"Report."

The manager-turned-cultist quaked in his boots as he stared at the ground, hoping that his superior would take the news well. "It…it…appears th-that there has been…"

"SPEAK UP!"

"Y-y-yes, Ma'am!", he stammered, the paper in his hands shaking. "There have been explosions around the perimeter and- "

"Is there anything else that I do not know?", he heard his superior say through her teeth, anger and impatience seething with every word.

"O-oh…right." He fixed his glasses with shaky fingers and attempted to calm himself down by taking in deep breaths. Then, in one go, he yelled, "The Underground residents have broken into the facility through the maintenance hall!"

"WHAT?!"

He flinched at his superior's outburst but he pressed on in his report. "The Slayer has also been spotted annihilating the high-risk threat containment group along with two other women and another third group has been sighted approaching the Sarcophagus and our forces on the surface has been nearly wiped out!" He then collapsed to the ground, breathing heavily as he tried to catch his breath after spewing out the words in one go.

His superior said nothing. Instead of berating him like she did when he first reported the presence of resistance on the surface and the sightings of the three top-priority targets, he saw her rush to the control panel and put up surveillance footage on display. She stared at the carnage unfolding before her very eyes as she saw dozens upon dozens of her demon army crushed by the Slayer and the Underground resistance. He noted that her gun was left on the table behind her.

"What should we do, Madam Orin?", he asked timidly, still on the floor. "We have severely underestimated the ability of the people here. With the Oni and the other powerhouses in Gensokyo coming together, there's no way that we can succeed in turning Former Hell into the one true Hell once more!"

"You're right," he heard her say. "But there is still hope. The dream we have strived for, the utopia that many of us have sacrificed themselves for in providing the demons protection is still attainable."

He nearly jumped when his superior turned to point at him with a commanding finger. "Activate them."

"W-what?!", he sputtered with open eyes of disbelief. "B-but…it's too soon. We've barely tested them for anything. Not even their stability and- "

"Did you hear me stutter? Activate. Them."

Wiping the accumulating cold sweat off his brow, he took out a small tablet device from his coat pocket. Swiping through dozens of screens, he stopped at the one with a list of four names. Each with an [ACTIVATE] command underneath. He gulped audibly.

"DO IT!"

"Okay, okay you don't have t-to shout at me!", he whimpered. He took one last look at the screen. Out of the four, he felt immense guilt in activating the one name. Muttering an apology under his breath, he tapped all of the names in rapid succession and shoved the tablet back into his coat pocket.

Letting go of his breath which he never realised he held, he sputtered, "It's done, Madam. It is done."

"Good," his superior said as he felt her hand on his shoulder. "That wasn't so hard now, was it?"

He tried to look away due to an extreme feeling of unease but a forceful grip on his chin turned it back to the face he dared not see. A smile that spelt death to anyone who saw it.

"Is that doubt I see? Doubt in our goals? In our virtue and dreams? Doubt of our success?"

"N-n-no, Ma'am! I w-wouldn't!", he replied with trembling fear. His head now locked in place by her grip, he could not help but catch a glimpse of the gun lying on the table behind her. Unfortunately, she caught his glimpse too.

"Oh? You thought I was going to kill you?"

"N-no, Ma'am, I- "

"Me?! The one that promised salvation to you?", she screamed, the gun now in her hand, digging into his forehead.

He let out a whimper and a flurry of unintelligible apologies as tears began to fall. The trigger was going to go off, he knew it.

"Leave."

"Eh?"

"Did you hear me stutter? I said LEAVE!"

Not taking any more chances, he got up and sprinted for the door. Time seemed to slow down as his finger pushed the button to open.

"And leave your stupidity at the door while you're at it."

The last thing he heard after was a loud bang. The last thing he saw was his own blood and brains exiting his forehead.

"Please, Judge, please! I'm beggin' ya, please! I will repent! I'll clean the streets! I'll even lick your boots clean as your personal shoe-shiner so, please! Have mercy!"

KCHLIK, KCHLIK!

"You can begin by atoning for your sins…in Hell."

BANG!

"Shiki! See anything over there?"

"Bwah!", cried Shikieiki in surprise. Shaking her head to clear those thoughts, she peeked around the corner of the hallway they were in.

"No, no one in sight. We can go now."

She carefully turned the corner and walked along the hallway with Nitori, Komachi and the three girls following behind her. Something did not feel right. Shortly after Yukari's "deployment" of them via portal, Nitori told them that the area where they had Reimu's mother contained was nearby but with high chance of demonic encounters. Yet, everywhere they went, through long corridors and trashed laboratories, not a single demon was seen. Heard, but not seen.

Wanting reassurance, she turned to Nitori.

"Hey, can you tell me where the demons are again? Something just doesn't feel right."

"Look, Shiki," Nitori exasperated. "We've been through this for the past five corners. All demon activity is centred in the maintenance hall and the locker rooms close to there."

As she said this, she showed Shikieiki her computer, pointing to the large mass of red dots in the two areas she mentioned.

"Honestly, the tech doesn't lie. Trust me on this one. I'm an engineer."

Shikieiki sighed. "All right, but just in case, I'm just going to conduct a head count to see if we're all here."

"Fine then, have it your way," Nitori replied while rolling her eyes. She then looked at the cluster of seven green dots on her screen. With a huff, she chalked it up to Shikieiki just being a worrywart.

"Hey, just to clarify, can you explain to me how your detection system works again?"

Nitori raised a brow but did not bother to look away from her screen. "Sure, I guess. It uses the facility's numerous cameras and sensors to track the movements and even heartbeats of everyone within the area of the floor we're in. However, an area that wide would consume a lot of power and I cannot risk having my laptop die on me. So, I set it to display a simplified 2D view to prolong battery life."

"Okay, I get it, I get it, no need to go full tech on me," she heard Shikieiki grumble. But she noticed a hint of concern in her tone. She looked up to find her staring worriedly behind them. "How many people do you see on your screen right now?"

Fear began to creep up to Nitori. She refreshed her screen 20 times to confirm and re-confirm the number of dots she saw. "Seven, why?"

"Because from what I see," Shikieiki answered. "We're the only ones here."

Nitori slammed her laptop shut and swung around to look behind her. Her eyes snapped wide open in shock to see that everyone, aside from them, had vanished. "What?!"

"I knew it!", grunted Shikieiki, gripping her shotgun tight. "I knew something was off!"

"Indeed, you are not wrong in deducing that, Judge," answered a low, distorted voice from behind them.

Both Nitori and Shikieiki spun round to find a lanky bespectacled elf-like youkai glaring at them with his arms crossed. Unlike the demons that they have encountered, or even the self-proclaimed demon commander Jager that Shikieiki faced, he was clad in a torn lab coat. Through the tears, they could see his veins bulging, converging towards a spot covered by his clothes.

"However," he continued, pushing his glasses up. "It is not they who have vanished but it was you two instead!"

Beads of cold sweat were forming on the foreheads of both girls, a look of shock visible only through their open eyes.

"Where did they go?!", Sanae and Komachi yelled in unison. "After they turned the corner, Nitori and Shiki just disappeared!"

"If I knew I would've told you," Marisa said as she scratched her head. "Ay, Reimu. You figure this mystery yet?"

However, to Marisa's annoyance, Reimu was busy slowly waving her arms around like a person looking for an item in the dark. "Oi! Reimu!"

"This is odd…", Reimu muttered, ignoring her friend. "They may be gone but I can feel their presence in this very hallway." She then walked to Sanae and asked, "You feel it as well, right?"

Sanae nodded. "But that's what's driving me nuts right now, Reimu. I've been looking around for any suspicious object or device but all I see is this darn map on the wall in front of us. The nameplate itself is baffling me already." Pointing towards the map in question, she grumbled, "Why have it plated in shining gold? It's not like this map is anything special. Heck, we've seen the same one for the past five corners but all of them had plain metal nameplates."

"Hmm?" Reimu's brow rose and she slowly walked up to the map. Sanae was right about how the map was practically the same. It was the map of the floor and the only thing that changed was the 'You are here!' markings on the map's right side. It was the only way to know where they were as the floorplan was almost identical on both sides. She then inspected the nameplate. It was not just plated in shining gold, it was shining gold. And it was polished well too as she could easily see her reflection on the nameplate's surface.

'What is going on?'

"Take a good look around you," he ordered. "Notice anything?"

Shikieiki scanned the hallway for any possible magic barriers or portals but she could find none. She did, however, notice how the map on the wall had the 'You are here!' mark on the left side instead of the right.

Nitori, on the other hand, was attempting to identify the youkai before her. He could possibly a member of staff as he wore a lab coat and she already knew of the cult that followed the deranged 'Orin'. If she could just figure out his identity, or at least his abilities, she could find a way out of this mess.

"This place… is an inversion of the hallway, isn't it?", Shikieiki asked.

Removing his glasses and keeping them in his lab coat pocket, he replied, "Yes and no. It is true that this is an 'inverted' area. However, this 'inversion' extends to this entire floor."

Snapping his fingers, two red flaming orbs appeared on either side of him. "My name is Presto. Welcome to my 'Looking Glass'."

A/N: Sorry for the rather short chapter. I wanted to make it a bit longer but university work has been piling up lately so I'm going to have to make this a multi-part thing. Hopefully, I'll be able to publish more after a while.