29 – Garden of the Broken

Past the broken down doors was naught but wreckage and darkness. The only light came from outside the hospital, the blood red moon's glow only reached a few meters inside that place. As far as they could see, they were inside the hospital's reception, but a highly deteriorated one, with benches and sofas thrown asunder, shelves and magazine racks broken and spread across the cracked floors. There were burn marks all around the wreckage inside the room, some of them, seemed to still be smoking.

The red veins reached the steps at the entrance, but did not continue further than where the moonlight could illuminate. That hinted to Daisuke that changes had occurred in the hospital recently; Otherwise, he thought, the veins should be all over it like they were ubiquitously spread across the whole town.

"I'll illuminate the room," Shiro announced, looking back at his companions.

Daisuke nodded in response, prompting Shiro to take a few steps forward into the darkness. He moved his hands, calling his Stand, but before he even had a chance to be engulfed in the azure summoning fire, a red ring of energy sprung from under his feet, expanding rapidly, covering the floor in a crimson glow until the circle met the walls of the entryway and sprung upwards towards the ceiling: The hospital's entrance was now fully visible within an intense, headache inducing, red light. It reminded Daisuke of a darkroom, where one would reveal photographs, or perhaps a shady nightclub.

"Did you... Did you do that, Shiro-san?" Riko asked, uncertain.

Shiro shook his head no. Under the new found red light, the rest of the hospital became visible. Like the seating, the magazine racks, electronic terminals and television sets all had been in one way or another been misplaced or broken. The inner walls were analogous to the exterior ones, covered in vines and a large variety of flowers: roses, sunflowers, chrysanthemums, orchids and many others Daisuke could not name or even thought were real species outside of the Shadow World. The potted plants that normally occupied the corners of the room had been freed of their containers, as shards of the broken vases were spread around the floor; the plants that had been inside had joined with the ones on the wall, continuing the strange web of unified vines and flowers, as some sort of common organism.

"Was Toriumi-senpai obsessed with flowers or something?" Tatsuya asked, after an extended moment of observation.

"She was on the school's botanist club," Shiro revealed, approaching the closest wall to observe one the inflorescences.

"We have a botanist club?" the blond replied oblivious.

"Yes," Shiro looked back at him and then back to the plant, using the tip of his sabre to touch the inner regions of a sunflower, "They are responsible for maintaining the garden and other plant life within Budoga-Oka."

I guess that would explain why her apparent dungeon would have a plant motif, Daisuke thought, scratching at his emergent stubble. But really, would it be something so simple? And more importantly, why would the hospital be her dungeon? Was there perhaps a connection between the plants and the location where they spawned?

"I found something!" Ryoji shouted from across the room.

The short boy was standing by the receptionist area, using his spear as a crutch. As they reached him, he pointed towards the monitors stuck to the wall. Unlike every other electronic device, these monitors not only had not been destroyed or ripped from their stands, but they were also working. Or at least, they were functional, as they displayed a bunch of white numbers in a reddish-pink background. They weren't stationary however, as they constantly jumped from one number to the next, apparently at random and inconsistently.

"It's like the clock on our phones," Yukino noticed, already having her phone in her hand to justify the comparison.

"Not quite," Shiro noted, pointing, "The clock has four digits. It's clear that it represents time..."

"But the monitors only have three digits each," Daisuke completed after a closer look. "It's not time, it's something else."

"Oh, I know what it is!" Maki had almost jumped in place, making everyone turn towards her immediately, prompting an all too familiar response of sudden awareness. Still, she talked: "It's a room number. The hospital has three upper floors and two underground ones."

"So...?" Tatsuya asked.

"The first digit in the sequence represents the floor number," Shiro explained, already attuned to Maki's idea, "If you look at the screens for a while, notice that the first number doesn't go from zero to nine. It goes from minus two to three."

"So that means we're looking for a particular room?" Riko asked, "I mean. If it didn't mean anything, why would the monitors be the only thing that works in the whole place?"

"The problem is..." Daisuke said, still staring at the screen, "What room is it?"

That, most likely, was the challenge that the dungeon would present to whomever tried to come and rescue Toriumi. If every room in the real hospital had an analogous room in the dungeon, than it wouldn't be hard to imagine that a potential rescuer had to know beforehand or be absurdly lucky to rescue the girl quickly.

They moved away from the receptionist desks, passing through a doorway whose large metal doors had been blasted off their hinges and had crashed through the lift doors on the wall behind them. Staircases were located to the right and left of the destroyed elevator entrances: the left stone steps took them down, the right ones would take them to the upper floors.

"Do you think that Akaashi was the one who destroyed these doors?" Yukino wondered, as she walked cautiously to look at the ruined lifts.

"He wouldn't, right?" Riko awkwardly shifted from standing on her left foot to her right, "I mean, he just brought the people inside. The Shadow killed them. Why would he come here?"

"We don't know if it was the Shadow," Daisuke countered, "Remember that we never saw a Dead Phone Watch this time. Maybe Akaashi killed her himself."

His sombre suggestion made the already alarmed congregation become even more on edge. Surely all of them had already equated that possibility, but to actually discuss it was a lot grimmer. If that was the case, Akaashi, or whomever it was, had no longer just left people to die. He was now motivated enough to kill with his own hands and was a lot more dangerous. Daisuke gripped his sword harder, till his knuckles turned bone white: he wouldn't let Akaashi kill any of his friends. He'd stop him even if he died in the process.

"Maki-san," Shiro called, breaking the deadly silence, "Can you use Delilah's abilities to scan the building?"

"I tried," she admitted, pulling on her sleeves, "But there seems to be some interference that stops me from using the radar ping. Delilah can make her own map of rooms where we've been, but not auto-complete the hospital map."

"Dungeons are teeming with the presence of Shadows and their energy," Garm noted, as always, standing by Maki's feet, "The more acute that presence is, the more it affects tracking."

"Guess we have to do this the hard way then," Daisuke said, "We have to check every door."

"If so, let's hasten the procedure," Shiro suggested, "Let's split up into two groups. One goes to the upper floors, one goes to the lower ones."

The reaction was a negative one. Shadows had grown strong enough that they were starting to require the whole squad's combined strength to defeat them. Splitting them didn't seem like the most cautious approach. However, like Shiro was quick to point out, if they didn't split up, the search would be a lot longer and would potentially leave them in more danger, as their energy was slowly sapped. Maki's reveal that Delilah could make it so she could monitor and speak to other members of the group at a distance was the final confirmation needed to go with that plan.

"I'll take the lower levels then," Daisuke said after their continued deliberation, "Tatsuya, you take the upper floors."

"Sounds good," Tatsuya nodded. Even despite the dangerous situation they were in, Tatsuya seemed pleased that he had received the nod to be the leader of the second squad.

"I'll go with you," Yukino said, walking over to where Daisuke was.

"I don't believe that would be for the best," Shiro rebuffed, storing his sword in the sheath that hung from his belt, "We should base our teams on having the best balance possible between our powers."

"You suggest that we make teams with specific roles then?" Daisuke asked.

"Indeed. I believe that we have essentially four types of powers among us: Close-ranged and Long-Range Attackers, Utility and Tracking," Shiro explained, raising four fingers on his left hand, holding onto one finger every time he talked about a bullet point, "You and me both fulfil the role of close-range attackers, however, Lazarus has more defensive options compared to Prince. As such, of the two long-range fighters, Riko-san and Yukino-san, I believe that Arabella's healing is more useful with me. And since Tatsuya-san has our utility Stand…"

"Then I should go with Daisuke's team," Riko completed.

"Yes," Shiro nodded, "Lazarus is capable of producing walls, as such, Garm-san's blocking ability is better suited to us."

"So me and Maki are with Daisuke-senpai," Ryoji said. From Maki's expression next to him, it was clear that she was relieved that she would get to stick together with her fellow first-year.

Two teams were formed then: Daisuke, Riko, Maki and Ryoji would search the depths of the lower floors; Tatsuya, Shiro, Yukino and Garm would look for clues on the upper levels. They still took a few moments to split, as, despite them knowing how pressing the timing was and how much they needed to get moving, it was still hard to convince themselves to shorten their numbers. Finally, Daisuke approached the steps, and his team reluctantly followed him, starting to descend the staircase, whilst on the other side, Tatsuya's squad began to climb their own steps. As Daisuke still stood on the top step, he looked back to see Yukino still staring at him. She mouthed "Be careful", to which he nodded in response, before following his companions into the depths.

After two flights of stairs, the red lighting giving progressively way to darkness as they descended, they arrived at floor minus one. Like what had happened before, as soon as Riko, the one in front, took a few steps into the dark corridor, a ring of red light sprung from her feet and expanded across the corridor. In just a few seconds, the area was lit in the same crimson shade as the ground floor. The new light source revealed a large hallway ahead of them, metallic doors stretching to the left and to the right of them. Small plaques were placed on the doors, where room numbers were engraved. Looking ahead, the corridor would fork into three other paths: a continuation of the current one, one to the left and one to the right. Much like the rest of what they had seen in the hospital, the vines, leaves and flowers covered walls and floors.

Daisuke passed by Riko and approached the first of the doors, on his right hand side. He tried to push down on the door handle, but found the door locked. He then tried to force it open by alternatively pushing and pulling on it, but to no avail.

"Guess that's probably not what we're looking for," Riko said. As Daisuke violently kicked the door down, she shrugged, "Or not."

Daisuke peered inside, past the frame of the door he had just displaced, finding on the other side a square room that, were it not for the plants on the walls, looked like it would've been perfectly normal in the real hospital: a single bed with disposable sheets was against the wall, with machines and an IV drip next to it. Two chairs for visitors and a sink, which constantly dripped a liquid that was hard to identify, completed the room.

Of note, however, was that they were not alone in the room. At first Daisuke assumed it was a Shadow, but a second glance revealed that what he was seeing laying on the bed was actually a phantasmagorical apparition, one of those that Garm had named "cognitions" when they encountered them on Ryoji's museum dungeon. The phantom had a frail body, with no hair and no face, its skin was coloured a pale violet, under the red light, and was semi translucent, to the point where they could see the thin mattress underneath the figure. Even if it had no mouth, it seemed to be talking. Not loud enough for them to discern what it was saying, but something like a continuous, almost mad whisper. Rhythmical and yet also completely devoid of it.

Daisuke took a step inside, intent on hearing what the phantom was actually saying, when the apparition stopped talking completely. Daisuke felt a cold sweat, as the phantom moved its head towards him, inexistent eyes staring at him and through him. One second, two seconds, three seconds passed, and then, the apparition let out a shrill, blood-draining scream that caught him by complete surprise, making him raise his hands to his ears. He heard the cries of his friends behind him as they tried to shut their ears off to no avail, as the cries of the cognition-patient rung violently against their skull, as it started to convulse and twist on the bed. Instinctively, Daisuke gripped his sword, taking a step further into the room and, with both hands on the sword hilt, driving the dark blade through the chest of the screaming, lying figure. As the blade was driven through its spectral heart, it stopped its screaming. The phantasm's body disappearing as if it had never existed there in the first place, the tip of the blade plunging into the now unoccupied mattress. In response to the death of the patient, the plant life inside the room began to wither away at a staggering pace, leaves senescing and falling quickly on the ground before burning away, as the flowers rotted, the petals disintegrating.

He didn't have to look to his companions to know how they had reacted. Even if in a cold, emotionless vacuum they would probably be able to judge Daisuke's quick decision to stab the phantom as a correct assumption on his part, one couldn't just dissociate the image of him coldly executing a figure screaming in pain on a hospital bed. He cursed himself mentally by not hearing Riko's advice to ignore the locked door. They stood motionless halfway between the room and the corridor, waiting, perhaps, to hear the sounds of Shadows marching in, attracted by the scream, but no such thing happened.

"I'll mark locked doors on the map," Maki informed the others as they returned to the corridor, her tone betraying her shaken state.

Daisuke curtly nodded. If Toriumi had been kept in one of those rooms, it would've most likely have been open or the door knocked down like the doors that lead to the stairs on the ground floor. It was a ridiculous assumption on his part that they should try to break down every locked door before even checking the ones that were unlocked.

It was then that a thought occurred to Daisuke: all three of the dungeons they had visited, Yukino's, Ryoji's and Maki's, had come crumbling down after their leading Shadows had been defeated and assimilated into the Stands of their former prisoners. If Akaashi had murdered Toriumi, then shouldn't her dungeon be in ruins as well? What would exactly happen to a Shadow if its original self died before confronting it? Would the dungeon continue on, slowly degrading as a normal building in the real world would? He noted that he should ask Garm about it when they met back with him again. Then again, he was expecting that the canine would produce the same inconclusive answers that were now so frustratingly common coming from him.

They then began to explore the rest of the corridors, going from door to door, checking which of them were open or locked. Contributing to the already bad mood, all of the doors they checked along the main corridor, be those patient rooms, or operating rooms, proved to either closed or led to completely empty rooms with nothing out of the ordinary among them. Ryoji had suggested adding or doing some sort of equation featuring the numbers on the doors of the open empty rooms, but no conclusions came from it. Be it on the rooms or on walkways, there didn't even appear to be signs of struggles.

"Maybe senpai was being held in one of the upper floors?" Ryoji then suggested after he tried to open one more door to no avail.

"Or on the floor below us," Riko opined, "It would make more sense for her to be on the top floor or on the bottom one, right?"

"Right," Daisuke nodded in response. In truth, he had been equating that to be the most likely scenario for a few minutes now, "Maki, can you contact the others to see how they're doing?"

The girl nodded. The small orb floating on her shoulder shone brighter then, and began to grow until it assumed the full humanoid form of Delilah. The Stand moved its hands, generating a flat circle that proved to be a small screen. Instead of a map like before, it showed a single line. For a quick second, Daisuke thought it to be a heart monitor, but as Maki talked, the line began to move, showcasing that it was actually a measure of audio:

"Tatsuya-senpai, can you hear me?"

They didn't get a direct response for a brief moment, as they heard just a mess of barely discernible voices on the other side, before finally, Tatsuya's voice, under some distortion, being audible:

"Maki-chan? That you?"

"Yes!" Maki smiled, closing both hands next to her face in celebration, "Did you find anything, senpai? Are you all alright?"

"Yeah, we're fine. We ran into some effed up Shadows in here. More plant type bastards," Tatsuya took a break to relay to the others in his group that he was speaking to Maki, "We handled them, though. Still haven't found anything. The doors are all locked or the rooms are all empty. What about you guys?"

"Same thing. Locked doors and empty rooms," Maki answered, looking to the others at every stop in her speech. She had omitted what they had found on the one locked room they had entered, "We're going to move to minus two. Riko-senpai thinks it's more likely that's where it should be."

"Aye, always a brainiac, Riko-chan is," Tatsuya's playful jab got Riko to redden up, and snort with her arms crossed, "Right, we'll check the upper floor then. Good luck down there."

"Good luck, senpai, be careful!"

Delilah cut the transmission off, the circular transmitter she had created moments before vanishing in a small explosion of pixels. The Stand transforming back into its smaller, less energy draining self. With every door checked and no clues found, the group on the lower floors moved back towards the staircases, descending into the negative second floor, the last one. As before, darkness began to swallow them as they carefully descended the steps, one after the other, careful to not trip and fall down. As Daisuke reached the end of the stairs, he heard a metallic sound and felt holes in the floor underneath his feet. On the near complete darkness, it was hard to see, but he could tell that the floor was not made of tiles, but of metal grating. He couldn't tell if the stains on the metal were red purely due to remains of crimson light that reached them from the upper floor, or if they were blood and rust. He took a step forward and then another, expecting to have a ring of red light sprung from his feet, but no such thing happened. It was as dark as it was before.

"Lazarus."

The blue fire rose around him at once. Lazarus's wide frame appearing beside him, the blue aura it cast enough to light a few meters ahead of him, to reveal an enclosed corridor. There were no plants on the walls, or at least, there weren't living plants, as instead what covered the stained walls were the red tendrils like the ones they could find outside.

He had just a brief moment to see it before he could react. A large rusty blade being swung at him with great velocity. He let out a surprised cry as he reacted by instinct, raising his arms in a cross shape in front of his face, Lazarus moving to in front of him. The large blade connected on Lazarus's metallic palms, the glass knight's gauntlets stopping the march of the blade, but the force of the impact was enough to push Daisuke backwards, falling on his back against the steps of the staircase. He felt an intense pain on the palms of his hands, as the barely existing light showed deep cuts where the blade had connected with Lazarus's own hands. Daisuke's blade had been thrown asunder, landing by his feet, the tip of it stuck on one of the holes in the grating.

He heard Riko shouting his name in worry, as she darted to get ahead of him, Santigold emerging from within her, the golden feathers at the tip of the harpy's wings shining brightly as a powerful gust of wind pushed the wielder of the giant rusty blade backwards, sliding across the grated floor, sparks scrapping as metal met metal.

Under Santigold's more intense light, the attacker became fully visible. A large, husky creature, vaguely humanoid, but much more similar to the Oni of folklore, with blood red skin over its large, powerful muscles. Rusty metallic boots covered its feet and shins, over dirty rags with what seemed to be bloodstains. Along the naked flesh of the creature's arms and chest were several poorly closed cuts, with large rusty metallic staples and stitches placed haphazardly. A contraption similar to a muzzle hid the creature's lower face, each of its eyes had been pierced by large nails. The right grotesque hand held onto the blade that had swung at Daisuke that, now that it was visible, he noticed had no hilt: the blade dug deep into the fleshy hands of the monster. The theatre mask, symbol of a Shadow, was on its chest, over where its heart should be.

It roared as it swung the blade again, aiming it at Riko. Daisuke had jumped back up again, placing himself on the path. This time however, he created his own blade of glass, using it to block the attack. He had miscalculated the creature's strength, as the metal blade dug into the glass one, being stopped only halfway into the defensive blade. Daisuke screamed as he summoned his strength, pushing back against the blade, trying to hold it away from his companions.

Riko took the chance, shooting a new blast of powerful winds at the creature, making it topple on its back as a result of it being already off balance by Daisuke's actions. The creature's astounding weight made it so the walls it crashed into caved in, the monster falling inside the room on the other side. Daisuke kneeled forward, feeling his energies spent, his hands red with the blood he kept losing from the cuts on his palms. The Shadow was pushing itself back on its feet.

"Ryoji!" Daisuke shouted back, "What are you doing!? Kill it before it recovers!"

The boy looked terrified, staying back, in front of Maki and with his spear raised. Daisuke's shout had helped retrieve him from his shock. He walked forward, summoning Wanderer. The Painter's large brush traced the air, forming in red paint the kanji for "DELETE", shooting it forward towards the monstrous Shadow. It hit it square on the chest, making the monster roar in pain, as the acid thinner was marked onto its already red skin. Ash drifting from where the attack had hit it. Yet, it still stood. Ryoji shouted, charging with all the bravery he could muster towards the monster, spear clutched in both hands, intent on driving the point of it through the mask. The blade was too heavy for the monster to move it to stop Ryoji, so it tried to swing at him with his free bloated hand. Yet, with the remains of his glass claymore, Lazarus hit the Shadow's arm, stopping its swing. Ryoji roared as the spear penetrated through skin and darkness, cracking the mask as it passed through it. A killing blow. Or so it seemed, because with a guttural growl, the Shadow managed to propel itself forward, throwing Ryoji backwards like a ragdoll, making him hit the wall behind him.

The colossal monstrosity used its still glass incrusted hand to rip the spear out of its chest and toss it to the side, as it approached Ryoji with its sword raised. I can't let him die. I can't let any of them die. I need them. I need them! Daisuke rushed at the giant, throwing his body at it, Lazarus appearing in front of him, pushing the monster back through the ruined wall, making it fall on its back again. Daisuke was tossed through the air with the momentum, rolling on the floor, hitting his back against something hard: medical equipment and machinery. He felt his eyes water from the pain, as he used his forearms to crawl and then try to push himself up to his feet. The monster roared again as it lay on its back, the more it wailed, the more it sounded like the guttural cry of a gigantic swine.

He had regained his footing only barely, clutching onto one of the sickbeds on the room he had crashed into, nearly slipping back down thanks to his bloodied hands. The giant was attempting to once again rise, but a well-timed blast of wind from Riko on the opposite side, saw the monster fall back down, head crashing against the floor. The brunt force of the wind barely avoiding Daisuke who still felt his hair and clothing being harshly disarranged by the force of Santigold's attack. Still, now, the Shadow lay at his mercy, as he moved next to its barrel-like chest.

Lazarus's visage had changed, as its own gauntlets were flooded in blood and its long coat ripped and dirty. Still, as it summoned a great axe in both hands, it no longer mattered how worn out and battered it and its master were. Daisuke passed a bloody hand through his damp hair, as Lazarus's foot held down the head of the Shadow. Claws pushing down between the nailed eyes.

"Execute him."

The blade of the axe fell down on the neck of the Shadow, breaking through the metallic muzzle contraption and lodging itself deep into tissue and muscle of darkness and ash, smoke gushing out in high pressure from the wound, like a fountain of black, vaporous blood. The Shadow began to melt into a poodle of dark sludge and ashes, falling through the holes in the metallic grating that served as floor, as its grunts and corrupted wails grimly set the note.

Immediately, as the Shadow disappeared, Riko rushed to Daisuke, holding onto his shoulder, shaking him, trying to get a reaction as he just stared down, as the last remnants of the monstrosity fell into the abyss of impossible space below.

"Daisuke, Daisuke!" Riko continued to call him, until he finally snapped out of it and looked at her, "Ryo-kun's hurt. We need to call Yuuki to heal h—Oh my God, your hands!"

"I'm fine," he yanked his right hand away from hers, biting his lip as he felt the pain and blood run from the injury, "Tell Maki to call them… Whatever we're looking for: It's down here."

She didn't avoid another concerned look at his hands before she rushed back through the opening on the wall. Daisuke looked around at the room where he stood: With the chaos that him and the giant Shadow had caused during their fight it was harder to have a perception of what that room truly was at first. However, after some time deliberating, he concluded it most likely was part of the Intense Care Unit. What still mystified him, however, was why that floor looked less like the real hospital overrun by vegetable life forms, and more like a slaughterhouse covered in blood and rust. Was it part of Toriumi-senpai's cognition? Or was it something else? The veins on the walls made him think it had more to it.

He walked back to where his sword had remained, caught in the grating. He swiped at the air in front of him but regretted it, as the threads on the hilt of the sword pressed painfully against his cut palms. He tried to avoid holding the sword against the palm of his right hand, using his fingers to grip it, and then returned to where his friends were. Ryoji was still sat against the wall, both hands holding the back of his head as Maki kneeled to his right, worried. Riko stood next to them, holding on to both her kusarigama and Ryoji's spear.

"Ryo-kun hit his head against the wall when he was thrown," Riko informed as he walked closer, "Maki-chan already contacted Tatsu and the others."

"Did they find anything?"

"She... We didn't ask," she admitted. It was clear they had completely put the search for clues on the backburner, "But he didn't say anything, so probably not."

I expected that much, he thought, this floor is too different, too unique to be a coincidence. That Shadow was too strong to just be a random mook.

"Senpai!"

He was startled by Maki's sudden outburst. It was if she had suddenly felt something, her Stand picking something up as she pointed behind him. As him and Riko turned around to follow the girl's instruction, they saw them:

A large group of phantom patients were walking towards them. Wearing hospital gowns and dragging what seemed to be IVs with them, unaffected by the grated floor. All of them lacked hair, and had the same skinny, frail build as the screaming patient in the locked room. Their spectral bodies cast an ominous cold blue light around them.

While one couldn't really tell if they were copies of each other, due to their lack of a face, that was the clear impression they gave. As the spectres walked forward, they mumbled something, a unified whisper that was hard to understand, but was very clearly being chanted in unison, like a prayer. Or a curse. Just as their fallen brethren had chanted.

As they reached the middle of the corridor, their bare feet stopped over the grating. Their heads risen from their bowed state, eye-less clean fronts staring upwards towards the ceiling. The chanting raising in volume. Now clearly discernible.

"Curse the fiends. Curse the town. The chosen few. Curse the fiends. Light take us. Curse the town. By blood made. Curse the few. By blood cleansed. The chosen few. Light save us. The Fool. Light's Champion. Curse the fiends. The chosen few. In a dream we shall live. In a dream we shall live."

No one among Daisuke's party knew what to say or do, enraptured as they were by the chanting of the phantoms. That felt differently than to anything they had experienced so far in the Shadow World. The chanting was constant, and yet it seemed to repeat lines with no actual structure or flow to them. The raspy voices of the phantoms had no gender, no tone to them. It was a chaotic mess of rising and lowering pitches. Daisuke could feel his ears ringing and hurting as he heard it. He had to stop the chanting, he couldn't continue to hear it, and yet, he wanted to hear it. To understand what it meant. Who were they praying to. What were they praying for.

"In a dream of light. Born from blood. By blood made. The Fool. Light's Champion. Dream of Light. Light take us. Light save us. Oh light, king and queen of blood. Curse the fiends. Take us to your dream. Proud Father. Sweet Mother. Light. Take us to your dream."

As suddenly as the chanting had risen in volume, it too stopped. The phantoms remained motionless, heads turned upwards, clutching their IV stands. Then, they screamed. Chilling, terrifying. The screams of the phantom patients were high pitched, distorted, haunting wails, pain and sorrow unleashed as a growl like lost children seeking a missing mother. A mother that would never return to them.

Daisuke had his teeth gritted, his earing shot up by the banshee like cries of the phantoms. He shouted Lazarus's name, or at least he thought he did, as his own voice was lost among the lament. A glaive of crystal cut through the choir, slashing through the midst of the congregation. Then a second swing, and then a third. Like what happened to the previous patient, they disappeared the instant the blade touched them, yet the screams still rung for longer. Daisuke felt his legs give out and he fell forward on his knees and elbows, hands holding his ears as the wailing and the pain made him lose his reason, his own voice, his friends' voices all converging together. The chanting and the screams had stopped, yet in his head, they still echoed loud as a church bell. He felt as if his head was about to explode, his hands burning, his side and arm reopened again, his eyes gouged. Make it stop! Make it stop! Make it stop! Kill me! Kill me! Kill me!

And suddenly: it stopped. He felt someone touch him, holding onto his shoulders, shaking him. Someone was talking to him, he knew they were, but he couldn't hear them, he couldn't understand their words. Curse the fiends. Make it stop! His eyes were glued shut, his heartbeat faster than a freight train. A dream of light. Kill me! He felt the hands on his shoulders pull him back onto a kneeling position and then someone holding onto him tightly. Pulling his shocked body into a tight, strong embrace. Their voice, whomever was calling him was like a beckoning bell he tried to reach. The chanting and the screams were still filling his head. His own screams joining the deadly choir.

"Daisuke!"

He opened his eyes, vision blurred and filled with black spots. He smelt a familiar sweet scent, felt soft curls brush against his face. As his senses returned, he moved his arms around the waist of the Yukino that was kneeling in front of him. Her cries interrupted as she felt him hug her back. He felt the pain on his palms, yet the scars on his body had not reopened, his eyes could still see.

"Daicchi!" she cried out, momentarily pulling herself from the tight embrace to look at his face. She touched his face with both hands, before once more holding tightly onto him, "I'm here. I'm here.."

As his sight slowly returned, he could see the slaughterhouse-like corridors once more, however, the light source was no longer the phantoms chanting, but instead a ball of white light floating by the ceiling. Yukino was holding onto him, but she was not the only one there. Riko sat against the wall, her head against Tatsuya's shoulder, as he gently passed his hand through her hair and mumbled something only they could hear. The first years were opposite them, holding onto each other as Garm checked on them, his ears laying down. Shiro stood alone on the middle of the room, underneath the light source he undoubtedly had created, whilst keeping his sabre raised as he looked around.

"What happened?" Daisuke asked. His voice sounded strange to himself, it was if it was the first time he had heard it in years, "How are you here?"

"Maki-chan called us with her Stand, don't you remember that?" she used her hands to clean tears from her face, "We were already tracking back when Garmicchi felt something and told us you were in danger."

"And... you found us here?"

"You were all on the ground, screaming and shaking," she looked mortified, her voice was hoarse, "We didn't know what to do. We thought you had gone insane."

I don't know if I didn't, Daisuke thought. His ears still rang, his head hurt like it was being cleaved in two. He held Yukino's arms, trying to let go of her grip and stand up. As he rose back to his feet, despite Yukino's pulling efforts to keep him kneeling next to her, he felt the pain in his head get much worse, to the point where it threatened to throw him to the ground again.

"Let me heal your hands at least," she demanded more than asked, as she clutched both of his hands on her own.

Arabella appeared behind Yukino as her hands began to glow in a warm blue light. Daisuke felt a pinch of pain, followed by a strange numbness as his wounds closed around themselves. The blood he had smeared on himself, the girl and his sword remained where it was, a reminder. She sighed after she finished her operation, looking worried at him some more, before going to inspect and treat Ryoji.

"What happened here?" Shiro asked Daisuke, once they crossed sights, "Was it some Shadow?"

"No," he shook his head, but had to immediately hold it, as the pain came flooding back again, "Well, yes and no. We were attacked by a giant Shadow. That's how I cut my hands and Ryoji was hurt."

"But that wasn't what left all four of you like that, right?" Shiro poked.

"It wasn't, no," he confirmed, "Phantoms. Lots of them. They began to chant something, like some sort of prayer while staring at the ceiling."

Shiro clutched his chin, deep in thought, looking at the orb of light over his head: "And then?"

"And then they began to scream…" Riko replied. She hadn't moved since Daisuke had last saw her, still clutching Tatsuya with all the strength she could muster, "I felt like I was going to die. Like my head was going to explode."

"Do you think they were part of the dungeon originally?" Shiro asked, looking back to Daisuke.

"I don't know. They looked like patients, so maybe. But this floor, the Shadow we fought and those phantom patients, they all clash with the rest of the dungeon," he looked down at his hands, seeing the freshly healed cuts, "We need to keep moving."

"Keep going!?"

To his surprise, it wasn't Shiro who replied, but instead it was Tatsuya who spoke, still sitting against the wall, clutching the hurting Riko against him. He looked livid and incredulous:

"Are you mad!? Have you looked at your friends? We're not in a condition to keep going."

"We can't give up now," Daisuke rebutted, walking towards him, but feeling his legs wobbly and shaky, "What if the killer comes back and destroys this place? We won't have proof, we won't know how he did it. What happened to Toriumi-senpai?"

"Toriumi-senpai is dead, Daisuke! We are alive! What is more important to you!?"

An uncomfortable, smothering silence took over the corridor, as no one dared to speak, Tatsuya's demanding question echoing off the enclosed walls. My friends, Daisuke thought at first, but was that really his answer? If he really cared about them more than wanting to find out the truth, why was he insisting on taking them, battered and hurt, along for more punishment, for more mortal danger?

"Look, mate, I know that you have it in your head that you must do this," the blond boy continued, his tone much less fiery, "That this is your chance to make up for what you did wrong before. I get it. All of us want to stop the killer too, we do. But we're not ready to die to do it."

"I won't let you die," Daisuke responded, weakly as he felt his head throbbing.

"That's not the point," Tatsuya shook his head, finally getting up, helping Riko also standing up, placing her arm over his shoulders, "We're not just worried about us. We're worried about you, you complete idiot."

"Me?"

"We don't want you to kill yourself to save us," it was Riko who talked, not Tatsuya, "You keep putting yourself recklessly in danger. Tatsuya is right, you know? You always try to do too much, to always take all the weight on your shoulders. Do you think we like to see you bleeding out and with broken bones every time? We don't. None of us."

He had no words to say. Both Tatsuya and Riko's expressions were sincere, they weren't speaking just as a means to try and convince him to retreat. In fact, it pained him to notice that they had most likely discussed that before. As Daisuke turned to look at the others, he saw Ryoji nod, even as he still held his head, Maki and Garm looked at him expectantly, Yukino looked away from him, towards the ground, just as Shiro did, behind him. Am I really that selfish? Do I really don't care if I live or die? No. No, they're wrong. I care. Right?

"Tatsuya," Daisuke called after silent introspection, "You're the leader now, not me."

"I don't want to—"

"Until I can sort out what I want," he looked at him, interrupting the blonde's protests, "I'm not fit to lead. I trust you more than I trust myself. If you want to retreat, I will follow you."

Tatsuya pondered on the meaning of his words, as all eyes had now moved from Daisuke to him. He wasn't expecting to have leadership thrown on him, as he now had the fates of his friends on his own hands, He closed his eyes for a moment, before swallowing and then blinked and looked to the others:

"Ok, let's retreat. We'll come back when we're stronger."

Tatsuya made a gesture with his head towards the stairs and went towards them, beginning to climb them, step after step, helping Riko as he did. Garm and the first years, using each other as support followed.

"This is a chance we may not have again," Shiro whispered, as he approached the stationary Daisuke, "Is it wise of us to reject it?"

"I don't know," Daisuke shook his head honestly. He looked towards the stairs, where Yukino looked at him expectantly, "But even if we lose this chance, we'll create another one. He won't kill again."

Shiro closed his eyes, smiling to himself, staying in place as Daisuke advanced to meet Yukino at the stairs, before he eventually followed after the others. As they eventually reached the entrance once more and exited through it back onto the night air and the fog, Daisuke looked back at the vine and flowers covering the building, cursing himself for not discovering whatever was hidden at the bottom of it. One thing he could say he had, however, was that it hadn't been completely in vain: Even if he could not understand it at the moment, or maybe for the days to come, he had an unshakable feeling that the chanting phantoms could be the key to solving whatever secrets were hidden in the depths of the Shadow World. If he could somehow decrypt it.