The show return to Noheul's group. The three boys have been joined by a few other guys, who are chatting with Jihyun avidly.

Reito and Noheul are sitting awkwardly to the side, watching the group. Noheul looks slightly miffed, while Reito has returned to his usual look of perpetual confusion.

Noheul looks over to Reito after a long moment. "So, um, why'd you come to Korea?" He tries for cheerful but it's clear he's not totally sure what to do with himself around the teen.

Reito picks up on it too. "Why you pick me?"

Noheul looks confused. "Well, you're a good rapper and decent singer, so even though your dancing leaves a lot to be desired you were an easy call to increase the talent on the team. Not to mention a lot of fans on the voting site were pretty upset when you were eliminated, so that gives our team an automatic boost when it's time to vote which group gets back on the show." He glances over at Reito then, having been staring thoughtfully at his knees up to that point. "Um, did you follow any of that?"

Reito looks thoroughly confused, so Noheul shrugs and simplifies it.

"You're talented and popular with fans."

Reito's eyes light up in understanding and he smiles, though it seems a bit forced.

Noheul looks like he wants to say something else, but Jihyun and his group choose then to come to an agreement and uncluster.

Jihyun walk over to his two groupmates, looking rather proud.

"Alright so we had to edit some stuff we'd agreed on-" He waves Noheul's protests down before they can start- "But I think you'll agree that Jihyuk's suggestions are going to look pretty awesome, plus it solves the problem of our dancing black hole here." He nods towards Reito with no small amount of amusement. "Trust me, we're going to blow this out of the water."

Noheul doesn't look convinced, and Jihyun blows out an annoyed breath. "Look hyung, I know full well what you think of me, but this is important. You know how it is, it's all our dreams to debut. It's the same for me. So I'm giving everything into making this performance amazing. You don't have to like me, but trust that I'm putting more than one hundred percent into this, and that I always will." It's bluntly said, and Noheul looks vaguely stunned.

However Jihyun simply turns back to his friends and waves idly for the other two to join them. "Come on, we'll show you the easy stuff from the end, and then there's one tougher part that you should be able to handle with practice hyung."

Noheul glances at Reito, who's obviously completely lost, and he stands, offering a hand to Reito as well. The young trainee accepts the gestures and the two follow Jihyun.

The scene changes to show Ash's group, who have left the stage area and are now back in the main building.

Kangjoo is halfway through a sentence when the sound catches up with the visual change.

"-sounds fine so I'll just duck into one of the trainee composing rooms and finish cutting things togther. It was pretty lucky that there was no one in that recording booth though."

Ash nods in agreement though he seems a bit bewildered by whatever Kangjoo had been saying prior to the sound cutting in.

G seems a little more aware and gives the group's maknae a verbal response. "That sounds good Kangjoo. We'll head back to the main stage and keep practicing the dance, and I'll do a bit more rap practice with Ash as well. How long do you think it'll be before you get back with the full cut? I'd like to have enough time to run through everything with the back track a few times."

Kangjoo waves his hand idly. "No worries, this should take an hour tops. I'll catch up in a bit." He heads one way down the hall while his groupmates head the other.

The camera follows Ash and G as they walk through the halls of the main building. Ash looks rather uncertain and keeps quiet as they walk. G seems unbothered by the silence, but after a few halls he seems to realize that Ash is uncomfortable as he speaks up.

"So what do you think of our song? Kangjoo didn't do too badly rearranging it." It's said mostly to fill the silence, but Ash looks relieved.

"It's good! I mean Kangjoo is Kangjoo, but he definitely does know how to deal with music. I feel like if he doesn't debut he'll probably end up being a composer or something, he and Ant are definitely the two trainees who are best at that." He fusses a bit with the hem of his shirt as he speaks. "Though I mean I'm not nearly as good a rapper as I really need to be to do the song justice but-"

G cuts him off. "You're doing fine. And everyone seems to be under the impression that the rescued contestants will all be from the same group anyway so all we need to do is focus on making our performance stand out."

Ash nods thoughtfully, and then frowns. "Wait, 'under the impression'? What do you mean by that?"

G blinks, and then shrug almost awkwardly. "Three people three teams. There's another way of looking at what the CEO told us. But I'm staying positive and thinking that it will be the top team all going back. And anyway if he wanted drama he could have told us right after the teams were picked if we'd be competing against each other. Then some people would actively try to sabatoge their teammates."

Ash looks a bit wary. "Yeah, I guess you're probably right." But he still seems worried as the two reach the main entrance and head out of the building.

The scene switches to the third group, who seem to be getting things done.

Soul is talking with one of the female trainees, their heads bent close as they debate. Doc has a mix of frustration and annoyance on his face as a few of the other girls try to help him with the dance steps.

Byunjae is by himself, singing quietly and going over the moves on his own while a group of the girls sit watching him curiously.

The shot zooms in on Soul and his companion and tunes in to their conversation.

"I feel like we could do more in our first solo dance, something to sort of stand out."

The girl looks amused at Soul's words. "So you are trying to stand out from the others, even though this is a team effort?"

Soul has the decency to look slightly abashed. "Well, it's what JYP said. He didn't say that the groups would get in together he said that there were three people being un-eliminated. Three people, three groups. I'm just covering all my bases. This is my last chance Soyeon, I'm getting to be too old to debut." He sounds slightly pained and Soyeon rests a hand lightly on his shoulder.

"I was just teasing a bit, I know this really means a lot to you. We'll come up with something for sure." She smiles brightly at him and he grins back just as warmly.

The camera cuts then to Doc, just as he nearly steps on one of the girls' feet.

She yelps and jumps back, and the girl with the bob cut - Hyunmi - frowns and waves for the group to stop. She walks over to Doc, eyebrow quirked.

"Look if this part is too difficult I have ways of simplifying it." She sounds extremely impatient. "Both Soul and Byunjae are pretty much solid with their solo dances but we haven't even gotten to your second one and there's only a few hours left."

"I can do the main parts of the dance." Doc defends, but it's weak and Hyunmi looks unimpressed.

"So can Soul and Byunjae." Her voice is flat. "Look, let's move on to the main solo dance and I'll make it extremely simple. You just have to let me do all the work."

Doc looks a bit digruntled, but he sighs and gives in after a moment, and Hyunmi proptly gets into his personal space, making him jump a bit.

Byunjae looks up when Doc startles and laughs. "Did he not see Soul-hyung and I doing our dances? Why's he so surprised?"

Natty, who is one of the girls watching Byunjae work, laughs as well. "Well he's been super focused on his own feet for most of our rehersal so it's not that surprising." She jokes cheekily.

Byunjae laughs loudly. "That's for sure!"

Doc hears the comment and glares at the two of them before Hyunmi forcibly turns his attention back to her. The video feed speeds up as the group continues practicing. It slows again about five hours later when Soul claps to get everyone's attention.

"Okay so the three of us need to record a backtrack before time is up and I figure that even between the three of us it'll still take some time to figure out how everything in the recording booth works. So let's start on that now so we have enough time to get everything together."

Doc and Byunjae glance at each other before the former shrugs and nods.

"Sounds good to me." Byunjae agrees as well, stretching leisurely as he does.

The three head out after politely bowing to the girls. Hyunmi then calls for them to grab some water and some rest and that they'll be back to practicing in three hours.

The screen goes dark for a moment before brightening to show all three groups standing nervously in the large practice room along with JYP.

The CEO has a smile on his face that is clearly putting some of the contestants on edge as they wait for him to speak.

"Well you've all created your performances! Whether or not they're any good is of course up in the air, but we'll find out about that tomorrow. For tonight you get a special treat: you all have front row seats to the JYP Nation concert!"

The contestants look a bit confused, though both Kangjoo and Byunjae clap politely at the announcement.

"Now before you go get ready for the concert remember to be back here tomorrow afternoon at one o'clock exactly, otherwise you'll be disqualified from being resuced."

Jihyun raises his hand, looking troubled. JYP sighs but waves for him to ask his quesiton.

"Don't you mean the group will be disqualified?"

JYP looks slightly confused, and then realization dawns on his face and he laughs. "Oh goodness no. Did you not figure it out? Only one person from each group is returning to the competition, not the whole group. Oh, and you will have time in the morning to practice a bit more, just so you know." The CEO finally exits, looking thoroughly amused.

In the room a majority of the contestants look like someone just punched them in the gut.

Kangjoo unconciously reaches out and grips Ash's sleeve. "Only one of us? How is that fair, we all worked together with our groups." His voice sounds shaky and Ash awkwardly pats the younger's shoulder.

Noheul's face is pale. "Crud. Crud crud crud." He looks over at Reito. "Well there go my chances I guess."

Jihyun smacks him. "Like heck. You and I contributed way more to the creation of the performance, surely that will show? Reito is nice and all but he's nowhere near ready for debut. I mean he can't even understand Korean yet, plus he's so young. He has plenty of time to debut still." But he sounds uncertain as well as he eyes their third teammate, who's standing next to Doc as the older presumably translates JYP's words for the boy.

Soul and G are the only two who seems relatively unaffected by the announcement, and they end up graviatating to each other. Sould speaks first.

"You guessed it was that too, huh?"

G shrugs. "Survival show. If it's mean, it shall be done."

Sould laughs a bit. "You've stopped caring about your camera image haven't you?"

G just shrugs again, glancing directly towards the camera as he replies. "Face it Soul, the viewers have already decided who they like. There's no point to pretend to be someone you're not at this point. It doesn't matter anymore."

The time stamp shows that it's the next day at eight in the morning, and already all three practice rooms are in use as the three group scramble to get the full use of the extra time they've been given. The screen divides into three parts to show each group's practice side-by-side as the scene fast forwards through the morning rehearsals.

There's distinct tension in Noheul's group as they work, but they seem to be successfully moving through their performance, each with a power and precision belieing their determination to win.

Soul is also noticably tenser, while Doc is actually more relaxed, accepting help from the back up dancers with less fuss and even going out of his way to offer pointers to his groupmates, which Byunjae seems annoyed by.

The third group is the only one who's dynamic doesn't seem to have changed much. Ash seems a bit twitchy, but Kangjoo and G are both working hard and offering word of encouragement to their hyung as they practice.

The time flies by as the groups practice, and at noon they all leave their practice rooms, presumably for lunch.

Several staff member then appear in the largest room and begin setting up a table. The MC appears in the room a bit later with the CEO and the scene slows down as they chat and the staff members leave, the table and benches finally set up along with a makeshift stage.

"I don't understand why you didn't tell them right away how the judging would work this round." The MC is saying.

The CEO laughs. "Where's the fun in that? Though I admit I thought a few more of them would have figured it out before the day was over."

The MC sighs. "I suppose." But he doesn't sound completely convinced.

JYP slaps him cheerfully on the back. "Don't be so negative, this is all about getting them ready for being debuted. There are plenty of curveballs in the industry, they should be ready for anything."

"But as a group." JYP doesn't seem to hear the MC's quiet reply as he inspects the space and then checks the clock.

"Well the boys should be here soon, I'm sure none of them want to be disqualified before even starting."

As if on cue the door swings open and Noheul and Soul both walk in. They eye each other and automatically sit apart from each other on the benches set up around the room.

The others arrive not much later, with Reito bouncing in last only a few minutes before one.

JYP seems to make a quick headcount before speaking. "Alright then, I assume you're all ready to perform, so let's go ahead and start. Any volunteers to begin?"

Soul's hand is in the air almost immediately. Doc and Byunjae shift nervously but JYP smiles and ignores them.

"Excellent! Do you need any set up?"

Soul shakes his head. "No sir, but we do have backup dancers."

The CEO looks pleasantly surprpised. "Well I suppose I never told you you couldn't do that. I'm impressed with your resourcefullness. I assume they're waiting in the hall?"

As the CEO speaks Byunjae has already gone to the door and waved in the group of female trainees they'd been working with. JYP quirks a brow, still smiling curiously.

"Alright then, plug in your music and let's see what you've created."

(Soul: Leather Jacket       Doc: Black and White Coat       Byunjae: Long Coat)

JYP seems quite enthusiastic about the performance if his applause is anything to go by.

The other three groups look increasingly nervous the longer the applause goes, and when the CEO finally stops clapping the room seems to let out a sigh or relief.

"Excellent boys! Hyunmi I asume this was your choreography?"

The girl with the bob shrugs modestly, but her form belies her pride.

"It was a wonderful idea to utilize the girls as a resource, who's idea was that?" JYP's eyes travel almost hopefully towards Doc, who promptly jerks a thumb towards Soul, who's grinning brightly.

"Mine sir. Thank you so much for the compliment."

JYP seems to deflate a bit but nods. "Job well done. Even with two of our... shall we say less skilled dancers the dance itself looked good. Doc you did well to use your lower register for this performance, and Byunjae you sounded wonderful as always. And of course Soul, you did quite well. And now that I've given words of encouragement," he looks to the other groups, "You six can feel free to voice anything you saw that you didn't particularly like."

Jihyun pounces immediately. "Personally, and maybe it's because I'm a dancer, but it was pretty obvious that none of you are good dancers. The choreo was fine but the girls did basically everything. Especially for Doc, that solo dance at the end was all Hyunmi, not you."

Doc shrugs. "That's true."

Kangjoo raises his hand politely before he speaks. "Honestly I thought it was a shame how often Soul let the backtrack sing for him. You're easily the best singer of the three of you but you let the other two do the heavy lifting while you focused more on style. Though I guess the bit when Soyeon stole your mic was a nice touch." He adds, almost as an afterthought.

Soul nods, chewing his lip in annoyance.

JYP waits a moment to be sure no one else has anything to say, and he seems a bit dissapointed at the lack of critiques coming from the groups. "Alright then, who wants to go next?"

Kangjoo starts to raise his hand but Jihyun jumps up before he has a chance, with Noheul standing not long after.

"We'll go." The team leader says firmly, waving for Reito to get up as well. The maknae vanishes behind the stage while Noheul and Jihyun get ready and start the music.

(Noheul: Red Suit       Jihyun: Spotted Suit      Reito: Rapper)

JYP is back to looking quite pleased. "I was quite shocked when the backup dancers came onstage! Who are these young men?"

Jihyun grins. "Guys I used to dance with back before joining JYP. They were nice enough to help out."

JYP nods. "Once again that is wonderful initiative on your part."

Kangjoo and Ash share a look, both clearly nervous.

JYP continues with his positive analysis. "The dance was well executed and I was pleasantly surprised to hear Jihyun sing, I'm used to you rapping for your evaluations. And having Reito not come on until after the more complex dancing was complete was definitely an interesting but positive call." He finishes his short speech and nods to the groups. "Any critiques for these three?"

Soul seems more than happy to start. "I know Reito is a bad dancer but the fact he didn't even attempt the chorus dance was sort of offputting. Both of you looked great and he broke the flow for me."

Reito seems to understand something negative is being said about him as his fists clench and he frowns, but he stays silent.

Ash tentatively clears his throat. "Um, kind of going off of what Soul said I think it could have been fun if you guys did something more with the chorus dance, especially you Jihyun. You're crazy talented in dancing but it felt like you limited yourself to match with the group."

"Of course I did!" Jihyun snaps.

A few of the contestants and backup dancers glance at JYP to see if he'll interceded, but the CEO looks curious as Jihyun's rebuttal continues.

"This is a group project, which means the whole group should look as good as possible. If I danced full out it would make my teammates look bad and that's not what a team is about. We have to all make each other shine however we can. So don't tell me I could have done more because this isn't a solo show, this is a group."

JYP gives a few slow claps when Jihyun finishes. "Nicely said, though I must say I'm surprised to hear that coming from you. Now if no one else has anything to say?"

Silence.

"Wonderful, last group, you're up!"

Ash, Kangjoo, and G all walk up to the stage as the previous group evacuates. Ash pauses on the stairs and turns to Jihyun as they pass each other.

"Hey, I'm sorry. I wasn't really thinking about all that." He sounds genuinely upset, and Jihyun sighs dramatically before replying.

"Dude it's whatever. We all know I'm a top dancer, and next time I do something solo you better believe I'm going to blow you all out of the water. But teamwork is a thing people need in a group and I'm trying to show that I'm capable of it."

Ash nods in understanding. "Well for what it's worth I've always known you were."

Jihyun looks surprised for a moment, and then snorts. "Whatever, sappy. Go kick some up there."

Ash laughs and then catches up with his teammates, who have finished clearing the stage and are waiting patiently for him to start the music.

(Ash: Long Coat       G: Tank Top       Kangjoo: Singer)

Jihyun claps pointedly as the performance ends, and a few others follow his lead.

JYP looks slihgtly less impressed than he had the previous performances. "I have to say perhaps going first would have done you some favors. But a simple stage can be effective if used correctly and all of you definitely had great energy. G especially was effortless with his charisma and Kangjoo you nailed those high notes." He sits back and waves for the groups to give their thoughts.

Jihyun speaks up immediately. "I've got one complaint. Ash-hyung, you should have been more confident. Your rapping isn't half bad for someone who I'm pretty sure never rapped before yesterday." He smirks a bit at the end of the sentence and Ash smiles abashedly.

"Sorry..."

Byunjae then clears his throat, looking unsure if he should speak, but he does when everyone looks at him. "Honestly it sounded like Kangjoo was straining on the high notes to me."

Kangjoo frowns angrily. "Pretty sure you can't even hit hight notes." He snaps back.

Byunjae starts to retort but this time JYP does interfere. "That's enough! I'll eliminated both of you right now if you start anything. Now does anyone have anything useful to add to this discussion?" He doesn't wait before continuing. "Then you're all dismissed. Results will be announced in a week. Until then you may rest and relax, but be sure to keep practicing in case you make it to the final challenge."

The groups slowly exit, tension heavy in the air around them as they eye their teammates uncertainly.

The MC, who until this point has been quietly observing, finally speaks to the CEO once the room is empty. "More than three of them could do quite well in a group."

JYP chuckles. "Of course. And some of them would be terrible. But it isn't our choice. Let them be hopeful for a few days, they deserve it after all this stress."

The MC sighs. "I'm pretty sure this is only stressing them out more."