~~~~~~~

In between fragments of sleep, Nino thinks he hears parts of a conversation with a voice he doesn't recognize.

"...wrong, there's no..."

"-leave, but if we can't then..."

"…an't have followed..."

"We need to...."

"...and it'll have to be now."

And then he's suddenly being shaken until he's awake, blinking and not sure he's dreaming still or if he's actually awake, but Ohno's fingers are tight on his arms, and he's pale, Nino is sure of it, even in the cool moonlight.

"Ninomiya-san," he's saying when Nino's ears decide to tune in, and he sits up to face Ohno properly. "We need to leave, okay? Are you with me?"

He nods. Leave. Got it. "Why?"

"There's," Ohno begins and looks over his shoulder, and Nino follows his gaze to where another man is standing in the doorway. "We might have stepped into a place where we shouldn't have. We need to leave now."

It's not that Nino is protesting, because god knows he's wanted to quit this entire thing before it even started, but it just seems so sudden. A part of him also thinks that it could just be another trick to scare him; he wouldn't be surprised if that was the case. "But -"

"Nino, please," Ohno says urgently, and that's what alerts him that maybe it's serious. And Sho walks up to them and says, "As your manager I stand by this decision to evacuate immediately."

"What's wrong?"

Maybe Ohno doesn't want to answer, but he looks like he'll bite the bullet, because maybe he feels like he owes Nino answers when they're in this situation? "It turns out that half the things happening tonight wasn't by our design."

That stops Nino cold. "What?"

Ohno's fingers trail down Nino's arms and squeeze his wrists gently. "There's things about me that can't be - "

And that's when the air gets sucked from the room.

It's impossible to draw any breath and his hands fly to his throat as he looks at Ohno, who's saying something he can't hear over the frantic rush in his ears. There's a chair in the corner of the room, and it goes flying - it would have hit Nino over the head if Ohno hadn't yanked him desperately forward and flung himself backwards in the same move.

Ohno yells something - Nino can feel the vibrations of Ohno's chest and see his mouth move and face contort, and then there are spots in Nino's eyes and he heaves because he can't breathe -

"Nino, come on, get up, get up, move," sound suddenly filters into his ears but he almost doesn't hear it, because air rushes back into his lungs with a whoosh, and the relief is almost crushing.

"I can't breathe," Nino says even though he can now, but he's yanked to his feet, Ohno's grip a vice on his arm and the stranger from before is gripping his other arm.

"Up," the man says and Ohno steers Nino out, following Aiba, who has Sho hot on his heels. "Now, now, now."

And they pass rooms they got past earlier and the doors are either closed or closing on them, vibrating, and just as Nino sees the front door so close, Ohno stops sharply and Nino's shoulder hurts with the jerk.

Aiba takes the handle and the door doesn't budge. "Windows, now," he orders and they all rush to the windows, but as soon as Sho reaches for them, he cries out and recoils as if in pain.

"What the fuck," Sho hisses, "What the hell is this, what is happening?" His hands are red and raw and looking extremely painful, and Aiba looks to Ohno, who shivers violently.

"We need to move, now," Ohno orders, "back door, come on." And as they set out again, half-running in a mad dash where the doors around them are all opening and closing with increasing speed and there's a chill in the air now - Nino's harsh, panting breath is coming out in white hoar frost, something slips around Nino's wrist, and he startles, looks down while trying to keep his feet moving.

It's Ohno's hand, sliding the black beaded bracelet he was wearing earlier onto Nino's right wrist, and Ohno says quickly, "it'll protect you, I'll tell you later, we need to get out of here now. Trust me."

And Nino does trust him in the inexplicable increasingly cold air, but the door in the back of the house is locked firmly shut, it doesn't even groan when Aiba and Sho kick it repeatedly, and suddenly, even as they are trying to break it down, it bursts into flames, absolutely searing and Nino rears back, and he can't breathe he can only feel hands on his arms holding him back -

"Leader," the man to his right says, "Leader, we need to - "

"I know," Ohno cuts him off, "Jun, I know, but we can't have them here, I can't have anyone getting hurt in this."

"They already are," Jun hisses back, as the flames lick higher against the walls and they all retreat, clumsy in their haste, and the heat is making the chill from before a distant memory. He presses something into Ohno's free hand, across Nino, and Nino only dimly registers this is Matsumoto.

"Up," Ohno says, "if you can get to the windows upstairs, you might be able to get out."

"Leader," Aiba says seriously while steering them further away from the flames and the goddamn heat and Nino is sure his heart or his legs or his sanity is going to give out in seconds, "don't do anything that can't be undone."

Ohno - pauses, then nods and looks at Nino. "I'm sorry," he says, "I'm so, so sorry." Then he pushes Nino at Aiba, and he drops into a crouch, drawing something on the floor.

"Move, we're going now," Aiba says into his ear, "Sakurai, Jun, move it, now. Upstairs, the stairs are just a little further down."

"But what about - " Nino protests even as his feet follow orders, and Ohno is left behind as they leave him, and he looks up, just once, eyes dark in the strange sea of flames behind him. "We can't just leave him there! What the fuck is wrong with you?!"

"Unlike you right now, he knows what he's doing," Matsumoto hisses back and shoves him forward, "you need to move right the fuck now so we have a chance to get away, move!"

The house itself is groaning, as if there's something in the very structure of it that's trying to give out, and as they race back down the hallway they just came from, he casts another look over his shoulder to where Ohno is still crouched and something like a dark, translucent mass is settling over him, and as Nino watches, it envelops him completely and Ohno is knocked flat sideways.

"Holy shit!"

"Don't stop," Matsumoto hisses in his ear and his grip on Nino's arm is borderline painful, but Ohno just collapsed -

"Something happened to him, we need to - stop, we have to help him!"

"And I'm telling you we can't stop," Matsumoto says back, voice terse, "he's doing this so we can get out, now for fuck's sake, run!"

And Nino does, but he can still only remember Ohno falling and everything is just way too much, what the fuck is happening? "Shit, shit, shit," is all his mouth manages as he follows Aiba and Sho up the stairs and he would have stumbled if Matsumoto hadn't been watching him like a hawk from two steps behind him and had caught him.

Further up, Aiba is swearing up a storm. "Jun, I'm not sure we can get out," and something in Nino clenches and he realizes the reason he's having difficulty concentrating is that he isn't breathing.

The breath punches out of him and Sho is instantly by his side, holding him up as Matsumoto races ahead.

"Fuck," Matsumoto breathes and Nino looks up.

Aiba and Matsumoto, at the top of the stairs, their hands pressing against nothing.

Nino's jaw drops.

In the air, there's a shimmer where Aiba and Matsumoto are pushing, but whatever it is doesn't budge and Matsumoto and Aiba are left looking like dumb marionettes, pretending to take action.

"Jun, we can't get out," Aiba says, a note to his voice that Nino dimly registers as resignation and finality, and Nino grips Sho's hand.

"What the fuck," comes Sho's harsh whisper, "fuck it, we didn't sign up for this, what the fuck is happening?"

Nino would like to know too, but he's also aware that Matsumoto and Aiba are doing what they can to get them out, and a weird, paper thin calm settles over him, and he hears himself say: "What do you need us to do?"

Matsumoto hushes him, tilts his head as if listening.

Nino gets the impression all of them are holding their breath.

There's silence.

Nino hadn't noticed over the sound of his panting breath, but... the house has become quiet. Still. The flames behind them isn't a dull roar anymore, the air itself seems frozen. The temperature has evened out.

"No, no, no," Aiba pleads urgently and makes to rush past them all back down the stairs, but Matsumoto catches him around the shoulders, hushing again and there -

Footsteps. Heavy, clunky.

Nino swallows.

"I'm pretty sure," Matsumoto whispers slowly, horrified, "that that's not Leader."

Sho's nails are painful on his skin, digging and staying. The footsteps downstairs are somehow wrong, heavy and uncoordinated; there's a slight hitch, something that could be a corrected stumble, a limping sound, the drag of something over the floor. Nino can't stop the violent shudder that wrecks through him.

He tries not to breathe so loud, but it's so heavy in his ears that he can't focus.

"Then who is it?" Sho dares asking, voice a mere murmur.

Aiba wets his lips. "I don't think it's a question of who," he whispers back, "but a what."

Nino shudders and Matsumoto flings a hand over his mouth.

"Masaki," Matsumoto says, still low, "maybe we need a diversion."

"I don't want to split us up further," Aiba says and Sho nods, "I second that."

"Look," Matsumoto whispers urgently, lowering his hand from Nino's face, "We don't know what it is, we don't know what it wants, but we can't stay here, it's a dead end."

Nino glances at the invisible barrier they can't get through, only a slight shimmer tells him that he didn't imagine them not being able to pass and get out. It's true, at this point they're trapped at the top of the stairs if they don't want to move down, and they really don't know what's down there or what it’s done to Ohno, and if Ohno is even still alive.

Nino really doesn't want to think about it. He doesn't want to think about not getting to see Ohno's kind eyes again when he never got to ask, if it was only him feeling that there could be something to being them.

"We're sitting ducks here," Matsumoto concludes.

Sho exhales harshly. "We're so out of our depths here, you need to tell us what to do."

And Aiba does look like he wants to answer, but then he stills and listens and they all look down the steps where there's something dark pooling by the end of the stairs, and Nino can feel the hairs rise on the back of his neck. It's a dark pool, almost like wisps of smoke, and it looks alive, almost as if it has a pulsating presence.

"It's me you want."

Nino stills completely. That was Ohno's voice, only -

"This is not good," Aiba says, even though Nino is pretty sure they all know they're in deep shit.

"What is happening?"

Ohno's voice again; "You will have to face me. You can't run from me."

- only Ohno's voice is somehow both more and less than how Nino heard it such a short time ago. It sounds hollow and so full and very much not Ohno.

The limping footsteps downstairs stop.

"One of us needs to go and check on him," Aiba says gravely. "Don't look like that, you know I'm right, Jun-kun."

Matsumoto looks various kinds of unhappy with that. "He told us to get out."

"It's Leader, of course he told us to get out," Aiba whispers back. Nino is so confused right now and he's terrified, and he just wants to get the fuck out of this godforsaken house, is that too much to ask?

"What is happening?" Nino asks again, aware that whatever it is downstairs is currently - hopefully - focused on Ohno. He's not sure he'll feel better if he knew what was going on, but at least he'd know. Easier to prioritize if all the variables are known.

"We need to get away from here," Matsumoto returns evenly, "I don't want us sitting here any more and when we're marginally safer than right now we'll tell you what we know, which probably isn't as much as you're hoping."

"So now?" Sho prompts, shifting, his nails still digging painfully into Nino's arm, and Nino doesn't even care. The pain is real and grounding, and he fumbles to find Sho's burned hand with his own. He squeezes as tightly as he dares, Sho squeezing back even though he grits his teeth. They still have each other, no matter how the world is falling down around them.

"We'll go down," Matsumoto says. "The basement should have another way out."

"How do we know it isn't blocked too?" Sho asks.

"We don't," Nino says, because he knows this. He reaches up to grip Sho's shoulder. "But we have to try."

Matsumoto looks at him as if he's not sure what to make of him and then his eyes widen. "Why do you have that?"

Nino looks to what Matsumoto is looking at - oh. "It's Ohno-san's," he says. The black bracelet rests around his wrist as if it's always done so.

"I know that," Matsumoto hisses and then throws his hands in the air. "Why?"

"Guys," Aiba says, "It's seriously not the right time, can we move and then deal?"

Something passes by the stairs and they all still. The blackness swirls past and then moves on.

"Now," Aiba presses, and they all move as if a single creature, inching back down the stairs, hoping to god that the steps won't creak beneath their feet. Nino isn't sure what will happen to them if that thing hears them, but he's willing to bet it won't be pleasant.

Aiba holds up a hand. "Wait," he whispers and then cautiously leans forward to look down the hallway, and he visibly takes a deep breath. "Okay, clear."

"Iron," Aiba whispers, "Iron to protect, fear no immortal being," and a string of words Nino doesn't hear because his heartbeat is so loud it's deafening. The flames that had been licking the walls are all frozen, no heat at all, and Nino can't stop himself from trying to touch them. It's like velvet.

"Quick," Sho murmurs, hand coming up to tighten around Nino's elbow.

"Shut up," Nino returns, not really meaning it and knowing that Sho knows.

"Less talk, more moving," Matsumoto says lowly from behind them and looks back, constantly checking. "Aiba-chan, left."

Aiba takes a left, looking around the corner and then motioning for them to follow. Nino can't deny the way his body somehow loosens at the sight of the basement door, only to immediately freeze up when it suddenly feels like the house has a heartbeat.

He realizes with cold dread that what he'd thought was his own loud heartbeat is actually the house.

"Holy shit," Nino whimpers and Matsumoto clamps a hand down on his shoulder.

"I know," Matsumoto says as if he's been waiting for Nino to realize this. Sho looks disturbed, spooked and pale in the grey light of the hallway and ahead, Aiba has opened the door to the basement, the stairs leading downwards, and Nino has a flash of every goddamn horror movie ever. Basement stairs never lead to anything good, but considering what's behind them, he's not sure what's worse at this point.

"Down the rabbit hole," he says and Sho shoots him an exasperated look, which works wonders for Nino's fragile calm with its normalcy.

Aiba has taken his flashlight out from his pocket, but he hasn't switched it on yet. He clicks it on and looks tentative as he takes the first steps down and they've all just started walking down into the darkness, wary of where they're placing their feet, when somewhere behind them, someone or something screams.

There's the noise of glass shattering.

It chills Nino to his core and the hairs at the back of his neck instantly stand on end.

"RUN!" Matsumoto shouts and pushes, and it's a near thing that Nino doesn't fall in the mad dash down the stairs and he can't see anything - Aiba has switched the flashlight on, but it's a flicker in the dark as they run, uneven and confusing and he can't think, he just runs. The sounds behind them are terrifying, a mix of screams in a hundred different voices, getting louder and sharper and they rise to the point where it feels like his ears will burst, and he blindly holds his hands out and hopes to every goddamn higher power that he won't crash into something in their run.

He's vaguely aware of Sho just a half-step behind and Aiba's yell in front of them warns him just a second too late - he feels Sho swerve sharply just as Nino collides frontally into something that just doesn't move, feels his left wrist crack as it hits first, the punch into his chest and he falls to the floor. He sees stars for a long moment until someone is hauling him up by the arm, and he gasps through the pain, his wrist throbbing and his shoulder a burning point where someone keeps dragging him along, his feet are uncoordinated and he can't see a thing, he's literally running blind, stumbling, trying to force air into his lungs.

And then it all stops, a door slams shut and he's dropped back down to the floor, onto his back, and he gasps on nothing, there's no air to breathe, nothing is coming down into his lungs, until it is again, and he coughs wetly, curling up and rolling to his side.

"Fuck," Sho says hoarsely next to him, trembling hands settling on his arm and side, and Nino is still coughing, until he seizes up and starts dry-heaving.

When he finally stops, what feels like a legitimate eternity later, his throat is sore, his wrist a flaring point of pain, and his ribs feel like someone has rammed a truck into him.

He opens his eyes - funny, he never realized he'd closed them in their mad scramble away from what the hell that even was. There are two lines of light, from Aiba's and Matsumoto's flashlights, and when he looks up at Aiba, he sees a gash over Aiba's forehead, bleeding sluggishly. Aiba wipes it almost absentmindedly as he kneels next to him.

"Ninomiya, your wrist," he says and doesn't quite touch it. Nino doesn't really want to look at it, but he does anyway, down to where he's cradling it against his chest. It looks wrong, slightly bent and already swelling.

"Fuck my life," Nino hisses. "I think it's broken."

Behind them, Matsumoto is trying the walkie-talkie. "It's dead," he says.

"Do we have anything we can brace his wrist with?" Sho asks, looking up at Aiba, who looks around. Nino hadn't even begun to think about where they are, but now that he's looking from his somewhat limited view, he can see walls. "Anything at all?"

"If we have something to start the cut, we can tear my shirt to bandage it," Aiba offers. "But that's about it, I'm sorry."

"I'll take anything at this point," Nino says to Aiba, aware that the more he thinks about it, the more it will bother him. Aiba takes off the t-shirt he was wearing over a long-sleeved shirt, and looks to Matsumoto, holding his hand out, and Matsumoto hands him a pocket knife.

"Convenient," Sho says dryly.

"You never know," Matsumoto returns but looks like yes, he can see the humour in it, even if there really isn't much to laugh at right this moment. Aiba is already cutting and tearing the t-shirt to pieces, and Nino breathes through the pain as Aiba starts winding the cloth around his wrist.

"You really owe us an explanation now," he says, partly to distract himself, but also because he's really sick of this situation, whatever the hell it actually is.

Sho nods besides him and helps him up in a sitting position while Aiba is busy with his wrist.

Matsumoto nods slowly and looks around even as his flashlight never wavers on Aiba's hands. Upstairs, there are dull, thumping footsteps and creaking sounds.

"I wasn't there, okay? I didn't know him back then, so I don't know everything that went on at the time, and I'm not sure how much I can say," Matsumoto starts. "Leader lost someone, when he was a child, and as I understand, he almost died, too. And it changed him. He says that he had everything under control until then, but..."

He doesn't start again, but he looks sort of helplessly at Aiba, who has by now finished fashioning a make-shift bandage around Nino's wrist. Nino tries not to move his wrist just to prove a point. "But?"

Sho shifts uncomfortably. "Is this an I see dead people-kind of moment?"

"I'm pretty sure it's an you're an idiot-kind of moment," Nino supplies and would have smacked him with his good hand if he hadn't been so freaked out by everything. He looks back at Matsumoto. "But?" He prompts again.

"Ohno-kun can sort of demand things from them."

Nino blinks. He sort of feels like crying right now. He's so sick and tired of this, he hurts and he's frustrated and he understands nothing.

"The ghosts?" He clarifies.

"Spirits," Aiba corrects gently. He looks like Nino feels. Tired and wrung out, and the bleeding gash on his forehead makes him look absolutely wrecked. "He asks them to move on, and if they don't want to, he can make them. I don't know how it works. I've seen it, and I still don't understand."

He's not alone in not understanding. Nino looks at Sho, who looks pale and floored with everything, but oddly put together. It's like he's reached the point where there's only calm left, and if not calm, then there'd be complete hysteria. It's frightening, seeing one of the most put together persons he's ever known, at the end of his rope like this.

Sho looks like he's steeling himself for bad news. "Then what is this? Why is this happening?" He gestures around as if to encompass all of this, the house, the horrible sounds and screeching, the flames, the invisible barriers, the blocked doors and windows. Everything that went wrong from the moment Nino lost that infuriating bet on that TV show, and Nino just knows that after this, nothing will be the same again. It's all just too surreal.

Aiba wets his lips and looks down. "We think, well, Leader thinks that when he nearly died, his friend's spirit brought him back, and perhaps something went with him when he came back. And it follows him."

Nino hadn't thought he could be anymore spooked, but he shivers violently and remembers suddenly Ohno's sad eyes and the black bracelet. His hand goes to the bracelet on his right wrist and Aiba follows the move. "Look properly at it," he says softly and lets his eyes linger on it.

Nino does. It's not black, as he'd originally thought, but a very deep, dark green, with tiny flecks of red in it, only visible now that he's looking at it properly.

"It's heliotropes," Matsumoto says. "Bloodstones."

Nino looks up for an explanation.

"Birthstone for his friend," Matsumoto says and kneels to rotate the bracelet until Nino sees what he hadn't noticed before - a single, tiny orange bead. "Topaz. It grounds him when he needs it."

They all look up to the ceiling as if they could see through it. What was happening up there now? It had become quiet, no ominous thumps of dragging, limping footsteps, no screeching, nothing.

Nino's throat is suddenly very, very dry with fear and an odd sense of guilt. "And if he needs grounding but can't because I have his bracelet?"

"I don't want to find out," Aiba says with a small voice. "I just want all of us out of this crazy house and then burn it down to the ground."

That is a thought Nino can get behind vehemently. "Where are we now?"

"Just a little short of the way out," Matsumoto says, "but I'm sorry, I prioritized getting you somewhere to lie down before we found out whether or not the exit turns out to be blocked just like the rest of the doors and windows we've encountered so far."

As Matsumoto says this, he lets the flashlight go over the room, four walls and a door out back to where they came from, some chairs and two tables stacked in a corner, a mirror in another.

"Wait," Nino says, already feeling the fear lodged in his stomach tighten and making him shake. "Go back to the mirror."

Matsumoto obeys, letting the light shine over the mirror, and there, there's something in the corner, something swirling.

"What is that?" Matsumoto whispers, walking slowly closer, but just as he nears it and leans slightly forward to get a better view, the entire mirror cracks and shatters. Matsumoto jumps back. "What the hell."

"Get away from it," Aiba orders and gets up, leaving the flashlight in Nino's right hand. He walks over to where Matsumoto looks like he's barely stopping himself from touching the mirror, and then Sho is muttering softly beside him, "My ears are aching. You okay?"

"As soon as we get out of this fucking house, I'll be fine," he returns as he resolutely ignores the throb in his wrist. No use right now anyway, it doesn't help whining about it.

"What the hell?" Aiba suddenly exclaims, and Nino looks over to him where Aiba is staring at his hand in horror. "It's... is it blood?"

"What?"

"On the walls, I just reached out to touch it and," Aiba says thickly, "it came away like this."

Nino points the flashlight at Aiba's hand. It's dark, glistening, red.

He feels like throwing up again, and beside him, Sho retches.

"We need to get out," Matsumoto orders, "enough of this bullshit, let's get out of this wretched place. Aiba-chan, you get Ninomiya and Sakurai out of this hellhole, and I'll go check on Leader."

No matter how much Aiba looks like he wants to argue the point, he nods after a moment. But there's something Nino needs to do, because Ohno could be something special, even more special than he'd thought when he'd first seen him, and what's more, Nino owes him.

"I have his bracelet," Nino says, sounding steadier than he feels. He feels absolutely exhausted, shaky and wrung out, his wrist is a constant reminder of pain, and by god, he just wants out of this damn mess as fast as humanly possible, but there is an odd kind of guilt wedging in with the fear now; the guilt that Ohno gave him the bracelet to keep him safe, possibly at the cost of himself. His sanity? His life? Nino doesn't know the consequence of Ohno's choice, but he knows without a doubt that the cost is unacceptable, whatever it turns out to be. "I should go."

Matsumoto opens his mouth, but then pauses as if rethinking whatever he was about to say. "I can't stop you."

To which Sho throws his hands up in the air and says, "I quit."

Aiba nods sharply to this and walks over to Sho and reaches for him with his clean hand. "We need to go."

"Did you hear me, Nino?" Sho hisses, "I quit."

"We'll discuss if when I see you outside," Nino replies calmly - a calm he doesn't feel in his bones. "I'm sorry."

Sho looks absolutely terrified, but resolute. He offers Nino a hand, which Nino takes and is hauled up, and he looks intently at Nino. "You better survive, you stupid idiot."

"You're fired, I don't pay you to talk to me like that," Nino says and Sho pulls him in for a quick, tight hug. "You just get out and start building the fire, this house needs to literally go up in flames."

Sho nods into his hair, then pulls back and looks to Aiba. "Let's go."

"Stay safe," Aiba says to Matsumoto, just as Matsumoto steers Nino by the shoulder towards the door.

"Let's go."

~~~~~~



Part 1 // Part 3