Chapter 59: Dancing Amid Ruins and Light
The man with a ferocious face, the woman with pallid skin.
The origin of all the disasters in the Shirakawa apartment building finally emerged at this last moment to prevent those present from escaping.
Boom——
The rubble outside the main door of Room 309 crumbled further, growing more precarious. In the distance, at the end of the ruins, the darkness had consumed everything, sinking into a place of nothingness, pure void. And the darkness that enveloped the entire debris field was gradually fading. Time was nearing its end, approaching the final point of the third day. If the delay continued, escape would become impossible.
Thus, hesitation was out of the question.
Every passing second now demanded absolute decisiveness.
"Shinomiya-san, use the blood puppet on that woman!"
Takakai shouted immediately, and as soon as the words left his mouth, he turned to face the man.
Hearing this, Kaguya wasted no time and hurled the blood puppet. Flesh-and-blood puppets sprang forth, instantly restraining the woman and immobilizing her for the moment.
Meanwhile, Takakai faced the ferocious-looking man and shouted at him:
"Li Youtai, give me back the money!"
At the sound of this commanding yell, the ferocity on the man's face flickered for an instant, and his body even recoiled slightly.
"I-I don't have money. My paycheck hasn't even come in. I don't have any money..."
The man muttered to himself, standing frozen in place.
"Shinomiya-san, hurry inside!"
Takakai immediately urged the girl beside him.
"No, the door won't let me in..."
Kaguya, intending to say, "You go in first," hesitated but was silenced when Takakai glared at her. She clenched her teeth, tried stepping into the door, and realized she was blocked by an invisible wall.
"It won't let you in? No, it's these two. These things must be removed from the room, or the door won't work!"
The unexpected development startled Takakai momentarily, but he quickly understood the cause. For the little girl, the door was a shield, a safeguard against all harm. As long as her parents—those capable of hurting her—remained near the door, it could not be used.
They had to get these two creatures out!
"Knife!"
Takakai extended his hand toward Kaguya.
The sharp surgical knife was handed to him instantly. Takakai stepped forward and slashed at the man. Despite its small appearance, the wound caused by the knife was far more severe than its size suggested. With just one cut, Takakai severed the man's legs, causing his upper body to collapse onto the ground.
"Li Youtai, give me back the money!"
As Takakai yelled, he attempted to kick the severed legs of the creature, trying to push it outside. However, the moment his foot made contact, a searing pain, like boiling water, spread throughout his body, forcing him to retreat. A monster remained a monster. Though it bore a human shape and spoke human words, giving the illusion of communication, its nature was unchangeable.
"I don't have money... I... I don't owe you any money?"
The man, whose legs had been severed, instantly returned to his original state.
This creature, confused by Takakai's words, began to waver but gradually reverted to its original ferocity.
Without hesitation, Takakai grabbed it by the waist and threw it out of the room. The two figures tumbled together down the slope of debris outside Room 309.
Takakai rose to his feet, the boiling water-like marks on his rescue uniform flaring briefly before fading away.
The rumbling sound from behind was Kaguya, also in a rescue uniform, charging forward. She collided with the woman, and mid-air, she reacted by kicking her opponent, sending the woman sprawling into the rubble as well.
"The blood puppet is nearing its limit. If I continue, it'll lose control. My badge can hold for 30 seconds," Kaguya gasped, struggling to catch her breath as she addressed Takakai.
"I've got over a minute left. Push them further away—don't let them near the door! Maki, support Sun Dajun and the others!"
Takakai shouted to Kaguya before sprinting ahead. Spotting Mameir helping Sun Dajun approach, he yelled at Maki, who was emerging from the door behind them. Takakai then turned his attention back to the man ahead, delivering a powerful punch to his nose, sending him sprawling to the ground.
Unlike before, wearing the badge and rescue uniform tilted him toward the monstrous side. Though he couldn't destroy other monsters outright, he could now affect them without suffering injuries from contact.
"My daughter..."
The man's expression grew increasingly furious. Slowly, he broke free from the confusion Takakai's words had caused.
"Bastard, die!"
Takakai suddenly launched a fierce kick, once again knocking the man down, sending him rolling across the rubble, further and further away.
"Rat... rat..."
On the other side, Kaguya leapt into the air, her legs clamping onto the woman, who was screeching and charging forward. Using her strength, Kaguya twisted mid-air, flinging both herself and the woman far into the rubble. They tumbled much farther than Takakai had pushed the man.
"Kai-kun, oba-sama, hurry!"
Maki led two people into the room without pausing to explain, guiding Sun Dajun and Mameir into the bedroom door.
Since the [parents] had been pushed far from Room 309, the two entered with ease, vanishing through the door and escaping the crumbling game.
Maki didn't follow them in. Without hesitation, she turned back and sprinted out the door, shouting to Takakai and Kaguya.
By now, Takakai had struck the man down with another punch. Kaguya, nearby, retrieved a pitchfork from the rubble—likely left behind by a resident—and thrust it into the man's chest, pinning him to the ground. Only then did they notice Maeda Miwa, panting heavily as she approached.
"Hurry!"
Takakai yelled at Maeda Miwa. Kaguya, now nearly at her limit, had no choice but to remove her badge. Her rescue uniform dissipated, leaving her gasping for breath.
With about 20–30 seconds remaining, Takakai didn't hesitate. He scooped up the exhausted Kaguya and bolted toward the main door.
"Wait, wait for me!"
Maeda Miwa, still trailing behind and panting heavily, called out. But Takakai couldn't afford to wait. The rubble around them was collapsing rapidly, and the dark void had encroached to within a few hundred meters, closing in fast.
"Hurry, hurry!"
Shijo Maki yelled, preparing to step in and assist, but stumbled as soon as she moved.
Boom——
The rubble around Room 309's door tilted dangerously.
The collapse grew more severe, scattering debris in all directions and causing the entire area to sink further.
Realizing something was wrong, Shijo Maki turned back to see the door to Room 309 hovering mid-air, half a meter off the ground—and rising higher.
If this continued, there wouldn't be enough time to escape!
"Hurry up!"
Shijo Maki shouted once again, leaping onto the floating door of Room 309. Scanning the room, her eyes landed on a large cabinet. She pushed it down, letting it fall horizontally across the door to create a stable anchor point. Then, she tore down the curtains from the living room window, tying one end to the cabinet's handle and throwing the other end toward Takakai and Kaguya, who were nearing the door.
By now, the gap between the ground and the floating door had extended to over five or six meters, roughly the height of two floors.
The entire rubble field continued to sink, disappearing into the infinite darkness below—swallowed, dissolved, and eventually fading into nothingness.
Only the door to Room 309 hung suspended in the air, its glowing interior offering a beacon of salvation amidst this hellish landscape.
Finally, Takakai reached the clearing beneath the door. Leaping up, he grabbed hold of the curtain with one hand while using the other to hoist Kaguya. Drawing on the power of his rescue badge, he flung her upward toward the door. Shijo Maki caught her and pulled her inside.
Exhausted but determined, Takakai removed his badge, took several deep breaths to regain his strength, and climbed swiftly toward the door. With Shijo Maki and Kaguya's help, he too was pulled inside.
At last, Maeda Miwa arrived below the door, trying desperately to jump up and grab the curtain. Her strength failed her, and she dangled precariously, unable to climb.
"Help me, please! Help me!"
Maeda Miwa screamed, her voice filled with panic.
"Damn it! Why is it always some useless burden dragging everyone down?"
Takakai cursed angrily, showing no intention of rescuing her. Instead, he focused on pulling Shijo Maki and Kaguya further into the room.
But just as he was about to turn away, he noticed Green's corpse—the one thought to be dead—twitching. The stitches on its body tore open, and it began to rise.
Damn it!
Distracted by the couple they'd been fighting, none of them had paid attention to Green's body. They had forgotten that in Shirakawa Apartments, even the dead could "come back to life."
"Why aren't you in bed? This isn't how a good child behaves," a distorted, eerie voice came from Green's mouth.
The man, his body covered in heavy burn scars and crudely stitched together, now spoke in the voice of a woman, mimicking the loathsome tone of the girl's mother.
Was this a manifestation of the "mother" figure dictated by the apartment's rules? Or was it the polluted, twisted consciousness of a resident?
Takakai didn't have time to ponder. One thing was clear: like the Fake-Kaguya they encountered earlier, this entity couldn't be fatally wounded or incapacitated, or its combat power would drastically increase.
And Green's corpse—judging by its condition—had already been severely damaged to the point of death. He wasn't even breathing anymore.
Bang!
Before Takakai could react, a gunshot rang out. Shijo Maki, wielding a pistol from Old Guo's backpack, fired a shot into Green's leg, causing him to stagger and kneel.
Kaguya quickly followed up. She spun her body with a burst of energy and delivered a forceful kick, sending Green sprawling backward toward the door.
Finally, Takakai, who had positioned himself near the door, grabbed Green by the waist and executed a textbook German suplex. With immense force, he hurled the creature out of Room 309.
"...Hah..."
Kaguya, completely drained, collapsed to her knees, unable to stand.
Takakai slumped against the wall beside the door, panting heavily, his vision blurring as he struggled to regain his composure. The intense strain from the rescue badge, climbing, and the tense battle had left him breathless, his lungs burning with every inhale.
"We can't delay any longer. Let's go."
Shijo Maki, still in the best condition of the three, helped Takakai to his feet and supported Kaguya as well. Now was not the time for sympathy. She forced herself to ignore Maeda Miwa, who was still clinging to the curtain below. Survival had to come first.
With grim determination, they prepared to enter the glowing sanctuary of Room 309, leaving the chaos and despair of the sinking world behind.
"Yeah, let's go, it's time to leave."
Takakai leaned against the wall, smiled at Shijo Maki, and then began to walk. The three of them headed toward the door.
Suddenly, Maeda Miwa, still hanging below the door, let out a terrifying scream as if she had seen something extremely dreadful.
A bad feeling struck Takakai. He turned around and saw a dark arm suddenly reaching in from outside the door, lurching toward Kaguya.
Click—
It sounded like the ticking of a clock.
When the clock hands move, the person winding it gets cursed by the power of the apartment, and a connection to it is established.
This connection makes the person winding the clock see the clock as a human head. However, Takakai still couldn't fully understand what else was happening.
But now, as he saw these dark arms—arms that had once kidnapped him and Maki—he realized.
These were the vengeful spirits of the dead who hadn't been able to leave the apartment. Combined with the apartment's rules, they had given birth to something like this.
During the first week, Maki had a minor interaction with the dead through a handwritten note, which led to her being attacked and brought to the third floor. At that time, Takakai had wound the clock, and this action was common among residents of Shirakawa Apartments, making Takakai a target too, pulling him up to the third floor.
Now, it seemed that Maeda Miwa and Kaguya were the ones winding the clock.
These dark arms couldn't directly kill people, but they could move them to extremely dangerous places—just like when they took Takakai and Maki to the third floor or when they forced Maeda and Kaguya out of the escape route.
Takakai extended his hand and pushed Maki, shoving her unexpectedly into the small bedroom glowing with light.
Immediately afterward, he grabbed Kaguya's arm with one hand and, using his other hand, pulled her collar tightly. Then, both Takakai and Kaguya were yanked out of the room by the dark arm and thrown out, tumbling toward the shrinking rubble below—now only about a hundred meters away.
....
"Idiot, clearly Maeda could leave to die, so why try to save me now?!"
This unexpected development made Kaguya's face change dramatically. She couldn't help but scold Takakai.
"Isn't it simple? She hasn't done anything for me, but you, you've truly helped me, you're my teammate. I can be ruthless to strangers I've only met once, but if I don't save someone who's truly helped me, then what's the point of winning?"
Takakai chuckled softly as both of them fell to the ground, landing right onto a dusty bed.
On the other side, Maeda Miwa was also thrown onto a bed. She screamed, trying to crawl up and run toward the large door of Room 309, but in despair, she realized she was more than ten meters away from the hanging curtains, unable to climb them.
"I don't understand... This is meaningless..."
By the bed, Kaguya, still in Takakai's arms, sat up. Breathing heavily in anger, she looked at him and spoke in a low voice, filled with resentment.
She couldn't understand.
She truly couldn't understand this man.
Did his actions even make sense?
Kaguya, who had always believed in using others without attachment, following the teachings of the Shinomiya family, couldn't understand Takakai's actions. He could have survived on his own, but he chose to die here with her.
What was the point of this?
"Just think of me as an idiot risking my life to impress girls, even though I haven't figured out whether I should pursue Maki. Anyway, cough, cough, it seems a bit revealing, so be mindful of your image, Shinomiya-san."
Takakai cleared his throat and averted his gaze.
At that moment, Kaguya realized that when Takakai had pulled her collar earlier, it had torn slightly, revealing part of her collarbone and one shoulder... and...
"Shameless!"
Kaguya yanked her collar with frustration, mumbling under her breath.
"Hey, hey, is it really this bad? I didn't do it on purpose, alright?"
Takakai smiled wryly, stood up from the bed, and began looking around.
The ruins were about to collapse completely.
Above, the large door to Room 309 was now just a small point of light.
Once again, failure had arrived.
Initially, Takakai had planned to end everything in this third round.
But it didn't matter. In the next round, it would be the time to finish the game perfectly.
Takakai gently clenched his fist, staring into the approaching darkness. He couldn't help but admit that he was still somewhat afraid, truly afraid of the imminent, unpredictable death drawing near.
"So, this is how I end up? In a place like this?"
Kaguya walked over to him, tugging at the torn collar of her shirt, and softly remarked, facing the darkness ahead.
"Yeah, such a pity. To be honest, I've never been kissed by a girl in my life. Now that we're both about to die, should we try what it's like to kiss?"
The sudden thought crossed Takakai's mind, and he turned to Kaguya.
"You let Maki kiss you in the previous loop. Now you're saying this to me? You can start over, right? Your way of starting over isn't like the clock, so you're not afraid, right?"
Immediately, Kaguya spoke up, catching Takakai off guard and causing him to freeze.
Maki—did she actually tell Kaguya about this?
Well, Kaguya was pretty sharp to figure that out. It was really quite the opposite of the "Baka-guya" in the anime who always thinks about love.
"You figured it out, huh? Yes, it's true, but still, pain will hurt. So, right now, I'm still afraid. That's the truth."
Takakai nodded lightly and said seriously.
"...Then, do you think it's worth enduring the pain of death to save me?"
Kaguya hesitated at this question, remaining silent for a long while before speaking again. This time, she didn't raise her head, not looking into Takakai's eyes, but her voice remained calm as always, sounding no different from usual.
"Umu, it's worth it. You saved my life. Even when death was near, you used your last strength to leave us a message to help us escape danger. For me, this gratitude and the bond we've shared, I can't betray it. If I left you behind, I wouldn't be able to forgive myself."
In response to Kaguya's words, Takakai nodded without hesitation.
"...Well then, come closer, I've got something to tell you."
"Huh?"
Takakai slightly lowered his head, while Kaguya stood on tiptoe, gently kissed Takakai on the cheek, then quickly pulled away.
"A kiss is for those who love each other, but for you, I give this as encouragement, a reward for being willing to face hardships with me until the end, Taka-kun."
Unlike Maki, who enthusiastically called him "Kai-kun," Kaguya's tone of "Taka-kun" remained calm, somewhat distant and polite. It gave a feeling of being friends, yet with a slight sense of superiority.
Takakai realized that the girl in front of him knew well that in the next loop, she wouldn't retain her memories and would have to start over, getting to know him again.
Was it because she knew she would die that she gave him a kiss? After all, it was just a kiss on the cheek—was it Kaguya-Hime's pride or the last bit of shyness from a young girl? Either way, it felt rather nice, completely different from Maki.
Not far behind, Maeda Miwa was still sitting on the ground, crying out.
Meanwhile, Takakai and Kaguya just stood there together, staring ahead, as the darkness continued to collapse, closing in more than ever.
And then...
From the collapsing ruins, Li Youtai and Xu Jiazheng, their forms completely distorted, now appeared as terrifying figures, like two horrifying ghosts.
"Yo yo yo, aren't you guys still haunting? After all this time, can't you two just die already?"
Unexpectedly, in the final moments, Takakai was confronted with these two. He couldn't suppress his frustration, pulling Kaguya back to distance themselves from these monstrous beings.
However, this time, the situation seemed different.
"I... I... How did I get here... I... I need to leave..."
"Leave... why... can that child set free... I too... I too want..."
Li Youtai and Xu Jiazheng, the "parents" of the story, were no longer acting entirely according to horror story rules. Instead, they were rasping in broken sentences, seemingly... as if they had started to regain some awareness, beginning to recover their minds.
Could it be that these two... wait, Xu Sheng had mentioned before that at first, this pair of parents had retained their consciousness like he did, but later lost all perception. Could it be that the collapse of the core of the horror story caused them, as part of the story, to begin to disappear? And as a result, their previously lost personalities were partially restored, gradually returning them to their human state?
"I want... to go out..."
"I want... to kill her..."
The two, with their eyes full of twisted rage, immediately looked up at the shining light of Room 309 floating in the air.
Even with just a partial recovery of their memory and selves, their distorted hatred toward their daughter was still very clear. Their immediate reaction now was to try to capture the girl who had left the Shirakawa building and bring her back to this hellish place.
Creak——creak——
The ruins, which had been continuously falling, began to slowly rise again.
Under the influence of the will from the two figures, nearly at the core of this horror story, the debris was forced to move closer to the 309 door, even though doing so would accelerate the collapse of the ruins even further.
"I thought I would just stupidly follow the ruins and die, but it looks like there's another gamble here. So, Shinomiya Oujou-sama, are you interested in a little fight? I mean, like a one-on-one to punch these disgusting creatures senseless."
Takakai pointed at the two standing and staring at the sky ahead, speaking in a calm tone.
"As for me, I don't like violence. I prefer achieving my goals through words. However, if it's with something as disgusting as these creatures, who are even worse than those living off social welfare, I think using a fist might be more useful right now."
Kaguya nodded lightly, stretching her body to ease her slight stiffness, then walked toward the two figures.
Step——
Without any intention of hiding her footsteps.
Both Takakai and Kaguya stepped forward simultaneously, facing Li Youtai and Xu Jiazheng.
"You... don't stop me... do you want... to die here?"
The man was the first to notice their intentions, his raspy voice rising to try to halt Takakai and Kaguya's actions.
But immediately, what greeted him was a punch to his face from Takakai.
"I just want to have some fun, you understand~?"
The punch sent three of the man's teeth flying from his mouth, his nose shifted to one side, blood pouring out. Takakai calmly spoke, then continued with another powerful punch to him.
....
Yo, gourmet readers, tomorrow is the last chapter of the Shirakawa arc so I'll reduce this story to one chapter a day. Sorry
The reason is because I'm quickly cooking up a new fanfic with Kira Yoshikage as MC, I'll upload this new fanfic next week Thursday or Friday.