relieved. "Well, yeah, but those aren't really that important, do you think?"

"Well, it also has that adorable little cat story, which I personally found very entertaining." Alice says with a devilish grin. "I'm sure everybody would love to hear it."

"Ah… I don't think-"

"Here, I'll even read it out." Alice says, swiping the folder from Sigma's hands. "Ahem: 'Sigma has a strange verbal and possibly psychological tic which causes him to make cat puns whenever he talks about cats…'"

The files make it back around to me, and I stow them back in my short shorts as Alice proceeds to regale us with a bizarre little tale explaining the "origin" behind the cat speak tic I'd forgotten Sigma even had, involving magic cats, curses, and a literal happily ever after ending. The room is quiet once she finishes, until Sigma suddenly decides to speak up.

"I know that all sounds crazy, but it's true! Really!"

Most of the group openly stares at him. I don't think anyone in here expected him to defend what Alice just read out, Alice included.

"Seriously?" Dio snickers. "You're telling me you can talk to cats, and can't help but talk like a cat whenever they come up in conversation? Have you gone senile?"

Sigma blushes like a schoolgirl, prompting Phi to interject. "Whatever the cause, he really does have a verbal compulsion. It came up while we were trying to escape the crew quarters. Funny as it may be though, combined with that bit about Tenmyouji's 'videos', I don't like what this implies. How many people have you shared that story with, Sigma?"

"…just the girl in the story, and my parents." Sigma mutters. "It was private…"

"In other words, it seems whoever put us here knows some very personal things about us." Phi concludes. "Things they probably shouldn't be able to know."

An uneasy air descends upon the group, though to my knowledge at least half of the people present pretty much have to be faking their unsettled expressions. Before the feeling can linger for too long however, an activation sound cuts through the room. I'm forced to stand again as the door at my back slides up, and the five minute warning announcement plays. Oh no, I'm running out of time!

"Looks like we're out of time to talk about this." Tenmyouji says as I attempt to double down on my SHIFTing efforts. "We need to decide who's going with who."

"Yes, but who should decide that?" K asks. "As with the last round, a single choice will automatically make everyone else's for them."

"I think those of us with the least BP should get to decide." Alice declares. "I mean, they're the ones at the greatest disadvantage, so it only seems fair."

"Convenient that you happen to be part of that group..." Sigma quietly comments.

"And whose fault is THAT?" Alice scathingly retorts, quickly shutting Sigma up.

"Hey, wait a minute." Dio complains. "Why should you pick? You got your choice last time!"

"Maybe we should at least go over our options before we start arguing." Tenmyouji growls.

God damn it, this isn't working, and all the noise going on around me definitely isn't helping. Do I wait until we finish these rooms and hope I get a less conspicuous chance to do this before somebody ends up dead, or just go for Plan Grab and pray I'm successful? Phi isn't even close enough to Sigma right now for the latter option to work, but I guess I could just forcibly drag one of them over to the other. Then again, I'm not confident that I could even manage that in this body, and how the hell would I explain myself it doesn't work? It would definitely make them suspicious of me, which would likely ruin any chance I might get to try properly later…

Phi is rapidly summarizing our options again, but I already know that my personal options for the round boil down to either going with Luna and Quark through the green door, Alice and Tenmyouji through the blue door, or Sigma and Dio through the red door, and so spend the time warring with my indecision instead. Unfortunately, I still haven't come up with my answer by the time she finishes.

"Now that that's settled, I'm going with Clover this time." Alice says, the mention of my current namesake temporarily pulling my attention back to the conversation. "I trust her far more than I do any of the rest of you."

"I like that option too." Tenmyouji adds. "After last round, I think I can trust Clover not to betray me."

I briefly acknowledge the two of them with a small smile, despite my inner anxiety. Sure, they're only partially basing that judgment on things I actually did, but it does feel nice to be the first choice.

"Afraid I can't say the same for you, K." Tenmyouji continues as I go back to attempting to debate the pros and cons of my options. "You did tell me it was mostly her decision after all."

"That's alright." K replies neutrally. "I would rather not go with Alice in any case, nor Luna for that matter."

"Oh… how come?" Luna asks, sounding marginally hurt by the comment. "I was hoping to go with either Clover or you, since you two chose ally last round."

"It's nothing personal." K assures. "Both of you only have 1 BP, so I highly doubt either of you will be willing to risk allying next round. Even if you promised you would, I would not necessarily be able to trust that. But if I betrayed to protect myself, and you kept your word, I could… kill you. There is much less risk if I pair up with Sigma and Dio, who both have 6 BP."

"Well, that's too bad." Dio smirks. "Because I want to pair up with Clover."

My head snaps around. What the heck? Alice, Tenmyouji, and even Luna I understand, but Dio?

"Like everyone keeps saying, she chose ally last round." Dio smiles, holding the brim of his hat up. "I think I like the sound of that. A round where I don't have to worry about being betrayed would be pretty nice."

"I didn't realize I was such a hot commodity." I can't help but say aloud. And if he thinks I wouldn't betray him in half a second, he's got another thing coming.

"You do want to come with us, right Clover?" Alice prompts.

I cross my arms and consider for a moment. By now, I think I've made up my mind — risking everything on a single chance is a last resort sort of deal. As dire as things will likely very soon be, no one's been knifed (bar Akane) or succumbed to the suicide plague thus far, and we haven't discovered any bombs, so we haven't reached that point just yet. By default, that means I'll be proceeding through the next puzzle room and waiting for a better opportunity. But, as I'd kind of been counting on having escaped this timeline by now, I haven't really thought about who I'd prefer to team with. I suppose since the Alice situation is mostly resolved, I don't need to be as worried about pairing up with her as before, so I guess…

"Yeah, I'd like that." I reply, trying to put some enthusiasm in my voice. "I mean, you're my first choice, but honestly I guess I'd be okay with Luna and Quark's group too. So long as I'm not stuck going with Dio, I think I'm alright."

"Hey!" Dio snarls. "The hell'd I ever do to-"

"You really think I've forgotten about what you said back in the infirmary?" I shoot back before he can even finish. "You've been nothing but rude and accusatory towards me this entire time; why would I ever want to pair up with you?"

"Then that's four votes for Option B." Phi notes as the one minute reminder plays. "I'm fine with that, so Sigma, Quark, unless you have something to add, that's what we're going with."

"I don't really mind." Quark says. "I'd be okay going with Miss Clover, Miss Phi, or Mister K."

"And I guess that means my vote doesn't really matter, huh?" Sigma says, looking away with a hand behind his head.

Uh oh. Sigma not getting to choose again? Maybe I should have betrayed last round after all, because I'm really screwing with the timeline splits now.

"Wait a second!" Dio objects. "That means we're stuck with the robot!"

"As I have said before," K states in a firm tone, "I am not a robot. I would appreciate if you would stop referring to me as such."

Dio glares scornfully in his direction. "Well, you sure as hell look like one. Either way, I don't see why Sigma and I should have to pair up with the walking tin can."

"Perhaps I was wrong to suggest this then. I will say that while you were my first choice, you are quickly making the others seem far more appealing." K responds in about as harsh a manner as I've yet heard him use.

"Just deal with it!" Phi shouts as the ten second countdown starts. "Time's almost up! Get through the doors!"

With no time left to figure out something else, our groups quickly hurry past the primary doors and into the small scanning rooms. The concluding countdown only serves to remind me of the noose rapidly tightening around my neck, and the sound of the door sliding closed feels a lot more final this time.

I hope I made the right choice…