The rooftop.
At first glance, it didn't seem much different from an ordinary school rooftop—just covered in a layer of dust.
If not for the blood-red moon hanging in the sky, perhaps nothing would seem amiss.
But from the moment he stepped into this place, Takumi felt a powerful sensation of being watched—an unsettling, bone-chilling discomfort. Clearly, this rooftop was not as harmless as it appeared.
"Stay sharp."
Saying this, Takumi cautiously scanned his surroundings—but saw nothing unusual.
Wasn't there supposed to be an entity called Uncle Cat on this floor? Why couldn't he see it anywhere?
The feeling of being watched grew stronger and stronger, yet nothing abnormal appeared within his field of vision. The rooftop was completely empty—aside from a signal tower and a power distribution room, there was nothing at all.
"The thing from the 0th floor has stopped… We've definitely entered the territory of another aberration. And it's the kind that repels others of its kind. As for why it hasn't shown itself yet, it's probably because the conditions for its manifestation haven't been met."
Mai stood facing the rooftop door the entire time. She remained there for quite a while, sensing the terrifying presence of the 0th floor aberration through the door. Only after a moment did she finally speak.
"Hard to say whether that's good news or bad…"
Takumi shook his head as he spoke, then looked at Miko beside him—only to find her frowning, as if listening to something.
"I think… I can hear a cat. There's a cat meowing somewhere far away."
Miko spoke, sounding a little uncertain.
A cat's meow?
Takumi guessed that what Miko was hearing was probably the "Uncle Cat" mentioned in the rules. But he had not expected Uncle Cat to be the kind of aberration that showed itself immediately. Instead, after they entered, it had started playing hide-and-seek with them.
Right, that rule had said that entry to the rooftop was "forbidden," and that Uncle Cat hated "rule-breakers," and that making "him angry" was a very bad thing, and that one could try "bribing him with dried small fish." Altogether, the rules mentioned four separate aspects. If one analyzed the wording and read the meaning straight through, it could be understood as saying that those who violated the rules by entering the forbidden rooftop would anger Uncle Cat, but… it could also be understood that these four statements had no connection to each other at all.
Entry to the rooftop was forbidden. The rule-breaker hated by Uncle Cat. Whether the "him" in "making him angry" referred to Uncle Cat or the rule-breaker. As for whether bribing him with dried small fish would lead to a good or bad result, there was even less need to say it. Every one of those points could be a trap.
"Miko, calm yourself and focus. I'm here. Nothing will happen to you."
Takumi's steady voice reached the girl's ears, and the tension in her heart eased slightly at that moment.
She turned her head, looked at Takumi seriously, and said, "I'll do my best," before closing her eyes and earnestly using her perceptive ability.
That strange gift, which she had hated so deeply ever since she acquired it, was now being used by Miko of her own will, helping her perceive this gloomy and empty rooftop.
[Meow~]
She heard the sound of a cat meowing.
Once again, she heard the sound of a cat meowing—this time, unlike before, it was extremely clear.
It was something that had happened at some point in the past.
A small stray kitten had entered Fujihana Middle School and made its way up to the rooftop, only to become trapped there with no way out.
The rooftop was an area students were forbidden to enter. If they were discovered there, they would definitely receive a formal warning. But there were still students who secretly came up, and after discovering the kitten, they fed it leftover fish from the cafeteria.
[Mrrrow~]
Miko saw the kitten rolling around on the ground. She saw a student reach out and gently pet it.
She already knew what to do in order to make this aberration appear.
She had also already seen the second aberration hidden on the rooftop, and the danger that was drawing near.
[Meow~~~]
Amid a soft cat's cry, the student who had secretly come up to feed the cat did not see the kitten anywhere.
The meowing was clearly still sounding.
Then another student appeared behind that student, still imitating the cat's cry with his own mouth.
"Ugh—"
The intense mental stimulation sent a stabbing pain through Miko's head, as though needles were piercing into it.
In the next instant, Takumi reached out to shield the girl, while also looking toward a figure standing at one side of the rooftop.
It was a student—one wearing the uniform of an Outstanding Student. Half of his head was almost completely shattered, and a twisted smile hung on his face.
The "rule-breaker" was another student, an Outstanding Student who lived in the upper-floor dormitories. He had discovered the student secretly feeding the kitten, and then one day, after that student left, he entered the rooftop himself, found the kitten, learned to imitate its meow, and hid there, planning to give the student who came looking for the cat a surprise.
The student who entered the rooftop was a rule-breaking student. That had nothing to do with student rank. An Outstanding Student simply would not be punished for it.
Shhk—
A sharp cleaver was already in Takumi's hand.
But that aberrant student was faster to act, opening his mouth first and speaking.
[Don't move~]
Miko saw that Outstanding Student issue an order to the terrified student, causing him to freeze stiffly in place. Then he lifted up the corpse of a cat that had been trampled flat and crushed, and walked forward with it, approaching that student.
Approaching her, who was now likewise immobilized in place and unable to move.
Smack!
Amid the sound of chains lashing through the air, Mai's iron chain smashed into the student's head, knocking the aberration flat to the ground on the spot.
The restraints affecting Takumi and Miko were temporarily lifted as the aberration was struck down, and Takumi immediately rushed forward and chopped off the aberration's head with a single swing. Then he hacked off its limbs, and kicked the severed parts away as well.
That, too, seemed to be the same thing that had happened once in the past.
After thoroughly tormenting the student who had fed the cat, that Outstanding Student decided to pause for a moment and think about what his next order should be.
And at that moment, that half-dead student actually struggled to his feet, staggered forward, and threw himself at the Outstanding Student, dragging both of them off the building together. The two of them fell to their deaths on the concrete square below the Dormitory Building.
This Outstanding Student was the first transformed Outstanding Student Takumi had encountered, because it did not exist as a completed sacrificial offering. Instead, it had been killed while it was still attending school, making it an exceptional case.
But that was not the final ending.
"After entering the rooftop, the first thing to appear is the 'rule-breaker.' And once the 'rule-breaker' is suppressed, the other aberration appears, revealing its existence by reenacting the past after the previous aberration leaves the stage."
At Miko's murmured words, Takumi and Mai both turned their heads and looked toward the thing that was slowly rising near the rooftop entrance, emerging from the shadows.
A cat.
That thing really was a cat.
One… two… more than a hundred of them—every single one torn to pieces, nothing left but twisted, mangled, incomplete bodies fused together into one mass.
And it was not just cats mixed in there. Human remains were mixed in as well—fingers, toes, eyeballs, internal organs… all tangled together with the cats' remains, writhing continuously, trembling as though breathing.
[Meow~ Mrrrow~]
That thing let out a cat's cry.
Dozens of kittens fused together were crying out all at once.
There had never been any such thing as a kitten accidentally wandering onto the campus. From the very beginning, the school had deliberately placed a cat here, deliberately luring students into breaking the rules and entering this place. The experiment had been repeated many times. It was just that the school had never expected an Outstanding Student to be killed in retaliation here. And so, for the sake of more important ritual research, this minor project was eventually abandoned, leaving behind only several dozen battered cat corpses and the students who had died because of them.
All the remains had been disposed of and discarded, but the resentment lingering on the rooftop had never faded.
This twisted aberration had been born out of that forgotten grudge. It seemed to have caused the school a certain amount of trouble, but they had quickly found a way to suppress it. It was just that, evidently, the school had no way to deal with it completely, and so they could only leave it wandering here all this time.
Without question, the resentment of this thing was terrifying beyond compare. It was absolutely not something they could peacefully coexist with.
So what they had to do now was find a way to endure its attacks, suppress it, and locate the possible entrance to the underground floor hidden somewhere on this rooftop.
Miko had already seen the method. She already knew what to do to make this aberration stop attacking.
[My, my, does everyone want to play together with Uncle Cat?]
A girl's soft laughter rang out.
The "Uncle Cat" before the three of them suddenly vanished, and the entire rooftop underwent a massive transformation in that moment, directly turning into something like a fairy-tale theme park. Beautiful flowers and plants were everywhere, trees heavy with fruits and melons grew all around, and little animals like deer, lambs, and rabbits ran about in every direction.
Alice, dressed in a pure white dress, sat on a swing beneath a tree not far away, gently swaying as she showed Takumi and the others a sweet smile.
Alice.
At this moment, the last one yet to appear—that will of Alice that ought to have resided within the key Obsession Item of the Dormitory Building area—had finally taken the initiative to reveal itself.
Takumi knew that this meant their group had indeed chosen the right path and had truly reached the correct destination. That was why this thing had started lashing out in desperation, revealing itself of its own accord in an attempt to leave them trapped here.
But he had to admit that this damned thing had chosen an excellent moment to appear. It had picked the critical instant of the aberration's attack, completely obscuring their line of sight toward it.
Whoosh—
A gust of cold wind swept past Takumi's body in an instant.
Blood-red color splashed out in the very next moment. Half of Takumi's body was nearly split apart on the spot by that single strike.
And in his own perception, all he had seen was a little rabbit running past him.
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