Within the softly lit psychiatric hospital beneath the night sky, buzzing noises echoed from inside the patient rooms.
Expressionless orderlies lifted human figures lying on the floor and placed them into machines before activating them.
Amid the harsh humming sounds, screens embedded inside the machines continuously displayed images of "Idol Alice."
Speakers on both sides began repeatedly broadcasting Alice's singing voice toward the people seated inside the machines.
Then suddenly—
One of the orderlies turned its head and looked toward a figure that had appeared inside the room.
It was a police officer.
A police officer wearing a filthy uniform, gripping a handgun, his face filled with fury.
Passing through the wall, he stepped into the room one stride at a time.
[Get out!]
The orderly roared furiously.
[Get out! Get out!]
Violent shouting erupted throughout the corridor.
Every orderly spoke at the same time.
[You damned bastard! This is all your fault!]
[You're the real sinner! You're the real murderer! You disgusting piece of trash!]
[How do you still have the nerve to keep living? Why don't you just die already, you bastard?! You fucking monster!]
The walls screamed insults at him.
The beds and hanging lights cursed at him in fury as well.
Countless human faces emerged from every corner, spitting venomous curses at the man.
Meanwhile, the man stood motionless in place for a very long time before eventually turning around and walking back out of the room without doing anything further.
Yet at that moment, the orderly suddenly revealed a fearful expression.
Then it began giggling strangely, as though excited, yet with traces of pain mixed into its expression, to the point that its entire face twisted into something indescribable.
The faces emerging from the walls, the floor, the ceiling, and every object around them continued screaming curses.
Even inside that hospital room—
Even inside the room imprisoning Hirano Sōsuke—countless human faces were growing everywhere, glaring at him with furious eyes, staring at him as though looking upon an enemy they hated to the very core of their being.
Clatter, clatter—
An orderly pushed a cart down the corridor.
On one side of the hallway, several patient room doors already stood open. Inside, the girls lying on the beds had been shot through the head and chest, long since devoid of life, and showed no signs of transforming into Aberrations.
Judging from the torn-off patient management regulations scattered around the rooms, these students had apparently read contaminated information while no orderly was present. As a result, they were eliminated by some method midway through the transformation process.
Step—
Amid steady footsteps, the orderly pushing the cart turned to look into one of the rooms.
Inside the room, Yoshino Rika sat on the hospital bed, letting out a low, eerie chuckle.
Her eyes were almost completely bulging out of their sockets, blood streaming all over her face, while more blood continuously seeped from her ears. Yet her expression was incomparably excited, as though she had witnessed some kind of scene somewhere beyond reach. Over and over, she muttered in a voice filled with intoxicated obsession:
"Become Alice's friend together with us…"
That tone was utterly entranced. It no longer resembled her original self in the slightest.
Clatter, clatter—
The sound of the cart continued onward.
Inside more rooms, more people whispered to themselves. More people had already ceased being human, leaving behind nothing but empty shells filled with longing and worship.
And the cart finally stopped before a door at the end of the corridor.
Creak—
The heavy protective door slowly opened, then shut again.
Under the lights, the hospital appeared perfectly normal on the surface. No gaze lingered here any longer.
Only the girls' giggling laughter remained, along with that vacant figure tightly strapped to a gurney, surrounded by countless human faces while being endlessly cursed at.
Amid faint scratching noises, someone seemed to be drawing some kind of picture.
Meanwhile, Takumi was holding his breath, his entire body nearly pressed flat against the ceiling. Using both hands and feet to brace himself between the walls in the corner, he maintained a perfectly motionless posture that way.
[Huff…]
Amid heavy breathing, a figure slowly passed beneath him.
Judging from its clothing and the place it had emerged from, this thing was most likely the owner of the hospital—the so-called director.
The name it had possessed while alive was plainly visible on its badge:
[Fujii Hiroshi]
And it was quite obvious that this man likely had some familial relationship with Fujii Goro.
The reason Takumi had ended up in this situation was mainly because the moment he entered the building, he had immediately been discovered by this thing. With the help of Hitori, he had first cut off its pursuit, then used the identity overwrite effect of the Rescue Team Badge to prevent it from locking onto his position any further.
And after that came the current game of hide-and-seek.
Mai was nearby. The moment he encountered danger, she would immediately come out to rescue him.
As for Miko and "Gotō No.1," they had already entered the director's office and were currently searching for clues inside.
To be honest, uncovering the secrets here had proven even easier than Takumi expected.
Or perhaps the other side had never intended to hide them in the first place?
In any case, before long, through Maki's retelling via their mental link, Takumi learned quite a lot.
Fujii Hiroshi himself was the only son of Fujii Goro.
At first, he should have known absolutely nothing about what happened at Fujihana Middle School. That Fujii Goro probably never revealed the horrifying experiments conducted at the school to his family, even up until his death.
So Hiroshi had, at the very least, lived through a period of normal life.
But sometime around the 1960s, while dreaming, he encountered an anomalous existence.
According to the records left behind, he seemed to have dreamed of his father, and while still in a dazed state, had been guided by some kind of force toward the ruins of Fujihana Middle School—which had already become an abandoned wasteland for reasons unknown, yet strangely remained ignored by everyone.
There, he came into contact with the existence known as Alice.
This part had been written down directly.
Hiroshi referred to it as a "fated encounter," believing that the gods had bestowed upon him "the most perfect flower in the world."
He was utterly captivated by Alice's demonic charm, becoming obsessively infatuated with her, willing to do absolutely anything for her sake.
From the openly displayed files inside the director's office, it was obvious that for a very long time, this man had constantly wandered through cities and rural regions across Japan, kidnapping numerous people and dragging all of them to that ruined school as gifts for Alice.
As for how Alice used those gifts…
There was no need to elaborate further.
{This is the first time I've ever seen a man act this disgustingly mushy. It's honestly revolting. No, not just his words—even his behavior is so disgusting I can barely describe it.}
Maki offered that brutally sharp commentary regarding Fujii Hiroshi's praise for Alice.
{That's basically what charm effects are like. Honestly, from the very moment this guy met Alice, he was already as good as dead. Still, I'm curious why it happened specifically at that time. Why not earlier or later? Why did he suddenly dream of her then and get guided to meet Alice? There was probably someone pulling the strings behind the scenes.}
Takumi casually conversed with Maki while keeping his face tense, making himself blend completely into the environment like a decoration attached to the ceiling.
That Aberration passed by beneath him countless times, yet never once looked upward.
It reminded Takumi of those stealth games where the enemies were practically blind.
He used to think those games were unrealistic.
Now, though, they suddenly seemed pretty reasonable.
{You're seriously saying things like that at a time like this? Is there ever a moment when you act properly?}
Maki's voice carried a trace of embarrassed annoyance through the mental link.
After saying that, she stopped talking altogether.
Meanwhile, Miko—who had remained silent the entire time, merely listening—subconsciously hesitated for a moment.
She found herself thinking about who Takumi meant when he said he had "already been charmed."
And the more she thought about it, the faster her heartbeat became.
In the end, she hurriedly forced herself to shift her attention away, continuing to focus on the various invoices, reports, and other materials she had uncovered.
According to the records, perhaps due to receiving some kind of support from Alice, Hiroshi appeared to have obtained control over the land where the ruins of Fujihana Middle School stood, and had intended to restart the school and put it back into operation.
Among the financial records he left behind were numerous entries related to repairing the electrical systems and infrastructure of Fujihana Middle School. Included among them were expenses for commissioning a portrait of his father.
The man clearly did not care in the slightest about how his father died, where he died, or where the body ended up. It seemed he merely used the matter as a public-facing excuse.
However, this effort did not last very long before Hiroshi chose to abandon it.
The reason for abandoning it seemed to be that Alice had developed other plans.
No records regarding this part could be found, but after that, Idol Alice began her activities. The first performance record appeared roughly half a year after the final repair record for Fujihana Middle School.
At that point, Hiroshi became Alice's manager, assisting her with her idol career.
And he carried out the role of manager with astonishing seriousness.
The records and receipts left behind from that period were so detailed that they were almost overwhelming to sort through. Nearly every expense and every event had been documented.
It was obvious that Idol Alice's fame had skyrocketed in a completely overwhelming fashion.
Calling her a national-level superstar would not have been an exaggeration.
These records really are absurdly detailed...
Listening to the excessively thorough information Miko and the others were uncovering through the mental link, Takumi could not help but sigh inwardly.
To be honest, gathering this much information so smoothly was already giving him a very bad feeling.
Information related to Aberrations was always extremely dangerous.
It was never supposed to be this easy to obtain.
But here, the situation seemed completely reversed.
The group had barely needed any effort to lure the Aberration away from the room, barely needed any effort to obtain a huge amount of information, and had learned an extremely detailed account of the past.
That was simply too strange.
Was it because this information was not important?
Or perhaps—even if they obtained this information—it held no meaning whatsoever regarding the "truth" they sought, or the "rest" they sought to bring about, which was why it had been left behind so openly?
No...
Could it be that this information only appeared after they arrived just now?
Could it be that, as Miko had said, those undying things residing within Takamagahara had done something?
Takumi suddenly became alert.
At this rate, there might be misleading information mixed in ahead—or even hidden contaminated information concealed among the materials.
{Be extremely careful while reading. The moment anything feels off, stop immediately. There's already far more valid information in this office than there should be. Maybe "Takamagahara," like Yotsuya-san mentioned, has been pulling something behind the scenes.}
Takumi immediately issued a warning.
{Don't worry. I'm not going to make a mistake with something like this. Looks like someone's trying to shove these materials directly into our mouths. I'll be careful.}
In the real world, Maki answered Takumi through the mental link while simultaneously using her phone to investigate idol-related information from Japan in the 1970s.
Because of how long ago it was, much of the information had become difficult to trace.
But before long, she still managed to uncover something.
Back in that era, Japan apparently had a superstar idol who swept across the entire country.
Yet almost nobody paid attention to information about that idol anymore.
Hardly any records remained.
No one preserved the records, whether it was albums or concert footage.
The only traces Maki could find were fragments of information from scanned copies of old newspapers from that time.
Beyond that, there was nothing.
It was as though everyone had "forgotten" that idol.
Meanwhile, Miko had already found a thick record book documenting private meetings between Idol Alice and her fans.
There were at least a thousand names recorded within it.
Judging from the brief descriptions in the chart, the fan whose suffering ended the fastest seemed to have been roasted alive.
Even after regaining the memories from previous loops and becoming mentally stronger than before, Miko still could not help but avert her gaze after seeing those horrifying records.
...
[Huff… huff…]
At the same time, out in the corridor, the director—whose body was covered in chaotic wounds, as though he had died from brutal torture—walked around the corner of the hallway and opened a door leading outside.
...
Inside the room, Maki and the others remained cautiously on guard for a while.
After confirming there was no contaminated information hidden among the materials, they resumed their investigation.
Takumi jumped down from the ceiling.
After thinking for a moment, he opened the door to the deep treatment room and attempted to observe the situation inside.
And there, he saw numerous machines and devices that had clearly been brought out from Fujihana Middle School.
All of them had been designed for the purpose of torturing people.
Cold, horrifying machines with all manner of dreadful functions.
And on the vast majority of those machines still remained dark black stains that could no longer be washed clean.
It seemed that constantly carrying out activities within the underground base beneath Fujihana Middle School had been too inconvenient, so Hiroshi purchased the land beside the school and relocated these "toys" of Alice to this place.
And yes, records regarding this matter could also be found in exhaustive detail—so detailed that even the shipping cost of every single item could be traced.
'If the activity records of Idol Alice are considered unimportant information, then what kind of information would actually be the most important?'
Takumi muttered softly to himself.
There was no record whatsoever in the director's office regarding how Alice obtained a body capable of moving around in the real world.
Takumi considered multiple possibilities, but in the end, he felt that this was probably not the thing he most needed to care about.
What truly mattered should have been when Hirano Sōsuke first came into contact with Alice, and what kind of records or information that interaction had left behind.
But records regarding that matter likewise could not be found anywhere inside the director's office.
"It looks like we obtained a massive amount of information, but in reality we didn't make any actual progress at all."
Mai spoke up at that moment after walking over to Takumi's side.
"That's perfectly normal. But at the very least, we can now completely confirm one thing."
As Takumi spoke, his mind was still recalling the final document Miko and the others had discovered in the office.
That document had been carefully hidden inside a concealed safe.
And so "Gotō No.1" had directly demonstrated the incredible skill of tearing open a safe barehanded before taking out the record inside.
[Alice will never leave us]
[I will definitely succeed. I will definitely bring her back]
[It's just… I cannot do it alone. It's impossible for me by myself]
[That's right, that's right. We need to gather more people together. Just like Yoruyama Middle School, as long as everyone believes deeply enough, Alice can return]
[Then, once everything is fully prepared, it will be time to return to that school—to the place where Alice was born]
[My Alice, Alice, Alice, Alice, come back to my side]
[—Fujii Hiroshi]
The fact that Hiromoto Psychiatric Hospital had used the methods of Yoruyama Middle School was not especially surprising.
But who had shared the information about Yoruyama Middle School with him?
And the timestamp of this record…
It was already after the death of Idol Alice, wasn't it?
There were too many missing pieces in between...
He had originally thought they would uncover a crucial clue, yet this was all they found?
Still, those messages at least seemed to point toward a direction for the next stage of the investigation.
Perhaps they might discover something if they returned to the ruins of Fujihana Middle School?
"That thing is back."
Mai issued a warning at that moment.
"Yeah, I know. Time for us to withdraw."
Takumi nodded, then immediately asked through the mental link whether Miko could still see those things invisible to everyone else.
After receiving a positive answer, Takumi turned his gaze toward the elevator inside the building.
Digging up secrets, huh?
{Don't retreat outside yet. Come to the elevator first.}
Takumi stepped into the elevator ahead of everyone else and looked toward the buttons inside.
There were only buttons for the first through third floors.
No basement levels existed.
So he crouched down.
In an instant, his eyes turned blood-red.
Then he thrust out a fist, punching straight through the elevator floor and forcibly tearing open a hole.
In the next moment, deep darkness revealed itself before Takumi's eyes.
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