"...Let's go, to the next room."
Leaving the horrific scene behind, Touko supported the slightly shaky Azaka as they walked the strange corridors of the Ogawa Apartments. "It's natural you feel sick—this building is designed that way."
"Ugh, blah!" Azaka clutched her mouth, trembling as she forced herself onward. "All the residents are repeating those weird 'deaths!'"
"Just like I told that damn monk," Touko explained patiently, "he classified human deaths into sixty-four types, and the residents here correspond to these sixty-four ultimate forms."
"As an old monk, Araya mastered not just the Six Realms but also Daoist philosophy," Touko continued. "The core of Daoism is 'simplification'—reducing everything to concise concepts. The ultimate is the 'two modes.'"
"Eh? Two modes? So that's why..." Though a magecraft novice, Azaka realized why Shiki was targeted.
"Right," Touko nodded. "'Two Modes' is the level before everything unites. Normal magi can't simplify things further—not even with thought-magecraft. So, Araya had another idea."
"He collected deaths to reach the 'two modes' stage, injected these concentrated deaths into Ryougi Shiki, and planned to seize her body—reaching all-in-one, the Root."
"Wait, so if the apartment is split by the central elevator in the manner of the two modes..." Azaka frowned, realizing the building's abnormal layout. "...If yin means death, then on the other side of the elevator, there'd be living 'residents'?"
"No, Araya can't revive people," Touko shook her head. "Azaka, do you remember which way the elevator faced when we came up?"
"The direction...? It opened right into the second-floor hallway, I think?"
"Right, and the elevator shaft is cylindrical." Touko encouraged her to think it through.
"!" Azaka figured it out. "The elevator must rotate secretly!"
"Correct," Touko said. "Clumsy, but it's designed to confuse east and west—central symmetry."
"And besides the elevator, I suspect Araya did something to the stairwell around it," Touko continued. "Because just rotating the elevator can't fool people about which floor they're on."
"So, Sensei, you mean the enemy is hiding a floor in the building?" Azaka asked.
"Almost certainly," Touko sighed. "Remember the room number where we saw the corpse?"
"It was... 410 on the sign," Azaka replied. "So, on the east side, room 405 would have a 'fake living person'?"
"Eh, fake isn't quite right," Touko considered. "A pure doll couldn't repeat deaths to collect scattered souls. Remember what the corpses looked like?"
"Ugh... Sensei, don't remind me," Azaka groaned. "I'd just managed to forget..."
"If you looked closely, you'd see their brains were removed," Touko explained, patting her back. "Araya must have used some old acquaintance's leftover skills. But we'll know for sure when we get to the other side."
They were currently on the fourth floor of the west wing. To reach the east, the elevator was useless—they'd only gotten to the corpse-laden west by following Araya's traces.
Touko and Azaka forced open the gate on the second floor, went up the elevator shaft, and found themselves on the fourth floor west, skipping the third. To reach the living east side, they had to climb the spiral stairs from the west's second floor, blindfolding Azaka to avoid confusion.
After reaching the east fourth floor, Touko removed Azaka's blindfold.
"I think I know what Araya's up to. These stairs are like rocket pencils," Touko said.
"...What's a rocket pencil?" Azaka, from a younger generation, had no idea what her teacher meant but suspected Touko just dated herself.
Touko was embarrassed, but as an immortal magus, she quickly regained her composure and patiently explained the trap in the stairs.
"The names here aren't 'Jo,'" Azaka noted, looking at the door marked 'Shintani.'
"Alright, let's open this door and get the truth—" Just as Touko was about to use magic on room 405, a red-haired boy burst out, panic on his face, kneeling before them, gasping for air.