The walls closed in.
Darkness swallowed Takakai whole.
The indescribable agony kept escalating.
The rock walls silently contracted further, crushing Takakai's body into distorted shapes. If he could barely move his hands earlier, now even his fingers were completely immobilized against the stone.
"Gh... kh..."
Breathing became impossible.
His chest cavity was fully compressed, leaving no space for even a wisp of air.
Takakai plunged back into suffocation - but this time, there would be no respite.
Oxygen deprivation shattered his thoughts. He cycled through unconsciousness and violent reawakenings, each resurgence of agony sharper than the last. Through sheer willpower, he clawed back coherence.
Why?
His body had warped beyond human recognition under the stone's pressure. The walls kept subtly shifting, bending his broken bones and pulped flesh deeper into the rock.
Is this... backlash from taking the core Obsession?
No - removing such artifacts shouldn't trigger such reactions. This felt different... like the collective nightmares of all trapped victims resonating with Andrés' Obsession, warping the cave itself.
"Ngh... ugh..."
The walls convulsed violently.
Takakai's arm snapped completely, twisting into a spiraled ruin. His torso bent at a right angle, legs fracturing into eight jagged segments. Even his skull deformed against the stone into a triangular wedge.
Still, death refused him.
The dual torments of thirst and hunger gnawed ceaselessly. Every cell screamed. Only the eternal drip of putrid blood from above remained constant - mirroring the inverted corpse eternally trapped overhead.
Drip—
Drip—
"Aah... ngh..."
Drip—
In the all-consuming dark, time stretched into incomprehensible spans.
Day 16. Day 18. Day 20...
Each "day" felt like years. The walls kept reshaping, merging Takakai's mangled form deeper into the stone. Eventually, even agony numbed into hollow detachment.
"Gh..."
Not even the illusion of breath remained.
At suffering's extreme, only void persisted - endless and lightless as the cave itself.
Drip—
His nervous system teetered on collapse. Yet the Obsession's power - or perhaps his own enhanced constitution - maintained cruel awareness.
I can't die.
No matter what I do.
The revelation struck: True release required external intervention. Like Andrés needing rescuers' failed attempts, only forces beyond Takakai's control or knowledge could end this. A player stumbling through the Dead End, finding and killing him.
But what are the chances?
Hallucinations bloomed.
Flashes of his past life - freelance investigations, writing attempts - shattered against cave walls. Delusions of saving the world dissolved into stone. A particularly vivid fantasy: Miyuki hugging him from behind as he gamed, her playful interference escalating until he pinned her down—
Would she even act like that?
He tore free from the daydream, only to find reality unchanged.
Other visions surfaced - not his memories, but the cave's:
Paddy reluctantly sealing Nutty Putty Cave, erecting Andrés' memorial plaque:
[An irretrievable tragedy occurred here]
[A loving father, good man, and child now rests]
Flowers piled high... until the plaque vanished. Disappearances began. Security guards lost. Walls crumbling inexplicably.
A nobleman's oily voice promising wealth in exchange for exploiting the cave's "unique properties"...
All while Andrés' specter below endlessly relived his death, unaware of his own demise.
Takakai's sense of self frayed.
Am I becoming him?
Day 25. Day 27...
Time lost meaning.
Drip—
Consciousness unraveled.
Drip—
"Takakai-san... you're here, aren't you?"
A girl's voice pierced the void.
Sandalwood perfume. Warmth pressed against his chest.
The walls shifted.
Someone squeezed into the crevice.
Who—?
To Be Continued
"I'm glad I found you first."
The girl's voice coaxed fragmented memories to resurface.
"You're truly a sinful man, stealing two girls' hearts. When I realized Shiomi-san genuinely loved you, I'd resolved to step back."
"But she never stopped searching. She gathered every clue and returned here. I followed. I wondered—could I beat her to you? And here I am."
A giggle, bright yet strained.
"Hehe, but of course! We crawled through the [Blood Vessel] together. Who else would think to check this hellhole? I'm brilliant, aren't I?"
Her bubbly tone crystallized her image in Takakai's mind—pink hair, restless energy.
"Shiomi-san and I modified the explosives from Shirakawa Apartments. I'm wearing a timed charge set for three minutes. As [external force] unrelated to you, it will kill you. You'll restart fresh."
Words spilled faster, urgency clipping her sentences.
"Your disappearance devastated Shiomi-san and Kaguya-san. We used post-clearance reentry tickets to search for you."
"This month's been brutal… but everyone will forget after the reset, right?"
"Kaguya-san insists we need your skills for future missions. Sacrifices are necessary. She's so rational. Shiomi-san and I? We just… acted."
"Once inside, Shiomi-san sensed your presence but got no response. I gambled on finding you first—and won!"
"After this… Shiomi-san will forget her grief. I'll revert to that clueless newbie trailing behind you. Will you guide me again? Teach me survival?"
Memories detonated—crawling through caves with this girl, trading jokes, shoulders brushing during perilous climbs.
Why is she here?
This endless hellscape—she shouldn't be trapped here.
Wait—what's she planning?
"The girl who fell for you… she'll vanish from your world."
"As for the reset version of me? Heh, maybe she'll foolishly fall for you too."
"But I'm possessive. I want you to remember this me—the one who loved you for 720 hours… 2,592,000 seconds…"
BOOM—
Fire devoured the cavern.
In the final millisecond, Takakai glimpsed her face—smudged with blood and dirt, wearing the same dorky grin from their first meeting.
Fujiwara Chika.
Her unspoken plea hung in the inferno:
[Don't forget me]
[Don't forget the girl who loved you]
Darkness shattered.
Her smile dissolved with the flames.
Takakai's mangled corpse—twisted into abstract flesh—crumbled to ash, freed from the Obsession's grip.
The black watch clattered into rubble, its hand trembling before settling at [5]...