Red Hood pulled open the iron door marked "Employees Only" and poked her head out, looking left and right.
She and Xu Fu had passed through that deep darkness, only to run into yet another iron door. And after opening it, they seemed to have ended up back in the endlessly looping corridor.
Standing in the hallway, Xu Fu looked around and muttered, "Did we wind up back here again?"
At that moment, Xu Fu and Red Hood both turned toward the same direction at once. Not far away, a pale young man slowly emerged from around the corner.
The instant he saw Xu Fu and Red Hood, his pupils contracted sharply, and a strained smile twisted across his face.
"Girls? How could there be girls in a place like this? An anomaly! That's right, this has to be an anomaly! I need to turn back—"
The man spun around in a panic and bolted without looking back.
Xu Fu and Red Hood exchanged a glance, as if both had guessed something, then silently followed after him.
"0? You've got to be kidding me! Why did it turn back again?!"
The young man stared wide-eyed at the bloodshot digit, his fingers digging furiously into the sign. "There was an anomaly! I saw it with my own eyes! This is cheating! It's rigged! Isn't turning back when you spot an anomaly the basic rule?! So why am I back at the start again—?!"
The glaring "0" on the sign sent him into a complete breakdown. He smashed his fists against the metal placard like a madman, each blow ringing out with a dull clang.
"Unfortunately, the two of us aren't anomalies."
The voice at his ear froze his fist in midair. He turned stiffly, mechanically, and saw Xu Fu and Red Hood standing not far away, calmly watching him.
"You... aren't anomalies?"
The young man repeated Xu Fu's words blankly. His mind seemed to grind along like a rusted set of gears. Only after a long while did he finally seem to understand what had happened. His hands dropped to his sides, and when he spoke again, his voice trembled with tears.
"I see... You're not anomalies. You're humans, just like me. That's why when I turned back, I got sent right back to the start..."
Xu Fu and the others had been different. All four of them had known from the start that they could leave whenever they wanted, and even if evil spirits appeared in the corridor, Xu Fu and Red Hood would casually deal with them on the spot. There had never been any real reason for fear or panic. For Yoshida Saori and Nagata Takaya, the whole thing had probably felt more like going through a haunted-house attraction than anything else.
But for the other people trapped here, it was different.
To them, this endlessly looping corridor was nothing but the unknown. They could not even be sure whether the so-called "Exit 8" in the rules was truly an exit at all. For all they knew, it might lead to an even deeper, even more terrifying hell.
And yet, they had no other choice. All they could do was chase that uncertain hope, fail again and again, return to the start, and begin again.
"It's all your fault!"
Xu Fu and Red Hood became the outlet for the young man's emotions. He roared at them in fury, "You're the reason I got sent back to the start again! So many times—so many times, so many times, so many times...! Every single time I was just a little short! Just that little bit more and I could've gotten out of this godforsaken place! It's all your fault!"
"That pig of a manager! Day after day after day he dumps endless work on me! I've been gone this long—he's definitely going to fire me! I can't lose this job! I've got a family to support! Bastard... bastard... bastard—!"
The young man screamed as he charged forward, but Red Hood never let him get anywhere near Xu Fu. One kick was all it took to knock him flat.
It seemed the man had been carrying a crushing amount of pressure for a long time. Xu Fu had no idea how many times he had already failed in this endless corridor, but that had nothing to do with her.
Using Taoism Arts, Xu Fu safely sent the man back out.
What would happen to him after he returned to reality? Maybe he would be viciously chewed out by his manager. Maybe he would lose his job. Maybe the pressure would crush him and he would choose suicide. Or maybe he would pull himself together and find a lighter, easier job instead.
All of those possibilities existed.
But how that man chose to live his life was not for Xu Fu to decide. They were strangers who had only crossed paths by chance. All Xu Fu wanted was to do what she was supposed to do.
For example, right now, she still had to find the next victim.
"What even is this place...?"
In the corridor lit by white lamps, a girl in a high school uniform looked around with tears brimming in her eyes, clutching her phone in both trembling hands.
All she had wanted was to take the train and surprise her boyfriend.
Instead, she had gotten trapped in this awful place and could not get out.
She had understood the rules on the sign, and at one point she had a flash of inspiration: she would photograph every detail of the corridor with her phone, and then compare the pictures to find the so-called anomalies.
But after passing three corners and stepping into the next corridor, every single photo she had just taken had turned blurry and impossible to make out.
"How could this happen...?" she murmured tearfully, at a complete loss.
How badly she wished someone would come save her right now. She had tried calling the police and calling her boyfriend, but there was absolutely no signal in the corridor. Every way of contacting the outside world had failed.
As if things were not bad enough already, the lights overhead suddenly began to flicker violently, turning the corridor into something straight out of a horror movie. The girl shuddered all over, her legs suddenly heavy as lead, leaving her frozen where she stood.
Then came a series of heavy bangs from the lockers off to one side—bang, bang, bang—as though something had been shut inside them and was now throwing itself against the doors in a frenzy, trying to break free.
"Aaaah! Wh-what now?"
The girl nearly stumbled several times, staring at the row of lockers by the wall in terror.
The metal doors shook violently, as though they could burst open at any second.
The overhead lights suddenly stopped flickering, but their color shifted to a deep crimson. Dark red liquid began to seep out through the gaps in the locker doors, flowing across the spotless floor and creeping toward the high school girl, who had pressed herself flat against the wall.
"Eeeeek!!"
The high school girl turned and ran without a second thought. She had no mind left to spare for figuring out which way she was going—she only wanted to get as far away from those horrifying lockers as possible.
But her attempt to flee seemed to rile up whatever was inside. The pounding became even more violent, and the metal locker doors began to twist out of shape.
One after another, the doors were violently smashed open, and countless hands shot out of the lockers like lightning, catching up to the terrified girl in the blink of an eye.
"No, no, no—!!"
The high school girl screamed. Seeing those grotesque hands about to grab her, she instinctively squeezed her eyes shut.
"Red Hood! Use [Black Slash] and [Crimson Tragedy]!"
In an instant, black-violet and crimson slashes tore through the air like lightning rending the night sky apart, dense blade-lights weaving through space in a furious net.
Even after Red Hood lowered her blade and stood still, those black-violet and crimson arcs of sword-light still lingered in the air, as though space itself had been cut open.
Then Red Hood turned with effortless grace, and the scarlet cloak on her back traced a beautiful curve with the motion, like a blood-red rose quietly blooming in the dark after drinking its fill of blood.
At that same moment, the black and crimson slash-marks hanging in space suddenly shattered, and the ghastly hands that had burst out of the lockers exploded into clouds of dust, torn completely apart by Red Hood's attack.
The high school girl collapsed to the floor, staring dazedly at Red Hood as though every thought in her mind had been stolen away.
"Hey~! Hey~! Come back to yourself already~!"
Xu Fu waved a hand in front of the girl's face, finally snapping her out of it.
"Sure, Red Hood is cool, but don't you think you've been staring a little too long?"
"Huh? Um... s-sorry..."
The high school girl stammered so badly she could not even get a full sentence out. Her head felt burning hot, so hot that even thinking became difficult. All she could do was shut her eyes and keep patting her own cheeks.
"That was a close one. Looks like Red Hood and I have taken too much prey away from them, and the one behind all this has finally lost patience." Mysterious sigils surfaced as Xu Fu spoke, already working Taoism Arts as she did. "Staying here any longer won't do you any good, so I'll send you out first."
The high school girl seemed like she still wanted to ask something, but Xu Fu gave her no chance to speak and sent her away on the spot.
"Heh! Red Hood, is the enemy troublesome~? Does the cutest beautiful girl in the whole world, Xu Fu, need to step in and help?" Xu Fu's eyes curved like crescent moons. "Don't worry, I won't charge you~! After all, you've always been spending my money anyway~."
She walked calmly to Red Hood's side, speaking as she carefully examined the locker bank ahead.
"No need."
Red Hood answered coldly, the gleam in her icy eyes hidden behind her hair.
"These things aren't strong at all. I can handle them by myself. All you need to do is stand obediently behind me and watch while I slaughter every last one of them."
At this point, it was already certain: the locker bank was the place where the evil spirits' true bodies were hidden.
Including that high school girl just now, Xu Fu and Red Hood had already rescued eleven ordinary people together—men and women, young and old.
Too much prey had slipped from their grasp. That was why these evil spirits had finally lost their composure, allowing Xu Fu and Red Hood to find where their true bodies were concealed.
Even if there were still people who had not yet been rescued, it did not matter. As long as the evil spirits' true bodies were destroyed here, anyone still trapped would naturally be freed from this endlessly looping corridor.
Clack-clack.
Clack-clack.
The lockers suddenly began to shake violently, as though Xu Fu and Red Hood had enraged them, and a steady stream of cold, sinister resentment poured out from within.
"We... won't accept this..."
Inside the lockers, one eerie, bloodshot eye after another snapped open. However many metal doors the lockers had, that many eyes opened as well. Bloody tears flowed from those eyes, tears of resentment, glaring at Xu Fu and Red Hood with vicious hatred like a curse.
Xu Fu and Red Hood seemed to see one indistinct human silhouette after another gathered in front of the lockers.
Men and women.
Young and old.
Office workers, students, elderly people, laborers, teachers...
All kinds of people stood there together.
But the majority of them were students.
Their identities had all once been different.
But now they stood together, united by the same hatred.
And the target of that hatred was Xu Fu and Red Hood.
"Why... why are we the only ones who had to be this unlucky...?"
Facing Xu Fu and Red Hood, the evil spirits screamed abuse and accusation at the very people who had come to save others.
"Why... why could they be saved... while I couldn't...?"
"Trapped in this lightless maze... over and over again..."
"My hope shattered... again and again... and nobody ever came to save me..."
"I suffered here... and even after death, I'm still trapped in this hellhole...!"
"Why...?! I can't accept it...!"
"When I couldn't get out... no one was willing to save me... so why didn't you come save me...?"
"My life... was happy... and yet I died in a place like this...!"
"I'm going to make everyone else suffer the same pain and torment I did...! It can't just be me who's this unlucky...!"
These evil spirits seemed, once, to have been victims too.
But having failed to escape the maze even in death, jealousy of the living and their refusal to accept that only they should suffer had transformed them from victims into perpetrators. They had become the willing accomplices of evil, imprisoning more and more ordinary people inside this endlessly looping maze.
"Ah~! Even if you ask me that, I honestly don't know how I'm supposed to answer..."
Xu Fu tilted her little head, putting on a look of deep thought. But the expression only stayed on her face for a moment before turning into a mischievous grin.
Faced with the evil spirits' accusations, Xu Fu replied lightly,
"If I absolutely have to give you a reason... then I can only say you had bad luck~!"
Their pasts may have been tragic, but the moment they chose to vent that resentment on innocent people, they ceased to deserve sympathy.
This was karma. If they had chosen to take revenge on the evil spirit that killed them, then not only would Xu Fu have understood them—she would have supported them. But instead of seeking revenge on the true culprit, they had joined it, become its accomplices, and piled even more sins onto the world.
Xu Fu had no desire to become an "ally of justice," so moral blackmail like "Why didn't you come earlier?" or "Why didn't you save everyone?" was never going to work on her.
Xu Fu had always known from the very beginning that it was impossible for her to save everyone. All she could do was do what she could, and save the people she was able to save. She would feel sad that she had not saved everyone, but she would never let that make her lose heart, fall into despair, or turn extreme—because she would always remember that someone had been saved because of her.
What she had always hoped for was never "save everyone."
It was "save one more person."
As long as the effort she put in could save even one extra person, then that effort could never be called wasted.