Archive of Our Own

"You can't tell," the man in the suit told her on the very first day. "You can't tell or the experiment will be ruined."

Nona would never tell, but not because he told her not to.

=====

When Nona was eight, her sister told her she hated her.

To her credit, Nona didn't react too badly; after all, Ennea told her this almost every week. Normally, she would have gone to complain to her mother, who would have looked them both in the eye and ordered them to make up or so help me, but Mama was busy seeing a man right now and Nona didn't want to interrupt. She was sort of wanting a father these days so she was doing her best to make sure Mama's dates always went well, but considering that she had gone without a dad for almost three years now, maybe it wasn't really her efforts that counted.

Anyway, Ennea was crying, in that angry way she had, with much sniffling and snorting and rubbing of her face, and after watching her for a moment, Nona sighed, and went to the bathroom to get the extra roll of toilet paper. Ennea glared at her through the tears but readily began to tear sheets of paper from the roll to drag across her eyes and nose.

Ennea was okay after an hour or so. Nona apologized, and Ennea grunted and said it was okay. They were both okay, and when Mama came home from her date, she smiled and kissed them happily, and Nona knew she was okay too.

=====

"You can't tell," Akane told her, in her sad voice that made her sound a lot older than her, even though she was the same age. "But it's all right. You don't need to tell me. I understand."

For the first time since those hellish nine days, Nona heard "I understand", and believed it.

=====

Her entire world was smoke, and fear, and Ennea.

Ennea was coughing nearby, close enough for Nona to feel the percussion in her ear, but the white smoke enveloped everything and she couldn't see, everything was blank except for the two pinpoint eyes shining out from the roiling white. A mask? No.

A monster.

=====

"You can't tell," Mama sobbed, her hands squeezing her shoulders tighter and tighter. "Why can't you tell?"

Nona wanted to say "I'm sorry, Mama", "don't cry, Mama", "we're all right, Mama", but the more she thought about what happened, the colder she felt, so she just wrapped her arms around Mama for warmth, and began to comfort her instead.

=====

Akane was the girl who looked the most like her, so Nona stayed close to her as the group of children trudged down the hall. She had learned a long time ago that other Asian girls wouldn't make fun of the shape of her eyes, or of her mother's voice when she happened to speak to Nona in their home language.

Akane smiled at her, like she knew exactly what she was thinking, and perhaps Nona loved her a little bit already. "Your name's Nona, right?"

Nona said, "Yes," then, "Are you Japanese too?"

Akane beamed. "Yeah. Do you speak Japanese? My brother and I do. Onii-chan, say hello."

"Don't call me that in front of other people," Aoi said from the other side of the hall.

"Oniiii-chan," Akane and Nona said together, and laughed together when Aoi made a face.

Because of this, Nona thought she would be all right. And if she was all right, then Ennea would be all right too, because they were connected, just like they were connected to Mama, and to Papa although he had been far, far away for a long time.

But she was wrong. She had never been more wrong.

=====

"You can't tell," Aoi told her solemnly, many times. "You can't tell because no one will believe you. Better to save yourself the trouble."

Then one time, Nona said, quietly, defiantly, "It's all right, Aoi-san. I don’t need anyone to believe me."

Aoi looked at her, and he looked older, almost as old as all the years Akane had gone through, was going through, would go through. Then he said, "Just call me Aoi already," and briefly ruffled her hair.

=====

Ennea was crying again. Nona could feel it from miles away.

It had to be miles away because they had been all over this place in the last five hours and they hadn't found anyone else, and Nona had been beginning to think she would never see her sister again when she felt her, like a shockwave. She felt so near and for a few seconds Nona turned around and around, searching, calling "Ennea?!" but of course, she wasn't there.

Onee-chan?

"Ennea!"

Nona called her name over and over, but Ennea didn't speak again, or wouldn't, or couldn't. Instead, there were images, brief flashes of spaces, rooms, most of them familiar: the grand staircase, the kitchen, the laboratory. The casino, where Nona and Akane and the others were standing right now.

A small, trembling hand – Ennea's, Nona knew immediately – holding up three playing cards, their suits and numbers swimming in Nona's mind's eye. After a moment, the vision solidified, and Nona watched Ennea's hand shakily place the cards in the spaces on the console on the wall. The console beeped, the light going green, and Nona's mind abruptly went blank, Ennea's presence disappearing as quickly as it had come.

"No, wait! Ennea! Ennea!"

"Nona?" Akane called out, shaking her stiff arm. "Nona, are you okay?"

"Ennea–" Nona said unsteadily. "My sister…I saw…my sister…"

"What? How? Wait, is she…sending you information?" Akane said doubtfully, recalling Light's words from just a few hours ago.

"I don't know–"

Nona looked around, so quickly her head spun, until she found the console on the wall, identical to the one she had seen Ennea touching in the vision. She staggered over to it and fingered the three slots just the right size for a playing card each.

"Akane," Nona said slowly. "I need those cards we found earlier."

Akane didn't question, but simply went over to the other kids and retrieved their cards. Then she went to Nona's side and placed them in her hands. With uncertain movements, Nona placed the 5, 6, and 7 cards in the slots. Just like in her vision of Ennea, the console beeped, the light going green. The glass case embedded in the console snapped open.

When Nona turned to look at Akane, Akane's face was very serious.

Akane asked, "Did you figure it out before us?"

"No," Nona said. "I saw it. Ennea–she showed me. In my mind."

"How?"

"I don't know."

Akane was silent for a long while, her face very grave and calculating. Nona suddenly felt a lot younger than her, and was quiet too.

Finally, Akane sighed, and said, "Well, however you did it, it just saved us a lot of time. Let's keep going."

Nona said, "Yeah," and followed Akane and the rest out the door.

=====

"You can't tell," Ennea whispered brokenly. "You can't tell, you can't tell, you can't tell–"

"I won't," Nona assured her.

She hugged her sister very tight, then led her slowly to her desk chair. Then, moving furtively so that she didn't wake Mama, she went and got the spare linens from the hallway closet, and changed the sheets on Ennea's bed, and tossed the soiled sheets in the washer to be cleaned in the morning. Of course, Mama would figure it out pretty quickly, but Nona would tell her to not mention it to Ennea, and Mama would understand.

After prompting her to change her clothes, Nona tucked her little sister into the clean sheets, then stroked her back until she stopped trembling and her breathing slowed to the even cadence of sleep. It was the first time Ennea had wet the bed since she was five. They were thirteen.

Nona's heart felt heavy for the rest of the night.

=====

He was the biggest man Nona had ever seen, and for a moment she was terrified of him.

But it was hard to be scared when suddenly, here was a way out, and she would face any man now if it meant freedom safety Ennea Mama so she went when he called in his big booming voice, and didn't even shake when Aoi boosted her up, or when the detective grabbed her hand in his huge meaty one. He hauled her up like it was no work at all and shoved her into the vent behind him, shouting "Go!" at her before turning to reach for the next kid. Nona scooted through the vent on her knees, her breath rasping in her lungs, and nearly fell on her head as she pushed herself out of the vent and onto the floor below. Akane came next, then Aoi, then Light, and finally the detective himself. He landed on the floor with a loud thud that made her jump, but Akane grabbed her hands reassuringly and smiled like they hadn't just narrowly escaped getting burned to a crisp.

"Let's go!"

Akane led the way out the double doors and into the stairwell. High above them, Nona could see the other children running for their lives, their many small feet making the metal stairs ring like a dozen dull crashing bells. They jumped onto the steps and began running too, their breath coming in short gasps as they climbed up, up, up, farther and farther away from the fiery hell below, closer and closer to freedom and the light of day.

Nona was beginning to tire, her strength flagging as the stress of the past few hours combined with the exhaustion in her limbs making her body feel weak and floaty. She kept her eyes fixed on Akane's back and tried her best to keep up, but her feet were getting harder and harder to lift, her breaths coming painful quick. She slowed her pace to conserve what little energy she had left, and Akane pulled ahead, getting smaller and smaller until she disappeared ahead of them.

"Nona!" Aoi yelled behind her. "Come on!"

Nona gritted her teeth and sped up again, ignoring the burning in her lungs, forcing her legs to move, up, up, up, higher I'm coming, Ennea, Mama floor after floor until they passed by the large central hall, its rafters creaking ominously as the ship swayed, then higher and higher and higher–

"Wait! Akane! Where's Akane?! Where's my sister?!"

"Up ahead!" Nona panted.

"No, listen!"

Aoi stopped running, the others stumbling to a halt behind him as Nona watched from a higher stair. The other children had reached the top and were no longer climbing, and with them stationary the stairwell was eerily quiet, with nothing but quickly fading echoes to punctuate the occasional rumbling and heaving of the ship.

"She's not here," Aoi groaned, and pushed past Light and the detective to make his way back down.

"Aoi-san!" Nona screamed after him.

"I'm not leaving without my sister!"

As Aoi barreled back down the stairs, Light and the detective turned to follow. The detective shouted over his shoulder, "Keep on going, kid! We'll catch up!" and then they were gone, with nothing but the distant rattling and crashing of the stairs to mark their passage.

Nona clenched her jaw against tears and panic, and turned back to continue the lonely climb.

=====

"You can't tell," Aoi said thoughtfully, "which of you is the younger sister, and which is the older one. Most of the time."

Nona irritably typed in a bit of code then set the whole thing to compile. "What are you saying, Aoi-san? I'm clearly the older sister."

"Only by like eighteen minutes," Ennea whined from across the room. She was sprawled over the safehouse's cot like she was in her own home, barefoot and with her laptop propped on her thighs.

"Apparently it was enough to make a difference," Aoi said with just enough smugness to be annoying, and Nona reminded herself to hack his phone again sometime soon.

"You're one to talk, Aoi," Ennea said. "Between you and Akane, she always seems to be the older o–oh."

She cut herself off with a hitched breath, staring down at her computer screen. Sensing the change in her demeanor, Nona and Aoi both approached.

"Did you find something?" Aoi prompted.

"Yeah. There's this guy, the CEO of that Cradle Pharmaceutical place. Apparently, he has some ties to the Gordain estate. Here, look."

Ennea swiveled her laptop around to show them one of the pages Nona had been helping her unearth from some of the most secretive, hidden files in Cradle Pharmaceutical's archives. The moment she laid eyes on the high-res photograph there, Nona felt her chest constrict, and she backed away with a strangled scream that ripped painfully through her throat. She stumbled back against the rolling desk chair, sending both it and her crashing to the floor. Aoi was at her side in an instant, Ennea following just a moment later.

"Nona?!"

"Onee-chan!"

"It's him," Nona moaned, her entire body taut with terror. "Oh god, it's him. I remember his face."

Ennea wrapped her arms around her and held her close. They sat huddled in a heap together on the floor for some time, as Nona trembled and fought the urge to scream again, and Ennea stroked her hair and embraced her tightly. Aoi watched them for a time, his expression concerned and dark, but once Nona had steadied a little, he rose and went to the laptop, keeping the screen carefully turned away from the girls on the floor.

"Gentarou Hongou," he said slowly, clicking through all the information on-screen. "I see. Should have known you were the brains and the money behind this entire sick game."

Nona concentrated on breathing and listening to Ennea's heartbeat, thumping steadily against her ear. Her hands shook and she thought of Akane: Akane as she had known her almost five years ago now, Akane who had smiled winningly at her and spoken to her in Japanese, Akane who had clasped her hands and urged her to run for her life.

Akane, whom Nona had seen just that morning as she and Ennea had come into the safehouse with breakfast for everyone, but whose presence had seemed fragile, like it did on some days, reminding them all of their reason for being assembled for this task.

Akane, who had died because of the man on the screen.

Akane, who would die again if their burgeoning plan didn't come to fruition.

"I can't do it, Aoi-san," Nona said in a shaking voice, though Ennea tried to shush her. "I can't face him. I'm not strong enough."

"Onee-chan," said Ennea in a breaking voice.

"You won't have to face him," said Aoi. "I told you, once we have all the info and resources we need, me and Akane'll take care of the rest."

He closed the laptop screen slowly and rose from the cot, making his way back to where Nona and Ennea were still sitting entwined. He crouched in front of them and looked straight into Nona's eyes, his expression intense. Nona wanted to look away but couldn't. Tears flowed freely from her eyes, tracing burning trails down her skin.

"Besides," Aoi continued, "you're wrong. You are strong, Nona-chan. You always were. And so are you," he added for Ennea's benefit. "I don't think you need telling, though."

"That's why I should be the older sister," Ennea said with flimsy bravado, and Aoi laughed, and Nona laughed a little too, and felt just a bit better.

"Nona," Aoi said, dropping the honorific now that the moment had passed. "You're sure the network is still secure?"

Nona nodded. "O–Of course. I'm my mother's daughter, y'know."

"Yeah. Yeah, you are." Aoi looked like he was about to say something else, but he withheld in the end and turned away, rubbing the back of his neck tiredly. "Then you should both go home now. Get some sleep. Study for the rest of your exams. Then come back on Saturday, so we can start the real work."

Normally one or the other would have made some wisecrack at Aoi's serious tone, but this felt too close, too real, so all they did was nod and gather their things. Aoi embraced each of them lightly before they left. He looked a little embarrassed, so Nona didn't hold on for much longer than necessary.

Gentarou Hongou, she repeated to herself as she and her sister began the bus ride home. The man who killed her.

Now, the real work begins.

=====

Her entire world was water, and fear, and Ennea.

She was suffocating and hyperventilating and drowning all at once, flashes of metal walls and bolted doors streaming by in the murky deep water. Red paint like blood streaked across her vision – a 6? a 9? – then was gone, and she continued to whirl past, carried along by the endless, inexorable tide.

She tried to stop herself but the urge to breathe in was too strong, and she swallowed a lungful of salty sea water before she managed to clamp her mouth shut. Her throat burned and her chest strained. She slammed helplessly against cold metal and cried out in pain, only to open her mouth to more of the foul sea.

Even in her last moments she fought, flailing her arms, kicking her feet. She felt numb from cold and lack of oxygen but still she thought Ennea! Ennea! Mama! Mama! like a mantra and struggled against the current, beating the rush of water with her child-like fists and making no dent at all.

Then her vision went dark, and her body went still, and the last thing she thought was Save me please before she slipped down into the cold depths of sleep.

=====

"You can't tell," Papa told Mama just before he left. "The girls will be too sad if you do."

"Well, what am I supposed to tell them?" Mama said angrily. Nona was briefly scared of her, before remembering she wasn't supposed to be scared of her own mother. "How do I explain without words that their father is leaving and never coming back?"

Papa breathed hard for a second or two, like he had been running very fast, then he sighed. "I don't know. I'm sorry."

"Don't apologize to me. I'm done seeking your apologies. All I want is for you to stay one more day and explain yourself to them."

"I can't–"

"Like hell you can't!"

"Hazuki, I said I can't!" Papa yelled, so suddenly and loudly that Nona jumped and clamped her hands down over her ears.

Mama shushed Papa, and they both went very quiet, so quiet that Nona couldn't hear them anymore through the rush of blood in her ears. She stood there very still for ten seconds, twenty seconds, thirty seconds until her heart stopped beating so fast and her voice stop threatening to force itself out in a scream. When she finally lowered her shaking hands, she heard Mama and Papa moving from the kitchen to the garage, arguing in hushed voices. Then they closed the garage door behind them, and the house fell silent.

Nona clenched her small fists and squeezed them very hard. She counted to ten – ichi, ni, san… – over and over until she felt better. Then, she turned away from the kitchen and went to get the stepping stool from the bathroom, so she could reach the spare bed sheets in the hallway closet.

Then, she went back to the room she shared with Ennea, and changed her soiled sheets for her, and changed her soiled clothes, and kissed her goodnight, and put her back to bed.

The next day, when Mama told them that Papa had gone and was not coming back, Ennea cried and raged and shouted for him. Nona did not.

=====

The detective hauled Aoi bodily through the hatch because Aoi was flailing and screaming, screaming without pause, and the only thing Nona could make out was AkaneAkaneAkane before she clamped her hands over her ears.

"I'm sorry, kid!" the detective shouted over Aoi's screams. "I really am! But we need to go now if any of us are going to make it off here alive!"

"Just let me go! I have to go back for her! Akane!"

"She's gone, didn't you see?! There's no way she would have survived that, it was too–"

"No! Fuck you! Let me go."

Aoi kicked the detective viciously, striking him hard on the shin, in the gut, anywhere he could reach, but the detective only grunted and shifted his grip on him so he could shove him up onto the top of the ship. The swift ocean wind seemed to shock him like a bucket of cold water, and he fell suddenly silent, eyes wide, mouth twisted in the remains of a scream.

"There's an emergency raft right over there," the detective panted. "Go on, go! All of you kids get over there right now!"

The eight remaining children picked their way to the raft. When Aoi lagged behind, his steps unsteady, the detective grabbed his arm and pulled him along. Nona lowered her hands and carefully took Light's arm, saying, "This way," and tugging to guide him. He smiled gratefully in response, his face turned to the sea.

The raft was unsteady in its supports, swaying and shivering in the wind. Nona's stomach heaved when the detective released the winch and let the raft fall to the water, and for a moment she choked like something other than air was rushing into her lungs, and she breathed out with difficulty, her head swimming.

The detective took up the oars and began to row, his breaths coming in hard steady puffs, until they were far enough from the ship that they all began to breathe again. Some of them began to cry from relief. Nona wanted to cry too, but something stopped her, some uneasiness that told her this wasn't quite finished, and that she needed to hold it in long enough to see it through.

Then, the ship exploded, and it was the loudest sound Nona had ever heard. The children screamed and cried louder, huddling at the bottom of the raft. The detective yelled, "Hang on!" and worked the oars as the explosion sent waves to rock them back and forth. One of the kids nearly careened off the edge of the raft but some of the others grabbed onto him and held on tight, and after a few forever-long moments, the waves subsided, and the water was still.

The detective leaned on the oars and caught his breath for a time, then began to check all of them for injuries. In the distance, the ship's carcass burned with a deafening crackling sound, groaning and hissing as the hot metal sank beneath the waves.

Nona was very still as the detective checked her arms and legs for wounds, and when he raised his head and declared her okay, she asked, "What happened to Akane?"

The detective's craggy face looked sorrowful. "Don’t you worry about that right now, kid. Let's get you all to safety first."

All of the kids turned to look at Aoi, who was sitting near the pointed end of the raft, staring out at the skeleton ship burning black against the grey dawn sky. No one said anything.

After a while, the detective shook his head. He placed his hand reassuringly on Aoi's shoulder, but when Aoi didn't react, he sighed again, and regained his place between the oars.

The detective gazed sharply around at the lightening sky for a few minutes, assessing. Then, sighting something that had to mean land, he took up the oars and began to row in that direction, his powerful arms churning the air with a steady, reassuring force.

No one spoke. Nona sat stiffly, her arms and legs pulled in close, her hands clenched on her lap. The sensation of drowning persisted in her for a long, long time.

=====

"You can't tell," Mama said with laughter faintly colouring her voice, "where the sky ends and the earth begins, on the sea. So in a way, I'm glad we were in the Nevada building, and not on the ship."

"That's terrible, Mama," Ennea said, but she was laughing a little too, as she wrung Mama's hands between her own.

The hospital room was warm and sunny. Ennea had brought so many of Mama's things that it almost looked like her bedroom at home, and though Mama had protested, saying she didn't intend to stay that long, she had looked happy and relieved.

Mama hadn't been hurt, but she had been exhausted and dehydrated, so the doctors had wanted to keep an eye on her for a bit. In the room across the hall was that Jumpy boy Ennea had found after some clever searching. Nona had recognized him from the student ID photo she had dug up. She had gazed at his name on the screen and had thought Another Japanese person, and had remembered Akane tentatively calling her "Nona-chan" and the two of them giggling and deciding to just skip straight to first names to avoid feeling too silly.

Akane. Nona trembled, clutching her hands tightly to her chest. She could hardly believe it. We did it. We finally did it.

But at what cost? she thought sadly, gazing at Mama sitting upright in her hospital bed with its crisp and clean sheets, her beautiful hair all undone, her beautiful face drawn and haggard and haunted despite her bright, wide smile.

Mama turned to look at Nona as she stared, and her expression changed to one of concern. "Nona? Are you okay? What's wrong, sweetie?"

"Nothing," Nona said quickly, and fought to push a smile to the surface. "I'm just so relieved–we thought you were gone forever–"

"To be honest, I thought I was a goner too. But you know, your mama's a real tough gal."

Nona grinned and nodded, and went to the bed to hug her mother tight. Mama held her back, her arms firm and strong despite her recent ordeal.

"Did I upset you by talking about the ship again?" she whispered against Nona's hair. "I'm so sorry, Nona."

"It's fine, Mama," said Nona in a shaky voice. "It's over now. Right, Ennea?"

"Yeah," said Ennea. She bounced up onto the bed and embraced them both tightly. Mama said "oof!" and they all laughed, reveling in their togetherness, in the joy of being alive.

Later, as she and Ennea were down in the hospital cafeteria getting some dinner, Nona received a text message from Akane Kurashiki, whose name and number radiated a permanence they had never had before. It read, simply, "Thank you."

She showed it to Ennea, who, of course, began to cry.

=====

Aoi was screaming. He was screaming and there was nothing she could do.

They had been so sure. Everything had been in place: location, time, money, players, rules. And it still hadn't been enough.

Through the surveillance camera, Nona watched Aoi collapse to the floor, hands shaking as he fought to gather up the ashes scattering across the ground. Junpei stood by, watching in horror, and for one blazing moment Nona hated him, she hated him with her entire being save her damn you why can't you save her!

Images flashed across her mind's eye, alternate shots of the same scene: Ennea, so distraught by the sight of Akane's body being consumed by flames and crumbling to ash, was striking the morphogenetic field, striking it like a furious child strikes her fists against the wall, and through their connection Nona felt her own despair amplified tenfold. She turned away from the surveillance camera screens and ducked her head against her knees, pressing her hands hard against her ears to block out the sound of Aoi screaming AkaneAkaneAkane into the unhearing, unfeeling void.

=====

"You can't tell–" Nona gasped, "you can't tell me that and expect me to just agree! What are you thinking?!"

Aoi's expression was cool, Akane's sad. He said, "I'm sorry, Nona, Ennea. We tried to think of anything, anyone else we could. But it has to be her."

"Leave our mother out of this!" Nona screamed. She went for him with her fists, and he flinched and scooted back, almost bumping into Akane at the desk. "You can't use her! I won't let you!"

"Nona, be reasonable–"

"Don't tell me to be reasonable."

"Onee-chan, stop!" Ennea pleaded, latching onto one of her swinging arms.

Nona struggled against her grip but eventually relented and stopped flailing, breathing hard and glaring death at Aoi, who regarded her with a new kind of wariness he had never shown towards her before. Ennea pushed close to her and wrapped both her arms around her, burying her face against Nona's shoulder.

"Don't make Mama suffer any more than she already has," Nona said harshly. "We've done a lot for you, but we won't do this."

"Onee-chan–"

"What?"

Ennea raised her head and looked right at her, her eyes swimming with tears. Nona searched her face for a moment, not understanding, then her expression went slack with horror, and she jerked out of her arms.

"You agree. How could you agree? That's our mom."

"I know," Ennea sobbed. "I know. But Aoi's right. It has to be her. She needs this as much as Akane does."

"What are you talking about? You're all wrong!" Nona turned on Aoi and Akane again, simmering with rage. "I'll just tell her. I'll tell her everything and then we'll take her where you can't get her. You are not bringing her into the game!"

"You'd leave Akane to disappear?" Aoi said furiously.

"No! But find somebody else!"

"What do you want me to do, just pick someone from the street and throw them in with the rest? Your mother is the only one left with a connection–"

"I don't care."

"Then why haven't you told her?!" Aoi exploded. He slammed his fist down on the desk, sending a sheaf of printed papers flying to the floor. "Why didn't you tell her everything nine years ago, when she first started looking for answers?"

"I–"

"I'll tell you why," Aoi continued fiercely. "It's because you knew. You knew as well as we did that if your mother didn't go looking for answers herself, this whole thing would never come together. We needher – Akane needs her – and you fucking know it."

"That's enough, Aoi," Akane said softly, and Aoi deflated. He laced his fingers tightly together and pressed them to the back of his head, tipped his head to stare down at the floor, and exhaled loudly while leaning back to rest his hips against the desk.

For a long moment, the only sounds were Ennea crying and Aoi breathing, then Akane said gently, "I'm sorry. If it could happen any other way, I would make sure it would."

Akane held her gaze so steadily that Nona felt briefly ashamed, even as her fists trembled with outrage and her stomach churned with the strange mix of heat and longing she felt whenever Akane looked at her that way.

But she couldn't back down. Not even for Aoi. Not even for Akane.

"I really want to help you," Nona replied in her bitterest voice. "Don't believe for a second that I don't. But I won't do it at the expense of our mother."

Akane sighed. "That's what I thought you'd say."

Aoi dragged one hand across his face but said nothing. After standing there a moment too long, Nona shook herself and turned away. "Let's go home, Ennea."

Ennea sniffed. "Onee-chan–"

"Please. Just. Come on."

Ennea wiped her face on her sleeve and followed obediently, but Nona didn't miss the mournful glance she gave Akane and Aoi as they were leaving. Akane watched them go, unmoving, unsmiling, and looking more ghost-like than ever in the thin afternoon light. Again, Nona felt a twinge of guilt, but pushed it firmly away and led her sister out the door.

That night, Nona dreamt of drowning. She awoke gasping and covered in sweat, and while the tatters of the dream still clung to her, she thought it felt like being drenched in sea water.

She sat shivering in her bed for a long time, hugging herself tightly until the feeling of swaying on the waves faded, then she staggered to the bathroom to daub at her skin with a towel. She stared at her own face reflected starkly in the mirror. The too-strong fluorescent light made her look washed out, emphasizing the darkness under her eyes.

After a long while, Nona pushed away from the mirror and found herself at the threshold to Ennea's room. She stood there for a while in the semi-dark, telling herself she was just checking to be sure her sister was sleeping okay, though in reality she knew Ennea hadn't had any episodes in years.

Still feeling weak and shivery, Nona sat down slowly on the floor by the side of Ennea's bed. She leaned back against the frame and closed her eyes, forcing herself to breathe evenly through her nose. If she listened hard enough, she thought she could hear the sound of her mother's breathing from her room across the hall, but the thought was not reassuring at all.

Ennea stirred sleepily behind her. "Onee-chan?"

Nona couldn't bring herself to say anything. She turned and leaned her arms up on the mattress and buried her face in them. Ennea automatically moved to stroke her hair.

They sat in silence for a time, breathing in the cool night air, then Ennea said softly, "Aoi's wrong, you know."

Nona turned her head. "What?"

"Aoi's wrong. About the reason you never told Mama about the Nonary Game."

When Nona stiffened and made to pull away, Ennea touched her shoulder gently with her other hand. "It's because of you didn't want to remember either, right?"

A car passed by outside, too fast, overly loud. Nona said nothing.

"It's okay," Ennea said with the same understanding softness. "It's okay that you can't tell. I tried so many times but I can't either."

"I was trying to protect you," Nona burst out. "I didn’t mean to keep it all hidden, I was just–"

"I know. It's okay."

Ennea sat up properly and wiggled out of the covers, and Nona made a choked sound and pressed her forehead on her sister's knees. Ennea stroked her hair, a steady, constant movement that finally soothed her enough for her heart to go back to its normal rhythm and for the dream of drowning to pull away, back into the confines of her imagination.

Then Nona said, "I'll do it."

"Hm?"

"I'll do it." Nona lifted her head, looking up into her sister's shadowed face. "I'll get Mama to Building Q."

Even in the darkness Nona could see Ennea's expression fall, but something in it remained steely and resolved. "Onee-chan…"

"It's all right. Mama's smart and tough. She'll get through it. And she–" Nona swallowed, hearing Aoi's angry words in her mind. "She deserves answers. She watched us suffer for so long without knowing why. She deserves to know, and this way, she can help Akane too."

Ennea was quiet, then she nodded, and pulled her fingers through Nona's hair one last time before letting go. Nona stood slowly, grimacing at the burst of pins and needles in her legs.

Sitting curled in her bed and looking up at her, Ennea looked smaller and younger than usual, even a little sickly in the sodium yellow light coming faintly in from the streetlamps. Sometimes Nona had to remind herself that Ennea was twenty, just like her. Neither of them were children anymore. Maybe they hadn't been since that day almost nine years ago.

"It's kind of funny," Ennea said as she gathered her blankets back around her. "Sometimes I forget that we don't sleep in the same room anymore. It's been years since you moved to the spare room but sometimes I still wake up and wonder where your bed is."

Nona laughed a little, bending to tug out a bit of the covers that had gotten snagged between the mattress and the frame. "Yeah. I feel you."

Then, feeling adequately big-sisterly again, Nona left Ennea's bedroom and returned to hers. She paused a little at the threshold, momentarily recalling the inexorable push-pull of the water in her dream, but she forced herself past it and crawled back into bed.

The next day, when she and Ennea showed up at Aoi and Akane's house after breakfast, the Akane who opened to door for them looked somehow older. It was in her eyes, in some distant spot behind them that remembered too many things for the years she had lived. Nona had the unnerving feeling this was somebody different from the previous day, but who else could it be?

"Nona and Ennea Kashiwabara," Akane said softly. "Long time, no see."

Ennea stepped forward to hug her like she always did, and Nona noticed that Akane's arms hesitated just slightly before they wrapped around her in the usual way. Ennea said cheerfully, "We just saw you yesterday, silly! We're sorry we left with such a bad feeling, by the way, but it's all fixed now."

"Is it?" Akane turned her head slowly to look at Nona, who lifted her chin and looked back.

Akane must have seen something in Nona's face that told her everything, because her expression cleared and she looked more focused, like she had suddenly remembered where she was and what she was doing. "Lotus…?"

Lotus?

"You can have Mama," Nona said. "But I'm the one who's going to take her to you."

Akane held her gaze for a long time, even after Ennea had pulled away, then she nodded, unsmiling. She held out her hand for Nona's and grasped it firmly. Her hand was warm and very familiar, and Nona felt silly for thinking that Akane had seemed any different.

"I'm sorry for everything," Akane told her, and Nona would wonder about those words for a long time.

=====

With a grunt of effort and triumph, the detective shoved open the hatch at the top of the stairs, and Nona was momentarily stunned by the blast of cold air that rushed in through the opening. Bodies raced past her – Aoi, Light, Akane – before she managed to come to her senses and begin to climb the last of the steps.

"There's an emergency raft right over there," the detective shouted from above. "Go on, go! All of you kids get over there right now–"

An explosion rocked the length of boat, the incredible noise of it drowning out the last of the detective's words, and Nona stumbled and collapsed against the railing of the metal stairs. Her knee scraped against the edge of a step, sending a shooting pain down her leg, but it was nothing, nothing compared to the pain and panic of the last nine hours, and she pushed herself to her feet even as her hurt limbs throbbed.

She was almost there, just a few more steps and then freedom safety Ennea Mama–

Then another explosion sounded, deafening as a canon, and Nona's entire world shuddered and changed and she was falling and flailing and drowning Save me please I'm sorry for everything Remember You Must Die–

"NONA!"

A hand caught hers just as she was about to plunge down the stairs, and though the boat was unsteady the hand held fast, and Nona forced her eyes to open past the frantic rushing images of her own slow painful death to the sight of Akane holding onto her for dear life. Her eyes were dark and wide and for a wild moment Nona thought She's dead too, but how could she be when she was squeezing her hand and pulling her up and dragging her out the hatch with both arms wrapped tightly around her?

"Are you okay?" Akane asked frantically, the frigid sea wind whipping her words away.

Nona nodded shakily, swallowing down against the phantom feeling of sea water in her throat, and let Akane tug her towards the emergency raft, where the detective and the other children were waiting with impatient, terrified faces.

Akane held tight to her hand the whole way down, all the way through the ship's final death throes until the ocean had become calm again, and there was nothing between them and freedom but sea and sky. The detective cleaned up the scrape on her knee as best as he could, even sticking a slightly worn-out band-aid from his pocket on the cut before patting her shoulder in an awkward, reassuring way. Then he began to row, and all the children huddled around him, some of them crying with relief.

Akane smiled at Nona one more time before finally releasing her hand, then she turned away and scooted across the raft on her knees to join her brother, who put a protective arm around her to steady her. They looked tired. Everyone looked tired, but somehow Nona found Akane and Aoi looked more tired than the rest, like they had been trapped on that ship years longer than any of them had.

=====

U cant tell anyone, Mama's text message read, but mama's rly happy she quit her last job! I have time to see my friends now! have dinner w/o me ill see u later! xox

Normally Nona and Ennea would giggle over Mama's texting grammar together, but tonight the house felt grim. Nona checked the line of coat hangers in the closet; it looked like Mama had taken her light spring coat with her, like she usually did when she went to her evening dance classes.

Ennea stood at the stove, diligently watching their dinner slowly reheat. She stirred it, paused, stirred it again. She tasted it to check the temperature, then nodded and let it sit for a while. When she turned to look at Nona, her expression was incredibly sad.

"I wish we had time to let her have dinner first," she said.

Nona sat on one of the dining area chairs and said nothing.

They ate in silence, with nothing but the clink of utensils on plates and the steady tick of the clock in the hall to break it. When Ennea was finished, she sat in her chair for a long time with her hands clasped on her lap, looking down into her empty plate like she was trying very hard not to cry. Nona took up both their plates and washed them in the sink, trying to fill her mind with the sound of the water, but that only made things worse.

She stood leaning on the edge of the sink, looking out the window into the dark street. Not for the first time, she regretted having to do this, having to put their mother in harm's way, and for what? For the sake of one girl's life? How was Akane any more important than Mama?

Nona grabbed up the nearby dishtowel and began polishing the water stains off the kitchen faucet. They shouldn't do this. There was no way they could. And yet–

She had always felt it somewhere in the back of her mind, some small, obscure doubt that became stronger on the nights with the drowning dreams. Some impression that she didn't quite have the whole picture, that there was something crucially important that she was forgetting in order for all of this to make sense.

There was almost no justifying sending Mama into danger like this, yet they were doing it anyway. But was it really all for Akane, or was there something else – someone else–

Both of them jumped as Nona's phone vibrated hard from the kitchen counter, jittering and buzzing like a live thing. Nona tossed the dishtowel down and went to answer it. Akane's name glowed on the screen.

Nona hesitated, the phone shivering in her hand. She could almost blame Akane for all of this, but there was something she was missing.

She answered, her voice very steady. "Moshi moshi."

She could hear the smile in Akane's voice, wildly incongruous. "Is everything ready?"

Ennea was staring at her, her eyes wide. Nona found she couldn't face her gaze, and turned her back to lean on the counter with forced casualness. "Yes. We're just waiting for her to get home."

"All right." Akane paused, like she wanted to say more, but the silence stretched on between them, tense and just slightly fraught with static.

Nona sighed. "Is that all, then?"

"Oh, yes. I…Aoi says good luck. He just left to oversee the operation at Junpei's place."

Junpei. The boy nicknamed Jumpy. Nona had always been a little jealous of him, knowing Akane for so long. But he didn't understand Akane the way they did, the way she did. He had no idea what she had been through, what she would become if he failed. Akane would disappear if he failed to save her, and he wouldn't even know it. Mama might disappear, whether or not this Junpei person managed to fulfill his purpose or not.

What is this all for?

"Nona?"

Akane's voice shuddered over the phone, glitching momentarily so that it reached Nona's ear with a hollow electronic quality, sending a cold shiver down her spine. Akane's presence had been so fragile lately, like a mere touch could cause her to crumble into ash. Over the past few weeks, Nona had barely touched her, although she had used to all the time: on the arm to get her attention, or on the small of her back as she eased her way past her in a tight space, or on the hand just to make sure she was still here and real–

"Nona," Akane repeated, more urgently this time. Her voice was clear again, grounding, and Nona finally managed to say, "Yeah. I'm here. Sorry."

"You don't need to be sorry." Akane's frown was clearly audible. "Look, I should go. I don't want to distract you any further."

"Yeah. Yeah, okay. See you later."

"Be careful, Nona. I'm…just, take care."

Akane hung up abruptly, the connection cutting off with a final blip before Nona could put the phone down. She stared at the silent phone in her hand for an extended moment, trying to concentrate on breathing normally, on keeping from throwing her phone across the room and collapsing into sobs.

"Onee-chan?"

Ennea was at her side now, having stood up sometime during Nona's conversation with Akane. Her brows were furrowed with worry, her hands raised, hovering just next to Nona's elbow as though afraid to touch.

Nona just looked at her for a second, her chest tight, then she leaned towards her and pressed in between her arms. Ennea held her immediately and very tightly, so tightly Nona almost couldn't breathe, but it held her together too so they just stood there for a while, locked in a desperate embrace.

The clock ticked on in the hall. The refrigerator buzzed, clunked gently, and was silent.

Ennea said softly, "Let's go get ready."

And slowly, Nona nodded her head.

=====

The control room was silent save for the quiet tapping of Nona's keyboard. There wasn't really anything left to do, so she busied herself with double-checking the security on all their networks and communications, and on checking the functionality of all of Building Q's cameras and game systems and mechanisms. Everything worked just as she had designed them to. There was nothing to do now but wait.

The door opened behind her. Nona immediately recognized the light step as Akane's.

"Ready to go?" Nona said with forced cheer, keeping her hands doggedly busy and her back determinedly turned.

Akane paused in the doorway, then she slowly walked up to the desk and settled at Nona's right. Nona pretended to be absorbed in her last-minute checks, but the lines of code blurred in front of her eyes, and meant nothing.

"Nona."

Nona wrenched her gaze away from the computer screen and pulled on a smile as she turned her face to look up at Akane. Akane's expression was serious and still, but like always there was something in her eyes, something that ran deeper than the twenty-one years she had been alive. That something inside her was heavy and dark, and always made her look sad even when she was laughing or smiling.

"It'll be okay," Nona said, her words sounding distant and not from her own mouth. "All systems are go and all that. We're ready to begin the Nonary Game."

"Thank you," Akane said softly.

"Did you need something?"

Akane just looked at her for a moment, then she glanced towards Nona's computer screen and the security camera screens behind it. "That was it. I just wanted to say thank you. I know it was hard."

Nona dropped the smile, tired of the pretense. "It continues to be hard."

"I'll make it up to you. To you and Ennea and your mother. Your sacrifice won't have been in vain."

"No, it won't," Nona said with sudden ferocity. She stood from her chair, her face very close to Akane's. Akane didn't move. "It won't, because we are going to succeed, and you're going to be okay, and Mama is going to be okay, and that's all there is to it."

Akane held her gaze, and they both stood staring at each other for the space of a breath, then Akane slowly brought her hand up and placed her palm against Nona's cheek. Her hand was warm, soft, and familiar, and Nona couldn't help closing her eyes against the sensation as her hand came up to press against Akane's.

They remained that way for a long time, just touching and breathing within each other's space, until something from Nona's computer beeped loudly. Her eyes flew open, the spell broken. She half expected Akane to be gone, like a dream, but she was still there, solid and real and so close Nona could feel her body warmth against her own skin.

Akane moved just a bit closer, her hand pressing gently against Nona's face. "I'm going to save you too, just like I did back then."

"What?"

And it all came back in an instant, like a rolling rush of water: Akane, burned, dead, gone, Aoi screaming, screaming, the boat exploding and rocking and Nona falling falling falling hitting the water salt cold metal blood a 6? a 9? swirling dragging drowning Save me please and through it all a very small hand clutching tight to hers, Akane holding on for dear life, for both their lives Akane saved my life.

Nona's hand tightened spasmodically around Akane's, her eyes going wide. "But I'm here! I'm alive! How could I–"

"I wasn't sure if I should tell you," Akane said sorrowfully. "I could tell you didn't remember. We're not quite the same, but almost."

"What do you mean?"

Akane glanced at the security footage then looked back at Nona, her expression falling. "I'm sorry, but there's no more time. I need to go. Look."

On the screens, some of the participants of the Nonary Game were stirring in their rooms, groaning and stumbling to their feet. Light was already in position in his room, gazing up at the camera like he knew exactly where it was, then he turned and left. Aoi remained in his room for a while longer, sitting hunched on the bottom bunk with his hands tightly clasped, almost like he was praying. Then he stood, and was also gone.

Junpei and Mama were still sleeping, but they would awaken soon enough.

"Go, then," Nona said. She let her hand drop from Akane's, and Akane slowly pulled away. "Be careful. You don't want Hongou to get you a second time."

Akane's eyes went dark, but for some reason she smiled. "Of course not. I'll kill him before he does."

And she was gone, out the door and into the game.

Nona could still feel the press of Akane's palm against her cheek, and she couldn't help touching her fingertips to her face as she sat back down. She listened to Akane's fading footsteps in the hall, until there was nothing but the gentle whir of the machines around her to fill the silence.

Remember you must die.

"Not this time," Nona muttered, and turned back to the task at hand.

On the security camera screen, Mama was just beginning to wake up.

=====

"You can't tell," Gentarou Hongou told her on the very first day. "You can't tell or the experiment will be ruined."

Nona almost laughed thinking about that as she checked the gas canister's safety. Right at this very moment, she knew Hongou was being taken, just like Mama would be taken just a few minutes from now. She wasn't naturally mean-spirited but there was something about the situation being so dramatically reversed for Hongou that she couldn't help feeling a sort of grim satisfaction. She still couldn't look at his face in pictures without feeling sick or scared, but she would watch him during the game, just to see him suffer in the same way he had made them all suffer nine years earlier.

There was a sliding sound from downstairs as Ennea opened the kitchen window, to be used as a draw for Mama when she came home. It was a little risky; there was a chance she wouldn't even notice the open window. But Nona had been against taking Mama in one of the smaller upstairs rooms, not wanting her to associate them with danger and fear when she came back, and everyone else had agreed.

Nona went slowly downstairs, the canister in one hand and her gas mask in the other, turning off the lights as she went. The house was very quiet, the only noise the buzz of appliances in the dark. Ennea had retreated to the garage, where she would begin to prepare the car. Mama would be coming in from the front door after being dropped off by one of her friends after their night out.

Nona positioned herself in the living room, out of sight of the entrance and the kitchen. She placed the gas canister carefully down on the coffee table and pulled the gas mask over her face. As always, it felt weird and heavy on her head, and smelled of the cleaner she had used to wipe it down. Everything past the lenses was awash with red, like a scene from a nightmare.

When she turned to pick up the canister, she caught sight of her reflection in the decorative mirror down the hall. She was wearing layers of her darkest clothing under a too-large black hooded coat she had gotten at the secondhand store the week before, and had tucked her long hair into her clothes. With the gas mask covering her face entirely, she looked like a ghost or a monster, come to abduct an innocent woman in the night.

Her stomach flipped with anxiety but she steeled herself and stood tall. She thought of Akane, overseeing the last of the Building Q preparations as she traveled towards it. She thought of Aoi, who was probably standing near Junpei's apartment right now, staring coldly at him through the security camera as the hired lackey hauled him into the waiting vehicle.

She thought of Ennea, standing just a few feet away in the dark, Ennea who cried all the time but whose eyes had been completely dry this whole night. Perhaps she was crying now, to prepare herself for the hours that lay ahead.

Nona was doing this for her, so her sister would finally be surrounded by people who knew exactly what she had gone through. She was doing it for Mama, who would finally know what had happened to her little girls, and would no longer have to wonder.

She was doing it for Akane, who would disappear without their help, and be lost forever despite how hard she had fought to survive, all those years ago.

And she was doing it for herself, for revenge, for love, for pride, for justice. She was doing it because she and all the others wanted the Nonary Game to be gone forever, and the only way to do that was to destroy it themselves.

A car growled to a stop just outside the house. Nona heard voices, laughter, car doors opening and closing. Then, the car sped away, and her mother's familiar step came up the walk.

The key turned in the lock. The door opened, closed, and was locked again. Mama rummaged in the closet for an empty clothes hanger, hung up her coat, and pushed the closet closed.

She began to walk towards the stairs to the second floor, but paused in the hall. She turned and went into the kitchen instead, past the dining table and the counters, right up to the sink. She tutted and leaned to tug the window closed, the bangles on her wrist clinking as she moved.

Seeing Mama illuminated by moonlight, looking so beautiful in her dancing clothes and styled hair, was almost enough to stay Nona's hand, to get her to tear off the gas mask and set down the canister and run crying to her with her arms outstretched, but she had come too far now to turn back.

I'm sorry, Mama. I love you so much.

With a click and a spurt that sounded loud as a gunshot in the quiet gloom, Nona activated the gas canister. She tossed it with careful precision into the kitchen, where it hit the floor with a clang that made Mama jump and shriek with surprise, before she began to cough from the smoke.

Soon, the roiling white smoke had filled the entire kitchen, and Nona could only just see Mama's silhouette through it, slumping against the counter as the gas began to take hold. Across the hall, the garage door opened and Ennea stepped out. Her own gas mask was over her face, the glass eyes glowing demonically with the reflected light of the moon.

And Nona thought, Do it for her, and somehow that gave her the strength to move forward into the smoke, and towards the ordeal ahead.

The End