Nine Hours, Nine Persons, Nine Doors Alterna Novelization Synopsis

What follows is a commentary on and synopsis of the two volumes of 999 Alterna, a paper-and-ink novelization of the digital 999 visual novel. It's written for an audience already familiar with the game, so instead of recapping every event, it for the most part simply notes where and how the book's narrative diverges from the game, as well as any significant added character moments. (The page-by-page notable-event format, though, is abandoned in favor of a straight synopsis near the end, where the book's version of events deviates heavily and at length from the game's.)

Note: If you haven't played 999, you might be unfortunate enough to be familiar with it through its very off-putting sequels, the first of which features an Art Bell plot and Next Media Animation news graphics, and the second of which is what might be delicately termed a "guro yandere crapfest." 999 itself is a quality game, a good mystery with a unique premise and strong, nuanced cast that's restrained in its use of violence, and it's completely self-contained. If you haven't played 999, this isn't the optimal way to experience its story; if you're interested enough in the title to be reading this document, then play the game first.
(Preferably the original DS version. The Steam version, if it's out by the time you're reading this, will have been made after Guro Yandere Crapfest territory and will probably have all the wrong priorities. iOS has less backtracking but poor graphics and cuts a lot of stuff.)

SPOILERS for the 999 game, of course, are present throughout this document. There's also a Virtue’s Last Reward spoiler in the entry for pg. 207, about which absolutely no one should care. The character names from the English-language version of 999 are used for convenience.

This document also has an extended mention of self-harm at the pg. 183 entry.




VOLUME 1

(Skip to Volume 2.)

pg. 5: Fittingly, the book begins with a Chapter Zero.

pg. 5: A bit of misdirection at the start: the book opens with the beginning of the nonary game from nine years before the story's present, with the explosion on the ship in which the kids are kept, in order to trick you into thinking the current crew's really at sea. “Now, then - I wonder how many of them will be left alive at the end?” enthuses the gamemaster.

pg. 15: It's Chapter 1: Chance Encounter, and other Nonary Game contestants can be heard skittering back and forth outside the door to Junpei's room in the wake of their successful escapes.

pg. 17: Junpei in pre-abduction flashback going on about how he has less than six months to go before graduation and yet he hasn't got a job or employment prospects, establishing his "extremely unremarkable guy" anime protag bona fides. He goes on to say that "I hadn't experienced any failure or setbacks in my life. I didn't oppose the adults around me; I'd gone through life doing as they said and going with the flow - a good little boy, never really asking any questions." Now, free to do as he wishes, he finds himself at a loss for motivation: "I'd sleepwalked through my life so far; there was nothing that truly grabbed my heart." A bit different from the Junpei whose determination and willingness to fight for justice led Akane to select him to be her savior.

pg. 18: Narration establishes that this takes place in autumn.

pg. 19: Zero's voice in flashback sounds "staticky" during his/her appearance in Junpei's room.

pg. 23: Junpei cannot figure out his door lock, even though the only puzzle he faces in the novel consists of "insert card key into card reader," and he starts out with the card key on a lanyard around his neck when he wakes up. (It falls off him onto the floor while he's stumbling about after waking.) Santa has to shout instructions through the door in order for Junpei to not drown (the water gets up to his shoulders here). Nevertheless, Junpei's door is slightly rusted shut, and the Ninth Man is dragooned into helping Santa shove it open. (Junpei is, again, useless in this effort.)

pg. 25: Junpei mentally disses Santa's outfit, describing "something like black leather belts wrapped around his neck in what perhaps was an attempt to be fashionable."

pg. 26: Junpei pins the Ninth Man to be about 50 years old. Ninth Man kvetches about Santa stopping to help Junpei, claiming they have "no particular obligation to save him," and runs off ahead of the two boys. When he sees the wall of water coming down the hallway, he panics, heads for the exit, and starts to slam the door to trap the water - as well as Santa & Junpei - inside. Only Santa shouting threats stops him.

pg. 29: Clover runs up for her introduction, and Junpei is immediately flushed beet red and noting her "sweet scent" and all hot & bothered at mere being in the proximity of a girl, deathtraps be damned. Better not move in there, brah; it'd be heck to deal with her brother. Also, Junpei notes that Clover has "red" hair - um, pretty sure that's screaming pink, dude.
Santa, meanwhile, has not forgotten his brush with death immediately previous and has seized the Ninth Man by the collar, demanding to know what his big idea was. Kubota "howls piteously" that he was going to die, what does Santa expect, etc. Santa, laughing: "And what if there's something worse than death waiting for you up ahead? Might be easier for you if you died here & now." Junpei, worried that Santa's gonna actually kill Kubota, cuts in, whereupon Santa waves his behavior away as a joke: "Won't gain anything by killing an asshole like him." (Junpei, however, notes that Santa's "eyes weren't laughing one bit; they betrayed only the same cold glint they always had.")

pg. 32: Clover seems to have injured her right leg; she's dragging it a bit as the group goes up the stairs. After the Ninth Man skitters off and Santa remains marshalled in the face of another threatened flood, Junpei notes that "unlike Bird's Nest, Silver Hair was cool & collected in any situation."

pg. 34: As Junpei & Kubota climb the stairs to higher decks (Clover's told Junpei to go & scout ahead while she struggles with her leg), they meet Ace & Seven coming down another staircase. Junpei hears Kubota audibly gulp behind him as he sees Ace.

pg. 34, but in Part 6 of the chapter now: Junpei is totally freaked out by Seven, gaping at his "face scarred up like Frankenstein, which practically screamed that he was not a respectable person. ...There was something unbalanced and totally creepy about this man."
Seven demands to know who Junpei et al. are, to which Junpei makes a reply that could be translated as "I think we're probably in the same boat as you" ("Tabun, jijou wa sochira to onaji da to omoimasu"). In the English script, Junpei would underline this unintentional pun (which doesn't exist in the native Japanese; it's just a fortuitous possible turn of the English language) with a corny, labored remark pointing it out to those whose intellect perhaps is not as keen & piercing as his own. I won't add it, but feel free to make up your own.
Anyway, this is all interrupted as:

pg. 35: Lotus "sashays" down the stairs. Snake and June were with her, but, like Kubota, she ditched her crew because they were "dawdling" - to Seven's great anger; he shouts that "one of them's sick!" (Lotus responds that she's "not their babysitter" and tells Seven to go check on them if he's so concerned.) The Lotus/Seven argument is quelled when Ace volunteers to go back and check on 2 & 6.

pg. 37: Junpei notes that Seven's breath smells like tobacco. Seven takes charge and, saying that A Deck above has no working doors and therefore no exits, orders everyone down to B Deck to look for a way out. He takes Junpei by the shoulders and literally shoves him down the stairs (not so like he falls, but...well, you know), and brushes aside Clover's inquiries if he's seen her brother with: "Chit-chat later." He shoves Clover forward as well, and she does fall. Junpei's concerned about her and rushes to her side, but Clover in her own way is as business-minded as Seven, saying, "Leave me alone! I said I'm fine!" (She brushed Junpei's previous attempts to help her up the stairs aside just as brusquely.)
Incidentally, Santa hasn't been around for a while.

pg. 38: After witnessing Junpei's flailings with Clover, Lotus whispers in Junpei's ear: "No time to play around right now. The water's right behind us!" Junpei smells liquor on Lotus's breath and surmises she might be drunk.

pg. 40: In what is perhaps the most faithful recreation yet of the game's ineconomy of prose, we spend an entire page confirming that the number 4 & 5 doors won't open after spending the final bit of the last chapter-part on the same subject. Seven continues to be more shouty and bullying than he is in the English version of the game.

pg. 41: Junpei spots the RED by the door and tries scanning his keycard through it. Clover whispers "I don't think that'll work," whereupon Seven yells "HOW WOULD YOU KNOW?!" right at her. Man, Seven is a jerk here. Granted, they all believe themselves to be still under threat of drowning, so perhaps novel Seven's unwavering, albeit aggressive, focus on the problem is preferable to the game's "let's stop to talk about Kurt Vonnegut while dying of hypothermia in a meat locker" spates.

pg. 42: Junpei wonders why no one but Seven (well, and Clover, but he doesn't mention her) is helping him tackle the door problem when Snake makes his grand entrance on the staircase. Whether it's because the slackers (Lotus, Santa, Kubota) already know what's going down with the nonary game or it's because they're all transfixed by Captain Prince is up to you. Junpei describes Snake much as in the game but adds: "His noble features were tinged with a bit of sorrow."
Anyhow, when Clover busts out an "Oniichan!" at seeing him, Snake cautions her: "Don't say too much. Best for us now to focus exclusively on getting out of here safely."

pg. 43: Ace seems to have a spark of recognition (or at least suggestive confusion) when looking at Seven's...face? Er? Ace waves him away with a "it's nothing" when Seven notices and asks about it, however. Ever the detective, though, Seven then clues into the fact that Snake is blind. Lotus is disbelieving at first ("Don't be ridiculous! The boy was running around right with the rest of us before..."), but Seven cuts her off to conclude that "You just weren't planning on tellin' us, were you?!" (Snake: "There is no need for concern, however. I face practically no limitations in my daily activities." Seven still decries Snake’s initial reluctance to disclose matters, countering that there’s “nothing embarrassing about having to ask for help.”)
Incidentally, despite the book's illustrations, the text states that Snake isn't holding his eyes closed here as he does in the game; Junpei (and presumably, Seven) instead notices his blindness by observing that his eyes simply aren't moving.

pg. 44: When Lotus asks if there are any other doors to try, Junpei recalls a door painted black he saw on C Deck. He runs down to check it, but on the way, he runs across...

pg. 45: ...Akane - not on the staircase, but seated in the dance hall. (Lotus had sat her down there after she had difficulty standing from her intense fever.) Junpei is struck dumb, time stops, he can't breathe, etc. Then an explosion hits, and Junpei has to grab the staircase railing for balance and June goes skidding across the ballroom floor. Somehow, this all ends just as in the game, with a whoopsy-daisy Meet Cute tumble and Akane straddling Junpei.

pg. 47: Novel Akane left Junpei's sixth-grade class when her mother died of illness and she had to go live with her father, supposedly. Junpei still remembers the smile & the wave she gave him at their parting. Bringing his mind back to present Akane, Junpei takes care to admire, in turn, her "straight black hair," her "spotless, innocent eyes," her "tiny nose," and her "cute, puckered lips."

still pg. 47: Zero announces him/her/themself over the loudspeaker with what I believe is the original version of Snake's "All of the cards are in hand" line: "It seems as if the board is set. All the pieces are assembled." ("Koma wa subete sorotta you da ne," and, OK, I'm taking some artistic license by splitting that into two sentences. If I'm right, I can see why Aksys's translators went with a more lucid card metaphor instead of board games.)

pg. 51: The ninth part of Chapter 1 (the novelization is spread out over two books, which have nine chapters total, each containing nine smaller parts) ends with a bit apparently from Akane-of-9-years-ago's perspective: "I... I see another me before my eyes. But if that's true...then who am I?"

pg. 54: Chapter 2: Rules: The numbered doors are called the "Numbering Doors" in the Japanese version's Engrish. The bracelets are instead "bangles."

pg. 55: Troublng admission from Junpei in this context: "I wasn't very good with numbers." Meanwhile, Akane is already breathing hard and trying to steady herself from her fever. Clover pops up and suggests it was something she once had called "angel fever" (enjeru netsu), but when I Google this to find out what it is, I learn there's lots more to come on that subject in this book, so hang on.

pg. 57: Zero, reading the rules, starts going on about the Titanic, and Seven asks a question no 999 character would when faced with a non sequitir: "What's that got to do with anything?"

pg. 59: Akane's fever is gone again, even though there really wasn't anything going wrong with her plan before to trigger its appearance.

pg. 60: Zero hasn't planted little handy rule cards on everyone this time, so Seven has to ask, and Snake explain, what a digital root is. Seven can't even add 2 + 7 + 6. Guys, c'mon.

pg. 61: Jumpy goes down with Ace, Seven, and Snake to see about that door he saw on C Deck. (Snake gets in the party by saying that due to his sensitive hearing, he can gauge whether or not it's flooded on the other side of the door by knocking on it.)

pg. 63: Ace tries to get out of Junpei how he knows Akane, but Snake cautions him against saying too much, as he did before with Clover. (Snake is leading the search party, BTW.)

pg. 64: Snake speculates that Zero is probably "watching them," which is the exact opposite of his opinion on that subject in the game. ("Oh, I'm not so sure of that," etc.) Seven chooses to be known by his bangle number and suggests the others do the same ("So Hot Oniichan here can be Two, and you can be One, old man--"), but Snake dismisses that as "too simple," hence, Cool Code Names. In his internal thoughts, Junpei is a bit incredulous at this: "Our lives were hanging in the balance, but here they were, laughing and picking out nicknames for themselves. Had they taken Zero's use of the word to heart, and decided to enjoy the experience as just that - a game?"
Then, though, Junpei is interrupted by a voice he hears from beside him: "Be serious about this! If you don't...then I really will die!" He turns, but no one's there.

pg. 66: The group finds Junpei's door, but it won't open. It also discovers the elevator (locked with a keyhole for a cylindrical key), the left of its two doors painted yellow.

pg. 69: Affirming that there is no way out but the numbered doors and that he has to play the Nonary Game to survive, Junpei swears to win in order to save Akane. Well, this always leads to profitable ends.

pg. 69 again: People keep nodding in response to assertions that Snake makes. You know he can't see that, right?

pg. 69 still: The other group members have chosen cool code names offpage, in between chapterlets.

pg. 70: Lotus, objecting to the "go through the numbered doors" idea, asks Clover to back her up. Clover kind of demurs sheepishly and clutches at Snake's hand, whereupon Snake protectively answers for her. Clover overall seems more timid and less peppy and confident than she did in the English version of the game. It's not an improvement.

pg. 70: Junpei mentally complains that Santa's code name doesn't really suit him. Santa here doesn't care whether or not they go through. Seven, fed up with his impudence, tells him to "keep up the attitude, see where it gets you," which the book interprets as a threat. The character assassination of Seven continues.

pg. 71: Ace scratches his beard for a bit when asks his opinion on going through the doors, then offers: "I'm against it. I think we should remain here." Lotus brightens at this solidarity among the older members of the group (minus Seven), remarking: "All you young idiots care about is showing off!"

pg. 73: Akane gives the deciding vote, saying that she wants to stay with Junpei (who's for going through). Unlike in the game, where Junpei comes to her rescue by offering a nickname, Junpei can't even recall how June got her code name.

pg. 74: Even though there's already a majority, Lotus approaches the Ninth Man for his opinion. He responds by taking her hostage instead of Clover. (To be fair, she did suggest just before that he take the code name of "Q-Tarou" because of his "googly eyes," so perhaps he is, in part, justified.)

pg. 77: Junpei, sensibly, thinks that they'll all drown if they waste time on antics like this, so he tries to talk Kubota down. It does no good, of course.

pg. 78: The Ninth Man unlocks the No. 5 door by ordering Lotus and Akane to scan their bracelets, then scanning his own. Lotus is calm and initially won't cooperate, levelly asking: "And if I refuse?", for which Junpei admires her guts.
He also wonders how the Ninth Man knows so much about the operation of the doors. Despite a (very) slow start, novel Junpei is proving to be sharper than game Junpei.

pg. 82: After being ordered to scan her bracelet, Akane scampers back to hide behind Junpei and clutches his hand (though he offers it first). The female characters in this book do a lot of running to men and grasping at their hands for protection.

pg. 84: After the Ninth Man flees, a few people keep trying to open the door to go after him by pulling the lever on the RED without authenticating - including, weirdly, Snake, who should know better. (The pulling thing happens in the game, too, but it's implied that Snake is off tending to Clover.) Also, Santa doesn't help in this effort, establishing a running trend of novel Santa not exerting himself - whereas in the book, he's kind of pushing the team forward at this stage.

pg. 87: And the Ninth Man fulfills his character duties by blowing up.

pg. 89: The group opens Door 5 to find the remnants of Kubota. We get the "grotesque flower" simile, plus a few more: "His head was split open like a pomegranate; if the face hadn't been staring straight at us, we wouldn't have recognized it as anything human. His skin, newly carbonized, had ruptured, and a sticky stew, cooked by the flames of the explosion, oozed up through the cracks." Also: "He had no limbs. They had been blown off, flung in four directions."

pg. 91: Junpei mentally berates himself: "I had been taking all this too lightly. I had been told that we would be putting our lives on the line, but it hadn't really hit home for me that someone could actually die - I never considered it a possibility. But Zero was serious. He didn't care if we all lived or died." Seven exhorts everyone to stop wasting time and get a move on, but no one else is in the mood to act.

pg. 94: Snake pulls his smug quiz on Zero's rules, only with Seven instead of Santa. Seven has to ask Junpei for help, because we have to make Seven as stupid as possible in the novel.

pg. 97: The card in Snake's pocket opens with "as you bear the handicap of being sightless." The English version puts this line as: "Since you are not blessed with sight, I shall bless you--and only you--with information" - a wording I think is better.

pg. 99: The info on Snake's card is much the same as it is in the game, save for 1) a warning against trying to prop the numbered doors open, since the DEAD won't activate unless the numbered door is shut, 2) a bit more explicit explanation of the function of the bracelet ("it will send a signal to the bomb in your body, blowing you to atoms," versus the game's "instructing it to explode"), and 3) a lack of the "let us discuss how to remove the bracelets" part. (Zero's closing words to Snake are also a bit more explicit, noting that "you may use this information to your advantage--or to kill.")
Despite the accreditation to Kenji Kuroda, the novel reuses a lot of dialogue from the game, and reading the original Japanese really gives me newfound respect for the Aksys translation of the main cutscenes. It's very faithful, yet well-worded; it changes what needs to be changed for the English-speaking market (the codenames, for example, whose use of Japanese numbers defeats their purpose for Anglophones), yet doesn't abuse that privilege.

pg. 100: After everyone else is stunned by the info on Snake's card and the bomb revelation, Santa gloats smugly that they'd better "not [give] Zero an excuse" to blow any of them up. The author is really heavy-handed in signaling his involvement.

pg. 101: Junpei asks again if anyone knows anything about Zero. "They all kept silent, merely observing each other's expressions. It seemed as if they each actually did know something but, after gauging everyone else's reactions, had decided to remain quiet. ...Was I really the only one in the dark?"

pg. 102: Lotus, instead of Santa, is the one who speaks up first about seeing Zero wearing a gas mask when she was abducted. (Seven remembers that he got grabbed when he was "zoning out & watching TV," incidentally. Guess he doesn't have (or isn't pretending to have) amnesia here?)

pg. 103: In the Zero kidnapping comparison, Junpei notes that he is the only captive who managed to lose the card key and almost drown in the starting room. Akane, meanwhile, claims that she "doesn't really remember" how she got on board the ship and says that she's been having gaps in her memory as of late. She gets "a splitting headache" whenever she tries to remember what she was doing before she woke up in the room. (Meanwhile meanwhile, Seven seems to have a spark of recognition while watching Akane & listening to her story.)

pg. 104: For some reason, only Seven and Lotus are shocked to discover that Snake and Clover are siblings. (Incidentally, Snake and Clover here indeed did wake up in the same room together - so why was Clover wondering about his whereabouts in the opening?)

pg. 106: Seven gives his "You connect the dots between the victims, and that leads you to the perp" line, and Junpei begins to suspect that the man might have a brain after all. Is Seven just playing dumb instead of amnesiac here, then?

pg. 106: For some damn reason, everyone decides to start finding out the common thread between them by exchanging their addresses (or at least identifying the prefectures in which they live). That kind of defeats that purpose of code names, guys. (Everyone lives in Japan's Kanto region, by the way.)

pg. 107: Lotus brings up the fact that Zero couldn't possibly have kidnapped everyone in one night acting alone and brings up the possibility that he or she is part of a larger organization. Seven thinks this is a ridiculous idea. Lotus continues that Zero could part of an army or research organization. "A research organization..." muses Ace; "that could indeed be a possibility." (I see that Lotus has what were originally Ace's lines in this scene, whereas Seven has Santa's "I mean, c'mon! A guy's dead!") Snake agrees with Lotus's organization idea, BTW, but refers to her as "obasan," a word that describes somewhat older women, to which Lotus naturally takes offense. 999, you can make fun of Lotus's age, or you can show off her skin. You can't have it both ways.

pg. 108: OK, now Snake is talking about how it's also possible that this is the work of one person, going on about how if Zero just had a big enough car, he or she could totally have piled all nine of them in there. He is really invested in this big-car theory. Snake, you are off your rocker.

pg. 108: Santa, in another of his blatantly villainous speeches, expounds on how Zero has staged the game "for his amusement - to pass the time," and that he'll be "sitting back to savor their agonizing deaths with a glass of wine or something."

pg. 109: The group has again wasted 90 minutes right at the start, and Seven urges them to move. (Santa, conversely, feigns annoyance at having to move.) Ace gets Seven's line about hating to have to jump when Zero says "jump." There's a lot of incidental switching of line attribution in the novel, often to dubious effect.

pg. 112: Junpei has newfound respect for Seven when he's the first to volunteer to go in Door 5 to calm down everyone else: "He wasn't just muscle. I'd gotten all wound up with emotion, but it seemed like he had a good read on the room."

pg. 121: Santa yawns as he approaches the RED. You're really overselling it, man. Junpei is conflicted, since he owes Santa his life, but he's acting like an ass.
In other news, the teams have split up along canonical True Ending Run lines. Sorry; no bed innuendo for you! (Snake is shown merrily leading his team and confidently striding toward the door like a boss in the illustration, BTW.)
(Incidental note: Kinu Nishimura seems to have real trouble drawing Snake's torso in the novel illustrations. Take a look at almost any of the illustrations that feature him and see what I mean. I think Snake's short jacket is screwing her up, though at least one of the illustrations of him in the robes from later has the same problem.)

pg. 122: Another Part 9 concludes the chapter: "No one realizes I'm here. I finally understand that now. I'm not part of this world. That's what I thought...as I peered into the open door."

pg. 127: Chapter 3 is entitled "Pandemic," so I assume we're gonna be getting more on that "angel fever" Clover mentioned.

pg. 128: While looking for the DEAD on the other side of Door 5, Junpei opines that he feels he's under additional pressure because "he and Santa were the only men in the group, and Santa absolutely could not be counted on."

pg. 129: Santa lingers on the other side of Door 5 once the others have gone through, smirking, "If I just stand here, you guys all blow up." He then shrugs his shoulders and "skips" across the door when Junpei calls him out on it. Junpei then threatens to punch Santa and is stopped only by mention of the need to find the DEAD.

pg. 132: Junpei preemptively seizes Santa's wrist and slams his bracelet against the reader when they reach the DEAD.

pg. 132: The team comes across a heavy oaken door painted red in the room. Junpei notes that it's the same as a purple door he saw on A Deck and the black door he saw on C Deck.

pg. 133: An LCD monitor is mounted above the door handle. When Junpei touches it, a fanfare sounds, and orange text on the screen asks: "WHAT'S THE NAME OF THIS SHIP?" Junpei is flabbergasted at the thought that they're just going to have to solve puzzle after puzzle to proceed.
A touchscreen keyboard pops up when Junpei presses the "ANSWER" button on screen. Junpei tries to type something, but gets the message: "The red key is required to answer."

pg. 136: The team searches cabins B92 & B93. Santa, though, sits down by the DEAD and does nothing, claiming a "weak consitution." Lotus grabs him by the leather straps around his neck and drags him to the room.

pg. 137: Akane discovers some sort of wooden jigsaw sphere on the bed in the cabin they're searching. Junpei tries messing with it, thinking the red key might be inside, but nothing comes out. Akane is impressed, or pretends to be impressed by his puzzle-solving skills anyway. We learn that Junpei was actually obsessed with Rubik's Cubes in elementary school ("nothing had captivated me so before or since") and was so good at them that he attracted throngs around him during recess. (Apparently, Rubik's Cubes were "all the rage" during Jumpy's elementary school days, so did Junpei go to school in the '80s, and the novel version of 999 doesn't take place in the future, or was there a revival of the fad in his youth?)

pg. 139: Junpei actually complains that being able to solve Rubik's Cubes quickly is not a marketable skill in the workplace.

pg. 140: Akane finds a map of the ship, so it's mummies on the Titanic time. Actually, it's the "Hey, have you heard about the Olympic?" Junpei Hour. Akane counters with a new-to-the-series Titanic rumor: about J. P. Morgan, the "actual" owner of the ship, cancelling his passage on the maiden voyage at the last second, with several of his friends suspiciously following suit. Akane says he claimed illness but instead was enjoying a holiday overseas. (Incidentally, in Googling this, I came up with this page on that gold mine known as Reddit arguing that Morgan got the idea from that Futility book Akane mentions in the game to sink the Titanic to knock off several of his business competitors, who were on board the vessel. I mean, this is 999, after all; let's just bask in the conspiracy theories.) Junpei goes on to mention that part of the Olympic was repurposed into a restaurant known at the Celebrity Millennium. This is actually true, if by "part of," you mean "just the wooden paneling."
Akane asks, again impressed, asks Junpei how he knows so much about the Titanic. Junpei bluffs with "It's common knowledge," but when he stops to consider this, he's honestly shocked and doesn't know.

pg. 144: Akane mentions how the staircase she descended looked just like the one in the romantic last scene of Titanic. Akane loves Titanic and even has the DVD. Junpei hasn't seen it.

pg. 145: Finding nothing in their cabin, talk turns to Akane's off-and-on fever. Akane says she's never been sick like that before, except for one time she was hospitalized in middle school, right after she moved. Junpei mentions that he's been hospitalized only once, too - with angel fever.
OK, it's time for the big angel fever infodump, so grab a chair and have a drink. Angel fever is an airborne virus. Once you contract it, you get a fever of 104 for two days or more. The virus takes its name from a ring-shaped boil about 10 cm in diameter that forms on the top of the victim's head, which allegedly resembles an angel's halo. I'm sorry, but I can't form this mental image without being reminded of that bagelhead body modification for the forehead that media outlets pretended was all the rage in Japan a few years ago. This is not a threatening or beautiful or evocative hallmark image for your big scary virus. It's goofy.
Anyhow, there was apparently a big epidemic of the Bagelhead Virus "about 10 years ago" (perhaps...nine years ago, would you say, Junpei?). Jumpy claims that "over 5,000 people came down with it in this country alone," which honestly doesn't seem like much in a country as populous as Japan - unless the world has gone through a major depopulation, which is a possibility in an iteration of the 999 universe. The virus has subsided since its peak, but it still claims hundreds of victims a year.
Junpei recalls his period of angel fever infection, which was just one short month ago. Usually, Junpei narrates, when you get angel fever, you take what Junpei refers to as a "vaccine" (I guess it's a therapeutic vaccine, not a preventative vaccine?), then you sleep for several days and wake up all better. In rare cases, however, the victim just gets worse, and the illness travels to the brain - which was just Junpei's luck. He was hospitalized for two weeks, and for half that time, a week, the side effects of the medication made him feel "like I was caught between a dreamworld and reality." He had numerous nightmares - that his town had been drowned by a tsunami; that he was seeing his parents "brutally murdered" by muggers. No one else around Junpei came down with angel fever, so he's puzzled as to how he got it. Akane, you didn't give Jumpy a life-threatening illness as part of your death game, did you?
Anyhow, the memories & discussion lead Junpei to a breakthrough, though: he recalls how Clover mentioned previously that she had fallen ill with angel fever once. There's a high probability that Snake, being Clover's brother, contracted the fever as well - and it seems very suspicious that four people in a group of nine would have had this one specific virus. Could this be the link among them? Junpei starts to hurry to the other cabin to check with Lotus & Santa and find out. Akane, though, doesn't express such enthusiasm over the idea: if that's the case, she says, "then we may be under quarantine."
(Incidentally, during this segment, Akane mentions how Jumpy used to eat leftovers from other kids' lunches at elementary school. Ew.)

pg. 149: Apparently, according to Akane, the angel fever virus never leaves your body; it just goes dormant. Junpei mentally likens it to the chickenpox virus lying dormant in the nerve cells. He then recalls how shingles can occur from the chickenpox virus resurging during times of low immunity in the body; I presume the reader is supposed to draw a parallel to the angel fever virus and what's happening to Kanny at this point.
Akane herself, though, draws a different parallel. She floats the theory that, as the angel fever virus isn't thoroughly understood, scientists might have made a recent big discovery about its nature - something, perhaps, like that it eventually resurges in a new form, like shingles from the chicken pox virus. Given the already-devastating nature of angel fever, however, this new form might pose a terrible threat. Perhaps that's why they've been rounded up. Junpei is skeptical, objecting that they'd surely have more than nine people under quarantine if that were the case, given all the angel fever carriers out there. Akane counters that since Junpei was hospitalized, he had to have been at least a "level 3 case," of which, she estimates, there are probably fewer than 100 in Japan - compared to about 10,000 level 1 cases. When you take into account that most of the level 3s probably died...and that, as Akane says, it "wouldn't be surprising" for the virus to have changed significantly in level 3 cases as opposed to level 1s... "So what are you saying? That 'cause we got to level 3, we've got some sort of horrible biological weapon in our bodies? That's why we've been quarantined?" "It's just a guess, but..."
Jumpy's initially doubtful, but the more he thinks about the numbers, the less he can deny it. "But what about the game?" he interjects; "The Nonary Game - what's its purpose?" Junpei then speculates, though, that there might indeed be no purpose to it - it might just serve as a distraction while the study group gathers data on them. Or perhaps, he considers, it might serve a darker goal. "Human potential in extreme situations is virtually unlimited," narrates Discovery Channel Junpei; if the group were expressly forbidden from escaping, the interdiction would merely cause them to focus all their efforts on finding a way out until they succeeded in breaking free. "But now? All of us were instead desperate to survive the game Zero had laid out for us - to run down the rails on which we had been set." Their captors, Junpei thinks, wanted them to be so focused on following Zero's orders that all other thoughts were blocked out of their heads - that they wouldn't think of unforeseen ways of escaping, and therefore would only wind up wherever their captors wanted them to be in the endgame. "This was a trap. ...We'd taken the bait Zero'd left in the form of the Nonary Game - and were walking toward our deaths."
Despite this being an internal monologue, Novel Junpei, like Game Junpei, talks to himself frequently, and Akane's caught at least a bit of his thought process. He then brings up that though Zero's told them to "look for a door with a 9," they haven't seen any such door; the only end planned for them might be death. Akane freaks out a bit and asks him not to say such things, pleading that it's not like him to give up so easily. "We haven't seen each other in nine years!" Junpei spits; "What do you know about me?!" "Nothing!" says Akane, "But when we were in elementary school, Jumpy, you--" She then again collapses with her fever.

pg. 154: Junpei steadies Kanny and guides her to a bed. She coughs several times, and Junpei observes that her symptoms sure look like angel fever. Once you've had angel fever, though, you're supposed to have developed immunity and be unable to get it again. (This runs a bit contrary to his implied chickenpox-related conclusions from several pages ago.)
Anyhow, Akane appears to be delirious and is calling for Jumpy, piteously crying, "Where are you?" Akane then starts talking about the rabbit story, and it's mentioned how they died after Akane had worked so hard to care for them. The rest of her classmates wouldn't even go near the rabbits' bodies after their deaths out of disgust, but Junpei helped Akane make graves for them and cried over them with her. (It's not expressly mentioned here that the rabbits were murdered, though Akane mentions that Jumpy also "got angry" with her, so I assume we'll learn something happened later.) Akane says that she never got to thank Junpei properly for his kindness then, and she does so now. She then muttters in half-delirium that "...back then, Jumpy, you never gave up...you kept on fighting...right to the very end!..." Junpei is briefly confused, wondering if she is referring to the time with the rabbits, or something else.
Akane remains in the room to rest; Junpei goes to get her something to drink to soothe her throat but remembers that the room doesn't have a refrigerator. He starts to go to the other cabin but turns back to check on Akane one more time - only to see her body appear to be transparent, the opposite wall clearly visible through her. He blinks, and the "illusion" is gone; he chalks up his apparent momentary visual lapse to the fact that he must be gettin' tired.

pg. 157: Junpei wonders, as per Santa's earlier words, if it might not have been easier for them all to have died earlier, to spare them the horrors that were surely waiting ahead - with only death at the end anyway. "And even if I did manage to escape," Junpei continues, "all I had waiting for me was the prospect of a dull workaday life consumed by the rat race. Just whiling the days away, with no hopes or dreams for the future...if long years of that were all that was in store for me, then dying here and now would be far easier."
Junpei then turns around from this internal soliloquy...to find Akane vanished from the bed.

pg. 158: Lotus bursts in announcing that she's found the red key (taped behind a picture frame in her cabin - of a funyarinpa?) while Junpei's tearing the cabin apart in search of Akane. They run to cabin 93 to check for her, though Lotus says she would've noticed had Akane come in. They ask Santa - who's sitting on the couch, entranced by the painting, which is of a funyarinpa - if he's seen Akane, but he completely ignores them and gives no response. (Lotus attests that he didn't help at all in searching cabin 93. "Do you really want to survive?" Lotus rages at Santa, but given his previous thoughts, Junpei feels as if the question has significance for him as well.)
Lotus suggests they check the hallway of locked doors again to see if one of them will open, then dashes out into the hallway. Junpei tries to rally Santa again, whereupon Santa blurts out that he knows where Akane's gone - "but I won't tell you for free." He instead asks Junpei to tell him what he sees in the funyarinpa painting. Junpei replies that it's "just a pattern of dots," whereupon Santa launches into all the morphogenetic field folderol (whereas he just feigned a headache in the game). When Junpei professes unfamiliarity with this, Santa then starts explaining Jung's theory of synchronicity, the idea (in the words of Jung expert Roderick Main, not Santa) that "the structure of reality includes a principle of acausal connection which manifests itself most conspicuously in the form of meaningful coincidences." Junpei & Santa explain it thusly: "You mean, like when something pops into my head and it randomly happens...or when I accidentally end up doing the same thing as someone else?" "Half right...but half wrong. Synchronicity isn't an 'accident.' It happens when information is sent from someone or something far away through a special field." He then launches into a tale about the alleged "hundredth monkey effect," where monkeys on a single island started washing the sweet potatoes they ate, and after the number of monkeys on the island washing their potatoes hit a hundred, monkeys throughout the region, and then throughout the world, spontaneously started exhibiting the behavior. (The entire tale is now claimed to be an urban legend, and...well, there's too much to capsulate here, even given 999's apophenic streak; look it up if you're interested.) He then talks about the funyarinpa TV experiment, explicitly identifying it as an experiment by Sheldrake.
At this end of all this, Junpei asks Santa what this has to do with Akane's disappearance, and Santa says, "Nothing at all" - this picture on the wall just sparked his memory. Junpei then says that Santa's gonna make him die of a burst blood vessel before the bomb gets him.

pg. 167: Lotus comes back; she's tried all the doors, and even tried the key in them, but they won't budge. The red oaken door presumably leading to the next room she hasn't tried; she was saving that for when they all got back together. Santa suggests they leave, and Junpei's all "not without June," of course, but Santa says "she's not here" - and since Junpei didn't guess the thing in the funyarinpa picture correctly, he's not obliged to tell where she went. He relents, though, and gives his answer: "The other side." Junpei then loses it and punches Santa so that he flips over the sofa.
Believe it or not, this punching is plot-related. As Santa takes a tumble, something falls out of his pocket - a little piece of silver metalwork, the "size of a bean" but intricately worked, in the shape of a four-leaf clover, with an "R" engraved on the back. Santa angrily snatches it back from Junpei, telling him to keep his hands off it - "though it might make a nice present for June in heaven." Despite a punching and Junpei's angry words, Santa continues: "But I'm right, aren't I? No way she'd've been able to escape a closed-in space like that if she weren't a ghost. So June's a ghost." Junpei flies in to deck Santa again, but Lotus holds his arms behind his back, citing that they have to look for June.
Meanwhile, Santa (his saliva tinged with blood: "I must've split the inside of his mouth. Good") decides this is an excellent time to start in on the story of Alice. In his version, however, he claims that the passengers on board the Titanic saw a ghost before the ship sunk, and that the ghost was that of the mummy - who was said to have been uncommonly beautiful, just like Akane.
Junpei, unable to take any of this anymore, runs out into the hallway and starts shouting for Akane. It's fruitless, of course.

pg. 173: Lotus suggests that Zero abducted Akane by way of a secret door. Junpei starts to go look for it, but Lotus nixes the idea: it'd be sure to be locked. Lotus, who is being very calm and methodical in this scene, states that Junpei has looked all over for her and shouted for her, she clearly isn't nearby, and they simply don't have a couple hours to search for hidden passageways. It would be better if they used the key to move to the next room; there might be a hint to June's whereabouts there.
This calms down Junpei greatly, and he agrees to go along with Lotus's plan. "This was no time for entertaining the idea that it would be easier to die here, or for any other gutless thoughts. Even if death were the fate in store for me, I couldn't stand to be killed without having discovered what was going on. I wanted to find out what was happening - then I could die."

pg. 174: Lotus inserts the key into the monitor, and a fanfare plays. There's still, though, the matter of answering the monitor's question: "WHAT'S THE NAME OF THIS SHIP?" Junpei presses the "ANSWER" button on the touchscreen again - whereupon a skull mark appears on everyone's bracelets & a beeping starts, just like with the RED/DEAD countdown, and an 81-second timer appears on the monitor. Oh, dear.
Junpei nervously types in the "Titanic", but a buzzer sounds - that's wrong. (Lotus is particularly vexed at this, as she, like Akane, identified the staircase as being from the Titanic movie.) He then tries the "Olympic", but that's no good either. Santa's come flying out of cabin 93, demanding to know about the skull on his bracelet; Lotus is almost panicking. There are 40 seconds left.
Lotus asks if there were any other ships made like the Titanic. Junpei then remembers that Akane, in her own Titanic talk, mentioned that it was one of "three sister ships." What was the third? Junpei racks the morphogenetic field - er, his brain, and just as Santa actually offers to take over, with 20 seconds left, Jumpy enters the correct answer: the Britannic. The screen flashes "OK," the lock opens, and the bracelets return to normal. Lotus, overjoyed, asks Junpei how he knew the answer, but he's at a loss to explain: "I was more shocked than anyone. I had never even heard of the Britannic before. How did I know it was the answer?" He shrugs it off, though; he has to focus on finding Akane.

pg. 180: The group arrives in the galley. Junpei starts yelling for June, but it's no good. Lotus, meanwhile, is disappointed that they're not at the exit; Santa smirks that Zero "ain't gonna let us get out of here that easily."
There's a locked green door, and another monitor with a question: "WHAT'S THE NAME OF THE SCAAAARY ILLNESS THAT HAS CLOSE TIES TO ALL NINE OF YOU?" (No, I don't know what's up with the kiddie speak.)
Junpei, of course, has the answer right away. Lotus is shocked at the mention of angel fever, whereupon Junpei starts filling her in on his conversation with June about the subject. Lotus listens with a tense, wary expression, confirming that both Junpei and June reached level 3. Junpei turns to Santa and asks if he's had a brush with the disease; Santa confirms that he caught it from his little sister. (Junpei, meanwhile, is shocked to learn that an irresponsible person like Santa has a little sister.) Santa doesn't know what level case he was, but upon confirming that he was hospitalized for two weeks, Junpei concludes that he could only have been a level 3.

pg. 183: Santa takes a frozen package of what looks like hot dogs and wonders aloud if they can eat them, but sniffs them and determines they're no good. (Can you do that with frozen food - tell if it's bad by smelling it? Frozen food doesn't typically have much of a scent in my experience.)
Santa, though, has a more useful contribution to make to the conversation ("Sorry to derail your precious train of thought"): Upon hearing that Junpei got angel fever just last month, Santa chimes in that angel fever cases are overwhelmingly children - in fact, he doesn't believe that there's been a single case in anyone over 25. For a person in their early twenties to get it is exceptionally rare. Plus, the first case of angel fever appeared only twelve years ago - so it's highly unlikely that Lotus herself has ever been a carrier of the disease. (He makes another tired crack at her age during this deduction, to which Lotus again objects.)
This is the cue for Lotus's backstory, and it is far different than in the game. Indeed, Lotus never had angel fever - but her daughter (singular) did, at level 3, nine years ago. "......Did she die?" Lotus stares off into the middle distance, nods, and says: "Probably." Nona (no Ennea here) disappeared, shortly after her angel fever cleared up.
She disappeared in an incident where 16 children "living in the city" vanished in one night, then returned two days later (attesting that they had been "kidnapped by spacemen"). Lotus's daughter, however, disappeared the same day but did not return. She went to the police, but they wouldn't help her - because she was a single parent, and because novel Lotus works in the mizu shoubai, Japan's nighttime entertainment industry, which includes everything from pubs to hostess bars to less-reputable stuff. (Which is the explanation here for Lotus's outfit, I suppose.) Lotus believes the police assumed she took the opportunity of the mass abductions to abandon or do away with her own child ("I was outright told: 'You're the reason your child is gone - aren't you?'"), though no charges were apparently filed to that end.
Angered, Lotus launched her own investigation. She researched the backgrounds of the other children who were abducted and discovered they had a few crucial points in common with Nona: they all had had level 3 angel fever and had all gone to the same hospital for their illness & hospitalization. It didn't take much for Lotus to find this out, but it went unreported in the mass media, so she presumes that they were under pressure or had been paid hush money. (She thinks the police ended their investigation of the incident prematurely for the same reason.)
With her daughter gone, Lotus lost her reason to live. Junpei looks at her right arm, and though they were hidden by Lotus's bangles before, he now notices several scars near the wrists. Lotus's attempts at suicide, however, were all unsuccessful - though she made so many she says the doctors at the emergency ward would exclaim "You again?" when she was brought in.
Lotus had a particularly strange incident occur to her, however, during one of her hospitalizations, when she couldn't sleep and went to the hospital's back garden: she saw a young girl - a girl who looked like her daughter, except high-school age - sobbing underneath a tree, repeating over and over: "I don't want to die. I don't want to fade away." Lotus presumed she was one of the hospital's many end-stage cancer patients - and wished desperately she could trade places with the poor girl. "That girl taught me - the joy of being able to wake up in the morning and realize that, oh, I'm alive today; how wonderful it is to be able to have a body that's healthy. It was then that the scales fell from my eyes," Lotus says; "I made up my mind right then and there - that even though my daughter is probably gone, it does no good to sit around crying for eternity. I have to live - for my daughter." Lotus apologizes for burdening Junpei with "the rantings of an old woman," then draws herself up and goes to search for the next key.

pg. 191: Junpei asks Lotus what happened to the girl under the tree that one night. Lotus says she doesn't know - when she asked about her at the hospital reception desk to thank her, she was told there was no such patient. She showed the staff a photo of Nona, since she looked so much like the girl, but this led to nothing.
"Nona?" Junpei asks. (Lotus hasn't mentioned her daughter's name before; I've been using it for convenience. No, there is no mention of Ennea.) Lotus explains that she was a fan of the song "Ue o Muite Arukou" (released as "Sukiyaki" in the U.S.), by the artist Kyu Sakamoto, and goes into "nona" being a Latin prefix meaning "nine." "Like the Nonary Game, then," notes Junpei, realizing, rather belatedly, that there have been an awful lot of nine-related things in the game so far.
Returning to other matters, Lotus thinks, perhaps, that the girl she saw in the garden that night was Nona's ghost. She believes she feels her spirit watching over her at times - "pushing me forward, telling me: 'Hang in there, Mom!' I'm not going to let her down. I'm going to survive...and get out of here. I swear it."
Junpei takes heart in Lotus's story and determination. Contrary to his previous attitude, he swears not to give up, and to live "for Lotus; for her lost daughter; for Akane; for the other players; for Dad; for Mom; for my teachers; for my friends" - OK, he kind of overdoes it, but he's out of the doldrums, is what I'm saying.

pg. 193: Santa waltzes in; he's found the key. He wasn't really searching for it, he explains; he just happened upon it while he was looking for something to eat.

pg. 193: Lotus mentions that Santa's sister must have had a time of it with a brother like him. "She's gone," he replies. "Died from angel fever." Junpei notes that "His reply was instantaneous, delivered with his usual poker face. But it was then I realized - that even though I'd always thought of him as cold-blooded, I could see that his eyes were filled with deep sadness. Maybe he'd shown me a glimpse of the real Santa. Maybe the rest was just him putting up a front."

pg. 194: The group fits in the key, types in "angel fever," and goes to take off - when they hear the sound of a door opening behind them. "Jumpy! Thank goodness!" It's Akane, who flies into Junpei's arms and just sobs. Akane starts in about being left alone and being so frightened, which utterly confuses Junpei: "Where have you been?" "What're you talking about, Jumpy? I was asleep, in the bed - in cabin 92!" Junpei has no explanation, though he doesn't think that Akane's lying; he resolves, however, to belay such considerations until they get out of here.

pg. 197: Another Part 9, more mysterious narration: "......Was it nine years ago? I heard them talking, and everything became clear. How could this be? Was this some sort of trick? Who could be behind it?"
"......God. That was the only answer that came to me."

pg. 201: Chapter Four: Where? (or The Search, in the Japanese underneath), and the group arrives in the infirmary. In addition to the three numbered doors, there's one door with no marks and no handle. There's also a whiteboard on the wall with a message: "Today's death toll: 1".

pg. 206: Snake's group came out an orange door, if anyone cares. They found their first key in a dresser drawer, and the second in a shaker behind the bar. Zero's game in the novels is turning out to be a lot like the old Nickelodeon game show Finders Keepers. (I do hope Zero moves on to GUTS and works in the Aggro Crag at some point.) Their monitors asked the same questions as did the ones in Junpei's group, both of which Snake answered handily.

pg. 207: Clover confirms that both Snake and she had angel fever, with Snake catching it from Clover nine years ago. Clover's case got only to level 1, but His Majesty got to level 3 - because he hasn't physically suffered enough with losing his sight and an arm, apparently - and earned himself a two-week hospitalization.
Clover then starts apologizing for always being a burden to her brother, claiming that it was her fault that he lost his sight - he tried to save her from falling off a cliff when she was seven (no car accident here, I guess). She goes on that Snake even became unable to play his beloved guitar, at which Snake tells her not to say any more, "a rare note of harshness entering his tone." (I've looked online, and I don't see anything claiming that it's impossible for the blind to learn or play guitar - unless this is referring to Snake's false arm, which is not yet confirmed as appearing in the novels. Then again, Snake's false arm seems to function more or less just like a normal arm in 999 - it allowed him to hold a man in a death grip until they both were incinerated, at least - and in the dystopian hellscape of Virtue's Last Reward, it's claimed that its Snake plays or learned to play the harp. Then again, Virtue's Last Reward also postulates that a consciousness of a 22-year-old can be transferred to the body of a 67-year-old without said consciousness noticing any changes in voice, skin texture, muscle tone, joint function, physical stamina, eyesight, hearing, or height, not to mention the effects of any physical injuries that have occurred in the space of 45 years, and is therefore is not to be taken as an authority on anything in this physical plane.)
As for how Ace is connected, well, hey!: you get three guesses as to the name of the company manufacturing the treatment for angel fever, and the first two don't count. "I......work for a certain pharmaceutical company," Ace offers; "it was the research team to which I belonged that developed a vaccine that was effective against angel fever." "So you work for Cradle Pharmaceuticals?" Santa says. Snake tries to warn Santa off, reminding him that they've decided not to say anything too personally identifying, but Santa counters that it's clear now that Zero didn't choose them at random, so what does it matter. Snake, though (I think - the attribution isn't clear), tells him, "Enough. This isn't the time to argue," whereupon Santa backs down ("as if fearing he'd get punched again," notes Junpei, making Santa the second person in the morphogenetic field after Jumpy to quail at the threat of a lesson in physical pain from Snake).
As for Seven, he can't remember his connection with angel fever, because the novel has decided he has memory loss after all - at least for stuff that happened earlier than nine years ago. Junpei, meanwhile, finally clues in that something important must've happened nine years ago, since that time frame seems to be popping up frequently in their discussions of angel fever. Please forget what I said about novel Junpei being sharper than game Junpei.

pg. 211: Lotus asks how the other group found out the true name of the ship. Snake smiles slightly and says that he, naturally, couldn't see the staircase that misled everyone else; instead, when he woke up, he noted the pervasive antiseptic & medicinal smells through the vessel. He also felt that the walls of the ship were rather old, so he theorized that they might have been on a hospital ship that had been active during wartime. When Clover mentioned that the staircase was straight out of the movie Titanic (does the novel take place in the future, too? If so, why are there still so many avid fans of this movie?), he concluded that they had to be on the Titanic's sister hospital ship.
(Incidentally, in explaining his heightened senses - in a response to a comment by Lotus that she couldn't smell any antiseptics - he also mentions that he can tell Lotus had a bourbon & water and a pizza with plenty of basil last night for dinner.)

pg. 217: While searching for the innards of the RED, Junpei turns over recent strange events in his mind and identifies Snake as a dubious character, finding his preternatural composure to shade "beyond admirable into suspicious" and "his extraordinary sense of smell" to be "indisputably threatening." This is the first time in human history that anyone has been threatened by a sense of smell.

pg. 218: As Junpei is traveling down a long corridor, his attention is arrested by a single black door amidst all the white ones. He feels that something must be behind it, but it doesn't open.

pg. 222: Time to go search for Snake and Clover. Junpei is the first to go after Clover when she bolts ("We can't leave two people behind!"), followed right along by June - then Ace and Seven, each with a variation of "guess we've got no choice." Seven pulls Santa along before he can respond (no "couple of idiots" line here). Lotus comes along at Seven's prompting because she "can't open a door by myself."

pg. 224: Jumpy & June go back to search the rooms behind Door 4 for Snake, noting that his mysterious disappearance was just like Akane's before. They don't mention this to the larger group or Clover, though - which really makes no sense, considering how close the parallels are in this continuity. (Even if Snake hadn't disappeared, it seems implausible for someone in their group not to mention, "Hey, June disappeared for a good chunk of time during our search. She thought she was still in the cabin, but we sure couldn't find her. Zero might be snatching & grabbing people temporarily, so be on the lookout.")
Anyhow, Lotus, who was supposed to stay with Clover, follows Junpei and Akane (leaving Clover with Santa) to propose teaming up with Seven and going through a door. Akane's the one who ends the argument by bringing up Door 9, not Junpei.
Junpei's mental run-over about realizing that only five people can go through a number 9 door is a little more explicit: "We couldn't save ourselves without sacrificing someone else - we'd have to let our comrades die. Could I really do such a thing?"

pg. 230: Novel Santa has, of course, abandoned his post and left Clover alone to sob. Santa is found looking at the RED in front of Door 3, where he pops "who do you think put back the RED?" quiz, which novel Junpei is unable to answer, after dismissing both the possibilities of Snake and Zero. Santa offers that it was "one of the eight of us"; when Junpei counters that the person would've fessed up if so, Santa answers: "Man, you're naive. Ever occur to you that one of us might be lying?" Junpei protests that there's no reason to lie about finding the RED. Santa: "Well... Might be awkward for them if they got found out." "What do you mean, 'awkward'?" "Dunno. ...But I can hazard a guess. ...They probably had something to do with Snake's disappearance."
Junpei simply stares at Santa in reply, whereupon Santa turns away from his gaze and issues a word of caution: "Trust someone in this game, and you lose. Your closest confidant could wind up stabbing you in the back." (Santa, don't set us up for Virtue's Last Reward, please. But: Why is Santa seemingly warning Junpei against June here?)

pg. 234: Lotus makes her "someone's gotta be sacrificed" play. Jumpy can't figure out all the bracelet/door combinations to confirm the idea that all seven of them can't make it through, so he goes to the "Today's death toll" whiteboard, located in the corner of the room, to do some combinatorics. When he gets there, he sees that Today's Death Toll has been updated from 1 to 2. That's just mean, Kurashikis. (Or maybe Ace did it just to be a smartass.) Junpei quickly wipes it away with his palm so that Clover doesn't see it.
Then we get three pages of number combinations laying out the idea that not everyone can go through the doors. Seriously, three of the pages are just covered with groups of numbers showing all the different ways the players can be split.
(Incidentally, if this is supposed to be a largely period-accurate replica of the ship, then what is a whiteboard doing here in the first place?)

pg. 240: Novel Santa is noncommittal to the idea of sacrificing someone, as he is to any idea offered in the course of the novel. Lotus nevertheless counts him as an "aye" ("Well, we'll just count that as 'yes'"). The voting otherwise goes as in the game. (Lotus is more forceful than gleeful here, though - no giggling.)

pg. 242: Ace, at the end of his "I'm staying behind" speech, adds that "I'm the oldest of us. I'm the slowest, and the slowest-witted, and I'm obviously not a threat or capable of gutting you all later the one most likely to become a burden up ahead. Am I right?"

pg. 244: When June looks to Jumpy for support in her last pleas for Ace, he can't find any words of support to offer her, "hollow and fake" or otherwise: "I was painfully aware that she was asking for my help, but I could find no advice to give."

pg. 245: Soporil-Beta is called "Mandraine/Beta" here; Tumblr user whenyousayrun informs me that the latter is indeed the drug's name in the Japanese-language games as well.

pg. 246: June appears to be a bit more frantic at Ace's evident sacrifice, and Junpei notes, as he looks at Ace going to sleep, that "it was just like he had settled into his deathbed..." Despite the dialogue being pretty much identical for most of the scene, there's a greater sense at this point that Ace's decision means curtains for him.
I do have to say that the novel gives a strong sense of things getting steadily worse for the group. Snake seems to navigate the game handily and makes things easy for his group, then he's taken away. Lotus has an inspirational backstory that seems to give her strength to survive the game, but she goes into overdrive utilitarian mode. Someone appears to actually sacrifice themself and die. Worst of all, Jumpy & June are going to be ~SEPARATED~ coming up.

pg. 248: Lotus brings up that they have to choose doors without being reminded of it by Santa - who, speak of the devil, has been working out who can go in which door while the "obnoxious human drama" about Ace was unfolding. Door 3 is flatly off the table, since they don't have the numbers to do it. Akane has tears in her eyes as they realize they'll be separated etc. etc. etc. I didn't have patience for this in the game, and I don't now.

pg. 253: Junpei asks Akane to go through door 8 with Lotus because he feels that she's the most dependable of the other players and thinks that her motherly instincts and love for her lost daughter will lead her to watch over Akane. Er, Junpei, did you miss the part just now where Lotus abandoned a sobbing Clover to talk to you about betraying the other members of the group? Did you forget Lotus's "I'm not their babysitter" line when Akane was having a fever attack before? I know we've got to get to True Ending party formations somehow, and in the game, that happens through info Junpei won't get here (the idea that you've gotta be able to talk with Clover instead of her being stuck in a room with Science Boy), but...c'mon.
Meanwhile, Santa is glad to be in a different party from Junpei, since it means he won't get punched.

pg. 255: And we've come to another Part 9: "Junpei's thoughts reach me: 'Do your best, Akane.' And I cry out in prayer: You, too, Jumpy - don't you give up, either! I wonder if my thoughts got through to him?"

pg. 256: And we go out with a Part 0, with a person whom the reader is led to believe is Zero but who is probably Ace from the first Nonary Game thinking that the participants are taking too long and need some "new terror" injected into the proceedings, as he looks at a gun in his inside pocket. "It is when we are staring death in the face that we unlock our true potential," says probably-Ace, and that's the end of Vol. 1.




VOLUME 2

back cover: In honor of the game's denouement, the text on the back cover is right-side up, but the illustration is printed upside-down.

pg. 10: Chapter 5: Déjà Vu, and Seven is carrying Clover under his arm as they race for Door 7's DEAD.

pg. 12: Seven drags the mannequin off the table and discovers a message written in red underneath: "WE'RE NOT GUINEA PIGS." This appears to frighten Seven, then trigger a memory flashback for him; he clutches his temples and mutters: "Aoi...Raito no...Naka...ne..."

pg. 14: Novel Seven reveals that he hasn't had amnesia just for the duration of this kidnapping: he's been an amnesiac for the past nine years. He doesn't remember what his name was, where he lived, or what his life was like before nine years ago. "I washed up on Kujukuri Beach nine years ago last summer, when I was saved by a fisherman on his way out. I was wearing just an old ripped-up T-shirt & jeans. Didn't even have any shoes on, that I remember." Seven goes on to say that he didn't have anything on his person, either - just a crumpled-up convenience-store receipt. "The receipt told me that I'd bought a bento box at a convenience store in the city. I had nothing else to go on, so I went to Tokyo - but I didn't find anything. Even now, I have no clues."
Seven continues that he gets headaches whenever he tries to remember anything - but never so acute as the one he had just now. "I wonder, is it...déjà vu? I...get the feeling I know this ship from somewhere before." He got the same feeling in the infirmary as well. Seven repeats the "aoi raito no naka ne" phrase he remembered, feeling it's "got somethin' major to do with the reason I lost my memory." Junpei is confused: "'Inside the blue light!'? What could that mean?" ("Inside the blue light" is indeed the interpretation of the phrase "aoi raito no naka ne"; Seven is probably thinking of the phrase "aoi, raito, to akane", meaning "Aoi, Light, and Akane".)
(Note from the Future: Past me missed a vital part of the message here! Can YOU spot it?)
Meanwhile, Clover watches Seven transfixed, her expression slightly changing.

pg. 15: Seven: "Sorry. Ain't the time for this kinda talk now. Let's seek a way out." Roll credits. ...Wait.

pg. 16: Clover finds the locked door of the room behind a cloth screen. This time, it's painted pink, and it has the odd detail of a crystal doorknob. We also get another quiz: "WHAT’S THE NAME OF THE SUBSTANCE BEHIND THE WHITE SMOKE THAT KNOCKED YOU OUT?" Junpei guesses (not into-the-computer officially, just in his head) that it's "anesthetic gas" (masui gasu), given its effects, but then checks himself and imagines that it's not that easy. Seven suggests they find the key first, then worry about the answer.

pg. 17: The group starts searching for the key. Clover is initially out of it, but eventually, "as if realizing that she'd need to move forward to find Snake," starts searching frantically near the partition. Jumpy, meanwhile, takes the medicine cabinet but realizes that it's locked. "If you're looking for the key, it's here," offers Seven, reaching through the small crack between the cabinet and the wall to retrieve the key. Junpei is shocked: "How did you know where the key was, Seven?" Seven is at a loss to explain and actually rather shaken once Junpei brings up the point. "So...I have been on this ship before?" "But this is a hospital ship, isn't it?" reminds Junpei, who doubts that Seven is a doctor and therefore wonders why he knows the location of the ship's medical supplies; "What would you be doing here?" "It's because you're an Esper," murmurs Clover.
Junpei and Seven both are familiar with the term, and Seven scoffs at the idea: "If that were true, I'd teleport off this boat this instant and take you all with me." Clover insists, though: "Déjà vu is a type of precognition. You said you've seen this operating room before, right, old man? You probably foresaw what was going to happen today, like in a dream." Clover continues that Seven was the first to notice that Snake was blind. Seven protests that "That wasn't me being psychic. That was my detective's intuit--", and he stops himself, shocked. "I was a detective?" Seven again clutches his temples; he tries to remember but can recall no more.
Clover asks Seven to use his psychic powers to find her brother, but Seven demurs: "Sorry; I'm just a big lug. I don't have any psychic powers." They then go back and forth on whether or not psychic powers even exist in the first place, with Seven claiming psychics are frauds and Clover countering that, despite frauds, there are still lots of people who are the real deal. "Don't you know? They even predicted the sinking of the Titanic, right on the nose!" Clover goes on to talk about the novel Futility, and Junpei mentally reviews what he himself knows about the parallels between the novel and the actual Titanic disaster. (Interesting that two competing theories regarding Futility are mentioned here: Clover's idea that the Futility author foresaw the disaster, and Akane's bandying of the story that J. P. Morgan & friends were inspired by the novel to sink the Titanic deliberately.) Despite Akane's previous review of this info, Junpei finds that he is a bit overly familiar with the Titanic/Futility parallels - he is again shocked at his knowledge of the Titanic disaster, as he was at his knowledge of its second sister ship. "All this Titanic trivia I should never have known was pouring into my head, as if I were accessing a computer." Seven notices Junpei's confusion, but Junpei doesn't want to get dragged into the "psychic powers" debate, so he begs off for now. Seven then says that they need to return to finding the pink key. (Clover persists in trying to enlist Seven's supposed psychic powers in tracking Snake, but Seven insists they have to find the key to progress before they do anything.)

pg. 22: Junpei complains that the labels of the bottles in the cabinet are all in Western text and thus difficult for him to understand.

pg. 22: Junpei finds the key in the medicine cabinet. Or, rather, he finds a key - but it's yellow, not pink. It can't even fit in the pink door. In a fit of pique, Junpei angrily flings the key, intending to hit the floor - but his throw just happens to go wild, and the key just happens to strike a bottle that Junpei just happened to have placed on the floor earlier. The bottle just happens to break, and inside just happens to be the pink key. Maybe you're the one with the psychic powers, Junpei.
Furthermore, when Junpei moves to collect the key, he notices that the spilled liquid is rapidly evaporating into a white smoke. Junpei notes it smells like "fragrant olive" (the tree), recalls he's encountered the scent elsewhere recently, and deduces that the liquid is the source of Zero's knockout gas.
Problem, though: the gas from the broken bottle is continuing to fill the operating room. Seven, Clover, and Junpei are forced out into the corridor, and they note that it's only a matter of time before it's flooded with gas, too. Seven notes they gotta hold their breath and run to the door & use the key, check the label on the broken bottle for the identity of the liquid, then enter the name into the monitor. Clover asks the others to wait a moment before they go, though; she takes a small pendant-like object from her pocket, clasps it to her chest, and closes her eyes, "as if in prayer." Junpei asks Clover what she has; Clover responds: "a good-luck charm." Clover holds out her hand, and Junpei sees that the charm is identical to the one Santa had previously. Clover then recites the phrase about hope, faith, love, and luck she says her brother taught her (which is the same as in the game). She turns the pendant over; the little "R" engraving is present on the back.
Junpei asks if Clover got the pendant from Santa: "He has one just like it." "He does? Well, Santa was in the experiment nine years ago--" but then Seven cuts her off with a shout that they've got to hurry.

pg. 26: Seven counts down from three to...zero, and furthermore, everyone knows to move on zero, somehow. That they've got the digit on their minds is understandable, I suppose.

pg. 28: Seven's job is to read the label on the bottle while Junpei punches it into the screen, but Seven has trouble with English and can't read the bottle well. He chokes out "Man...Mand...", and Clover finishes with "Mandraine" (Soporil), remembering what Ace injected himself with earlier. Incidentally, everyone's shouting and jabbering, and I don't see how they're not breathing the gas in.

pg. 29: After they escape, Clover's having a hard time, clutching her chest, and asks to rest a bit, so Seven asks Junpei to stay with her while he scouts ahead.
Junpei takes the opportunity to try to talk to Clover about the experiment she mentioned, as Sherlock has figured out here that something important happened nine years ago, given that Seven's amnesia, the disappearance of Lotus's daughter, and various players' cases of angel fever all occurred around that date. A teary Clover (still staring at her good luck charm) initially demurs, but she agrees to talk after Junpei promises not to tell anyone else. (Clover is more childlike and passive in the novel; again, it's not an improvement.) Clover's revelation: "My brother was a subject in the Nonary Project held on board this ship nine years ago." No, not Clover herself; only Snake was kidnapped in the novel's version of events. He and the other subjects were threatened with death if they ever revealed the truth behind their abduction; Snake, though, naturally told his sister everything that had happened.
The kids took part in a Nonary Game, of course, but the object of the game here was to "develop an ability that could control a human mind through sheer will," as in the game, pretty much. (This premise lacks apparent logic - as much as the morphogenetic field stuff can have, anyway - without Snake's lengthy explanation of Hongou's plan from the true ending.) She reveals that Santa was one of the test subjects in the project, hence his possession of a similar silver clover charm. "My brother made them!" enthuses Clover. "They're so exquisite, and he made them all with just his right hand!" One of Snake's hands being fake confirmed? Anyhow, the "R" on the back is his signature, because "R" is his...er, real initial. L/R confusion strikes again. Snake the silversmith had made nine of the charms nine years ago for Clover's ninth birthday, but he was kidnapped shortly beforehand, so he gave them to his fellow abductees as a "proof of friendship." ("My brother has such a soft heart!")
The rules of the game were much the same as the current one: any participants who escaped through Door 9 would be put to sleep again and returned home. "For two kids, though," Clover says, "that didn't turn out to be true" - because in the novel version, two children, not just one, died in the experiment. The first was Nona ("eight years old, the smallest of the group"). The second, of course, was Akane, though Clover can make it only to her lips forming an "a" sound before Seven returns and she cuts off her story.

pg. 35: Actually, speak of the devil: Akane's with Seven, as well as Santa and Lotus. Like in the game, the other group went through the Laboratory. They got the question through Akane remembering the name of the sedative with which Ace injected himself. She also found a black key in their medicine cabinet - upon which Seven trumpets their own find of an extra key. "Never overlook a clue, no matter how small - textbook investigation protocol." (But you didn't have anything to do with finding the key, Seven - not the color-coded keys, anyhow.) Akane entrusts the black key to Junpei; she says she's afraid she'll lose it.

pg. 37: Lotus hurries everyone forward: "If we keep this up, we might escape ahead of schedule!" The door leading back to the infirmary is an automatic sensor door, for some reason.

pg. 38: Part 9 again: "I couldn't help it. It was a horrible shock: the revelation that came from Clover's lips about the Nonary Project. That's impossible! I screamed. Please...someone help me...... But my pleas reached no one."

pg. 39: Chapter 6: Murder. Apparent murder of Snake, or murder of apparent Zero? I'm not sure we have enough space to do the "fake Snake body" subplot. Then again, we do have four chapters and about 230 pages left. The denouement takes a bit, though.

pg. 40: The text confirms that the group's returned to the infirmary through the unmarked door between Door 3 and Door 7.

pg. 40: Ace, with whom the group has naturally reunited, is the first to suggest that the extra keys they found can be used to unlock the locked doors they've encountered on other floors (Lotus is the one to voice initial puzzlement at this suggestion; though she's made the group leader, she's often framed as the clueless one. Trade-offs.) The black key, Ace continues, can probably be used in the black door Jumpy found in his search of the infirmary - which is probably the other side of the black door he found on C Deck that's mentioned on pg. 44 of Vol. 1; if the group passes through this door, they can access the great hall again and go back to the locked elevator - which probably activates with the yellow key, as one of its doors was painted yellow. Jumpy pumps his fist at this realization.

pg. 43: Clover, Ace, and Seven go off to investigate Door 3, as per the game. Lotus & Seven's "be careful" exchange from the game is present, though Seven takes a moment to flash a grin and actively flirt ("Smitten by my charms, huh?"), and Lotus's denial, while identical in content, is stuttery and tonewise more not-that-I-like-you-or-anything rather than actively mercenary.
When Seven puts his hand to the RED, though, it doesn't register - there's no asterisk on the display. He wonders if the unit's broken - but Clover and Ace's bracelets register just fine. Clover pulls the lever, and even though only two asterisks show in the RED, the door opens.
Seven asks Clover to wait up - he doesn't know if his bracelet is broken or not, and if he goes in without the RED having registered him, the consequences will be...unfavorable. Clover rushes in regardless, though - and Seven's bracelet (as well as Ace's) starts beeping, as the bracelets do under death countdown. Seven concludes that if this is happening, he has to proceed as if his bracelet is working, so he runs in.

pg. 48: Santa lies down on a bed in the infirmary, saying that he doesn't need to come along on a scouting-out trip and that he'll just wait here for the Door 3 group to return. Lotus starts moving toward him menacingly, but Akane stops her, saying that there might as well be someone to greet the Door 3 folks if they get back early.

pg. 49: Junpei thinks back to how Kanny was so good at playing the piano and used to play for him a lot. He asks if she still plays, and Akane replies with a faltering "Ah - y-yes...". Junpei goes on that Akane always dreamed of becoming a piano teacher and comments that she "must be going to a music school or something now, right?". Akane, though, doesn't answer; she can only stare blankly, like a deer caught in the headlights. At length, she confesses that she "can't really remember that well." "Don't tell me you've got amnesia, too!" Junpei jokes, forgetting that Akane did indeed say she was having gaps in her memory earlier.
Lotus hears the conversation and offers that Akane's memory issues might be a side effect of the gas, but Akane again affirms that she's been having trouble even before recent events. Lotus asks if she's been seeing a doctor about them, but Akane makes like she can't remember. Junpei then asks if Akane can recall her coming-of-age ceremony (held for people who have reached the age of 20 in a given year), which she should have attended last year. Akane again says, "no," and she herself looks shocked at the assertion. Junpei asks what high school and middle school she attended, but Akane cannot answer. Her memories of elementary school and being with Jumpy, however, are very clear. ("So, she only remembers things that happened before nine years ago. It was the exact opposite of Seven's condition," Jumpy notes.) Junpei swears to get Akane to a doctor as soon as they get off the ship.
"It might be anterograde amnesia," Lotus offers, noting that damage to the hippocampus can impair the brain's ability to form memories. "What's the last event you can remember clearly?" "I remember saying goodbye to Jumpy, then moving to my father's house...oh - and right after that, I got sick. After that, it all goes hazy..." Lotus asserts that Akane's angel fever might be responsible for her memory impairment; once a patient hits level 3, the illness goes to their brain, after all. Junpei objects: "But June hasn't shown any signs at all of memory impairment since she came here. She remembers everyone's nicknames, and understands the rules of the Nonary Game, and can hold normal conversations--" June herself, though, jumps in to confess that that isn't entirely true - she's been hiding it, but she has had memory lapses here and there on the ship. Parts of when they were searching cabin 92, for example, are rather fuzzy. In other words, the time when she was missing. (She also mentions that she's kind of hazy on what happened right after they went through Door 7.) Jumpy is at a loss for what to say; he's not entirely convinced that anterograde amnesia is the answer, though.

pg. 54: The black door on C Deck indeed leads Junpei et al. back to where they started, the Great Hall with the clock.
The group tries the elevator. There are buttons for A Deck to E Deck. They select A. Lotus complains about the elevator being slow.

pg. 56: On the way up, Junpei wonders whether he should tell Lotus Clover's news about Nona's death. He doesn't come to a conclusion before the ride ends.

pg. 56: The elevator takes the crew to from C Deck to A Deck and Doors 1, 2, and 6. (Junpei checks the RED units on each, just to make sure they're functional this time.) Lotus points out that they can go ahead and go in Door 1, forgetting what Akane said earlier about them not being able to go in Door 9. Junpei brings it up and tells Lotus to knock it off. Lotus: "All right! I was just mentioning possibilities..."

pg. 57: Speaking of which: Junpei brings up the possibility of using the elevator to visit the lower floors. Lotus is incredulous at this, pointing out that the lower floors are flooded. Junpei points out that the elevator isn't wet, so it has to be safe - but, unlike in the game, the elevator has multiple possible destinations, and while they hear the elevator arrive from another floor while they're on C Deck, it's not mentioned whether it came from above or below. The game also has Junpei send the car down to E Deck, hear the doors open down there, then confirm that the car is dry after its return before venturing below with June; novel Junpei does this only after the fact. How much confidence you place in Junpei's initial assertions here boils down to how watertight you think the Nonary Game elevator shaft doors are and whether they could hold back possible floodwaters on E Deck like the other doors in the site, but what I'm saying is that Novel Junpei, and the novel itself, are considerably more cocky in his assertion than events warrant. (The text makes fun of Lotus for doubting Junpei, describing her expression as "bewitched by a fox," a Japanese expression that effectively means "dumbfounded.")

pg. 60: Akane squeezes into the elevator at the last second, insisting on going with Junpei to investigate despite him telling her to stay behind. Junpei puts a hand to her forehead and tousles her hair. Akane reflects on another memory: a time in elementary school when she had mentioned that she had never seen a dolphin before - "And, Jumpy, you told me, 'Then let's go to the aquarium during summer vacation!'. That made me so happy!" Akane had to go live with her father that year, though, so they never got to go.
"It must've been rough for you back then," Junpei offers, but Akane denies this: "I know it'll make my mother in Heaven upset saying this, but I was really thrilled to meet my father and brother again! I was separated from them when I was a little girl!" Junpei is shocked at this; he never knew Akane had a brother. "Oh? I've never mentioned him? I have a brother who's three years older than me. His name is Aoi. I hadn't seen him in such a long time - ever since we were separated when I was four." Junpei asks if she got along well with him; Akane looks sad for a moment, then says: "I'm sorry. I can't remember."

pg. 63: The pair arrives on E Deck, which is dry, but completely sealed in by steel plates painted indigo. "...We're surrounded by the ocean here...aren't we?" asks Akane. "Yeah, I guess," says Jumpy. "Then there could be dolphins swimming right by us, right on the other side of the wall," muses Akane, giving a slight smile.

"I'm sorry - you might get mad at me for being so silly at a time like this...but I guess I'm a little excited. It's like today is summer vacation after elementary school, and I'm together with Jumpy on our aquarium date--"
Her eyes suddenly began to fill with tears.
"...I wish this were all a dream."
Wracked with sobs, Akane continued.
"I finally got to see you again, Jumpy...but why...why did it have to be like this?!..."
The sight of her crying caused emotions from deep within me to rise unbidden to the surface. On impulse, I grabbed Akane and held her tight against me.
I felt Akane's heartbeat, her warmth, through my body.
"...Jumpy?"
"Don't worry. This
is a dream. We're just both having a nightmare."
My nostrils burned. My heart was aching, as if there were a leaden mass inside.
"And when we wake up, we'll go to the aquarium together. Right, Akane?"
"......That's right."
Her quaking voice spoke from near my heart.

pg. 65: The group returns to the infirmary to discover the Door 3 crew back and the news that Snake is dead. Seven has an "aghast" expression; all the blood is drained from Ace's face; and "Clover looked as though she might fade away at any second." (Novel Santa is, of course, unfazed. He's the one who breaks the news to Junpei et al., though at least he has the courtesy to do so in a whisper.)
Junpei's reaction to the news is a little overblown: "A shiver coursed through my body, as if I had been run through. My heart raced like mad, and I struggled to breathe. My forehead and neck broke out in a slow, cold sweat."

pg. 66: Junpei, Akane, & Lotus go to investigate Door 3 and see Snake's body for themselves. (Ace mentions that they've propped the rear door open with a pillow.)
Upon entering the Door 3 room, the trio's senses are immediately assaulted: "A bizarre stench filled the environs. There was the smell of blood, the smell of something rotten, the smell of excrement, the smell of something burnt - all muddled together to create a vile odor that assaulted the nostrils."
The setup behind Door 3 is a considerable departure from that of the game: it's an x-ray room, not a shower room, and the puzzle, and tableau of "Snake"'s death, is completely different:

A blood-red light from the ceiling illuminated seven anatomical models, all staring in the same direction. Each had a photo close-up of one of us pasted across its face.
When were these taken? In mine, my lips were tightened in an expression of rage. Right next to me, Akane's doll-like eyes sparkled above a brilliant smile.
Lotus pouted, Seven's eyes glowed with anger, and Santa cracked a devil-may-care smile. Ace's eyes and mouth were closed firmly shut; Clover flashed puppy-dog eyes - but Snake and the Ninth Man were nowhere to be found.
I followed the mannequins' gaze to a cloth partition. Fresh blood was splattered against the wall within. The radial pattern left no illusion as to Snake's whereabouts.

Junpei asks Akane to stay put and holds her back with the palm of his hand; then, followed by Lotus, he checks out the scene. And...the description of the corpse is much the same as in the English version of the game, though there are no creative spaghetti similes. (The left hand is outright "torn off" to expose the ulna, though, instead of the arm just being cracked open.)
Lotus is unable to stand the sight; she flees the scene and vomits outside the room. (Akane follows her to make sure she's all right.) "It was probably a normal reaction," Junpei muses, still transfixed by the corpse; "I was in all likelihood the odd one, being able to stare at it so calmly."
Junpei takes another look at the corpse. Instead of the head being "collapsed" as in the game, Junpei notes that, like many places on the body, it is instead "burnt black" - worse, that it is "completely carbonized," "like a burnt-out match head - as if it had been consumed by a red-hot flame." He also notices a couple numbers scrawled on the adjacent wall: 5...2...and the rest is blotted out by the blood.
Junpei wants to investigate further, but he himself is almost at his limit with the gore. Santa then waltzes in, unfazed by the body except for a "fuck, this's horrible," even stepping blithely into the massive pool of blood. "Hey, I thought you didn't want to get your shoes dirty!" interjects Junpei. "'Can’t think about that now. At this rate, we'll all end up dead. Can't have that. Gotta investigate everything - even if I'm the only one who makes it.' With that, Santa gave Snake's body a kick. The torso wrenched into a grotesque abstraction, and the sloppy slump of something caving in the interior could be heard."
At this, Junpei's stomach lurches, and he himself runs from the room. "The smell of blood from that room never left my nostrils. Every time I encountered its coppery scent, I would relive that scene in the X-ray room, and would again and again have to fight the urge to vomit."

pg. 72: Upon returning to the infirmary, Junpei's eyes immediately go to Clover, who is sitting on the edge of a bed, hanging her head...well, described as she is in the game. Meanwhile, Santa comes back in the room, and Junpei is filled with renewed disgust at him upon spotting his bloodstained sneakers.

pg. 72: Seven broaches the idea that Snake was murdered, as it takes three bracelets to open a numbered door. (He starts his assertions in his usual voice but switches to a whisper midstream, "as if realizing that Clover might be listening.") He asserts, naturally, that Snake had to have been killed when they split up to look for the REDs, noting that no one has an alibi since they were all separated. "...Are you saying there's a killer among us?!" protests Akane. "Yeah, and not just one, either. There's gotta be at least two for sure." Ace here interjects to warn against statements that are dangerously illuminating sow suspicion, as he does in the game. Seven actually looks chastened at Ace's remonstrance.

pg. 76: Akane is quick to agree with Ace's assertion that Zero killed Snake.

pg. 76: Junpei, and not Clover, makes the declaration that "I think Zero is one of us." Man, they're taking everything away from her, aren't they?
Jumpy does his defense of this idea from the game, and it doesn't even prompt Lotus's objections as to Zero's possible motives. Everyone is floored. Santa interjects: "I see. ...It'd be tough for Zero to keep tabs on all of us or trigger something by remote control if he were right here with us. So he had to make everything on the ship work automatically... You're a regular genius, aren'cha?" Junpei feels less than honored by Santa's words: "Even Santa's praise felt like derision."
Everyone clams up for a very long time at this in anxiety, but Ace reminds them of the time limit - less than three hours now. "We can't stand around here debating forever," Ace offers, and when Junpei objects, a sharp glare from Ace shuts him up. (Ace seems to have a degree of moral authority among the group in the novel, as per Seven's behavior previously.) Ace continues: "Don't you understand that it is dangerous for us to pry into this matter any further? Our fate lies in Zero's hands. What if he has a remote control with him for the capsules within us? With the flip of a switch..." Junpei can't argue this; though he really wants to expose Zero right away, he can't risk what Zero would do if cornered - Zero might, after all, decide to take everyone else down with him.

pg. 80: In all the commotion, Lotus remembers to mention that they found the next set of numbered doors. Junpei is upset because he thinks that Lotus bringing it up makes it sound as if she found them herself. Shut up, Junpei. It was her idea to go out on a scouting trip and use the keys, and she was in the lead during the expedition. It's not as if your genius voyage to E Deck was what found the doors. Of course, this being Lotus, claiming the credit was probably her intent. But still: shut up, Junpei.

pg. 80: Clover initially refuses to leave, telling everyone to leave her alone. "I...I don't care what happens to me anymore. My brother's gone...so there's no point in me going on, either. I'm staying here..." I miss Axe Clover. Even non-Axe Path, Just Plain Depressed Clover had a fire & drive that this version lacks.
Akane comes up to Clover and tells her that if she loses heart, then she'll just be playing into Zero's hands. When this approach doesn't work, Akane encourages Clover to "live for her brother" - "I want to live. I don't want to die in a place like this!" Jumpy lavishes mental praise on her ("this was not the usual meek Akane standing there," he enthuses, rhapsodizing how the sight "stole my heart"), and there's a big illustration, and we're supposed to really love Akane, you guys. I have a hard time coming to this conclusion when I know that Akane's behind Clover's suffering in the first place.
Anyhow, as per the game, Junpei (here inspired by Akane's unbelievable awesome performance) recites the hope, faith, love, and luck phrase at Clover, and that incites her to move forward. Grasping the pendant her brother made for her, Clover decides that "if I die...there'll be nobody to tell the world what a wonderful person my brother was!" She gets up, looks to Door 3, says, "Goodbye, brother," and departs with the others.

pg. 84: As the group heads for the doors, Junpei's mind races though the combinations of people who could have opened Door 3 to kill Snake, robbing Clover of another of her character roles in the game. He dismisses the 4 & 6 combination out of hand - not because it's unthinkable that Clover had a hand in killing her brother, but because "Akane couldn't be Zero." He finds the 3 + 7 combination much more plausible. That's good. Go get an axe, Junpei. You're almost to a point where one's handy! (He also briefly considers combinations of three or more perps but rejects them due to sheer practicality of numbers and to the fact that "if four people were in it together, they should have been able to make a bigger move by now.")

pg. 88: Lotus brings up how this makes eight doors so far and that the next one has gotta be Door 9. Junpei is again disturbed at the prospect that at least two people are going to be left behind coming up, wondering if he can be so cold as to abandon them.

pg. 89: Another Part 9: "I tried to take my brother aside and tell him all the strange things that were happening to me. But he only laughed at me. It was like he didn't believe me. It was only natural. I couldn't hold it against him. I mean, I could barely believe it myself."

pg. 92: Chapter 7: Battle. Or Confrontation, as per the kanji below the katakana. ETA from the future: Perhaps "Infodump" would be better, given events.
Ace declares that time is short and urges everyone to divide into teams quickly. Junpei, however, is very suspicious that Seven and Santa are acting together as a bipartite Zero and does not want to go through a door with either. Running some quick numbers, he steps forward toward Door 6, saying, "Let's go, Akane, Clover," leaving the other four to go through Door 1. Seven objects to Junpei taking initiative, but Junpei has his bracelet to the RED already. Akane follows suit, sensing something wrong with Jumpy, but before Clover can scan her bracelet, Santa shoves in and scans his own, accusing Junpei of being "up to something." (Of course, he has no choice but to cut in, right, given the way he & Akane self-consciously numbered their bracelets?) He calls Ace over; they'll go in Door 6 with Akane & Junpei, while Seven, Lotus, and Clover go in Door 1.
Junpei muses that he can't just accuse Santa of being Zero to his face, so he looks to Clover to object. Clover, though, has already detached from Junpei's group and is just fine going in Door 1. "My brother'd laugh at me if I just made myself a burden to everyone all the time. I have to toughen up, too." Clover, I kinda don't think Snake would laugh at you derisively in any circumstance - when he's being properly written, anyhow. Junpei notes that Clover's subsequent smile is "terribly pitiful" and that it "broke his heart" to see it.
Santa suggests redistributing the teams if Junpei's so worried about Clover - Junpei, Ace, and Clover can go to Door 1, while the others investigate Door 6. Junpei takes Santa's words "like a threat - there was no way I could abandon Akane to the team of Santa and Seven." He resigns himself to the teams as they are. He is vexed at being unable to shout even a warning to Clover to watch Seven - and he is pulled through Door 1 by Santa before he can take any action at all.

pg. 99: The whole folderol about team assignments is rendered moot, as everyone has been funneled to the same room. It's pitch dark, and no one can find the DEAD. Panic reigns. June, holding Jumpy's hand in the darkness, asks nervously: "Jumpy...is it our destiny to die here after all?" In a line I'm surprised isn't Santa's, Junpei replies: "Destiny can eat shit! Your future's whatever you make it!"

pg. 101: Ace finds the lights. Well, he was involved in drawing up the floor plan, after all. The illumination reveals the chart room - which here is shaped like a C, with Junpei & Akane right in the C's middle/"hinge". Lotus then finds the DEAD, and there's a brief commotion as Santa insists his team deactivate first, as they entered first and are in more imminent danger of blowing up. He punches Seven in the face to get him away from the DEAD.
(Note: The layout here is a little confusing: Junpei notes that there are doors to the "back left" and "back right" of him, but when Ace returns from presumably murdering Musashidou in the captain's quarters, Junpei sees him emerging from "our right - from the blind spot where the room bent and we couldn't see." Lotus finds the DEAD in the left C branch/blind spot.)
(Also, random note: the skull on the bracelets flashes more quickly as the time limit approaches.)

pg. 102: A review of the doors reveals that Door 2 also leads in here, so no engine room or confinement/torture room on this ship. The group wonders why Zero had everyone immediately meet up in the same room. Ace explains supposes that Zero wanted to use the commotion that a single DEAD would provide to spark a scuffle between the players and set off a general frenzy for his amusement. He cites the room's initial darkness and the tension it created as proof of that.

pg. 105: The room search begins, and Jumpy observes the location of the light switch, next to Door 2, noting that it was "nothing short of a miracle" that Ace found it. He also recalls that the moment the lights went up, he instantly knew how the room was shaped, about the existence of blind spots at the two far arms, and that he couldn't get a view of the entire room from his vantage point. He wonders how his brain came by that information.

pg. 105: Junpei notes two other doors in the room besides the numbered doors: one to a control room, and one to the "captain's cabin." (I assume that these are the doors to the back left and right he mentioned on pg. 101, or where the numbered doors are located in the chart room, and that the numbered doors are located along the C's "spine". If not, this begs the question of what Ace was doing in the right blind spot.) Kanny wonders aloud if Zero's in the latter door, recalling Zero's opening speech about being "the captain of this ship." Everyone freezes at this statement. At this, Clover, "as if sleepwalking," staggers toward the door crying "GIVE ME BACK MY BROTHER", shoving her way into Zero's office while everyone else sits around just gawking at her like a gormless lemon. She then lets out a scream, which shakes everyone from their reverie and into the room...to discover Musashidou's body. When the hell did Ace have a chance to kill him?
(Incidentally, there's a bit here about a huge desk that's blocking the way (across the door) to the captain's quarters, that's flush against one wall and has just a teeny space between it and the opposite wall, and everyone has to squeeze through. An inordinate amount of page space is devoted to people wrangling and squeezing through this desk, and I'm stymied at this point as to what its purpose could be. To keep people out during the search for the DEAD? Why? It's not as if it's an insurmountable obstacle; it's just inconvenient. There are a lot of ways to accomplish whatever it was Zero/Ace wanted other than a big desk with a squeezy-hole that are far less ridiculous.)

pg. 108: Jumpy tells Akane not to come in the room and sends Ace to investigate the control room, telling him to get everyone else out of here (including Clover, presumably, so Clover is again denied a crucial scene). Ace shuts the door behind him, leaving Jumpy alone with the corpse - and Seven, who's stayed behind. Given Junpei's suspicions, our hero is none too happy about this turn of events.

pg. 109: Junpei: "I was astounded at how I was able to inspect the corpse with such detachment. My heart must have been completely paralyzed in the face of the mounting tragedies. I had had more than enough of this game. If it didn't end soon, I would wind up completely broken inside." Prophetic meta commentary for the sequels, which feature nothing but such people.

pg. 110: The author corrects a perceived oversight of the game as Junpei & Seven find some sort of waterproof garment rolled up & stored next to the murder weapon.

pg. 110: The face of Musashidou's bracelet is smashed, so they can't tell what digit it was. Its presence alone, however, is enough to cause Junpei to dismiss him as being the real Zero (there's no overkill "z e r o" monitor display in the office in the novel). This leads Seven to wonder, "who is he, then?"; the big man searches the body and finds a purple key in one of the pants pockets.

pg. 111: Disturbing detail: Junpei notes as he helps turn Musashidou over that the body's still warm.

pg. 111: Junpei puts Musashidou at about fifty, which seems a bit young.

still pg. 111: Seven examines Musashidou's hands and notes that the man had an interest in playing the guitar, indicating the calluses on the fingertips of his left hand. I don't really picture Musashidou as a guitar player, but this sparks Junpei's memory - of Clover's lament over how Snake was no longer able to play his "beloved guitar," and of how he made his silver clovers with just his right hand.

That never sat right with me. You can still play the guitar even if you can't see anymore. And why did he have to make his silver charms with only his right hand?
The facts were leading me to a single inescapable conclusion. And that was...
But wait. If
that were true, then...
Had I been laboring under a vast misconception?

Suddenly, Seven finds a photo by the window in the corner of the room. It's the photo of the four masterminds behind the Nonary Project, ahead of schedule. Junpei naturally recognizes three of the four immediately - and "from the smiles on their faces, it was clear that they were good friends."
(For some reason, they're posing in a "cramped" office in front of a bank of computers rather than in front of the grand staircase. Also, Kubota has his bird's nest hair here, whereas his hair's slicked back in the photo in the game.)
Junpei turns over the photo to find the same inscription as in the game, and a date of nine years ago. Upon reading the inscription, Seven, who has been looking pale & ill since finding the photo, launches into a full-on trance, chanting: "Hongou...the Nonary Project...Cradle Pharmaceuticals...Sheldrake...fields...telepathy...cubes...explosions...Aoi raito no naka ne...Aoi raito no naka ne..." Seven's eyes then fly open, and he exclaims: "I remember... I remember everything!", grabbing Junpei by the shoulders in joy and scaring the heck out of him in the process.
Seven then recites the same story that appears in the game. He notes that the authorities determined that there was "no case" in the disappearance of the sixteen children - I mean, Martians did it, after all, and the Tokyo-question-mark police force has no jurisdiction in outer space. Seven notes that he made a lot of "underworld contacts" in his "long stint" as a detective who "would shoot profitable information my way on occasion." He flashes a wry smile and says: "I was always off doing my own thing - the other cops wouldn't give me the time of day."
Seven says that he ripped off a vent in the ceiling and passed over the infirmary and the operating room to reach a chapel. He also remembers that the "Aoi raito no naka ne" chant actually consists of the names of the children he met on the ship. Aoi's "voice hadn't changed yet, but he sure had a mouth on him. Brat was still in middle school." (Jumpy remembers that he's heard that name somewhere before.) Light "couldn't see, and he always had his hand on Aoi's shoulder"; Junpei guesses, and Seven confirms, that this is Snake. Junpei then asks if Nona was a small little girl (recalling Clover's words that she was the youngest of the group); Seven affirms this and asks how he knows. When Junpei replies that Nona was Lotus's only daughter, Seven is angry & regretful: "If only I had a little more in me, I coulda saved her 'n' Akane!"
Junpei, naturally, is stunned and asks Seven to repeat what he said; Seven does, elaborating that she was Aoi's younger sister. "It was like someone had clubbed me on the back of my head." Struggling for breath, Junpei now realizes that Seven's "aoi raito no naka ne" mantra was the list of the names of the children the big man met aboard the ship: Aoi, Light (Raito in raw Japanese), Nona, and Akane, with the "a" sound in the two girls' names blurred together.
Junpei's mind then races to come to grips with this revelation. He at first dismisses the idea that his Akane was the one who died nine years ago - "I mean, she was alive, after all." Then, however, he thinks back to Santa's words about Akane being a ghost, about how no corporeal being could have escaped such a small space as the second-class cabin unnoticed, and recalls how Akane seemed to go transparent for a moment as she lay in the bed just before her disappearance. Right then, though, Akane knocks on the door of the captain's quarters, calling to Jumpy, and Junpei's misgivings fade: "Of course - it was impossible. Akane was right beside me. The Akane who died with Nona had to be a completely different person from my Akane."
Anyhow, Akane's come to deliver the message that they've found a purple door in the Control Room, but no key - because Seven & Junpei found it, obviously. Junpei dashes out of the room, taking Akane by the arm so forcefully to assure himself she's not a ghost that Akane complains of the pain - "because I got the feeling that she'd disappear if I let go."
(Answer to Trivia Puzzler!: Yes, it was the presence of Nona's name that I overlooked in Seven's mantra; I'll let my error stand for posterity.)

pg. 120: The control room is "packed & lined with meters & gauges, but none of them seemed to be working." Clover mentions that the group found a blue key dangling from the captain's wheel.

pg. 121: Leaning on the aforementioned "ship's wheel gleaming black," Lotus asks Junpei about the identity of the dead man in the captain's quarters. Junpei leaves the explanation to Seven and heads for the purple door.

pg. 121: And the doors have stopped fooling around, because the question is now: "WHO KILLED THE MAN WEARING BRACELET #2?" Also: "YOU ONLY GET ONE TRY."
Clover's face stiffens at this. Junpei steels himself and reaches for the "ANSWER" button. Santa grabs his hand to stop him:

"Hey, didn't you read the question?"
"Yeah."
"We only get one shot!"
"I know."
"'You
know?!' Hey, hold on - are you telling me that you know who killed Snake?"
In response to Santa's question, I gave a firm nod.
"...Jumpy!"
"Hey, what're you sayin', 'you know who did it'?"
"This better be good!"
[The last is Lotus's contribution.]

All eyes are on Junpei, and he starts in on his Poirot parlor scene - agreeing that he won't input the answer unless everyone else accepts it. Junpei starts by pointing to Akane and asking Ace who she is (as opposed to asking Ace who Junpei himself is in the Safe ending). Everyone else stares in blank puzzlement at Junpei's question, but Ace's face "twitches, as if he were having some sort of muscle spasm." When Ace identifies her as, well, Akane, Junpei counters that it's instead Santa - that he and Akane swapped clothing on the sly to confuse Ace. Ace is instantly furious and losing his composure at Junpei's "revelations," spitting everywhere when he cites the bracelet numbers to refute Junpei's assertion. It's over-the-top, and - really, author, you didn't want to use that excellent moment from the game when Ace's facade drops all at once and he becomes this wasted husk? Really? (Well, I suppose it does rely heavily on the game's visuals & audio.)
Anyhow, Jumpy's reveal of Ace's prosopagnosia goes dialogue-wise much as it does in the Safe ending, though with Ace visibly grinding his teeth & glaring all the while. Lotus offers that the condition "isn't that rare - I mean, even we ourselves have trouble telling the difference between foreigners' faces, don't we? And monkey and dog faces look all alike to us. It's just like that." Lotus, man, that's an unfortunate juxtaposition of examples you chose.
You might have noticed, however, that prosopagnosia hasn't been broached in the book, so how did Jumpy know about it or diagnose it? (Ace poses this question to Jumpy himself, "voice finely trembling.") Well, apparently, when the elevator group reunited with the Door 3 group back in Chapter 2, Ace described the scene inside as "seven eerie-looking mannequins"; he didn't mention that the mannequins had photos of the players' faces taped to them. Jumpy therefore concludes that Ace's failure to mention this detail means that he didn't recognize the identities of the folks in the photos. That's...rather weak, Junpei. He could've been using understatement, or just been shocked at finding an eviscerated, dismembered corpse. ("Besides," Junpei adds, "you'd never call mannequins plastered with our own photos 'eerie'" - because there's nothing eerie at all about finding Silent Hill mannequins bathed in "blood-red light" plastered with close-up photos of yourself of unknown provenance, with an exploded corpse in the middle of it all. But we all know how Junpei feels about photos of himself, so I'll chalk this up as a reaction to that.)
(Junpei also mentions that Ace was shorter & more careful with his words around Seven when he had his hat off, because Ace was using the hat to identify Seven and didn't want to make a mistake identifying him. I'm looking back through the novel for examples of this, and I'm not quite finding them, but there is a lot of ground to cover, so I might just be missing something.)
As for how Junpei knew about prosopagnosia in the first place...well, that's never explained. It's just now part of the ambient medical & scientific knowledge that everyone in 999 possesses. Chalk it up to Sheldrake - though Junpei never gets the little "how did I know that?" tells that accompany his other morpho field cheats.
Anyhow, Ace eventually "gives up trying to deny it," and "with a smirk curling one corner of his lip," he says: "...If I'd noted his body type and clothing, I suppose I would've known right away. But in the long years that I've struggled with this condition, I've fallen into the habit of relying on a person's most prominent feature. My, my...I suppose I'll have to be a bit more careful from now on."

just stopping to note our place: pg. 129: Junpei then accuses Ace of the Room 3 murder, at which Ace looses "a vulgar laugh from the depths of his throat." Junpei presents the same three pieces of evidence that he did in the game, except with the following differences: a) Junpei puts together that Snake's left arm is fake through, naturally, Clover's previous comments about making his silver charms with "just his right hand" and about him being unable to play guitar after his accident; b) when Junpei brings up the matter of Snake's hand being fake, Lotus is able to draw the appropriate conclusion immediately - she doesn't have to wait for Junpei to note that the corpse behind Door 3 had an arm that was flesh-and-blood and therefore cannot be Snake; c) it's Lotus, not Santa, who interrupts Junpei's explanation to ask what Junpei means by Ace's past; d) Ace reveals his identity when Junpei claims that there was a previous Nonary Game hosted by "the CEO of Cradle Pharmaceuticals, Gentarou Hongou," and Ace flies off the handle, shouting, "I have a position. I have prestige. I have made a name for myself. You are nothing but a young upstart. It is self-evident where the credibility here lies." (Also, e) Akane interjects a "that's right" comment in support of Ace when he argues that he couldn't have opened Door 3 to commit the murder due to a lack of bracelets, and f) Seven actually gets to the point of laying a hand on Ace's shoulder (as opposed to just threatening to search his coat by force) before Ace comes unhinged.) Otherwise, the dialogue is 90% taken straight from the Safe ending. I have to say that this scene still doesn't wholly work for me; it's still difficult for me to believe that Junpei is this clear-headed & in control here (even though novel Junpei is a little more on the ball overall than his game counterpart).
Also: at no point does Junpei just bring out the photo from the captain's quarters and say, "Explain this."
Also also: returning to the matter of Snake's arm, I always assumed that he had some sort of advanced future prosthetic. If you look at the game, while he does most gesturing with his right hand, his left does pose and move. Maybe it just doesn't have the range or deftness of motion for guitar playing in this continuity?

pg. 141: Hongou notes that he naturally couldn't identify Snake's face but knew him from by his "clear voice" and the fact that he couldn't see. During his murder of Nijisaki, Ace also, upon seeing the "VACANT" sign on the RED, is bewildered as to why the unit works now and idly wonders if "Snake" put it in, but then dismisses the point as "unimportant." There's also the small touch of Ace "kicking" his victim into Door 3 (so the narrator speculates, anyway) instead of merely shoving him in for an extra spot of contempt. (A "ghoulish smile," though, still crosses one side of Ace's face as he reflects in apparent satisfaction at the murder. Junpei notes that "anything resembling human warmth had fled from Ace's eyes. His lips and tongue alone moved, the latter writhing & slurping slimily as if he were some sort of reptile.")

pg. 142: Instead of asking Ace if he killed Clover - which is impossible, since she's alive in the novel - Junpei follows up by asking if he killed the man in the captain's quarters. He reasons that if the killer were one of the players, he or she would have had an extremely limited time window after passing through the numbered doors to commit the crime, which would have been further narrowed by the need to get past the obstacle of the long desk in front of the door...so since Ace was the one who was closest to the door, apparently, he has to be the murderer. Um. Junpei, though, then moves on to a more plausible explanation: Ace was behind the first Nonary Game, so of course he'd know how the rooms were arranged and how to move efficiently through them. (He also insinuates that since the light switch was by Door 2, and that the players had no choice but to split themselves between Doors 1 and 5 if they wanted to move forward, Ace must have known that the light switch wouldn't be found immediately, thus giving him time to commit the murder.)
Anyhow, Ace has a different motive for murdering Musashidou this time around: nine years ago, Ace monitored the progress of the first nonary game from the captain's quarters, so he figured that Zero had to be stationed there as well this time around. Zero, like Snake, knew about Ace's crimes, so Zero had to die. Ace actually thought he was killing Zero.
There are details that don't make sense here, however. First, Ace specifically notes that Musashidou was unresponsive and acting out of it & drugged like the Door 3 victim. I understand Ace was under a very tight time limit and had to made a snap decision, but why would he think that Zero had drugged himself? Second, Ace mentions turning on the light and calling to Musashidou before killing him. No one saw this light through the cracks in the door (the only light in a completely dark environment, mind you) or heard Ace calling? Really? Third, Ace mentions that there was an axe right on the floor next to Musashidou (one that "practically screamed 'kill me,'" according to the narration-seeing-through-Ace's-eyes' unique verbiage, though I imagine a lot says that to Ace), plus a waterproof garment right handy - he didn't think this was a trap? Fourth, Ace was able to use his nine-year-old memories and navigate the darkness to stumble to the captain's quarters, identify the scene, call to Musashidou, find and don the waterproof garment, kill Musashidou, take off & put away the garment, leave the room, go back to Door 2, and find the light switch all in less than 81 seconds? Really?
Plus, this entire plot hinges around the inconvenient placement of a really long desk with a squeezy-hole. It's like the bagelhead virus. It's too goofy to be the linchpin of a tense murder plot.

pg. 144: Ace then goes on to detail how he engineered Kubota's death. Junpei isn't particularly surprised ("I had already guessed that long ago," Junpei arrogantly drones), and his unimpressed reaction irritates Ace. Ace also refers to Kubota as his "loyal underling" here; otherwise, his explanation of his motives etc. is straight from the game.

pg. 145: The narration explains that Ace knew Kubota by his bird's-nest hairstyle, which explains, I guess, Kubota's hairdo change in the photo.

pg. 146: Upon finishing his confession, Ace says: "Why the looks of contempt? ...If I hadn't done away with Zero, he might have killed us all!" Junpei, however, counters that Ace should know the man in the captain's quarters isn't actually Zero, citing basically all the objections I had above. Junpei then goes on to note that Ace's other two killings were the results of obvious setups and that Ace was doing just what Zero wanted: "Zero was manipulating you, Ace. He used you to do his dirty work and murder Kubota, Nijisaki, and Musashidou without soiling his own hands."
Ace is genuinely shocked at Junpei knowing the surnames of his three conspirators, his face convulsing. (The author gives Ace a lot of disturbing facial tics - involuntarily quivering lips, etc. - during Junpei's accusation scene and his confession.) It is then that Junpei finally brings out the goddamn photo he found in the captain's quarters and reads off the inscription. Junpei then concludes that Zero concocted the current Nonary Game to get revenge on Hongou and his cohorts. (I'll reiterate my problem with Junpei just being too self-possessed and, bluntly, too smart for his character in this scene, but, again, that's a problem I had in the game as well.)
Ace goes on to explain the mechanics behind the previous Nonary Game and he and his lackeys' roles in putting it all together, using language much the same as game Snake's explanation in the library (with a "nasty smile on his face" all the while, as if "relishing the memory of his misdeeds"). He then goes on to detail the contents of the note from Zero he found upon waking up (under the pillow in the third-class cabin here, not in his pocket): "I know of your great crimes of nine years past. I'm going to put you through the same suffering you inflicted on those children. If you want to save yourself, win the game." Ace goes on to note that he "can't very well confess" as Zero apparently wishes, though the note in the novel makes no mention of confessing to escape the game, so I'm guessing this is an author mistake.
"So that was really Nijisaki and Musashidou... Then am I to be the next victim, I suppose?" Ace, though, is a man of action and opts not to wait around to find out: he flies across the room, and in a flash, Lotus has been taken hostage with the knife - again. Just by Ace this time. ("I don't want to kill you, you know. So please - don't take this personally.") Ace notes that "it does stick in my throat a bit to have to resort to the same course of action as Kubota, but I suppose I have no choice.")
Seven tries to talk Ace down, saying that this is all pointless - everyone already knows what he did. Ace, though, is unfazed: "Don't you understand? Why did you think I was making a clean breast of everything to you? It's because you're all going to die here. Didn't that cross your mind?" He then orders Junpei to answer the question on the LCD screen, pressing the knife harder into the nape of Lotus's neck and drawing a trickle of blood. (Wait, he has the knife at her nape, not her throat?) Junpei presses the ANSWER button, and a ten-digit keypad (not a keyboard) is put up onscreen. Junpei briefly considers entering the wrong number to thwart Ace's plan - if they're all going to die anyway, what does it matter if they blow up - but he shoves this thought aside: "That would be no way to go. There still had to be a way to save everyone."
After Jumpy opens the door, Ace laughs and says to Lotus: "You should thank me. You're going to be the only one I let survive." Lotus, though, knows the truth: "Once you get out, you're going to kill me, too, aren't you? I know you are! Just leave me here--" Ace, however, threatens to grant her request by slicing off her hand to claim her bracelet here and now, so Lotus has no choice but to go with him. Personally, though, I might want to try Ace on this. I doubt his knife can cut through bone, which means that he has to maneuver Lotus hostage-like back to the captain's quarters to retrieve the axe, and that leaves a lot of margin for error. Even if he somehow manages to retain control of the situation en route, he still has to sever the hand and restrain Lotus and keep a watch on/hold back everyone else during the operation, and I really don't think he can manage all three.

pg. 153: Another Part 9: "The end of the game is almost here. I wonder if everyone will be able to get out safely? ...And...what about me?"

pg. 156: Chapter 8: Zero, and the group runs after Ace & Lotus...only to find themselves out near the grand staircase again, with no idea of where Ace is going.
Akane, however, has...well, I'd say it was an epiphany were Akane not the mastermind here, so perhaps "dropping a hint" is more appropriate - she notes the steel plates riveted across the windows remind her of the similar plates on E Deck she & Jumpy encountered during the aquarium date, which were painted blue...just like the blue key the control room group found. Could E Deck be the next intended destination? The group runs to the elevator, noting as they pass the clock that they have 75 minutes left to escape.

pg. 157: Upon reaching the elevator, the rescue party indeed discovers via the display above the doors that the car has gone to E Deck. The group recalls the elevator and flies into the car (quickly informing Seven that E Deck is indeed not flooded - he takes a big breath before the doors reopen anyway). Upon arrival, they discover that part of the plates blocking their path has moved, indicating the presence of a door; Jumpy mentally notes that Door 9 must lie within. "My heart pounded in my chest with a strange exhilaration - a mixture of anticipation and fear. I felt weak in the knees. It was a kind of carefree abandon - nothing that could be dismissed as mere jitters." He then starts thinking again about how only three to five people can go through the numbered door, and how can he leave two people behind, and can he really come through and play the game, etc. Dude, at this point, you think that there's only one 9 door, and Ace is already headed for it. Even if you catch up with him, you're not going to negotiate with him.

pg. 158: The group reaches a junction with a wooden door each to the center and left. Akane tries the center door but finds it locked; Jumpy turns to the left-hand door, "fix[es] it with a glare," and hurls himself against it. However, the door is not locked, and he lands on his back with a small howl.
On the other side lies the chapel, which, from his perspective lying flat on his back, Junpei describes as "easily ten meters tall, inlaid with stained glass in geometric patterns that sparkled with light." Junpei hears Lotus screaming "let me go!" and whips his head around to find her; he spots a giant silver pipe organ ("next to something that looked like a coffin") with a "giant 1x3-meter" LCD screen, silently counting down the seconds left to the deadline, set into its left side.
To the right of the organ is Door 9, which Ace is frantically trying to open. Seven uses the distraction to tackle Ace; Junpei recovers the knife; and June gets Lotus to safety. Seven asks Junpei for his jacket (??? in promo art, Junpei is wearing three articles of clothing on his torso, but none of them really qualify as a jacket), which Seven cuts up into strips and uses to bind Ace head & foot. Ace, however, is near-oblivious; he just keeps asking "why? why?" to himself, dumbfounded that he couldn't open the door.

pg. 159: The Ace situation settled, Akane points out the second No. 9 door, here hidden behind a white lace curtain (and so small "it might have been mistaken for a window"). Here, it's Lotus, not Ace & Junpei, who wonders aloud why there are two 9 doors and posits that one might be a trap - quite a turnaround, since in the game, it's she who provides the refutation of this idea. (These lines are instead given, naturally, to Akane and Santa in the novel.)
The idea is floated to split into two groups, but, as per the game, Clover has broken down the combinatorics to show why this won't work (thus explaining why she's been silent this whole time). She's standing at the altar, and rather than borrow a notebook and pen from Junpei as in the game, the novel notes that she's "used her pierced earring like a pen" - so did she carve the numbers into the altar or something? How sacreligious. Also, another question: Why is Clover OK on moving forward? Unlike in the game, she knows at this point that Snake is alive. Shouldn't she be hell-bent on opening that coffin? Man, Clover got a really raw deal in the novel.
For some reason, however, the calculations omit the number 9 bracelet Ace swiped from Kubota's corpse. Seven finally brings it up, but Junpei replies that it won't do any good - the combinations still don't work out. (Lotus: "Some 'number of supreme importance'! Where does it get us?! Absolutely nowhere!") Lotus also points out that, hey: "We don't really need to bring him along, do we?", pointing at Ace. But leaving Ace behind still provides no way to get everyone else out, and Junpei mentally muses: "Even if he were a monster of a man who murdered three people - would we really be any different from him, if we elected to run off and leave him behind?" Well, until you throw a little girl into an incinerator, Junpei, I'm pretty sure the answer is "no" on that.
Junpei soliloquizes, as he did on the DS, that the game was designed so that a full nine players were indeed necessary for everyone to escape. "Conflict would inevitably break out among the players. One team would betray another, deceive another - try to beat the others back any way it could. Blood might be shed - murder was not out of the question. And then the remaining players would realize - that there were two doors with a nine; that there had never been any need to kill each other. Having the full weight of their crimes brought home might drive them mad. Perhaps this had been Zero's true intention all along."
Clover then helplessly rues the fact that her brother isn't here, which, again, doesn't make sense, but never mind: it gives Junpei the idea that if the corpse in Room 3 was made up to look like Snake, then it must have his bracelet, too - and it would tip the combinatorics in their favor and allow everyone to escape. Junpei runs back to check to see if the bracelet is present; Seven offers to come along but is told to keep an eye on Ace, and Akane follows Junpei in his place.

pg. 170: At the elevator, Junpei admonishes Akane for coming - it's "dangerous," and besides (he thinks), he doesn't want her to see the corpse in the X-ray room. Akane, though, protests that she'll be OK with Jumpy: "I'm not looking to distrust everyone, but it's not like it's really safe with the others," considering that "there's the possibility that one of them might be Zero." Plus, Akane says, "I...I have something I really want to tell you, Jumpy."
Akane's confession, however, is interrupted by the arrival of the elevator. The duo enter, and Junpei pushes the button for C Deck - but nothing happens; the button doesn't light up like before, and the car won't move. (Junpei, like all of us, jams the button more violently in the hopes that that will work; like in real life, this doesn't work.) In desperation, Junpei tries the button for B Deck - and this works, for some reason.
Akane notices that Jumpy's bleeding from his cheek, which kissed the door in his dramatic chapel break-in before. Junpei touches his cheek, and he discovers that the cut is deeper, and hurts more, than he originally thought. Akane insists on looking at it, and her closeness brings back a feeling of déjà vu - of the time back in elementary school, when Akane tended his wounds after he took on the five middle-school rabbit murderers all by himself ("the memory unspooled from the recesses of my mind like a comforting melody flowing from a music box," notes Jumpy). Here, though, it's not a threat against Akane that spurs Jumpy to keep fighting the rabbit-killers; instead: "I just couldn't rest until I knocked 'em flat and made 'em apologize to you."

"You haven't changed a bit since that day, Jumpy. Clumsy & reckless & just a big softie..."
"Hey - you don't have a single good thing to say about me!"
"Yeah - really." Akane flashed a grin. "But...it's just a relief to see the old you again, Jumpy."

Akane returns to the original subject - "There's just something I had to tell you, Jumpy...before we went our separate ways again." "Don't say that," Junpei counters; "After we get out of here, we'll see each other as much as we like! ...I've got something I want to tell you, too. But I won't say it now. Once we're out of this ship, and safe - then we'll talk. So you wait till then, too - OK?"
Akane nods curtly, and the elevator doors open - whereupon Junpei and Akane are greeted with the sight of water, water everywhere. B Deck is flooding - and C Deck must be already flooded, hence the elevator's refusal to go there. Junpei concludes that this must be Zero's doing to enforce the time limit; the ship's gotta start filling with water so it can sink on schedule. He doubts that they'll be able to retrieve the bracelet from behind Door 3 - but he has to try.
The pair head for the control room on A Deck, Akane trying to convince Junpei that he'll never be able to swim all the way to Door 3 from here. Junpei acknowledges this - he instead rummages through the detritus in the room, saying he's looking for some scuba gear. Akane asks if Jumpy has anyone experience with scuba diving ("No; none at all") and points out that he's not liable to get far without experience, urging him to give up on retrieving the bracelet and return to the others.
Her words are suddenly cut short, however; she collapses to the floor, and when Junpei runs to her side, he discovers that her fever has returned. It's not like her typical fainting spell, either: when Junpei asks if she can walk, her answer is a single long scream: "Her entire body convulsed violently; she was moaning and curled up in pain. Her skin was blue all over, not just on her lips, as if from cyanosis." Finally, with "her eyes...mere slits, and the light in them...fading," Akane spits out: "Jumpy...I've remembered... Yes...I...I was a ghost..." Junpei asks what she's talking about, but Akane only manages: "I'm sorry...Jumpy...everything that's happened tonight...has been all...all my fault..." Junpei desperately tells Akane to hang in there, but Akane, "eyes filled with tears," merely whispers: "Don't...don't worry about me...I'll be fine...we're approaching the singularity...so my existence...is becoming unstable..."
Akane then screams again "as if in her death throes," convulsing, bent backward. "Her gaping eyes were staring vacantly into the middle distance, just like a corpse." She starts foaming at the mouth, and Junpei fears she'll bite her tongue; he starts looking around for something to stop her mouth. "Just then, a dry pop, like the sound of a balloon bursting, echoed throughout the room" - and when Junpei turns back, he finds Akane has vanished.

pg. 180: Junpei screams Akane's name and searches the control room, and then the other rooms, but cannot find her; he notes that even the floor where she lay retains no trace of her body heat. He reaches the captain's quarters when suddenly, he hears a voice: "If you want to save her...bring the bracelet to the chapel..." Junpei looks around but sees nothing but the corpse; he stays his breath and listens, wondering if he's hearing the voice of Zero. The voice continues: "There's no time. Hurry..." - and it's at this juncture that Junpei realizes that the voice has no outside source; he's hearing it directly inside his own head. Junpei stops his ears, but the voice is ceaseless in its bids for him to hurry.
"I got the feeling, somehow, that I had no choice - I had to obey the voice," Junpei says, reassuringly. He looks to the floor of the captain's quarters, takes the axe in hand...and with a mighty yell, brings it down upon the corpse's left wrist. "Chop - I heard the sound of flesh rending, and warm liquid splashed my cheek. But I could not let such minor distractions deter me. The wrist still remained attached to the arm. I raised the axe once more and brought it down upon the same place. Success; I was rewarded with the sight of the freshly-severed hand floating in a pool of blood."
Junpei takes the bracelet and runs back to the elevator. "I set my lips and stared into the middle distance. I tried to purge all thoughts from my mind. For if I let anything in....I knew my very soul would break."

pg. 183: Everyone freaks out when a blood-spattered Junpei makes his return. Junpei explains about Akane disappearing, whereupon Seven objects: "So you just ditched her and sauntered back here? Wasn't she someone special to you?" Junpei dismisses this: "...She's not alive anymore. ...She was a ghost." He continues that surely Seven has realized that she was the Akane who died nine years ago, and he mentions her full name - whereupon Ace's face twitches a bit in apparent recognition, "and my suspicions about Akane turned to certainty."
"That girl - she was Akane Kurashiki?" Ace asks. "But that's ridiculous. In the experiment nine years ago, she--" "That's right--SHE WAS MURDERED BY YOU!!" Junpei mentally narrates: "It took all I had to restrain my rage and swallow the black thoughts welling up inside me. This was no time to pursue this."
Lotus, however, cuts in with a wake-up call: they all touched Akane; she even felt her bodily warmth. "So?" Santa interjects, "as if mumbling to himself": "Anyone ever proven that ghosts don't have bodies? That's just your own idea." Lotus, however, points out that it makes no goddamn sense to argue that Zero cattle-tagged a ghost with a bracelet.

pg. 185: Speaking of bracelets, Clover jumps in to point out that with Akane gone, the group's situation has greatly changed: they can now escape through Door 9 with their 3+4+5+7+8 bracelets. All they have to do...is leave Ace behind. As before, Lotus is all for this, but Junpei objects. "He's a murderer! We have no reason to save him!" screams Lotus, but Junpei says, "We have no right to judge him." I'm sorry, Junpei, but Lotus is right here. Hongou's a danger to the group, and he has the legal system in his pocket. There'd be a reason for your guys to pause in your escape at this point, but it should be out of concern for Snake, not Ace. It still doesn't make sense that novel Clover's apparently completely forgotten about her brother.
Santa, continuing to be unhelpful, likens the situation to the plank of Carneades thought experiment, which, no, it's not, Santa. Sailor A never attempted to murder Sailor B previously in that scenario, nor was he responsible for the murders of Sailors F, J, and W. Junpei inaccurately remembers this as a real case in ancient Greece, then goes on to cite the findings of Japanese law in regards to it (reeling off Article 37 of the Japanese Penal Code like he's goddamn Joe Kin'youbi). Anyhow, Junpei, you are not high in your goddamn dorm room at 3 a.m. here. This is not an intriguing abstract problem to you. You are in actual mortal peril, and the other party in all probability still wants to kill you.
Ace, meanwhile, sulks: "...Fine. Go ahead; leave me here. ...But know this: Zero has no intention of setting us free. Any of us." He points out, with a smirk, that he tried opening the 9 doors previously, and while their bracelets registered and the digital root was correct, the doors wouldn't budge. Junpei tries opening one with his bracelet, Clover's, and the number 9 bracelet, but it's indeed no good. "What a pity," Ace notes. "There is nothing left but for all of us to sit here together and wait for death."
Junpei attempts to repair the RED in the manner appropriate to all malfunctioning technology: he smacks it. This, mysteriously, causes another asterisk to appear on the RED readout. He's initially startled at this, but he then realizes that the bracelet in his pocket has accidentally scanned into the RED. As Junpei comes to his senses and begins to explain his..."find" to a startled Lotus, he just so happens to distractedly pull down the lever on the RED. To everyone's shock, the doors actually open.
Junpei then gets an idea and asks Clover and Lotus to register with the Ninth Man's bracelet. The doors open once more. Junpei then proclaims that the Ninth Man's true bracelet number was not 9, but 6. Lotus objects that Kubota was able to enter Door 5 with the help of her and Akane's bracelets - from which, of course, Junpei deducts that Akane was 9, not 6. (As further evidence, he mentions that Zero told them at the start of the game that each of their bracelet digits were unique.)
Clover, then, brings up that if Akane's bracelet was "wrong," then other adjustments have to be made based on the numbered doors she entered, and she writes out (that is, carves out on the altar with her earring) a list of the combinations used. From looking at it, Junpei notices that Santa was always with Akane in the doors she went through, and the combinations work out only if, of course, Santa's actual bracelet number is 0. "So you figured it out. You're right. I'm Zero."
(Junpei, by the way, is super-obnoxious to Lotus and Clover in pointing out his deductions. 3 a.m. bong hits, man. Could the novel not have given this role to someone else, as the game did? Maybe Snake's sister, so she can actually do something here?)

pg. 197: I hope you're ready for one very long Fallacy of the Talking Killer speech, except - spoiler warning - it's not a fallacy here, as no one goes after Santa when they have the chance. (Also, after this point, there’s so much to detail that noting our position by page number is not gonna work anymore - arguably, it hasn't been working for a while - so we’re gonna just take a straight shot to the end from here on out.)




Seven, "his face frozen in a complex expression that could be read as either rage or pity," either recognizes or deduces that Santa is Aoi. I'm honestly shocked the book's letting anyone else do or figure out anything at this point. (Santa's comment when Lotus asks for explanation: "We all went by our real names in that game. We thought that nicknames were for losers.") It's noted that Santa now has "a big grin spread across his face - you'd swear he were another person."

Santa also mentions that he's Akane's big brother, and Junpei is just utterly bowled over by this, despite the fact that Akane mentioned her brother Aoi a little bit before. If Jumpy can figure out everything he has in the last five minutes, he certainly could have figured that out. Anyhow, Junpei objects that Akane never reacted at all to Santa's presence or called him "brother," but Santa shrugs that off with a "Well, can't help that. She just lost all her memories from the shock of seeing me again after nine whole years." That's limp. Will reserve judgment until we find out whether this is a ruse or not. Meanwhile, Junpei mentally notes that Santa's story isn't consistent - here, he's saying that Akane merely lost her memory, whereas back before, he said his sister died.

Seven, though, steers the conversation back to the game itself, asking if Santa's the "mastermind" behind it. Santa nods and says: "Looks like you enjoyed it! That puts a smile on my face! It was a pain in the ass to set up; glad to see all my effort wasn't wasted!" Seven asks about his motive - "Revenge for nine years ago?" Santa: "In part. ...I could never forgive the men who killed my sister." He then looks at Ace: "Gentarou Hongou. I wanted you to put you through hell - through a fate worse than death. That's why I included you in the game with Kubota. Did you enjoy it?" Ace, though, still can't get over the fact that he was Aoi, whereupon Santa taunts him for not being able to recognize faces (and points out that his voice has changed since then). "President Hongou, you performed beyond my expectations! All I had to do was slip a note under your pillow - one little note telling you 'if you want to survive, win the game'! I never dreamed that you would sink your teeth into your role with such gusto! Everything went exactly as I planned it. It all went a little too smoothly - I was actually starting to get scared there." Ace "laughs at himself" upon learning of his deception.

Santa continues to Fallacy of the Talking Killer himself, going over aspects of his plan Junpei already covered in his Poirot scene. He does reveal that he knocked out Snake with gas during the search for the RED and then put his bangle on Nijisaki; this prompts Ace to ask, not unreasonably, why Door 3 opened if the 9 bracelet was actually 6. Santa replies that he put Musashidou's bracelet (which has a value of 3 in the novel) to the RED beforehand. He also rigged the readout on the Door 3 RED to not display an asterisk for the first bracelet put to it ("shorted out the leftmost side" of the readout, Hongou supposes), which is the reason for the whole Seven's bracelet seemingly not registering during Clover et al.'s Door 3 excursion in Chapter 6. That's pretty weak & contrived, novel. (Also, speaking of shaky novel developments: How could Santa know that Kubota would order Akane to put her bracelet to the Door 5 RED, thus ensuring the 6/9 deception?)

(Speaking of the Fallacy of the Talking Killer, why hasn't anyone made a move on Santa yet? It's not like in the game, where he has a gun and an apparent hostage!)

(Also, when Junpei figures out the Door 3 thing, Santa "claps his hands in glee" at his prey's cleverness like a Bond villain.)

Anyhow - and, man, are the explanations piling up here - Junpei objects that if Musashidou's bracelet was used during the search for the RED, how did he get in the captain's quarters, which required accessing the locked elevator and a numbered door? Santa brushes this off by boasting that he had a master key to get past all that, and - OK, come on. This is just going against the rules. There would be no reason for Santa to have the whole 9/6/3/0 bracelet deception if he were just going to discard the rules in one particular case instead of assiduously playing by them throughout. This smacks of a last-minute fix for a plot hole the author noticed just before press.

Santa finishes up his speech by recounting Musashidou's death: even Santa himself wasn't sure it would go off as he planned, but: "When I saw poor Musashidou's body, I just wanted to burst out in applause - good job!" Despite Santa's apparent exuberance, Junpei observes that, "contrary to his words," Santa seems to "just exude rage from every pore."

Naturally, then, it's an excellent time for Lotus to jump in with an idly curious question about what Cradle was planning to accomplish with the Nonary Project. No questions about your daughter's fate, Lotus? No fear that your life is in the hands of this apparent maniac? No anger from anyone? No moves against him? Really? Santa asks Ace to take the stage and explain, but Ace chooses to remain silent, his head downcast. Santa gleefully takes up the slack and explains that in developing a vaccine for angel fever, Cradle researchers discovered that level 3 patients had all developed "acute psychic abilities" due to changes in the cerebrum brought about by the infection. "Fueled by rage," he then goes on ranting about the experiment to prove Sheldrake's theories.

Santa explains about the morphogenetic field, using much of Snake's explanation from the library in the game, tying in the Apollo 13 disaster too (as an example of how the Q & A teams were supposed to work, one examining an exact replica of the other's life-threatening situation). As Santa continues his tale, Lotus starts becoming overwhelmed with horror and panic, as she's realizing what happened to her daughter - that she drowned for a "crazy" idea. Ace gets indignant at this: "What are you saying? My plan was flawless!" He also directs an "and I would've gotten away with it, too, if it hadn't been for you meddling kid hulking middle-aged detective!" comment at Seven. (Not literally, but it's an accurate paraphrase.)

(Also, in the novel, of course, Site Q is the Britannic, not the Gigantic.)

Seven, however, ignores Ace in favor of asking a long-overdue question: Where's Snake? (Clover chimes in as well, as the author has apparently remembered that she should be concerned about her brother.) "Don't worry," replies Santa; "You think I'd harm a former comrade-in-arms? Just make a thorough search of this room later on." Lotus, meanwhile, asks why the innocent other players had to be "involved in all this" if all Santa wanted was revenge. "Actually, you're more important than Hongou and his vermin. And I'm counting on you to work real hard for me from here on out," he smirks.

It's then that Santa takes a gun out of his pocket. "This isn't a toy." He then throws Junpei the number 6 bangle - "My final present to you." The countdown on the pipe organ is almost to 2,000 seconds - a little more than half-hour.

Santa then turns to Clover and says: "Clover. I've done something unforgivable to you. Snake was too clever. I couldn't have him catch on to my plan and try to interfere. That's why...I used your life as a bargaining chip." Santa explains that Snake's card (switched from in his pocket to under his pillow, like with Hongou) contained a threat against her life if he talked (no "detonate her bomb" threat; just a short & brutal "I'll kill her"). Here, however, that message is the only information Snake's card contained; Snake took it upon himself to inform the others of the rules of the game, only pretending that the card contained these explanations, so that the group would progress more quickly and avoid drowning. (It seems, even with my limited knowledge of Braille, that it would be difficult to pass off one message as another due to sheer discrepancy of length.) Santa admires him for it: "He's really got some head on his shoulders!" (Santa, in fact, spends a conspicuous amount of time in his monologue lavishing praise on Snake. Author shipping?)

He then pulls Snake's bracelet out of his pocket, noting that he pocketed it while examining Nijisaki's corpse. (How big are Santa's goddamn pockets? He had a gun and a bulky bracelet in there?) He extends his hand to Clover, offering the bracelet to her...but this is merely a ruse, and he uses the distraction to take Clover hostage again - physically, this time, with the gun. He orders Junpei to throw him the number 3 bracelet, and Junpei has no choice but to comply.

Someone, though, has finally decided to take advantage of the distraction - Ace, who has cut his bonds using Clover's earring while Santa was yapping on. (How big & sharp was this earring?) He "bellows like a beast" as he dives for the number 6 bracelet, still on the floor, then snatches Clover from Santa - "If anyone makes it out of here alive, it's going to be me!" - and heads for the second, smaller number 9 door. Santa and Seven (holding the knife) try to go after him, but he's using Clover as a shield, because this author has absolutely no idea what to do with this character. "Sorry. Looks like I've won," says Ace; he scans his own bracelet with the number 6 & number 2 Clover's holding to leave. He doesn't let Clover go, though; it looks as if he's going to keep her as a human shield until he's through the door. This will (so Junpei believes) blow Clover up, as her bracelet hasn't been scanned. He tries to think of a way to save her, and settles on stomping the floor (????)...

...but it's a moot point, as when Ace pulls the lever on the RED, the door still won't open. Ace releases Clover and starts clawing at the lever with both hands (whereupon Junpei has to yell at her to move away - good God, this author and Clover).

But then:

In that moment, a shot rang out.
The number 6 bracelet Ace had been holding clattered to the floor. In the next instant, his shoulders slumped, and he pressed both hands to his thigh.
"
Ahhh...."
He seemed to be in pain. A bright red liquid gushed from between his fingers.
"...Why?"
Ace's eyes shot wide, gaping at Santa as if in disbelief.
"I just...wanted to see faces...human faces..."
He sunk powerlessly to his knees.
"If I were only able to access the morphogenetic field...I would have been able to tell them apart..."
He was breathing as if his entire being were consumed with pain - and yet he persisted in attempting to speak.
"If I had been able to see into others' minds...I...would have learned...how they were able...to recognize people...that's...why..."
"So
that's why you ran that horrible experiment?! Why you murdered Akane - for your own selfish--"
"You'll never understand...the
pain I've experienced...the loneliness...not being able to recognize human faces...not being able to understand their emotions..."
A pool of blood spread across the cold floor.

(Note: Ace is not dead, though the narration sure seems to set the stage for it.)

Anyhow, Santa hauls his prize of Clover over to the RED and leaves. He makes a parting comment about how there's no bomb in his gut set to explode - so I guess there are actual bombs in everyone in the novel? He then tells Junpei, "The rest is up to you. ...You'll soon find out what I mean. There's only one way to save her. To save my dead sister - to save Akane." He then drags Clover through like a sack of potatoes.

But, before Santa leaves, Ace - who apparently is not dead - yet - uses his last burst of strength to rise and straggle through the doors. ("I don't want to die here... I don't want to die... Don't leave me...") Junpei: "We heard Ace's dying scream precisely 81 seconds later." That's pretty weak, novel. That's a cheap, arbitrary way for Hongou to go out, and I don't believe he'd actually do that, bleeding out his saphenous vein or not.

Now, only Junpei, Seven, and Lotus remain. The door to the elevator hallway closes, trapping them in the chapel. They can't go all through a 9 door - but, as Lotus recognizes, Seven and Junpei can, using the number 6 bracelet Santa left. So another woman is rendered useless to the plot. Good job, author. Lotus, however, takes this in stride as she does in the game, with a "sad smile" here: "Looks like it's Game Over for me, huh. And right before the end, too!" Seven then launches into his "you think we could leave you?!" speech from the true ending, with his eyes "fixed on Lotus, as if to drive home his sincerity."

The three begin to set about finding a way to save everyone - when Junpei begins hearing the voice in his head again. The voice's words coincide with the text of this chapter's Part 9: "It's starting. It's finally starting. The final experiment that will decide everything." Suddenly, sirens begin to blare throughout the chapel...and the floor in front of the altar begins to open. Out of the cavity rises some sort of "dome-like capsule." "Shit. So it's starting," says Seven. "What do you mean? What's starting?" asks Lotus. But it's Junpei who answers: "The final experiment." (Recap, in case you've missed it: The final experiment is starting.) Seven is startled and asks Junpei how he knows that - but Junpei doesn't reply; as has happened so often throughout the game, he doesn't know how, but he gets the sense that he's seen this all before.




Chapter 9: The End, and the kanji imply a sense of death.

Akane continues to narrate from Part 9 before:

I was watching. I saw everything through his eyes.
I was listening. I heard all that reached his ears.
Smell, taste, touch - I experienced everything that his own senses did.
And I knew - I knew everything he knew. What he was thinking...what he was feeling. I felt every tremor of his heart as if I held it in my very hand.
I was inside his consciousness. We resonated through the morphogenetic field, and we were one. I was he - and yet, at the same time, I was a lone bystander.

It all began with that deafening explosion - the one that happened about nine hours ago, when the ship in which we were all trapped began to sink.
It was then that I began to resonate with him; that I began to meld with his consciousness - with Junpei.
I could access his mind - even though we were separated by nine years.
But it wasn't as if I totally lost my sense of self. I was living two separate realities at once - one in the present, and one in the future. It was like two movies were being projected onto the same screen at once. They blurred together; the boundary between them was unclear.
Even so, if I concentrated, I could bring one or the other into focus - so I could understand clearly what was going on before my eyes.

Nine-Years-Ago Akane then details the initial Hope, Faith, Love, and Luck scene, as in the game, except with silver clovers instead of real ones. (Little Nona is particularly enchanted by the clovers, remarking how pretty they are.) Light mentions that he spent two months making them, in the hopes that the pains of his labors would get through to his "crybaby little sister" how much she meant to him. (The "crybaby" seems like the author talking, not Light, and it is indeed an addition exclusive to the novel; the game's text doesn't have it, in Japanese or English.)

We skip ahead to the chapel, where everyone except Akane, Aoi, Light, and Nona have gone through the big number 9 door. Group People We Know is about to check in at the smaller 9 door when, as with Junpei's group at this point, sirens start blaring. (Little Nona, frightened, rushes under a desk to hide.) Akane points to the altar, where the floor is splitting apart and a weird, clear plastic dome (that Akane notes "was like something out of a sci-fi movie" and "did not fit the surroundings at all") is rising up into the room. Inside is a capsule that contains...a Rubik's Cube.

As you perhaps have guessed from the title, the Rubik's Cube will be filling in for sudoku in the role of final boss this evening.

Back to Junpei's group, which is confronting its own Rubik's Cube. Junpei starts spouting off about how this was an additional task the second group had to solve before they could use the second 9 door. Lotus asks how he knows this, but Junpei ignores her, as, again, he doesn't really understand himself. Seven, though, confirms this, stating that this was the scene he came upon nine years ago when he busted in through a window in the ceiling.

Back to Akane's group. Ace's voice (Akane refers to it as "Zero's voice") comes through a speaker in the wall to mock the group for not "think[ing] of yourselves first" and being so "foolish" as to let the others escape before they did. "This door isn't the same size or shape as the others. What made you think it was an actual numbered door?" Akane in her mind notes that she actually did suspect the door might be false but had decided to sacrifice herself to make a moral stand: "A victory claimed at the expense of others would only mean the loss of our own souls." She suspects that Aoi, Light, and Nona had the same idea.

(Note: I assume that Akane's sections are narrated from the viewpoint of her younger self, but her vocabulary and manner of speaking are often too sophisticated for a middle-school student. I don't know if this is intentional and it's meant to be college-age Akane narrating all along (the narration has a very in-the-moment feel, though) or if the author just wasn't paying attention to such matters. I tried to strike a somewhat age-neutral tone before, but it's frequently impossible to do so with her dialogue in this chapter.)

Ace claims, however, that "I have a soft spot for fools who value the lives of others over their own. In fact, it is that very emotion - that strong sympathy for others - that I've been looking for. Congratulations! You've been chosen." Ace - or, rather, Zero - notes that the cube contains a chip that will activate the RED; it'll open only once it's solved, of course. "Then let us at it already!" shouts Aoi, but, oh - Ace (using dramatic pauses, relishing his role as MC) has another twist in store: if they don't do it quickly enough, then the bomb in the heart of the ship will send them to the bottom of the sea. No incinerator here. According to the pipe organ, they have about 25 minutes. Nona screams in horror; Ace subsequently reassures her that they're located quite close to the bomb, so "the pain will be only momentary; you'll be released from your suffering almost instantaneously!"

Oh, one more thing. Ace thinks the 25-minute deadline is too generous, so he notes that he won't be opening the capsule until the timer, currently at ~1586 seconds, hits...999. Roll credits! Kind of. "I pray for your successful escape," says Ace/Zero, and his voice then fades.

Back to Junpei and crew, who have 1300 seconds remaining. Junpei says, even though Ace didn't mention it, that the capsule will open only at the 999 mark. Seven, though, points out that even if they do solve the cube, all three of them can't escape with the bracelets they have. This discussion is interrupted, however, by a sudden loud hammering from within the coffin (that even causes it to shake a bit) and shouting: "Let me out!" Novel Snake isn't gonna get ignored like he was in the Knife & Axe endings, dammit. The group recognizes Snake's voice and runs over; Snake, meanwhile, "voice calm as ever," identifies Junpei from his voice and Lotus & Seven from the sound of their footsteps.

Back to Akane, whose mind flashes to Junpei when the pipe organ countdown briefly displays his birthday (1214). Nona points out the coffin, which has so far escaped the children's notice. Aoi tries to open it, but the lid won't budge. Light inspects it and discovers a keypad - whereupon Akane remembers a nine-digit code that was written inexplicably on the wall of the X-ray room. She wrote it down on her own palm just in case it had a later use. (Note: She's written it on her right palm, which indicates that she's left-handed.) She punches in the code...

...Back to Junpei, and Snake again asks if they can't find a way to get him out of the coffin ("I'm dying of boredom"). The group is dumbfounded - but, all of a sudden, Junpei comes out with a nine-digit number. He dumbly enters it into the keypad, and it unlocks the coffin. Out comes Snake, clad in the black robes ("as if he were going to summon some sort of demon later"). Snake asks how Junpei knew the unlock code, but Jumpy is, naturally, at a loss to explain ("I couldn't just say, 'the voice in my head told me'"). No time for that, anyhow, as, according to the countdown, the Rubik's Cube is about to unlock.

...Akane's group, meanwhile, has a more bizarre discovery: though they had been hoping that the coffin would contain something to aid in their escape, they instead find that inside is...a gun. Aoi lifts it up, and though the kids think it might be just a toy, it turns out to be the genuine article. But why put a gun here? they wonder. The answer comes to Akane unbidden: Suicide. In case anyone in the room couldn't take the terror of their own imminent demise, they now had an easy way out. The atmosphere of despair in the room grows heavier.

Just then, though, Seven dramatically breaks through the ceiling. Like in the game, after leaving and coming back with sheets for a rope, he hoists Akane to safety. He then gives her instructions on how to escape, and she runs away, hearing the footsteps of her fellow prisoners behind her. They reach the point where they can see natural sunlight - but Light then notices from counting footsteps that they're missing one of their number and asks if someone fell behind. Akane looks back and sees that Nona is missing; Seven, surprised at Light's question, answers that he saw only three kids in the room.

Akane puts it together: Nona had a tendency to run & hide "like a small animal" when confronted with something frightening; the sight of Seven's hulking form and scarred face (consistently played up as intimidating & kind of monstrous in the book) must have scared the little girl. Akane was the only one of the group whom Nona trusted and to whom she listened; therefore, Akane blames herself for Nona's absence, for not paying attention to her and making sure she escaped. She pushes her brother aside and runs past Light & Seven to the chapel. She runs through the corridors, of course, instead of taking the sheets - and on the way, she notices a couple strange things: doors in her path that were shut are now wide open; doors that were locked are now unobstructed. Akane senses a trap but pushes forward.

Upon arriving, Akane calls for Nona - and finds her behind the altar. Nona, however, has plot-conveniently sprained her ankle and says she can't walk. Akane asks Nona to persevere just a little while longer; taking out her clover pendant, she asks Nona to remember Light's words from earlier. "We can't give up. We have to have faith till the very end." On cue, the guys arrive, and Akane asks Seven to carry Nona. The group begins to leave.

Just then, though, an arm seizes Akane and drags her back into the chapel. Aoi lunges to save Akane - but Hongou, armed with the gun from the coffin, promptly shoots him in the shoulder. Hongou then fires another shot at Seven's feet and barks: "Back to the staircase, all of you - unless you want me to blow a hole in her head!" Seven asks Light to look after Nona, scoops up Aoi (who is losing consciousness due to blood loss), and quietly leaves. Uh, no, author. I don't think Seven would be that complacent in any timeline.

Hongou slams Akane back in the chapel. She discovers that Hongou has cut down the makeshift rope Seven created. She also notes that three bracelets have been entered into the RED of the number 9 door (she doesn't specify which of the doors). Seven reappears in the hole in the ceiling above; Akane asks about her brother. Seven says that they gave Aoi some medicine from the infirmary and that he'll be fine when he gets to the hospital. For some reason, however, Seven failed to come back with another sheet-rope, despite that the infirmary had approximately 10 billion beds and that he couldn't have possibly stripped them all the first time. Oh, author. (But then, this is an issue in the game, too, isn't it.)

Akane's countdown has hit 999, so the capsule containing the Rubik's Cube opens. Akane takes it in hand...

..."No need to worry! I've got a way with Rubik's Cubes!" Junpei enthuses. He checks the time, sees he has 13 minutes left, and wonders if he'll be able to make it in time. Dude, the world record for solving a Rubik's Cube is like single-digit seconds. 13 minutes better be ample time for you.

...Akane's heart is pounding. She narrates that her access to Junpei's mind had been cut off a while ago, so she can't rely on his knowledge of Rubik's Cubes. As a result, she's as overwhelmed by the seemingly impossible task as Rapunzel before the room of straw; "I could only stare blankly at the cube as time ticked by, second by second." She doesn't know how to get even one face to line up, let alone six; she cries and cries, feeling the task impossible.

"Akane...don't give up!" Akane looks up toward the ceiling and sees her brother through the hole in the ceiling, supported by Seven. (Goddamn it, Seven, if you want to help, go make another sheet rope.) Akane asks if he's all right, but Aoi merely continues: "Akane...didn't you tell me? That you saw your future self...and me...... So I'll do something...to help you somehow... You just concentrate...just think about saving yourself..." Akane is puzzled - what can Aoi possibly do in his state?

(Note: As you've by now probably surmised, Akane is not in any way Zero in the novel. The second Nonary Game is solely Aoi's initiative, part of his promised plan to help Akane.)

Less than eleven minutes left. Akane clutches the clover Light gave her and prays: Help me, Jumpy!...

..."Akane?" Startled, Junpei stops and looks around for the source of her voice. Seven and Lotus are confused; Snake, however, seems to have sensed something. "Akane! Can you hear me? Answer me! Akane!"...

..."Jumpy?"
I wheeled around.
I could hear his voice!
I whipped my head around, looking for him. I knew, of course, that he wasn't actually here. But his voice was so clear. It was like he was right beside me...
"Jumpy!" I screamed at the top of my lungs, with every fiber of my being...
...And he answered right back.
"Akane!"
"Jumpy!"
...

...Junpei hears Akane's voice reverberating directly in his mind. She asks if he's in the chapel; he confirms he is. "But how did you know that?" he wonders - and then he remembers Santa's parting words...

...A little over seven minutes left. Akane takes the cube in hand and yells an immortal 999 line: "Jumpy! I don't have time! Help me! If I don't solve this Rubik's Cube, the ship will explode!"...

..."Got it," Junpei answers, and sets to work. He then, with his lines from the game, realizes why the Nonary Game was held, and why he was brought here - to...solve a Rubik's Cube.

A snag, though - Junpei realizes that his cube (which by this time is almost done) is in a different configuration than Akane's, so solving his won't help her. "I tuned my consciousness to Akane's - and what Akane was seeing was broadcast into my mind, across time." With difficulty, Junpei reconfigures his cube to match Akane's. Lotus is concerned, wondering to whom Junpei is speaking and why he's reshuffling their almost-complete cube, but Snake advises her to trust Junpei: "All we can do is watch over him. Just like nine years ago..."

...Akane narrates that she's finally realized why her brother "had kidnapped Junpei and the others nine years from now and begun this horrible game again. ...He saw me now, at this moment, and realized that my consciousness was connected to Junpei's nine years in the future through the morphogenetic field." She also supposes that Aoi was responsible for Junpei contracting angel fever and having it progress to level 3. She mentions, though, that the incubation period for angel fever is five to 10 years, so he must have had to wait a while in order to put his plan into action and host his second game - until Junpei came down with viral symptoms. She also supposes that he brought Seven and Light back to this room to observe as they did nine years ago, to recreate the conditions of the first Nonary Game's conclusion as closely as possible to activate the field - and that he used Lotus to sub for her daughter Nona. (So that's the author's reason why Lotus is filling in for Clover here.)

And there was another reason. Two people can't connect through the field unless they have strong feelings for each other. ...But Junpei and I are connected right now. So that means...
My heart burned in my chest. My life hung by a thread - but my soul sang with joy.
I want to live! it cried. I want to live - and see Jumpy again!...

...With two minutes left, Junpei finishes matching his cube to Akane's. He takes a deep breath, thinks, This is for Akane!, and starts solving the cube...

..."Junpei's thoughts were clear as crystal to me. My hands began to move as if by their own will - and in a flash, the cube was solved. It was as if I were watching magic happen." And Akane has a minute to spare, too. "Did it work, Akane? Did it come through?" Aoi asks. Akane answers in the affirmative, "thanks to Jumpy." With less than sixty seconds to go, she registers her bracelet, pulls the lever to the RED, and runs out the now-open door - to where Aoi, Seven, Light, and Nona are waiting...

...Junpei, meanwhile, has his own sixty-second countdown with which to deal. Warning sirens have begun blaring, and the lights have begun to dim. "What're you standing around for!? Get out of here!" Lotus shouts. "You can use your bracelet together with Seven's and the number 6 bracelet to open the 9 door!" (It can be presumed that Light can simply walk through unharmed because he no longer has a bracelet on - given that we have been told that everyone does have active bombs in the novel - but this is never mentioned.) Seven is disturbed at the prospect of leaving Lotus behind, but she counters: "GET GOING! Are you going to put my stoic determination to waste?!"

Junpei, however, insists that he can save Lotus too - for he has realized that the 9 on the second door is, in fact, a q. ...Despite the fact that, er, we haven't had any hex-related puzzles in the novel to clue Junpei in on hexadecimal. Oh, man. Anyhow, everyone registers, everyone flies out the door - but with all Junpei's explaining, the group's run out their time limit. Yet, somehow, there's no explosion. Huh...

...Akane deactivates her bracelet at the DEAD. She wheels around to encourage everyone to hurry -

...but, for some reason, they were all staring at the door.
"Akane! Where are you, Akane?!"
My brother was staring into the chapel, wailing like a madman.
"Watch out! The door's closing!" My brother tried to dash into the chapel, but the detective held him back.
"Akane...
Why..." My brother sobbed in front of the closed door.
"What are you talking about?! Aoi! I'm right here!" I screamed...but no one seemed to notice.

Seven notices that the skull marks on the other kids' bracelets have lit up, so he hurries the other kids to the DEAD. Aoi continues to wail for his sister, and Nona is crushed by guilt: "It's all my fault...it's all my fault she's...!" Akane continues to shout and attempt to attract their attention; Light, "seeming to sense something," turns toward her for a moment and calls her name...but then turns back.

Suddenly, an explosion rocks the ship, and black smoke begins to billow out from the chapel door. Seven rushes everyone up the staircase - Akane following, unbeknownst to them. "I began to feel a bit warm, as if I had a fever. But it wasn't just heat I felt - it was as if any sense of pain or fatigue had left my body. I ran as fast as I could, but I didn't feel short of breath. I was like I wasn't in my body. It was all hazy to me - like I was watching myself in a dream." Sensing something, Akane looks downward - and discovers that her very legs are disappearing, leaving only an outline behind.

Akane begins to panic - but then (really) she remembers Junpei's inspirational "destiny can eat shit" line from nine years in the future. She keeps on running as she realizes the truth: she is now a Schrödinger's Cat, "both alive and dead...the question of my existence had not yet been settled. The future could change; Junpei might not contract angel fever, might not participate in the Nonary Game, might participate but give up halfway through - all these were possibilities. It wasn't yet certain that he would save me nine years in the future. Until that time, no one could say whether or not I had been rescued. So I was now something like a ghost, neither living nor dead...and would perhaps remain such for nine years, until the day came when Jumpy would save me."

Akane is distracted by a cry from above - at the top of the staircase, Seven has noticed that Nona has climbed over the railing and is poised to jump. Sea water is inundating the floor below from the explosion, and Akane knows Nona can't swim. Frantic, Nona just keeps repeating, "It's all my fault...it's all my fault...I'm so sorry, Akane!" Seven tries to grab her...but Nona jumps, falling into the whirlpool below. "Nona!" Akane cries...

...Junpei's party continues running toward the exit, Junpei blabbing about hex all the while. (Novel Lotus is, at least, familiar with hexadecimal, though Junpei still does the explaining.) The group reaches the exit door...

...And so I spent my days wondering if I were alive or dead. My memory became heavily clouded after that day - another effect, I suppose, of my status as a Schrödinger's cat.
But time passed, and as the fated day drew near, my existence became more distinct.
I still remember the mixture of shock and delight on my brother's face that morning when he became aware of my presence in the bathroom.
But the question of my existence was still unsettled. Whenever some small twist of fate affected one of us involved in that fated day, I would come down with a horrible fever and once again threaten to fade from reality.
"I will save you. I promise."
I never knew...
...never knew the horrible plan my brother had in store for that day...

No, I don't know what Akane was doing in her brother's bathroom. Don't ask me.

...Junpei et al. exit to find...the Tokyo skyline! I bet you thought I was going to say Nevada. (Light surmises the deception without being told, because he doesn't hear the sound of waves or the smell the salt air. His sister, meanwhile, doesn't even get to drive everyone back. Aw.) Santa steps out from behind an abandoned water tower and explains that he didn't have the money to reconstruct the ship, so he just borrowed the abandoned Site Q. (Then how did you have the money for anything else?! Are you not a stock market baron in this continuity?)

Besides Santa is Clover, who, upon spotting her brother, runs into his arms in joy ("I'm so glad you're alive!"). Snake smiles, embraces her, and tousles her hair. Santa watches the scene with a "faint look of sadness in his eyes."

Santa turns to Jumpy and says, "Sorry for getting you involved in this." He also tells Junpei not to worry about blowing up, as the book has now decided that he didn't actually put bombs in the other players' stomachs. Santa then pulls a remote control out of his shirt (??? where could he hide one in that tank top?) and presses a button which causes all their bracelets to release and clatter harmlessly to the ground.

"See ya."
Santa raised a hand in farewell, turned, and began to walk back into the building.
"Where do you think
you're going?!"
"The rest is up to you, Junpei." Without giving an answer, he slowly descended the spiral staircase.
"Hey - Santa!" I rushed toward the door to follow him - when another figure appeared to take his place. A girl, about high-school age. I'd never seen her before...but I recognized her immediately. She looked a great deal like someone I saw through the morphogenetic field in the events of nine years ago.
"...Nona?" Lotus cried out from behind me. "It can't be - Nona, is that you?!"
"Can you
see me, Mama?!" She looked just as shocked as her mother.
"How is this happening?!" Seven exclaimed. "Nine years ago, you jumped off the spiral staircase and died..."
"I managed to save her!"
From the door emerged another figure.
"But at the time, the matter of my existence was still in question - so Nona's existence was thrown into question, too."
Akane looked at the sight of mother and child embracing and gave a brilliant smile.
"But it's all right now. Schrödinger's cat survived. The box is open, and all has become reality..."
"Akane..."
Her smile spoke volumes. I moved closer to her side. There was so much I had to tell Akane once we got out safely - but the words now stuck in my heart.
Glowing crimson with the light of the rising sun, Akane's face slowly turned toward mine.
"I'm back, Jumpy."
The long shadows we cast shimmered, and the faint scent of fragrant olive filled the air.




OPINIONS FOR WHICH NO ONE ASKED

Well, it's certainly a competent adaptation, and it does have its good points. As I mentioned, I like how the first volume gives a good sense of escalating stakes, the streamlined narrative highlighting how the situation keeps getting worse for the players: the disappearance of their demonstrably most-competent member; then being forced (apparently) to sacrifice of one of their crew; then Junpei being separated from an ill June. The last chapter is effective in how it portrays past & present happening at once. We do get to see some interesting stuff like Santa outright confront Hongou; some good Jumpy & Akane scenes; Clover being motivated to survive by the idea that she has to tell the world what a wonderful guy her brother was; the group having to deal with a recaptured Hongou after his heel turn - before the climax, not when most everything is said and done; and the thing with the false bracelet numbers actually being the means for the reveal of the identity of Zero, not an interesting-but-pointless after-the-fact revelation.

I don't think there's enough of those scenes, though. The major problem here, I believe, is that, unlike the best of the game-adaptation novels, it doesn't really take the story new places, and the changes it does make generally aren't ones for the better. Granted, the 999 plot is so interconnected that you can fool with it only so much before it all collapses like a Jenga tower, but the lack of novelty is still a problem, particularly when the game you're adapting is itself a novel already. The character work in particular is an issue: You can pick out significant problems in pretty much everyone but Ace and Junpei. The expansion of Lotus's role is interesting, and the approach to Santa is...different, spinning him as near-totally predominated by severe trauma instead of a calculating mastermind - though I doubt his fans will find his overemphasized brattiness endearing. Clover is a near-complete disaster (she's blamed for everything that's gone wrong in Snake's life, has nearly all her scenes given to someone else, and is included in the game only as a hostage); making Snake actively testy toward her is also completely wrong. Junpei, on the other hand, is given way too much to do by the plot to pick up the slack for the characters the author refuses to let have the spotlight.

I can see why Akane's role was drastically changed - the author (or franchise honchos) wanted give Akane & Junpei a clean happy ending, and I can respect the need to have that exist in some official form out there. It does, though, remove a good deal of dimension from not only her character, obviously, but the overall scenario. The DS game is careful to give violence its proper berth - incidents of it are isolated, presented as appropriately horrible, and not played for exploitative thrill - and it has an observant thread on how being the victim of violence can change people (markedly, in how it can make them be more inclined to commit violence themselves). Having the murders committed in the course of the game just brushed off (for which the current Zero is partly responsible, and which Zero clearly desires; let's not embrace Saw logic here) and tying everything up with a conventionally happy ending somewhat trivializes what's been done to the characters and how Zero must have changed inside, mentally, to be able to do what he/they did. I think the story needs to end on the slightly unsettled note that the game does - the idea that everything can't go back to just peachy normal.

That's it. Special thanks to NorseFTX for their invaluable game script compilation, which made comparing lines a heck of a lot easier.





By R. Capowski, RACapowski@sceneryrecalled.com, 9/27/2016. 999 is the property of Aksys & Chunsoft has not sanctioned this document.