The main research building has carpeted floors, which can be fortunate or unfortunate depending on how you look at it. Right now it's fortunate, because Mr. Kojima apparently hasn't heard us approaching at all despite there being four of us and none of us being stealth experts. The carpet has effectively eaten up the sound of our footsteps.

We stop outside of the room where Mr. Kojima is in, which also happens to the room in which Ikoma-san has been placed. We can see Mr. Kojima through the large windows, but he hasn't noticed us yet, too busy working on something with his back towards us. Izumi cocks the gun (we have been taught basic weapon usages in our classes but it still makes me shirk away seeing her toting it so aggressively), and whispers over my head to Natsumi, "What do we do now?"

Still ignoring me. Just great.

Natsumi shrugs and whispers back. "Guess we wait."

So we wait. And we watch. Mr. Kojima is working on the machine which Ikoma-san, a.k.a. Coma-san, is connected to. We can't see the monitor because Mr. Kojima's muscular form is blocking it, but even if we could I doubt I would be able to decipher anything—statistics and numbers aren't my strong point; eating ramen is. He seems to be typing in something, tweaking buttons, swiping around on the screen. Inputting stuff.

Which is quite confusing, because at least from what we've learned, the monitors we're connected to when mindhacking are simply for, well, monitoring; we aren't supposed to make any input. I didn't even know that we can make input, and judging from the others' stupefied expressions, they didn't either.

"Do they mean to teach us that in our second year?" Anna wonders out loud, being the kind who still believes that all teachers have our best interests in mind.

"I don't think they were planning to teach us that at all," Izumi mutters grimly.

"Because it's too hard for us?" Anna asks, surprised. "It doesn't look hard. I'd be able to master it in no time."

"No duh, they just don't want us to know that mindhacking machines have more functions than connecting us to mindscapes," Izumi retorts. "So, Miss I'm-a-genius-I-learn-so-fast, what do you propose that Kojima is doing?"

I shudder at the rudeness I hear in her tone. It isn't like Izumi to be so sarcastic, even if Anna hasn't exactly been on the greatest terms with her. Izumi can seem levelheaded to the point of being emotionless at times, but I know how kind she is deep down. She isn't the type who would save injured birds and chat with squirrels (that's Ririka), but she cares about people in her own way. I wish I understood what is making her so inconsiderate all of a sudden—but then, I think I know the answer already.

Me. It's probably me. I'm the root of the problem. One can't help being a bit pesky and easily irritated when one's best friend has betrayed her and is absolutely useless at apologizing.

In my defense, it's not that easy to apologize when Izumi won't even look at me and we also happen to be stalking a teacher who's kind of evil and therefore don't have time for heart-to-heart talks, but I guess I should probably try harder, so that the mounting tension between my best friend and I won't cause problems in our ambush mission and that Izumi would stop being rude at Anna. At least Anna doesn't seem to mind—in fact she seems to take Izumi's comment of her being a genius as a compliment and is already enthusiastically explaining to us what she thinks Mr. Kojima is doing. In whispers, of course.

"At first I thought he might be doing some coding, you know, like programmers—but listen to the rhythm he's typing in." We listen. "He's typing fully in Japanese."

While I have pretty good hearing, there's no way I can tell from just the sounds what language one is typing in. But then, I suppose one could after enough practice; typing in English and in Japanese are entirely different things after all. I don't see what this has to do with anything though. "So?"

"Can't be coding," Anna says simply, "you can't code entirely with the Japanese alphabet, you need at least some Roman alphabet characters in it—at least that's what I've been told. I think he's probably writing an account of something purely from memory; doesn't look like he's looking at anything else while typing."

Izumi rolls her eyes. "Like a blog? Please, why would he be writing a blog entry here out of all places?"

Anna smiles innocently. "Maybe he might be using Ikoma-san as his, hmm, database?"

I am reminded immediately of what Shun said about being a human flash disk and tell Anna so. She seems quite satisfied that she has come up with the same conclusion purely from deduction, but then she frowns. "It's strange why he's here working on his database though. I mean, if all my accomplices were dead and I were the only one left and I knew for a fact that there were rabid students outside with a gun, I'd run like hell. Instead Mr. Kojima is sitting here typing away like nothing's the matter."

"It can be for one of two reasons," Natsumi suggests darkly. "Reason one, the stuff that he's inputting right now is so important that he's willing to risk it. Reason two, he has been keeping tabs on us and he knows that there's nothing to be afraid of because he has ways to get rid of us before we leave the campus and report the school's activities to authorities."

"Well, if it's reason one, we should probably try to get closer to see what he's typing, since that must be seriously important stuff," I whisper, "and if it's reason two—"

I stop, feeling something icy in the back of my head.

"It's reason two," Mr. Kojima concludes for me. I can't see him since he's behind me, but I recognize his voice and judging from the horrified looks on my friends' faces the icy thing he's holding to my head is probably a revolver or something equally lethal. Izumi immediately points her gun at somewhere above me, which I assume is where Mr. Kojima's head is.

"You wouldn't want to do that," Mr. Kojima tells her simply. "We have your records, Shimokawa. Your aim isn't the best. You don't want to accidentally kill your friend, do you?"

Izumi's lower lip trembles and I feel like punching Mr. Kojima because no one is allowed to make my best friend tremble, even if she's not talking to me right now.

"Put down the gun," Mr. Kojima states. Izumi keeps her hold steady, her knuckles white.

"Put, down, the, gun," Mr. Kojima repeats, jabbing the metal object in his hand into the back of my head, hard. I wince.

Izumi bites her lip, and lowers the gun, slowly, gradually, until eventually it is lying on the ground. She holds both hands up to indicate that she is not picking it up again.

"Pass it to me," Mr. Kojima orders, and Izumi quietly stands up and does so, eyes never leaving the floor.

"Great," Mr. Kojima says cheerfully. "And excellent deductions by the way, girls. I have trained you well. Of course I won't be leaving the premises yet—I'd need to kill y'all before I go. Can't have you all running about spouting lies about us using students as human experiments, can I?"

"Not lies," Anna points out, unable to resist correcting the teacher even under the circumstances. "Truths. You have been using students, and teachers, as human experiments, haven't you?"

"Ah, know-it-all Miyano Anna," Mr. Kojima murmurs, I bet he's grinning, even though I can't see it. "You're a dangerous one, you. None of us ever liked you. You read too much. You know too much. You ask too many questions in classes, questions we don't want to answer. We would have killed you first, but then there's this anomaly we've got to deal with." He rams the gun into my head again and I flinch.

"Eh? Why is she an anomaly?" Anna asks, clueless as usual.

"I don't think I have to explain to you, considering you'll all be dead soon. However, I'm not going to kill you girls now."

"Ah, here's the catch, huh," Natsumi says. "I've been wondering why you haven't dealt with us sooner. I mean, if you'd been meaning to kill us all along, it would have been easier when we were all unconscious except for Tomomi, right? You need us for something."

"Yes, yes. How smart." Mr. Kojima sounds almost intoxicatedly excited as he speaks. "We were going to kill you all, yes, but after your good old Tomomi broke our brainwashing machine and caused all your senpai and the rest of the teachers to go unconscious, we—I—have no choice. No one else is usable expect y'all."

"Usable for what?" I ask, feeling slightly stupid because I can't see the person I'm talking to.

"Mindhacking Ikoma, naturally," Mr. Kojima replies. "Since you've so inconveniently killed Yamada and the rest, the only way I'd have any access to the data they left behind would be Ikoma, our official human database. I'm not stupid enough to go hack him myself—his mind is quite the twisted place from all the dark shit we've stashed in it! So you'll do it for me. And there're four of you—quite a nice number."

I don't see why it's a nice number. Four sounds the same as death in Japanese.

But I do see why Mr. Kojima has waited for so long to deal with us instead of just killing Shun and me right away, before we had rescued any of our classmates. Ikoma-san's mind is too dangerous for just the two of us, especially when I'm not even a true mindhacker, so we won't be able to successfully get him the data he wants. He knew he had to wait till we've saved enough people for him to send into Ikoma-san's head. He knew we wouldn't leave without our friends, so he had no worries about us heading off campus any time soon. He knew that even after we've gotten everyone out, we'd still have to come to him to find a way to save Shun.

He had it all planned out; all he had to do was wait. And we walked straight into his trap.

I can't help feeling that it is probably my fault somehow. It was quite silly for me to think that, hey, out of sight meant out of mind, so as long as Mr. Kojima didn't appear we could just leave him alone to deal with later. But it's too late to turn back now. We have to go along with Mr. Kojima's schemes, because he's holding a gun to my head. A gun that he will not hesitate to use on any of my friends as well.

I take a deep breath. "So we hack Ikoma-san. What kind of data should we be looking for?"

"Good girl," I hear Mr. Kojima say behind me. "Looking for the right data should be easy. Every one of us has our own data box. Just get the boxes, send me the deets through a data transmitter, and that's it. I'll receive the data at the other end. Exactly like your cute little mock missions, no?" He chuckles to himself.

"I don't get it. Data boxes—what are they like? That's different from what we learned in the classes," ultimate teacher's pet Anna complains, flipping through her notebook in frustration. "Draw one for me here."

Mr. Kojima complies. Apparently data boxes look like normal boxes, about the size of a pizza box, even. Mr. Kojima draws a banana beside it for us to compare its size with. Dude has a sick sense of humor.

Izumi, however, could care less about Mr. Kojima's sense of humor, and is focused on more important things. She speaks up, quietly and somberly,

"You're not planning on letting us out of his mind, are you?"

I realize that she's right. When we mindhack for data, we send out the data we find through a transmitter—there's always one somewhere or another; sometimes on mock missions we bring one along with us if allowed. Mr. Kojima can get the data without ever unhooking us. Unless we unhook ourselves, which has already proven to be unsafe, we will be stuck forever and ever inside Ikoma-san's mind labyrinth, until our real life bodies eventually perish of course. It's not like we're on a life supporting system like poor Ikoma-san.

Mr. Kojima knows that, and I bet he's enjoying every bit of our frustration, savoring every second of his sweet victory. We have to either not follow his orders and get shot, or follow his orders and end up in a comatose teacher's twisted mind praying that someone else lets us out before it is too late. It's a lose-lose situation.

"If you're not planning on letting us out, then we're not planning on transmitting the data to you," Natsumi states, arms crossed.

"Well, you have to, and you'd better do it fast," Mr. Kojima says smugly. "Because I'm not the only one who needs the data, you know. Your little friend—the one that's going gaga right now—needs the data as well. I don't know shit about how to make him recover, but Yamada did and he stored it in his data box."

Shun. My heart tightens as I realize that the information we need to help him with is lying so close, yet so unattainable. Ikoma-san's mind would be dangerous, but I know I'd brave anything so that Shun would stop wanting to kill me. So that he would be normal again. So that he would be smiling and throwing pillows at people and dating some bewitching girlfriend or whatever. I'd storm straight into Ikoma-san's sick and twisted mind without looking back once, for Shun. Except—

"Except we still won't be able to help him anyway if you don't let us out, so that's really a moot point. There's no use in knowing the method to save someone when you can't be freed in time to apply it," Natsumi points out.

Yeah, except that.

"Which is why," Anna concludes, "we do the spotting ourselves." She picks up a gun and shoots Mr. Kojima in the head. I scream as his brains explode right above me.

"What the heck?" I yell as I attempt to wipe my face clean.

"Sorry," Anna says, helpfully handing me a packet of tissues, "for some reason he was stupid enough not to realize that he had to use two hands to draw me a box on my notebook so he put both guns down. Quite ridiculous if you ask me."

It's quite ridiculous if you ask me too, but there are more important matters at hand such as hacking Ikoma-san, human flash disk extraordinaire.

For Shun.