Takakai closed his eyes.
Through the blood-drawn portrait, he experienced Hachiya Chiyo's final moments.
Loneliness. Pain. Despair.
No one left to talk to.
No one left to care.
Just silence, endless and suffocating.
Is the key… loneliness?
His thoughts warped—
—as if he'd become a writer, observing tragedies, delighting in others' suffering.
More…
Let me see more…
Let me create such despair…
The whispers slithered through his mind, but—
—Takakai crushed them without hesitation, only a trickle of blood from his nose betraying the strain.
Still, that guy Touyama… he's something else.
To endure months of Alice's torment, then two Crimson Moon Obsessions' corruption, and still recover after a sip of [Everflowing Blood]?
crimson moon players really are built different.
Now, at last, Takakai understood.
Hachiya Chiyo's Obsession.
The path to clearing the dungeon lay before him.
He turned to the blood-painted mural on the wall.
A smiling Chiyo, surrounded by blurred figures—adults and children, all laughing, carefree.
Like a group photo.
This is the key.
Combined with the emotions he'd absorbed, the answer was clear:
Chiyo's Obsession was to reunite with her orphanage family—to return to those hard but happy days, before the pain, before the betrayal.
Even as a Remnant, she never found them.
Because they're hidden.
Takakai's stomach dropped.
The sealed rooms in the research base.
Last loop, he'd tested them with the policeman Obsession—every one housed a failed experiment, a Crimson Moon nightmare with no known rules.
To brute-force search them would be suicide.
Even with 12 retries, he'd never succeed.
This isn't a solution. It's a trap.
The KP had designed this dungeon not to be cleared.
Fujika Academy was the same—Hirano Sousuke's trial required suppressing every other Remnant, an impossible task without outside help.
Compared to Shirakawa Apartments and Nutty Putty Cave, these school dungeons were rigged.
Pathetic.
If you can't handle players winning, don't be a fucking KP.
Takakai retrieved the policeman, now trapped at the dungeon's collapsing edge.
The orphanage was breaking apart.
Not the orderly dissolution of a cleared dungeon—but a glitching, chaotic unraveling.
The ground shattered into floating fragments, revealing warped colors beneath—psychedelic, nauseating.
Just looking at it triggered primal terror.
If I fall in there…
Not even the black watch will save me.
He retreated, shouting into the endless hallway:
"Hachiya Chiyo!"
No response.
Of course.
"I'm done playing games."
His voice was ice.
"I'll throw the Butcher's corpse into that glitch zone."
He stepped toward the abyss, lifting the rigid body.
"You suffered. I don't care."
The collapse crept closer.
"I'll grant your wish—for a price."
He raised the corpse.
"Show yourself. Or lose your last friend forever."
A shadow flickered at the hallway's end.
A small girl, cleaver in hand, eyes dead.
Takakai smiled.
And let go.
The Butcher's body plummeted toward the void.
Chiyo moved—blurring forward, blade at Takakai's throat—
—then diverted, reaching for the falling corpse.
Takakai hooked his foot, kicking the body back to safety, while his other hand—
—grabbed Chiyo's shoulder, pressed a gun to her head, and—
BANG BANG BANG BANG—!!
[Suppression Bullets], every last one, pumped into her skull.
The overloadfroze her mid-lunge.
Takakai hefted the stiffened girl over his shoulder.
Checkmate, kid.