Part 39: Hallway 6

This entire bit is stuff we saw last time through, so let's skip through all that.

[Music: Digital Root]



Seven puts forth his theory on how Snake died.



Ace doesn't quite agree with his suppositions and puts forth one of his own.



Previously we agreed with Clover, but disagreed with Ace. This time, we'll do that the other way around. Thus, we'll think Zero is on the ship...

Of course he was. That was obvious. Zero was somewhere on the ship, but...

Junpei had no idea where.

Junpei mumbled to himself, lost in thought.







But we'll disagree with this idea, meaning we believe he's lurking elsewhere. It's certainly possible, but...

That's crazy! Isn't this ship going to sink in a few hours?



Why the hell would he do something like that?! There's no motive!

Junpei doesn't quite put it like I did above, since his response here is independent of the Ace's question. Even though this makes no sense. Junpei just argued that Zero is on the ship but can't be on the ship because that would be suicidally stupid.

Clover looked up at Junpei, and her face fell.



...





She felt everyone was against her. The least Junpei could have done was try to understand what she was feeling.



But before that apology could begin--

Clover, I understand what you're feeling.



Ace had beaten Junpei to the punch. As he spoke to Clover, his face was calm and friendly.

But you have to understand the more we distrust one another, the further we fall into our true foe's trap. Zero was the one who did those horrible things to your brother. Do you want to let yourself be manipulated by someone who would do such a horrible thing?



Then, in that horrible silence--

[Music: Silence]

They heard a bell begin to ring. It was the clock at the central staircase.

3 in the morning...
That means we have 3 hours left.



Seven, Clover... I know how you feel, but you do understand that, right now, it's important we trust one another, don't you?

Seven and Clover remained silent.

Their eyes were looking at something somewhere else, very far away.

We must go! We have very little time left!

Ace's words put their feet to moving. They all knew where they were going.

Their next destination was... [Mercury].

And from this point, rather than being a minor alternative to things we've seen already it's all new stuff! Since, well, we didn't go through door 3 so things transpired a bit differently.

[Music: Foreboding]



The Mercury card reader.

Junpei stood in front of it with the [Mercury key card]...

Seven had given him the card.



Junpei slid the card through the reader.

The light on the reader turned green and made a tiny, electronic noise.







There were only 2 floor buttons they could push... The "C" and "Bottom" buttons. The rest were destroyed or did nothing when pushed.

Junpei hit the "Bottom" button.

The door closed. Slowly, they began to move downward.



They stepped off, and saw that the hallway to their right ended somewhere between 20 and 25 feet from them.

The hallway in front of them was a dead end...

But not a regular dead end.



This is the 8th one we've found...



There was only one thing it meant.

Do you think...the next door we find...
Yeah, I think so.



He did his best to put it from his mind, and headed back to C Deck with June.

[Music: Silence]



The pieces of paper they'd folded up lay on the ground next to Junpei's legs.

[Music: Extreme Extrication]



Why had they decided to vote that way?

They'd decided it wasn't fair to simply ask everyone at once--that would allow people to force others to go through certain doors.

Well, that wasn't the only reason. Junpei had proposed the voting system...



The 1st one read...



Yes, I do. Would you like me to explain why?
No, we don't have the time for that. Sorry. Let's keep going...

He opened the second one.



Yeah, that's what I wrote.

Junpei continued with the 3rd, 4th, and 5th pieces of paper.



Eh!? W-W-Wait a minute!



No. There'd be no point to the voting if we let people change their choices because of stuff like that.
But--!
Just give it up, Lotus.



I'm not an exhibitionist! I'm wearing clothes!
Barely.



Maybe, but what about common decency?







Lotus's hair flared out like the mane of an angry lion, and she roared with a voice that shook the walls.

With some difficulty, Ace managed to restrain her.



U-Uh...right...

Junpei tore his eyes away and looked down at the 6th piece of paper.

He opened it.



Yes. I don't really have a reason, I just felt like it.

All of the papers, save Junpei's, had been read. He did some quick calculations in his head.



It took him less than a second to run the numbers. He opened the 7th piece of paper and spoke.

Okay, the last one is mine.



We've seen what's behind Door 2 before, so that's off-limits this time in the interest of variety. Other than that, you know the drill. 48 hours etc. etc.