The air split with a sharp whine as Xu Fu flung the yellow talisman in her hand.
Not forward.
Behind Yayoi Hozuki.
The roaring chainsaw was just about to come down on Yayoi when the talisman Xu Fu had thrown suddenly erupted in dazzling golden light.
Anything touched by that radiance—whether it was the chainsaw or the burly man holding it—instantly broke apart and scattered like pencil lines being wiped away by an eraser.
Only a third of the chainsaw was left when it crashed to the floor, because the burly man no longer had hands with which to hold it. As for the man himself, everything above the waist had been burned away by Xu Fu's talisman, leaving only a pair of thick legs standing where he was, visibly crumbling into black ash.
"That was close. Another second and you'd have turned into an actual late-night snack." Xu Fu rolled her wrist and spoke lightly.
If it had been anyone else, that would have scared the life out of them. Anyone who did not piss themselves on the spot would already count as pretty brave.
But Yayoi Hozuki's face never changed. She did not look frightened in the slightest.
"Thank you for saving me, Xu Fu."
At that distance, she would never have had time to release Taira no Masakado from the doll to protect herself.
Watching the burly evil spirit vanish into ash with full concentration, Yayoi Hozuki suddenly asked,
"Xu Fu, did you already destroy him?"
"What do you think?"
"...Doesn't look like it."
The bloodstained chainsaw that had been sitting in the corner of the storeroom had vanished without anyone noticing when.
And through the corridor's glass windows, the sky full of stars was gone.
In its place were countless round, wide-open eyes, crimson as fresh blood.
Yayoi Hozuki looked at those scarlet eyes.
And they looked right back at her and Xu Fu.
Xu Fu stepped out of the storeroom and looked at the blood-red eyeballs outside the windows with feeling.
"That is one nasty view. Especially for people who are sensitive to being watched. Your SAN would tank hard."
With that many scarlet eyeballs staring in, for one brief moment Xu Fu had actually thought she and Yayoi had fallen into Yukari's gap.
"We still don't know whether this is a distorted version of the real place or some paranormal space in another dimension. But logically speaking, as long as we get rid of the core of this phenomenon, we should be able to leave."
By now, the burly evil spirit that had suddenly appeared behind Yayoi with the chainsaw had been completely reduced to ash, and even the chainsaw that had been burned away by two-thirds was gone as well.
And yet the two of them were still trapped inside this paranormal space.
The death of that burly evil spirit had not triggered any change at all, which left Yayoi Hozuki deeply puzzled.
"Then the core of this phenomenon is something else—"
Click.
Footsteps.
They came from deep within the dim corridor.
A broad, heavy figure walked out from the deepest part of the shadows.
Sound, image, smell...
The horror was like black dye spilled across blank paper—aggressive, infectious, attacking from every angle at once, staining and defiling everything it touched.
The blood-red eyes outside the windows trembled uncontrollably at his appearance, impossible to tell whether from excitement or fear.
"Have you... hidden yourselves... well enough...?"
The burly man with his head wrapped in red cloth muttered in a hoarse whisper.
"If I catch you... I'll kill you..."
He saw Xu Fu and Yayoi Hozuki as prey. This evil spirit relished the thrill of hunting his victims through enclosed spaces. He loved the screams torn from them when their fear reached its peak.
"So... let me hear you scream..."
BRRRAAAP—!!
The bulky evil spirit yanked hard on the starter cord, and the chainsaw—used not as a tool, but as a weapon—came to life at once, its engine letting out a deafening roar.
"Scream? That word really doesn't suit cute little Xu Fu at all." One hand on her hip, Xu Fu flashed a grin like some bratty little menace. "Xu Fu is the cutest beautiful girl in the whole world~! If I cried, my cuteness score would go down, and even if I'd still be the uncontested number one after that, no means no~!"
Xu Fu bent forward, covering her little mouth with one spread hand, wearing a thoroughly obnoxious grin.
"You want to make us cry? Can you even do that, small-fry old man~? Small fry small fry tiiiny little fry! All bark and no bite, can't actually do a thing, small-fry old maaan~!"
Yayoi Hozuki looked at Xu Fu in astonishment.
What is she even doing provoking him like that?
And... wow, that was obnoxious. Even I almost wanted to slap her.
The chainsaw engine's roar grew more violent, as if it too had caught its owner's rage.
Through the gaps in the red cloth, the evil spirit's eyes could just barely be seen gleaming with a savage crimson light.
Even though Yayoi Hozuki was standing farther forward than Xu Fu, the burly evil spirit still raised the chainsaw and charged straight at Xu Fu. It looked like her taunting had really pulled an absurd amount of aggro.
This time, Yayoi Hozuki had plenty of time to react. She released Taira no Masakado from the alien doll, and without needing any instruction from her at all, he rushed forward, seized the burly evil spirit by the shoulders with both hands, and bit down.
Crunch!
Those sharp teeth bit clean through the chainsaw spirit's neck, swallowing flesh, bone, and even the red cloth wrapped around his head in one go. Blood sprayed out like a fountain.
Like a wild beast, Taira no Masakado pinned the chainsaw spirit to the ground and ripped at its flesh with great tearing bites, as though only that could slightly ease the hollow inside him left by his lost memories.
Even with such a bloody, violent scene playing out right in front of them, Xu Fu and Yayoi Hozuki's expressions did not waver in the slightest.
Both of them stared unblinkingly at the chainsaw spirit being devoured by Taira no Masakado, waiting for some kind of change.
VRRRRRRRR—!!
The engine's roar echoed through the empty corridor.
The evil spirit pinned beneath Taira no Masakado suddenly raised the roaring chainsaw and hacked it straight into him.
The rapidly spinning teeth chewed furiously through Taira no Masakado's body. Flesh, bone, organs—everything was shredded into pulp by the whirling chain.
Roaring in pain, Taira no Masakado grabbed the chainsaw housing in one hand and the enemy's shoulder in the other, then hurled him away.
Thud!
The thrown chainsaw spirit slammed back-first into the wall with a heavy impact.
Under Xu Fu and Yayoi Hozuki's watchful eyes, the chainsaw spirit—whose head had already been eaten off by Taira no Masakado—wobbled back to its feet. The wound at its neck visibly repaired itself, a skull regrowing in the blink of an eye. Even the red cloth wrapped around its head returned.
"That rate of self-repair is obviously wrong."
It was an evil spirit, not a True Ancestor or a Dead Apostle. It was not supposed to have that kind of immortality. No matter how strong its life force was, there still had to be some limit.
Otogiri, the Soul Sucking Oiran and Black Asura of the Eclipse could replenish the energy lost from their injuries by draining life force from enemies or devouring parts of them.
But the thing in front of Xu Fu and the others was clearly different.
Repairing missing flesh absolutely required energy. Since this evil spirit was not replenishing it through draining or devouring, then the source of that energy had to be somewhere else.
For example... this paranormal space that had trapped her and Yayoi inside it.
By then, the chainsaw spirit had nearly finished recovering.
Taira no Masakado had been badly hurt, so Xu Fu called out Red Hood in his place. The moment she appeared, Red Hood raised her hand cannon and blew the chainsaw spirit's head apart with a single shot.
With its head gone, the chainsaw spirit could no longer see where its enemy was. Taking advantage of that opening, Red Hood rushed in, hoisted the Vorpal Sword—larger than her whole body—and unleashed a lightning-fast three-part slash.
Brilliant sword-light.
Blade shadows too fast for the eye to follow.
In an instant, the chainsaw spirit's arms, legs, and torso were all severed.
Taira no Masakado immediately charged over and swallowed every last piece of the chainsaw spirit Red Hood had carved apart.
Red Hood had deliberately left the spirit for him to eat. After all, Taira no Masakado needed to devour something to repair the damage the chainsaw spirit had just inflicted on him.
Watching his injuries heal rapidly before their eyes—and the pressure radiating from him grow a little denser than before—Xu Fu and the others were able to confirm that the chainsaw spirit Taira no Masakado had eaten was real, not some illusion or false body.
And yet the chainsaw engine roared again, drawing slowly closer from the deepest part of the shadows.
"As long as you're inside this space, even if you're completely destroyed, you can still revive... That's probably the rule of the game," Xu Fu guessed.
Yayoi Hozuki gave a faint nod. She had arrived at the same conclusion.
"So it's basically a game of hide-and-seek. Though there should be plenty of loopholes, since that evil spirit was still evolving when we found it. This space is probably only half-finished."
"And if it's a game, then there has to be some condition for us to win too. Which means what we do next is avoid that chainsaw maniac while looking for the method and clues to clear the game."
The corners of Xu Fu's mouth lifted smugly.
"Heh heh heh~! Xu Fu is very good at games, you know~! Whether it's gal games or RPGs, it's all easy for Xu Fu! I'll clear it for you easy-peasy, just watch~!"
Staring into the darkness where the chainsaw spirit was steadily closing in, Xu Fu immediately said to Red Hood,
"Red Hood, Yayoi and I are going to look for the key to winning this game. So I'm counting on you to cover the two of us with everything you've got."
"You two don't even know what you're supposed to be looking for," Red Hood said coldly.
"No need to worry about that. Whatever it is, it's definitely going to have an impossible-to-ignore wrongness to it. We'll recognize it the moment we see it."
Red Hood merely flicked Xu Fu a glance before looking away again.
"Do whatever you want."
Unlike Xu Fu, Yayoi Hozuki gave Taira no Masakado no instructions. His intelligence was still too low for complicated orders. All Yayoi Hozuki ever did was release him or recall him, at most tell him which one was the enemy or when to stop. The rest she left entirely to him.
She was not like Ash and those Pokémon trainers who even had to micromanage which moves their Pokémon used.
The roar of the chainsaw grew closer and closer, and the tall, powerfully built figure emerged from the shadows once again. Red Hood pulled the trigger without hesitation.
Bang!
This time, the speeding bullet did not hit the man's body. It struck the chainsaw he had raised instead. The collision threw off a shower of scorching sparks, briefly outlining the evil spirit standing in the darkness before the next instant those sparks too were swallowed by the flood of shadow.
The evil spirit lowered the chainsaw slightly, only to realize in surprise that Red Hood had already vanished from where she had been standing.
In truth, in that instant when the chainsaw spirit's vision had been blocked, Red Hood had slid low against the floor and wall, slipping past his feet and behind him. A blood-red gleam flashed through her wide eyes as she drove a kitchen knife through the chainsaw spirit's neck.
"Go!"
At Xu Fu's shout, she and Yayoi Hozuki broke into a run at the same time, darting past the chainsaw spirit and charging down the corridor ahead, swallowed by shadow.
This paranormal space seemed to be a one-to-one copy of the police station. The sinks and toilets in the bathrooms, the tables, chairs, and potted plants in the interrogation rooms—all of it had been reproduced.
But not everything had been copied over. Small items like documents in drawers were missing. This so-called "one-to-one duplicate" had left out plenty of details.
And then there were the people.
In the entire paranormal space, there were only Xu Fu and Yayoi Hozuki. The owner of this place had not dragged anyone else from the police station inside. That meant the two of them did not need to split their attention to search for or rescue anyone else, nor did they need to worry about the evil spirit disguising itself as someone else to ambush them.
Red Hood had said earlier that Xu Fu and Yayoi Hozuki had no idea what they were looking for.
But in fact, the two of them already had a guess.
The chainsaw.
The reason they had been dragged into this paranormal space was because the two of them had seen a bloodstained chainsaw in the evidence storeroom, one carrying an extremely sinister aura. The evil spirit's true body had been lodged inside that murder weapon.
Xu Fu had been just about to destroy that true body in the chainsaw when the two of them were dragged into this space. Yet inside the storeroom here, they had not found that bloodstained chainsaw again.
Both Xu Fu and Yayoi Hozuki felt that if some key to escaping this paranormal space was hidden somewhere inside it, then there was a very good chance that key was the chainsaw itself.
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T/N: oh i should prob stop highlighting black asura and the soul sucker