Under the dim veil of night, Takakai crawled forward with painstaking caution.
1007… 1008…
He counted silently in his mind.
At 12, he lifted his head slightly, his body edging out of the shadows—just as one of the patrolling soldiers turned away, shifting its gaze elsewhere.
Exactly as Hayasaka had predicted.
These soldiers' movements were eerily predictable. Once you grasped their patterns, slipping past them was almost trivial.
Breathe in. Hold. Count. Move.
Takakai repeated the steps Hayasaka had drilled into him, slinking into a narrow alleyway.
Not a single guard noticed.
Glancing back, he saw Hayasaka watching him from her hiding spot, tense but focused. Though she'd mapped out the infiltration route, her physical and mental resilience couldn't match Takakai's, so she stayed behind as lookout.
She's weirdly good at this. Then again, "anime maids" are basically super-spies—trained in assassination, infiltration, hacking, even idol performances. Which mangaka started this ridiculous trope, anyway?
His thoughts wandered, but his movements stayed sharp. A quick slide-roll carried him behind a pile of debris, right beneath the window where voices murmured inside.
Now, he could hear them clearly.
[Shirasawa Elementary has lost all external contact. It's the second school to go dark. The only one still operational is Yoruyama High, but even that's barely under control—our troops and researchers can't even enter anymore.]
A discussion about the three schools.
[We poured funds, manpower, everything into these projects—and this is the result? Satou, betting on you was the worst mistake of my life! You should die for this!]
A man's enraged roar, followed by the shing of a drawn blade.
[Takamagahara hasn't failed. Kill me, and you'll have no fallback. The frontlines must be dire if you're rushing the experiments like this. We're meddling with forces we don't understand—did you really expect anything but disaster?]
Satou's voice—calm, almost smug. A stark contrast to the broken man Takakai had heard before.
[You promised weapons that could crush America!]
The first man's fury faltered, his bluster fading.
[At this point, Fujioka and Yoruyama are beyond salvage. Satou, be honest—can we recover anything from Shirasawa? The war's lost. We need anything, even if it burns us too. If Shirasawa's useless… I doubt Takamagahara will work either.]
A third voice, icy and authoritative. The room fell silent at his words—clearly, the leader.
[Oh, I left… contingencies at Shirasawa. We can reclaim the project. But sacrifices will be needed. That girl I groomed? She's remarkable now.]
Satou's low chuckle sent a chill down Takakai's spine.
This bastard's confidence is either real or the world's best bluff.
[Prepare Takamagahara. We lost this round, but it's not over. If all else fails, we'll continue the research there—and return someday.]
[The data must not leak. It'll draw attention… and hints about Takamagahara. Our path to immortality stays hidden. Take it all inside.]
[Satou… don't disappoint us again. We move tomorrow.]
Silence.
Then, the conversation looped—a recording, a ghostly echo of the past.
So this place is a "residue." Someone connected to Takamagahara died here during Shirasawa's collapse… maybe even Satou himself?
During his fall into the inner layer, Takakai had glimpsed Chiyo cutting her umbilical cord—proof she knew of Takamagahara. Fujioka High had been observed by it, but Shirasawa showed no such signs.
Could this dungeon hold the key to breaching—or destroying—Takamagahara?
Takakai eyed a high window. He could break in…
No. The priority is the deeper layer. Takamagahara can wait.
A flicker of movement caught his eye—Hayasaka, frantic, clutching a rock like she was ready to bean him with it.
What's she—?
Following her gesture, Takakai's blood ran cold.
A pale face peered from a window, staring straight at him.
Tch. Again?
His pistol materialized in hand.
Gunfire erupted.
Bullets tore through the specters—headless or not—sending them sprawling. The watcher in the window reeled back, riddled with holes.
Takakai rolled away just as the window he'd been eavesdropping at shattered, disgorging mangled figures.
Soldiers poured from the tents.
Dozens. Hundreds.
A sea of headless, mutilated corpses, their wounds still weeping, their hands clutching rifles, grenades—even artillery.
Since when did WWII Japanese troops have this much gear?! Am I in a horror game or Call of Duty: Ghost Edition?!
Takakai sprinted, gun blazing, weaving through a storm of bullets and explosions. His enhanced body tanked rifle rounds—bruises, no fatal wounds.
If I shield my eyes, I can bulldoze through—
Then he saw the machine guns on the watchtowers swivel toward him.
Grenades rained.
Flamethrowers roared.
A cannon rolled out.
OH COME ON—
Takakai's pistol screamed, matching the onslaught round for round. He couldn't stop—just push forward, step by step, toward the gates.
Ping!
A single, precise shot—the machine gunner's head snapped back. Dead.
Ping! Ping!
Two more shots. Two artillerymen collapsed.
Hayasaka, now perched on a rooftop, picked off high-value targets with chilling efficiency. At Takakai's signal, she leapt, sliding down a drainpipe from five stories up.
The horde still focused on Takakai, oblivious to her.
Calm. Stay calm. One chance.
She bit her tongue—pain and copper sharpened her focus.
Then she moved.
Olympic-speed dashes. Wall-runs. Acrobatic flips over clusters of soldiers. A final, soaring leap onto a lamppost—
She spun, using momentum to hurl herself toward Takakai.
He caught her mid-air, and together, they cleared the gates—
—plunging into the abyss beyond.