Just in case you were confused or need a reminder:
Fumio (Teruaki Kubota's son) [1], Light [2], Ryota (Kagechika Musashidou's grandson) [3], Aoi [4], Akane [5], Aya (a girl with no relations to the characters of the series, who is just roped into the game like the others) [6], Rikona (Nagisa Nijisaki's daughter) [7], Nona [8], Keiichi [9]

Note that this chapter is very snippet-y (as you will see below), and you will see that often, especially for the events of the First Nonary Game. It is because my goal here is to not give you a full story of what happened in the first game, but simply to give you the most important parts that will tie in with future events in the story.

This is one of my favorite chapters in the entire story, and you'll see why very soon. I hope you enjoy reading it as much I did writing it!

Chapter 2

"What's your name?" the small, red-head girl with the number 6 bracelet asks Keiichi in Room B92, one of the second-class cabins, as she holds out a box of matches to him.

He contemplates ignoring her question, as he takes the box from her and places it in his pocket, keeping it for when it will come in handy. But the warm, innocent look in her eyes reminds him of Keiko. "Keiichi," he answers earnestly, giving her a soft, small smile. "What's yours?"

She gives him a wide grin, and the set of teeth she shows reveals a few missing teeth, just like his sister's. Her toothy – or somewhat toothless smile – makes Keiichi feel a twinge of sadness. "Aya."

"Nice to meet you, Aya."

He thinks about Keiko, and he wonders what she is doing right now.

.

He still doesn't get what's so funny about this "Funyarinpa," that Akane giggles on about with Aya.

Aya had no idea what that picture in the 2nd Class Cabin was, until Akane whispered "Funyarinpa" to herself and burst into giggles. Keiichi saw a dog, not some Funyarinpa thing, and Light . . . well, Light, of course, couldn't see a damn thing.

As he sighs to himself in the pantry of the kitchen, where he is inspecting a rusty knife, he hears a laugh.

"I don't know what the hell a 'Funyarinpa' is either, if it comforts you any bit."

Keiichi turns around to see Light, standing with a smirk on his face. His fingers toy with a thin, yellow rectangle in his hands.

He rolls his eyes, even though Light can't see the action. "The girls are driving me nuts with it . . . nice bookmark, by the way," Keiichi comments, eying the object, which elicits a wistful smile out of Light.

"Thank you." He nods. "I found it in the 2nd Class Cabin. Akane told me it had a picture of a 4-leaf clover on it, so I held on to it as a good luck charm." He carefully places the bookmark into his pocket as his face becomes serious. "Keiichi, may I touch your bracelet for a moment?"

"Um, sure." A slightly confused Keiichi takes a step forward and holds out his arm. Light leans over to press the buttons on his bracelet, which causes beeping sounds.

"Hmm . . ."

But Keiichi's not paying attention to him. His focus is on Akane, who is crying out happily to Aya. He still hasn't been able to determine what is so special about this girl. She's been struggling, just like the rest of them, to seek a way out of the rooms. She isn't naturally gifted at solving the puzzles, nor has she displayed any talent with the "morphogenetic field" that his father informed them about over the loudspeaker earlier. She is just an ordinary, average girl.

His trail of thought breaks when he feels Light's grasp on his wrist loosen. "I think Akane has discovered a way to open up that door. We should check it out." Light gives a satisfied smile.

.

They're running.

They're all running across the long, straight, seemingly never-ending hallway.

Rikona and Aya are on both sides of Keiichi, each holding his hand – he was already holding little Aya's hand when both of the groups crossed paths and they heard the bells toll, revealing that 2 hours had already gone by, but he's not sure how he ended up holding Rikona's hand. It feels slightly odd, since Rikona is a girl, his age, and he has never held a girl's hand before.

All he does know, though, is that she looks scared. (And maybe she sees the same fear in his eyes, too.) It's a sight for sore eyes, since he has never seen her so vulnerable before. He has always admired her strength and confidence, even has come at the price of her bossiness. He gives her hand a small squeeze, and smiles reassuringly at her, but that seems to break the spell, as she recoils her hand back and slows her pace a bit. Coincidentally, at the same time, Aya gives him a lasting look before letting go of his hand, too, to run past Fumio and Ryota, so she can grab onto Nona's hand.

Though surrounded by 8 other people, who are running down the hallway with him, Keiichi now feels alone.

"Come on! Over here!" Aoi screams hoarsely. He and Light have been leading the group of children down the hallway, since they are the oldest – they are both 15. Keiichi is the third oldest, at almost 14 years old. "C'mon! Hurry up!"

They continue running for a few more minutes, before Aoi reduces his pace, grabbing a hold of Light's arm, too, to slow him down.

"I see a set of doors ahead!" he shouts excitedly, and then he sprints ahead, with a startled Light in tow. "Come on, guys!"

But when they all finally reach the doors and burst into the large hospital room, all hell breaks loose.

It starts when Keiichi accidentally bumps into Ryota. "Watch it!" the brawny boy warns in a low, threatening voice. "Don't try to bump into me again, or else I'll make you pay for it!"

"Hey, sorry. It was an accident." Keiichi shrugs, but then, under his breath, he mutters, "But it's not my fault you think everything's about you."

"Why, you little punk!" Ryota growls at him, taking a step towards Keiichi. Before Keiichi realizes what he is trying to do, Ryota's fists fly at his chest.

Keiichi steps back, recoiling from the punches. Fuck, he almost says out loud. It hurts like a bitch, but he won't back down. He springs back at Ryota with a right hook of his own, which causes the other boy to grunt in pain and attack back.

Aya, who watches them with fearful, teary eyes, begins to weep. "I wanna go home!" she cries. "I wanna go home!"

Immediately, Rikona comes forward and slaps the crying girl's cheek. She glares down at her. "Quiet, you brat! There's already enough going on here, and no one needs you to add to it by crying!"

Enraged, Keiichi takes one step away from where he and Ryota had just fought, and one towards Rikona. "What the hell is wrong with you, Rikona!? She's only a child!" he growls in her face, at the same Nona shouts, "Why did you slap her!?"

Aoi, too, flares his nostrils and crosses his arms over his chest. "Hey, you're calling her a brat? She's just a little kid who is scared and wants to go home like the rest of us! You're the one who's really acting like a brat!"

Rikona's eyes flash in fury. "What did you just call me!?"

"Aoi, I think you should calm down a bi – "

"I called you a brat! That's what you are. A spoiled, bossy, brat."

In spite of the situation, Keiichi fights back the smirk that threatens to spread across his face. Aoi's words are spot on, and describe Rikona perfectly.

Aya begins crying once more, which causes Rikona to growl in frustration – and that makes Keiichi, along with Aoi and Nona, to rebuke Rikona more. In the meanwhile, Ryota, who now has no one to fight with, turns to pick on Fumio and Akane. Aoi breaks away from his quarrel with Rikona to angrily yell at Ryota to knock it off and to stop being such a bully. Keiichi spots Akane sighing in hopelessness, and then his eyes flicker to a silent Light, who seems to be listening thoughtfully.

After a minute, Light finally speaks.

"Hello! Everyone! Yes, could you come over here for a moment?" he requests politely, but the authority in his voice pulls everyone from their fighting and makes them attentive to his words, as if he has just commanded them. He beckons them to where he stands, and they all gather around him.

"I have a little sister," he starts in a solemn voice. "She is very important to me. Right now, she is over in Building Q and is desperately trying to send information over to me. Her name is Clover, and today is her 9th birthday." His words make Keiichi's chest tighten; Keiko's birthday is in a few days, too – though, he's not sure how long it's been since he was taken from his father's house, so he doesn't know how many days are left.

Light pulls some kind of plants out of his pocket, and Keiichi realizes they are a bunch of four-leaf clovers. That explains why he had kept been so drawn to that bookmark. "I was going to give these to her, as a birthday present. I was outside picking them when I was abducted. I'm sure I've already told you, but I am blind. For a man who can't see, collecting 9 of a very specific plant is . . . Well, it is difficult. But my sister means a great deal to me, and I hoped that these would show her how much I cared for her. Since it's her 9th birthday, I thought 9 4-leaf clovers would be appropriate." Light gives a sad smile as he speaks. "Every one of you has a brother or a sister in Building Q with Clover. For their sake, we have to survive. We have to get off this ship. Do you understand?"

Keiichi nods, and so do the others.

"If we're going to do that, there are 3 things you have to remember," Light informs them, his free hand now clenched into a determined fist. "We need trust and love, and we have to have faith in one another. If we can take all 3 of those to heart, then I promise that good luck will come our way . . . Did you know that the leaves on the 4-leaf clover mean 'faith', 'trust', 'love', and 'luck'? Those words are leaf words."

Faith, trust, love, and luck. Keiichi faintly remembers his mother once telling him something reminiscent of this.

"So," he says, as he begins to distribute a clover to each person, "if you believe what I've told you, and you understand, then I want you each to have one of these. They're a promise, between friends . . ." Light smiles in Keiichi's direction as he finishes his words, holding out a clover for him to take.

After he takes the four-leaf clover, Light is left with one for himself.

"Now don't ever forget . . . So long as you have that, we will always be connected. Do you understand?"

Keiichi's eyes quickly flicker to Aya, then Rikona, and then to Akane, who holds her clover to her chest, almost in reverence.

With a sudden air of tranquility settling over them, Keiichi thinks he can begin to feel and understand this connection that Light speaks of with the others.

.

"Um, how old are you again?"

"12, like Akane."

"No way! You're 12?"

"Uh, yeah." Nona gives Aoi's shocked face a quizzical look.

Keiichi, Nona, Aoi, and Akane are in the Laboratory behind Door 8 right now. Because of the way the other children had their bracelet numbers added up (along with the fact that Aoi and Light decided that Keiichi and Ryota should not be going through the same door), they are currently somewhere behind Door 3.

There's Door 7 to explore, as well, so Keiichi, Aoi, and Light decided that if everyone arrives before the next two bells ring, then some of them could find a way back to that big hospital room and check it out, while the others look for more doors.

Keiichi doesn't really care if they get to explore Door 7 or not, but Akane seems anxious to do so.

Come to think of it, Akane has been acting slightly weird since they went through Door 8. She was insistent to go through Door 7, but Keiichi managed to convince everyone that going through that door was not as necessary and would cause people to be left behind, so that he could take Door 8 with Akane.

His argument had flaws, as the combinations led to one or two people being left behind, but it wasn't brought to attention. God must have been watching out for him because Rikona started to pick a fight with Aya for crying again, and when everyone rebuked her for doing so, she decided to stay put in the hospital room, irritated. Of course, everyone objected to this and was not willing to leave her behind.

To this, she rolled her eyes and pulled out a map of C-Deck, and showed them how they were going to end up back in the big hospital room again, but probably with keys that would open the locked doors they saw earlier. They were all still reluctant to leave her alone, in case something happened to her, but Rikona assured them that she would be fine and knew "how to kick some ass." After much, much arguing, everyone finally agreed with her decision, albeit reluctantly. Keiichi knows that she's fine, though. Papa wouldn't dare to lay a finger on Mr. Nijisaki's daughter. It at least worked out because then Ryota, Light, Aya, and Fumio were able to make a digital root of 3, and enter that numbered door.

But where did Rikona even get that map? More importantly, did she realize that if she did not stay behind, Keiichi would have been put under the radar for his calculations? Was she trying to help Keiichi?

It doesn't matter, though. Right now, Keiichi is just a little nervous about the fact that Aya is with Ryota. Of course, he trusts Light and Fumio (but, mainly, Light, as Fumio doesn't have much of a backbone, like his father, according to Papa) to handle anything that might arise; but Keiichi can't help but be anxious . . . oh, if it weren't for his father's orders.

He knows Nona is worried about Aya, too. He can tell in the way her hand trembles as her fingers tap at the keyboard impatiently, as she waits for the computer to follow her command. Poor Akane has been trapped in the area where there is a mannequin she has dubbed "Science Boy," which, Keiichi will admit, is better than "Funyarinpa" – where this girl gets these names from, only heaven knows.

"How the hell do you know how to get into the computer without knowing the password?"

Nona rolls her eyes. "Oh, come on, 12 isn't that young, and what I'm doing is not rocket science. All you need to do is enter the system through Safe Mode with Command Prompt and change the password of the account using CMD, and then shut down the system and log into the account normally and type in the new password. It's very basic."

Keiichi's and Aoi's jaws are wide open in astonishment and in owe of Nona's computer skills.

"Uh, Nona, you lost me at the safe mode part," Keiichi admits sheepishly, rubbing the back of his neck.

"You lost me at 12 isn't that young – ow, ow, fuck! Nona, that hurt like a bitch!"

Nona stops her ambush on Aoi and lets out a giggle from hearing him curse.

Keiichi, too, gives a hearty laugh at Aoi's reaction to Nona's angry punch, and it feels relieving. He hasn't laughed like this in a while.

"Idiots, the two of you." She sighs, shaking her head. "Imagine if you guys were in here without me – you would have been screwed. If this wasn't Windows, and it was, like, a Mac or something, you both would have been double-screwed. Oh, even triple-screwed, if you had to maybe brute-force it – but even I don't know how to do that, so we'd all be screwed, really."

Keiichi's eyebrows knit in confusion. "How did you say you know what you're doing again?"

"My mom's a cyber-security expert and worked at a firm until my dad made her quit," Nona responds, her face darkening in the light of the screen's display. "She would be able to brute-force this thing in a pinch."

"You can't . . . brute-force this thing, you said, so are you cracking into the computer system?" Aoi asks.

"No, I'm, you could say on a very, very, very small level, hacking into the computer to get in without the password."

"That's what I'm saying."

Nona shakes her head. "No, you aren't." She smirks. "In this case, hacking isn't illegal, but cracking usually is."

Aoi rolls his eyes and crosses his arms over his chest. "Aren't you very cocky?" he mutters under his breath.

Nona's eyes narrow in anger at the screen, and before she and Aoi can begin to butt heads, Keiichi quickly asks, "What's the difference, anyway? They both sound like the same thing."

"Amateurs." She gives them an exasperated sigh. "They are somewhat similar, but cracking is when you hack with malicious, illegal intentions, while hacking is usually just for fun, experimenting, or to test the boundaries of a system."

"I don't care if it's hacking or cracking, or if it's legal or not. Just get my sister out of that creepy hellhole." Aoi peers over Nona and Keiichi to look at Akane, who is standing on the other side of the Laboratory, clenching onto the iron bars that cage her. "Akane!" he shouts. "You okay?"

"Yeah, I'm fine!" Keiichi hears her voice call out, slightly muffled from being farther away. "Don't worry about me and keep looking for more stuff. I'll look around in here."

"Okay, but please, be careful."

Wait a minute. "W-Wait, Akane is your sister?!" Keiichi splutters in surprise.

Nona's eyebrows shoot up to her forehead in realization and shock as well. "I thought everyone was separated from their sibling!?"

Aoi grimaces. "Akane's a transmitter. She's not supposed to be here – she's supposed to be in Building Q; but, there seems to have been some sort of mix up and now, she's here with me."

It can't be a simple mistake of switching two people . . . it had to be done with purpose – Papa wouldn't asked me to watch Participant 5 if this was purely an accident, no?

Was this the reason he was supposed to watch her carefully? Why he has to go through the same doors as her?

Nona momentarily turns away from the screen to look at Aoi sadly. "At least, your sister is here with you."

Keiko's smiling face flashes through Keiichi's mind.

"At least, your sister doesn't risk drowning on the Gigantic with you, and is safe in Building Q." Aoi laughs bitterly.

Keiichi and Nona stay silent. The only sound that can be heard for the following moments is the sound of Nona typing away at the keyboard.

Her eyes are completely focused on white code displayed across the black screen in front of her.

"Hmmm . . . user name 'Nonary' . . . change password to 'aoisucks4.'"

Aoi cracks a smile at that, and Nona gives a satisfied grin, happy to lighten up the somber mood.

"And, done!" She flashes Aoi an encouraging smile. "Don't worry, guys. We'll get Akane out of here, and be off this ship in no time."