7. 無銭飲食列伝 (The Free Meal Recollection): One afternoon, Akiho invites Iriya to go do some research for the newspaper by sampling the foods at various restaurant. She doesn't think that Iriya would come, but to her surprise, Iriya makes a phone call back home and agrees to participate. Meanwhile, Asaba is out cleaning (and messing around at) the school's pool with his buddies and they mention to him that Akiho was looking for him during the firestorm dance on the last night of the festival.

Akiho and Iriya hits some cafes first. Akiho would order the food and Iriya would say that she wants the same. Akiho observes that Iriya eats like a robot, very methodical and lacking emotion. At the second restaurant, Akiho tries to strike up a conversation and tells Iriya all the things she did with Asaba at the festival Iriya couldn't come to. When she mentions that she danced with Asaba, Iriya catches this lie right off the bat.

The last place they go to is a chinese restaurant where one of the featured foods is the "Iron Man Dish." The restaurant promises that whoever can finish the entire course in 60 minutes or less and doesn't hurl can have their meal on the house, otherwise it costs ~$40 bucks. There's a list posted of all the past "Iron Men" and listed on their is Suizenji being the youngest to finish everything. Akiho orders it and Iriya says she'll have the same. The waiter tries to tell them what they're in for, but the two girls don't care. A competition is brewing.

At first, the other people in the restaurant don't think the girls have a chance, but when they finish the first dish, ramen, they start taking notice. The second dish is 5 gyozas, but they're particularly large. Akiho almost throws up during this stage but manages to keep it in her mouth. Even people outside are starting to take notice.

The last dish is Chinese rice. Halfway through, Iriya gets another nosebleed and it gushes onto her food, making what is described to be like Mapo Tofu. She continues eating though. Eventually Akiho wins by a couple of bites of rice and celebrates. She doesn't remember much after though as the two of them pass out. When they wake up in the back room of the restaurant, Akiho and Iriya wake up and confess to each other that neither wanted to lose to each other. They become better friends, but there's still a sense of rivalry.

8. 水前寺応答せよ（前編） (Please Answer, Suizenji, First Part): It's a peaceful evening soon after and Asaba's parents also inform him about how they met Akiho at the festival. Suddenly the ground starts shaking and there's a loud explosion. Asaba runs up to Yuuko's room, which faces the mountains and the base, and sees that there's smoke coming from that area. There also seems to be some tracer bullets being fired from helicopters. The news that night state the obvious -- that there was an explosion -- but no official confirmation of what caused it as the military chooses to keep quite, both the self-defense forces and the American army stationed there. It may be a transport plane crashing (but Asaba later thinks why the tracer bullets?), but rumors circulate that it may be an UFO.

The next day they still have class, and Iriya is also there. She's surrounded by her classmates all asking if she knew anything. She says she doesn't and was hiding in the bomb shelter during the time. Their teacher then comes in announcing that class has been cancelled for the rest of the day, but they're supposed to go home immediately. Asaba's group of friends decide to spend the day having fun and go bowling. They invite Iriya to come and she does so. Asaba also finds out from a encrypted message left by Suizenji that he's gone to investigate the crash.

After a round of bowling, they go outside and see that Enomoto has found Iriya. He scolds her for not calling him and goes as far as punching her, rendering her unconscious, and carrying her back to the base. The group is so shocked at what they see that they disband without saying a word to each other.

The next day, Asaba explains to Akiho that the guy is supposedly the brother, but strangely, he calls her by her surname, not her given name, Kana. To everyone's surprise, Iriya shows up, but her hair is pure white, rather than purple. Since hair coloring is prohibited at school, their teacher goes up to her and grabs her by the hair. He pulls out a large chunk of it. As he's stands there speechless, Iriya gets paged. As she leaves, Asaba runs after her as he knows she won't be coming back for the day, at least. Asaba see Iriya at the bottom of the stairway. She asks if he's going to go hide in the shelters, he says that he's not and will be waiting for her. She tells him that everything will be fine, in the same manner that he said to her when they first met.

9. 水前寺応答せよ（後編） (Please Answer, Suizenji, Last Part): The city is falling into chaos with a lot of people leaving for the shelters. The government and military still won't say what happened. Suizenji has been missing since the incident in the mountains and now, Asaba sees that most of his classmates aren't coming to school anymore, including Akiho.

Iriya still comes to class, but Asaba notices that she seems to be going blind. During break, he finds her at the top of the clock tower, and his suspicions are confirmed. Her vision is severely impaired despite her denials. She then has a seizure. Asaba finds Mayumi and they manage to sedate Iriya with multiple injections directly into her heart.

With Iriya calm now, Asaba starts cleaning up the place. He finds an orange bag that Iriya had and sees that it's a collection of all the things he threw out. It seems like a good luck charm that she carries around. Asaba then starts accusing of Mayumi and Enomoto of doing this to Iriya. Her health is degrading and her hair turned white because she's a pilot for the Black Manta plane. Mayumi doesn't take his verbal abuse and ends up pummeling Asaba until Iriya grabs her leg in a gesture to ask her to stop.

As he's passed out, Asaba remembers back a few months ago when he went over to Suizenji's house and they found a map of the mountains near the base. That place used to be Suizenji's ancestor's property and they had dug tunnels underground. This map details those tunnels.

Sure enough, Suizenji has been in those tunnels these past few days and finally came out and sees *it*.

Back in the club room, the bruised Asaba waits for Suizenji to come as he mentioned in his note. Iriya shows up in the room too with a fresh set of clothes, unlike Asaba. Asaba then gets a call from Suizenji, who's in a telephone booth somewhere. He tells him that "it's alive!" but before he can say anymore, Asaba hears some glass break and a struggle before the line goes dead. He then tells Iriya to run away with him and not go back to the base. Iriya tells him that's not possible because he's bugged. He has a biological transmitter implanted behind his right ear.

With that, Asaba runs into the bathroom with a cutter and a lighter and digs it out (this part still makes me cringe). Iriya finds him in the bathroom drenched in blood, but without the bug in him anymore. They make their escape. Enomoto later shows at the bathroom and finds some dirty clothes and wet underwear.

Bonus. ESPの夏 (Summer of ESP): It's the middle of February before the main story occurs and Asaba and Suizenji are in their club room under a kotatsu talking. While trying to guess at some poker cards, Asaba and Suizenji start talking about the supernatural. Despite having an interest in it, Suizenji is disbeliever as he believes everything can be explained. They talk about the different senses that people have and the supposed 6th sense. Then their alarm rings signaling the beginning of lunch. During the break, Suizenji and Asaba go in the broadcasting room and announce over the P.A. system that they're doing an experiment in ESP. They're interrupted halfway when their science teacher storms in, but they manage to get some entries.