Water splashed—
Miko caught a handful of clear water and threw it directly onto her face.
Letting out a long breath, she raised her head and looked at herself in the mirror, her brows still tightly furrowed with lingering worry.
At this moment, it was already after lunch. According to the schedule, it should be nap time.
Of course, that was only her own guess. She hadn't looked at the so-called rule sheet. After all, if anyone saw a piece of paper constantly dripping blood, they probably wouldn't feel like walking over to read it either.
But the other students probably couldn't see things from her "perspective."
By now, some of them had likely already looked at that supposed rule sheet. There was a good chance they had already been mentally contaminated—killed, or turned into helpers of the aberrations.
But…
Why did she know that thing was likely a rule sheet?
And…
Those terrifying entities—were they called "aberrations"?
That term was something Takumi-san had told her, wasn't it?
So why did it feel so natural for her to think of them that way?
Miko's brows tightened even further.
She had a constant, hazy, disoriented feeling.
As if she hadn't just been dragged into this place by that pale severed hand on the street.
As if she had already struggled to survive here for a long time.
And even more strangely, it felt like this hadn't even been the first place she entered—that she had first been in another equally horrifying location.
A place where she and Takumi had gone through an entire series of dangers together.
A place they had only escaped after enduring multiple battles.
Only then had they arrived here.
That place…
It had been a school—ruined and decayed in darkness, yet spotless and pristine under the lights.
It had been filled with grotesque, twisted aberrant students, and monstrous teachers wearing animal headgear.
And in the darkness, there had always been something watching them—
Something that had tormented her and Takumi-san again and again.
Its name…
Was it Alice?
The moment Miko recalled that name, she froze.
Then her body began to tremble uncontrollably.
Even without fully remembering what had happened—without recalling the events of the second and third loops—that overwhelming fear alone was enough to make her shiver.
It was so intense that she felt like she might throw up at any moment.
But she had to remember.
She couldn't run anymore.
She couldn't keep running away.
She had to recall it.
She had to remember everything.
"Not here… This isn't where it happened…"
Miko lowered her head. After taking a while to steady her breathing, she slowly spoke in a small voice.
Yes. She could already be certain that this was not where the story had begun.
Someone had changed what should have happened.
Someone had changed what had already happened, changed the ending that had originally been set in stone.
It was only because of that person's grueling battle that they had been able to reach the situation they were in now.
That person… could it have been Takumi-san?
Ah, yes. It had to be him. It could only be him.
I think I saw him die before.
I saw him killed by me, saw me tear out his entrails, saw me drain him dry with a machine, saw him shot dead by a strange man with a handgun… Those memories felt like hallucinations, yet they were so real, so real they felt as though they had truly happened…
No. That was wrong. They really were real. They really had happened.
But that wasn't me. That was Alice.
She remembered now.
She was the one Alice had chosen, someone just like her, someone just like Alice had once been.
Because she and Alice were so similar. They both possessed the same eyes that could "see," the same ability to "perceive" that was almost a curse to ordinary people. That was why she was the best target Alice could choose, and in fact, the only one. Only by possessing her would Alice have any hope of escaping the Instance, any chance of breaking free from her identity as an Aberration, any chance of recovering the right to be…?
Huh? These memories don't seem to come from my own experiences.
She seemed to know why Alice had been so fixated on Takumi-san, why Alice had been so obsessed with making him her friend.
The aura of blessing…
It was a final gift left behind by restless souls when their obsessions were fulfilled and they reached their end.
Alice seemed able to sense the aura of blessing on Takumi-san.
Those who possessed blessings, those who brought release to the dead, seemed to hold some special meaning for her. She longed to become friends with such people, and so, in her own way, she turned those people into her "friends."
Miko was not too clear on anything beyond that.
There really were not that many things she could remember. Her memories were hazy, as though covered by a veil, and many things were only vague impressions.
But she could already be certain of one thing.
Takumi-san possessed some kind of ability to reset time, allowing everything to start over after it ended. It was only through that ability that he could fight Alice again and again, and only through that ability that this battle could be transformed, step by step, from a hopeless dead end with no chance of survival into the current situation.
This completely unfamiliar place, whose location she did not know, was the new area Takumi-san had finally reached through his repeated sacrifices.
Alice herself did not seem to be active here.
And yet traces of Alice were everywhere. Those orderlies and patients were no different from fanatical fans. All of them were madly infatuated with Alice, and had completely become puppets she could manipulate at will, moving according to that terrifying monster's will.
They would never simply lock her up here and leave it at that.
She had to find a way to leave this place.
No… If I act on my own, that probably won't be a good idea. Professional matters should be left to professionals. Since Takumi-san told me to go along with things for now, I should avoid doing anything and just observe the situation in secret.
Splash—
As she thought, Miko splashed water over her face again. Meanwhile, another matter could not help but surface in her mind.
She did not really understand why she was different from the other students, or why she could remember Takumi-san resetting time. But for some reason, while she faintly remembered those blurry past memories, she also seemed to have another extremely strange memory.
In that memory, she seemed to have gone to some very unfamiliar, very strange place.
She could not move there. She only vaguely felt that everything around her was blood-red, that everything was in an unbearably oppressive state, and that there seemed to be many people screaming and flames burning.
Then, someone reached out and poked her on the face.
Although she could not see who that person was, for some reason, she felt as though it had been Takumi-san.
What exactly was that memory about?
She could not figure it out at all. Perhaps she would only be able to understand the details after she met up with Takumi-san.
With that thought, Miko wiped the water from her face, then raised her head and looked at herself in the mirror, as well as the twisted, disordered bodies standing behind her reflection.
Their appearances could, for the moment, still be considered human.
Although their facial features were completely distorted, and although their bodies looked like rotten flesh that had been torn apart and pieced back together again, they still seemed, probably, to count as… human?
[Is it her?]
Miko heard one of the figures standing behind her speak.
[No mistake. As expected, she's the same type as No. 2. What a pity. It looks like this material will end up in No. 2's hands. If I could still leave Takamagahara, I might be able to use her to create a new No. 2. No, I would definitely be able to make an even better one.]
Another figure spoke right after it. That thing's eyes were almost bulging out of their sockets, and the way it looked Miko over was like it was looking at an object it could destroy however it pleased.
[In any case, the surface layer of Fujihana Middle School has been broken. Although we can't see exactly who did it, this is indeed an opportunity. We've been separated from the real world for so many years. It's about time we returned. Speaking of which, Sato, don't you think she looks like she's watching us?]
The third figure leaned a little closer, lowering its almost completely rotted, sticky hands toward Miko's head. An eyeball hanging outside its socket slowly turned, as though examining her.
"…"
The girl said nothing. She merely looked at the mirror in silence and wiped the water from her face.
She turned around. There was nothing behind her.
She was the only person in this restroom.
And yet, the voices of those three figures continued to reach her ears.
[Impossible. "Takamagahara" takes priority over everything. No one can see us.]
[Heh, not necessarily. What if a material even better than No. 2 shows up? This block of wood might even be top-tier. But judging from her reaction, it doesn't look like she can see us. Then again, talent of that level probably doesn't exist. Back then, No. 2 was already the result of our exhaustive search.]
[Enough. Stop wasting time on meaningless talk. We need to find a chance to leave. If we stay here for a few more years—decades, even—we'll eventually be assimilated and turned into the same kind of Aberrations as these things. What a pity. Back at Yoruyama, we were just about to succeed, and that damned brat chose to stay instead of escaping. I even set things up so she could retain a bit of her sanity. Sigh… but this time, there's plenty of usable material here in Fujihana—more than twenty. When the time comes, I'll pick one that's in better condition.]
Those things seemed only able to observe the outside through the mirror. So when Miko left the restroom in the single-person ward and closed the door, she could no longer sense the presence of those three entities.
But what exactly were they?
They did not seem to be Aberrations, yet they could not be considered human either, but something in between.
Like "Alice"? No… compared to "Alice," those three things seemed to retain more of their "human" side. At the same time… they also seemed weaker? And yet, the tone and manner in which they spoke somehow felt even more chilling than that of Aberrations.
She had to let Takumi-san know about their existence!
Thinking this, Miko was just about to do something when, suddenly, she felt an extremely terrifying aura spread throughout the entire psychiatric hospital building.
Rumble—!!!
In the next instant, she felt the ground shake violently. She was thrown off her feet by the force, collapsing onto the floor. Cracks spread across the walls and the ground, and the deafening roar outside the ward door was, for a moment, like mountains collapsing and the earth splitting apart.
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