(Very short chapter; I could've fused this with the next one but it's late and I really need to make sure the next one is how I want it)

The weather was not ideal for a trip to the carnival, which was exactly why you decided to visit Rage. You figured you might've been the only person to buy takoyaki from him on Wednesday.

With your hands tucked in the pockets of your jacket, you walked through the carnival and the fog until you found not only Rage, but Akira and Devil Zukin as well. You wondered if they watched the Midnight Channel. It had only been about a day since you rescued Alice... had it been foggy enough for the channel to appear?

"I saw static last night," Zukin said.

"That means we barely rescued her in time, doesn't it?" Rage asked you. "Zukin's been telling us about the 'static channel' before a foggy day like this. The same stuff that happened to your friends, I think." Last time, you could count on having weeks to save someone, but the period between capture and being in danger was much shorter for the people in this city. How many more people were going to be kidnapped? Would you be able to save them all in time? You had to make a better effort to find the criminal, or else you were afraid of what would happen.

Should you start a wave of panic at the arcade or keep quiet? You were going to have to do the opposite of what you had been doing before: tell the people closest to you that there was something going on. But if you were specific about the Midnight Channel, you would have too many people watching it, and too many secrets would be exposed. You instructed the others to remain as vague as possible.

"You want us to start telling people about the criminal now?" Rage asked. "I don't know..."

Your logic was that if someone knew ahead of time, he or she could prepare for capture. All your friends would need to know is that you all heard about a kidnapper; that was a normal warning that wouldn't arise many questions, plus it would make everyone more alert of what was going on.

The others agreed to that.

"I'll tell Yuni our plan," Akira said. "Souji... I ask that you be the one to talk to Zero. You're probably the only one who sees him on a regular basis."

"And Alice?" Zukin said.

"Yuni will probably talk to her, if no one else," Akira said. "Then all we need to be concerned about is watching over everyone. After today, it won't rain much. We don't have to worry for a little while."

You nodded. You weren't sure if you were getting closer to saving everyone, but at least you were about to try something new.

-.

"A kidnapper?" Steve said. "I haven't heard anything about that."

"It's odd that you've heard about something that the police haven't even mentioned," Robert said, raising an eyebrow. "You're not just trying to start rumors, are you?"

It was quite the opposite; you hoped they weren't going to tell more people about this. You tried to calm them down by just saying it was something you heard, but they all needed to be careful regardless.

"It is New York, after all," Steve shrugged. "Kidnappers and thugs probably seem crazy to you, Souji. You don't needa worry about us; we're usually pretty smart."

"Rob!" Aaron yelled. "Come on, the test is tomorrow!"

"He uses the term 'smart' loosely," the dark-haired boy grumbled before going back into Aaron's room to study.

-.

You were nervous about talking to Zero on Thursday. Was he still upset about what happened in the dungeon? You didn't know the man well enough to predict him, but he didn't seem like the type of person to hold a grudge. Besides, what happened wasn't your fault... not directly, anyway.

You invited him to lunch again, and he accepted your invitation. He didn't ignore you; you were off to a good start.

Once you two sat down, you informally told him about your plan to tell people to watch for a kidnapper; specifically anyone who had gone to the arcade.

"This is everyone's plan?" he asked. "I see."

You assumed he was going to cooperate with your group. He didn't seem like he was mad at you at all. You wondered if this was a good time to ask him if he was all right after the battle.

He hesitated after you asked. "I'm fine," he said calmly. You knew not what he really meant by that, but you could tell he was still affected by Shadow Alice's words. If he wouldn't tell you anything, you didn't know how to fix the problem. Or perhaps he just preferred to handle those kinds of conflicts alone. You chose not to bring up the TV world after that...

-.

You had agreed to meet with the rest of the group (now including Alice) at Yuni's house on Friday before going to the arcade. You were in charge of inviting Zero, but when you asked him over the phone, he simply replied...

"I'm busy."

… and then he hung up. He hadn't used that excuse since you rescued him from the other world. You knew he didn't work Friday... was he really busy, or was he trying to avoid everyone? Or was there one person he wanted to avoid...?

Lacking a ride that time, you took multiple buses to get to the mansion. Once you arrived, you saw that nearly everyone had beaten you there; Devil Zukin sat on the carpet while Rage, Yuni, and Akira took the three seats on the couch. You found a stray chair by the far end of the couch and took a seat.

"Hey, didja get ahold of Zero?" Rage asked.

You had to tell them that he wasn't coming. The others sighed.

"I didn't think he'd stay mad like this," Rage said. "Alice isn't the first person to call him creepy."

"She is the first person to hate him," Zukin defended. "It seems they have something they need to work out."

"Yeah, how would you feel if Alice didn't like you?" Yuni argued. "She's like the nicest person on the planet."

"Alice's Shadow didn't like anybody!" Rage retaliated. "She probably would've said I'm creepy! Maybe she didn't mess with us 'cause we were the ones doing all the fighting or something. I don't know."

Yuni paused. "So then... why haven't any of us tried to help Zero out yet?"

The room was quiet for a moment.

"Remember, Alice doesn't know what happened yet," Akira noted. "We probably shouldn't bother him just yet."

But you hoped you could recruit Zero again. You didn't want the TV world to tear apart any friendships, and it was everyone's duty to help each other out when things like this happened. But when neither Zero nor Alice talked much, there were a lot of missing pieces to the story, and you would need to find them in the best way possible.

You had to ask... where was Alice?

"She usually doesn't even work on Friday, but her manager insisted she do some publicity stuff," Yuni replied. "We kinda expected her to be a little late."

She was often busy, it seemed. Usually, when you did see her, she seemed like she was tired or stressed. But when she was at the arcade, her worries seemed to disappear. The atmosphere had quite an effect on her... it had an effect on everyone, really. Perhaps you would make another effort to bring Robert back; he could use a break...

While you were lost in thought, the others gossiped about what happened over the past few days. You heard a knock on the door and everyone's chatter died down.

"Come in," Yuni said.

Maid Zukin opened the door and directed Alice into the room. The blue-haired girl shyly entered and waved to you and the others. Everyone quickly greeted her in return.

"Please find a place to sit," Zukin suggested. There was a chair next to yours, and she chose to sit there. You calmly asked her what she could remember about the night she was kidnapped.

She began by stuttering a little. "Um, I think that was the night we went to the arcade. It was raining a lot, and when Zero left me alone-"

"Wait, hold on," Rage said. "What was Zero doing there?"

"I-I don't know, he said he'd walk me home," she replied nervously. "Souji offered, too, but I already said I'd go with Zero before that, so... um, you guys already knew about the kidnapper, so I think Souji and Zero were both trying to protect me... right?"

Rage crossed his arms. He had a suspicious look on his face as he leaned back on the couch. "All right, sorry for stopping you. What else happened?"

"I wasn't alone until I got in my apartment. Right after I closed the door, I felt like something was pulling on me. I just remember a loud whoosh noise before everything went black. My head hurt so much that I fainted. And when I woke up, I was in that other dimension."

This wasn't making sense to you... Alice's memory seemed fresh and intact, but no one could explain what happened before everything went black. While you mentioned this aloud, you also noted the fact that Zero had gone into her apartment immediately afterward and didn't find the criminal anywhere; that was when you suggested to him that the criminal had gone into the television.

"But I'm positive that Alice was the only person inside the television," Zukin said. "I couldn't sense another being in there. Is it possible that this criminal knows how to get in and out of that world?"

You had experienced people with stranger powers, and it was probably a possibility. Your mind shifted to another question: who could be throwing people into the TVs? And who would be targeted next? You shared these concerns with everyone else.

"Let's go over the incidents," Akira suggested. "First, there was Emi's classmate. She was missing at the beginning of September, and died days later. Then Rage was missing about a week later, followed by Yuni two weeks later, Zero two weeks after her, and Alice a week after him. The time frames are slightly but notably different, and they were usually kidnapped before rain would cause the Midnight Channel to appear.

"But," he continued, "Alice still follows the pattern that everyone thrown in the television had gone to the arcade before, as well as that we all knew each other. I can't shake the feeling that anyone we know could be next."

"And we still haven't figured out why Souji and Zero couldn't see the Midnight Channel on their TVs," Rage mentioned. "I wonder... Alice, have you ever seen it?"

"Seen what?" You realized that no one really explained the channel to her...

Rage attempted to describe it. "It's like if you stare into the television at midnight when it's raining, something appears. That's how we found out who was trapped, but only some people can see it."

Alice shook her head. "I'm never awake at midnight, so I haven't tried that."

You requested her to watch for the channel the next time there was rain. She agreed to it.

With everyone caught up on the information, you were left with the rest of the Friday to head to the arcade.

"Oh yeah, today's Friday," Rage said. "I need to get down there and serve Gus again in DDR."

"'Again?' You know he beat you last time, right?" Yuni joked.

"Hey, I remember beating him at Max 300. That's a victory for me."

The blonde sighed. "All right. Well, we're all here; we may as well go together."

-.

You all seemed to be the first ones at the arcade. Rage took the opportunity to leap onto the machine before everyone else and pulled out his point card. Akira was casually walking to the machine, but Yuni bolted to the mats before him. Rage grinned at her determination and the two began a match.

The night went on while you would accept ant dancing requests given to you (Rage, Emi, and Yuni were eager to get you to dance). You had crossed your fingers in hopes that Zero would've cooled off from the events in the TV world by that evening. He had to realize that avoiding Alice wasn't going to solve anything. He was a loner, but he didn't want to be alone; you could tell, because you still had that bond with him, like you did with every other teammate.

But Zero never came that night, and no one questioned why.