Tanjirou wandered deeper inside the building. Although only him in there right now, he felt like he wasn't alone. He could felt someone was following him from behind.
Tanjirou slowly approached the door in a hallway. He need to be careful if there were any of hostile entities at the other side of the door.
However, as his hand held the doorknob, he felt a mysterious hand was touching one of his shoulders. Tanjirou was startled, he quickly turned behind.
Fortunately for him, it was Kanao who touched his shoulder, and followed him from behind too.
"Kanao?" Tanjirou was half-shocked.
"I'm sorry if I have startling you" Kanao apologized. "I was looking for you when I saw you entered this building"
"It's okay" Tanjirou said. "I'm glad that it was you"
"Rrrraaaaaaaagggghhhh!"
Out of sudden, both of them could heard an inhuman scream nearby.
"What's that?" Kanao was terrified.
"I don't know, but I suspect there are some kind of hostile entities in here" Tanjirou said worrily.
"Shall we leave this place?" Kanao suggested.
However, before Tanjirou could reply, air vent grills on the ceiling mysteriously blown up out of sudden. A swarm of bats emerged from the air vents as the hallway began to infested by them.
"Bats!?"
"Tanjirou, we need to get out from here!"
Tanjirou and Kanao tried their best to ran away from there, yet the bats were too many for them. Now they were completely trapped as the situation became more worse than ever.
...
Usually, Sumihiko and Tanjirou will meet at the bench. However, the hanafuda boy didn't came today. Sumihiko wondered, where did he go today?
Soon, he spotted a male person walked towards the bench. That person wasn't Tanjirou however. It was someone else. It was Inosuke. And he was munching an onigiri.
Sumihiko shocked in silent. His face is very similar to Aoba, even his hair too.
Inosuke paused his walk as their eyes contacted each other. Two of them remained silent for a few seconds.
"You!" Inosuke pointed his index finger towards Sumihiko out of sudden.
"What?" Sumihiko was startled.
"Your face really looks like Monjirou! Are you his twin brother!?" Inosuke stated.
"Who's Monjirou?" Sumihiko was confused.
"You should know that Gonpachirou is my best friend!" Inosuke exclaimed, pointed his thumb finger towards himself.
Wait a minute, Sumihiko just realized something. Did this Aoba-like guy actually refers to Tanjirou? No wonders those names he mispelled seemed familiar.
"Do you mean...Tanjirou?" Sumihiko asked in confirmation.
"That's right!" Inosuke grinned. "Now where's him?
"Usually, we'll meet here but he didn't come today" Sumihiko explained briefly. "By the way, what's your name?"
"My name is-"
Unfortunately, Inosuke got distracted when he saw an ice cream truck passed through the road.
"Ice cream!" Inosuke was excited.
Inosuke started chasing the ice cream truck, much to Sumihiko's chagrin.
"Wait for me, ice cream!" Inosuke shouted.
"Wait!"
Sumihiko however was teleported from there by a mysterious force out of sudden. And now, he stood in front of a very huge Japanese wooden gate with the color of blood red. He was very shocked since this never happened to him before.
"What?" Sumihiko was disbelieved.
...
"Are you okay, boy?"
Kanata slowly glanced at the male person in front of him. He's an elderly man with messy gray hair. He wore long-sleeved black shirt with black pants and shoes, his hand carried a baseball bat.
"Yeah...who are you?" Kanata rubbed his head.
"Just an old man who wanders this place, but you can call me Dre" the man said. "Are you still new in this place?"
"Not really" Kanata replied.
"Better be careful, those zombies are the guards of this place, they will not let anyone exit this place, they can read your mind" Dre warned.
"This place has an exit?"
"Yes. Which person are you seek outside there?" Dre asked.
"My...brother" Kanata answered.
"Hmmm..."
Dre walked a few steps away from Kanata.
"It's very difficult if your brother wants to stay in this realm" Dre said again.
"What?" Kanata was half shocked.
"Hypnos gives freedom of choice to anyone who enters this realm, but if one choose to stay, he might being unable to return to the mortal world again" Dre explained.
"Unable to return? Do you mean he'll sleep forever?"
"Much worse than that, boy" Dre said. "You better be hurry, Medusa will make her move soon"
"Medusa? What do you mean?" Kanata was confused.
To be continued...