history / summaries

[ringleads]

With that said, let's jump into the convoluted mess that is Zero Escape: Virtue's Last Reward, and what it means for one (1) Dio.

It's the year 2028. A mysterious virus has broken out, and is wiping out the masses in true pandemic fashion. This virus is called Radical-6, and reduces the brain's processing speed to approximately √(1/6) of its normal processing speed. The change in the brain's processing speed drives those infected with Radical-6 to insanity, and typically causes them to kill themselves (and, if given the opportunity, spout nonsense, usually in relation to death being the only release). The outbreak and spread of this virus turns Earth into a sort of hell on earth; a report in the game writes that "the bodies of those dead from suicide are piled up along the roads leading into and out of town. The entire area reeks with the stench of decay, and the sky is filled with the constant buzzing of flies." On top of the Radical-6 pandemic, an organization worked on detonating 18 antimatter reactors in order to eradicate those infected with Radical-6, and, by extension, the virus itself. Naturally, this went spectacularly poorly, wiping out the large majority of life on Earth and clouding the atmosphere.

There is a lot of convoluted timey-wimey stuff going on because of this event. The most important fact here is this catastrophic chain of events is what leads to Virtue's Last Reward and its Nonary Game. That is to say, Akane Kurashiki sets up this Nonary Game in order to manipulate two other players, Phi and Sigma, into sending their consciousnesses into the past, so that they can prevent the outbreak of Radical-6 and essentially save the world. All the participants in the third Nonary Game are picked specifically, all except for ...

This guy.

— But not really. Strictly, he's not meant to be a participant. For Akane's purposes, he is. Getting to 'Akane's purposes' later (because, oh, are they some purposes), Dio sneaks into the facility where the third Nonary Game is being held because of orders from a figure known as 'Brother.' Brother is the leader of a religious organization/cult known as Free the Soul. This history is all summed up pretty nicely in the secret files, which I've transcribed and will direct you to. These files are all included in the game because Dio is, of course, a member of Free the Soul, a Myrmidon, and a clone of Brother's ... well, brother: Left.

Conveniently, Virtue's Last Reward and its timey-wimey nonsense means the game has several different routes, and the one coined as Dio route (because each route is marked with a character's portrait in the Good End version of the route, and usually that end focuses on said character) includes a monologue that he gives describing his mission. So, I can give you Dio's personal history and his experiences with Free the Soul straight from the horse's mouth. (As an aside that's not explicitly stated in either of these links, Free the Soul was the organization responsible for blowing up the 18 antimatter factories in an attempt to cleanse the world.)

So, now that we've established who Dio is and why he's playing in the third Nonary Game, we can talk about what he actually does in Virtue's Last Reward. This is going to be a quick rundown of how he effects all the different routes/timelines, followed by an explanation of how he fits into the grand scheme of the AB Project.

To start, here's a Wikipedia link to cover the basic premise of the game. The third Nonary Game essentially is about solving puzzles behind color-coded doors using color-coded bracelets, and then allying with or betraying the people you worked with to solve those puzzles in an effort to reach 9 points. Only someone with 9 points can open the 9 door or go through it (anyone who doesn't have 9 BP will face immediate lethal injection), and thus escape the facility.

Virtue's Last Reward starts with the nine participants escaping from the elevators in Warehouse A (on Floor A) which house the AB Game consoles. In most cases, Dio enters the facility, kills Akane Kurashiki (who was initially the ninth participant and solved the elevator puzzle the quickest), hides the murder weapon and a bomb (bomb #0) between two elevators, and takes her bracelet (required to play the game). He then enters the AB Room she was in, and becomes Quark's partner for the first round. Until an exception to this setup is noted, assume this happens in every given route/timeline.

Luna's Route

In this route, Dio goes with Tenmyouji and Quark through the cyan door, which leads to the crew quarters. After successfully solving the puzzle, the group meets up again in front of an elevator, and finds another floor with the secondary chromatic doors. The group realizes that they have two hours remaining until the doors open, and return to the Floor A warehouse in order to play the Ambidex Game. However, they find the corpse of Akane Kurashiki (simply an old woman to them) in one of the elevators used to play the AB game, and instead bring her back to the infirmary for an autopsy.

Dio attempts to blame K for her death, as the old woman was found in K and Clover's elevator, and K is the most suspicious character; he wears only a suit of armor which cannot be taken off without a key that no one is in possession of. K turns this around on him and points out his logic is poor (and, honestly, it is — but we'll talk about that later), but he has a point: they should be looking at the real Zero, as they were most likely responsible for the death. Conjecture is cut short by an announcement that there's only ten minutes left to vote in the AB Game, and the crew scuttles over to place their votes.

Dio starts a trend we're going to see with him for a long time. He convinces Quark he'll pick ally, and instead votes to betray Tenmyouji. When Tenmyouji is offended (as, in this game, losing enough points means death), Dio blames it on Quark and tells Tenmyouji the young boy (who is more or less Tenmyouji's adopted son) is quite the con man. No one really believes him. This is pretty easily the point where people start really side-eyeing Dio's behavior, for obvious reasons. Dio now has 6 points.

Having some time between the results and the next opening of the Chromatic Doors, the participants explore the already solved puzzle rooms. Dio, Alice, and Sigma have a conversation regarding when everyone was kidnapped and the possibility of the facility being a quarantine for those not infected with Radical-6. Dio plays along with Alice and Sigma's experiences, and plays dumb about the virus.

At the next decision point for the Chromatic Doors, Dio goes with Phi (his partner) and K through the red door, which leads to the pantry. During this decision point, Quark begins acting strangely and falls unconscious. Dio and his party finish their puzzle, and return to Warehouse A, where Phi and K "turn away for a moment" and Dio decides to swipe the AB card and start the next round of the AB Game before confirming everyone's finished. Sigma, Alice, and Luna make it to Warehouse A second, and promptly let Dio know that he's an idiot, particularly because Tenmyouji, Quark, and Clover seem to still be in their puzzle room. Sigma & co. found a note in their room stating that if nobody in a pair-solo alliance votes, then all three of them get hit with the death penalty. To Dio's benefit, this is one of the few times when he acts like a jerk and actually isn't aware of how big of a deal it is; his group didn't find such a note, and he assumed the third party would just all default to ally, and gain points.

Well, Clover and Tenmyouji show up before the round ends, but the problem lies in the fact that Quark has gone missing. Cue everyone searching for Quark wherever they can before the AB round's over. However, before everyone splits up, Alice and Clover investigate the area next to the rightmost elevator — Alice actually discovers Dio's knife that he had hidden away. Still, Quark's disappearance is a more pressing matter at the moment, and Alice and Clover do eventually part to search for him.

Instead of finding Quark, Dio discovers Alice's dead body in the crew quarters and informs the rest of the group. As suspicion usually falls on the first to find the body, he's interrogated, and trips up — he mentions that there's a knife sticking out of her chest (as it is his knife that she found next to the elevator), and Phi questions him on how he knows it's a knife. Dio turns the accusations around by pointing out Clover was the last person to see Alice, as opposed to just shoving the blame on the first person to happen upon the body. Clover runs off, distraught, since she was privy to Alice's discovery of the knife and no longer feels she can trust any of the other players.

Again, they're cut short in their discussion because of the AB Gates Dio opened earlier, and rush back to cast their votes. Dio promises to ally with K, though K is suspicious of his character and is aware that he could likely overpower Phi. In order to ensure both parties choose ally, Phi outwits Dio by telling him there's someone behind him and rushes into the AB room by herself. Both Phi and K choose ally, both to gain points (if they both picked betray, there would be a net gain of 0) and prevent Dio from getting 9 points (if Phi betrayed K and K actually allied, Dio and Phi would gain 3 points, and Dio would be able to escape). Here is the start of the formation of alliances specifically to prevent Dio's win. Dio now has 8 points.

The group splits up to find Quark, and also to retrieve Alice's bracelet — no more and no less than three 'people' (really, their bracelets) can go through a chromatic door, so the other two people in Alice's group would be screwed over otherwise. Meanwhile, Tenmyouji figures out that the corpse of the old woman once had a bracelet, and begins spraying the other participants' bracelets with luminol in order to detect who the true killer is, and Clover feels she knows who killed Alice and begins paranoia-induced plotting.

Phi and Sigma find Dio in Warehouse B, where he isn't concerned over searching for Quark because Quark has 9 BP and can open the 9 door if he's found (or, Tenmyouji will force him to make a run for it). He also calls Phi out on her stunt earlier (rather aggressively, asking if Sigma's brought her to him so he can kill her), and Phi advises him not to have such an attitude, or no one will ever ally with him. He points out that he doesn't really care what Phi says to him because he won't be playing against Sigma and Phi, as they're a pair and he's a pair — with K, who told him the other participants' colors. He also informs them that they'll be taking Alice's bracelet with them. Dio decides to stay in Warehouse B and wait for the white doors to open, as he evidently doesn't care about the other participants at this point.

Phi and Sigma do some detective work and figure out that it's possible Luna killed the old woman, since the knife, handkerchief, and blood splatter was hidden between the rightmost elevator (Luna's initial elevator) and the one next to it, and then the rightmost elevator was moved to the left side (where the old woman's body was found). Of course, none of this conjecture matters because K informs them Luna's body has been found in the crew quarters, killed with an injection of tubocurarine. After casting some suspicion on K, the three realize the weapon used to kill Alice — Dio's dagger — has gone missing, and that Luna's killer didn't use a knife instead of the tubocurarine is odd. It's safe to assume that in the 30 minute window between retrieving Alice's bracelet and discovering Luna's body, Dio had entered the crew quarters and taken his dagger back. He also saw Luna's body, but didn't say anything.

Discussion's cut short by the next set of doors opening, and they rush to Warehouse B, where Phi gives K Alice's bracelet and Dio's antsy to get a move on. He makes up a story about how he has a child and if he doesn't win the Nonary Game, Zero's going to kill his kid. K, Sigma, and Phi don't want to move on without Tenmyouji, Clover, and Quark, as they're essentially sentencing them to death. K tries to compromise with Dio's situation and his own dilemma: he will go with Dio through the doors, but Phi and Sigma also have to survive and exit the facility with them. Phi and Sigma refuse, so K hauls them over to the doors himself and forces them into a room, and explains that he doesn't truly believe Dio — he just feels he must ensure Phi and Sigma survive.

K and Dio solve the Director's Room puzzle. Phi and Sigma solve the Security Room puzzle and search the rest of the facility to find the others. They find Clover and Tenmyouji handcuffed to a sink in the infirmary, and Dio and K dead in the rec room. Sigma and Phi don't know what happened here (yet), but here it is: Clover killed Luna on accident during a heated fight she was having with her over Alice's death. She went to get something in the infirmary to resuscitate her, as it was not her intention to murder. Dio sees her, accuses her of killing Luna, and presses a knife to her throat to keep her from doing anything else. Tenmyouji walks in in the middle of all of this and tries to help, but Dio promptly stabs him. He then handcuffs the two of them to the sink in the infirmary. (This is why he's unconcerned about the 'three being left to die.') K figures out that Dio had murdered Clover and Tenmyouji (Clover wrote Dio's name on her thigh in her blood as a last resort), so Dio kills him in the rec room, but K uses the last of his strength to pay it back.

Obviously, the rest of the route is irrelevant to Dio's history, so we'll cut it here.

K's Route

This route has the same initial starting, but Dio goes with Phi and Clover into the Treatment Center puzzle instead. Dio & co. again finish first, and Dio opens the AB gates before anyone else returns. When Sigma, Alice, and K show up, Phi and Clover call Dio out for taking something from the treatment center. While he protests and attempts to avoid them, Clover digs into one of his pockets and pulls out his treasure: a neostigmine injection gun. Dio yells about how he found it so it's his in actual five-year-old fashion and manages to wrestle it away from Clover, and before anyone can make more of a fuss, Tenmyouji and Luna show up to inform the rest of the group that Quark's gone missing. Again, everyone splits up to look for him.

Dio has the joy of returning to Warehouse A and telling the rest of the group in very panicked fashion that he found Alice and Luna's corpses in the crew quarters. Suspicions turn to Dio, but are cut off by the AB Game's timer. Clover wants to stay with Alice's corpse, but Phi points out that if Clover doesn't vote, Dio can easily get to 9 points. Phi and Dio choose betray, and Clover also chooses betray. Dio stays at 6 points. Phi explains that only an idiot would ally and risk getting him to 9 when he questions why Clover betrayed them.

The group decides to split up and continue searching for Quark. No one else wants to pair with Dio, so Phi decides she'll go with him. In the treatment center, Sigma and K discover Quark's body in a treatment pod, and also figure out that he's being treated for an illness (this is actually Radical-6). K and Sigma report their findings to Phi and Dio, as they are the only two they can find. While Sigma and K were looking for Quark, they realized the old woman used to have a bracelet, and bring Phi and Dio to the rec room to spray luminol on their wrists. Dio, realizing he's in trouble, makes a break for it, but ultimately fails due to the other three working together to stop him. His bracelet, of course, glows with the traces of blood. They decide he should be restrained as he has definitely murdered at least one person, and while Dio begs, pleads, and struggles, they eventually move him into a treatment pod in the treatment center.

The other three still can't find Clover and Tenmyouji, so Sigma and K look for them throughout the facility, agreeing to meet up with all the required materials (bracelets, Dio) to enter the next set of doors five minutes before they open. Phi eventually goes to see their progress on the search, and meets with Sigma in the lounge, where K is taking a rest — in reality, he's slipped out of his armor and gone to the treatment center to kill Dio. They hear something loud in the hallway, and while they go to check on it, K slips back into his armor. Eventually, the two return to inform K of Dio's suffocated corpse. Thus ends Dio's part in K's route.

Dio's Route

In this route, the start is the same as Luna's, but Dio goes through the blue door with Phi and Luna. Again, they finish their puzzle and return to the main warehouse, only for Dio to open the doors before everyone else arrives. Tenmyouji and K inform Sigma, Alice, and Clover that Quark has gone missing when they meet up outside the puzzle rooms. The group splits up, and Clover and Alice eventually go to Warehouse A to inform Dio's group that Quark's gone missing. Dio taunts Tenmyouji about how Quark may be dead when they meet, and otherwise again offers relatively little to the Quark search. In this route, Phi discovers Alice and Luna's dead bodies. Again: drama, murder discussion, conjecture about who killed who.

The group goes back to the AB gates when the time's about to run out, where Phi reveals to Sigma that her and Dio intend to betray Luna, obtaining 9 points for the both of them and escaping. She tells Sigma to betray Clover in order to leave with them.

Phi and Dio do betray Luna, and Dio makes a run for the 9 door before the results are even displayed. He gives a long speech about his victory, and then pulls the lever. Phi, Sigma, and Dio make their way to the outside world, which appears to be a massive wasteland of desert in the middle of a lunar eclipse. (They are actually on Mars.) Along the way, Dio makes some comments about how he's actually a hero, but Phi and Sigma are skeptical and he doesn't want to bother explaining. Phi's consciousness jumps to this point in time from the Phi Route in order to get the code for bomb zero from Dio, and she tracks him down and nearly assaults him for it. Fearing for his life and not understanding what Phi or Sigma could possibly do with the code, he divulges it, and explains to Sigma who he is and what he's doing — since Phi would tell Sigma anyway.

Phi and Sigma then force Dio to lead them to another facility called "Rhizome x" by the writer (really, the x is a number), where they can meet other survivors of Radical-6 and gather their bearings.

Tenmyouji Route

Here, the initial door Dio goes through changes. He enters the magenta door with Quark and Alice, leading to the lounge instead of the crew quarters. However, many of the events are still similar. They open the AB gates, find the old woman's body, and take her to the infirmary for an autopsy. After discussion, they have to return to vote in their AB games. Again, Dio opts to betray Alice and shift the blame onto Quark ... but no one really believes him. Dio has 6 points.

The group splits up to explore the area. Dio and K hang out in the lounge. K tries to discuss Schroedinger's Cat, but Dio doesn't really let him get into it, and keeps making cracks about the sofa, the rings on Saturn, and Zero Sr. being a crazy cat lady. Go figure. Luna and Phi enter with an article on Radical-6, and Dio says that Zero's trying to freak them out — obviously, the article's a fake. He actually convinces the group of this, because the back of the article is pitch black, and if it was a front page article it wouldn't have had an ad on the back of it.

This time, instead of Quark acting strange and passing out immediately before entering a Chromatic Door, he passes out in the infirmary. Tenmyouji informs the others and Luna uses the ADAM scanner in the infirmary to confirm he's been infected with Radical-6. Quark gets on his feet shortly after and brandishes a scalpel, telling everyone to get away from him and that he 'has to escape.' He then tries to kill himself, but the others hold him down while Luna sedates him. The group discusses Radical-6, with Dio acting skeptical of Luna's medical knowledge of the virus. He consistently tries to convince the others that Radical-6 is a virus Zero made up, and not one affecting the real world. Alice mentions she's heard of such a virus, actually, but their time's up and the group must proceed to the Chromatic Doors.

Dio goes with Luna and Phi through the green door. Again, they finish their room relatively quickly, and Dio opens the AB Gates. In this timeline, K found some Axelavir, a cure for Radical-6, in the treatment center, and Phi, Luna, and Alice are treating Quark with it in the infirmary. Sigma, Tenmyouji, and Clover go to the infirmary to see Quark. While they're there, Dio enters his AB room early, as he is a solo. Dio betrays Phi and Luna, which could have killed them had they not also voted betray. Instead, Dio stays at 6 points.

After the post-game discussion, Dio goes to the lounge to have a drink. However, the group is called back to the crew quarters because Phi has found Alice's dead body. In this timeline, she has a scalpel in her chest instead of Dio's knife, indicating she never found it. Clover loses it and threatens to murder everyone in the room unless they prove that it wasn't a murder, at which point Sigma uses the information he's gathered from other timelines to explain Radical-6 drives an individual to suicide. While this is all strange, Dio is more focused on the fact that he needs Alice's bracelet, because the next set of doors is going to open pretty soon.

Quark fully recovers from Radical-6 just in time to go with Sigma and Tenmyouji through their door. Dio goes with Phi and Alice's bracelet through their own door. Dio makes a dash to the AB Gate as soon as he sees Sigma, eager to start what should be the final round. He chooses to betray Alice and Phi, but Phi also chooses to betray, and Dio stays at 6 while Clover, Quark, and Tenmyouji escape.

Quark Route

Dio goes through the red door with Clover and Sigma in the second choice of doors. They explore the laboratory, where K finds the Axelavir in Tenmyouji route. However, in this route, Dio snatches the vial of Axelavir from Sigma and threatens him to vote to ally, or he'll break the vial. Additionally, if Clover or Sigma tries to tell the others they found Axelavir, he'll still break the vial.

Dio heads off to the AB Gates alone and opens them up early, as usual. The group splits up to look around, and Dio investigates the room K, Alice, and Tenmyouji were in.

When the group returns to do their AB voting, Dio's entered his room early again. Sigma votes to ally, due to their agreement, and Dio votes to betray him, dropping Sigma's BP to -1 and raising his own to 9. Sigma gets injected with soporil and tubocurarine, and makes his way over to Dio in front of the 9 door. Sigma reveals that Dio has the Axelavir, and Dio tosses the vial to him, as promised. K and Dio open the 9 door, but Sigma leaps to grab hold of Dio's leg as he's leaving. He eventually lets him go, and Dio tells him to hurry up and die, at which point Sigma informs him that he's going to live and throws him for a final loop before Dio escapes.

Clover's Route

Dio, Alice, and K go through the red door in the second set of doors. As usual, once they finish their puzzle room, Dio goes to open the AB Gates. During this timeline, Sigma, Clover, and Quark go through the treatment room, where Sigma and Clover put Quark in a treatment pod to keep him stabilized regarding his infection. They explain that the cold sleep function of the treatment pods would stop their hearts, so their bracelets would fall off, and everyone in the game could escape. However, when they go to check the treatment pods, they find the cold sleep function has been deactivated. Again, discussion is cut off by AB Gate timing.

Dio betrays K and Alice, and they betray him back, so he stays at 6 points. Dio explains that it's not that he intended to kill Alice, with her 1 BP, but rather that he was trying to keep K from hitting 9 (he was also at 6).

The group then decides to search for the Axelavir for Quark's infection. This route ends with the reveal that, at some point, everyone in the facility contracted Radical-6, leading to a massive pile of bloody corpses in the infirmary.

Alice's Route

This is the first route where Dio's true objectives are revealed. His mission says he must do one of two things: win the Nonary Game, or set up several antimatter bombs to ensure everyone inside the facility dies. This established a new initial door for Dio: he and Quark go with Luna through the yellow door, which is the infirmary. They solve the puzzle, everyone meets up, discusses the new colored doors, etc. Eventually they return to Warehouse A and open the doors for the first AB game. In this group of routes, there is no corpse in the elevator Phi and Sigma open.

This is the exception to the previously mentioned setup for Dio entering the game. In these three routes (Alice, Sigma, and Phi — also known as the True Ending), Dio infiltrated the facility, but was knocked out by Phi before he could kill Akane. Akane then took the armor used for K for herself, and put the real body in K's suit — Sigma's clone/son, Kyle Klim — in a treatment pod. She also confiscated Dio's knife, gave him her bracelet, and placed him in Quark's AB room. To Dio, the events are essentially the same, because he is not privy to any of these changes and still gains Akane's bracelet. However, Akane makes one other change: she sets up the timer for Dio's bombs to work in Radical-6 time, so the participants wouldn't realize their perception of the world was off even if the detonator was sent into countdown mode.

Back to the present! In this route, Dio and Quark ally with Luna. Quark tells Luna that Dio really wanted to pick betray, but he convinced him otherwise — and then plays it off as a joke. Whether Quark's just covering for Dio or he actually suggested it is a little unclear, but it's pretty obvious Dio was at least thinking about betraying by how nervous he gets. Dio is at 5 BP.

The group splits up to look around. Dio hangs out with Alice and Tenmyouji in the infirmary, where they discuss Alice's choice to betray Sigma and each other's backgrounds. Dio says he's a fifth generation circus ringleader, and gets pretty elaborate with it. Quark breaks up the discussion by telling the group he found something really bad in the crew quarters ... which turns out to be an antimatter bomb with the number 3 on it. Meanwhile, K gathers the rest of the group to bring them to see it. Dio, of course, planted this bomb (and the other three), but acts very natural in his reactions to it. Alice points out that there's a port, which means there has to be a way to deactive the bombs ... but there's not much they can do without a device. Discussion's cut short, as usual, by the next set of doors opening.

Dio goes with Tenmyouji and Phi through the green door, exploring the treatment center. This time, Dio & co. meet up with Sigma & co. outside their respective puzzle rooms. The six of them go back into the treatment center to investigate it. In the treatment center, the group talks about the cold sleep functions of the treatment pods, as well as the possibility that Alice is the All-Ice of legend — the priestess made of Ice-9, whose entire body will freeze if her body temperature goes below 96 degrees Fahrenheit. After this discussion, they head back to Warehouse A to check on the other team. K explains that Quark's collapsed, and Clover's looking after him in the infirmary.

Again, Luna scans him with the ADAM, discovers he has Radical-6, he goes through a dramatic attempt to kill himself, and is sedated. This time, the discussion of Radical-6 is cut short by Alice standing with a scalpel at the door, followed by screaming about terrorists, biological warfare, and the virus, and then running off. The team splits up to look for Alice.

Sigma and Phi find an unconscious Alice and bring her back to the infirmary, where Luna scans her and confirms she also has Radical-6. The group decides to bring Alice and Quark to the treatment center in order to stabilize them in the treatment pods. However, when Tenmyouji picks Quark up, a vial of Axelavir falls out of Quark's pocket. The gorup realizes there's only one vial, however, and it can only cure one person. Again, Sigma taps into the other timelines he's seen and remembers the replicator in the laboratory he saw in Quark's Route, and the group goes to replicate the vial of Axelavir.

Sigma accidentally drops one of the bottles, and while it thankfully doesn't break, it leads to the discovery of bomb #2 under the table of the laboratory. They also find another memory card. However, ten minutes remain before the AB Gates close, and so they must again make their way up to Floor A, dispense the Axelavir to Alice and Quark, and then vote in the AB Game. Tenmyouji stays behind to watch over Quark and Alice, which leaves Dio to vote against Phi. Dio reassures Phi that he's going to choose ally, since Phi's BP is 1 and betraying her would kill her. At the same time, Tenmyouji's BP is 1, so Phi can't betray him, unless she's willing to kill Tenmyouji.

Of course, Dio betrays Phi, but Phi also betrays Dio. Dio stays at 5 BP, and takes a graceful leave once it's become obvious no one in the game trusts each other anymore.

Sigma, Luna, Alice, and Tenmyouji end up in the infirmary, looking at the memory card found with bomb #2. The memory card contains a series of letters that Alice recognizes as one of the codes used by the Myrmidons. Alice leaves the infirmary in a fit, and Sigma follows after her. After a long conversation about Alice's history, he has an epiphany where he remembers that Dio is a member of the Myrmidons, as well as the code in Dio's Ending that was meant to ... well, crack Myrmidon codes. Together, Alice and Sigma decode the memory card, which turns out to have the message COMPLETED ... the message Dio was meant to transmit to the Myrmidons in his ending.

When they go back to the warehouse, everyone is arguing over the most recent round of the AB Game, Dio included. Sigma shuts them all up by revealing that he knows who planted the bombs — Dio, of course. Sigma pretends to be a member of Free the Soul sent by Brother in order to get Dio himself to admit his guilt; he even calls him Left. Dio eventually panics and gives himself away, and Sigma uses that to go in for the kill: he tells him Brother doesn't trust Dio, and suspects him of betrayal. Dio digs his own grave, asking why Brother would make him the leader of the Myrmidons if he didn't trust him. While the rest of the group is confused about the reveal, Tenmyouji and Clover explain just who the Myrmidons are.

Alice tries to tackle Dio as revenge for her father, who was killed by the Myrmidons (he was one of the geneticists Brother kidnapped), and Dio slips out of the way and pulls out his bomb detonator. Dio also reveals that there are in fact four bombs (#1, #2, #3, and #0). Dio explains that he doesn't care if he dies in the explosion, because he has spares — in other words, all the other Left clones. However, Alice and Clover interrupt his speech with some teamwork, where Clover snatches the detonator from his hand and instead tosses it to Sigma, and both Alice and Clover tackle him to the ground.

Dio just laughs, though — because the detonator's more than a meter away from Dio when it's in Sigma's hands, which means the bombs are going to go off no matter what they do. They have about 30 minutes before the whole place explodes with four tons of explosive power.

Alice reminds them that they only need the input device and the codes to shut the bombs off, and tries to get the info out of Dio by nearly breaking his arm. Eventually, he gives and tells her the device is in the right-hand pocket of his coat, so Alice has Clover check. Clover finds something, no doubt about it: a small pill, and Clover isn't sure what it is. Dio suggests she bring it over to him so he can see it and tell her what it is, but — as you can probably guess — it's a cyanide pill, and all it accomplishes is is giving Dio a way out.

As a final 'fuck you' to the rest of the group, he gives them the code for bomb #3, and recites the rhetoric of Free the Soul one more time before he dies.

Sigma's Route

Again, this route simply changes the second door Dio goes through. Dio and Tenmyouji go with Alice through the red door. This time, Dio & co. don't meet up with Sigma & co. outside of their puzzle room, and instead rush back to open the AB Gates as usual. Again, Quark has collapsed, Luna scans him, he tries to kill himself, etc. Alice is also infected with Radical-6 in this timeline, and runs off, but Sigma recalls the other timelines where she killed herself in the crew quarters and manages to find her before she can do any damage. They again confirm Alice has Radical-6, and Clover wants to stay in the infirmary with Alice.

Dio takes the opportunity to point out how lucky Sigma is, since Sigma has 6 BP and Clover will default to ally. Sigma tries to reassure the rest of the group that he would vote ally, of course. Phi turns it around on Dio by pointing out that his opponent is Alice, and if Dio's voting, he'll definitely betray her, even if her BP's at 1. Tenmyouji hears this and decides that he'll be joining Dio in the AB Room to prevent that outcome. With those decisions made, the group goes to place their votes.

Tenmyouji and Dio ally against Alice, who, of course, allies. Dio is at 7 BP. Contrary to Alice's Route, everyone votes ally in this round of the AB game. Afterward, Sigma and Luna go to have a private talk, which Dio is suspicious of, but ultimately doesn't pursue. Phi follows Sigma and Luna to the B. Garden, and finds bomb #1 on the trunk of a tree there. The three of them head back to the infirmary, where everyone is gathered.

As a solution to not knowing where the input device is, Phi decides she'll search all of the Nonary Game participants to forcefully check if they have anything on them. Obviously, anyone who doesn't want to be checked is probably the culprit anyway. Sigma has an epiphany at this point, and tells Phi she only needs to search one person: Dio. Dio's taken off guard by Sigma admitting he knows all about the Myrmidons, Free the Soul, and Brother; he says he couldn't know anything about who the Myrmidons are or an old fart named Brother, and in the process gives himself away.

Having been caught, Dio fesses up to being Left, leader of the Myrmidons, responsible for stopping Zero Sr.'s AB plan and blowing up the place if it looked like the plan would succeed. Sigma tries to tackle Dio, but Dio backs up and pulls out the detonator, threatening to press it if everyone doesn't back off. Tenmyouji stands his ground, though; he all but dares Dio to detonate the bombs. He then tells Dio that his detonator's a fake, completely straight-faced, and Dio hesitates ... giving Tenmyouji the opportunity to knock the detonator out of his hands.

Of course, this puts it a meter away from Dio and starts the countdown. Again, as a way to tease the rest of the participants, Dio gives them the code for bomb #2 — which they haven't found in this route. He tells them that's not his problem, of course, and goes for his cyanide, but Sigma sees it coming and pins him down, not planning to allow it this time. Phi tells Luna to get some soporil so they can sedate Dio and handle the bombs.

Phi's Route / True Ending

Finally, in this route, Dio goes through the blue door with Tenmyouji and Clover. As usual, his group finishes, he rushes to the AB Gates and opens them. Same deal with Quark collapsing, Radical-6, scanning, suicide, Alice. In this timeline, Alice runs to the B. Garden and Phi finds her, like in Alice's Route. However, this time Phi notices the number one bomb on the tree while she's here. Not being able to do anything about it at the moment, Phi and Sigma bring Alice back to the infirmary, where they confirm she has Radical-6. Clover again wants to stay with Alice.

Phi points out how convenient it is that Dio's opponent will default to ally, and Tenmyouji confirms that he'll be staying with Quark. As such, Dio has no one to vouch for him that he'll vote ally. With five minutes left before polling closes, Tenmyouji finds the solution to their predicament: he assaults Dio to get him wheezing on his knees, and then tells Clover she has to go vote for them.

Of course, Clover allies, and Dio sits at 7 BP. Phi attempts to leave with her 9 BP, but Sigma convinces her to stay, and everyone (except for Tenmyouji, Dio, Alice, and Quark — those in the infirmary) go to search for the second bomb. While Sigma and Phi search the archives and discuss Schroedinger's Cat and the multiple worlds theory of quantum physics that Virtue's Last Reward is based on, K and Luna find bomb #2 in the control room area of the facility, and Clover goes to tell Sigma and Phi about its location. Meanwhile, everyone else has gathered in the infirmary.

The bomb in the control room makes Phi, Sigma, and Clover realize something important: the four tons of explosive power through the bombs is only the start of a reaction that would set off the reactor in the control room. In other words, letting the bombs go off would result in an explosion 10,000 times more powerful than the bomb dropped on Hiroshima. Obviously, something that wasn't an option is even more not an option.

The group meets up at the infirmary again. They discuss the three bombs, and Sigma pulls out the input device he got from the safe in the control room puzzle (which he, Phi, and Luna went through this time). Now the only issue is the bomb passwords, which Phi pressures the rest of the group to fess up about. Again, Phi resorts to checking everyone, this time for a remote. Sigma again relays his revelation about Dio, the Myrmidons, etc., and the scene plays out very similarly to Sigma's Route. Dio ends up sedated, while the rest of the team follows Phi's orders, and Phi and Sigma ultimately go around deactivating the bombs.

Finally, when the time comes, the group heads into the final set of doors. Dio, Quark, and K go through one door, but K carries Quark on his back and drags Dio along the floor, as he's presumably still sedated.

After clearing the Q room puzzle (and everyone else's respective puzzle rooms), the participants regroup. Tenmyouji, Phi, and Sigma found two bottles of Axelavir in the Q room safe, and use those to cure Alice and Quark. Afterward, all of the participants play the AB game over and over until everyone has 9+ BP, so they can all escape.

Well ... with one exception.

Dio is left in the infirmary, chained to a sink. That's it. That's his true end. There's a lot of stuff that's going on behind the scenes, but for Dio, this is where it stops.

And, finally, an explanation of Dio's role in the AB Project. As mentioned in Alice's route, where the exception to Dio's normal infiltration pops up, Akane was aware that Dio would kill her to infiltrate her game. She considered it necessary to the project. The purpose of the AB Project was to get Phi and Sigma to move their consciousnesses through time freely, in order to prevent the outbreak of Radical-6 and the devastation afterward, and the third Nonary Game was designed with this in mind: the number of choices made, with many reoccuring events, sceneries, etc., worked to enhance Phi and Sigma's powers. Additionally, danger enhances the power of the morphogenetic field (which is a fancier way of saying 'enhances Phi and Sigma's powers'). In this way, Dio's involvement actually helped the AB Project — he posed immediate danger with the bombs, and the imperative nature of remembering the bomb passwords helped Phi and Sigma recall these other timelines where the codes were revealed.

So Dio probably thinks he wasn't supposed to be there — but he was.