The sun disappeared below the ground of Abydos.

Yuuka stretched her arms out, exhausted after another day adjusting to her new school. On her desk lay a pile of homework and paperwork for the Foreclosure Task Force, and her laptop's web browser displayed a page on how to make money quickly.

Yuuka shut her laptop off for the night and prepared to go to bed.

Now that all the work's done, I can finally relax.

Yuuka walked over to her nightstand and picked up her puzzle cube.

Now I can get back to this thing. I spent all day thinking about the algorithms, I think I just messed up here…

Yuuka started twisting and rotating the sides with speed and precision. The cube changed shapes and colors rapidly. Yuuka kept the rotations up and completely solved one side. Happy that it went according to plan, Yuuka turned the cube over and prepared to use the algorithm she was preparing all day. She smiled and started solving.

Twist.

Turn.

Rotate.

Yuuka finessed the cube in such a way that she didn't even need to look at the object in her hands. Another side done.

All I needed was a break after all. I still got this.

Yuuka kept twisting and turning the cube. The next side was almost finished, only one square away from being solved. But Yuuka stopped.

This side should be solved by now. I've done this cube a thousand times before; I know what I'm doing. So why isn't it solved?

Yuuka set the cube down.

Relax. You probably just made a mistake somewhere.

Yuuka stared at the cube. The more she looked, the more incomprehensible it got. She turned the cube around. The colors were mis-matched and the shapes were jutting out at complete random. To the untrained eye, it still looked like a regular cube that was in the middle of being solved, but to Yuuka…

No, everything should have worked out by now! Why does it look like this? I can't possibly have made a mistake that would cause it to look like this!

Yuuka's breath got shallower, and her head felt a whole lot colder. Yuuka took a step back from the cube and looked around her room.

It can't… Somebody had to have messed with it while I was away at school!

Yuuka walked to her door and stepped outside her apartment room. She looked over the railings, searching for anything suspicious. She spotted nothing, then she focused her attention on the staircase she walked up earlier.

That person I met… Was she in my room?

Yuuka looked behind her back one more time then ran into her room and locked her door.

Why did they change the cube? What does it mean? Is it a warning?

Yuuka sat down on her bed and rested her forehead against her hands.

Maybe it's a warning to not spill any secrets about Millennium. It has to be. I've been getting too friendly with the Abydos kids and I let my guard down! I'm done for!

Yuuka looked over her shoulder and at the cube.

This can't just be a simple break-in. How did they know the only thing they had to do to freak me out is scramble my cube? The only person who would know that is…

Noa.

Yuuka laid down on the bed and stared at the ceiling.

Is she after me too? I can understand if Rio didn't trust me, but even if all Noa did was tell her about it…

Tears landed on the blanket.

If even Noa is trying to get me… Why is she helping HER? Why her!? What did I do? I thought she was on my side!

Yuuka's tears continued for another minute as she contemplated the implications that her best friend was trying to sell her out. She looked directly at the ceiling lights then closed her eyes.

I get it. I'm a coward. I'm a dirty coward! I ran away from everything! Of course she would be upset with me. I'd be angry too!

Yuuka opened her eyes and sat up.

I'm all alone. I can't trust anyone.

Yuuka thought of her five classmates in Abydos.

Even for one day, I guess it felt good to be a treasurer again. Just like my time with Sensei.

I never should have transferred out. I can't let them get hurt because of me. They have nothing to do with me.

If they end up just like the Game Development Club because of me… No, I won't let that happen again.

Yuuka stood up and walked to her nightstand. She picked up her puzzle cube one last time for the night.

The one thing. The one thing that could have spooked me.

Yuuka set it down and turned off the lights to prepare for tomorrow.

Kayoko prepared herself for what she saw as inevitable. She slowly took her pistol out of its holster and disengaged the safety.

She scoffed at Hoshino.

"That's stupid."

Hoshino put the shell back in her shotgun and racked it.

"No, I can assure you that the Ghost of Abydos is real. She's a pretty nasty fella, if you ask me. I'd recommend we leave the school before she comes back. After all, Abydos isn't currently open to the public, which means that right now, you are trespassing."

"Oh wonderful!" Aru said. "We were just about finished with looking around the school. What about you girls? Are you ready to leave?"

"Yup," Haruka said.

Kayoko simply nodded.

"Well there you have it! We'll be getting out of your hair then! Now if you'll excuse us…"

Hoshino raised her hand.

"Not so fast. We have a rule that you leave this place cleaner than when you entered. Just something us Abydos students do to help keep this place nice and tidy, y'know?"

"Oh, you don't have to worry about us. Unlike some other Gehenna students, we wouldn't trash another school for no reason."

"I wasn't talking about litter."

The winds picked up again, blowing sand up onto the rooftop.

Hoshino stared right into Aru's soul. Aru dropped her fake smile and got back into business.

"I'm afraid we can't do that."

Hoshino reached behind her back and pulled out a pin with her left hand.

"Then I'm afraid we have a problem."

A metallic object dropped to the right of Hoshino, drawing the attention of the three Problem Solvers. Hoshino shut her eyes and used her fingers to plug her ears.

Kayoko immediately turned away and shouted, "Don't look!"

Aru turned her head towards Kayoko.

"Huh?"

BANG!

Haruka screamed a blood curdling howl.

"AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!"

Aru and Kayoko's ears were ringing and could barely hear her. Aru could however see that Haruka was cowering and covering her eyes.

"Haruka!?"

Aru rushed over to her friend's side to comfort her.

Kayoko took her pistol out and started firing at the door, where she spotted Hoshino retreating behind. From the door, Kayoko spotted an object flying towards Haruka and Aru before bouncing on the ground.

"Watch out!"

Kayoko dived next to Aru, caught it, and threw it over the roof.

Another ball-like object rolled onto the ground next to her. Kayako rushed to get up and dived on top of that object too, picking it up and chucking it over the edge.

BOOM.

BOOM.

Kayoko relaxed for half a second before one more of those objects rolled into her view.

It was a grenade.

"Three!?" she screamed. Kayoko scrambled to pick it up, but as she was starting to throw it-

BOOM.

Kayoko was sent flying towards the wall. She collided with it and landed on the ground face-first.

"Kayoko!" Aru shouted.

From the corner of her eye, she spotted Hoshino through the door. She quickly raised her sniper rifle and shot a round in her direction without aiming. It pierced through the wall, but didn't hit Hoshino. Aru fired one more shot into the doorway, missing entirely.

Hoshino ducked behind the cover of the wall. She grabbed a riot shield she left on the ground on purpose. She held it and let it peek through the door frame. She heard another blast from Aru's sniper rifle and felt her arm jolt forward. Hoshino looked at the shield and noticed a rather large hole in it.

Hoshino tossed the shield to the ground and rolled another flashbang into the doorframe. Aru noticed this and covered her eyes with her arm.

BANG!

When she heard the muffled explosion, she dropped her arm and raised her rifle to take more shots at the door.

But Hoshino was already past the door and raised her own shotgun and fired at Aru. The first shot missed, allowing Aru enough time to run for cover behind a ventilation unit. Hoshino took five more shots around Aru's cover before she heard a click signifying she needed to reload.

"Aru, are you there!?" Haruka asked. She was stumbling around the middle of the rooftop with her arms stretched out. "Aru! I can't see! I can't see!"

Aru peeked around the corner and aimed her rifle at Hoshino. Hoshino saw this and dashed over to Haruka. Hoshino tossed her own shotgun onto the ground and grabbed Haruka's shotgun out of her hand and pushed her forward.

"Move!" she barked.

Aru prepared to fire, but held off when Haruka appeared in front of her crosshairs.

Hoshino, using Haruka as cover, advanced and used Haruka's shotgun to suppress Aru.

One.

Pump.

Two.

Pump.

Three.

Pump.

Hoshino was close enough to Aru's cover that she dashed out to get behind it. She appeared right next to Aru, who quickly tried to aim at the pink blur. She pulled the trigger, but as she was doing it, Hoshino knocked it out of the way by swinging at it with Haruka's shotgun, sending Aru's bullet into the night sky.

Hoshino stepped forward and jabbed Aru, then took another step forwards with her back leg to land a strong hook into the side of Aru's head. Aru stumbled sideways, then used that momentum to continue running to the other side of the roof.

Hoshino shot at her with Haruka's shotgun, hitting her in the back and knocking her over.

Hoshino ran over to Aru and kneeled onto her, preventing her from getting up.

While this was happening, Haruka's vision was recovering, and she grabbed Hoshino's shotgun off the ground and aimed it at her.

Click.

Meanwhile, Hoshino reached behind her back.

"Now where is it? …Here."

Hoshino produced a pair of handcuffs and cuffed Aru's arms together.

"You're under arrest, blah blah blah."

Haruka frantically loaded one shell into the shotgun then fired at Hoshino. It hit her, causing her to stumble. Hoshino quickly stood up and fired a retaliation shot at Haruka. Haruka couldn't respond with more shots of her own, so she could only hide behind the ventilation unit. Haruka was shaking as she slowly loaded one shell into her shotgun.

Hoshino fired and pumped one more time, then felt that frustratingly familiar click. She ducked on the other side of the unit, and both girls tried to reload each other's shotgun as fast as possible, one agonizing shell at a time.

Haruka finished loading her second shell.

Hoshino loaded one shell.

Haruka took out her third and attempted to load it, but she dropped it on the ground.

Hoshino loaded two shells.

Haruka picked the shell off the ground and put it in the shotgun.

Hoshino loaded three shells.

Haruka got her fourth shell out of her pouch and started reloading.

Hoshino appeared out of nowhere and shot at Haruka, striking her point-blank. Haruka dropped her shotgun and fell on the ground. Haruka attempted to reach for it, but Hoshino kicked it out of the way. Hoshino then stepped on Haruka's back and reached behind her own to get another pair of handcuffs. Hoshino kneeled down to cuff Haruka when she got knocked off of her.

Kayoko, trembling but awake, just shot Hoshino in the head with her pistol. Hoshino recovered quickly, and her attention turned towards what she identified as the current biggest threat. Hoshino fired one shell at Kayoko, forcing her to duck for cover.

"The sniper rifle!" Aru shouted. "The last round is explosive!"

Kayoko and Hoshino's gaze turned towards Aru and the sniper rifle behind her. Kayoko attempted to get up, but Hoshino fired her shotgun at Kayoko, suppressing her. Hoshino started running towards the sniper rifle and tried to fire another suppressive round at Kayoko, but felt that all-too-familiar click associated with running out of ammo.

A sudden force punched Hoshino in the back, causing her to trip over herself. Haruka slowly walked forward, with her shotgun aimed at Hoshino's back.

Kayoko took this opportunity to run towards Aru's sniper rifle. Aru kicked it over to her, allowing her to grab it quicker.

Hoshino pushed against the ground to get up, but Haruka shot her again, causing her to fall down. Hoshino tried to get up again, but Haruka kept up the pressure by firing yet another shell into Hoshino. Haruka instinctively pumped her shotgun and pulled the trigger one more time, but nothing came out of the other end of her gun.

Hoshino finally managed to get back on her feet and looked ahead. She was staring right down the barrel of Aru's sniper rifle, held by Kayoko.

BANG!

Aru, Haruka, and Kayoko started running towards the roof exit.

Hoshino placed her hands on her head in pain.

"Ack! Son of a-"

BOOM!

A few seconds passed before Hoshino recovered. She climbed out of the small crater she found herself in and looked around. Problem Solver 68 was nowhere to be seen.

"Ah crap. They're a bit more clever than they look."

Hoshino pulled out her phone and quickly navigated to her contacts list. While she was doing this, she looked through the glass ceiling on the roof and used the butt of Haruka's shotgun to break through it and jump down.

Hoshino landed on the third floor and started running down the hallway with her phone held to her ear.

"..."

"Hey, are you free right now?"

"..."

"Well drop whatever it is you're doing and come to the school ASAP. How fast do you think you can get here?"

"..."

"I'll explain later. Bring your gun. I'm counting on you."

Hoshino hung up the phone and stopped in front of a door. She entered the room inside. It housed an impressive display of gear, firearms, ammunition boxes, monitors and a whole lot of buttons.

Hoshino rushed over towards one particularly large and radiantly red button.

Hoshino sighed.

"You try to be nice and then this happens. Why do I even bother?"

Hoshino slammed her fist down on the big red button.

Kayoko, Aru, and Haruka descended down the main staircase of the main Abydos building.

Aru's arms were still locked behind her back, making her movements rather uncomfortable.

"Hey, can't you untie me?"

Kayoko kept looking down as she replied, "Let's just get out of here first!"

They reached the bottom of the staircase and saw the main door on the other side of the lobby. Kayoko sprinted towards it, with Aru and Haruka tailing her. As soon as they started running towards it, a loud siren started wailing throughout the building.

A voice echoed out from the various intercoms located throughout the building.

"INTRUDERS DETECTED. ENGAGING DEFENSIVE INFRASTRUCTURE."

A metal wall closed over the exit. Kayoko tried to halt in place, but Aru and Haruka slammed into her back, splatting all three against the wall.

Kayoko looked at the wall blocking them off from freedom.

"What the heck? Where did that come from?"

The intercom voice came back with another announcement.

"ACTIVATING MOTION-SENSOR TURRETS. ALL NON-COMBATIVE PERSONNEL TAKE SHELTER AND DO NOT MOVE UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE."

Aru started freaking out.

"Did that just say turrets?"

Guns appeared on both the ceiling and the floor of the hallway and slowly turned towards the group. A red laser could faintly be seen reflecting off the dust in the air.

BEEP

"Get up!"

Kayoko and Haruka stood up quickly and helped Aru to her feet.

BEEP

One of the turret's lasers got close to the group. When it got close enough, it quickly jumped to the center of Aru's body.

BEEPBEEPBEEP

"AHHHHH!"

Aru, Haruka, and Kayoko ducked and started running, narrowly dodging the first onslaught of bullets.

BEEPBEEPBEEPBEEPBEEP

More turret's spotted the group as they ran past them in the hallway. Bullets started flying at them from both forward and behind them.

All three got pummeled with bullets. The protection of their halos meant they couldn't get too badly injured, and the bullets mostly bounced right off their skin. Despite that, they could still feel pain. And ten high caliber bullets per second from multiple machine guns HURT.

Guided by pure adrenaline, the group crashed and tripped into an open classroom. Aru kicked the door shut the instant she determined all three were in there.

Static bellowed outwards from a speaker in the corner in the room, followed by Hoshino's voice.

"You should have just taken the offer. It's really not that hard to clean up after yourselves."

"Are you trying to kill us!?" Aru screamed.

"Nah. Not to brag or anything, but you'd already be dead if I wanted to kill you. But I don't know. Maybe I am a bit rusty. You actually did give me a decent trashing back there."

Kayoko stood up and ran to the windows. She picked up a chair and threw it hard against it. It bounced right off. Seeing this, Kayoko drew her pistol and fired a bullet at the window. The bullet ricocheted all throughout the classroom, breaking a few ceiling lights and knocking over several desks.

"Ahhh!" Aru screamed.

"Bulletproof windows?" Kayoko cursed.

"I'll just add that to your bill," Hoshino said. "We used to have top-of-the-line stuff. Abydos used to be super rich, after all. To be honest, I didn't even know about all of these defense mechanisms until the start of my third year here. But it's really cool, right? Apparently we spend quite a good chunk of cash on the electricity and ammo upkeep for these babies. And seeing it in action? I can't say I regret it. This entire school is supposed to have them, but you can turn them on one-by-one. Um, can you just sit tight for a minute while I figure out which button belongs to the classroom you're in? Thanks."

The intercom stopped broadcasting.

Aru shouted, "Get this thing off of me!" waving her handcuffed hands behind her back.

Kayoko took off her bag and started opening it up.

"Uh, sure."

"No time to pick the lock! Just shoot it!"

"Huh?"

"Take your pistol and shoot it! That's how they do it in the movies, it has to work!"

"Are you sure? Alright."

Kayoko took her pistol and walked right behind Aru. Aru laid her hands on the ground and pulled them apart, exposing the chain that held them together. Kayoko bought her pistol right next to the chain and pulled the trigger-

-sending a bullet ricocheting off the chain and into her back.

"Ack! Kayoko!"

"It was a ricochet! I swear! These handcuffs are probably bulletproof."

"The handcuffs are bulletproof too? Are you kidding me?"

A robotic voice bellowed out over the intercom.

"ACTIVATING. BOOBIE TRAPS. STAY IN PLACE AND DO NOT MOVE."

"Wait, sorry!" Hoshino's voice followed. "That was the wrong button. I've never used this system before, so I'm still learning as I go."

"Boobie traps?" Haruka asked. "Like, those things that explode when you trip on them?"

Lasers darted across the classroom. None of them reached the Problem Solvers, and it appeared that they were in a safe corner.

"Okay," Aru said. "We don't have much time before Hoshino does something bad. Take my sniper rifle and shoot the cuffs. It has to have enough power to break through it."

"What? I can just pick these locks."

"This is an order! I need these things off of me RIGHT NOW!"

Kayoko sighed. "As you say." She picked up Aru's sniper rifle. She swapped out the mag with a fresh one from Aru's bag and aimed right at the cuffs.

Kayoko pulled the trigger.

The bullet that came out of the barrel was large and moved quickly. It hit the handcuffs and-

-bounced right off and into the back of Aru's head. She flew forward and her halo turned off. A low drone was coming out of Aru's unconscious mouth.

"Aru!" Haruka screamed in concern.

"Ah shit," Kayoko grimaced.

Hoshino's voice came back on the intercom.

"Hey guys, I think I've found it. Thanks for waiting for me!"

Another voice bellowed out from the intercom.

"DEPLOYING. MOBILE TASK FORCE. INITIATING. CONTAINMENT. ON. CLASSROOM. 1-A. "

"Woah!" Hoshino exclaimed. "I didn't know we had robots too! Wait, hang on guys, I wanna join too!"

Synchronized footsteps were heard outside the classroom.

"Damnit." Kayoko slung Aru's rifle over her shoulder and picked up Aru's unconscious body by draping her over her right shoulder.

"H-heavy! What the hell?"

Kayoko turned towards Haruka.

"We'll try running towards the right of the hallway! Cover the left side!"

Haruka nodded. She prepared her shotgun. Kayoko and Haruka gathered up on the door and prepared to go out. The footsteps outside were getting closer. Kayoko reloaded her pistol.

"On three… Three!"

Kayoko burst down the door and dashed to the right.

Robot guards flanked both sides and opened fire on her, in addition to the turrets from before.

Haruka jumped out and fired a blast behind them, disabling two guards.

Kayoko shot a guard three times blocking the next door over and jumped inside. She stumbled over herself and dropped Aru. Haruka quickly dashed into the room and tripped over Aru, who fell on top of a laser.

BEEP.

The ground immediately below them opened and swallowed them whole, quickly muffling Kayoko and Haruka's screams.