Through a surveillance feed only he could see, Chris watched the cross-server exchange unfolding between Shiranami Chihiro and Yotsuya Miko on the screen.
He held it in. Held it in harder. The corners of his mouth were pulling up at an absolutely unhinged angle, and he only barely — barely — managed not to burst out laughing.
"Pfft — ahem."
He cleared his throat softly, desperately hoping Ichinose and Sakayanagi, standing right beside him, hadn't noticed anything off.
But honestly, what was he supposed to do.
Watching Miko stand there shaking like a leaf, tears visibly threatening to spill over — and yet still putting on this brave front like absolutely nothing was wrong. Genuinely, hand on heart — was there anyone who didn't find that gap moe utterly adorable?
Not to mention, Yotsuya Miko was one of Chris's favourite characters to begin with.
Now that he had the admin privileges, there was naturally no way he was passing up the chance to pull her in for a little... ahem, character-building.
And in fairness, setting the exam aside entirely.
Someone who could stare down soul-destroying malevolent spirits on a daily basis and still keep her sanity intact — Miko's sheer willpower was basically tailor-made for Ripple training. She was a natural.
She got scared every single day back in her own world anyway. Might as well drag her in here, give her just a little bit of power to fight back.
That counted as doing good, didn't it? Probably.
But that said.
The exam arena was fully set up now — and the person slated to play the "Mystery Merchant" this time around still hadn't been confirmed.
Let Chabashira Sae do a guest appearance again? Or rope in Hoshimiya Chie as well?
Chris rubbed his chin, turning it over for a moment.
'Let's go with Horikita Suzune and Kushida Kikyo.'
Horikita Suzune would take the Mystery Merchant role; Kushida Kikyo would be responsible for upgrading gear for the top three finishers.
Same setup as Chabashira Sae had before — if they died inside the arena, the revival cost would be the permanent removal of one item from the shop inventory.
Drop them not too far from where Yotsuya Miko and Hayasaka Ai had landed, and those two newcomers with zero combat ability would at least have some initial cover — enough that they wouldn't get wiped out the second they touched down.
Right — in addition to Yotsuya Miko, Chris had picked a few other people to enter the exam.
Mostly, if he was being honest, just to make Miko and Hayasaka Ai's arrival feel less conspicuous. The majority were basically background extras, there to fill out the numbers and maybe — just maybe — lay the groundwork for some new side-story threads.
At that moment, Ichinose Honami noticed Chris had drifted into a contemplative silence.
Misreading the situation entirely — convinced he'd somehow caught onto the fact that she'd been hit by random, inexplicable pangs of jealousy recently — Ichinose felt a wave of heat rush to her face.
She quickly grabbed Amanatsu Kazuha as cover and sidled up to Chris, feeling him out with careful, tentative words:
"Senpai... are you worried about Karuizawa-san and the others?"
Chris glanced up at her, expression perfectly composed:
"Sort of, sort of not."
"I was just wondering — were we actually teleported to a real alternate world this time, or is it the same as before, where GANTZ just grabbed some ready-made location and fenced us in with the monsters..."
At those words, Amanatsu Kazuha's mouth tightened almost imperceptibly.
Like she was quietly running through calculations of her own.
"Either way, it's not something we're in any position to resist at this stage."
"That much," she said, "is an absolute certainty."
——
Meanwhile.
Beneath Mexico. Deep inside a dark and ancient ruin.
As the two of them walked, Shiranami Chihiro explained everything — the Black Sphere exam, the Qualifiers, all of it — and by the time she was done, Yotsuya Miko's stiff, rigid body had finally, gradually, begun to loosen.
After all — given everything Miko had been through — whenever those things sensed that she could see them, they never hesitated for a single second before lunging straight at her face.
But Shiranami Chihiro hadn't done that. And somewhere in Miko's memory, she was fairly certain there really were spirits like this — ones who still lingered in the mortal world, not yet fully fallen.
And so, Yotsuya Miko chose to believe her.
Even though... even if she'd chosen not to, she had absolutely no other options in this situation anyway.
She pressed close behind Shiranami Chihiro.
She had no idea which direction they were heading, and no way of knowing whether this dim, stone-flagged path was leading them toward a dead end — or toward the exit and survival.
The two of them just kept moving, pushing forward through the labyrinthine passageways.
Only once they'd confirmed there wasn't a single strange sound left behind them did they finally lean on each other and stop at a corner to catch their breath.
Even then, neither dared to relax their guard. Neither of them had any intention of resting against the wall.
Honestly, even setting aside the exam Shiranami Chihiro had mentioned — the one that could descend at any moment.
The rows of stone demon-face carvings lining both sides of the passage, all twisted limbs and bared fangs, were more than enough to give any normal person a cardiac event on the spot.
Yotsuya Miko forced down her ragged, sprint-burned breathing and asked, as carefully as she could:
"Shiranami-san... you're saying that Black Sphere called GANTZ sends people from your school here to hunt monsters?"
"And people like me, who got dragged in out of nowhere... we're called intruders?"
Shiranami Chihiro nodded:
"That's how I remember it, yeah. Though I died pretty early on, so I don't know what happened at school after that..."
"I'm a bound spirit — without GANTZ's help, I can't even leave my own house."
The girl let out a quiet sigh and continued: "But when I came here, GANTZ told me my classmates had already cleared out all the monsters in our original world — so it moved the exam arena over to this side instead."
Yotsuya Miko's mouth was slightly open.
It took quite a while before she could murmur anything at all:
"Your classmates... are incredible."
"It feels like we're not even in the same world. Just walking around in here has me terrified out of my mind. I really want to survive. I want to see an ordinary world again, one without evil spirits and aberrations..."
Shiranami Chihiro gently patted her lightly trembling back, and offered soft reassurance:
"You'll get your chance."
"From what I remember about GANTZ's system, intruders like you — the unlucky ones — you count toward the participating students' bonus score just for staying alive. That makes you an incredibly valuable resource. The moment you run into them, I'm sure they'll protect you."
A small smile touched Shiranami Chihiro's lips as she said it:
"Especially Ichinose and Chris. Ichinose has made saving everyone her personal mission — she's basically a saint. And the other one... he's strong. At least while I was alive, he was the undisputed strongest."
"Though once that happens, I'll have to part ways with you..."
Shiranami Chihiro's tone dimmed a little. "If they spot my presence, things will go badly for me."
Yotsuya Miko nodded, half-understanding, half-not.
Some of the specific terminology Shiranami Chihiro had used was still murky to her.
But at the very least, those words had handed a thread of hope to someone who'd been teetering on the edge of despair.
The biggest problem, though, was this:
From Shiranami Chihiro's description, it sounded like the Qualifiers — the ones tasked with eliminating monsters — wouldn't descend into the arena until the exam officially began.
So in the meantime....
What were they supposed to do about the monsters already inside this ruin — the ones that attacked everything indiscriminately?
Yotsuya Miko was just working up the nerve to ask.
When Shiranami Chihiro suddenly raised a hand and pressed a finger to her lips — a sharp, silent signal.
Miko snapped her mouth shut immediately.
She followed Shiranami's gaze down toward a deep, shadowed passage not far ahead.
There — at the far end of the corridor — a faint blue light had appeared at some point without either of them noticing.
And at the source of that light.
Hayasaka Ai had appeared inside this grim, suffocating environment with an expression that looked, to put it charitably, severely constipated.
As a professionally trained handmaiden, she immediately dropped the gyaru persona she wore at school as camouflage and swept a sharp, watchful gaze across her surroundings.
What on earth was happening? A kidnapping?
Had Shinomiya Kaguya somehow discovered her identity as a spy planted by the Shinomiya main house — and in a fit of furious humiliation, sent people to secretly abduct her to some underground ruin where not even a ghost would wander?
But when she thought it through calmly.
Setting aside whether Shinomiya Kaguya currently even had that kind of reach.
Her own memory was perfectly clear.
One second, she'd been waving goodbye to her classmates at the school gate, just about to head over to report to Shinomiya Kaguya.
The next, a moment of hazy blankness — and then she was here, bag and all.
She existed within the orbit of the Shinomiya conglomerate — and was, moreover, a spy planted by Shinomiya Koumei inside Shinomiya Kaguya's inner circle. Immersed in that world, she naturally knew more than a few of the darker secrets lurking beneath the surface of society.
But even accounting for all of that — a miracle of this scale was absolutely not included.
Just as Hayasaka Ai's mind was full of questions and she was reaching beneath her skirt for the self-defense weapon she always kept on her.
Right before her eyes.
Two beams of vivid blue teleportation light flashed.
Horikita Suzune and Kushida Kikyo appeared before Hayasaka Ai almost simultaneously.
The only difference was:
The moment Kushida Kikyo landed, she was frantically scanning her surroundings with wide, panicked eyes.
Horikita Suzune, on the other hand, was seated cross-legged on the ground, still as a monk in meditation, steadily working to regulate her breathing.
Hayasaka Ai's expression shifted again at the sight.
Instant teleportation...
Don't tell me — I've actually been abducted by aliens for live experiments?!
At that moment, Kushida Kikyo — the first to regain her bearings — took one look at her surroundings and bit down hard on her lip to stop herself from screaming.
"Wait — isn't our class supposed to have intruder immunity?"
"Why am I here?!"
Hearing Kushida's complaint.
Horikita Suzune registered the sudden plunge in the ambient temperature.
She rose to her feet, brushed the dust from her legs, and said in her cool, composed tone:
"So we've become intruders..."
Seeing that it was Horikita Suzune, Kushida Kikyo latched onto her like a lifeline, grabbing her hand with trembling fingers:
"Horikita-san! I don't have a Combat Suit — for the exam ahead, I'm counting entirely on you...!"
Horikita Suzune didn't pull her hand away. She simply continued her analysis:
"The reason we were randomly selected as intruders is probably because nobody bothered to use that privilege before the exam started."
Kushida Kikyo nodded repeatedly, wearing the meek, devoted expression of someone who has completely surrendered themselves to the competent person's judgement.
Then, suddenly, she felt a vibration from the Black Sphere watch on her wrist.
Kushida reflexively let go and looked down:
"Horikita-san, your Black Sphere watch seems to have lit up too?"
Horikita Suzune raised her arm and looked at the notification prompt on the screen.
She tapped to open it.
A blue luminous panel materialised in the air before her.
[Horikita Suzune, congratulations — you have been selected as the 'Mystery Merchant' for this exam.]
[As the Mystery Merchant: you hold the privilege of immunity from permanent death inside the arena. However, each time you are revived after a fatal strike, one item from the shop shelf will be permanently removed as the cost.]
[In addition, you may collect ten percent of total sales revenue as your personal commission, payable in item points.]
[Below is the list of items you will be selling in this exam:]
[Herstal Blade, Senzu Bean, T-Virus Serum, Random Loot Box Card, Black Key, Devil Fruit.]
Seeing this, Kushida Kikyo hurriedly opened her own watch's messages.
[Kushida Kikyo, congratulations on being appointed as the Support Staff assisting the Mystery Merchant for this exam.]
[As Staff: your bag contains three custom order cards. Your duty is to act as the intermediary, facilitating the bespoke equipment commissions for the top three finishers in the Midterm Special Exam.]
[As your reward, you also hold arena immunity. However, each time you die and are revived, one custom order card will be lost as the cost.]
Reading that, the colour drained entirely from Kushida Kikyo's face.
"Oh no..."
"If I accidentally die once and lose a custom card, that basically means Chris and the others will have to pay for my mistake, won't it?!"
The mere thought of coming out the other side only to face Ryuuen Kakeru's fury and Chris's disappointed look — Kushida Kikyo felt her scalp crawl.
Horikita Suzune paid no attention to Kushida's spiralling panic.
She skimmed through the shop's item list at speed and made her decision.
"I'll try buying some items with points first, to cover ourselves."
"At the very least, we can't afford to go down before Chris and Ayanokoji manage to locate us through the controller."
Kushida Kikyo looked at Horikita Suzune's composure and found herself genuinely startled.
She's incredible. She's already pulled herself back together that quickly.
Yesterday afternoon after school she'd been wandering around looking like a hollow shell, like she could collapse at any second.
Though looking now — the wisps of hair at Horikita's temples were still slightly damp, and the backs of her hands were unnaturally cold to the touch.
Had she gone back to the dorms and forced herself through cold shower after cold shower, using that near-masochistic method to drive herself back to composure?
Of course, for Kushida right now, the fact that Horikita Suzune had recovered was an absolute godsend.
The Black Sphere might have handed them a get-out-of-death-free card — but if she actually died and lost Ryuuen's and Ayanokoji's custom equipment in the process...
Kushida was under no illusions that she'd come out of that with her skin intact.
Just as Kushida Kikyo was pulling herself together, already thinking of how to show some warmth to Horikita and offer a little emotional support — and, incidentally, latch onto a very powerful leg to cling to.
Hayasaka Ai — who had been standing right there being treated like furniture for a solid minute — finally opened her mouth.
"Um..."
The girl made a natural pivot into the frightened-ordinary-student mode:
"Could someone be kind enough to explain what's going on here?"
"What's the Black Sphere? What's the exam? And this Mystery Merchant you were talking about..."
"What on earth is any of this?!"
Horikita Suzune turned and looked at Hayasaka Ai — standing not far away, completely lost.
Without pausing what she was doing, she kept operating her watch and tossed back a single, cold line:
"You don't need to know that much."
"All you need to know is: if you want to live, close your mouth and stay close to us."
"The rest — you don't need to know for now."
——
Meanwhile. Inside the ceremonial hall.
When Stroheim followed Speedwagon's survey team into the deepest reaches of the ruin where the Pillar Men lay sealed.
On the walls all around them, stone demon-faces stared from every direction, and at the very centre, a mysterious relief was carved into the great stone pillar.
Greed flashed behind Stroheim's eyes.
He decided, in that moment, to stop concealing his hunger for youth and power.
"Ripple training has its limits... and I — refuse to grow old!"
Without hesitation, he struck.
Ripple Overdrive!
In almost an instant, he cut down every member of the survey team with effortless precision.
Then he drove his foot into Speedwagon's head — and under that disbelieving gaze — smeared the blood pooling on the ground across the stone demon-face, and slowly pulled it over his own.
"Crack——!"
Bone spurs erupted outward, driving into the brain.
Stroheim completed his ultimate evolution into a vampire.
As he basked in the sensation of newborn power, he happened to glance downward — and noticed that the blood spilling from the survey team was being drawn by some unseen force, flowing in reverse, seeping slowly up into that great stone pillar at the centre.
This pillar... it's alive?!
Stroheim felt a creeping wrongness. To eliminate all loose ends, he decided to throw the corpses — along with Speedwagon — into the underground river below and destroy all evidence.
But just as he moved to act.
GANTZ's voice suddenly rang out through the dark, narrow hall of the ruin.
[The advance trial hereby officially begins.]
That unexpected announcement made Stroheim falter.
And Speedwagon seized that split second of hesitation — scrambling, rolling, clambering — fleeing toward the exit of the ruin as fast as his body could carry him.
Stroheim watched his retreating figure.
He didn't move to give chase immediately.
In his estimation, an aged and frail ordinary human, inside a labyrinthine underground ruin like this — there was nowhere left to run. He wasn't going anywhere.
He'd deal with the bodies nearby first, tidy up any loose threads.
Then he'd go after Speedwagon.
And while he was at it... he'd sensed it — what seemed to be a sudden influx of fresh, living human presences inside the ruin.
Insects have crawled their way in.
To protect his exclusive claim to the stone demon-face and the secret of immortality, he would have to kill everyone who might have any knowledge of it.
But Stroheim — his head turned by the arrogance of his new birth — failed to notice something.
In the moment he turned back to deal with the bodies.
Beside the Pillar Man's stone effigy — the one that had absorbed the blood.
Three more stone figures had appeared as if from nowhere, radiating a far more oppressive presence than anything that had been there before.
Standing there in utter silence, in the dark.
Watching the direction Stroheim had walked away.
——
As for Speedwagon.
He'd taken Stroheim's kick squarely to the head, and blood was blurring his vision.
So his running pace was far from swift.
Even accounting for the time Stroheim had spent dealing with the survey team's bodies.
He was still certain — with a vampire's physical capability, it wouldn't be long before he was caught. And then he'd be crushed like a bug and murdered without mercy.
As the only person in the world who knew that Stroheim had turned traitor against humanity, he had absolutely no doubt the man would hunt him to the bitter end.
Though in truth — in Speedwagon's own eyes — his old life was worth little.
What he truly cared about was Joseph Joestar. JOJO!
As the only grandson of his dearest lifelong friend Jonathan Joestar.
If Joseph were to be targeted by Stroheim — a man who had once been a Ripple master of the highest order and was now a vampire even more dangerous than Dio — that would be nothing short of a catastrophe for the entire Joestar bloodline.
I have to warn JOJO!
He had to get this word out.
But without question — in his current state, critically wounded and bleeding out — making it out of this ruin alive was simply impossible.
As he staggered and slumped against a freezing stone wall, gasping in great ragged gulps of air.
Speedwagon's palm brushed against something raised on the wall.
He looked down.
His gaze was immediately pulled to the stone demon-face.
He looked at the blood splattered across his own hand — belonging to those innocent survey team members — and then he looked at the hollow, empty eyes of the stone mask.
After a long, agonised internal battle, Speedwagon's eyes hardened — and he made a decision that ran against everything he had believed in his entire life.
"I must go back alive... and tell JOJO what's happened here!"
"Once I've delivered this message — then it's time for this filthy vampire to be burned away by the sun!"
Resolved to die either way.
He raised his trembling, blood-soaked hand toward the mask.
A pity.
Speedwagon — caught in the current of a cruel, heavy fate — did not know.
That by making this choice to abandon his humanity.
Combined with the vampire he had triggered into waking by his touch, the conditions for the first Pillar Man's revival had now been met.
And the cruel irony of it all:
In the original script of fate — the one left unaltered.
Had he managed to hold out even five more minutes, and stopped himself from making any rash move.
Waiting for the boy named Ayanokoji Kiyotaka, guided by the Parasyte's senses, to find him.
He could have survived.
As a human.
____
👻🔥+40 ch: Walnut-chan🔥👻
🔥 New history: Homelander: Founding the Hero Association
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