Yuichi righted himself in the thick cloth tube and arrived on the second floor in a snap.
He found two people lying there, likely a part of the group of the monster hunters from before. There were no external injuries, but they seemed to be dead.
“Did you guys do this?” he asked.
There were specters wandering around the old classroom, though not as many as there had been the last time he was there. When they saw Yuichi, they scattered like ants. They must have remembered the way he’d torn through them last time.
He checked behind him and saw no sign of pursuers, so he walked out of the classroom.
A long wooden hallway extended before him. It was definitely a different layout than the school buildings at Seishin High, but he could tell right away which way to go. He just had to follow the fresh footprints.
Yuichi continued on, smashing the occasional specter that attacked.
The hallway curved, making it hard for him to see very far ahead. Not only was the layout different from the one at their school, it seemed like it couldn’t possibly exist in their world.
As he walked, he saw more signs of blood and rust and burn marks, and the otherworldly atmosphere grew stronger.
Am I walking in a spiral? It’s a one-way road, but how do I know which classroom is the way out?
The hallway had been curving right the entire time. There was probably something at the center of the spiral, he thought.
As he walked on, he caught sight of a figure writhing in pain.
It seemed like it must be one of the monster hunters who had come in before him. If the man was still alive, Yuichi couldn’t just abandon him.
Yuichi approached, but his eyes opened wide as he recognized the person — the last person he would have expected to see here.
“Hey.” Ende looked up, her face contorted in pain.
Her dress was stained with blood, and she appeared to be injured. He didn’t see Hiromichi or Mutsuko nearby, so he wondered suspiciously what Ende was doing here by herself.
“I came here because you said it would be the final battle. What the hell is going on?” he demanded.
Of course, ever since entering high school, he hadn’t understood most of the things he’d gotten involved in. Maybe it was a bit late to talk about that.
“Ha ha ha, it kinda stinks,” Ende said weakly. “I got betrayed.”
She didn’t seem to be lying, so this probably wasn’t a trap.
“Was it my sister?” Yuichi asked.
“You go right to suspecting your own sister? You can be surprisingly cruel.”
“I never know when it comes to her.”
“I got stabbed by the revived Evil God. I guess I really am just a god in name only... this is where that Outer overconfidence gets you.”
“Are you okay?” Yuichi knelt down next to Ende.
He rolled up her shirt to look at the place the blood was coming from. She seemed to have been stabbed on her right side, just above her breast. The wound already seemed to be clotting (perhaps because she was an Outer), but she should probably still take it easy for a while.
“You just perform sexual harassment at the drop of a hat, huh?” Ende asked.
“Do you get mad every time a doctor sees a woman naked? It’s like that, okay?”
“Well, I could be pretty bold in my day. I won’t make a fuss.”
“Will it heal?” he asked.
“Yeah. I feel pretty bad, but it’ll heal in time. Hey, do you mind if I give you a little warning?”
“What the heck? Are we friends now?” Yuichi snorted.
“I guess it would seem abrupt to you, but I’ve been watching you in action for a while, and I’m a fan.”
“A fan wouldn’t do all this crap to get me into trouble.”
“Sure they would,” Ende replied. “If you have a comic about an invincible hero, what kind of fan wants to read about them just puttering around the house all day? They want him to fight powerful enemies and get out of jams, right?”
“I’m really sick of having everything compared to a story,” Yuichi shot back.
Even if the worlds they lived in really were stories, what did that matter? It wouldn’t change a thing about how Yuichi did things. The nature of their world meant nothing.
“You’re cut off from Mutsuko Sakaki’s world right now,” Ende told him. “Which means you no longer receive the blessings of a worldview where the things little brothers do always go the way their big sisters plan them. If you go now, you’ll be killed helplessly.”
“Didn’t you want me to get killed? Maybe he did betray you, but if I lose, that still suits your objective, doesn’t it?”
“To be honest, I’ve kinda stopped caring about that,” Ende said. “I talk about how I’m bored and have nothing to do, yet here I am on the brink of death. The world is still full of unknown things. It makes me think, I have better things to do than to play around with high school students. Besides, I owe Mutsuko.”
“What happened?” he asked.
“I was about to be killed, and Mutsuko saved me. That’s why I’m warning you: You can’t win as you are right now. If you go back now, you might survive. Take a few people you want to protect and get out of the school.”
“Give me a break,” Yuichi spat. If he’d been willing to do something like that, he wouldn’t have come here in the first place. Besides, if what she said was true, running away would mean abandoning his sister. Yuichi couldn’t even think of doing that.