44) Ten of Clubs [2] ✮

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Time left: 1 hour and 45 min.

Players left: 69/82
Water level: Floor 1

===Rafferty Bucke===

"You k-know, I haven't seen Erina after sh-she'd been chased off. Wh-Where did she end up?"

"No idea." Judumai said through his teeth, as we ascended the stairs. "Something is real off about this game. Such a high difficulty, yet so simple."

"Definitely something we're missing." Niko said. "The Treasure must be something we value to the teeth."

Benkei arrived on the top floor first, kicking open the wooden doors. "If it's the cards, do you think we have to destroy all of them?"

"M-Most likely, yeah. Obviously, I d-don't know for s-sure!"

As we moved through the hall, there was no movement other than us. I peeked into doors which were left ajar, no signs of life.

I stopped walking. Judumai, upon noticing, paused, and the other two stopped in their tracks too.

"What's wrong?" Niko asked.

"It's so q-quiet." I muttered, as if trying to preserve the stillness. "H-How come w-we're the only ones w-who thought to come up here?"

From the other end of the hall, through some of the suites, noise emerged—crashing, banging, and shattering.

"Guess we're not alone anymore." Benkei said. "I suppose we were the first to think of checking the top floor."

"Then let's get going to Erina's room." Judumai said, breaking into a bristling walk. "The Treasure—what would you guys guess it to be? Shoot out theories, we need to utilize all the time we can."

"Say you're the gamemaker," Niko began, "and you're observing the players at the Beach, getting to know them pretty well. What do they care about? What are they reluctant to give up? What's hard for them to destroy?"

I glanced up, before putting my head back down towards the ground. "I w-would probably f-force then to give up their most precious things, things that th-they can't live w-without." He paused. "Y-Yeah, if I w-were the gamemaker, that's w-what I w-would do..."

"The most precious things?" Benkei asked. "Guys... What if the Treasure is a person?"

My stomach lurched. "S-Sadly, that may be the c-case."

"Think about it!" He continued. "A human life is more valuable than anything else!"

"Me, it's the Beach." Niko answered. "Everything about it. The kitchen, the pool, getting to hang out with you guys. If we didn't have this, I'd have probably shot myself weeks ago."

"A s-sacrifice game, perhaps?" I suggested. "That w-would certainly be p-precarious."

"But still, there's no evidence that the Treasure is necessarily the thing we value most." Benkei said. "What if it's some random object?"

"It can't be." Niko said. "If it's some random piece of furniture or a random plate, the chances of it getting randomly destroyed are too high."

"It's m-must be something symbolic, something that w-would go under our noses."

"Well, those are some good ideas for now." Judumai said. "We're here; let's see if we can find or destroy anything in her room."

Benkei reached for the doorknob, twisting, but it didn't budge. "Of course." He hissed.

"S-Stand back." I said, pulling out a pistol from my coat. I put it against the knob, gritting my teeth and squeezing my eyes shut, before pulling the trigger. It pierced through the metal, loosening the fixture. Niko stepped forward, taking the loose doorknob and breaking it apart with a few tugs.

The door swung open, and we stepped inside. A wave of perfumed air punched my nose, and I flinched, waving the air. The walls were a muted navy blue with a dark oak chair rail, alongside a white carpet and red velvet bed. Various papers were strewn across the desk, nightstand, and floor. In the corner was a door which led to a small closet.

Down a short corridor was the door to the bathroom, and an expansive kitchen and dining area.

"W-Wait." Rafferty paused, groaning. "W-We left in such a rush, w-we should've gotten the c-code and location of the s-safe from Kazetani, so w-we could look inside the safe just in case!"

"They're on the rooftop, right?" Benkei asked.

Suddenly, the lights flicked off, plunging the room into darkness. Judumai yelped, flinching at the unexpected change.

"What happened now?" Niko asked. "Did the flooding cut off the power?"

I wobbled around, reaching outwards, making contact with the wall. "I can b-barely see a meter in f-front of me! How are w-we supposed to clear the g-game like this?"

Then, the lights flicked back on. Not all of them, but enough to reveal the entire room. "Backup generators, I bet." Niko said. "Thank god."

"Anyways," Benkei said, running his hands through his hair, "they're all on the roof, right?"

"Y-Yeah, wh-why?"

Benkei ran to the window, unlocking the hatch and throwing it open, stepping onto the planters that extended from the ledge. "Kazetani!" He bellowed. "Give us the code and location of the safe, we want to take a look just in case!"

A second later, he arrived at the edge of the railing. "It's in her closet, inside a drawer hidden behind boxes!"

I ran over to the closet, opening the door and grabbing onto the boxes. Niko aided me, lifting the cardboard boxes and dumping them onto the carpet outside, fine jewelry and clothing spilling out. There were four drawers built into the wall, with the top being the largest. I opened it; inside was the safe.

"It's h-here!"

"What's the code?" Benkei yelled.

"It's quite long—get ready for it. 171411101117."

Benkei reiterated the code for me, as I punched it in.

"That's... A strange combination." Niko commented.

"What could it mean?" Judumai asked.

I shrugged, finishing the code. "L-Likely just a security measure. Though, just in c-case, w-we should probably memorize it."

Benkei nodded, pulling out a sheet of paper and pen from the nearby table and scribbling it down. "Alright, Kazetani, thanks!"

"It's empty." I noted. "Not surprising.

"So I guess that's one thing crossed off." Niko said.

"Actually, hold on." Benkei said. "Something... Looks off."

"Huh?" I asked.

He stepped backwards, lowering himself until he was eye level with the safe. "When you've been an artist for such a long time, you start to gain a very keen sense of symmetry and can tell when something isn't balanced. The bottom of the safe... It doesn't seem perfectly flat. It's a false bottom."

I leaned into the opening, prodding into the safe and tapping on the bottom with my knuckle.

"I think I hear a slight echo." Judumai said.

"Here!" Niko said, tossing me a nile file. "This was on the nightstand, use it to pick it out!"

I nodded, shoving the tip of the file between the bottom and the wall, pushing towards the center. With a pop, the slab came out. Taking it, I laid the slab of metal on the floor, removing the one item that the false bottom had hid.

A Nine of Diamonds playing card.

"What...? But... Why would Erina hide this one card?" Judumai asked.

"She and Ryota won it, along with three other players..." Niko recalled, scratching his head. "But what's so special about this card?"

"So, there sh-should be five Nine of D-Diamond cards in total that N-Nobira w-would've taken."

"Hey, Kazetani!" Benkei yelled out the window again. "Did Nobira ever tell you how many of each card there was?"

I stretched my head out the window as well, as Kazetani peeked through the railing. "No, we never got the chance to count! We planned to tally everything after he returned to Miyamoto! Why do you ask?"

"We found a Nine of Diamonds card in the safe that Nobira forgot to collect." Benkei explained. "It was beneath a false bottom."

"That's... Quite peculiar. Why would she hide that one card?"

Benkei shrugged. "That's what we're trying to figure out."

"I don't think I can be of help; you guys knew her more than me. Maybe try asking Chihaya? They seemed pretty close. Also try to dissect her motives and the potential value of the Nine of Diamonds game itself."

"Thanks, again. How's it going up there?"

"We have a plan." He said. "We're going to use a gun to fire 'SOS' in morse code to get the attention of either Nobira or someone who can relay a message to him back in Miyamoto."

"Sounds g-good!" I said. "W-We should probably go back t-to discussing, good luck!"

Me and Benkei returned, where Judumai and Niko sat on the carpet, the card between them. Judumai examined the pattern on the back, but the pattern was the same as every other card.

"So... What's significant about this card? How did they clear it again?" Judumai asked. We turned to Niko.

"Oh, that's such a while ago... Let me think. Ah, yes, Ryota told us about it during a meeting. Counterfeit Inspection was the name. There were twelve different diamonds, and among the twelve there was one diamond that was a counterfeit."

"Aha!" I said. "I've h-heard of that riddle b-before–"

Niko shook his head. "No, I thought the same thing, but it was much, much worse. The counterfeit was slightly heavier or lighter than the real diamonds. However, there were three scales: One gave the true weighing, one gave the opposite weighing, and one gave a random result each time. They had one hour and six total weigh-ins on any given scale."

"Oh... So it combined t-two famously difficult r-riddles into one, but they still m-managed to solve it. How does that contribute to Erina keeping that one card?"

"How close were Erina and Ryota?" Benkei asked.

"Pretty close, I would say." Niko answered. "If I had to make a ranking for the closest people to Erina, Ryota would be number one, with Chihaya at number two. Perhaps Sasori or Natsuki at number three. I mean, the two of them literally were the first two who created the Beach."

"She's n-not the only one who's hidden a card, actually..." I said, pulling out a pack of cigarettes from my pocket.

"Huh?" Judumai questioned. "Rafferty, you don't smoke."

I opened the packet, splitting open the cardboard that made up the box, and between the two layers, pulled out another card: the Nine of Hearts.

I turned to Benkei. "You know the story pretty well by now, don't you? I saved the old man named Hideo, who you saw in the Two of Clubs. "

Benkei nodded.

"Yes, you've told me about him several times. Ever since Maindo merged, I've seen you two start talking again." Judumai said.

"Yup. W-Well, to thank me for s-saving his l-life, he gifted his card t-to me, as a w-way to thank me. He said that h–he owed his life t-to me, but c-could only offer this up. W-We've started talking again, o-occasionally, after Maindo m-merged with us. He's still a nice man. But that leaves me w-wondering this: Wh-What is w-with hidden cards? Erina hid the Nine of Diamonds, and I h-hid the Nine of Hearts. Surely, even th-though I didn't realize it, th-this can't be a coincidence. How does my Nine of Hearts r-relate to the Nine of Diamonds, a-and how does E-Erina's Nine of D-Diamonds relate to her and Ryota's f-friendship?"

"Should we destroy these two cards?" Judumai asked.

I shook my head. "Let's not act on i-impulse; w-we act as information b-becomes available. Wh-Whatever the case, there's no reason the game w-would lead us o-on a w-wild goose hunt; there's dots w-we've yet to connect. Our best shot right n-now is probably speaking to the person that has been aware of every affair of the Beach since its creation. W-We need to find Erina."

===Maeda Mihoko===

The door was out of reach.

Gabura clung into a pillar, taking hold of Aoyama's hand, as the wave hit us.

Zakū was caught in the current, tossed aside and slammed into the ground, sinking beneath the layer of water, which washed over me as well. A punch of salt drowned my taste buds, as I wheezed beneath the water, the current carrying me forward. I grabbed onto a couch, my lungs beginning to ache, as my eyes squeezed shut, tearing from the salt, my body flailing like a leaf on a branch.

My body lowered, as did the height of the wave, as it evenly dispersed across the room. When it was low enough, I shot my head back up, choking in bouts of air, standing back on my two feet. The water was at my ankles, but the platform now acted as a cascade for the water that continued to pour from the pipes, exposed in the wall's gaping hole. Not a single card of the original mural was intact. Natsuki had clung into a light fixture, and Tori held onto the bar counter. In the distance, a body laid face down, unresponsive.

Shaking off my hair, I turned around. "Zakū!"

"Right here!" He said between grit teeth, rising from his knees, his hand in the slot of a vending machine. As he got up, he limped toward me, his free hand clenching his arm, which bled.

"You got hurt!"

"A piece of rubble slit my upper arm." He said through grit teeth, as Gabura and Aoyama ran back to us.

"That looks pretty bad." Gabura said. "We should—"

"I'm fine! Let's just hurry upstairs and get the guns."

Gabura faced Natsuki. "Natsuki, I'm entrusting you to continue to look after these people."

Natsuki nodded. "You can trust me."

She turned back at us. "Okay, no time to waste. Let's go!"

We sprinted back through the lobby and into the hallway, where water began dripping from the ceiling. There was a drinking fountain, where water continually spurted from its pipes. Inside the emergency stairwell, muddy water bubbled from the drainage grate, and the steps were slick.

"Come on." Aoyama said, allowing us to go first. As we climbed, the fire sprinklers turned on. I yelped, my clothes clinging to my body, as Zakū shook his hair, droplets of water flinging to the ground, which I stepped on with firm feet to avoid slipping.

"How much of the Beach is going to be flooded by the time the game is over?" I asked.

"I assume maybe up to the halfway point." Zakū said. "If it goes any more than that the building might literally collapse from the weight of the water."

We reached the top floor, Aoyama throwing the doors open and letting us charge through. Gabura led us into the parlor kitchenette, a door beside it. "This is the armory." She said, putting her key into the lock.

"You guys go in." Zakū said, turning on a sink and tasting the water. "I'll clean up my cut."

I nodded, as Gabura unlocked the door, kicking it down. She flicked the lights on, revealing rows of rifles, shotguns, and pistols which hung to the wall. Knives of various lengths, swords, and machetes were displayed on another side of the wall, each on their side resting behind a glass case. Gabura opened a drawer, sifting through an organized assortment of bullet packages, pulling out five, before grabbing two guns, handing them to me.

She grabbed a third, and crouched until she was at my level. "Slide this top part back to load the gun. When you shoot, don't aim into the air or into the distance; falling bullets can kill. Aim towards a wall. Each of these guns holds twelve—these are already fully loaded."

Aoyama got next to me, putting two plastic packages into my pocket. "Ear plugs." She said. "Gunshots are no joke; my right hearing is still faulty from the Ten of Hearts I was in."

I nodded. "Thank you. Thank you." We ran back outside, where Zakū had wrapped his cut with a dark green towel, tying it together.

"You have everything?" He asked.

"Yes."  I replied.

"Hearing protection too?"

"Yup."

"Will you guys be coming with us or do you have other things to do?" He asked the two women.

Gabura shook her head. "I'm sure we're needed elsewhere. I'm going to try to find Rafferty and his friends; they should be in Erina's room." She gave me a reassuring hug, and rested my hands on my shoulders. "Be safe, okay?"

I nodded. "Thank you both. We'll be fine."

They gave us one final look, before running down the hall towards where Erina's room was. Zakū and I sprinted back into the stairwell, taking the final flight of stairs into the roof. The same people were still there, as Kazetani still scanned the cityscape with his telescope, turning around when we entered.

"Good! You guys are here!"

I set the two guns and ammunition on the floor, and pulled out the earplugs from my pockets. Zakū ripped the packaging open, stuffing them into his ears.

"Some of us already got ear protection, I'll give these to those who don't have it yet." Shirai offered, taking the training ear plugs.

"You kids ever shot before?" Kazetani asked.

I shook my head; Zakū nodded.

"Here." He said, giving one to Zakū, and the other to Haga, who remained on the roof after he had given Kazetani his telescope. You two take turns shooting, I'll keep surveying the area."

Haga nodded, aiming his gun to the nearby wall. He shot three times fast, then three times slow, then three times fast again. Even with the earplugs, the exploding sound of gunfire still made me flinch.

"S... O... S..." he muttered. "Well, that was my shot. Your turn."

Zakū aimed at the same wall, during the same nine shots. "Anything?" He asked.

Kazetani shook his head. "The streets seem... So dead. I see three other game venues in the distance, one which just got a Game Over. But not a single person."

"Maybe wait until those other two games are over and see if those players come out?" Ashikaga asked.

"That could take who knows how long." Kazetani said.

"Maybe we're overestimating the distance." Shirai suggested, as Haga loaded another round into the gun. "Try looking closer to the Beach."

As Haga fired his next set of nine bullets, Kazetani's gaze averted closer to the building. Then, he wailed, falling to the ground and dropping his telescope.

"What happened?" Ashikaga asked, crouching next to him, as the people on the rooftop closed in on us.

Haga turned around, as Zakū lowered his gun. Kazetani didn't speak, instead hyperventilating and pointing to where his telescope was aimed. Shirai gingerly picked up the telescope, looking where he pointed.

Her jaw dropped. "Oh my god."

"What?" Ashikaga asked, taking the telescope from her. Her body froze, as she lowered it again.

Finally, Zakū took it, looking where the other three had looked. He cringed, turning around, lowering the telescope, and taking his earplugs out. "Good news is we found Nobira. Bad news—he's dead."

The small crowd gasped. "A-Are you sure?" Haga asked.

Ashikaga nodded. "That... That was definitely him." She muttered.

"But... Why?" Kazetani murmured, taking off his glasses. "Why is he all the way back at the Beach? We know he made it, at the very least, to the getaway car."

I looked at the three grieving Maindo leaders, then to Zakū. "There's... There's got to be some sort of logical explanation." I said, looking down at the ground. The height was too great to make out Nobira's body, but I was able to see the brick wall, and tall, rows of swaying palm trees outside the Beach.

"Okay, let's consider the facts." Zakū said, looking back down at the body through the telescope. "Nobira was clearly killed by the laser. His body is within Beach property and is facing the building. His... Hand seems to be bent at an odd angle. He's bleeding from his foot and leg. But..." he scratched his head. "It doesn't make sense! Why did he die by the laser and not by the mines? But even then, why is his body so far inside the grounds if the laser kills you instantly upon entering a prohibited area?"

"None of this makes sense." Shirai said, shaking her head. "Why... Why did he cut off

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