Following the radar's guidance, the group was startled to find the survivor markers clustered just a short distance behind them.
"Perfect — they're right ahead."
Shiranami Chihiro tightened her grip on her weapon and glanced sideways at Ichinose Honami.
"Maybe Amikura-san managed to hide with them and slipped past the Kabane!"
"I hope so... I really do."
Ichinose bit her lower lip and ran the numbers one more time:
"Twenty Kabane at the start — the radar's only showing a fraction of that now. Lucky for us, there seems to be just one red blip left in our immediate area. As long as we stay careful, we should be able to avoid any more surprises..."
"Tch. Stop dragging your feet."
Ryuuen Kakeru, walking point at the front of the group, curled his lip with barely concealed impatience.
"Five qualified participants with Black Sphere weapons between us. If we can't handle a single Kabane, we might as well pack it in and go raise pigs somewhere."
"Ryuuen-kun..."
Shiina Hiyori, covering the group's flank, pressed her lips together and felt a faint urge to warn him against tempting fate.
But thinking back on the Kabane they'd cleared on the way here — aside from being pain-immune and a bit stronger than a normal human — they really hadn't been that much harder to deal with than the malevolent spirits from the last exam. With Black Sphere weapons in hand, it had been a clean sweep.
The only real unknown was still the hidden target. Whether it would appear at the very end, or whether it could be found right from the start — that was still anyone's guess.
She was still turning the problem over in her head when — perhaps drawn out by the group's completely unguarded conversation — something moved.
Directly ahead, a dark silhouette peeled itself slowly free from the shadows.
A Kabane. Dressed in a tattered samurai's haori, a blade held in each hand.
It didn't screech and charge mindlessly like the others had. It stood there, neck cocked at an unnatural angle, studying the group with opaque, clouded eyes — until its gaze settled and locked onto the black blade in Ryuuen's hand.
"That's..."
Shiranami Chihiro let out a sharp breath.
"The Kabane that was climbing the wall at the start?!"
"Yeah — I remember it too." Ichinose Honami's voice came out sharp as she raised her weapon, trying to get a lock. "Everyone stay sharp — this one's different!"
"Interesting... a variant?"
Ryuuen narrowed his eyes. He didn't let arrogance get the better of him — he had no intention of charging in like some reckless idiot.
Among a pack of Kabane that had no weapons and nothing in their heads but the urge to bite anything that moved — one had shown up carrying twin blades, staring at the black sword in his hand like it was actually thinking. Anyone with two brain cells could tell something was off.
He raised his war blade into a guard stance. Beside him, Yamada Albert had already leveled his gun and begun charging it.
But the instant Ryuuen brought his blade up — as if that single motion were all the declaration of war it needed —
The twin-blade Kabane's lips split into something that looked, horribly, like a grin.
The floor tiles beneath its feet cracked.
Flash ——!
A single explosive step. It crossed the distance faster than anyone had accounted for.
"!"
Ryuuen Kakeru's pupils contracted to pinpricks.
But Ichinose and the others behind him were still mid-charge. If he retreated now, everything they'd built up would go to waste.
Screw it. Full send.
A cold, savage light flashed through Ryuuen's eyes. He brought both hands to the hilt, gritted his teeth, and met the charge head-on.
CLANG!
Blade met blade. Sparks flew.
The Gantz war blade — engineered to cut through steel like it was nothing — sheared straight through the Kabane's katana. The severed length of the blade rang as it hit the floor.
But that was as far as it went. Ryuuen didn't get the follow-through.
Because the Kabane — upon watching its own weapon break — had gone still for just an instant, an expression crossing its rotted face that was disturbingly, unmistakably human.
Shock.
And then, moving in a way that no human body was designed to move — it wrenched itself sideways in midair, planted a foot against the wall, launched off it in a full rotation, and brought the remaining blade swinging in a diagonal slash at Ryuuen's throat.
"Get away from him!"
In the split second it took, Yamada Albert — who had abandoned his charge the same moment Ichinose had, rather than risk hitting Ryuuen — surged forward and stepped in.
A single, thunderous front kick.
The Kabane launched backward like a cannonball and slammed into the wall with a concussive crack.
"Ugh... thanks."
Ryuuen pressed a hand against his arm where the blade had nicked him — blood welling between his fingers — and let out a low whistle.
"Fast damn blade... what was this thing when it was alive? A sword saint?"
"Ryuuen-kun — move!"
Shiina Hiyori's urgent shout came from behind him.
Ryuuen sidestepped immediately, without a moment's hesitation.
The capture gun's triangular laser net fired — and as if it had already predicted the Kabane's trajectory as it pushed off the wall to rise, it closed around the creature the instant it moved and bound it tight as a dumpling.
"Ghh... RAAUGH——"
The Kabane thrashed furiously. All the swordsmanship in the world meant nothing against absolute technological suppression — it could only rage, helplessly, against the restraints.
Ryuuen exhaled a long, slow breath.
"Decent swordsmanship... lucky it was a lone wolf. In a pack, that thing would've been a real problem."
Confirming Ryuuen was in one piece, Ichinose glanced back down at the three green dots on the radar. She was about to head for the lab to confirm Amikura Mako's presence —
"Ichinose — go ahead and finish it off."
Ryuuen spoke up without warning.
Ichinose turned her head, puzzled.
"Don't read into it."
Ryuuen waved her off, impatient.
"We've got a debuff stacked on us — even if we take this kill, the points won't amount to much."
"So we might as well funnel the score to you — highest multiplier in the group. See if we can push you toward a full suit upgrade and get the most out of it."
Ichinose Honami blinked, mildly surprised — but didn't make a fuss about it.
"...Understood. Thank you."
She raised the X-GUN, aimed it at the Kabane pinned on the ground — which had long since given up its thrashing and was now staring up at Ryuuen with those murky, unblinking eyes — and pulled the trigger.
That gaze. Almost like mockery.
Ryuuen stared back at it, and his expression shifted — just slightly.
Then.
Perhaps drawn out by the noise from the corridor, the lab's half-open door was carefully, slowly eased open from the inside.
Amikura Mako poked her head out — and the instant she saw Ichinose Honami, her face broke wide open.
"Ichinose——! You came back! I knew it would be you! I just knew it!"
"Oh — and Hirata-kun from Class D drew them away to protect everyone, but he's badly hurt and unconscious right now — he needs medical attention immediately——"
She was already pushing the door open to step out.
"Wait. Don't come out. There's something wrong."
Ayanokoji Kiyotaka's voice cut through the reunion, flat and abrupt.
Ryuuen's brow furrowed hard. He looked toward the doorway — and found Ayanokoji standing there, holding what appeared to be a makeshift container filled with some unidentified chemical.
"Then explain yourself."
Ayanokoji Kiyotaka shook his head.
"I'm not sure exactly. I just... remember that there's something important here. Something I'm supposed to be aware of. Or something I'm not supposed to forget."
"But no matter how hard I try — I can't bring it back."
Ichinose Honami, who had just finished off the target, looked down at her radar with a frown.
"But... I've been watching the radar this whole time, and aside from that one Kabane, there really haven't been any other readings nearby."
Shiina Hiyori seemed to make a connection and ventured carefully:
"In the last exam — the Parasyte signals didn't show up until the very end. Maybe it's the same here. Maybe certain targets only appear on the radar once specific conditions are met — or only at the final stage."
"Until then, we'll have to find it ourselves."
Ryuuen Kakeru heard that — looked at Ayanokoji's visibly off-kilter state — then looked at Amikura Mako, who appeared completely oblivious to anything being wrong.
He raised a hand and signaled Shiina Hiyori to swap weapons with him.
"I've still got three lives. I'll take point. The rest of you stay sharp."
Ichinose Honami followed his lead — moving to the side to usher Amikura Mako clear of the danger zone — then fell in close behind Ryuuen as they stepped through the door.
The two of them raised their weapons — capture gun and X-GUN — and swept the room with eyes fixed on the screens.
Every GANTZ-issue gun came with built-in X-ray scanning. It couldn't see through walls, but it was more than enough to expose anything hiding inside a cabinet or lurking in a shadow. Better safe than ambushed.
Behind them, Ayanokoji Kiyotaka — molotov cocktail clutched in one hand — finally allowed his jaw to unclench.
The raw pain from where he'd bitten through the inside of his cheek was still pulsing steadily. A constant reminder that something was wrong. That his mind had been tampered with.
As someone trained to the edge of human conditioning, Ayanokoji Kiyotaka understood exactly what that kind of cognitive disruption meant.
Naturally — the moment he'd identified it — he'd quietly kept Amikura Mako watching the door from the inside, making sure she gave nothing away. And under the cover of "dealing with the Kabane," he'd used the lab's ethanol and chemical reagents to put together something that would buy him time if it came to that.
He had never once considered taking the thing head-on directly.
What he hadn't counted on was Ichinose and the others dismantling the Kabane outside through nothing but a door — efficiently, thoroughly, and very, very loudly.
He wasn't in any position to criticize them for it.
But that much noise had obviously disturbed their uninvited guest.
What was done was done. There was no longer any point in pretending he hadn't noticed.
Following the direction of Ryuuen's gun barrel —
Every pair of eyes in the room landed on the same spot.
The corner of the lab. Behind the row of specimen cabinets. Beside the half-drawn curtain where the light didn't reach.
Something was there.
____
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