"Hah-huh, hah-huh, hah-huh, hah-huh, hah-huh, hah-huh, hah-huh, hah-huh."
There was no time to think. All of his instincts screamed at him—from the hairs prickling on his skin to his ragged, hoarse breaths, and the sweat trickling down his cheek. Every part of him urged him to run, to get away from here. It didn't matter which direction; he just needed to move. He ran, not looking back, ignoring the embarrassing display of sheer terror etched across his face.
"Hah-huh."
What would he do now? Surely, he would get lost. He hadn't brought his backpack—just the sword at his waist and a compass in his pocket. He had no supplies. How would he survive if he got lost in this vast wilderness?
Never mind that… Crap, crap, CRAAAP!!
Forget everything; just run! This was the chaotic state of Kobayashi Ryo's mind as he fled, desperate to find safety.
"____HK!"
He stumbled and tripped over something, a sharp pain shooting through the side of his head as he face-planted into the ground. Struggling to rise, he resumed his frantic flight. But what had caused him to fall? It didn't feel like a rock.
No, just keep moving, damn it. If that thing catches up to you, you're done for!
He urged himself, trying to ignore his sudden curiosity. As he stepped forward, he noticed blood on his shoe, attached to a pinkish strand of tissue that halted his movement.
He turned back to the ground where he had tripped, his eyes widening in horror. He shook his head, denying reality. It couldn't be real. That was...
"Ooh! Ahhh!!! GAHHH!!!"
He fell backward in terror, legs flailing as he stumbled a few times before finally crouching down again. He retched, his stomach contents spilling onto the ground.
"Gah! Ahhh! Guh, ugh!?"
Wiping his mouth with trembling hands, he recovered enough to look behind him.
Lying on the ground was the corpse of the person he had encountered just before running, Olivia Astrid. This was her real body now, mangled and half-eaten, with only her torso and head remaining. Her intestines spilled from her body, and the iron scent mixed with urine urged him to vomit again. Memories rushed through his mind, images of the monster he was fleeing—the same creature devouring Logan's corpse.
A MIMIC.
When did this happen? Surely it couldn't have been during their time in the 6th to 9th layers. It was hard to reconcile the existence of the real Olivia standing right in front of him with that logic. That meant it had to be during their time in the 10th layer. He had run far away from where he encountered the mimic, and if it was in this direction, if it was this far away, it must have been when they decided to split up. How could they not have noticed something as drastic as an abduction or mauling? Gritting his teeth in frustration, he stood up and summoned all his strength to run again. He had already strayed so far; there was no point in thinking about direction—just get as far from the mimic as possible.
"Oh—ah!"
He tripped again, this time over a stick, and fell forward, colliding with a tree that broke his fall.
"Shit, that hurt!"
He had struck his head, and the impact caused it to bleed from the left side. He touched the wound, and blood stained his hands. He stared at it for a moment; it was just a scratch, nothing severe. He'd need to clean it later to prevent infection, but for now, he had to keep running. As he placed a hand on the tree to steady himself, something unusual occurred.
"ZZZ!"
A blinding white light burst forth from the tree, accompanied by a zapping sound that rang in his ears. When the brightness faded, what had once been a tree was now something entirely different: a living figure, a silhouette still taking shape. As the blurriness dissipated, the figure began to look familiar. This wasn't just any face; it was one that Ryo would recognize instantly. It was, in fact, Kobayashi Ryo himself.
"Hey... this isn't funny."
The figure, a mirror image of Ryo, stood face to face with him. Ryo's eyes widened in panic. He spun around and flailed his limbs, desperately running away from his own likeness.
"AHH! GAHHHHHHH!!!"
The figure didn't pursue him; instead, it moved toward another tree and sent a beam of light from its arm, illuminating not just that tree but a significant portion of the cold, dark forest in blinding white light.
Ryo noticed the blinding flash of light around him and turned back to where he had fled. A small realization crossed his mind: this was where they had come to pick fruits and vegetables. He recognized the distinct bush of bug berries and the remnants of the stack of fruits and edibles they had gathered, some of which were poisonous or unsafe.
The poisonous fruits, the vegetables, the leaves, the trees, the bushes—everything in his view morphed and shifted into a different form, becoming more human. He saw... himself, Arakawa Mei, Fujita Tadashi, Higashi Hitomi, Emma Wilson, Kuriyama Yuki, Sophia Rodriguez, Roxanne Pierce, Matsumoto Koki, Akimitsu Ito, Hana Akari, Mori Kenzo, Lyra Aridia—faces, faces, faces...
Faces that shouldn't be here. Even faces he had only seen back home, and Lilies from the Darkness Isle. Did the mimic also copy his memories?
"No... I won't believe it. There's no way this is fair!"
The mimic was far more dangerous than they had been warned.
So many faces stared him down, emotionless. Despite the overwhelming numbers, the mimics did not act. They just observed, their expressions betraying no emotion whatsoever.
As their gazes bore down on him, he felt an unsettling sense of déjà vu, reminiscent of walking through crowds back on Earth—the unnerving feeling of being watched.
"Stop it."
He let the words escape his lips, hoarse and filled with frustration. Was this the mimics' twisted strategy to kill him, using his own fears against him after having learned his memories?
"I said stop it, you freaks!"
They didn't respond to his loud, aggressive tone. In a fit of frustration, he picked up a rock and hurled it at one of the enemies. It hit one of them—a random face. Even though it resembled someone he knew, he couldn't bring himself to hurt a person, no matter how distorted they had become.
Yet even the random individual he struck didn't flinch. Blood dripped from the wound on its head, but it continued to stare intently, unfazed by the blood flowing into its eyes, staining its view red.
"What's this… stop it! Are you all insane?!"
Panicked, he got up and ran, feeling his stamina dwindling. Despite his fatigue, he pressed on, grateful for this body, though he knew it wasn't the same as it had been several months ago before coming to this world.
Their eyes… he couldn't bear to look at them. Glancing away, he felt a different kind of dread—an unsettlingly familiar sensation, but this time, it was more substantial than the paranoia that had plagued him in his old world, a life he desperately wished to forget.
He knew he could never fully escape that habitual nature of his. The paranoia that had lessened upon arriving in this parallel world lingered, deeply rooted in him at a psychological level.
Having run for some time, he noticed he wasn't being pursued by the mimics. Initially, he wondered why, but then he realized he was lucky, at least luckier than Olivia and Logan. Relief washed over him, but it quickly turned to dread. His eyes darted everywhere, his paranoia of being watched mixing with the chaos of his heightened threat perception. Surely this world would drive him insane.
He glanced at his shaking hands, but rather than dwelling on his fear, he noticed something.
"Is it… the blood?"
Perhaps his blood-stained hand had led the mimic to assume his form. He had made contact with trees and bushes while foraging for food earlier, and nothing had happened then. The difference between now and then, was the blood.
"If that's really the case… then I really fucked up."
As regret crossed his face, faint sounds of rushing water reached his ears, a familiar, gentle white noise. There was a river nearby.
"I'll head there. I need to wash off my wounds before I make the same mistake twice," he uttered, his voice hoarse from running.
He moved toward the river and, upon arrival, felt the cold air against his skin. Crouching, he bent over to wash his hands and face in the clear water.
As he cleaned his wounds, traces of red dispersed around him. If this were the ocean, he would be luring in a predator like a shark, but there were no sea creatures in the Labyrinth's rivers. He wondered why that was the case…
Suddenly, the entire River erupted in a blinding white glow.
"No! No! No! No! No! No!!"
He couldn't believe it. How could this be happening? It had to be a nightmare—what else could explain such a cruel twist of fate? The entire River was one thing, but it was far worse than that...
"This whole Forest, the 10th layer is..."
The 10th layer itself was the Mimic.
He began to run again, having spent most of his time in a state of terror. After all the preparation he had done before descending into the labyrinth, this felt like a betrayal of his own instincts.
He shouldn't have suggested they forage in that area. He shouldn't have proposed gathering fruits at all! No...
He should have chosen to go it alone from the start. He regretted joining up with a party; he shouldn't have lent Emma a helping hand, and he certainly shouldn't have even considered it. The weight of his regrets crushed him.
After running for what felt like forever, he was completely exhausted. He wanted to rest, to catch his breath. So, he finally decided to stop. He glanced around and settled against the trunk of a tree, seeking a moment of solace.
"Huuuuuuh!!"
He exhaled deeply, relief washing over him as he tried to calm his racing heart.
"Um... are you okay?"
He froze at the sound of an unfamiliar voice. For a moment, he felt paralyzed, his breath caught in his throat. But the voice spoke again.
"You sound like you're in some kind of pain."
He turned his head toward the voice and was confronted by a face he didn't recognize.
"I said, are you doing okay? Woah, you don't look too good. You're soaked in sweat."
"No, this is..."
He wanted to explain that most of it was water from when he'd soaked his clothes, but something more pressing crossed his mind.
"Who are you?... No, I already know—you're one of them, aren't you?!"
"One of who?" the unknown boy asked.
Taking in the stranger's clothes, he realized the boy appeared to be a Lily, just like Ryo. But that wasn't what worried him; it was far more likely that this boy was a Mimic.
"Them, the mimics—don't play dumb with me!"
"Wait, calm down. You shouldn't go around pointing weapons at random people."
"Huh?"
Unbeknownst to Ryo, he had already grasped his katana tightly in his hand, freshly drawn from its sheath. His threat perception wasn't alerting him; perhaps the boy really was clueless about what Ryo was insinuating. Maybe his paranoia had gotten the better of him.
"..."
No, he couldn't detect that Olivia was a mimic too, assuming she really had been replaced during their foraging quest.
"Don't make fun of me, monster! I'll cut you down!"
"No one's making fun of anyone,"
"I just wanted to see if you're okay. You look like you're on the same mission as me."
This was information the creature could have easily accessed when it copied not only him but also his memories. It was actively belittling Ryo. Humans weren't that foolish. The fact that his body had instinctively drawn the sword was proof—he let out a slight chuckle.
He would outsmart the monster. When it let its guard down in an attempt to deceive him, he would find his opening.
Stupid creature. If you really wanted your plan to succeed, you should have used a familiar face, at least that way I'd hesitate.
He was close to laughing at the monster's pathetic intellect. A beast was still a beast, even when dressed in the finest attire.
"I'm sorry; I shouldn't be lashing out like this," Ryo said.
"R-right... phew." The boy let out a short sigh.
"With that look in your eye, I thought I'd misjudged the situation, and you'd lost your mind and tried to kill me."
"I'm terribly sorry about that. You're clearly one of us. I'm just paranoid from being alone in this dark and creepy forest crawling with all kinds of Kardia-beasts."
Suddenly, Ryo's legs gave out, and he fell into a sitting position, leaning back as if relieved of a burden.
"I take it you're exhausted. That makes sense. You look like you've been through a lot on your own."
"It has been pretty rough. I even lost my equipment during a battle earlier."
"Really? That must have been tough, especially since you lost your unlimited water supply."
The boy pulled out a water bottle and shook it to emphasize his point.
"Want some?"
"If you don't mind."
The boy handed him the water bottle. Ryo took it, glancing at it with a hint of skepticism. He hesitated but shook off his suspicion of the water. He opened the lid and gulped down some much-needed hydration.
"Thanks. You might have even saved my life with this."
"Oh, it's no issue. We have an unlimited supply, so there's no harm in sharing."
The boy fidgeted with his fingers in a somewhat childish manner, apparently wanting to say something but struggling to hold back.
"Uh... is there something wrong?"
"N-no, it's not like that." He waved his hands in an exaggerated manner as he spoke. "It's just that, if I'm being honest, I'm doing this whole thing alone. I don't really have anyone to form a party with, so I was wondering..."
Ryo squinted in disbelief, then let out a sigh as he looked at the nervous boy's awkward expression.
"You don't look like the type who wants to go through this grueling mission all by yourself."
"Well..."
"It's fine. I don't have any supplies in the first place, so I have no reason to refuse. You'd be doing me a favor."
Ryo rubbed the back of his head sheepishly.
"Really? Yeah!"
The boy raised a fist into the air in celebration, filled with a childlike joy. He then reached out a hand to Ryo, a friendly gesture to shake on their new partnership.
"Since that's settled, let's shake on it then! I'm Kakeru Sanada, by the way!"
"The way you said that kinda reminds me of a guy I know who likes this sort of thing. Alright, I don't see why not. Put 'er there."
Ryo reached out and shook Kakeru's hand, who smiled from ear to ear as they shook.
"Hk, why would you—"
Suddenly, the boy felt a sharp pain in his stomach. He looked down in shock, seeing the source: blood coated a sword—the one held in the hands of his murderer, Kobayashi Ryo.
"There's blood! I'm bleeding! I'm bleeding—Ghkh!"
Kakeru struggled away from Ryo's blade, which had impaled him. Fueled by pure adrenaline, he immediately fell onto his back.
A shadow loomed over him, and Ryo's eyes pierced through him as he watched him die.
"No, this is wrong... I only wanted to—"
Blood splattered from Kakeru's mouth, cutting off his words as he coughed violently.
"It's getting... colder. It wasn't... supposed to be like this..."
Ryo silently observed, a smirk creeping onto his face as the boy's true intentions unraveled.
"It wasn't supposed to be like what? Go on, finish. You thought I was stupid enough to believe your babble? F*CKING PIG!!"
Kakeru began to squirm, pressing his hands against his wound.
"It hurts! It hurts! It hurts so much! Mommy! Daddy... help me! Make it stop! It hurts!"
The boy writhed in agony; every attempt to voice his pain only brought sharper, excruciating sensations. Stabbed in the abdomen, his internal organs were severely damaged. He knew he was going to die, and the pain wouldn't cease until he did.
Ryo continued to loom over him like a dark figure, smirking triumphantly.
The boy, feeling unimaginable pain, looked up at Ryo.
"Tell... me... what's your... name?"
"What? You should know…"
Suddenly, Ryo felt his sword slip from his hand, and he collapsed to the floor, his legs and arms shaking violently.
"You're a mimic... that's something you should be aware of, isn't it?" His voice trembled as he spoke. The boy didn't respond; he simply stared back into Ryo's eyes, his face no longer marked by pain but filled with fury—as if cursing Ryo. This made Ryo's heart sink.
"No... no... I didn't know," Ryo stammered, his earlier confidence crumbling.
The boy passed away shortly after, without uttering another word. Why had he looked at Ryo like that? Why had he asked for his name—was it to know the name of his murderer before he died? Surely, it was to curse him. Ryo realized he had made a grave mistake.
He looked at his hands, stained with blood, his pupils shaking, unable to comprehend the events of just a few minutes.
"I thought he was..."
He grunted, his face contorting in agony. He had taken a life; he might have mistaken the boy for a monster, But no one would blame him for this blunder in such circumstances. Yet that gaze—filled with deep meaning and fury just before passing—was etched into his mind.
It screamed, "A curse upon my killer." He had robbed the boy, he had robbed Kakeru of his life.
In his previous world, Ryo had seen humans as nothing more than faceless NPCs. There had been times when hateful thoughts about killing someone crossed his mind, moments when he thought a person should just die. But he had never had the courage to act on those thoughts.
This was the first time he had crossed that line. He had never expected it to feel this heavy; he hated this feeling. His heart grew cold, his teeth chattered, and he cursed himself.
"What have I done? Why did I do this? It has to be wrong! Change! CHANGE, DAMMIT! Into a tree or something else, your true form! I don't care what you turn into, just transform! Please! You have to! Or else I'd... I'd be a murderer."
He shook Kakeru's lifeless body, clinging to the hope that he hadn't actually killed a person. He couldn't bear to be a murderer.
"DO SOMETHING! DO SOMETHING, DAMMIT!"
On this day, Petal of Salvation, 25th Ventus, 1:20 AM, in the Labyrinth of Lethe, the individual known as Kobayashi Ryo had become a murderer.
There was no turning back now; he had crossed that line. He crouched down, holding his head with both hands, terrified. It was this place, this labyrinth, this forest, the 10th layer—that was driving him mad.
"It's not my fault."
That's right, it was this place, not him. Under normal circumstances, he wouldn't have been able to do it; it was this hopeless situation that had pushed him far over the edge.
"It's not my fault! I wouldn't do this, I couldn't have done this, not on my own. It's not my fault!"
He sat there crying softly, muttering words to alleviate himself from blame.