Transcendency: Chapter 6

[matsu1nino]

Title: Transcendency
Pairing: OT5, Matsumiya
Genre: AU, Angst, Dark Fantasy
Disclaimer: Plot is mine, Arashi is not. Unfortunately.
Summary: Down the rabbit hole they fell.
Author's Note: Time for a very special cameo.


“Two minutes until registration closes.”

Taking a phone from the table outside, the five of them stared up at the three-storey arena. Like a beautiful oil painting hanging on a plain white wall, the lantern-lit building stood out remarkably in the quiet residential area the arrows had led them to. The traditional architecture was breathtaking. The dark thatched tiled roof was in direct contrast to the pale glow of the walls, while the small stone statues adorning either side of the entrance were reminiscent of a temple visit. The garden out the front was rich with colour and beauty; from the bamboo that was gently waying in the wind to the precise design of the pebble pond, it created a sense of calm simply by gazing upon it.

Entering the ryokan felt like they had stepped back in time. The interior was as elegant as the outside had been and made them question if such an inn existed in their version of Tokyo. They waited in the genkan alongside the other two players who had arrived first. One look confirmed neither were new to this. The first was a woman probably only a few years older than themselves. She stood calmly with her hand on her hips, her blonde-dyed hair falling gently over her shoulders. Though she’d briefly looked up in acknowledgement of their arrival and introduced herself as Matsushima, her gaze had remained keenly fixed on the phone in her hand ever since. The other player looked uncannily befitting of their current environment, so much so that the boys couldn’t help wondering if he had once been an employee of the ryokan. Dressed in traditional attire, he reminded them of a professional storyteller and if the expressive gestures he used when he spoke were any indication, he could well be just that.

The five friends kept mostly to themselves while they waited for registration to close. Unlike in previous games, Aiba refused to engage with the other players. He couldn’t even bring himself to meet their eyes. He looked uncomfortable as he stood biting his bottom lip, his downcast gaze fixed on the floor. His friends didn’t doubt he was trying his hardest to heed Sho’s advice from the start this time. While it broke their hearts to see him looking so glum, they followed his lead and remained detached from the others until the time when they knew what challenge they would be faced with that night.

The last person to arrive was a young man close in age to Nino and his friends. His hair reached partway down his neck, his unkempt bangs streaking across his handsome face. His clothes were simple and reminded Nino much of his own wardrobe. He stepped calmly through the entrance, sliding the door closed behind him. With gentle eyes smiling at them, he greeted his fellow players with but a simple nod as the remaining seconds finished counting down.

But though he appeared rather unremarkable at a first glance, there was something about him that caught Nino’s attention immediately. Unlike the other strangers they would be playing alongside, this guy held a curious air about him. He quietly toed off his shoes in the genkan and slipped into the pair of slippers, taking his time to step up into the reception area. He moved with neither hesitation nor confidence; watching him was like watching a normal customer enter a ryokan to check in. But for all his seemingly ignorant behaviour, Nino didn’t doubt even for a second that this player was no newcomer. When the game was announced, the rest of the players all stood up straighter either tense with anticipation or apprehension for what they would be playing. But this guy remained perfectly calm. There was no confusion marring his features or rigidness in his body. Everyone else was busy watching their phones for the rules but he simply stood amongst them, just another face in the crowd. His slightly vacant expression did nothing to lessen Nino’s suspicions of him.

His speculations were interrupted with the announcement of the game.

“Game: Riddle Me This. Difficulty: Seven of Diamonds.”

Nino exchanged a curious look with his friends. Their first diamonds game, they were intrigued to discover how their minds would be tested. As the rules were explained, they learned that they would need to uncover clues, answer riddles and solve puzzles to find the safe route through the ryokan. The sixty-minute time limit began immediately.

“It’s an escape room then,” Nino stated, glancing at their surroundings.

The storyteller cocked his head to the side. “If all we have to do is leave, can we not just use the way we came in? That seems like the most logical option.”

When they tried the sliding door, they discovered their easy exit was in fact no longer an option. It was like somebody had welded the door to the wall. Though it appeared to be made of simple wood and washi, it was as strong as steel, unbreakable. Even tearing through it proved impossible.

Matsushima sighed and looked pointedly at the young man who’d arrived last. “We could have left that way if somebody not been stupid enough to lock us all in.”

It took the young man a moment longer than it should have for him to realise everyone was staring at him. His gaze moved over each of their disappointed faces, a bashful smile parting his lips. He ducked his head sheepishly and mumbled a soft apology for his careless mistake.

Sho clicked his tongue but turned back to face the room they were trapped in. “Guess that means we have to escape the old-fashioned way.”

While the rest of the players began to look around for potential clues, Jun and Ohno scouted the borderlines of the room for another way out. They fiddled with the latch on the door on the other side of the room and upon discovering it too was locked, they returned to join the search for hidden puzzles.

“Maybe this is something?”

When the others looked around for their missing friend, they saw Aiba’s head pop up from behind the reception desk. He hauled a heavy-looking container onto the bench. It was leather-bound while the latch was secured by a four-digit combination.

“Too bad it’s locked,” the storyteller remarked.

“That’s our task,” Nino retorted. “In order to escape, we must figure out the combination.”

“How are we supposed to do that? There are thousands of possibilities!”

“There should be clues for it around here somewhere,” said Sho. “Look around. Anything could be a hint.”

The players did as he instructed and resumed the search. It was a fairly standard looking ryokan lobby. There was a small bench for customers to wait on opposite the concierge desk. Atop the table was a flower arrangement beside an old-fashioned phone and a lamp. Along the adjacent wall was a display with ornamental pottery.

“Five shelves, four pots per shelf,” Matsushima mused while looking at the display. “Could this have something to do with the combination?”

As Aiba attempted to try all combinations he could think of in relation to the number of ceramic pieces, Nino studied the wall for a pattern. There was no discernible sequence that he could see, no correlation between the designs, no repetition of shape or even colour. As far as he could tell, they were all unique. Deciding it was probably unrelated to the code they were looking for, he chose to turn his search elsewhere while leaving his friend to continue trying. If anyone was going to get lucky enough to blindly stumble upon the correct code, he trusted it would be Aiba.

He slipped behind the reception desk. The table was organised, with neatly arranged stationary on either side of the computer monitor. Sitting right in the middle of the desk was a 100-yen coin. Nino tilted his head and picked it up, intrigued. It was so out of place among the other items commonly found in a reception but when he checked it for potential clues, he found none. It was just a simple coin, and yet he couldn’t help feeling there was significance to its existence there. He pocketed it quietly and turned back to the other items on the desk. He attempted to turn the computer on, only to find it was inoperable. Nino frowned and tried again. He tapped on the unresponsive keyboard with increasing frustration, confused as to why it refused to work. Usually during a game, all technology in the arena was functional-if the computer wasn’t working, he figured there had to be a reason why.

“Hey Nino.”

Nino looked up when someone called for him. Jun was standing behind him, holding what appeared to be a handwritten guest reservation. He pointed to one of the names partway down the list.

“Your name’s on this,” he said. “It’s probably just a coincidence, but still.”

Nino raised an eyebrow curiously as he read his own surname among the twenty-odd names. While he would be the first to admit the strangeness of the occurrence, especially as his was hardly the most common of names, he couldn’t imagine it being much else than a coincidence as Jun said. The full name listed was Ninomiya Hatsuko-he’d never heard of anyone by that title before and was struggling to find any connection between it and what they were looking for.

But just as he was about to write it off as nothing more than a happenstance, he gave the piece of paper a second glance. He scanned the listings, his eyes narrowing when a handful jumped out at him. It would seem his name was not the only uncommon one to be found.

“Ninomiya, Kyuuma, Kindaichi,” he mumbled under his breath. As he continued to reflect on the rare surnames, he came to a shocking revelation. He locked eyes with his friend. “Jun-kun, you’re a genius!”

Though the younger looked thoroughly baffled by his apparent epiphany, Nino didn’t stop to explain himself. He scanned the entire list once more until he came across the final piece of the puzzle. When he found it, it was all he could do to grin at his discovery. He whipped around and grabbed the lock on the container, already spinning the mechanism until he found the number he was after. He could feel the others staring at him in bewilderment.

When the digits were aligned, he tugged on the device, expecting it to come free. It didn’t. His face fell, his shocked gaze moving between the lock and the list. His efforts became more frantic as he tried again and again, only to be thwarted at every attempt.

“I don’t understand,” he growled. When his friends gathered by his side, he turned to them in despair. “The combination is right here, see? Ninomiya, Kyuuma, Kindaichi, Nanase-they’re the only four names that have numbers in them. Two, nine, one, seven!”

Sho looked over the list. Upon seeing Nino was correct in his assertions, he glanced back at the lock. “You have the right digits but maybe it’s the order that’s wrong,” he proposed. “If it’s not the sequence they’re listed, it could be the order of the numbers.”

One step ahead of him, Nino was already reaching to test the new theory. He readjusted the numbers so that they were in numerical order. That too failed to unlock the chest. Nino clicked his tongue, exchanging frustrated glances with his other friends, but Sho’s gaze remained studious as he examined the reservations yet again. He stared at each name carefully. Ninomiya Hatsuko, Kyuuma Shiro, Kindaichi Keizo, Nanase Jiro. After a minute, an insightful gasp escaped him. Without explanation, he began imputing the numbers in a new order. There was a soft click when the lock finally came free and granted them access to the box.

“How did you do that?” Aiba asked in awe.

“The surnames told us the numbers for the combination but the first names were a clue to the order,” Sho explained. “Hatsuko means first, so the two from Ninomiya was the first number. Jiro is second, so Nanase’s seven was next. Kindaichi Keizo meant one was the third digit.”

“And Shiro is fourth, meaning nine came last,” Nino concluded. He flashed his friend a small smirk. “Nicely done, detective Sakurai.”

While he chose not to react to the teasing, Sho’s gaze sparkled with a blend of pride and amusement. They opened the box. Inside was a small handheld wand; when they switched it on, its end shone with an ultraviolet light. At the bottom of the container was a small card written in English.

“Fantastic, we found a clue we can’t even read,” Matsushima said dryly. “Does detective Sakurai have a solution for this one?”

“He can speak English actually,” Ohno replied.

Ignoring the incredulous looks sent his way, Sho took the card handed to him. “I can speak some, but it’s not like I’m fluent.”

“Can you read this though?”

Sho didn’t respond, too busy studying the words in front of him. His expression was one of utmost concentration.

“Players Now Have One Exit,” he read in English before translating it for the rest of them. “Players now have one exit.”

“That’s not a clue, that’s just nonsense,” the storyteller said. “What good is telling us we have one exit when we know that already?”

“It’s a cryptic message,” Nino retorted with a roll of his eyes. “It’s not supposed to be easy to understand.”

“There has to be a reason why it’s written in English,” Sho murmured, speaking more to himself than anyone else.

Nino stared hard at the clue. “What if it’s not actually the message itself that’s of importance?”

They tried shining the blacklight on the card but found nothing. Nino pouted when his idea did not bear fruit but refused to give up. He tipped his head curiously at the way each word was capitalised.

“English isn’t normally written like that, is it?” He wasn’t really asking but he still felt the need to get confirmation. When Sho shook his head, Nino pondered, “Could the capital letters have some sort of meaning? If you put them together, does is say something?”

“P-N-H-O-E…” Aiba spelled it out.

Sho frowned. “If it means something, I’m not familiar with it.”

“Maybe it’s another code, like an anagram or something.”

The players were deep in thought as they brainstormed potential meanings.

“H-O-P-E-N…N-O-H-E-P…O-P-E-N-H…P-H-O-N-E…Phone!”

They turned to the phone behind them. Ohno picked up the receiver, his expression twisting in confusion the longer he held it to his ear.

“What’s wrong?”

He looked to his friends and wordlessly passed Nino the phone. The latter listened carefully to the short melody that was playing. It consisted of five notes and played over and over again, never once changing or continuing no matter how long he kept the phone to his ear.

“It’s a melody,” he told his friends, confusion marring his features as he fought to understand its meaning.

“Let me hear.” Matsushima snatched the phone from him and listened for herself. She furrowed her brows in bewilderment at the strange music that was stuck on repeat. “He’s right.”

It played another three times before the line suddenly went dead. She pulled the phone back from her ear, staring at it for a moment before looking to the others.

“Weird,” she muttered.

When she hung up the receiver, the panel on the desk below the phone suddenly popped open on its own. Matsushima reached inside the hidden alcove and pulled out a long thin strip of typewriter paper.

“It’s a riddle,” she told them. “Standing tall in the dark, yet blind in the day. If you forget I am there, I’ll never decay. Use me if you must, until I decline. My shades are my own but for your sake, not mine. What am I?”

The players looked to each other in bemusement. They contemplated the riddle for a few minutes before scouring the lobby yet again for something that might fit the answer. Nino stared at the young man who was loitering on the other side of the reception desk and narrowed his eyes. He had yet to say a word, let alone prove helpful in their search for clues.

“Feel free to help out anytime soon,” he called to him, his voice sharp with scorn.

The other player startled at being suddenly addressed. He came forward with a small nod, mimicking the rest of them as they resumed their search. It didn’t escape Nino’s notice that he was less searching himself and more standing near those who were actually looking. Before he could snap at the unhelpful player, however, Sho’s loud exclamation made him jump.

“Got it!”

He suddenly raced over to the lamp. The others looked on curiously when he started to spin the lightshade clockwise. Its bright illumination flickered and swirled around the room.

“Standing tall in the dark, yet blind in the day,” he echoed the riddle. “If you forget I am there, I’ll never decay. Use me if you must, until I decline. My shades are my own but for your sake, not mine.”

With every rotation of the shade, the lamp’s light began to gather together until it focused on one spot across the room. The players stared at the shelf of pottery; the blue dish on the lefthand side of the shelf was illuminated by the spotlight. The players quickly ran over to it, only to discover it was empty. Their confusion over the dish’s significance was short-lived.

“The blacklight!” Aiba exclaimed.

Jun pulled out the ultraviolet wand and shone it over the bowl. Under the illumination of the dark light, an invisible arrow was revealed. It was pointing directly at the lantern hanging left of the shelf. When Nino reached up inside its cover, he pulled out a key. Smiles were exchanged all around as they struck success.

The young man who had arrived last walked back to the front door but when he reached to use the key, he was surprised to realise there was no keyhole.

“Sliding doors don’t have keys,” Nino reminded him with a snort of amusement at the confusion tarnishing the guy’s handsome face.

“Then how are we supposed to escape?” the storyteller asked. “What good is a key when the door we need to open doesn’t have a keyhole?”

Ohno took the key and calmly padded over to the other side of the room away from the rest of them. When he inserted it into the door he’d attempted to open earlier, it unlocked with ease. He pushed it open and looked back at the others.

“Looks like it’s more of an escape building than an escape room,” Sho said.

Knowing they didn’t have much choice in the matter, the players shrugged and headed through the dark hallway of their newly accessed area. They followed the path of secret markings on the walls as revealed by the blacklight, working their way up the stairs to the second floor. A corridor of doors appeared ahead of them. Aiba reached for the first door, only to be stopped by Nino.

“We don’t know what could happen if we choose the wrong door.”

At his friend’s advising, Jun shone the blacklight over the door Aiba had been about to open and discovered a large bloodstain-like splatter in the shape of an X. The friends glanced at each other, unsettled by the discovery and moved on to the next door without opening it. They slowly moved up the hall, checking each door until they finally discovered one with the words, ‘Level 2’ on it. It was with some hesitation that they opened it. Nino held his breath when he entered, closing his eyes in paranoia that it was a trick of sorts. He sighed in relief when the eight of them were able to pass through unharmed.

The room was spacious, complete with traditional low-set furniture and decorative wall hangings. But for all its simplistic beauty, there was something off-putting about the room. While Nino was prepared to chalk it up to the fact that they were in an arena, Jun was no so willing to put his ill-feelings aside.

“The floor doesn’t look right,” he said as he stared at the ground, his expression uneasy.

His friends followed his gaze and found he was right. Everything else in the room was positioned with perfect precision and symmetry, but the spacing of the tatami was uneven. While having no strange feel under-foot, it created odd lines along the ground that seemed to throw off the balance of the entire room.

They had little time to dwell on it, however, as their attention was drawn to where Matsushima stood ahead of them staring at a maneki neko statue. It was sitting on the table in front of a small flower arrangement and was holding a note in its paws.

“Luck is on your side with a good night’s sleep,” she read the clue aloud.

While the rest of them reflected on its meaning, the nameless young man walked over to the cupboard and opened the door to reveal a tall stack of futons. He gasped when they nearly fell on him.

“Looks like we know what we need to do next,” Aiba remarked amusedly, coming forward to help the other man pull the rest of the futons from the cupboard.

“To what end?” Nino questioned.

He sighed when he realised no one was listening, too caught up in heeding the advice of the first clue. Pushing his scepticism aside, he assisted them with the task of laying out the futons. They tried a few different methods-they laid them end to end in both parallel and perpendicular lines but no matter how they tried, the final arrangement of the futons never revealed any hint regarding their next clue.

“I told you this was a pointless exercise,” Nino muttered under his breath after what was probably the fourth time rearranging the beds. “We’re wasting valuable time doing this.”

“The clue was pretty clear,” Aiba retorted. “We must be missing something.”

Nino shook his head hopelessly. Dropping the futon he was holding, he stepped back from the rest of them and allowed them to continue the seemingly fruitless task without him. He scoured the remainder of the room for another potential clue that they were missing. Out of the corner of his eye, he spotted the troubled look on Jun’s face as he stared at the floor. His gaze followed the unusual lines of the tatami mats that persisted in plaguing him. As Nino turned to examine the cupboard where the futons had been stored, Jun stepped back from the task himself and placed his hands on his hips with a deep exhale. He stood observing the others rearranging the beds, his mind racing to comprehend the significance of the strange looking floor.

The dots finally connected and he hurried to the nearest futon, shifting its position until its end was in perfect alignment with the edge of the tatami. He then grabbed another and slotted it beside it. Lain together, the pair of futons matched the size of the mat perfectly.

“Use the floor as a guideline,” he told the others as he hastened to arrange the rest correctly.

It took a couple of attempts to get it right, especially with the confusion of the others. Jun didn’t wait for them to catch on to what he already knew, instead ripping the futons from their hands and fixing it himself. Nino watched in stunned amazement as the younger worked quickly and precisely to solve the puzzle only he knew. His gaze was intensely focused, the rest of his surroundings turning to blurred nothing in his peripheral vision.

When he slid the last futon into place, slotting it diagonally between two parallel rows, he stepped back to observe his work in full.

“Is it just me or does it look like the number seven?” Ohno asked with a curious head tilt. The other players all nodded quietly as they observed the sight before them. When observed from above, the arranged beds did indeed appear to form the kanji for seven.

Nino looked around the room, seeking out anything that could be affiliated with the clue of seven. His gaze swept over the small cupboards on the other side of the room. He paced over to them, opening each one until he came across one that wasn’t empty. Inside was a teapot and six cups. Engraved on the side of the teapot were the words, ‘Stop to smell the roses.’ He showed the clue to the others.

The young man walked over to the table in the middle of the room. He crouched down by the flower arrangement and leant forward as if to smell them.

“What are you doing?” Matsushima questioned.

He looked up at them. Taken aback by their confusion, he pointed to the clue. “It said to smell the roses.”

“It’s just an expression.” Nino gestured to the arrangement. “Besides, there aren’t even any roses there.”

There were peach blossoms, aster and baby’s breath among the flowers chosen for the decorative table piece, but no roses.

“Are you sure?”

The young man pursed his lips and reached into the centre of the arrangement. Much to the surprise of the other players, he plucked a small origami rose that had been nestled among the other flowers. Nino’s eyes widened, though his shock was offset by amusement and disbelief when he saw the young man lift the fake flower bud to his nose.

“You realise it’s made of paper, right?” Jun remarked, his expression similarly marred with disbelief.

The other player didn’t say anything; he simply smiled and held out the origami flower to Nino. The latter took it cautiously. He honestly had no idea what to make of this guy and that vacant look behind his gaze as he stared back at him wasn’t helping.

Doing what he could to focus on the game for now, he unfolded the origami to reveal the newest puzzle.

“Arrange the rainbow for the next clue,” he read.

A quick scan of the room confirmed what the clue was referring to. Hanging on the wall behind them was a frame. At first glance, it appeared to be an abstract artwork. Its painted square slates were in the design of a checkers board but upon closer inspection, they discovered it was in fact a sliding tile game. Aiba touched the green tile on the bottom row and was surprised when it slid across to the empty middle slot with ease.

“It’s like a 2D Rubik’s cube,” Nino mused. He reached out to help his friend solve the puzzle.

The two of them worked side by side, sliding the different coloured tiles with increasing speed. With only a single empty slot at their disposal, they clashed over their strategies. Where Nino was keen to make every move with care and precision, his puzzle-driven mind calculating ten moves ahead, Aiba preferred to rely on blind luck as he haphazardly slid the tiles back and forth with no real pattern or thought. Nino quickly became exasperated by his flailing efforts that were throwing a spanner in his own plans. His attempts to get his friend to listen to reason, however, were drowned out by breathy giggling as Aiba had the time of his life trying to solve the puzzle, evidently having forgotten the lethal consequences in store for them should they fail to solve it in time. Nino hadn’t though. He snuck a glance at the countdown on his phone. There was a little over half an hour remaining. Without knowing how much more of the building they had to escape, he swore softly and fought to regain control of the puzzle.

The others gathered around, offering their input as to which way the tiles needed to be arranged. Their multiple voices only added to the noise Nino was desperately trying to drown out in his effort to reclaim focus.

“Let me do it!” he snapped at the rest of them. “I’m the gamer, remember? I got this!”

Several of the players moved back on his order, though Aiba was a little reluctant to give up his role in the puzzle. Ohno put a hand on his shoulder in a subtle encouragement for him to leave it to the smaller guy.

Squeezing his way between Aiba and the frame, Nino used his body to block him to the best of his ability. It was a difficult task considering Aiba’s limbs were much longer than his but any time Aiba attempted to reach around or over the top of him despite Ohno’s restraint, he would slap the other’s arm away while his left hand worked tirelessly to fix the puzzle. He slid one of the green tiles down into the row of blue, shuffling a couple more around until all red, blue and green tiles were in their allotted rows.

The rainbow was nearing completion. With three colours completed, there was only two rows left to rearrange. Against the advising of the others, Nino slid a purple tile up two slots and shifted a yellow tile all the way down to the bottom row. He didn’t listen to the protests occurring around him as the rainbow was seemingly destroyed. He had figured out the path. It was like so many games he’d played in the past-sometimes in order to complete the puzzle, one must first be willing to undo all their hard work.

His risk paid off in the end as after another couple of minutes, he had managed to shuffle all the coloured tiles back into their rightful rows. He stared at the rainbow. Red, yellow, green, blue, purple. Every row was complete, except the purple, which was missing a single tile in the bottom right-hand corner.

“What now?”

Nino spun around, his gaze darting about the room. “We need to complete the rainbow. Look for the missing tile.”

They did as he asked and split up, searching the room top to bottom for the elusive purple tile. It was a few minutes later that they found what they were looking for. Aiba lifted the lid of the teapot, his excited exclamation drawing all their attention. They watched as he tipped the pot upside-down and the coloured tile fell onto the floor. He raced it over to the puzzle and inserted it into the empty slot.

He stepped back alongside the other players as they stared at the completed rainbow. For a moment, nothing happened. Then there was a loud clatter as something dropped nearby. The players startled at the noise and turned to see that the calligraphy painting had fallen. On the wall behind it was a button. Aiba pressed it without hesitation and the door swung open at once.

The players didn’t waste any time returning to the hall. The corridor was pitch black but unlike last time, they didn’t need to rely on the blacklight to guide their way. The floor and walls were alit with luminous arrows leading them to the end of the hallway.

The next area they entered was the second-floor communal bathroom. When the players entered, the door locked behind them, not that any of them expected any less at this point. They stared at the eight cubicles ahead of them. Each door was locked but there were words written across the stalls.

“You see me where I never was and where I could not be,” Sho read the new riddle. “And yet within that very place, my face you often see.”

“Another riddle. You’re up, detective Sakurai,” the young man said with a grin.

Sho looked deep in thought as he considered the riddle carefully. “To see a face where it never was means to look at something that was never truly there.” He scanned their surroundings. When his gaze landed on the mirror, he smiled to himself. “Child’s play. The answer’s reflection.”

The players moved closer to the sink, questioning what next clue they would find in their reflections. They tried switching off the light and using the wand but there were no hidden messages they could find.

“I don’t get it,” Ohno said. “If the answer is reflection, what are we supposed to do?”

Sho’s expression had hardened in the frustration of being stuck. The answer was correct-there was not a doubt in his mind about that. He wracked his brain, trying to figure out what he must have missed.

The sound of running water snapped him out of his thoughts. He turned to see the unnamed player standing at a nearby sink, washing his hands. He looked up with a bashful expression when he realised everyone was staring at him.

“Ah, my hands felt kind of sticky after touching the flowers.” He switched the water off and bowed his head apologetically for having caused any distraction.

But while the rest of the players were ready to write off his actions as nothing more than air-headedness, they sparked inspiration for Sho. He reached for the taps and turned them onto a heavy stream. Hot water gushed from the faucets freely. His friends questioned what he was doing but Sho didn’t respond; he stood there in silence, his eyes fixed on the mirror. While it took a couple of minutes, slowly but surely the hot water did what he suspected it would. The steam fogged up the mirror and as their reflections disappeared behind the haze, a hidden message was revealed on the glass.

THE KEY TO SUCCESS IS TO NEVER LOOK DOWN.
Nino scoffed and nudged Aiba, glancing over at the young man behind them. “Talk about your airheaded miracles. He could give you a run for your money.”

Aiba smacked him playfully. Any offence he might have otherwise taken from the remark was quickly forgotten when the storyteller pointed at something above their heads. On the ceiling directly above them was a vent. Nino and his friends gathered under it. No words were needed. Four of them crouched down, holding Ohno’s legs to boost him up towards the vent. They held him steady while he attempted to unscrew the vent.

“It won’t budge,” he told them after a couple of failed attempts.

“Is there anything in there?”

He peered into the darkness and reached his fingers up into the slots, feeling around for anything. He felt something cold brush against the very tip of his middle finger and heard a jangle sound. He told the others as much, followed by a claim that he could not reach it. The weight supporting his legs suddenly vanished and as gravity reclaimed its hold on him, he slipped ungracefully back to the floor. He sat up, stunned. But neither his friends nor the other players paid him any attention, too busy scouring the rest of the bathroom for something that might help them reach the object in the vents.

Shaking off his fall, Ohno pulled himself off the floor and joined in the search. Coiled around the handle of one of the stalls was a thin cord that looked similar to fishing wire; there was a small iron weight tied to its end. Ohno immediately perked up when he saw it.

“We have to fish the key from the vent!”

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Nino scoffed.

Ohno neither cared nor even noticed the looks of absurdity gracing his friends’ faces as he got back into position beneath the vent, eagerly gesturing for them to lift him up a second time. They did as he desired, doing their best to ignore the stupidly wide grin on his face as he twisted the end of the cord around his knuckles and took aim within the vent. As he tossed his hand upwards, he opened his fingers and let the cord fly freely as it unspun itself through the air and disappeared into the dark slot. The sound of the weight hitting the interior metal echoed loudly. Ohno pulled the cord back down. While he may have been unsuccessful in his first attempt, his grin never wavered in the slightest. He tried again and again, the happiest and most focused his friends had seen during the entire game so far.

He drew back the cord for the fourth time, this time confident he landed whatever was inside. His grin widened when he saw the key hanging from the magnetised weight. But as he pulled it free from the vent, the key dropped and so did he. He fell a second time, unbeknownst to those around him as they scrambled to grab the key from the ground. The storyteller picked it up and hurried to insert it into one of the keyholes on the cubicle doors. The first one he tried opened straight away. He flashed the others a proud smile and stepped inside, only to be cut down straight away by a laser. Dead long before he hit the floor, he landed with a resounding thud. Matsushima gasped while the boys beside her stared wide-eyed at his body.

Sho crept cautiously over to the still open cubicle, taking care where he stepped as he removed the key from the door. Hanging from its bow was a thin tag that read: ‘The path to victory is a choice to make. Draw on past luck to guide you safely.’

“Only one door will lead to the way out,” Sho said, looking between the key, his friends and the seven remaining doors. When his gaze moved to the body on the floor, he swallowed hard. “The rest are a death-trap.”

“How are we supposed to know which door is safe to go through?” Matsushima asked worriedly.

“It’s like it says,” Nino remarked as he took the key from Sho. He read the clue again. “It’s a choice we have to make.”

“You mean a sacrifice?” Jun whispered.

No one answered him. His face went pale and his gaze lowered, his mind racing to comprehend what they might have to do. He wasn’t alone. His friends too were coming to the same grisly conclusion; even if they were to somehow accept the reality of sacrificing other players to progress, let alone convince the two strangers to be the ones to try the key next, they would still be left with a one in five chance of one of them choosing wrong among the final doors.

“Draw on past luck to guide you safely,” Aiba’s indistinct murmur broke the tense silence of the room. His expression was unusually serious and he seemed to be lost in thought. Without warning, his whole face lit up as he suddenly snapped back into focus. “What if we don’t have to sacrifice anyone?”

He snatched the key from Nino’s hand before the latter could stop him. He walked confidently over to the stalls, ignoring the loud and incessant objections of his friends. Standing in front of the remaining doors, his gaze moved back and forth between them. His hand clenched tightly around the key in his hand. His friends screamed his name when he inserted it into the second door from the right. Taking a deep breath to gather his courage, he stepped through the cubicle.

His friends turned away with a wince, fully expecting the familiar sound of death to follow. When it did not, they dared to sneak a glance, thrilled to find Aiba still standing just past the doorway of the stall. He un-scrunched his face and opened his eyes. Obviously just as shocked to be alive as his friends were, he patted himself down, not entirely sure he was still in one piece. When he confirmed that fact, he spun back around, beaming from ear to ear.

“I take it back,” Nino breathed, placing a hand on his friend’s shoulder as they came forward to join him in the stall. “No one’s a much of a miracle boy as you.”

Aiba’s expression shone with both relief and delight. The players searched the stall, eventually coming across the exit point they were looking for. Inscribed on the back wall was a new phrase. ‘The key is in the vase.’ When they touched the wall with the words, the whole thing slid open to grant them access to the secret passage behind it. One by one the players entered.

“Seriously, did you know that was the right door or was it blind luck?” Ohno asked as they walked.

“A bit of both,” said Aiba, rubbing the back of his neck sheepishly. “The clue said to draw on past luck; in the maneki neko challenge, the futons spelt out number seven, so I assumed that the seventh door had to be right. But yeah, it was mostly luck.”

The other players continued to shower him with both praise and gratitude for his bravery even as they made their way down the winding staircase. As they were walking, Nino found himself in unfamiliar company.

“You guys are good at this,” the young man complimented him, looking back over his shoulder at the other four with admiration in his gaze.

Nino cast him a side-glance. Although a snarky reply was burning on the tip of his tongue about how unhelpful the unnamed player was, he chose not to voice it and instead accepted the praise that was given to him.

“We’ve played our fair share of escape rooms before,” he replied with a shrug. He kept walking, doing his best to maintain a cool detachment from the stranger he was still suspicious of.

“Your teamwork is especially impressive,” the player went on. “I’ve never seen anything quite like it in the games so far.”

“I bet you haven’t,” Nino muttered. When his curiosity got the better of him, he dared to ask, “How many games have you played, anyway?”

The man hesitated. He looked thoroughly confused as he attempted to do the math in his head.

“Five, no wait four? Or was it six? Actually, perhaps it was five.” The more he spoke, the more he seemed to confuse himself.

Nino rolled his eyes. “It’s a wonder someone as airheaded as you made it through even one game alive.”

The man smiled warmly, not at all put off by the insult. “It’s easy to lose track around here.”

Nino scoffed, though a small smile of his own crept onto his lips as he listened to the other’s blithe nature. He reminded him very much of Aiba and caused his earlier suspicions to waver. Perhaps his uncanny calmness was not due to him having some sort of secret but rather was a result of his natural frivolity. Perhaps he was simply an airhead after all.

Reaching the bottom of the staircase, the players entered through another door that led to a courtyard. Decorative plants and stone statues lined the walls, along with various artworks depicting the Edo period. There was one of ikebana while others were scenes of different musical instruments being played. But while the walls were brimming with colour and character, the majority of the area was sparse. The floor was split into perfect squares; five vertical and eight horizontal, the room was transformed into a grid. The only furniture was at the other end of the room. There was a small table perched just before the door to the garden, with two beautifully ornate vases sitting on top.

The players hesitated before the first square. Nino stared down at the ground, uncertainty playing on his mind as he struggled to figure out what the catch was. One thing was for certain-simply walking over to the table was not an option.

“The key is in the vase,” Jun repeated the clue from the stall. He went to take a step towards it, but Nino instinctively seized his wrist to stop him.

“It can’t be that simple,” he told him sternly.

Looking to prove his point, he grabbed Sho’s outer parka and tore it off his shoulders. Before he had the chance to properly protest, Nino tossed it onto one of the squares. A loud musical note thundered through the room, followed by a piercing sound as steel spikes shot up from the square to impale the jacket. Everyone jumped back from the edge in fright. With eyes wide as the spikes disappeared as quickly as they’d risen up, the echo of the note fading back to silence, the seven remaining players struggled to comprehend what they’d just seen.

“Told you it wouldn’t be that simple,” Nino whispered in shock.

Jun swallowed hard, unable to answer in his stunned state. Sho tugged the hem of his remaining parka closed as he held himself awkwardly in the aftermath of watching his other jacket be cut to ribbons.

Nino scanned the room for a way to safely cross. He glanced at the paintings again, his eyes narrowing when he saw the instruments the figures were playing. At the same time, the noise that had sounded when the parka landed echoed in his mind. His gaze darted from either side of the room. Counting the number of squares again, the pieces began to fall into place in his mind.

“It’s an octave,” he murmured and turned to face the others. “The melody we heard on the phone, it’s the key to crossing!”

“Are you willing to bet our lives on that?”

“Look around you,” said Nino, gesturing wide. “The pictures of instruments, the eight squares, the noise we just heard-the floor is like a giant piano. If we play the same notes as that melody, we can get across safely.”

“One small problem with your logic,” Aiba chimed in. “I can’t remember the melody exactly.”

He tried to hum it to himself, only to frown and stop halfway when doubts crept in over whether it was right. He tried again, this time singing something completely different.

Nino smirked. “But I can.”

He closed his eyes as he stood at the edge of the squares and sung the melody softly to himself. Mi, So, Do, La, So. Recalling the tone of the square where the parka fell, he was able to calculate and confirm where in the musical scale the first note was. He opened his eyes and shifted himself down the line to the third square.

“Please be right,” he whispered to himself. Shutting his eyes tight and summoning all his nerve, he stepped onto the square and braced himself for a gruesome death.

The loud musical note sounded, in perfect harmony with the one he heard in his head. It took Nino a second to realise he was not dead. When he opened his eyes, he remembered how to breathe again and very nearly fell over in his shock. He sent a silent prayer of thanks to his childhood years of music practice and looked back over his shoulder at the rest of the players.

“See? Just follow me and you’ll be fine.”

While his words may have been cocky, he knew better than to get ahead of himself. He took each step with care, triple-checking in his mind that he had the right note on the octave to match the melody before moving forward. He was vaguely aware of the others following closely behind him. One at a time, they crossed the room. Aiba and Ohno were the first to proceed after him, followed by the young man, then Jun, and Matsushima. Sho was the only one left on the other side of the room by the time Nino reached the table. Between the vases was a card with a warning.

THOSE WHO DISTURB THE VASES SHALL PERISH.
“Don’t!” Nino exclaimed, grabbing Ohno’s hand before he could touch the left vase. He showed him the card. “If we touch them, it’s game over.”

“But the key is in the vase,” Ohno pointed out. “If we can’t touch them, how are we supposed to get the key?”

Nino wracked his brain for the answer. He stared at the vases, then looked back over his shoulder at the rest of the room. His gaze scanned the walls for even the slightest hint as to what they were supposed to do.

“What’s the hold up?” Matsushima asked upon reaching the other side.

Not stopping to read the warning or listen to the cries for her not to touch them, she reached into the vase on the right. As soon as she did, a metal projectile fired from the right wall and pierced her straight through the stomach. Her body seized and she collapsed forward, blood bubbling up from her lips as she fought to cling to the very last whisper of life left in her. As the boys attempted to aid her, all the while knowing it was futile, she dropped to her knees and the light drained from her eyes. The other players recoiled from the grim sight of her bleeding out by their feet.

“What are we going to do?” Jun whimpered. “Nino?”

“I’m thinking,” Nino said through gritted teeth. He could feel his heart beating so fast against his chest, even more so when he checked the time on his phone. They had less than ten minutes left to successfully escape the ryokan or pay with their lives.

He scoured the room yet again, hoping and pleading with all his heart that something would jump out at him. He honed all his focus, seeking out potential hints in the same way he would in any other puzzle game he’d played. His sharp gaze was on the lookout for anything out of the ordinary-anything that didn’t belong in their current setting that might be a clue to how to progress beyond this level. As his gaze came to rest on the photos on the wall, he realised their mistake.

“Sho-chan, wait!”

But his call came too late. Sho had already stepped onto the second square. He looked up, startled by the yell of his name and, upon seeing the disappointment on the faces ahead of him, felt only confusion. He hastily followed the pattern across the tiles until he reached his friends on the other side.

“What?”

Nino stared dejectedly at the far end of the room. His head fell to his chest and he pointed at the photo on the wall. “The key is there.”

They followed his gaze, peering across the room at the picture frame he’d gestured to. It was the only artwork that depicted something other than music.

“If we want to get out of here alive, one of us has to go back and get it,” he muttered. He threw his head back with an exasperated sigh.

“We just have to follow the melody again, right?”

“Except this time, it’ll be backwards,” Nino said, running his hands over his face in frustration. “The octave is mirrored from this side. It’ll be much harder to cross without making a mistake.”

His friends looked to each other worriedly. Seeing none of them were keen to volunteer, Nino tried not to groan at the realisation that he would most likely need to be the one to go. As much as he didn’t want to risk his life again by doing so, he knew he stood the best chance among them. He was the one who knew the melody best; his years of playing music also meant he was best equipped to tackle the scale backwards and he was the only one who actually knew exactly what to look for on the other side. The confusion lingering on the others’ faces when they’d looked to where he was pointing assured him of that.

Grumbling under his breath at the unfairness of it all, he returned to the stage. He stepped onto the first square with ease, recalling which one he’d stepped off last the first time he did this. He took an extra moment to figure out where he was supposed to go next, however. The notes were starting to jumble in his mind as the reversed musical scale threw him off. It was with tentative steps and loud encouragement from his friends behind him that he slowly made his way back to the starting line.

He glared up at the photo that had caused all this trouble. The ikebana scene was taunting; the vase that sat in the middle of the artwork seemed so obvious in hindsight. Reaching up, he pried open the flaps in the canvas and dug into the middle of the vase to retrieve the hidden key. He kept it tightly in his grasp as he crossed the room again, the booming note of every step he took seeming to echo on even longer than before. His friends celebrated his return with wide smiles, congratulatory embraces and high praise at his dominance over the game.

Unlocking the door to the garden, they walked out onto the terrace and took their first breath of fresh air in the fifty-five minutes since they first began the game. But their feelings of victory were cut short when they reached a fork in the road. The gravel path cut away in two separate directions; the left had a directional sign reading ‘to onsen’ while the right had one reading ‘to zen garden’. On the small signpost at their feet with a final riddle.

“The riches of life come to those willing to sacrifice,” Sho read it aloud.

A beat of silence followed as the final challenge sunk in.

“What now?”

“Which way do we go?”

“Nino? Any ideas?”

Nino said nothing. Whenever he tried to speak, the words caught in his throat. All he could do was stand there, his gaze darting rapidly back and forth between their two choices, neither one of them jumping out at him as a better possibility than the other. Life or death for his friends was in the palm of his hand and he was clueless. When he could not provide them with the answer they were so desperately hoping for, a collective sigh swept through their ranks.

“One path leads to life and the other leads to death,” Ohno proclaimed as he stared at the divide before them. “And we have to decide who walks which one.”

“I guess that means we’ll have to sacrifice someone after all,” Aiba murmured, his downcast gaze filled with misery at the decision to come.

Jun leant over to whisper to Sho and Ohno. “Think we can convince him to go first?” He gestured to the unnamed player, who didn’t appear to even be paying attention. He was too busy surveying the options within the vending machine nearby.

They moved silently over to him, each of them internally questioning how they might best do just that. The other player might have been an airhead but talking him into chancing his life for the sake of saving theirs seemed like an impossible ask. But even so, they felt it was worth trying. The only other option they could think of was to play janken and let the loser be the one to pick a path.

He didn’t even turn his head as they approached him. He continued to stare at the vending machine, his gaze yearning.

“They look good, don’t they?” he commented when they were near him, still refusing to take his eyes off the machine. He looked between the drink options available, humming softly as if in agreement with himself. Then he finally turned around and flashed them all his usual gentle grin. “Too bad.”

With that, he walked right past all three of them and went to stand by the diverge in the paths. He made no attempt to wander down either one and instead stood there perfectly still, as if knowing the others were expecting him to choose first. The boys looked to one another, conflicted and disappointed all at once. As they were starting to head back over to force themselves to make that life-or-death decision, Nino looked over his shoulder at the machine. He quirked an eyebrow in contemplation as a thought suddenly occurred to him. He fished through his pockets. Feeling the warmed metal brush against his fingers, he pulled out the 100-yen coin that he took from reception. He stared at it for a moment before his gaze was drawn to the young man standing among his friends. His eyes narrowed. Unable to resist the temptation to slake his curiosity, he inserted the coin into the machine and scanned the options. Almost all of the numbers remained dark, except one. Number seven.

Throwing caution to the wind, Nino selected it. The machine hummed to life with a soft whirr. But rather than a can or bottle dropping, something much smaller fell into the collection bin. Nino reached curiously into the slot to retrieve his prize. What he pulled out was neither a drink nor food, but a small plastic sphere, the likes of which he would expect to find in a capsule toy machine. He cracked open the case and unfolded the tiny piece of parchment contained within.

ONSEN = VICTORY.
His eyes widened and he glanced fleetingly at the countdown. There was a minute and a half to go. Dropping everything, he sprinted over to the paths. He grabbed the hands nearest to him and yelled for everyone else to follow even as he dragged two of his friends behind him. Not giving second thought to the notion that he could be wrong or questioning how he knew which path was the right one when none of them dropped dead, they took off running as fast as their legs would carry them down the path towards the onsen. They didn’t stop; even when they smelt the sulphur in the air, even when they caught a glimpse of the shimmering pool through the rock formations. Until they were certain they were out of the arena for good and their phones sounded with the familiar tone of their victory, they kept going. When they did finally stop to catch their breath and allow the realisation that they had survived yet another game to sink in, they were finally able to admire the serene scenery surrounding them.

“How,” Aiba panted. “How did you know it was the onsen?”

“100-yen…from reception,” Nino replied as he bent over to try and catch his breath. “Vending machine…answered riddle…” His face screwed up in pain at the fierce stitch that was ricocheting up his side. He hadn’t expected to run so hard in a challenge that was supposed to be all about the mind.

“Why am I not surprised that you’d steal a 100-yen coin?” Sho remarked with an amused smirk.

“Be grateful I did,” Nino retorted once he’d finally caught his breath.

He wanted to say more but was distracted when out of the corner of his eye, he saw the young man walk calmly over to the card that was sitting on a rock next to the onsen. He picked it up, reading its suit with earnestness sparkling in his gaze. He then turned to the boys and handed it straight to Nino.

“Here, you earned this.”

Baffled by the gesture, Nino stared at the card. “You’re giving it to us? Just like that?”

When he looked back up, he saw the way the guy was smiling strangely at him. It was different from the usual blithe grin Nino had grown used to seeing in the last hour; there was something cunning and mysterious about it, and it only intensified his earlier suspicions. He didn’t say a word more. Instead, he bowed to the five of them and started to walk away in silence.

“Wait,” Nino called out before he could stop himself. The young man stopped in his tracks and glanced over his shoulder, his expression calm albeit unreadable. Nino found himself hesitating over what to say. He looked fleetingly to his friends before stuttering, “We didn’t catch your name.”

The stranger’s gaze warmed as it moved over each of them, then his lips parted in an honest smile.

“Yamazaki Kento.”