"Yeah, of course," Tsuki said, hands in pockets. "Can't go off by yourself like that. Lemme come with you."

Tsuki had a really, really bad feeling about this.

Not even one of those feelings you get when you know exactly what's going to happen. Tsuki just knew something wasn't right. It was all wrong, and not just the fact that there was a friggin art gallery in the middle of an abandoned school. It just... wow, she didn't even know. None of this felt right.

She totally wasn't scared though. Totally.

Why did she follow after Rika? Well, what the heck was she supposed to do? Let her wander off by herself and get grabbed by some spook? She couldn't let that happen! But now Tsuki could barely see the others, the people she barely knew to begin with, out in the distance. It reminded Tsuki of a horror movie, how everyone gets separated and picked off one by one. Not that Tsuki watched horror movies. She hated horror movies. Not... that she was scared of horror movies.

She rolled her neck and clicked her teeth. Jeez. Where the hell was Sho-Chan and the rest? Tsuki was a little worried. She didn't even see them when she was walking in. She just followed someone into the classroom. Yayoi had the luxury of being outside of the creepy school building but Sho? Suzume? They didn't have that luxury. She knew they'd be fine but, in the back of her mind, her paranoia bore away at her.

... Rika started twirling in place. Tsubaki turned her head and blinked at her, unable to wipe away the smirk on her face.

"Somebody's in a good mood." she said.

Tsuki turned to look at the hallway itself and - wow, wasn't this a gallery? Because this sure as heck looked like something straight out a funhouse. All the paintings were stretched to exaggerated lengths, the pictures of which seemed so... mundane and decidedly postmodern. Tsuki almost laughed at one because at first glance it looked to be a painting of a kitchen oven and, y'know, it's an oven. But when she took a step back and examined it, took another step back, examined it, it struck her that the piece seemed off. Tsuki squinted her eyes and...

...Yep. That sure does look like a person.

"Yeah," Tsuki mumbled. "Not that scary."

Maybe staring at the paintings was a bad idea. She turned back to the girl, smiling again albeit slightly off-kilter. She certainly seemed happy to be here, and Tsubaki wasn't going to be the one to burst her bubble.

"You said your name was Rika, right? I haven't met many of the year-three students so.. aheh." Tsuki rubbed the back of her neck, unsure of where she was going with that. Her smile waned. Girl acted much younger than her. Maybe that was why she was worried. "Hey, by the way, don't go too far in, alright? Never know when things are gonna get scary real quick."

A couple people branched off into the left hallway. Akira shook his head at them. They obviously failed Adventuring 101. Akira wrote the textbook for that class. It was a single piece of paper with "don't be a dumbass" written in bold text. He would have been content to let them go and be the slackers they were, but they were leading Mitsuki astray. That was no good.

"Oi. Ninja-chan." Akira called out, waving to her. "Wrong way. Final boss is always at the top, right?"

Without waiting for a response from her, Akira slowly started to ascend the stairway that was opposite of the way he came in. The quickest way to get all this troublesome shit out of the way was to get immediately to the bottom of things, after all. Expending effort to spend less time expending effort made sense, right?

Yori laced his fingers through Kozue's and gave his hand a re-assuring squeeze. He needed to keep him calm. If he panicked, they might make a mistake. A nervous flinch, a stumble over clumsy footing, an unseen exhibit, any one could cause disaster if the girl on the loudspeaker was to be believed.

He wouldn't let that happen. Not to him, and not to Kozue. Not to anyone else if he could help it. Useless and reckless as they might be, he had no idea what kind of chain reaction they might set off while they destroyed the scenery. One wrong move, and the whole world comes tumbling down around them. They needed caution. Determination. Details.

Yori's specialties.

He moved forward with Kozue, pulling his way into the large, dusty room. The morose paintings loomed around them as they paused inside the room. "Wait, Kozue."

Something wasn't right here. "Look at them," he mused, "there is a theme." He pointed to the mannequin. "Life." Then the rain. "Death. Inverted, to trick the the mind." A finger tapped his chin thoughtfully as he watched the paintings. "It's ingenious, really. The noose is a symbol of suicide, or punishment, the ultimate price for one's deeds. Yet the mannequin is not dead. A mannequin lives only through posing, through observation, through its message. By stringing the mannequin, you give it life, where there should be death."

His finger and his gaze drifted to the painting. "And this. Blood, raining from the skies. Blood, the fuel of life, becomes a harbinger of death when it leaves the body. Unlike water, there is no cycle to be found here. The blood rain is a swan song echoing against the streets before the final death knell."

Yori's voice raised as he called out into the empty gallery. "My compliments. Your imagery is captivating. But tell me, please..." he murmured more softly, drawing closer to the wilted rose. "This piece. What is its purpose? We have already gone from life to death. What comes next, patron?"

A soft smile drifted across his face, and he caught Kozue in the corner of his eye. This was his element. This was how he would keep them safe. This was how he would bring them home.

To get to the bottom of things, Akira suggested that they get to the top of things. As it were.

It made sense to Mitsuki. Although that might have been because skeevy oven paintings were hardly her style. Oven painting. Singular. One was enough. Not because they were skeevy. Mostly just because they were art. And art was boring.

That was a well-tread line of thought at this point. What was not well-tread - the stairs.

So she doubled back and headed up the stairs behind Akira. No extra noise. No extra fuss. French leave. Ciao (was that French?) to Rika. Ciao to Tsuki. Mitsuki even missed Mr. Class President philosophizing about art in the main gallery. Not that she would have paid much attention either way.

"Hope you've distributed all our skill points," she said, skipping up the stairs until she reached Akira's side. Pause. "Oh, and I didn't follow you 'cause you're the boss of me. You just happened to be smarter for once." She gave him a grin. It was mostly cheeky. "I'm sure it won't happen again."

Saturday, April 11th, 12:14AM - The Lobby

The speakers crackle to life as the PA system activates.

There is silence for a few seconds, with only the buzzing of the speaker to indicate that it's still on.

"Progress..."

The single, solitary word punctures the air before the buzzing stops and the everything goes quiet again.

Only to abide a seconds later to another crackle.

"Oh! Before I forget. Some of the residents are quite... eh... temperamental? I guess that works. They don't like to stay in their spaces... and they aren't very fond of visitors so uh... do be careful, 'kay?"

And the speakers go quiet. For real this time.

Yori seemed oddly confident and at ease all of a sudden. It was a little jarring, and Kozue belatedly wondered if maybe this room was full of paint fumes that were slowly getting them all high.

So anyway, now Yori was going to save them all with the power of... art symbolism, or something? Well, whatever. He seemed content and Kozue could handle that. At least until Yori started trying to get a reply from their grand artist overlord and come [i]on]/i] man, don't you know you're not supposed to talk to the overlord?

Okay, whatever. Trust Yori. Believe in the heart of the paint. If not that, believe in the fumes. To be honest, Kozue was a little jealous that Yori could take so much meaning from the display. He didn't have any kind of talent like Yori's art; he just biked for fun and occasionally made mediocre techno mixes on his computer at home. Yori smiled at him and Kozue weakly smiled back.

Trust Yori. He'd get them through this. He had to.

"hm yeah, I'm Rika." She replied with a smile before pouting a little,
"and I won't go too far, not alone at least... I was just... exploring... aw.. hm... Tsuki-chan... right? right.",
She confirmed her own question turning her small pout back into a smile, and while the hall was interesting in its own right, all the spots of paint in the floor and the sheer smell of fresh paint around the area was starting to make her a little light headed.

"hmmm It doesn't look like the rest decided to follow us... what do you want to do Tsuki-chan... do we try to find them? or..."
Rika smiled looking at the other end of the hall,
"do we explore ahead and see who can find the girl sooner?"

For Rika things were just a game, one where they have to be careful, but she thought that so long as they wouldn't touch any paintings, everything would be fine.
She thought that even if someone did touched one the most the owner of the gallery would do was expel them back to the classroom...

Kozue wanted to go home? That didn't really seem like an option anymore. The way Masato saw it they may as well make the most of their situation.

"Where's your sense of adventure man? I mean this is like a once in a lifetime deal. Why try and run from it?"

He rolled along nearby Kozue and Yori. Yori seemed to have figured out some part of the galleries mystery. But of course as soon as they thought they'd figured it out something had to come along to complicate things. Masato scratched the top of his head after the person had replied to Yori's question.

"So what's the betting these residents want us super dead? Since I'm going with high."

It was the only explanation that made sense because otherwise why would the creepy person on the other end of the speakers tell them? So far they had only been given warnings about their deaths and vague threats. It made sense for that fun trend to continue. It was a lot of effort to go to sure but Masato knew better than to doubt the person making threats in a world with a pink sky. It just wouldn't be good for his long term health.

Haruka blinked a few times as the older boy simply waltzed through the other door.

"Hey! Wait a second!" Haruka shouted, just realizing what had just happened. As she reached the other door, she saw the sewer tunnel. She vaguely took notice of how different this world was to the last one. She smelled the raw sewage as the stench invaded her nose and made her eyes water. And she saw the boy, as he threw a rock into the sewage.

"Wait... please just wait a minute! You can't... you can't go down there alone. What if..."

Haruka didn't know what if. She had no idea what this world contained inside of it. But there was no way this would be just a walk in the... sewer.

There had to be more to it than just this.

Go, adventure acquaintances, go. They had to do what must be done, because Akira was missing his warm bed at home more and more and everyone else seemed rather intent on sightseeing in the (admittedly pleasant) mystery murderous dimension place.

Akira nodded agreeably with Mitsuki's comment. "Quite right, quite right. Nothing but delightful mediocrity from me, from here on out. I just needed to recruit the timeless hero to my cause. Lead the way, Ninja-chan. I'll keep track of how many experience points you need until the next level." She seemed reasonably competent, and Akira was more than happy to play sidekick if Mitsuki didn't expect him to actually do anything.

The two reached the top of the stairs. Akira admittedly hadn't expected to find an indoors garden in the middle of a gallery, but who the hell was he to define the meaning of art? That was a topic that made people say lots of boring words for far longer than necessary.

Wait. Waaait a minute. Oh, artist lady had sure gotten him. Upon further inspection, there weren't any real plants at all. Just a buncha paintings and sculptures. Good thing Akira realized that before he leaned in to smell the flowers, or some shit like that. In any case, there were four doors leading out of the room. "She's gotta be behind one of these doors." He said, turning to Mitsuki. "You should open one, so I can passive-aggressively blame you when it turns out there's nothing there."

Mitsuki mimicked slouching and adjusting a hoodie. All in all it just made her look even shorter. She put on as deep of a fake voice as she could. "I'm not saying this is your fault, but it's your fault."

Then she nodded. "Whatever you say, bunny-senpai!" She was as cheerful as ever. She ignored the odd feeling rising in her gut. She had had weird clams for dinner after all. Not because of the paintings, or the announcement that there were things in the gallery that were alive. Things that hated visitors.

Things.

No. If her stomach was queasy it hardly had anything to do with that.

She was an explorer now. A thrillseeker first and foremost. But not quite the "protagonist" or the "timeless hero" Akira kept bringing up. Not quite the timid girl that she usually was in public either. A fleeting thought - it would be funny going back to that.

"This really is realistic," she remarked offhandedly. Trees. Flowers. Plants. Real but not real. "You sure you don't want to stay here and have a picnic? Just don't touch anything and make miss artist extraordinaire angry!"

Or perhaps, the art itself?

But she did not wait for an answer before she bobbed over to the left side of the room to take a peek through the doorway.

“Do you think Haruka and Toby are okay?”

“Mm?” Sho paused just as he began to open the door. “Yeah, probably. I don’t think they’d be dumb enough to go back into that… Meat World.” And yet here you are looking for another potential way into that same Meat World, a small voice chided him in the back of his head.

“Sho, what happened back there? Why did we all leave?”

“You’re telling me you don’t remember anything?” Sho blinked at her. “Anything at all?” For a fleeting moment he toyed with the idea of not telling Suzume about her crazy manic episode. But then again, what good would that do? “Um, well… you kinda had a panic attack. Must’ve blacked out since you don’t remember, ‘n all... Haruka and I got you out when…” He figured it best to leave out the detail of the meat-man-come-to-life. “Er, nevermind. Basically you started screaming, so we decided it was time to go.”

Sho shuffled his feet uncomfortably as he returned his attention to his hand resting on the door handle. If this was just another entrance to that flesh-place, he might just scream as well –but more so out of frustration than anything else.

Here goes… He pushed the door the rest of the way open. He gaped at the sight that awaited them on the other side. It looked like someone had gone through and scribbled on everything. No… it was more than that. The room was made of pencil marks crudely outlining a garden in a cityscape.

Just when he thought this school couldn’t get any weirder.

Curiously, Sho crouched down and traced a finger across the grass. Well, look at that. It felt like graphite, too. He had a residue of silvery gray on his finger when he pulled away. It reminded him of the smudge marks he got on the side of his hand when he sketched or doodled in his notebooks for school. He wiped it off against his pant leg and stood up again.

Then he saw the girl. She looked like she was also made of graphite –reason number one for being cautious. He tried to make out the girl’s features, but she had her back to them –reason number two for being cautious.

“Uh, hello?” Sho called out. Then he paused, unsure of why he just did that. What if the girl turned around and revealed herself to be some sort of freaky monster? He glanced at Suzume. By her earlier reaction to the meat world, she probably wouldn’t do well with any more surprises like that.

“Look,” Sho said more quietly to Suzume. “It’s like a world made by a little kid. I think we got lucky. I mean, how bad could it be?” Very. “We even landed in a garden. That’s pretty nice, huh?” He hoped he sounded more confident in that statement than he felt.

Suzume tagged along Sho looking behind her, but she noticed he started opening the door. Her curiosity peeked along with his. The room was strange, but oddly Suzume found it in a way, beautiful .

It looked like a world that was drawn from pencil, charcoal, and different things of graphite. It made Suzume's eyes glow because it reminded of many things in her sketchbook that she doodled in art class. But it also looked like many erased things in her sketchbook. Which made it all more bizarre and oddly fascinating. Even though she was interested in this room, she couldn't help to noticed many things about it. It was cold, dead, and yet full of nothingness. "This is neat, but...it feels so numb." she spoke aloud. She saw a girl, who appeared to be drawn with her back facing Sho and her. She looked at the girl and she wanted to instantly see what she looked like. She heard Sho called out to her, and she slightly stepped forward to get a better look.

"Look, it's a world made by a little kid. I think we got lucky. I mean, how bad could it be? We landed in a garden. Pretty nice, huh?"

Suzume stared at the little drawn girl with strange wonder. She almost could have swore she had seen her before, even though she wasn't facing them. It could be a trap, which made Suzume fallback a little. Her ears perked to Sho's tone, then she looked at him gently, "Sho, I'll be okay." she continued,

"It won't be like last time. I should have told you about my fear of blood and gore, but I thought you guys would've made fun of me or something." She quickly went on her tip toes and kissed him on the cheek, then she winked at him to raise his spirits. "Come on, maybe she can help us or she needs help." She stepped forward and slowly moved her hand to try and touch the girl, "Excuse me, hello?"

She thought to herself, she's just a drawing, right?

"I can't go in here alone?" he mused in a faintly taunting tone, not even bother to turn around and face Haruka as he spoke, "It's just a sewer. What do you think's going to be inside?" Although he was still rather confused as to why there was even a sewer in the school in the first place, Shiori decided there wasn't anything too bad here. Other than the smell and Haruka nagging him to not go, of course. She probably just doesn't want me to go so she can take all the credit for herself, he thought, slightly paranoid she was working against him in some way.

However, Shiori soon became bored as his eyes scanned over the room again. The only thing that caught his attention was the dimly lit sewer tunnel halfway down the passageway. The boy thought it was rather ominous looking, but that just provoked his curiosity further. The passage seemed to relatively long - what was at the end, anyway? He started towards the other end of the hallway, brushing past Haruka and humming faintly as he went.

Saturday, April 11th, 12:14AM - Graphite Gardens

The girl shirks, before slowly turning around, revealing her features. Her face is... "drawn" very simply, with only two thick vertical lines representing her eyes, and another horizontal line representing her mouth.

She tilts her head inquisitively, but she also seems to be on edge.

---

Saturday, April 11th, 12:14AM - The Sewer Tunnel

Toby had spaced out slightly when he laid his eyes on the message. Not for too long, but long enough for Haruka and the other boy to leave him behind, He frowned a bit, before running to catch to Haruka.

As he ran through the door, he took a good look at the surroundings. He wasn't expecting a sewer, but he wasn't really surprised. After all, he'd already seen a world made of flesh.

There was a wet spot on the ground; it hadn't been of notice to either Haruka or Shiori because neither of them had been running. Toby was running.

He slipped, barely having time to realize what had happened before he found himself submerged in the tepid sewage.

The water his nose, and he wanted to vomit. The smell was horrible. He held it in though, because if he opened his mouth now, it would definitely be the end of him. He could wait until he was back above water.

The pool, thankfully, wasn't too deep. It would be any trouble to swim to surface. He rose up to water's surface, expecting to be breathing the air again soon.

But that's not what happened.

The liquid in the sewer, incidentally, wasn't water. It was close to water, but not close enough.

As Toby rose past the surface, he found himself unable to break the surface tension. His hand pushed, but the surface didn't yield.

That's when the panic set in.

Toby kicked faster, paddled harder, in a desperate attempt to rise up past the liquid that was quickly swallowing him and pushing him downwards.

He just had to make it.

He couldn't hold his breath any longer and he opened his mouth, allowing the liquid to enter his mouth. He started to gag, and he desperately pushed upwards, even as the liquid brought him downwards.

He just had to make it to the top.

He just...

had...

to...

m...

...

..

.

Yori tapped his cheek thoughtfully at the reply as Masato rolled up next to him. "Want? Not necessarily. At least not the artist. She's trying to tell us something. There has to be a deeper meaning."

"Progress," he hummed slowly, looking over the wilting flower. "Progress." He glanced back and forth between the hanged man and the blood rain, trying to put the pieces together. "Progress. The cycle of life and death. The rose dies so that the plants around it may live."

A frustrated sigh escaped his lips. "I can't piece together the numbers, though. They add nothing in context. Perhaps we need more. The others went upstairs, didn't they?"

"Hey Rika," Tsuki said, smiling. She gave a quick nod. "Yeah, that's me."

She didn't say anything after that. She watched Rika look all around, feeling a bit lightheaded but nothing that was going to make her fall flat on her face. Tsuki turned, looking over her shoulder, her eyes in a squint. Nope. Nobody else was coming in. Whatever. Tsuki sighed.

"I dunno, Rika-chan," Tsuki said with a dotting hint. "We don't even know what this girl looks like. We've only heard her voice yanno. Not much to go on."

To her, this wasn't a game. It was a weird situation that was becoming increasingly more nervewracking by each passing minute. While the smart thing to do would be to find someone else... the paint fumes and Rika's eagerness won out. Tsuki decided to take a risk.

"Alright, alright." She said with a mock-exasperated look. "Yeah, let's keep looking. See if this is a dead end. But stay with me okay? If there's any sign of trouble, we book it back to the entrance. You get me?"

She shrugged, hands still in pockets, motioning down the hallway.

"Waiiii~"
Rika celebrated with a smile jumping in place with excitement before taking Tsuki's hand and rushing ahead to the next area.
She was happy, at least Tsuki had picked to stay with her, had she remained in the bigger group from before she wouldn't feel as free as she would with only one person, besides, out of the whole group Tsuki was probably the one she liked the most.

"I understand~ if we run into something creepy or if we see suspicious people we will back away into the entrance... but I'm not leaving you behind."
She stated that last part as a fact, no matter how dangerous the situation was, she didn't want to see what happened to her sister happen to anybody else... not because of her.

"It will be fine thought, we know the girl's voice, and considering we haven't seen anybody around she's probably the only other person in the gallery."

With that they broke into the next section, at the other end of the hall, Rika was beaming with joy maybe the day would truly be a memorable adventure after all... oh yeah, and once this was all over she and Tsuki could meet up with Sango the day after, Rika was sure Sango wouldn't believe what happened to them, she was sure she and Tsuki would also be good friends.