Heguri participated in the ❓7 "Boiling Punishment" game. To clear the game, players must escape before the game venue collapses.
❓Q: General
The ❓Q team will face the challenger team in a game of strength and beauty. The ❓Q team has four members, while the challenger team has 16. Each team has a king, and a young boy is chosen as the king of the challenger team.
The teams take turns attacking over 16 rounds. When the ❓Q team attacks, they pursue the challenger team members. Touching the button on a challenger’s back will change its color from blue (challenger) to red (❓Q team), and the affected player cannot act for the rest of the round. In the next round, they must join the ❓Q team’s actions. The king cannot change teams. The same rules apply when the challenger team attacks.
Each round has a time limit of five minutes. The teams alternate turns, and after 16 rounds, the team with more members wins. The losing team, including the king, will be executed.
Continuing from the fourth episode, Usagi and Arisu were separated while being pursued by ❓K. Arisu was saved by Kuni, who now wants to take down the Spades K. Since Spades K is human, he must have weaknesses. Arisu thinks it’s impossible to win, but for Kuni, who seeks death, it’s a fitting challenge. He should have died at the Beach long ago and now has nowhere to belong. Arisu encourages Kuni: "Living doesn’t need a reason. As long as you’re alive, you should want to survive. Even without a goal, humans keep living. That’s just how we are."
Kuni’s companion, Heguri, deeply reflects on Arisu’s words. She recalls her high school days and her sisters—she was a typical yet manipulative girl. While shopping with her sisters, fireworks suddenly appeared in the sky, and she was transported to this world.
She participated in the ❓7 "Boiling Punishment" game, where escaping before the venue collapsed meant clearing the game. Heguri didn’t escape in time; instead, a metal rod impaled her leg. To survive, she had to pull it out (which is why she now has a prosthetic leg). Arisu’s words—"As long as you’re alive, you should want to survive"—resonate with her.
As for Kuni, though he wants to end it all, he can’t help but think Arisu shouldn’t betray the wishes of those who died. The next day, Kuni suggests moving quickly, as ❓K is likely already watching them. He plans to lure ❓K into the woods and take him down. Along the way, they see someone commit suicide. Arisu understands why someone would choose death in such circumstances, but Heguri insists she would never actively choose death. Arisu immediately realizes what Heguri lost in the game—her leg and her innocence.
While struggling to climb out of the game venue, Heguri saw a vision of her deceased mother urging her to jump. Her mother saved her, something Heguri never expected from someone she once looked down on. Heguri later found herself in a hospital-like place, where a perverted doctor demanded her body in exchange for help. To survive, she had no choice but to agree.
The future Heguri owes her past self a debt—because she fought desperately to live, she is still here today. That’s why she refuses to die no matter what.
Usagi arrives at a residential area looking for food and unexpectedly encounters a woman and a child who generously share biscuits with her. The child’s parents appear to be dead, and Usagi thinks that even if they return to the original world, the child might suffer. On the other hand, his parents would surely want him to survive. This reminds Usagi of her father’s words: if he truly died in a mountain accident, he would want Usagi to live on.
Ann ventures into the forest and discovers a place with a strange magnetic field. Meanwhile, Arisu, Kuni, and Heguri set a trap near a cliff to lure ❓K and ambush him at night. Arisu, lacking experience, almost gets killed by ❓K but is saved when Kuni shoots just in time. However, ❓K survives, likely due to a bulletproof vest. Arisu is blown off the cliff into the water by an explosion, while Kuni is severely injured.
Arisu arrives at a community apartment but cannot find Usagi. He desperately needs food and water. When he reaches Shinjuku, he finds all buildings overgrown with plants.
Elsewhere, Mizuki joins a ❓J game, fighting alone against many opponents and ending up bruised and battered. Usagi brings the child to participate in the ❓Q game, hoping to help him survive and return to the original world. Other participants coldly declare the child a burden and vow to show no mercy.
At this moment, Arisu appears—he is Usagi’s hope. They begin the ❓Q game. Since the child is designated the king, he cannot be pursued, so Arisu and Usagi must avoid capture. Men and women scatter in panic. In the first round alone, several are captured by the ❓Q team. Arisu wants to rescue them, but the ❓Q team’s violence makes it difficult. The situation shifts when captured players express no desire to be rescued, believing compliance is the only way to survive—even if they pity the child.
To make matters worse, ❓Q seems particularly interested in capturing Arisu because he’s "her type."