"Fujiwara-san, what is this you're—"
Within the dark cave, Shinomiya Kaguya's gaze locked onto Fujiwara Chika.
More precisely speaking, it was locked onto Fujiwara Chika's chest.
Too small.
Kaguya's gaze was incomparably sharp.
It was really far too small.
This was simply not a size Fujiwara Chika should have.
Although it was still larger than Kaguya's own, larger than Maki's, larger than the two young ladies' combined, it was still too small.
Even though, all this time, Shinomiya Kaguya had repeatedly felt displeased over the huge disparity between her figure and Fujiwara Chika's—and had even harbored murderous thoughts because Fujiwara Chika had intentionally or unintentionally shown off her figure (of course, not murderous thoughts in the literal sense)—no matter what, this absolutely was not the size Fujiwara Chika should have had.
Did she do something? Why had there been such a huge change?
Shinomiya Kaguya felt a bit curious.
The pink-haired girl turned her head, and immediately noticed Kaguya's gaze.
She lowered her head, and upon realizing that Kaguya was looking at her chest, revealed a look of sudden understanding.
Then, Chika blinked, clenched one hand into a fist and extended it beside her forehead, smiling slightly: "Hehehe~"
A perfectly standard, 2D cute-girl tongue-out Moe gesture was displayed just like that, utterly naturally.
No—what does "hehehe" even mean? You couldn't even be bothered to give a reason?
Shinomiya Kaguya frowned deeply. In the end, she still said nothing and continued forward, heading toward the path back to the research base.
At present, it was already time for the operation to end, and the top priority was to return to the research base.
Therefore, although she was still very curious, Kaguya properly shifted her attention, focusing her mind on the task at hand.
As for why Chika, who was following along at her side, had deliberately acted cute—well, to be honest, it was because she truly did not know how to answer Kaguya properly, so she used this method to brush it off.
After all, the matter of her sudden whim before coming here—having Takumi wrap her chest with binding cloth—was indeed not very easy to explain.
Chika thought this with a slight sense of guilt.
She knew that Takumi and Maki had a very good relationship. Originally, during the second loop, she had already prepared herself to give up and had decided to suppress her own feelings, treating it as though nothing had ever happened. However, later she learned that Takumi himself was very likely still trapped inside the instance—knowing that he possessed the ability to rewind and start over, and that he was now very possibly in a state of being trapped, unable to act, living worse than death. After seeing Maki's resolute determination to rescue Takumi, Fujiwara Chika did not hesitate and joined in as well, returning together to the Red Nut Grey Cave.
And then—because she knew that everything would ultimately be reset, that everything that had happened would be rewound, returning to a point where nothing had occurred—inside that dark cave, when facing Takumi, the girl chose to confront her own heart directly and express to him the most genuine feelings within her heart, the love that had just begun to sprout and grow.
Originally, that should have been the end of it. After all, Chika had always felt that she was going to die anyway, that everything would start over, and that the only ones who needed to worry about this issue were Takumi and another version of herself. Yet when the explosion ended and she opened her eyes again, she discovered that she had returned to the very beginning of the Red Nut Grey Cave instance, and immediately after that, she saw Takumi.
Only then did she realize that, in addition to the ability to rewind, Takumi also possessed the ability to bring other people along with him when rewinding. However, the prerequisite to activate this ability was that Takumi and the person he decided to bring along had to share sufficient mutual affection. When telling her this, Chika could see that Takumi's expression was very complicated, because immediately afterward, he told Chika that during the very first instance, he had already possessed the ability to bring Shijō Maki along with him when rewinding. What that meant was something Chika naturally understood at once.
Having one's first love turn into being a third party like this was really not something that could make a person feel happy.
But Takumi has a favorable impression of me… W-wah, actually being happy over something like this—feels like I really am going to turn into an idiot.
Fujiwara Chika let out a soft sigh, not knowing how to describe what she was feeling at this moment.
In the end, perhaps because she had formed a bit of a small scheme, although the excuse on the surface was "to make preparations in advance in case, just in case, they encountered narrow caves" and thus she had Takumi wrap binding cloth around her chest, in reality, first, she wanted to test Takumi's reaction a little, and second, it also counted as giving herself a small disguise.
The scene at that time still made one's face flush and heart race quite a bit—especially since Takumi's hands, whether intentionally or unintentionally… ah, never mind, never mind, she would not talk about that. It was better not to recall that kind of thing.
In short, Chika, harboring those small thoughts, put on the binding cloth, changed into explorer clothing, and then, together with Kaguya, returned to the research base as explorers. Next, they followed the fixed procedure to undergo inspection, bathe, and finally head to the personnel lounge.
Because Shijō Maki needed to go steal two researchers' white lab coats to use for Kaguya and Chika to change into, she did not go to check the situation in the monitoring area, but left early to go carry out the action. At this time, the monitoring area was still being guarded by researchers being played in an eerie manner, so Maki could leave early. But if it were like in the first loop, when Takumi and Chika suddenly had that kind of situation occur after the exploration operation ended, since there was already no one in the monitoring area, Maki and Kaguya—who were playing researchers at the time—had no choice but to come over and watch. However, this was something they in the third loop could no longer possibly know.
And because of this, Maki did not see Chika's true size this time. By the time she placed the change of clothes in the personnel lounge, and Kaguya and Chika changed and walked out, what Maki saw was Fujiwara Chika whose figure was not particularly outstanding.
Mm, although she really was quite cute and had the feeling of a lively little dog, it should not be a big problem.
Although Takumi was an out-and-out lewd demon, the level of threat from this one was still not that great. After all, her figure was not especially different from her own—at most, it was just a tiny bit bigger than hers, that was all.
Shijō Maki comforted herself like this in her heart.
She did not notice that, off to the side, Chika was actually also secretly observing her, seriously sizing her up.
As for Kaguya, who was standing to the side, if the expression on her face right now were translated into words, it would probably be something like "What is going on with these two? Why does it feel strange? Are they observing each other? Why are their gazes so weird?"—that kind of feeling.
"Takumi… kun handed these obsession items over to you. From here on, this side has to be handled by the three of us. He cannot participate in this core obsession, so it must be the three of us who find its root cause and the method to break it."
Chika took out a blood-colored cloth doll—the Blood Puppet—two surgical knives, a necklace, and a medicine bottle.
The usage methods of these obsession items and the potential dangers they might carry had naturally been explained to Chika by Takumi long ago. She quickly discussed and explained them to Kaguya and Maki, after which the three of them allocated the obsession items and began preparing for the upcoming operation.
In the previous two loops, Kaguya and Maki had encountered more or less some obstacles in gathering information. The main issue was that the research base was covered everywhere by surveillance, and there were many guards on post and soldiers patrolling throughout, which caused tremendous trouble for intelligence collection. What the three of them needed to do now was to find a way to resolve this problem.
The first step of the plan was to blow up the monitoring room.
At present, it appeared that most areas of this research base were under the coverage of surveillance. Only by disabling the monitoring could the girls' actions be freed.
However, doing just this was certainly not enough, so a second step was also required—destroying the base's power supply.
Although doing so would very likely bring about some unpredictable consequences, Kaguya and the others could completely change into explorer clothing or some other identity and flee this place if the situation turned bad, leaving the doll behind to act as surveillance, and then return to continue the investigation after everything returned to normal.
After all, the time limit for this mission was fifteen days, leaving quite a large margin for trial and error.
And this was the plan that Fujiwara Chika had dubbed the "Grand Explosion Big Bombing Crackle-Pop Plan". As an aside, this plan name was jointly vetoed by Takumi, Shinomiya Kaguya, and Shijō Maki.
"Then, I'll be the one to control this doll."
Shijō Maki took the cloth doll, placed one strand of her own hair into the zipper on the doll's back, pushed it into the blood-stained cotton inside, and completed the activation and remote control of this obsession item.
As an extremely peculiar obsession item that almost never went out of control, the Blood Puppet could run and jump, and could even turn invisible. It could be said to be quite a useful thing. The only drawback was that if this thing were injured, the damage would be multiplied and reflected back onto the user. Therefore, it had to be used with great caution.
At this very moment, the doll was holding a homemade explosive in its hands—an explosive that Tanaka, who had died in the Shirakawa Apartments, had cheaply handed over to Kaguya and Maki. Making use of the Blood Puppet's invisibility, the explosive was carried silently into the monitoring room, while Kaguya and the others had already returned to the research area, with a considerable distance separating the two sides.
They completed the work in the Analysis Workroom.
Just as if they had truly become researchers in this base, the three of them obediently pressed the buttons, waited for the process to finish, and then went to the second floor to hand the report to Professor Vernon, who was waiting in the corridor.
And it was precisely at this moment—after handing in the report, when Vernon, who radiated a cold and eerie aura, turned around and left to return to his office—that Maki detonated the explosive by controlling the doll.
Boom—
A dull explosive roar, accompanied by a slight tremor of the ground.
At this time, the three of them noticed other researchers and soldiers passing by nearby. After discovering that these researchers and soldiers still had blank expressions and showed no reaction whatsoever, they too kept their faces taut and stood in place, pretending to know nothing.
And it was at this moment that all three of them clearly saw it—the professor Vernon who had his back to them and was about to step into his office, the step he was taking forward stalled at the instant the explosion sounded.
---
I will post some extra Chapters in Patreon, you can check it out. >> patreon.com/TitoVillar
---