Nine. [Hinanami Week 2017 Day One]
Haha suckers, it’s still the ninth on the west coast. So this isn’t even late.
And even if it was, I’m the mod of hinanami week, who the hell’s gonna stop me.
Anyways, I’ve been playing too much Zero Escape, so here’s a DR Zero Escape AU for hinanami week.
————————————
Hajime Hinata woke up with his head throbbing. He groaned, and then proceeded to hit his head on the ceiling as he sat up.
After taking a moment to wake up, the first thing Hajime noticed was that he was in a bunkbed.
The second was that he had no idea where he was.
“Ugh… how did I get here?” He mumbled to himself as he tried not to slip down the ladder. Planting his feet firmly on the floor, he looked into the mirror across from him.
“Wow. I look awful.” He stated. Why lie? He looked exhausted. But what caused him to be so exhausted?
With a gasp, he remembered.
He was sitting at his desk, at home. It was very late, probably midnight. The sounds of the city could be heard through his bedroom window.
Finally deciding to go to bed, Hajime closed his window. As he did so, he heard a door open, followed by footsteps. Hajime lived alone.
Worried, he grabbed a lamp from his nightstand and with a yank, unplugged it, throwing his room into darkness.
Holding the lamp like a bat, Hajime carefully walked out of his room into the hallway.
Standing in his living room was a person, wearing a hooded cloak and a gas mask.
“Wh-Who the hell are you?!” He shouted, visibly scared. The person said nothing.
In the back of his mind, Hajime heard a hissing noise, and spun around. The room had begun to fill up with a white smoke.
Failing to not breath it in, Hajime started coughing. After a few moments, he collapsed, and the lamp in his hand shattered next to him.
The person moved to stand next to Hajime’s nearly-unconcious body, and began to speak in a staticy voice.
“Consider this a privlege. You have been chosen.” Chosen for what? screamed the back of Hajime’s mind.
“You are going to participate in a game. The Nonary Game. It is a game…where you will put your l i f e on the l i n e.”
Snapping out of his thoughts, Hajime took a step back. “Gah! Who the hell was that guy?! …What happened before that? …Why are my feet wet?”
Turning around, Hajime noticed the water pouring out of the window in the room. The door, which he now noticed had a big red “5” on it, seemed to be locked. There was also a sort of bracelet on his left wrist, which also had a “5.”
After a few moments of freaking out, Hajime took a deep breath. “Okay, okay. I just have too… I have to seek a way out. Yes. Okay.”
—————–
Hajime opened the door after a few minutes. It actually wasn’t as hard as he thought.
After swimming down the hallway to another door, the water began to rise even faster. He booked it up the stairs, until he ran into a group of people.
There were eight people in total, and they were all running in the opposite direction of Hajime.
“Don’t bother going up there, all the doors are locked!” Someone shouted as they ran past.
“Yeah! We gotta check C Deck, c'mon!”
Hajime spun around, trying to stop them. “Wait! But it’s flooding down there! I’m pretty sure D Deck is completely submerged!” he shouted.
“Then what do you propose we do, huh?” A girl with twintails glared at him as she ran past.
“I… I don’t know? Stay up here and on B Deck, and pray for a miracle?” He half-heartedly shrugged.
He felt someone bump into him from behind.
“Oh, sorry. I’m in a bit of a hurry, could you move? …Wait. Shouldn’t you come too?”
This girl seemed much less frantic than the rest. Her soft pink eyes looked tired, not scared.
Hajime found he had lost his voice. “Uh… I guess? But I’m pretty sure it’s flooded down there…”
The girl shrugged. “Then I guess we’ll have to swim.” And with that, she walked down the stairs.
——————
The water had stopped. All the doors were locked. Hajime and the other eight people were now standing in C Deck, brainstorming about what to do next.
Suddenly, there was a ringing, and a familiar staticy voice.
“Welcome aboard.”
It was the person who had kidnapped them.
“I welcome you all, from the bottom of my heart, to this vessel. I am Zero… The Captain of this ship. I am also the person who invited you here.”
After Zero said this, there were some shouts. The twintailed girl demanded to see him.
“You are here to participate in a game. The Nonary Game. It is a game where you will put your life on the line.”
Zero explained that the rules were already in our pockets, and then signed off.
After reading over the rules, we understood a little better. We had to team up to go through the doors with numbers on them, and eventually we’ll reach the Nine Door.
After a bit of discussion, someone mentioned that we should introduce ourselves. Someone else said we needed to keep our identities hidden from Zero. In the end, we decided on codenames.
“Sweeeet! I love codenames! I’ll go first!!” The twintailed girl bounced around. “Alright, alright. I’m number six!” She raised her left fist in the air. “You can call me Mono!!!”
“Wouldn’t that be a better name for two?” Someone asked. Mono glared at them.
“I’ll go next.” A blonde girl stepped forward. “I am Number One. My codename shall be Rosie! Like Rosie the Riveter!” She smiled, and did the pose from the infamous WW2 poster.
“…Oh, I guess that means I’m next.”
It was the girl from earlier, the one who lagged behind. Her short hair bounced slightly as she walked closer to the group. “…I’m number two. My codename is Galaga.”
“Oh, like the video game?” Hajime asked, surprised he could remember such an old game when he couldn’t remember his address, or even his family.
Galaga turned towards him, eyes wide. She grinned, and nodded. “Yes, exactly! It’s a very good game, espically for it’s time period. I’ve got one of the highest scores in the wor-”
“Hey!” Mono interrupted. “There’ll be time for that later! My sister is speaking now.” She grinned and turned to a girl with short black hair.
The girls cheeks turned slightly pink at the attention. “I’m number three. Call me Fenrir.”
A boy with cloud hair stepped forward next. “I’m number four. I’ll be Lucky. I’m sure you all will figure out why soon enough.” Lucky had an unsettling smile that sent a shiver down Hajime’s back.
Galaga tugged on Hajime’s sleeve. “Hey, you’re number five. What’s your codename?”
“Uh…” Hajime racked his brain for some clever way to relate to five, but found nothing. Then he looked for something personal, like most everyone else did, and found nothing.
“Um… I’ll be… Five?”
Mono groaned. “That’s so boring! You can’t come up with anything else?”
“Um..” Hajime didn’t get the chance to stand up for himself, because Galaga did it for him.
“I think Five makes it easier on everyone. Why have to do some nickname?” She said as she stood in front of Hajime.
Clearly, this girl was special. He just wasn’t sure how special yet.
—————–
After a pink haired guy now known as Mecha and a scarf-wearing stranger known as “Supreme Overlord of Ice,” or “SOLOI” for short, introduced themselves as seven and eight respectively, there was only number nine left.
The short man refused to introduce himself, saying it was pointless because he wouldn’t be seeing them anyway.
Just then, he grabbed Galaga by the arm and held her in a chokehold. Before anyone could take another step, he flicked out a pocketknife and aimed it at her throat.
He scanned his bracelet and then Galaga’s.
“Now. Fenrir, was it? Get over here and scan your bracelet.”
After a moment of hesitation, Fenrir calmly walked over and scanned her bracelet. The Nineth Man ordered her to back off, and she complied.
Suddenly, he shoved Galaga towards us. I moved without thinking, catching her so she wouldn’t slam her face on the floor.
The Nineth Man had opened the number 5 door. He waved goodbye as it closed.
But Hajime wasn’t really paying attention to that. He was more worried about Galaga. As he helped her up, she hugged him tight.
The moment was ruined by the sound of screaming and pounding.
The Nineth Man was trying to get out. The group could hear a faint beeping from the other side of the door.
“Please! Let me out of here! They lied to me! They said this wouldn’t happen!! Please!! Help!!!!”
After that last cry for help, there was an exploding sound. The room was dead silent.
Then a faint beep. The door had changed from “OCCUPIED” to “VACANT.”
After a frantic discussion, Mono, Fenrir, and Hajime scanned their bracelets to open the door.
Inside was a frightening sight.
Blood and flesh covered the walls. In the middle of it all was a bracelet with the number nine.
Slowly, the doors closed again.
Hajime backed up into Galaga. She looked pale. After a moment she grabbed his arm.
Hajime was unsure how this girl managed to trust him so easily, so quicky, espically in their current situation.
But, somehow, he found himself trusting her too.
A short girl with strawberry-blonde hair and pink eyes nicknamed “Galaga.” Stuck in this hellhole for an unknown reason.
Surely, nobody here actually deserved to be here, right? Nobody could have done something to deserve this.
The clock chimed ten times. They had wasted an hour of time, which was all too precious at the moment.
They had eight hours and eight people. They had to seek a way out… they had to seek a door that carried a nine.
And something inside Hajime said that he would make sure that if anyone was to get out, it would be Galaga.