"The layout of this room isn't the same as the ones on the second floor. Could this be the original, normal structure of Shirakawa Apartments?"
Noticing a trace of abnormality, Kaguya frowned and said quietly.
Behind her, Takumi once again pressed a hand to his forehead.
Strange.
Why was it that ever since he'd come up to the third floor, he was seeing more and more of these things?
It was as if his vision no longer existed entirely within the present Shirakawa Apartments, but was somehow connected to another place.
Why was such a change happening?
As he pondered this, Takumi reached out to grasp the doorframe, intending to close the door.
In that moment, he subconsciously raised his head and looked outside.
Then he saw that filthy little child, dressed in ragged clothes, appearing and disappearing amid the distorted architectural structure, vanishing without a trace.
"…"
And so, Takumi understood.
He had already been discovered by that thing—it had begun to reestablish contact with him once again.
...
After learning about his regression ability, Takumi had actually considered a question like this: for those rule-based Horror Stories involving memory and cognition—those troublesome things of the type "to know is to recognize"—perhaps the ability to regress could not erase the influence of such things.
In any case, Takumi had already come to know the "taboo" of Shirakawa Apartments.
And having come to know the taboo meant he had fulfilled the condition for triggering it, thus becoming a target that "that thing" could gaze upon.
Only, perhaps because of the regression, within the operational logic of this rule-based Horror Story, he possessed an additional segment of taboo memory that had appeared out of nowhere. Therefore, for the rule to activate in this regard, it would take a certain amount of time to slowly begin. But now that he was already able to see that thing, it meant the triggering speed was not slow. From this point of view, perhaps… the seven days allotted for escaping Shirakawa Apartments might, for him, amount to less than half that time—or even shorter.
In the most optimistic estimation, in about three days, he would trigger the curse power of the core taboo of Shirakawa Apartments, be dragged once again into that distorted and twisted Room 304, have his mouth sewn shut with needle and thread, and be tortured to death with boiling water.
He really didn't want to go through that again.
That kind of torturous death—just experiencing it once was enough to drive one into despair, yet he had gone through it twice. If he had to endure a third time, Takumi truly didn't know whether he could survive it.
"Takumi-san, you seem rather uneasy."
Kaguya, resting on one side of the room, watched the changes in Takumi's expression and spoke softly.
"I just thought of something rather unsettling, that's all."
Realizing his expression had given him away, Takumi let out a long breath, then lifted his head to meet Kaguya's gaze.
Red eyes.
They gleamed brilliantly like rubies—eyes like these shouldn't exist in the real world, right? As expected, she truly belonged to the two-dimensional realm.
It was just a pity that the gaze from those eyes now looked nearly lifeless—no trace of ordinary human emotion could be found in them.
'The Ice Princess Kaguya, a girl raised under the Shinomiya family's twisted education of "absolute self-interest," a "girl in a box"—for such a girl to now be in the same eerie and terrifying Horror Story zone as me, risking her life alongside me to investigate… it was, I had to admit, rather strange.'
"Do you have anything to say?"
Locking eyes with Takumi, Kaguya did not know what he was thinking. She only saw this man fall silent, so she spoke up again to ask.
"…Say what, say something, huh. Mm, Shinomiya-san, do you still remember the four hints for this game? The predecessors' messages, the happiness of dust, the door of restarting, and the place one must not go. What are your thoughts on these things?"
Closing his eyes, Takumi leaned against the wall and spoke slowly, his voice carrying a trace of hesitation.
"Thoughts, huh…"
Kaguya was not quite sure why Takumi suddenly asked this question, but she still quieted down to think for a while, and only then did she slowly speak.
"The point about the predecessors' messages is actually quite clear. Whether it's Kyosei's message, Sanchez's investigation notes, or some other records left by past survivors who once lived here, all of them hide various clues—and our exploration so far has been based on those who have already died. They left us a way to survive, guiding us forward."
"As for the happiness of dust, this line of thought may not be certain, but in my guess, perhaps it refers to a toy? I may not be very familiar with a normal child's childhood, but isn't it said that children like toys? And the place one must not go—I think you also have a sense of it in your heart. That place is very likely inside one of the walls of Room 304."
"The intelligence you and Maki brought back from the last—mm, the last loop is quite substantial, already basically enough for us to piece together what once happened in this apartment. All sorts of clues can basically be matched up; only some matters of detail still need further investigation."
Perhaps to recover a bit of her pride and self-respect, Kaguya spoke at length and in detail.
As for the situation of the family in Room 304, Takumi had already told Kaguya about it before heading to the third floor to explore. At this moment Takumi said nothing, merely sitting where he was and listening to Kaguya's analysis. At the same time, he was also thinking silently to himself—of course, on the premise of trying his best not to think about that key taboo, limiting his perspective to those two atrocious parents, and, for all content involving that thing, using every possible form of indirect reference, in order to delay the curse as much as possible.
The cause of death was having her mouth sewn shut and being scalded with boiling water. Before that, it was likely just beatings and similar abuse. After all, with a child's frail body, being subjected to mouth-sewing and boiling water would make survival impossible. And afterward—was she walled up? But since the rescue team smelled a stench, perhaps it was some kind of hastily built mud wall? Or maybe they dug a hole into the wall, stuffed her directly inside, and roughly sealed it back up?
This family had a second child—a boy. He had been sent away before Shirakawa Apartments became distorted. Perhaps, after that incident, the parents knew they would be arrested once exposed, so they sent the child away. And according to Sanchez's investigation records, that child who was sent away seemed to have mysteriously died within the same year the other residents of the apartment disappeared. Maybe after death, he was pulled back into the apartment?
Perhaps the turning point came after the birth of the second child—once the man's desire for a son was fulfilled, the first one was treated with even less importance, becoming even more of an eyesore. So when they acted, the parents' moral bottom line had fallen even lower.
The neighbors should have tried to help, but they must have suffered retaliation from those parents. For a child they despised so deeply, once they discovered that someone was willing to show her love or attempt to help her, for these two people who had already lost all trace of humanity, it would have been absolutely intolerable. Room 309… perhaps it was the residents of 309 who had come into conflict with those of 304—and very likely left the apartment afterward because of it.
Then, the door of restarting…
"Maybe it's 309. If we open 309, we might obtain something very important. I think the door of restarting might refer to this room—309."
As Takumi thought these things, Kaguya, sitting opposite him, spoke calmly, voicing the very thought in Takumi's heart.
"Indeed. Unfortunately, this place is far too chaotic. Apart from 304, which still offers some traces of clues, finding any other room is like searching for a needle in a haystack."
Letting out a light sigh, Takumi slowly stood up from the floor.
Up to this point, he had not yet reached the state of the previous loop—where he could feel that thing's gaze upon him at any time, in any place.
But such a state would not last long. As the curse deepened, he would inevitably face death sooner than anyone else.
Still, there should be enough time.
Enough time to verify his thoughts.
"You already have an idea?"
Seeing the change in Takumi's expression, Kaguya realized he must have come up with something, and she asked.
"I once experienced being gradually transformed into a member of the rescue team, the process of having my self-awareness destroyed by that badge."
"That process was even more painful than death. But after surviving, I came to realize a few things. I think, to some extent, I've roughly figured out the essential nature of these eerie phenomena—though until now, I hadn't had any concrete ideas on how to summarize them."
Takumi nodded slightly, carefully peering through the crack of the door to observe outside while answering Kaguya.
"These inhuman anomalies—the key to how their power operates should lie in Obsession, while the specific mechanism of its operation lies in Memory."
"The rescue team keeps repeating their rescue actions, stopping those who try to return to their rooms from the corridors, because 'saving' is their obsession. And the scenes of flooding that appear where the rescue team's anomalies exist are repetitions of their past memories."
"I'm not trying to say they still have feelings or anything like that. Although I have great respect for those rescue team members, as someone who almost became one of them, I can confirm that once they turn into anomalies, the rescue team no longer possesses anything like emotion. Under the influence of Obsession and Memory, they are merely distorted echoes endlessly repeating the past—unable to move toward the future."
As he spoke, Takumi's gaze caught a faint, flickering figure in the corridor outside. He withdrew his eyes and spoke slowly to Kaguya.
"But that doesn't mean they are unsolvable tragedies. Because the very foundation of these rescue teams' existence still lies in Obsession."
"The rescue team trapped in the endless loop cannot fulfill their own obsession, so they remain on the first floor. But if there were a way—when everything replays again—to let them complete their obsession, to truly carry out the act of saving the people of Shirakawa Apartments, then once released from that loop, they could stop this meaningless repetition and gain genuine rest."
"I believe this same principle should also apply to the apartment's most central taboo."
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