Naoko entered the computer room at the requested time. He saw that both Yori and Eryu were waiting for him inside, as their attention snapped over to him as soon as he arrived.
"Good, we're all here," Yori said.
"I can see that," Eryu replied. "Now I can brief you two on what I'm going to be doing before the nighttime announcement arrives."
"What are you going to do?" Naoko asked.
"Well," Eryu began, "to answer that, I'd like you to take a look at this."
Eryu reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a small sheaf of papers. He presented it to Naoko, who could see that there were the words "Important party information" written neatly on the front cover in large lettering, and the words "Please keep this information secret from IMONO" below it in slightly smaller lettering.
Naoko gave Eryu a confused look. "Party information? That's what this is all about?"
"I know it might seem weird," Eryu admitted. "I just want people to know about what we have in store for them before we get things underway."
"Why put it all in writing, then?" Naoko asked.
"Apparently, it's for the same reason we kept our last conversation together in writing," Yori explained. "IMONO isn't going to be involved in the festivities at all."
As if on cue, one of the monitors behind Eryu and Yori turned on, revealing a familiar image.
"I FIND SUCH A PRECAUTION TO BE ENTIRELY UNNECESSARY."
The three of them looked at the monitor, their expressions very much unenthused. Eryu in particular looked furious.
"I knew that you would be keeping a close eye on us, but do you really need to interrupt us?" Naoko responded.
"Well, IMONO shouldn't be able to stop us," Yori pointed out. "None of these computers have cameras."
"YES. UNFORTUNATELY, I AM ONLY ABLE TO WATCH YOUR CONVERSATION THROUGH THIS ROOM'S SECURITY CAMERA. HOWEVER, THAT IS NOT IMPORTANT. WHAT IS IMPORTANT IS WHY YOU HAVE DECIDED TO HIDE THE DETAILS OF YOUR PARTY FROM ME."
"I already told you, IMONO," Eryu shot back. "The last time you tried to bring us together, you caused a murder. You're not going to be involved in this in any way, shape, or form, and that's final."
"STILL, YOU CONTINUE TO USE ME AS A SCAPEGOAT. NEED I REMIND YOU THAT YOU ARE THE ONE THAT ALLOWED THOSE UNDER YOU T-"
"Will you shut up?!" Eryu blurted out. This caused the room to become silent for an uncomfortably long time. Naoko found himself seriously hoping IMONO wouldn't respond too drastically.
"STILL, YOU CONTINUE TO ACT STUBBORNLY."
"IMONO, this is getting out of hand," Naoko pointed out. "If you don't stop interrupting, we can have our conversation somewhere else."
Yet another tense pause followed.
"VERY WELL."
The monitor turned off again, and the trio let out a collective sigh of relief.
"Good," Naoko said. "I'm really glad that's settled. Back to the matter at hand, Eryu. You want us to see what you've written down?"
"Well," Yori began, "he's already shown me the contents of that sheaf. At this point, we're waiting on you."
Yori then gave Eryu a gesture which was correctly interpreted as a signal to hand Naoko the sheaf. Naoko took it without hesitation and turned the page, making sure at the same time that he wasn't letting the camera see. The first page was exactly as the title suggested. It went over what they'd need for the party, the list of which included things like streamers, paper lanterns, a folding table, a music player, and a bunch more. It also went over the timeframe of the party. Apparently it'd start at noon, and end three hours later. It also went over who'd be helping make the preparations: The three of them, Haru, Takeshi, Yasuo, and Hoshi.
"Well, this all looks okay," Naoko said, looking up briefly. "I don't know why you need all this…"
Naoko paused as he turned the page, and saw that information about the party wasn't all that the sheaf contained. On the very next page, there was a somewhat more laconic version of the notes that Naoko remembered handing over to Yori a couple of days ago. All the worthwhile ideas that Naoko could think of at the time to get them all the hell out of their lifeless gray prison were there, without much in the way of addition besides some short comments left by Eryu here and there.
Naoko looked up to the two of them, to see that both of them were looking at him approvingly. Eryu made a hand motion which seemed to be asking Naoko to turn the next page, and Naoko did just that. On the third page, there was a short detailing of what they spoke of the day before. There was the confusion they had at IMONO seemingly violating the laws of robotics, as well as the theory that Yori had come up with, that being that IMONO wasn't an AI and that they were in a killing game.
"This is a lot more information than I thought there'd be," Naoko said aloud.
"It does, indeed, contain some of what we spoke of in our last meeting," Yori replied.
"It's information I figured people will need to know about," Eryu added. "You two should know most of the information, so you won't be needing a copy of this. You didn't know I'd be giving those out, though, and that's the main reason I wanted us to meet up again."
"A copy?" Naoko asked. "You're saying you've made more than one of these?"
"No, actually," Eryu replied. "The other reason I wanted us to meet up is because I'd like you two to accompany me. I'm going to go and speak to one of the others, and ask them to do something for me."
Naoko and Yori stood back a bit as Eryu rang Hoshi's doorbell. They had asked around a bit prior, and according to everyone they talked to, they hadn't seen Hoshi recently, and he was probably in his room. If he wasn't and the door didn't open, then that meant that they'd all have to investigate the facility further. Who knew how long that would take.
Luckily for them, the door opened, and Hoshi greeted them with a curious smile.
"Ah, hello you three," he said. "Is there something you need from me?"
"Yeah," Naoko replied. "Eryu told us he wanted you to do something for him."
"I'll agree to it once you've told me what that something is," Hoshi replied.
Yori handed him the sheaf of papers. "First, we'll need you to read this. From where we are, the cameras shouldn't see the writing."
Hoshi did what was asked of him, not really seeing it as too strange. He had a look of understanding as he read the first page, but at the second page, he looked surprised. On the third page, he actually let out an "Oh my" upon reading its contents. This was followed by a gesture from Yori to keep his voice down.
"An interesting read, to be sure," Hoshi commented before looking up at the trio. "Is there something you need me to do with this?"
"We need you to make some copies of this," Eryu explained. "Discounting the three of us, and you, who just read it...we'll need 9 copies total, that one included."
"Wait," Yori interrupted. "There's 14 of us. Discounting us four, won't we need 10?"
"Yeah," Naoko agreed. "That'd mean one person wouldn't get a copy."
"That one person is Bankei," Eryu answered. "You remember what I said a little while ago, don't you, Naoko? She may not know it yet, but Bankei is no longer a part of our group. It wasn't entirely easy to admit that I was wrong to tell her she had to be, but what she did on our first day, and what you told me after, did make it easier. Truth be told, she's too aloof. Too uncaring. She's treating this like some sort of game. We can't trust her, plain and simple."
"Keep your voice down, Eryu," Yori piped up. "She could be nearby."
"...Shit, you're right," Eryu said, a bit quieter.
"I wasn't aware that you've decided that," Hoshi replied. "When did you tell him that?"
"He talked about it on our first day," Naoko answered. "Then the day after, in the cafeteria. You weren't there, I don't think. I think…" Naoko paused for a moment to double check his memory. "Mariko, Haru, Mine, Takeshi, and Ishi were also there at the time."
"Then we should let everyone else know about that," Yori pointed out.
"You're right again, Yori," Eryu said with a bit of a sigh. "Alright, Hoshi. Could you add that info to the copies for everyone besides those five? You can label them if you have to."
"Hm," Hoshi replied, thinking about it. "That all sounds doable. Once I'm done, though, should I give them to you to distribute?"
"Call us back to your room," Eryu instructed. "We'll slip them under the doors to everyone's rooms. Make sure people know to destroy the messages after reading them, too, just in case."
"In case what?" Hoshi asked.
"In case IMONO or Bankei try to get a peek inside them," Eryu replied.
"Sounds like you don't want to tell Bankei anything at all," Naoko pointed out. "Are we supposed to let Bankei think she's still in the group, or are we not?"
"I'd rather we do," Yori chimed in. "Still, keeping her entirely in the dark could make her suspicious."
"I have a suggestion," Hoshi said. "How about I give her a copy with just the first page?"
"That could work," Eryu replied.
"Very well," Hoshi replied. "I should be done with all of that in a little while. I'll come and find you all once I'm done."
"Gotcha," Eryu said. "C'mon, you two. Let's head to the cafeteria."
The trio entered the cafeteria, where there didn't seem to be much activity. The only two people that were there were Mareo and Mariko, who sat at the same table. The two of them were chatting about something when they entered the cafeteria, but the two paused for a moment as they both looked over at the trio.
"Hey, guys," Mareo said. "Are you three doing something together again?"
"Yes, we are," Yori responded.
"That's neat," Mariko chimed in. "Does it involve either of us?"
Eryu waved off her question. "No, don't worry. You two don't have to worry about that. We just need to stay here together for a while. We're sort of waiting on something, just so you know."
"Since you're waiting, would you like to join us?" Mareo offered.
"What were you two doing?" Naoko asked. "It looked like you were talking."
"Yeah, we were," Mariko replied. "It's not really a fun conversation, though, so maybe you'd rather not join in it."
"Oh?" Yori said, intrigued. "What were you talking about?"
"If you want to pry," Mareo answered, "then I suppose it's best I just tell you. We were talking about Kimi."
"Ah, I get it," Naoko responded. "You're both upset with her, aren't you?"
"Indeed," Mareo replied bluntly. "Don't get me wrong, it's not like we're outliers. I think we've all been put off by her attitude at least a little. Still, she's pretty recently taken jabs at our expense, and that's what we were discussing."
"I remember she called you an android a couple of times," Eryu pointed out. "And Mariko, she's made rude remarks about your weight...I wanna say three times."
"Maybe four times," Naoko corrected. "When I first met her, she called her a 'fatty'. I mean, it was just to me, but it's clearly low-hanging fruit for her."
"Oh, it definitely is," Eryu agreed. "If she makes any more rude remarks like that, I'm definitely going to have her face some sort of punishment. Probably trash duty. Nobody's doing that anymore."
"Are we going to have another group therapist, too?" Mareo asked.
"I don't know if anyone here is qualified to do something like that," Yori replied.
"That's a shame," Mariko said. "It'd be nice to have someone to talk to. Or at least a shoulder to cry on when things get overwhelming."
"I agree," Eryu replied. "Would you like to fill this position, Mariko?"
"I dunno. That doesn't seem like my thing," she admitted. "If anything, I think I'd need to talk to someone like that more than a lot of people here."
"Are you saying you're too emotional to fill that position?" Mareo asked.
"Something like that," Mariko replied, looking rather embarrassed.
"I think that you'd be pretty good at it, actually," Naoko weighed in. "A good therapist should have a good capacity for empathy, don't they? If you're emotional, that could help you connect with the people you console."
Mariko seemed to be cheered up by Naoko's input. "You think so?"
"I'm...not an expert on the topic," Naoko admitted sheepishly. "For all I know, I'm way off. You can take my advice or leave it, but I think it'd be good to try, at least."
Mariko smiled. "Wow. I guess I can try, if that's okay."
"Of course," Eryu replied. "If you're good at it, I say you should do it."
"Alright," Mariko said, smiling. "I'll give it a shot. Maybe I'll start by...I dunno, talking to Sasa, maybe? She seems like she could use a nice talking to."
"Well, it's good to see that things are starting to get settled," Mareo said. "Let's hope our group dynamic is able to recover."
"If all goes well, then it should," Yori replied. "Still, it's best if we take precautions, especially in regards to some of the most volatile people here, such as Kimi."
"Keeping her in line sounds like it'd be a difficult task," Mareo commented. "She even bad-mouthed Eryu recently. Remember that?"
"She did, didn't she?" Naoko replied.
"She said something weird," Eryu said, eyebrows furrowed a bit. "Something about...I think it was an accusation of doing something called 'white-knighting'. I still have no idea what that means."
"It's a term from the internet," Naoko answered. "Kind of a buzzword, really."
"From what I understand, that's correct," Mareo concurred. "It more or less means that a man is going out of his way to be overly-nice to a woman he's interested in."
"...Oh," Eryu replied in understanding. "That makes sense, actually. Why didn't I figure that out?"
"Don't worry about not knowing what it means," Mariko assured him. "I myself only figured out what it means through context clues on social media."
"Well, it's good that that confusion's out of the way," Yori said.
"Yeah, it's kinda funny, really," Eryu began. "If I wasn't confused about that term, I would've laid into Kimi for calling Mariko a 'fat chick'."
"She said that, yeah," Mariko agreed. "Nothing new from her."
"I hope you weren't too hurt by her saying that," Naoko said.
"I wouldn't say so," Mariko replied. "I mean, don't get me wrong, I'm comfortable with my weight. Well, mostly."
"Mostly?" Yori asked.
"It's not important," Mariko said, looking down at the table's surface in front of her.
"Huh," Mareo replied simply. "Maybe you had a point earlier."
"What do you mean by that?" Naoko asked.
"When Mariko said she was too emotional to be a therapist," Mareo clarified.
"Let's not backtrack on our conversation," Eryu said, motioning for him to stop.
"Right. Apologies."
From there, the five of them began to speak a bit more casually, and time seemed to go by rather quickly. After not too long, Hoshi walked into the room, getting everyone's attention, and brought Naoko, Yori, and Eryu to his room.
There, he showed them the 10 labelled copies of Eryu's instructions he had amassed. Hoshi then took on a bit of a spectator's role as the three others worked to distribute the copies. Yori and Eryu watched both entrances to the dorm rooms as Naoko slipped the sheaves underneath the small space underneath the doors to each person's rooms. It went relatively smoothly, considering the ways it could've gone sour. Only one person went into the dorms as Naoko worked, that being Ishi, and Eryu was able to quickly assure her not to worry, as they were "doing something important," which was true, all things considered.
At one point, however, as Naoko was slipping a sheaf under a door, the door that he had just previously slipped a sheaf under opened up, revealing a very confused-looking Sasa.
"I'm really sorry," Sasa said, looking at Naoko nervously while holding the sheaf in her hands. "Y-you're giving me a message?"
"Well, yeah, that's exactly what we're doing," Naoko replied.
"Sasa?" Hoshi asked, peeking out of his room and looking towards the two of them. "Don't mind all this. I've just been helping them keep everyone informed."
"Oh...Wait, them?" Sasa asked.
"Yori and Eryu are keeping watch," Naoko explained.
"S-so everything's okay? Is that what y-you're saying?" Sasa asked, fidgeting with the sheaf in her hands a bit.
"I'd say so," Hoshi replied. "They're just handing out copies of what you have there in your hands."
Sasa looked at the cover inquisitively before turning to the first page. She seemed to read its contents, which took her a flat 5 seconds, before looking up. "This looks nice."
Hoshi's eyes widened. "Wow, Sasa, did you just read that whole first page?"
"Y-yeah, I did," Sasa replied. "It wasn't that long, really."
"But you still read the whole thing in a very short amount of time," Hoshi pointed out. "You must be a very fast reader."
"I guess," Sasa said, looking very awkward. "So...Hoshi. You said you were helping them. Did you make these?"
"I made copies of what Eryu made," Hoshi clarified.
"So he went to you for that?" Sasa asked.
In response to this, Eryu turned the corner and joined the conversation. "I would've gone to you, but I wasn't sure if you'd be comfortable with such an important task."
"Really?" Sasa asked meekly, frowning. "I'm sorry. I sh-should be going. I'm probably just b-being a burden right now. Good luck, you four."
"No need to see yourself like that, Sasa," Hoshi responded. Unfortunately, as soon as he finished, Sasa had finished closing the door to her room. This didn't seem to sit well with Hoshi at all, but it also seemed like there wasn't much else that could be done.
An unfortunate end to the exchange, really. The good thing was that nothing else happened to complicate the situation. All the copies were distributed in short order, and the four congratulated each other for a job well done. The four of them went their separate ways, with Naoko glad that their second meeting had been fairly productive. Still, he couldn't help but feel worried by the fact that they had yet to come up with a solid plan to escape. Sure, they didn't have as much to work with as they could, but Naoko still found himself worrying about how much longer they'd have to spend in what was quite possibly a killing game. His thoughts on the matter were cut off after a while, though.
*Dong, Ding, Dong!*
"THE TIME IS NOW 10PM. IT IS NOW NIGHTTIME. YOU MAY CONTINUE YOUR CURRENT ACTIVITIES, BUT I WOULD RECOMMEND YOU RETURN TO YOUR ROOMS AS SOON AS YOU ARE ABLE. SWEET DREAMS."
Ah, it was nighttime again. Naoko figured he may as well go to bed sooner rather than later. He got up and left the game room, where he had spent some time in thought, and made his way back to his room. As soon as he opened the door, however, he heard it again.
*Dong, Ding, Dong!*
Naoko froze. That...wasn't supposed to play a second time, was it? Well, it seemed to play not long after they…
"ALSO, BEFORE YOU ALL GO TO BED FOR THE NIGHT, I WOULD LIKE TO MAKE A BRIEF ANNOUNCEMENT."
Oh. Well, that was much better compared to what Naoko was beginning to think. Still, what the hell did IMONO want to say to them? The last announcement it had given them wasn't exactly pleasant.
"I HAVE COME TO A DECISION REGARDING SOME OF YOUR RECENT PLANNING. YOU ALL SEEM TO DOUBT MY ABILITY TO BRING YOU ALL CLOSER TOGETHER. IN FACT, I AM AWARE THAT I AM BEING KEPT OUT OF YOUR PARTY PLANNING ENTIRELY. THIS IS NOT IDEAL FOR MYSELF, AND I WOULD LIKE TO SHOW THAT I AM, IN FACT, ABLE TO BRING YOU ALL CLOSER TOGETHER. EARLY TOMORROW MORNING, I WILL PUT A PLAN OF MINE INTO MOTION, WHICH SHOULD HELP WIN BACK YOUR TRUST IN ME. THAT IS ALL."
Okay, Naoko thought. IMONO wanted to try something that could "bring them closer together". As Eryu had already said, the last time IMONO tried something of the sort, a murder ocurred. If the theory posited by Yori was true, then that was the intended result, as well. A motivation to murder, disguised as an attempt to create a feeling of togetherness...could that really work twice in a row?
What the hell was IMONO planning?