Alice In Borderland: Riptide (Season 2)

EPISODE FIVE: JOKER

It's 3:37 am when you exit the shower, finally back Home and exhausted. You raise your trembling arms to towel-dry you hair—when warm, long-fingered hands cover yours and gently do the action for you.

"You're worn out, Aijin—a shower could've waited until tomorrow."

"It is tomorrow, Niragi," you respond lightly. "I wasn't getting into bed covered in dirt and grass stains."

"Still, I-"

He's cut off during this domestic scene by a low, metallic rumbling and screeching from outside, and both of you approach the window. Chishiya enters the room, a grimace on his face as he joins the pair of you.

"What is that?" Niragi says.

"It's so loud," Chishiya adds.

You remain silent, but watch in horror and worry as the stars slowly disappear from the horizon up, row by row, seeming to swallowed in a straight line. As the dark emptiness rises, eventually all that is left is the moon, shining down like a spotlight.

"Boss? Boshiya!" Takuma rushes in, panicked, leaning breathless against the doorjamb. "What's going on? Everyone's panicking, the stars are disappearing!"

"Yeah, I see that. I have a bad feeling about this. Takuma, go get everyone together in the lobby, please."

Takuma gives you a quick nod and hurries away. You quickly remove the towel and get dressed as Niragi and Chishiya avert their eyes.

"Come on," you sya, grabbing their hands and heading out to meet everyone. "Let's go see what's going on now."

...*...

The noise of the crowd is nearly deafening as the three of you enter the lobby, everyone talking at once and gathered in groups at the windows.

"Boss, what's happening?" Tatta approaches you tentatively. "That noise and now all of the stars are gone and it's just the moon up there..."

You gently touch his shoulder. "I'm sure there's a reason, Tatta. We may not like it, but we'll know soon enough."

He nods and subsides once again into the background. You're glad he found your group and didn't even manage to enter his first game— although his presence now makes you wonder if you miscalculated the timeline somehow? Because several of your family should not appear for another six months at least. You shrug to yourself and bush that minor worry aside for the moment— currently you have bigger fish to fry.

suddenly the grinding, metallic sound (as of jet engines overheating) ceases entirely. The silence makes you realize your ears are ringing quite loudly, and glancing around you at the others you realize as well that they're experiencing the same problem. Taking a deep breath you march to the front doors, shoving them open and rushing out onto the massive drive. You whip your gaze up to the "sky", noticing a flash of bright red, merely a glimmer— but it catches your eye seconds before Takatora shoves you to the ground, covering your body valiantly with his own.

A laser grid appears in a trice, splitting into hundreds of red beams. Takatora pulls your upturned head into his arm, shielding your eyes from the bloodned glow as the lasers drop toward the ground, bouncing off of the crystals buried around the perimeter of Home, just as you had planned after several minutes of what must be the Game Masters attempting to get the laser grid to take hold in futility, the bouncing red streaks falter and fade away abruptly into the night. You hear a click, like walkie talkies or a speaker system being turned on, and a deep male voice echoes all around you into the night.