"Come to the gym…" Shinobu read the text and scoffed, tossing the tablet aside.
"Shinobu! Careful!" Yuka lunged forward and caught the device right before it hit the ground.
"What?" Shinobu scoffed again. "We're not stupid enough to follow the totally suspicious message from the totally suspicious stranger, right?!"
"Yuka has a point, though," Esora interjected. "Even if the message is suspicious, it would still be a waste to just get rid of the tablet. It might be our only connection to the outside world!"
"Outside world!" Shinobu snorted. "We're going to the outside world right now! Why wait around for a text?! Besides, I already checked, there's no Wi-Fi here." She patted her pocket containing her favorite gaming device and smiled ruefully.
"Of course the Ultimate Gamer Girl would've figured that out," Kyoko chuckled despite herself. When the four of them first woke up and reunited, Kyoko distinctly remembered her spending most of her time on her gaming device rather than talking to the others. To anyone one else, such behavior was startlingly callous, but Peaky knew better. They found their Shinobu's standoffish tendencies quite endearing, especially Esora.
"Besides, there is Wi-Fi! I think it just only works on the tablets." Esora pointed to the top right of the tablet screen. Sure enough, four bars.
"How did you do that?!" Shinobu blinked, sounding almost indignant. Besides, I was just being logical, wasn't I? Doesn't it just make more sense that we would be better off trying to escape rather than just waiting around here?!
"I don't know," Esora admitted with a frown.
"Is there a way we can message back, or something like that?" Yuka asked, leaning over Esora's shoulder.
"Hmmm… Doesn't look like it." Esora tapped every inch of the screen, but the device was completely unresponsive. The home button didn't work either, and although the power button did, the only option was to turn off, or turn back to the screen with the ominous command.
"Oh, come on! Enough of this! Let's just try to find a way out of here already!" Shinobu interrupted.
"Shinobu turning down the chance to text or use an electronic device? Now that's suspicious!" Yuka joked, trying to keep it light.
"Shut it, Shutter-Face!" Shinobu shot back at the Ultimate Photographer. "I'm just trying to keep you and the Ultimate Airhead—"
"Heiress!" Esora harumphed. "Well, Corporate Manager, technically."
"—from wasting your energy! Besides, I'm a gamer, not a texter!" Shinobu added haughtily.
Semantics! The other three thought. They'd all seen enough of Shinobu's livestreams to know that when she was angry, she could turn into a very literal and very "angy" keyboard samurai. After the teasing of Shinobu went on for long enough, though, Kyoko finally intervened.
"Why not just do both?" she asked. "We can keep the tablet on us, but I agree with Shinobu that it would be more practical to try to find a way out ourselves. After all, do we really want another text from whoever sent that?" Kyoko cocked her head at the tablet, at the eerie message.
"Point taken," Yuka sounded nervous while Esora nodded in dark agreement. The rest of the unit followed Shinobu out of the classroom, Esora covering the camera of the tablet with her finger, just in case.
What they didn't know, though, was that Kyoko wasn't just on edge because of the situation. The reason she was so quiet during their reunion was because she was wracking her brains trying to remember. My Talent! What is my Talent?!
ooo
"Ugh! The hell? Do these people not know what exits are?!" Shinobu complained. Had it been five minutes, five hours, or five days? Even though the quartet trekked through as much of the school as was open to them, it seemed as though every door and window was boarded up. And the few that weren't… only led to hallways full of other doors and windows that were boarded up. Before they knew it, they were going in circles.
"Let me see if I can break any of 'em! They look old enough!" Yuka cracked her knuckles as she stared up at one particularly large window with just a single board across the center.
Ordinarily, Shinobu would've called Yuka an idiot for suggesting breaking glass with any part of her bare body, but by then, she was so unsettled that she would've gladly used Yuka as a battering ram if it increased their chances of escape. Kyoko and Esora didn't protest either.
Unfortunately, even Blondie McAbs of Steel was powerless against the board. "NO! I'm not done yet!" she bellowed, forcing her fingers between a small crack in the board, pulling as hard as she could. "MY MUSCLES WILL NEVER BETRAY ME!" But something else would.
Kyoko heard it first, a quiet, mechanical clicking and whirring coming from the ceiling, and then—
"YUKA!" The second she reached out, something red, black, and white snaked from the rafters and above and lashed itself around Yuka's neck.
None of them even had time to blink before Yuka was suddenly dragged back up into the shadows.
"MY GOD! WHAT WAS THAT?!" Esora nearly dropped the tablet.
"Up there! Up there! I SEE IT!" Shinobu pointed, finger tracing the dark rafters.
Yuka gasped, struggling with the rope tightening around her throat. For a split second, the rope loosened. Right as she began to fall, she felt thin, curved, metal bars clamp around her legs. Claws!
The creature took off, whipping Yuka's head back as it raced along the rafters. Down below, the rest of Peaky cried out. "YUKA!"