Henry was standing in front of the school gates. He had to walk back after leaving from the camp next to the school. He was covered in dirt.

"I'm the one that doesn't belong right now..."

He went to one of the bathrooms on the ground/first floor to clean himself a little. When he came out, he saw a student, or at least a boy wearing the school uniform, marching barefoot down the hallway while holding a stop sign. He lifted his legs as high as his waist, and every time he took a step, he put a finger in his mouth and made a popping sound. Henry looked carefully at this boy. Did such a thing not belong in a school? Actually, that was the wrong question. Did this person not belong in this school, Kanzen High, where nothing seemed to be out of the ordinary, and not in a good way? Henry could not be sure, so he decided to ask.

"Excuse me," He approached him, "do you by any chance... Not belong?"

The boy stopped. He looked at Henry, unsure how to answer. He began thinking about the question, really hard. As he did, his gaze began to look beyond. His eyes widened, for he seeketh the truth, or, mayhap, as nothing appeareth certain in the worl'd, the lack of truth.

"Sorry! I meant to ask if you're a student here or not."

"Oh. Y-yes, of course. Can't you see the uniform?"

"Yes, I know. I just wasn't sure. Why are you doing... this?" He waved his hands in his general direction.

"I'm a member of the Clinically Insane club. I'm just fulfilling my duties."

"Ah, the clinically insane club. I should've guessed. Sorry, I'm a new student."

"No problem at all! In fact, I'm here if you need me to show you the way around these halls. The school is quite big, it's not unusual for first years to get lost trying to find a bathroom."

"I have noticed that. Thanks for the offer, but I'm a bit... involved with this thing I'm doing. I can see you're busy, I don't want to waste your time."

"If you say so. But don't hesitate to ask around if you're in trouble!"

"Will do. See you!"

"Bye!"

The boy went back to his march. The rhythmical pops slowly faded out as he left.

"That was a proper social interaction if I do say so myself. I guess people in school uniforms are always going to belong."

Henry began his track. He walked down all kinds of hallways. Some were straight, some curved, one of them had a sloping tile roof instead of a pavement. They had doors, or gates, or hatches, which lead to classrooms, storage rooms, but also other hallways. With every step his standard for what could be considered out of place lowered drastically. After a set of stairs, an escalator, two elevators, once down and once up since he got off at the wrong floor, a water slide without the water ( and he noticed a small hatch as he slid down the spiraling tunnel, one that said Clinically Insane club. But he couldn't stop himself to open it), and a stepladder, he was about to give up, both the treasure hunt and the school as a whole. But as he was walking down one of the rare hallways that could be considered normal, he noticed something out of the corner of his eye. Out of the window, sitting in the schoolyard, was a Moai statue, with its squared chin and pointy nose looking straight at him. Henry looked down at the artifact, unsure on whether it could be considered more out of place than half of the stuff he had seen, but since he didn’t know where else to look, he decided to investigate. Thankfully, he had seen that the elevator could bring him directly to the basement’s stairs that led to the main entrance, so he had a quick-ish way to leave.

Approaching the monolith, he began to sense a soft hum coming from within the rock. Placing his ear on the statue didn’t make the humming any louder, but he could feel its vibrations. Ignoring any supernatural shenanigans (we’re not in a fantasy after all. This story is grounded in realism), Henry began to look for the number. He walked behind the stony head and saw a big eight carved on its nape, with a pink piece of paper wedged inside of it.

“I guess the second number is also an eight…”

He took out the paper from the statue, slowly, carefully, a bit scared of the supernatural to be completely honest, and opened it up.

“Good job!”, the paper said, “This statue is a fake, just like Tosou-sensei was a fake!”

Henry paused for a second, realizing that he was going to need a lot of luck to solve the next puzzles. He gathered his courage and continued reading.

“But get ready, this is just the beginning!”

He stopped again. He didn’t have much courage in him. He decided to instead read out of curiosity, and not think about whether he would have the strength to finish this treasure hunt or not.

“As I was saying, this is just the beginning. The next number is going to be harder—”

Henry stopped again. He thought it was a bit weird that this letter was written as if it was spoken dialogue, and he found the use of “as I was saying” very out of place.

“Stop interrupting me!” The letter continued.

“Sorry.” Henry answered to the written, silent letter.

"In the heart of the school, below the center of our school lives, lies the chaos of our existence. Find its shape, and you will find your path.”

Henry felt his life energy leave his body. He desperately tried to fantasize about a future harem, with Gimei as the first victim member. This was the reason he was doing this, a utopic (or dystopic, depending on the point of view) future where others would be the ones going through hellish escapades for him!

This was the only way he had to motivate himself.

“Alright, let’s think seriously about this. The heart of the school. Considering the nature of the building, I wouldn’t be that surprised if this school had a real, beating, heart-shaped room. But I get the feeling she means metaphorically. I don’t understand it, so I’ll skip it. Next: below the center of our school lives. The center of our lives? If I were to point at a center, it would be where we spend most of our time. Our classroom? I need to go to the room below it? I don’t know if this is wrong, but I do know that I don’t want to lose my mind in those hallways anymore. I’m going there.”

Henry went back to his class and incredibly managed to find the right room following simple logic: He went to the floor below and counted the number of doors from the stairs. The fact that logic managed to work almost made him tear up.

He knew for certain that he had found the right room, because, like the note had hinted had, it was in utter chaos. Imagine all the school supplies that can fit inside a room, add double the number of normal desks and chairs, sprinkle it all with old cloth and papers, and then make a hurricane whirl around the room for about thirty minutes. Do you have a mental image of what it could look like? Well then, now double it because just as many things hung from the ceiling, somehow tied to it with ropes.

“How did she manage to do this?” He questioned Gimei’s abilities, but quickly gave up remembering she was able to secretly dig her own grotto underneath the school, all on her own.

“…Find its shape, and you will find your path. I hope she doesn’t want me to tidy the room, because my solution would be a gas can and a lighter.”

Henry walked around the chaos, trying not to bump his head on one of the many chairs and desks hanging over him.

“Find its shape… Find its shape… Maybe if I move some of the things? Do they look like anything?”

He swung books, spun pencil cases, put a potted plant upside down, all to form outlines of what could have been a shape, but mostly wasn’t. Many a time, the ropes holding the items weren’t long enough to move them. He stopped, sat on the small bit of ground that had the space to allow him to sit, and looked at the messy scene in front of himself. It reminded him of his life.

“No, this is not the time for self-deprecating-but-relatable jokes! I need to think! I’m sure that I’m doing something wrong… I need to think more like her! Gimei wouldn’t try to make a shape with these things… Ah! That’s not what she told me to do! Find its shape, not make it! And if I need to find the shape,” He stood up in a fit of motivation, “It means it’s already there!”

His inner eyes opened. He saw himself analyzing the shape of every object in the room and projecting them into a 3D graph of potential combinations and negative space forms. What this translates to is “he squinted really, really hard”. Right after his eyes began to water, he saw the light. Specifically, he noticed that from the right point of view, the light coming from the windows created the shape of an arrow when it passed through the gaps between some of the items.

“Yes! It actually was negative space forms! I did it! I’m… a bit worried I managed to understand Gimei’s logic. She might be corrupting my brain.” Henry said to himself, unaware that the corruption of his brain had reached the maximum amount years ago.

The arrow pointed to a small table with a drawer. The only one in the room.

"…I should've checked in here before doing the puzzle."

He opened the drawer and saw the, now iconic, pink paper. It had the number eight written in bold lines. Henry was not happy about that, but he decided against getting angry and turned the paper to look at the hint for the next, mysterious number.

“Good job finding the secret shape, you’re getting closer and closer to the truth.”

“What truth? This is just her phone number!”

“What did I say about interruptions?!”

“Right, sorry.”

“This school is ruled by a queen, and between her subjects, four of them shine bright as her knights. One of these knights in particular shines brighter than the others, on account of his bald head. Within the light, you will find the way.”

“I have to admit, she’s ingenious.” Henry said, replacing the feeling of confusion he was fed up with for an odd sense of admiration. “I have no idea how the power hierarchy works in this school, but I might know where to start.”