Chapter Text
Junpei was growing more and more annoyed by the second. He’d been alone here waiting for a while now.
Naturally, he’d been waiting on Akane, Santa, Seven and Clover to finish up with door [2], and with less than an hour and a half to spare, time was of the essence.
But no, what was really getting on Junpei’s nerves was how long Ace and Lotus were taking. If Junpei had to guess, it’d been maybe fifteen or twenty minutes since Ace took Lotus—and only Lotus—to “show her something” that Junpei didn’t need to be present for. He rolled his eyes at the recollection. Ace had mollified him by saying ‘he’d show him next’ but then why not kill two birds with one stone? Why did they have to be separated? The whole thing reeked of questionability.
Was that even a word? Questionability? Junpei was almost bored enough to care.
Unfortunately, he found that boredom wasn’t really what he felt so much as anxiety. It was frustrating having to just stand around with nothing useful to do during a time limit.
Junpei was almost ready to march on over to find where those two meandered off to.
But he didn’t, because finally he heard a low, rattling clunk and whir start up from behind him: the elevator was coming to life! About time!
Junpei eagerly waited for the elevator to arrive from Bottom Deck to C Deck, but with Junpei’s exhausted patience, it felt like a near eternity before the doors finally opened for everyone to come bustling out.
Clover was the first to step out.
…
She was the only one to step out.
“Clover! I guess you’re the first one back?”
“...”
She looked up oddly at Junpei when he spoke to her. Her eyes were still glazed from ongoing grief, but her expression seemed ever so slightly taken aback as if she hadn’t planned for Junpei to acknowledge her existence at all. He hoped by now she would’ve known him better than that.
But like always, Junpei took her behavior in stride. He was always willing to be the one to carry the full weight of conversation for her if it at least meant making her feel less left behind.
However, before attempting another improvised pep talk, Junpei first had an important elephant in the room to address.
“Where’s everybody else? What happened?”
Her eyes fluttered around in response but ultimately never met Junpei’s. Instead, she slowly, almost lethargically stepped out of the elevator cage toward Junpei.
“Where are Ace and Lotus?” she asked Junpei in lieu of an answer.
“Hm? Oh, Ace said he wanted to show Lotus something so they went into that hallway,” Junpei explained cheerfully, betraying his increasing unease at Clover’s obvious dodging of his simple question.
“Oh… Then they went over there?” she confirmed, not sounding very interested in Junpei at all.
“Yeah. I think so.”
Junpei tried again.
“So where are June, Santa and Seven?”
“...”
Still no immediate answer. Clover’s eyes remained dead as ever.
“Why aren’t they with you?”
“Do you really wanna know?” she finally growled, voice barely audible. It sent a shiver down Junpei’s spine.
But Junpei’s unease turned to distress when Clover lifted her slumped head up just enough that Junpei could see on her face a smile that didn’t match her.
Her question still hung in the air, this time rendering Junpei the speechless one.
“Y-Yeah…” he finally uttered, not sure what he was getting himself into. He didn’t like her acting this way, and he knew he wasn’t going to like whatever she had to say.
“Okay… Sure…” she listlessly agreed.
But then her gaunt face beamed up at Junpei with sudden animation, catching him unprepared.
“Here, lemme show you,” she decided with a new wind of confidence.
“Huh?”
Clover reached into her pockets, and she tossed them onto the floor before Junpei’s feet, plain for him to see.
“Bracelets…?”
Three colorful bracelets just like his own.
Three colorful bracelets, freed from their own respective owners, lying uselessly scattered on the floor there at his feet. Why did she have them on hand like that…?
Junpei’s stomach lurched at the obvious implication that he wasn’t ready to accept.
“Oh my God… Oh holy shit…”
His stomach only felt weaker with every second he stared at them, and his head felt light. His legs however became too much to bear, so he let them go limp. He fell to his knees, closer to the lit up bracelets, to…
“No… No, no, no… No way. No way… This’s gotta be some kinda joke…”
On his knees, Junpei couldn’t avoid reading their faces.
“[3]...”
Santa. The silver-haired upstart with that always had something to say.
“[7]...”
Seven. The towering less-than-gentle giant who always looked out for the group.
“And…” the one Junpei absolutely couldn’t stomach the sight of.
His voice broke.
“[6]...”
Her.
His Akane…
“But why…”
“Revenge for my brother.” Cold bitterness poisoned Clover’s calloused words. “He was forced into door [3] and murdered.”
Revenge against… Akane…
The notion was simply inconceivable.
“You need at least three people to open a door,” she explained. “Who were the two that opened that door with him…? It could only have been Santa and Seven.”
Clover’s words were ones she’d surely been silently tossing in her mind over and over until she practiced the idea enough to grow numb to doubt. But to back them up with her actions, to…
“That’s why I killed them.”
Did she really…?
“But... why…” Junpei weakly sobbed. He didn’t even care that tears now obscured his vision. He didn’t mind that he couldn’t clearly see Clover’s wavering smile anymore.
But her blazing blue number smudged to an unreadable soft blur in his vision.
“Why did you kill June?”
He blinked, and suddenly he could see Clover a little more clearly again.
He could see her smile finally drop as shadows obscured her face.
“Because she tried to protect them,” she answered, voice wavering this time.
“She was in my way. She had to die too.”
“No… No…” Junpei protested weakly. It was ridiculous.
Junpei grabbed his own head desperately. He needed to wake up, he needed out of this nightmare—
“No… No!...” He shook his head more vigorously when it didn’t work, when the truth still hadn’t gone away yet. Clover refused to dissipate into a bad dream, the watches’ glow refused to dim—there was nothing more that Junpei wanted than to wake up screaming any moment now—
A small hand planted on his shoulder grounded his dreams back to cruel reality.
“Hey, Junpei.”
Junpei’s reality stubbornly refused to budge. The watches remained as lifeless as ever.
But Clover stepped over them without a second thought and stood right up to Junpei. She knelt down.
Junpei had never noticed the plaid pattern on her shirt ribbon which was now right in front of him. He watched how the pink puffs of her jacket dangled unenergetically. Her boots were also just as puffy. Junpei didn’t know why he chose to start fixating on all these random details.
But he refused to meet her eyes.
Yet in the edges of his vision he could still see the shape of her smile. It no longer tried to hide itself. It looked completely shameless. It looked completely wrong for the Clover he knew.
Junpei’d seen her real smile before, small and rare as it was. It was nothing so gratuitously empty as it was now. This one simply didn’t belong to that same girl he’d gotten to know.
“...!”
An ugly gasp escaped under Junpei’s breath once he finally looked up at her.
He made the mistake of meeting her eyes, as once he did, Clover responded with a wider smile.
Junpei found himself trapped in her eyes like a rabbit in a snare, waiting for the snake’s smile to finally grab him by the throat.
Her eyes didn’t move away from him either. They were completely soulless. They sucked him in.
Junpei was convinced that she simply wasn’t human anymore.
Junpei’s heart started to race. He realized what he was feeling was the fear of death.
Her eyes were no longer filled with sadness or anger or even hatred anymore. They were simply predatory at the most base, instinctual level.
And they bore straight into Junpei’s own soul. Junpei wasn’t sure if he felt human anymore either.
If he were still human, he would have had the sense to back away from her. Instead, he wanted to stay where he was, to see what it was Clover wanted from him. He already knew it was his life. Maybe he was curious enough to let it happen.
After all, Akane…
…Maybe it was only fair that Junpei share the same exeunt as Akane.
“Let’s go,” she softly and firmly commanded.
She extended her hand to him. Her soft palm peeked out from under her overly long sleeve, her fingers—so small and perfectly painted—could they really have taken lives?—seemed as if they beckoned him.
He wanted to take her hand.
“Let’s get out of here. Let’s escape this ship.”
He wanted to, so badly—
Junpei suddenly retreated himself away from Clover, sense finally waking him from his daze.
Clover’s smile drooped.
Junpei needed to be rational. He thought about what it was that Clover was proposing: she wanted to leave with him? Alive? After what she’d just done? What was her plan with him?
Something else didn’t add up…
“Wha… What the hell are you talking about? To… to open a… numbered door…”
“Yes, I know. You need at least three people. But as long as we have this…” Clover dug into her pockets again, and pulled out another accursed watch for Junpei to gawk at.
“Thats…” not what Junpei expected to see, but perhaps he should have. He was equal parts tense and relieved to see it: “The [0] bracelet…”
“See? You get it now? If we have the [0] bracelet, we can leave. You and I can open the [9] door with just the two of us.”
She practically shoved the [0] bracelet to his face as if to demonstrate her point. But Junpei did the math in his head. It made total sense. Cold, calculated sense.
Was Junpei really just a convenient means of escape for her then? What did she plan to do with him if she just needed his bracelet? What if he didn’t comply? What if he did?
“See…? So let’s go!” she finally insisted cheerfully once she decided Junpei was satisfied with her reasoning.
But Junpei was anything but.
“...”
He observed her again. The new nature of her smile, the contrasting numbness of her eyes, it all remained just the same.
Junpei disobeyed his instinct to just run for it.
After all, he didn’t want to abandon her—
Junpei needed to run! Now!
“C’mooon, hurry up!” she egged on more impatiently, pushing forward her extended hand again toward him, her smile still plastered on like a welcoming warning.
Junpei didn’t run. He didn’t take her hand. He only gawked further at the same person. He simply looked at her as she transformed and shifted—from a girl to a fierce demon, to benevolent savior, to the same old happy Clover, to June’s killer, a serial killer, Junpei’s killer in the making, to the small, unfortunate girl Junpei wanted to look out for, to a fellow hurting human being, to a trickster goddess whose trap he was going to willingly fall in—it all morphed together in the person that was Clover before him. Junpei couldn’t take his eyes off her, not until he understood who he saw.
“Junpei…?” she called again softly, genuine concern flavoring both her voice and face for the first time.
Junpei could have sworn that she transformed all over again. Her eyes were no longer hollow, her smile no longer disingenuous. In fact, they now conveyed so much, he could never…
Junpei didn’t know what kind of person Clover was. But Junpei was starting to learn more about what kind of person he was. He cracked… he simply could never bring himself to…
“Junpei…?” Clover’s smile finally disappeared all together, revealing the loneliness, the hurt, the fear behind it.
“Unh… Clo…ver…”
“Yeah?” she asked inquisitively, eager for his answer.
No, Junpei knew. No matter what, not even after all this…
He just couldn’t turn away a friend in need. It wasn’t in his nature. Even if it got him hurt, even if it was stupid, even if the odds were against him, Junpei simply couldn’t turn on someone in need, not when it… mattered most…
Junpei hesitantly reached his hand out toward hers, prompting that sweet smile of hers to return. It told him he was doing the right thing.
But he hesitated, and his stomach churned again once the gravity of his choice began to reel on him.
Akane was dead.
This was her killer. This was Santa and Seven’s killer too.
If he was wrong about this, she might become his killer.
Would she become Ace and Lotus’ killer?
This was a killer he was sympathizing with.
As if she sensed Junpei’s thoughts, Clover
[swung her axe down on Junpei, deep into his side, his vision turned red and his world felt on fire—]
“Hrk…guh-gaaaaaaaaaAAAAAAAAAAHH!”
Clover gasped and quickly retracted her hand before she could grab Junpei’s when he suddenly doubled over and screamed out in agony, fear blurring all his senses.
“Junpei!” he heard her cry out over his own gasps, the chaos in his mind.
“Junpei! Are you alright? What’s happening!?”
Junpei felt her arms lightly grab his shoulder, and suddenly the pain stopped like he’d simply imagined it. Once Junpei calmed down and caught his breath… had it been real? It seemed so real…
He inspected his side, and saw no such wound or bleeding or anything. Had he really just imagined it? …so …vividly?
“Junpei?” Clover tried again cautiously. Junpei looked up at her. He saw fear, worry—he saw the beginning of tears even, tears he didn’t plan on mentioning to her.
Junpei was just as confused as Clover about what just came over him.
“Sorry… Sorry, I just… felt a really sharp pain in my side, I thought you…” Junpei thought better than to finish that sentence, but it seemed that Clover may have understood what he meant.
“I—No, I wouldn’t… I wasn’t going to—!” she shook her head to start over. “Does it still hurt? Can you stand?”
“Yeah, I’m fine,” Junpei decided. But just as he was about to get back on his two feet on his own, Clover extended her hand to him once again. But somehow this time, it was so much… less?
Junpei grabbed it without hesitation and Clover pulled him forward to his feet.
The weight of everything was lifted this time around when he chose to grab her hand. It happened so naturally and easily he almost missed the interaction entirely.
“What about you, Clover? Are you feeling better?”
“...”
Clover’s gaze turned away from Junpei, and she turned around toward the hallway.
“Clover?”
“You’re a real idiot, you know that?” she muttered darkly.
“Huh?”
“I just killed…” Clover paused. And then Junpei heard the shadow of a contained sob. “Three innocent people…”
Junpei couldn’t admit to having any good words of comfort up his sleeve for that one.
“You said earlier that Santa and Seven killed Snake…” That didn’t stop Junpei from trying anyway. “So really it was only one…”
Predictably, it didn’t work.
“I killed your best friend, goddamn you!” she finally exploded, her voice a mess from the unrestrained tears running down her face. And she punched him in the arm, and then punched him again, harder—
“Besides, I don’t even know if Santa or Seven really did kill Snake!” she confessed.
“Wait, you didn’t—”
“Shut up! Why haven’t you strangled me to death by now—!” she punched him harder square in the chest this time with enough force to send Junpei recoiling back several steps— “The hell is wrong with you, I killed her!” she stepped forward to punch him again, and Junpei still just let her.
“Why are you buddying up with your best friend’s killer!” she kicked him with her fluffy boot; “You psycho!”
At this point, Clover was fully enveloped in her own emotional storm. Her words soon ran out, so she continued to scream angrily through sobs and gasps for air as she kept going. Junpei endured her onslaught of insults better than he did her punches, but now that she committed to wailing on Junpei—one impact after the other, repetitively on his chest, until one punch she sunk deep into his stomach—unprepared, he finally crumpled down, arms above him on the defensive, but Clover still landed one on his face—
“Get up! You spineless…! coward…!” she finally wailed again with frustration.
“Clover, stop it!” Junpei finally gave in, seeing that he wasn’t gonna last long letting her vent it out like this.
“Oh yeah? Make me! Fight back, dammit!” Clover challenged as she flew at Junpei again with fire in her eyes, and this time Junpei tried to stop her flying fists in true self-defense.
“Fine!” he gritted through his teeth. Sure, he preferred this violent outburst to… whatever Cover was before, but Junpei had finally had enough of this!
As Junpei anticipated and struggled to grab hold of one incoming wrist, her other retaliated by grabbing a fistful of his hair and pulling hard; Junpei reacted desperately by shoving her away from him as hard as he could, but she rebounded right back for him like a boomerang. Junpei hunched down and threw his own weight against her first like a sumo wrestler,
“Uhn–!” Clover grunted as the impact of their collision brought them both tumbling to the floor.
As Junpei landed partially on top of her, he took this opportunity to try to pin her down, but he wasn’t fast or capable enough; Clover easily slipped away from under him and got back on her two feet in almost no time. He was honestly terrified at how fast Clover’s reflexes were.
By the time Junpei could gather himself upright into a crouch, he looked up to see a fierce look of determination burning in Clover’s eyes as above her she held—
Bad! BAD!
“Woah hey! Stop!” Junpei practically screamed before Clover brought her bright red axe down on him.
“...!” Clover looked startled by his shout.
Thankfully Junpei’s fearful yell cut through Clover’s crazed momentum enough to make her halt and reconsider her motions.
Now that neither of them were moving, they both realized just how out of breath they were as they each stared at once another with wide eyes that slowly drained of fighting spirit.
Junpei held as still as he could and carefully watched as Clover’s arms trembled, remaining suspended above her head with her axe still gripped firmly, But without the momentum of swinging motion, holding it above her quickly became unsustainable. Lowering her weapon, she still held the axe poised ready for a strike at a moment’s notice.
It was safe to say that hesitation had fully grabbed ahold of Clover, but the fire in her eyes was still too hot to burn out, and so the unspent adrenaline rush left her gasping for breath as she hesitated on her next action. Tears were still streaked down her face.
“Clover… stop this,” Junpei tried to ease. He fixed his eyes on hers, hoping his words would finally bring an end to this face off. Her eyes remained ablaze and her breathing only more troubled by it, but slowly, she started to relax her arms to her side.
Her axe now sat at rest, leaned at her side against the floor.
“You have no reason to kill me, do you?” Junpei reminded as calmly as his own rush of adrenaline would permit.
Clover didn’t answer verbally nor did her body language change, but Junpei still felt her coming back to her senses. He took that sign as his opportunity to risk getting back up on his own two feet. Clover did not react to his movements.
“Of course not. You said yourself you wanted to leave with me. You need my number, and you don’t need me dead to get it,” Junpei reassured.
Clover nodded in response, seemingly more so out of self-conviction/
“So …If you don’t have a reason to kill me, then get rid of that thing already! You’re not planning to use it on Lotus and Ace still, are you?”
“I’m not getting rid of it no matter what,” she warned quietly, though without hostility.
Junpei swallowed, not finding it wise to push her on that point just yet. All he could do was simply wait to see where Clover’s anger and grief would ultimately go.
But Clover let out a big sigh and fully relaxed her shoulders.
“Sorry…” was all she said.
Junpei smiled. That was good enough for him.
“Apology accepted.”
Clover looked up at Junpei with a wordless surprised expression. One that was followed up with a brief squint of mild skepticism.
“That’s it? Apology accepted?”
“Uh… yes? Don’t overthink it.”
“Alright, fine, whatever.”
Junpei took the opportunity to straighten his clothes and hair from their recent tussle.
“So. Do you feel better?”
“Huh? What do you mean?”
“I dunno, figured you just wanted to fist-fight your feelings out of your system. Wasn’t… that what this was about? Y’know, besides the part where you almost got too carried away that we’ll conveniently forget about for now.”
“Oh…” Clover looked rather lost for an answer. “Yeah, sure,” she hand-waved non-committally before changing the subject.
“But Junpei?”
“Yeah?”
“I promise I’m not gonna use it on you. All right?”
“Oh!” Junpei let out a sigh of relief. “Well thank goodness!”
“Just don't make me change my mind,” she added curtly, tucking the axe behind her back on her person.
Junpei put on a big grin and patted his hand on her head. “I promise!”
“You’re pushing it already, moron!” she protested, batting his hand away from her. Junpei paid it no mind. He had more faith in her than to think a small tease like that would set her over the edge.
No, if Junpei had to guess, Clover was the kind of person who meant well, but once she fixated on something, had trouble not getting carried away. So he figured he’d test his working theory by making sure he never truly leaves Clover alone to ever lose herself like that again.
Luckily, Junpei was great at not leaving people alone.
“Well now what,” Clover refocused. “Didn’t the others say door [9] was behind door [6]?”
Junpei thought about it. But there was something else that pressed on him more first…
“Yeah… But first, there’s something else I…”
Junpei found it more difficult to speak out his real request than he planned, but his glancing toward the Mercury elevator apparently told Clover what he meant.
“Oh… Are you sure?” she asked. “It’s… not pretty…” Clover’s voice retreated into a penitent whisper. “Even I don’t really wanna go back there…”
“Please,” Junpei insisted urgently. “I just need to… see.”
Junpei didn’t want to see at all. But he needed to.
He was sure Clover understood.
“Alright,” she conceded. “We still have their watches, so it should be fine. Just be quick about it.”
“Thank you.” Junpei didn’t mean for his voice to break there.
The mood between them grew much more solemn in the silence that ensued. Clover took the lead, scooping up the bracelets off the floor and shoving them all in her pockets as she walked up to the elevator. Junpei followed faithfully behind her.
Clover then pressed the elevator call button to open its doors again.
Its old maws slowly creaked open, and she stepped inside without hesitation.
Unlike Junpei who was suddenly pelted with second thoughts.
Once Clover turned around inside to face the doors, she saw Junpei wasn’t moving.
“Hey, are you coming or not? This was your idea! I’m not going alone!”
“S-Sorry, sorry…” Junpei’s legs jolted into motion at the command of her annoyance. He scurried inside the metal cage, and as he turned to face the doors inside, he saw Clover press the only working button labeled “Bottom Deck”.
Junpei didn’t know why he was caught so off guard by the cage suddenly rumbling and clanking to life at the press of the button, but he clumsily stepped forward as if off balance as they descended down the ship.
“What, never ridden an elevator before?” Clover snarked with masked amusement at Junpei’s stumble. Junpei chose not to humor it with any sort of response. He found he wasn’t quite in the mood for conversation anymore.
As Junpei stepped backward to lean against the rumbling metal wall, mechanical whirring filled the silence that had hung between them.
“Let’s be quick about this,” Clover said before long. “Remember, we still don’t have much time left before 6 A.M.”
“Yeah,” Junpei agreed.
“If you take too long, I’ll drag you out myself.”
“Okay,” Junpei listlessly agreed again.
Junpei didn’t know what to expect down there.
A beat of silence drew attention to the mechanical whirring again for the rest of the short ride.
He didn’t know if there was a way to mentally or emotionally prepare himself for what he’d find, so he simply didn’t.
The doors finally creaked open, heralded by an old fashioned *ding*.
“Okay, let’s go,” Clover urged while jogging inside.
Junpei lagged along behind her in his own half-hearted run just to keep up. His legs felt mechanical. As he caught up with her to the end of the short hallway where the [2] door resided, he simply stood watching as Clover scanned them all, one by one, simply by bringing each watch close to the RED’s panel. Junpei was surprised it could work without direct contact on the scanner surface.
Clover finished it off by placing her own hand on the scanner and then bringing down the lever.
The [2] Door opened with a spooky creak, and Clover stepped to hurry inside until she stopped herself to look back at Junpei.
Annoyance painted her face again, and she huffed audibly as she hurried back toward Junpei and surprised him by snatching his wrist from his side and pulling him forward—Junpei had forgotten that he’d stopped moving and forced his legs back into motion at the commad of Clover’s impatient tugging which urged him along faster than he could keep up with.
Nothing but the sounds of their own footsteps gave them company in this unholy place. Junpei passively noticed this; he noticed how Clover was keeping her words of frustration to herself.
As they approached the DEAD inside, Junpei’s nerves started to overtake him for what he knew lie beyond the door. He didn’t quite truly believe what had happened down here yet, and he was scared at the prospect of being forced to believe with his own eyes.
The sound of Clover bringing down the DEAD’s lever startled Junpei, who jumped a step back.
Once again, Junpei forgot to start moving again until Clover’s exasperated huff reminded him for a third time, enough that Junpei spurred himself along before she needed to come back to grab him again.
Junpei walked forward in spite of his screaming dread.
“Where… is…” Junpei barely managed to ask above a whisper, but surprisingly Clover heard him.
“It’s… Seven is in this room,” she said, gesturing at the first left-hand door of the prison-like rooms lining this oppressive, gloomy hallway. “June and Santa…”
Even Clover’s steps began to slow with hesitation as she counted the doors further down along the left wall.
“... In here.”
She landed on the fourth room. Junpei naively found himself hoping she’d never make up her mind which door it was, but now Junpei was faced with the task of opening the door. Clover seemed to make no moves of intention to do it herself.
Time had seemingly stopped for the both of them as they hung suspended in inaction for uncounted seconds.
Junpei’s stomach lurched as he abruptly moved to push the door open, but the smell of blood that was unleashed instantly repelled them both.
“Oh… god…” Junpei’s hand instantly reached for his mouth. Clover said nothing, but retreated a step herself.
Junpei braced himself to reach forward again for the door handle to open the door further.
Junpei found the room to be mostly dark—he couldn’t decide if that was a mercy or if it only deepened the horror. Only a single beam of light from above cast any blurred forms of shadows to parse onto any of the figures in the room.
Junpei cowardly fixated on the figure of a boxy desk that was within view of his still partially ajar door, waiting for his eyes to adjust to the darkness.
Before he was ready, the door unexpectedly opened itself all the way at the behest of Clover’s intruding hand, and Junpei automatically scanned the rest of the room as the lit hallway’s light dimly unveiled a layer of darkness.
And Junpei could see it now: two figures lying on their sides against the opposite wall beside the bed. Figures that permanently burned into his mind on sight and made his heart drop.
He couldn’t yet parse who was who. He started to consider that he didn’t want to.
A hand on his shoulder startled him to his core, and his head whipped to see Clover looking up at him.
“Hey. You don’t have to if you don’t want to.”
Light barely cast over her shadowed face ominously as she spoke, but her soft voice soothed Junpei’s unease with reassurance.
Junpei glanced back at the figures.
He really didn’t want to.
But he needed to.
He didn’t want to.
“...”
Junpei didn’t know he wanted, or what it was he even needed.
“What is it, Junpei? She’s right there,” Clover prodded.
Junpei still hadn’t come up with an answer. All he really knew was that this smell was gonna make him throw up if he stayed here any longer.
But he couldn’t just leave her here. Leaving her there was unfathomable.
Junpei couldn’t make up his mind.
Junpei suddenly felt his arm being pulled along, whisking him backward out of the darkness and practically throwing him outside of the room.
He heard Clover close the door behind them.
“Clover…!?” Junpei didn’t know what he felt besides surprise.
“I told you before, didn’t I!? You were taking too long,” she explained with exaggerated brattiness as she planted her fists on her hips for emphasis.
Junpei didn’t buy her facade for a second.
“Now come on, let’s get out of here already! We don’t have much time!”
She grabbed Junpei’s wrist again without waiting, forcing him away from… She took him to a door reading ‘EMERGENCE’, which led them to… an even more unwelcoming room full of loose wires, old tech, and a concerning looking chair—Clover dragged him past it all before he could fully take in all the implications of this room—and before he knew it, the room was behind them and the door closed for good.
“Okay,” Clover declared through an urgent sigh. “Door [6]?”
“Y-Yeah, sure.” At this point, Junpei decided to just leave Clover in charge, seeing as she had herself far more figured out than Junpei had himself figured out.
Hand still in Clover’s they ran ahead for the elevator together. Junpei had so many emotions he couldn’t manage, couldn’t understand, that he simply ran forward as fast as he could with Clover as if he could outrun them. Maybe she would keep dragging him away from them.
Soon the elevator they’d come from was back in sight. Clover pressed the button, and the doors welcomed them in immediately. The two quickly piled in, and Clover pressed the C-Deck button to spur the cage back to life.
The two stood in their silence once again as the machine sang its humming rhythm again. But not for long.
“Clover… Thanks.”
“Hm? For what?” she asked, leaning forward with her face turned up at him innocently.
“You know what for,” Junpei answered more flatly than he meant to.
After a beat of considering what Junpei was referring to, Clover then nodded clumsily as she returned to leaning against the wall parallel with Junpei to join him in more loud silence.
“I wish…” …but Clover’s sentence ended unfinished, perhaps backing out of what she was planning to say.
“Wish what…?” Junpei wanted to know.
Clover still hesitated on answering, but eventually spoke up again with more certainty.
“I wish I hadn’t seen him like that.”
Leashed emotions bled through her stoic words, in the way they did before whenever she spoke about him after…
“I wish so badly that I could unsee it.”
Junpei remembered back on how insistent Clover had been to see her brother, even if as a horrific mess of entrails all over the floor and walls. How she wouldn’t let anyone shield her from the sight, when even Junpei himself couldn’t stomach the sight for long. Heck, Junpei also dearly wished he could forever forget the sight of Snake’s… way out.
“You don’t need to thank me for before, Junpei. The smell was just getting to me. That’s all.”
Junpei frankly wasn’t interested in her explanation for her action, but the elevator slowed to a stop before he could think to challenge her on her indifference.
The doors slowly opened to C Deck. They didn’t expect to be met by someone.
“Ace!” Junpei exclaimed before stepping out onto the tile floor.
“Ah, so that’s where you ran off to! I was starting to get worried,” Ace smiled. “It seems you’re done with door [2] then? But where are the rest?”
“They—”
“—They’re still checking out something important down there! We went to go fetch you and Lotus!” Junpei interrupted for Clover’s sake.
“Oh? Well, we better go back and grab Lotus then. Besides, I still owe you your turn to see what I had to show you two.”
“Show us?” Clover asked with some skepticism.
“Trust me, all will become clear once you see it for yourselves. Come along, you two.”
“Where are we going?” Junpei asked out of curiosity as they all made course down the hallway.
“Just before Door [6], down the Saturn elevator.”
“Why, what’s there that we missed before?” Clover asked, skepticism less hidden this time, enough that it prompted even Junpei to consider if anything was off about this. Junpei did still find it odd how Ace just had to show whatever this was to Lotus and him separately.
“That’s just it, it’s the most peculiar thing… It’s hard to describe just from memory, you have to see it for yourself, and then you can cast your judgments.”
“Before you insisted on going alone with Lotus. Is it okay for Clover to come with me?”
“Hm? Oh, of course. I’m sure her presence won’t… complicate matters too much.”
Junpei and Clover both exchanged a look from behind Ace’s back but said nothing.
The three of them traversed the C Deck halls, room after hall after doorway, down the Jupiter key hallway, back to the main staircase lobby, silence kept sterile the whole duration of their trip save for the sounds of their uncoordinated footsteps.
At last, Ace and his followers stopped before the two elevators. But for some reason Ace seemed lost in thought once he stopped in his tracks.
“You gonna press the button or should I?” Clover snarked impatiently.
“O-Of course, my apologies!” Ace stumbled.
Clover wasn’t wrong, something definitely was odd about Ace.
The door opened for them right away, and the three shuffled in, making room for each other.
Ace pressed “E Deck” on the button panel inside, and as the doors slowly began to close on them—
“Hey!—” Clover shrieked as Ace suddenly shoved her out past the closing doors onto her butt. Unfortunately the elevator was old enough that no motion sensing mechanism reopened the doors to let her back inside.
“Junpei!” she shouted with desperation from the other side of the metal as she pounded against it.
“Ace, what the hell are you—!” but Junpei’s throat tangled up once he saw the look in Ace’s eyes as he turned back around to Junpei.
Junpei recognized those eyes. Junpei knew that smile all too well. They were previously worn by Clover but now looked right at home on this man, this kind gentleman he once trusted without second thought.
Before Junpei could assess the situation further, Ace came at Junpei, and nothing but blind, stupid instinct told him to duck, which for one split second seemed to spare him from Ace’s arms—from there Junpei improvised, launching his weight into Ace’s lower half, sending him stumbling back a step and into the door wall—all the distance this claustrophobic cage allowed them—
A sharp pain punctured Junpei above the shoulderblade
“GAAHAAAAGH—” Junpei’s vocal cords practically shredded themselves from crying out—
—adrenaline spiked through Junpei’s system, he didn’t really know what he was doing, only that his survival depended on it—
He felt his right fist connect hard with Ace’s temple. He felt himself try it three more times. He watched himself retreat a step, he thought of man’s natural weak spot—Ace lunged back for him—Junpei kneed him hard between the legs.
Everything was playing in slow motion for Junpei.
He was dumbstruck to find somehow he managed to down his opponent weak to his knees for a moment. Moment enough that Junpei, still with so much energy to expend, followed up with a kick to the chin with gratuitous force, mainly just wanting to create distance between them.
The man was not willing to stay down for long, winded as he was; he scrambled back to his feet with the help of the claustrophobic walls for support.
The two exchanged wild-eyed glares from either side of the tiny cage. To Junpei it felt like an eternity suspended in this tension.
Junpei was out of ideas. The last thing he wanted was to close their distance by rushing in to attack him. The last thing Junpei wanted was to find himself helpless on the defensive. He couldn’t out-wrestle Clover, how could he overcome a man of his build if it came to it? It would surely come to it. How long was this elevator going to keep descending? Junpei’s thoughts raced like an onslaught passing through him—was he screwed? He was probably screwed—no, he refused to consider failure an option.
The both of them remained in purgatory, gasping for breath and hugging their own side of the battlefield, watching and waiting for each other’s moves carefully.
As Junpei caught up with himself, he finally noticed the sharp, throbbing pain in his left shoulder again. He cursed under his breath about it—soon, he couldn’t take his mind off it, at how much the pain freaked him out—he was stabbed—was he going to die?
As soon as Junpei’s attention clouded with these thoughts, his legs propelled him to dodge to the side at the sudden movement Ace made—Junpei saw from the floor he fell to that the man had just tried to grab him, instead grabbing the walls to stop his momentum before turning around to try again for Junpei, now vulnerable on the floor—Junpei could only back against the wall—the two had now switched sides, and Junpei was cowering low against the elevator door while Ace, diabolical smile restored to its former glory now that he relished in having the upper hand again. Junpei’s heart had never worked this hard in his life, he was sure even Ace could hear it.
The cage’s downward momentum eased to a stop, throwing both of them off guard, and suddenly, with a ding, Junpei’s back was exposed behind him.
Realizing what this meant, Junpei wasted no time scrambling around like an injured jackal on his fours to crawl out of that deathcage, but just as he started to gain the footing he needed to transition onto two legs in his escape, he felt a heavy boot against his back knock him down to earth, pressing him down with enough force to knock the wind out of him—being held prone on his stomach, he couldn’t even see his own assailant, but he could hear him chuckle to himself, he could hear another elevator ding again from behind them, he could hear the sound of his own heart racing against his own ears, drowning out all other coherent thoughts he could produce.
“I’ll be taking back what’s rightfully mine, thank you very much!” Ace gloated, drunk with victory.
The knife hastily unsheathed itself from Junpei’s flesh, cutting against it further on its way out.
On Junpei’s back he felt the spreading sensation of wet warmth seeping through his shirts, dripping down his armpit even—
“Unfortunately for you, you have another thing in your possession I’ll be taking with me on my way out.”
What could Ace possibly want from him that he had to kill Junpei for it?
“Your bracelet,” he answered in coincidence.
Ah.
“Good-bye, Junpei,” he cooed sweetly and sickly. “You were a good kid, I have to admit. Say hi to Snake and Lotus for me—
Gurkh…!”
Ace made an unexpected guttural noise after his bragging victory speech, but Junpei wasn’t free to see what happened.
Junpei felt am ugly, groaning scream escape his own pressed lungs when seemingly the weight of Ace himself suddenly fell full force on top of Junpei’s back, angering his bleeding wound with it.
Why was Ace on top of him? What happened? Junpei was too terrified for his life to make sense of anything.
But he heard behind him—behind him in the direction Ace’s voice had just been standing over him—someone else gasping for air. A smaller person, a girlish-sounding rasping.
And the sound of something heavy and wooden clattering to the floor beside them.
Junpei finally connected enough dots to realize Clover had just saved his life.
Junpei felt Ace’s weight arduously rolled off of him, and now his whole body was free from constriction.
“Junpei! Are you okay!?” Clover’s frantic voice asked.
Naturally, Junpei pushed his hands and knees against the floor to get back on his feet, but his left shoulder strongly disagreed with his plan at the first movement.
“God… dammit…!” Junpei gritted through the pain as he stubbornly tried to push through with his other three limbs.
“Hey, just relax, you idiot!” she scolded in a shout. “You were just stabbed! Just… stay still!”
Junpei decided to just listen to her and relaxed himself as best as he could flat against the floor.
“Okay… uh… shit that’s bad…” From the mutters to herself Junpei overheard, it was clear Clover had no idea what to do either.
“I’ll be fine, just help me up,” Junpei grumped, tired of being prone on the dingy floor.
“That sounds like the worst thing to do for your bleeding, but fine! Only because we’re running out of time!”
Clover rushed to kneel at Junpei’s right where he could finally see her in his periphery.
“I’m gonna try lifting you from under your right shoulder, alright? No complaining if it hurts on the way up, okay?”
“Just do it,” Junpei groaned impatiently.
“Alright, Mr. Grumpy-pants, you asked for it.”
Clover lifted Junpei’s right arm and crouched herself down to sling it over her own shoulders behind her neck. Once she had a solid hold on his limb, she wedged her own left shoulder under Junpei’s right and—
“OW—owwowow—”
Clover did not slow her maneuvers at any of Junpei’s involuntary protests, and sooner than later, Junpei was able to prop his own legs firmly onto the ground beneath him until he was upright enough to use Clover’s shoulders as a crutch to lean against.
“Damn… that smarts…!” Junpei wheezed, exhaustion starting to overcome him.
“You think you’ll be able to walk on your own?”
Junpei hadn’t really thought that far ahead.
He puzzled his weary mind for an answer. Just standing like this took a lot out of him. But on the other hand, it was just walking, walking was always easy.
“...Yes,” he answered unconfidently.
“Nope, you took too long to answer! You’re sticking with me!”
Junpei said nothing to admit his relief. But he relaxed more of his weight into Clover once his fate was sealed—maybe too much weight, the way Clover briefly recoiled under the shifted weight on her shoulders.
“Hey, watch it! You still gotta do your share of the work walking with me you know!” she chastised.
“Sorry…”
As Junpei adjusted himself as comfortably as he could manage with a hole in his shoulder, he gasped—
“Oh god—”
Junpei finally noticed her, slumped against the wall in a pool of her own blood just beside them. How had he not noticed her until now!?
“Lotus…!”
Clover however didn’t act surprised.
“When did…!?”
“She was already dead there when we came down here,” Clover answered somberly. “Ace must’ve got her when he ‘showed’ her what he was gonna ‘show’ you next.”
Junpei’s blood ran cold.
Lotus… she bled out of her stomach, and her head was bowed forward.
For such a smart, resourceful woman who was capable of such incredible fury at a moment’s notice… Junpei had never seen her look so sad and resigned.
Junpei was supposed to go after her.
Actually, he almost did, if it weren’t for…
“Clover, how did you get down here so soon after us?”
“Hm? Oh, I just used the other elevator. I didn’t expect it to actually work though, it didn’t before.”
“But there’s that wall of bars separating the elevators!”
“Yeah, well I didn’t have any better ideas in the moment! I needed to be quick! It just turns out I’m lucky enough to barely fit through those bars with enough effort!” Clover sounded very pleased with herself.
Junpei spared one last glance at Lotus, who did not have the Devil’s own luck on her side to save her like Junpei was saved.
What loved ones was she leaving behind? How did she feel in her last moments?
“C’mon, let’s get out of here,” Junpei decided.
“Agreed. And hey, now that I’m thinking about it, if that other elevator’s working, that’s probably because the others left door [6] with it. I bet door [9]’s on the other side over there.”
“If you’re so sure, then that works for me.”
The two began their steps in tandem once again, headed back toward the elevator.
‘Make sure you know when you should thank people,’ Junpei remembered Lotus saying to him once. He didn’t know where that specific thought came from, but it kept nagging at him.
“Um, Clover,” Junpei spoke up.
“Yeah?”
“You… really saved my hide back there. I… So thanks for… you know. Doing that. For me. Back there.”
Nailed it, Junpei thought sarcastically.
Clover giggled. “Of course!” she assured cheerfully. “I’m just glad I made it in time!”
“Yeah, me too…”
Junpei couldn’t help but smile. He realized that Clover could be pretty fun. That was probably an odd thought to be having in these circumstances. Junpei was an only child, but he could see the appeal in having a little sister like Clover.
…
Clearly Clover and Snake meant a whole lot to each other.
…
“Junpei… Thank you, too. You saved me, too.”
“Hm? I didn’t do anything special.”
“Of course you did! Maybe you didn’t see it, but you were the only one who even cared about me at all once Snake disappeared… You were the only one who even cared that I was hurting!”
Junpei felt the pain and anger in her words. Was that really how she felt about the others?
“I… I really was going to kill you too. I was ready to do it. When you started screaming, I thought maybe I really had done it…”
Clover was… talking about after door [2]...
“I’m so glad I didn’t…! I don’t know why I was going to kill you after all you did for me. I’m so sorry…”
“Water under the bridge!” Junpei answered perhaps too nicely too quickly. He couldn’t help it if he meant it.
It seemed to temporarily stun Clover with disbelief. But then she couldn’t help a laugh from escaping her.
“You’re kinda messed up, you know that?”
“Look at the pot calling the kettle black.”
“Touché,” she conceded. “All right, let’s get out of here for real, I wanna find that [9] door.”
“Wait, before we do—well, it’s kinda morbid…”
“What?”
“If Lotus and Ace are both dead… well, we might as well take their watches just in case?”
“Ooh, smart thinking! Okay, stay right here, be right back!” she said, freeing herself from under Junpei’s arm and running to Ace’s body. Actually now that Junpei looked, Lotus didn’t have her watch anywhere near here.
As Junpei leaned himself against the elevator door, he was once again reminded by the gross sensation how much blood had oozed all over his back by now. He mourned also for the fact that his beloved puffer vest surely had a gaping hole in it now. He didn’t know where he was going to begin to find another one… he had this one for how long, and he didn’t even remember where he first got it…
“Hey, guess what!” Clover exclaimed as she dug into Ace’s coat pockets.
“What?”
She pulled out… multiple bracelets.
“Three of them,” Clover counted.
She brought them to Junpei so he could see.
Junpei picked them up to read their faces: [1]... [8]...
“[9]!?”
“Ace had them all in his pocket.”
“No way…”
“Junpei, you realize what this means? Ace was gonna escape for himself! All he needed were his [1], the [9], and then your [5] to make [6], and Lotus’ [8] to make [9]. Although if we’re right about the elevator, then he might not have needed your [5] after all…”
“How long did he plan this!?”
Clover’s face fell.
“...He couldn’t’ve.”
“Huh?”
“He saw a perfect opportunity and ran with it… Lotus only died because I just had to take Santa and Seven down to door [2]...”
“Well, you saved my life at least. I’d say that’s one wrong you’ve righted.”
“Shut up, that’s not funny!”
Junpei clearly touched a nerve by making light of Clover’s regret. Personally, he was just glad she felt remorse for her actions, as hard as it was to see it begin to torment her the more it all dawned on her.
“When are you gonna remember that I killed your June, anyway?” she accused.
“What?”
“You heard me! I killed her! She just stood there, and took it! She went down so easily, too. Some protection she gave Santa!”
“Stop that,” Junpei warned sternly.
“What? Do you even care about June anymore? You don’t feel a thing about her anymore.”
“Of course I do! Don’t be an idiot!” Junpei snapped.
“You don’t act like it! You’re getting all buddy buddy with her killer, now that she’s so sowwy for what she did!” Clover mocked.
“Hey, if you’re looking for someone to punish you for your sins, look somewhere else! I’m just not the kinda guy for that kind of… thing…”
Clover looked incredulous at Junpei.
“You’re saying you’re just that much better than me!? Is that it!?”
“I’m not saying anything like that—”
“Then what’s your deal—”
“Clover, let’s do this after we escape here, all right? Now’s not the time for you to be acting like such a brat.”
“Alright!” Clover shouted with a crazed look in her eyes as she smashed her fist into the elevator call button. “Into the elevator we go then.”
Not a moment later, the doors opened beside them: doors Junpei had desperately clawed his way out of on his hands and knees not long ago.
Clover hurried inside the elevator, forgetting—or perhaps abandoning—her role as Junpei’s crutch. Junpei pretended not to mind as he guided himself inside with his right hand on the door and walls for support. With or without Clover’s help, his shoulder hurt like a bitch no matter what.
As Junpei finally situated himself against the back of the elevator, Clover pretended not to notice Junpei’s slow stumbling inside as she hummed to herself exaggeratedly to herself.
“Oh, you mind pressing the C Deck button?” she asked cutely, indicating the button that was well out of arm’s reach for Junpei
He glared daggers at her, saying not a single word nor moving a single muscle.
“Ugh, fine.” Junpei’s death stare evidently worked to get her to back down with her toxicity.
Junpei took back his earlier sentiment. He was grateful to be an only child.
Junpei managed to contain a groan of pain when the cage came to life and jolted his body upward with it.
He fixed his stare on the ground in front of him. He was utterly disinterested in his companion right now.
It would turn out that Clover was steadfastly uninterested in striking any conversation either, leaving the both of them with several seconds of silence to fester in.
Unfortunately, Junpei’s thoughts found themselves fixated on the very person they’d been arguing about: Akane.
He knew Clover was just childishly egging him on to get a real reaction out of him. It had worked wonders on him, even if Junpei did his best not to show it. Keeping it inside out of Clover’s view just made his stomach feel sick.
Akane was…
The elevator slowed to an eventual halt and opened up to C Deck.
Gritting his death to brace himself, Junpei pushed himself off his wall and let his legs do the rest of the work carrying him out of the lift. Clover evidently hung back to let Junpei go out first. Staggering one aching step at a time, his feet finally reached white tile, which meant he had to turn left for the other elevator. He took everything one step at a time, if just to occupy his brain away from the physically or emotionally painful thoughts haunting him right now.
Akane was dead and bled out down there in that dark jail cell.
Junpei trucked forward, ignoring the growing nausea or the fact that he really needed to lie down—now wasn’t the time for any of this. Just a few more steps to the other elevator door.
A sob escaped between his rapid breaths, surprising him, as did the tears that quickly began to cloud his vision.
Junpei tried to extinguish it all before his feelings truly overtook him. He wiped and blinked his eyes clear and took a deep breath, trying to stop every emotional response at its root.
None of this really did anything to make him feel any better.
Junpei sloppily planted his hand against the call button of the other elevator. He heard it make its way up from all the way down on E Deck, where Clover had left it.
Junpei’s hand slid off the button panel but otherwise remained firmly planted against the side of the elevator for leaning support while he stared down at the tile at his feet. But a pink movement at his side lifted his gaze at his left to see Clover silently following behind him. He never even noticed her footsteps or her presence, although he didn’t have a lot of mental bandwidth to spare for his surroundings.
Junpei had no words to give Clover right now, and Clover left him alone as well, so they once again waited in silence for the elevator’s arrival.
Junpei never even got the chance to truly express how he really felt about Akane. Now…
he’s expressing it by leaving her to rot to escape with her killer
Akane never deserved this…
Akane didn’t deserve this…
*ding*
Akane deserved so much better than this…!
The door opened, and Clover entered, but she paused midway to glance back at Junpei who found himself staring back at the pink-haired girl.
He could attach the moniker of “Akane’s killer” all he liked: all he could see was Clover no matter how hard he looked. She didn’t have a killer's eyes. Not anymore. In Clover’s eyes, that made him a bad person.
A good person would have never let Akane die in the first place.
Was he a good person for wanting to also protect this girl who’d also lost so much? This girl who had taken so much away from Junpei?
Junpei was never really built for grudges. Forgiveness always seemed to come naturally for him, and people sometimes called him crazy for how easily he would let bygones be bygones.
It had always been different when it came to Akane. Whenever someone hurt Akane, it was like Junpei learned what anger was for the first time. He knew he became a fool when it came to Akane.
Junpei couldn’t puzzle why, then, the feeling of anger still eluded him at the thought of her needless slaughter, at the sight of the girl who almost relished in admitting what she did to Akane and the others, at the sight of the girl who was still actively trying to get his attention.
“EARTH TO JUNPEI!” she finally screamed in his face as an apparent last resort. And it worked.
“Geez, quiet down—”
“Stop freaking me out, and get in the damn elevator!” she loudly commanded, arm emphatically pointed behind her toward the open door waiting for him.
When Junpei didn’t make a movement that micro-instant, Clover impatiently took it upon herself to slip herself under Junpei’s extended arm that had been supporting him against the wall.
As Clover apparently intended to be his crutch again this once, Junpei gladly leaned into her support, though he should have expected it when she practically shoved him forward into the elevator. Agony bloomed anew in his previously ignored shoulder.
“Take it easy!”
“What the hell was that about!?” Clover asked, hitting the E Deck button on the way in.
“Was what about,” Junpei asked tiredly.
“You just stared blankly in space for like a solid minute, you didn’t respond to anything I said, didn’t notice me waving at you—are you becoming brain-damaged or what!?”
Junpei didn’t realize he’d been that out of it. Maybe he really did need to lie down.
“Look, I know pushing yourself is the last thing you should be doing right now, but we don’t even have an hour left. We have to stay focused!”
Junpei nodded in general agreement. He didn’t notice any points of hers he disagreed with.
Once again, the elevator’s sudden descent caught him off guard—he didn’t know why he was so off his game—well, he supposed he did know why, but that was besides the point.
“Hey, I’m sorry for digging into you before.”
“Hm?”
“I still mean what I said, but… I know it’s different for you. I mean, if you weren’t the way you are… you wouldn’t have been…”
“Hm…” Junpei assented.
“I’m not biting the hand that’s been feeding me. Even if I think you’re completely insane for feeding me. Even if you’re just the kind of idiot to keep feeding animals no matter how many times they bite you.”
Junpei didn’t quite follow where this talk of feeding animals came from or if it mattered much.
“Hey, don’t drift off while I’m talking to you!” she complained, shaking Junpei back to some senses.
“Sorry…”
“Blood loss is setting in, huh…”
Junpei supposed she was right. The wound never stopped bleeding, and it certainly hadn’t been treated in any way. Still, he was sure he could tough it out to the end, and then… Junpei would cross that bridge after passing out there.
The elevator finally slowed to a stop, and the door opened to the other side of… that grisly scene.
“C’mon,” Clover urged as she propped Junpei back up on her shoulder again.
Together, they tried walking forward in tandem. It was much harder for Junpei to keep up a good rhythm with her like before, but he actively tried all the same. If anything, focusing himself on stepping with Clover helped to keep his mind from going fuzzy again. Although staring only at their feet for so long started to make him dizzy and nauseous.
Junpei glanced up to regain some orientation. He saw that just up ahead, there was a single, distinct door contrasting from the dull grays of everywhere else. That must be their destination. And thankfully it seemed to be not too many steps away from them.
“We’re almost there, c’mon!” Clover encouraged.
One step. Then another. Right leg. Left leg. Junpei wanted to see it, the number [9] door. They were almost there. Right Leg. Left leg. One step. And one more…
Clover then pushed open the door for them. Warm light embraced them, but the sight before them was not quite so comforting.
Well, Junpei referred to the fact that the room was probably the creepiest, cultiest chapel he’d ever seen.
What was greatly relieving, however, was the big, red [9] painted messily onto the double doors at the end of the room, plain to see behind the rows of pews.
“We made it, Clover… We made it!”
“Y-Yeah!” she exclaimed back. “We’re almost out! Hang in there!”
They continued their joint walk again, not even bothering to inspect the rest of this room, for all they needed was right up ahead—
They both jumped at the sound of banging from behind them. Clover turned them around faster than Junpei would have liked if he weren’t also just as eager to know what they heard.
“What was that,” Clover asked meekly.
“Did… it just come from that coffin?”
*bang bang bang*
“I think that’s a yes—”
*BANG BANG BANG* *BANG BANG BANG*
“Clover, we gotta go,” Junpei urged.
“But what if it’s—”
“Everyone else we know it could be is dead. Sometimes things are better left unknown. We don’t have much time left. Let’s go.”
“Alright. Let’s go,” she agreed, sparing one last look at the coffin before turning them back toward the [9] door.
*BANG BANG BANG* *BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG*
“Okay, you, me, and [9] bracelet.”
“On it.” Clover reached into her pocket for one of her many bracelets until she finally picked the right one out. The both of them tried their best to ignore the extremely unsettling coffin pounding behind them that they were eager to leave behind.
“Okay, go.” She placed her own hand on the panel, and then Junpei followed after her. She then waved the [9] bracelet in front of the scanner panel, and one the third asterisk appeared, Clover relished in pulling down the lever.
The two white doors creaked open for them, and they gladly stepped thought into the vast room beyond.
But Clover’s steps stopped, and her breath seemed taken away.
“Clover…?”
Junpei heard the sound of the doors behind them close, and soon that ominous knocking was drowned out with booming silence.
“No…!” she gasped.
“What, what is it?”
“No, no, nonononono!” she protested with growing disturbance. “Not this!”
“Why, what is this?”
Junpei looked around him. They seemed to be in the atrium of some much bigger room up ahead which had three large metal entrances. Everything was reinforced in heavy steel factory-style.
And then Junpei found the sign.
INCINERATOR.
“Oh…” He immediately understood that this was not going to be a pleasant romp.
“Junpei, let’s go,” Clover gritted angrily in a sudden turn of attitude. Where did this fortitude come from?
Clover practically dragged Junpei along as she marched them toward the center-most entrance to the supposed incinerator.
“Clover, are you sure about this!?” Junpei asked, panicked himself.
“The only way out is through. We have almost all the bracelets, we’ll all make it out this time.”
“What do you mean ‘we’ll all make it out this time’?”
“You know what I mean,” Clover dismissed. “C’mon, there’s no time to lose!”
She pulled Junpei along with even more force—
“Ow—Stop! Slow down, will you!” he winced as he stopped in his tracks to fruitlessly nurse his pain.
“Junpei…” Clover called aimlessly as she freed herself from under his arm, allowing him to crumple to the floor completely.
“Junpei, I’m sorry, I’m sorry for this. I’ll be back, I promise!”
She suddenly turned tail and booked it toward the central entrance to the incinerator, leaving Junpei in her dust.
“Wait!”
She was out of sight within seconds.
“CLOVER!” he tried calling out again in vain.
He only heard her distant steps growing more and more distant from him.
“Fuck!”
Junpei didn’t have a lot left in him to persevere with, but whatever he could muster up, he used to get himself back on his own feet, agony of his shoulder be damned—okay, easier said than done…
Junpei quickly felt utterly useless, the more effort he spent trying just to drag himself forward without any support.
If it was just a matter of powering through pain, this would be fine. It would be fine if the world weren’t also spinning more violently with every step he managed, if he weren’t so horribly out of breath no matter how fast he breathed, if didn’t feel so cold and sick to his stomach, if he could only just lie down for a while.
Oh yeah.
Right leg.
…
He wasn’t even at the door.
…
…
He was exhausted…
…
And the floor was so cold…
…
“Heh…”
Maybe, just maybe he could…
…
“Junpei! I don’t know what to do, none of the [9] combinations are working!” he heard Clover’s voice say from somewhere.
“Junpei? Junpei, wake up!” she shouted from somewhere.
Junpei’s rest was disturbed by roughly someone shaking him.
“Stop…”
“Junpei, get up! You’re still here, stay with me! Please!”
“Oh…” Junpei didn’t really wanna be here anymore though.
Junpei felt his body maneuvered like a doll, and surprisingly, it didn’t really hurt much anymore.
Clover lifted his arm and tried once again to leverage him up to no avail…
Clover said something to him.
Junpei then felt her grab him from under both his armpits and drag him forward a short distance…
Junpei grew tired of trying to keep up with catching his breath.
Someone must have shouted.
He then felt himself pulled again by just the right arm, his whole body being slowly dragged one tug at a time across the cold concrete surface.
It was all an annoying experience, but thankfully, sleep was coming back for him.
BAD END