Guided by the X-GUN's radar.
Chris and the group crept in silence along the service corridor, pressing close to the porthole windows lining the circular walkway at the border between the second floor and the main hall below.
Just as Shiina Hiyori had predicted.
The first-floor hall had become a vision of hell.
The last remaining Silence had been hog-tied and discarded in a corner like unwanted luggage.
And in the center of the hall, Horikita Manabu, Nagumo Miyabi, Ayanokoji Kiyotaka, and the rest of the group stood in taut, battle-ready confrontation — facing a single man.
His eyes were pure black. Where his pupils should have been, there burned a terrible crimson. Four tendril-like appendages — dark red and glistening, like skinned leeches catching the light — extended from the base of his spine, carving deep furrows into the polished marble floor beneath him.
"What... what is that thing?"
Amikura Mako pressed a hand over her mouth. Even through the reinforced glass, she didn't dare make a sound.
"It's looking for something?" Kamuro Masumi murmured, confused.
She wasn't wrong. A rasping, airless murmur was leaking from deep in his throat — the sound of a man searching, desperately, for something just out of reach.
"Food... food..."
The man tore at his own hair in agony, his gaze sweeping the room in frantic circles.
"Why does everything smell so wrong? Why do none of you smell right? Why can't I find anything worth eating anywhere..."
Perhaps it was because of this — because the headcount no longer matched the starting roster, and because a direct assault felt premature — that Horikita Manabu had not yet charged in. Instead, he had attempted to open a dialogue.
Unfortunately, for a Ghoul teetering at the absolute edge of a rampage, starved of Rc cells and barely clinging to the last thread of reason — rationality was the most unaffordable luxury in the world.
Whether he understood that words were useless, or whether he was simply buying time for his allies to reposition — three seconds after the negotiation went unanswered.
Crack—!
Two upperclassmen concealed behind a wall corner pulled the triggers of their Y-GUNs.
Two triangular arcs of pale blue energy rope shot toward Yamaki Sorao in a pincer formation.
But in the exact same instant the gunshots rang out — Yamaki Sorao moved.
No visible launch. No telegraphed crouch. Just pure, raw speed — the kind that blew past the limits of human retinal capture entirely.
Thwt. Thwt.
The two students who had fired hadn't even processed what happened before dark-red kagune tines punched clean through their chests, and both of them dissolved into blue light.
Horikita Manabu, Nagumo Miyabi, and Ayanokoji Kiyotaka all reached the same conclusion in the same instant: this was not something you fought head-on.
Nagumo's eyes went cold. He raised his X-GUN, aimed at Yamaki Sorao's retreating back, and pulled the trigger.
Horikita Manabu swung his combat blade in a fierce arc — but the extended slash wasn't directed at the Ghoul. It cut toward the bound Silence discarded in the corner.
Ayanokoji, who had been hovering at the edge of the group the whole time, fell back while hurling his combat knife at the Ghoul — and in the same motion, reached down and snatched an ownerless X-GUN from the floor.
Not a word was exchanged between the three of them. Yet under the pure survival instinct of facing death, they moved in perfect synchrony.
And yet.
What they were facing was a Ghoul — a creature that, aside from its need to consume Rc cells, outclassed human physical capability in every single measurable category.
"Get out of my way!!"
In the face of their counterattack, Yamaki Sorao let out a thunderous roar. All four kagune whipped through the air in a frenzy.
Clang!
One kagune precisely knocked Ayanokoji's throwing knife out of the air.
Thud. Thud.
Nagumo Miyabi's X-GUN was still in its charge delay — and before it could fire, a kagune drove straight through his chest and launched him into the air.
Horikita Manabu reacted fast enough to partially deflect the blow with his blade handle, but the sheer force shattered his grip entirely. The deflection threw his angle off. His blade only managed to sever one of the Silence's arms before a second kagune punched a hole clean through his abdomen.
Blood painted the hall floor red.
Only Ayanokoji Kiyotaka, the furthest back of the three, survived the exchange.
The knife he'd thrown bought him a fraction of a second — and in that same moment, the two Y-GUN energy ropes finally arced around and cinched tight, locking Yamaki Sorao in place.
Using every ounce of footwork he had, Ayanokoji barely, barely ducked under a decapitating strike.
Got the gun.
He closed his fingers around it and started to rise, creating distance, positioning for a counter.
"Ugh—"
Ayanokoji's body lurched. He looked down — and found a dark-red kagune coiled around his ankle. He had no idea when it had gotten there.
The next second.
A monstrous force yanked him off his feet entirely. He was hauled bodily through the air and slammed down right in front of Yamaki Sorao's face.
He tested his restraints. Tried to pull free.
Yamaki Sorao simultaneously flexed against the Y-GUN's laser rope, straining to tear himself loose.
But — damn it — neither of them could break free.
It wasn't a lack of effort. It was simply the hard ceiling of their physical limits.
"What the hell is this rope made of? It won't even cut under my kagune?"
Yamaki Sorao bared his teeth. His kakugan blazed red, his voice dropping to something cold and razor-edged.
"And... tell me something."
"Why am I here? And whoever runs this school — where are they?!"
Facing that suffocating, predatory killing intent.
Ayanokoji Kiyotaka — dangling upside down in the air — showed no trace of fear.
He simply raised his arm with great effort, the one still gripping the X-GUN, and pressed the muzzle directly between Yamaki Sorao's brows.
"I lost this round..."
Ayanokoji's voice was perfectly even.
"Next time — I'll win."
Faced with a response that defied all rational expectation, even the half-crazed Yamaki Sorao felt a flash of genuine irritation.
Especially seeing the blue light flickering at that gun barrel — having been on the receiving end of a Y-GUN before, he wasn't willing to gamble on what this weapon could do.
Crack.
The kagune tightened in an instant. Ayanokoji's body twisted like a wrung cloth — and then he dissolved into blue light and was gone.
"Bunch of senseless little insects..."
Yamaki Sorao shook his kagune in irritation and began forcing his way toward tearing the laser rope apart.
Then, he stopped dead.
His nostrils flared. His kakugan snapped upward — toward the porthole windows lining the second-floor corridor above.
"Women... I smell women?"
Not just any scent. An untainted scent. Pure. The clean, uncontaminated fragrance of young girls, unspoiled by any foreign trace.
He dragged his tongue across his cracked lips.
"Fine. You all taste absolutely disgusting anyway—"
"But at least let me take the edge off first..."
BOOM——!!
His kagune exploded outward, obliterating the second-floor corridor wall entirely, and slammed straight toward where Chris and the others were hiding.
Rubble flew. Dust billowed in every direction.
Faced with that earth-shattering, terrifying destructive force, Kiryuuin Fuka's expression finally went dark.
Because she knew, with perfect clarity, the X-GUN's limitations: a nine-meter effective range, and a three-second charge delay before firing.
Against that creature's nightmarish speed — even she, the only person here with A+ ratings in both Academic Ability and Physical Fitness, stood absolutely zero chance of landing a surprise hit.
But... with nowhere left to retreat.
"All of you — run."
Kiryuuin Fuka drew a deep breath and raised her gun without hesitation, aiming the barrel at the one-armed Silence discarded on the floor below.
She had to gamble. Gamble that she could kill the target and end the exam before the creature killed her.
"I'll hold the rear — stop standing there, go!"
She hadn't even finished the sentence.
Chris had already dissolved the air wall suppressing their scent — letting Yamaki Sorao perceive the full, vivid presence of the girls around him.
Truth be told, Chris had originally planned to test the effects of NZT-48 here — to guide the situation through precise micro-management, without pulling out anything dramatic.
But the moment he heard Yamaki Sorao say those words, his mind connected them to this creature's repugnant profile: an extreme selective predator. One who enjoyed tormenting women.
He could still outmaneuver this through sheer intelligence. He was more than capable of that.
But playing dumb and sandbagging — wasn't that just the classic act weak, strike hard routine anyway?
On top of everything else — because of The Silence, everyone was going to forget this whole encounter soon enough.
Ayanokoji had already died once. The jolt from that defeat would, with high probability, awaken whatever protagonist-grade consciousness was sleeping inside him.
All the strategic objectives have already been achieved...
Playing it subtle had lost its original purpose.
Even setting that aside — most so-called 'battles of wits' were fundamentally just information asymmetry games. Demonstrating intelligence that way carried nowhere near the raw prestige of solving the Riemann Hypothesis, or unifying General Relativity with Quantum Mechanics.
In other words—
His supreme intellect was telling him it was time to use a supreme tool.
Perhaps the smarter you are, the more you tend toward achieving your goals with the absolute minimum effort.
—BOOM!
The moment Amikura Mako and Kamuro Masumi had squeezed their eyes shut and braced themselves for death.
The crimson kagune — stopped dead. Less than half a meter from Chris's face. Frozen. Unable to advance a single centimeter further.
"What?!"
Yamaki Sorao's expression collapsed into shock. He poured everything into his kagune — and got nothing for it. Completely, utterly futile.
Then, like a switch flipped inside him, he erupted into wild, ecstatic howling.
"An air wall — you're the one who owns this school?!"
"Tell me! Why does every single human being in your world taste so awful?!"
At those words.
Kamuro Masumi and Shiina Hiyori — who had kept their eyes tightly shut, waiting and waiting for a pain that never came — trembled, and slowly opened them.
Through the swirling dust.
Chris stood there in silence. His face was unreadable — no emotion, no tension. No dramatic flair whatsoever. Only a stillness so deep it felt like looking at something fossilized, something ancient and unknowable and utterly calm.
Before Shiina Hiyori could open her mouth to ask.
Chris looked down at the Ghoul from above.
"Your head is too high."
The instant those words fell.
A force — like a mountain dropping from the sky — descended without warning onto the top of Yamaki Sorao's skull.
"Tricks and parlor games — I'll rip you apart and see what you're hiding—!!"
Yamaki Sorao roared and thrashed, trying to prop his body up with his kagune, fighting back against the crushing weight.
"Hhnnnngggh——!"
Chris barely shifted his gaze.
The gravity doubled in an instant — near-equivalent to a gravity cannon at point-blank.
"Wait — wait, stop — splat."
Blood burst from Yamaki Sorao's eye sockets, his nostrils, and every pore.
Under absolute, overwhelming force — this raging, ferocious Ghoul didn't even get to leave a final word before he was ground completely into a pool of red.
There's a particular kind of satisfaction, Chris reflected, in simply crushing whatever annoys you.
Under Kamuro Masumi's eyes, wide as saucers. Under Shiina Hiyori's gaze, tangled in shock and something closer to dread.
Chris didn't turn around.
He raised one hand and rubbed the bridge of his nose, letting out a mild, almost complaining sigh.
"You know, you could all stand to have a little sympathy for me."
"You keep early hours. I keep late ones. We both work hard in our own way."
"If the Black Sphere can be made to contribute something to humanity... honestly, that's thanks to all of you."
"Really?... What do you mean by that?"
Shiina Hiyori swallowed. There was suspicion in her eyes — the look of someone making one last, cautious probe.
What else could it mean? Kiryuuin Fuka thought. This guy is the one pulling the strings behind all of it.
She kept the thought firmly inside her head — but her body had already started stepping back alongside Kamuro Masumi, moving on pure reflex.
"Shh~"
Chris paid no attention to the panic of the group. He gave a small, casual wave of his hand.
A moment later, a slender silver-white metal cylinder materialized in his grasp from thin air.
Under the wide, terrified eyes of the girls around him.
"Forget this for now. Can't have you disturbing the world of the Advanced Nurturing High School."
"Click — flash."
A burst of bright white light swept through the corridor.
Every pair of eyes went blank.
Chris looked down at the pool of blood sitting in the circular drain below, rubbing his chin in quiet contemplation.
"Hmm. Went a little heavy on that... I don't think this thing could regenerate even if it wanted to. Not without having eaten anything."
He waved it off.
"Whatever. I'll have the Black Sphere clean it up. Worst case, just import a replacement."
Two-legged frogs are hard to find. Ghouls with a rap sheet this long? They're practically lining up at the door.
"As for the Silence..."
He tilted his head, thinking it over.
"Whose kill count should I log this one under, anyway?"
He glanced over.
"Hmm... Kiryuuin?"
____
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