At this moment, Takakai couldn't find any words other than profanity to describe his feelings.
Through the rescue team member's perspective, Takakai could confirm that all the students except Miko were present here. Each of them had their heads split open, each smiling with grins stretched ear to ear, following behind the rescue team member at a leisurely pace - clearly all under the control of some aberrant power.
I'd already moved these students to a safe place. How did they all die again in less than an hour...?
Thinking this, Takakai realized that less than an hour had actually passed in his third loop so far. The dormitory building had only experienced one cycle of day and night, and even including the time spent in the classroom building, it had been at most forty to fifty minutes.
Calculating like this, might my third loop end even faster than the first two?
As this thought crossed Takakai's mind, he suddenly felt an intense chill - the unmistakable sensation of being watched by something.
Thump--
His heartbeat became irregular at this moment.
Cold sweat unconsciously seeped from his pores.
His limbs stiffened involuntarily, and he could even feel the aberration chewing on his back slow its movements.
He was being observed.
Being observed by something at the level of a Core Obsession.
Other players might not feel anything special, but Takakai, who had already encountered Core Obsessions multiple times at close range, would never mistake this sensation.
Such a profound and icy feeling.
Such intense emotions of resentment and malice.
And... this aura. Yes, this wasn't Fujika Middle School's Core Obsession, but one from another school.
Are Crimson-grade Core Obsessions all this unrestrained? To actually be able to act across different dungeons? And this shouldn't be related to Kumami's bronze eye, right? Then where did this thing come from? Do Crimson aberrations have a habit of visiting each other?
[Hello...]
A familiar voice - one he'd heard not long ago - Kita Ikuyo's voice suddenly sounded by Takakai's ear.
He turned his head to see the red-haired girl in tattered clothing standing behind the door, speaking to him through the glass window, smiling at him.
[This is... my... place...]
At this moment, Alice actually regained partial consciousness and spoke to Kita Ikuyo in a low voice.
Then it fell into an even deeper state of shutdown, collapsing unconscious on the spot.
The sight was undeniably comical, but Takakai currently had no energy to pay attention to such things, because Kita Ikuyo behind the door had already begun to move.
[Please... don't... open the door for me...]
The girl murmured indistinctly.
Click--
The door that should have been locked opened in the next moment.
The girl stumbled into the hall.
The rescue team member was approaching from behind. Perhaps because the rescuer itself was an aberration, it didn't trigger the students' killing rules. But this unknown aberration had used the rescue team member to directly locate Takakai as its summoner - an ability that left him at a loss for words.
[Please... don't come near me...]
Kita Ikuyo continued speaking softly while walking towards Takakai.
Without hesitation, Takakai took a step back.
Then, realizing something was wrong, he instantly activated his blessing, his eyes turning blood-red as he rapidly retreated backwards.
Whoosh--
Blood blossomed on Takakai's face.
Despite having been quite far away just a moment ago, Kita Ikuyo had instantly appeared before him... no, she had literally teleported in front of him - disappearing from her original position after speaking and reappearing right in front of him.
As he processed this, Takakai had already retreated several meters, with only a shallow wound left on his face - about the depth of cutting through the dermis.
His immediate retreat upon realizing the danger was part of the reason, but his blessing's power had also mitigated some of the damage. Otherwise, even if he'd successfully dodged, his face would have been split open just now.
[Please... don't come... near me...]
The girl continued murmuring, unclear whether she was speaking to Takakai or just talking to herself.
She disappeared again, instantly reappearing before Takakai.
Even being fully prepared, Takakai barely managed to dodge. Her appearances were simply too fast - even with his focus at its peak, he could only narrowly avoid her.
"Miss Kita, please wake up! Remember Bocchi-chan?"
Seeing signs of her preparing to move again, Takakai quickly called out while glancing towards the doorway where the rescue team member had arrived.
In the next moment, Kita appeared before Takakai again. Just slightly slower in dodging this time, the wound on Takakai's face deepened further, as if an invisible blade was gradually cutting into his flesh, threatening to split his face in half.
The current Kita Ikuyo seemed to be completely controlled by the aberrant power.
However, it appeared that before each action she would first [speak] and then perform actions contrary to her words. If I didn't immediately comply with what she said, I would suffer some form of invisible attack.
The aberration controlling Kita Ikuyo wasn't physically present here.
Takakai could sense that the entity was using Kita Ikuyo herself as a medium to project its power here.
Is this Yoruyama High School's Core Obsession? To actually be able to use a human body as a conduit to act in another area, even suppressing this area's Alice - the difference in power is truly absurd. Speaking of which, where is Fujika Middle School's own Core Obsession? No reaction to this territorial invasion? Could it be another Andreas-type that just sits there motionless?!
While thinking this, Takakai accelerated towards the rescue team member.
But before he could successfully regroup with it, Sekino Rikka - her head split open - had already bypassed the running rescuer and was quickly approaching Takakai.
[Don't come over, I beg you, don't come over!]
The bisected head continued screaming Sekino Rikka's final words.
[Go away... don't... come near me...]
Kita Ikuyo had already appeared behind Takakai again.
With no other options, trapped between both sides, Takakai could only move rapidly sideways. More students with split heads came running into the hall, some shouting things like [Stay away] or [Don't come over] - some continuously chasing Takakai while others, like Kita Ikuyo, instantly teleported to intercept him, forcing him into desperate evasion with no chance to regroup with the rescue team member.
The situation had instantly spiraled into complete chaos, like a gathering of demons. Takakai couldn't even stop moving, forced to run at full speed with his blessing activated, fleeing from the pursuing aberrations.
In this state, there was no way to regroup with the rescue team member - he couldn't even spare a glance to locate it.
Crack--
The sound of walls and floors breaking.
Something was destroying the walls and floor of this hall, writhing through the cracks Takakai had earlier created, trying to break through.
The 0th-floor aberration was becoming active.
When dodging the wolf entity earlier, he'd taken several hard hits - the 0th-floor aberration must have wanted to enter then, but Alice had done something to prevent it. Now with Alice in shutdown, they were becoming active again.
If the 0th-floor aberration broke through, he would truly be finished.
Takakai was already starting to feel a growing emptiness in his body. He realized he would soon reach his limit, soon be unable to maintain his blessing's power, and would be caught and killed by the aberrations.
The rescue team member was also transmitting alarming signals at this worst possible time. Though Takakai had no chance to check the situation, he vaguely sensed that Alice's artifact might be undergoing mutation. With the barrier between the 0th floor and this hall breaking down, the artifact simultaneously connected to four Alices was becoming harder to control.
Can't give up.
Must never give up until the very last moment.
Takakai accelerated again, this time passing right by where Miko - or rather, Alice - lay unconscious.
For just a split second, Takakai grabbed the one-armed girl and summoned a mass of writhing flesh from his watch.
He released multiple artifacts - the Surgical Scalpel, Faceless Skull-Eater and others - letting them go berserk before stuffing them into the flesh mass.
He deliberately overloaded the flesh artifact beyond its capacity to suppress, causing it to immediately go out of control. The mass of flesh swelled violently, clearly starting to resemble the flesh monster from the classroom building.
Tossing the flesh, he watched as it expanded mid-air before crashing down and engulfing several students.
The pursuing aberrations paused momentarily - apparently the controller's movements being restricted affected the Yoruyama High entity's capabilities somewhat.
Seizing this moment, Takakai retrieved from his watch space the device that had killed him in the second loop - the one capable of fusing flesh and consciousness.
He knew this idea was terrible.
But he also knew time for hesitation had run out.
After all, when everything reset, none of this pain would matter anymore. No need to worry about it.
So...
Takakai grabbed the device's spiked tube and stabbed it into himself.
As pain flashed through his nerves, he drove the other end into the unconscious girl's body.
Takakai intended to activate the device, forcibly merging Miko, the Alice possessing Miko, and himself into a single entity. He would exploit Alice's inherent aberration properties to shift his identity from [living] to [dead], using this to evade the siege of Kita Ikuyo and the cannibal student squad.
I hope you can't perceive the real world right now, Miko. Otherwise this will be extremely painful.
Creating distance again.
Being caught up to again, fleeing again, being intercepted again.
Watching the increasingly close grotesque aberrations, Takakai - while rapidly retreating - hesitated briefly before finally pressing the button on the device strapped to his shoulder.
And so, in that moment, all color drained from Takakai's vision.