Before seeing it, an intense sense of foreboding compelled Takakai to act immediately.
He couldn't stay on this floor.
He couldn't truly encounter what existed here.
He couldn't make contact with anything in this place.
This seemingly normal dormitory floor was fundamentally different from anything they'd encountered before - something entirely other.
Though Takakai couldn't articulate exactly how, his instincts screamed that lingering here would lead to a gruesome death.
[Because everyone believes so.]
Click.
The crisp sound of the lock turning came as Takakai inserted the Blood Key into the door he'd been dragging along. The opened doorway revealed an ordinary dorm room - empty, seemingly safe.
But Takakai couldn't enter.
Under the light, what appeared to be a broom leaning against the wall wasn't a broom at all, but a woman holding one. Her gaze swept every inch of the room - floor, beds, trash cans, chairs. Nothing escaped her scrutiny.
If they entered dripping wet, they'd inevitably leave water stains, triggering her rules.
Yet behind them, something from the [0th Floor] was emerging.
Takakai's eyes snapped to the overhead light.
He clawed a chunk of concrete from the floor and hurled it, shattering the bulb.
Darkness.
Grabbing Miko, he charged inside, draping his spare clothes over her. Key out, door shut - just as a giraffe-headed specter crashed through the window.
[Violation... of rules...]
Its guttural growl flooded Takakai's mind with visions of its victims - students it had tortured to death. The memories clawed at his sanity, trying to assimilate him.
But Takakai's cleaver split its skull, carving down through its neck. The specter thrashed, slamming him into the wall - cracks spiderwebbing outward - before its head tore free, rolling away.
The Broom Teacher was gone in the dark.
But outside, footsteps multiplied.
Shadows swelled under the door.
Bedding bulged unnaturally, as if something writhed beneath.
At the broken window, something scuttled past.
They were surrounded.
Miko, now wearing Takakai's oversized clothes (her own lost during their frantic escape), pressed against him, trembling.
She saw more than he did:
A game.
"Honor Students" hunting "Bad Students" through the dorms, armed with knives, bats - whatever amused them.
The prey's sole survival tactic? Sacrificing others to buy time.
But...
Miko's breath hitched.
Dorms are off-limits during the day. And why don't I feel sick?
This wasn't a memory.
It was a trap.
"Takakai-san—Alice is outside!"
[Tch. Can't you play along, Miko-chan?]
Alice's pout was undercut by the visions now flooding Miko's mind:
The "game's" true end - not exhaustion, but escalation.
The prey, cornered, fleeing downward.
No... not downward. The dorm has no basement. They ran to—
"Ngh—!"
Agony spiked through her skull.
Corpses. So many corpses.
A place that shouldn't exist.
Things that shouldn't be.
DONG—
A resonant chime shattered the vision.
Upstairs, something had repelled the encroaching horrors.
Takakai, swaying from psychic backlash, spotted a bloodied hand tearing at the wall's cracks.
He shoved the second Rescue Team member forward, Kumami's doll in its grip.
CRASH.
The specter slammed through the wall, charging into 0F with the doll.
Alice's shrieks echoed - not just the three roaming the dorm, but a fourth, tied to the building's core Relic.
The hallway outside was now empty.
Kumami stood at the far end, crushing surveillance cameras underfoot, her left half sheathed in bleeding bronze.
"Huh. Still intact. Newbies these days..."
Despite the metal erupting from her flesh, she grinned.
Takakai noted the ghostly trails leading away - she'd lured the horde off alone.
"Almost wasn't. Thanks."
As he spoke, the lights died.
The pristine hall rotted back to ruin.
And at its end—
A figure.
Pale. Slender. Radiating wrongness.
Not human.
Not something to fight.
Not—
Takakai blinked.
A girl stood there.
Red hair. Golden eyes. A smile like shattered glass.
"Hello... there..."
She stepped forward.
SCREEE—
The sound of blades dragging on concrete followed.