B3, B2, B1, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5…
The elevator chimed softly and stopped on the fifth floor. The doors slid open, and Renji stepped out into a corridor designed like an office space: dark blue carpet, rooms on either side, their doors painted a matte black and all tightly shut.
As he walked, he could still make out occasional, mottled bloodstains smeared across the walls.
"This should be the place, right? I remember Kobeni was assigned these floors. Why is no one here? Did she deal with all the gang members already?"
Renji called out "Kobeni Senior?" a couple of times, but received no reply. He began checking the rooms one by one.
As the last door swung open, a black-haired woman who had been hiding behind it leaped out, pressed a gun to Renji's forehead, and pulled the trigger.
Bang.
Renji ducked, the bullet whizzing past his head. In the same motion, his form shifted into Arthur Pendragon's armor. He straightened up and drove a fist into the woman's jaw. She grunted, was lifted off her feet, and crumpled to the floor, unconscious.
"Good thing I sensed the situation in this corridor beforehand. That could've really hurt."
Before he'd even decided to search, Renji had already activated Space Perception Seventh Form, detecting the gang member lying in wait.
"That's strange. Where's Kobeni? Why isn't she here?"
Renji stepped out of the room. His gaze drifted to the side, and he noticed the elevator on the opposite end of the corridor—which had been stationary—was now moving on its own, slowly descending from above. The floor numbers on the digital display ticked downward.
Seven… six… five…
A soft ding sounded, and the elevator doors slid open. Four women burst out, each wielding a dark submachine gun, their black muzzles swinging directly toward Renji.
"Submachine guns…? You've got to be kidding…"
Renji's heart clenched. The Clothesline Pole materialized in his hands. He gripped it tightly, holding it horizontally before his chest as a makeshift shield.
But the next instant, blood suddenly gushed from the nose of one of the women without warning. She let out a puzzled "Huh?"—then her eyes rolled back in her head, and she pitched forward, collapsing to the floor, instantly unconscious.
Then the second woman. Then the third. Only the last woman, wearing black-framed glasses, remained, her face a mask of terror.
"Hey…! What's going—"
Blood streamed from her nose as well. She slumped to the ground, unconscious.
Renji walked over, knelt, and checked each of them. All were out cold. He remembered: at this moment, Makima was likely in negotiations with the gang's leadership.
It seemed she had obtained the names of every gang member involved in the attack and was now remotely removing their internal organs by simply calling them out.
Renji stepped back into the elevator and pressed the 'close door' button. The car began to ascend.
On the sixth floor, he stepped out, used Space Perception, and found nothing.
On the seventh floor, thirteen gang members were hiding in one of the rooms. Renji went in and knocked them all unconscious.
On the eighth floor, the corridor was packed with rotting zombies. They hadn't noticed Renji in the elevator, merely shambling and bumping into one another.
Renji pressed the 'close door' button. The doors slid shut, sealing the zombies outside. He leaned against the handrail, a strange unease settling over him, and muttered to himself.
"Weird… Kobeni's assigned area was floors five through eight of this building. But aside from the signs of a fight on five, there's nothing on six or seven. The zombies on eight haven't been cleared at all. Where did Kobeni go? Could she have…?"
A thought struck him. His expression shifted. His tongue clicked softly, and his lips moved as he continued speaking under his breath.
"Could she have gone down to the underground parking structure…? Could the person who was peeking… Could it have been Kobeni…?"
"Then… where is Kobeni right now? And what is she doing?"
He suddenly recalled the utility room where he'd been with Himeno. At the time, he'd cleaned Himeno's body, but he hadn't cleaned the room itself.
The large puddles of her release were still on the floor. The thick, coagulated patches of his seed near the table were still there.
A sense of foreboding, heavy and urgent, washed over him. Renji pressed the button for B3, intending to go back and check.
The elevator stirred—but contrary to his expectation, it didn't descend. Instead, it began to ascend. Someone on a higher floor had called for it before he had.
"Kobeni? Or Hayakawa Aki?"
Renji watched the floor numbers above the elevator tick upward: 8… 10… They climbed steadily before finally stopping at 13.
The doors slid open, but the corridor ahead was empty. No Denji. No Aki Hayakawa. An eerie quiet pressed in from all sides.
Something was very wrong. The elevator had been summoned to this floor, yet there was no one here.
Cautious, Renji stayed inside the elevator, waiting. After a moment, a soft ding-dong sounded, and the doors began to close.
But just then—BANG—a gunshot echoed from a room at the far end of the hallway, followed by Kobeni's pained, choked cry.
Renji's heart lurched. Just before the doors sealed shut, he threw himself sideways out of the elevator and sprinted toward the source of the sound.
"Somebody! Anyone! Help me!"
Kobeni's voice trembled through the corridor, thick with sobs and raw panic.
"There's a gun! There's a—"
Her words were abruptly cut off, replaced by a frantic, muffled struggle, as if a hand had been clamped over her mouth.
Renji reached the end of the hall, shoved open the door to the room the sounds were coming from, and burst inside.
The Teacher Devil stood at the blackboard, explaining a problem. She turned at the intrusion, tapped the board sharply with a ruler, and glared.
"Hey, Renji. You're late today."
"I'm sorry, Teacher Devil. Something held me up on the way. I had to help an old lady cross the street. It won't happen again."
The Teacher Devil adjusted her glasses and let out a delicate, disapproving sniff.
"Hmph. I'll let it pass since you've given a decent excuse. Now hurry to your seat and pay attention. Otherwise, I won't go easy on you!"
Renji offered an awkward smile, slipped into his seat, and pretended to focus.
The girl in the seat beside him—his sister—nudged him with her elbow, a gentle, knowing smile on her lips.
"Hey, brother. That excuse was pretty lame. And Teacher Devil actually bought it. She knows we live together. I've been here forever, and you only just showed up. 'Helping an old lady'? Teacher Devil spoils you way too much."
"Hey! Why didn't you wake me up when I overslept?!"
"Pfft! And why did you steal my food yesterday, you awful brother?"
She stuck her tongue out at him playfully.
Outside the white-paper space, Kishibe picked up the fallen sheet and studied the scene within: Renji, sitting obediently in a classroom, absorbed in his studies.
"You're sure it'll hold this time?"
The Teacher Devil, standing beside her, gave a firm nod.
"Don't worry. He can't escape. I've refined the activation trigger. It no longer requires answering a question. Now, within a set radius, it activates automatically in the presence of learning-related objects, trapping the target and forcing them into the classroom to study. I placed plenty of textbooks in that room in advance."