A volley of fireballs was hurled at a rapid rate, their immense heat causing the hallway to begin to feel stuffy. The engineer kappa had been taking shelter behind the corner while the Judge leaped and somersaulted her way towards the demon named Presto. However, no matter how many she bobbed and weaved through, no matter how bounds forwards she made, Presto seemed to be getting further and further away while remaining still. She uttered a curse under her breath. While her shotgun may be powerful and her supply of ammunition never seemed to deplete, all of that meant nothing if her target was not in firing range.

"Cease your efforts," Presto commanded with a stern look, his floating dual array of fireballs never letting up. "Acknowledge the futility of your struggle and accept your death peacefully. I am not one to waste time."

"Don't listen to him, Shiki!", cried Nitori from her cover. "Just hang in tight, I'm looking for a way out of here!"

"That's what you said five minutes ago!", Shikieiki snapped back, her voice raised a bit too high from barely missing a fireball to the face. "Besides, the name's Eiki, goddammit!" She then let out a pained yelp as one fireball grazed her.

"I'm trying, I'm trying!", replied Nitori. But truth be told, she had no idea where to even begin looking for an exit. Instead she was transfixed on the ongoing battle, analysing the situation. 'Dang it! He must be manipulating the distance somehow to keep her away from him! How else is she not making any progress even when she is dashing like mad? Wait. That's not answering the real issue here. How the hell did we get here?!' Her laptop was running scans to detect any trace of magic or energy fluctuations but the only ones it detected were those that were emanating from Shiki and that demon, Presto.

'Crap.'

She swiped off the beads of sweat that formed on her forehead as her brain racked to figure out this mystery. Her hand was gripping a fistful of own hair to try to calm herself down because she knew that she did not have much time. She has seen what those fireballs can do to the wall behind Shiki and there was only so much dodging that Shiki could do before she slips up or run out of breath.

A Judge she may be but a mortal she still is.

"GYAHH!"

A wail of agony snapped Nitori out of deep thought, causing her face to contort with immense fear.

"SHIKI!"

"IT'S EIKI, DAMMIT!", yelled Eiki amidst the hail of fireballs. "AND FIND SOMETHING TO GET US OUT OF HERE!"

"OK!", Nitori screamed back and went rummaging through her rucksack.

'Damnitdamnitdamnitdamnitdamnit! What am I supposed to do?! There's nothing in here that can help! Water bottle, goggles, change of clothes, notepad, first aid kit; these are my work supplies! Dang it, Yukari! Give me a head's up first before dragging me into this!'

Her chest felt tight as her heartrate soared. Despite the heat, cold sweat flowed down her forehead and tears welled up by the edge of her panicked eyes. Her head tried to think of a solution but the immense pressure blocked out any sense of reason.

As Nitori was in a panic, the Judge nursed her leg that, while not taking a direct hit, was grazed by a fireball close enough to burn it. It was not a serious burn but a burn nonetheless. Her eyes frantically looked around for anything she could use to ease the pain but Presto would not let up. If anything, it was almost as though he was now mocking her injury by hurling fireballs towards her legs; forcing her to jump more. She winced with every jump as her leg muscles rippled to soften the landing, aggravating the pain of the burn.

'Damn, he knows!', she cursed inwardly. 'His volleys are now directed at my legs instead of my head. Cocky bastard. He's trying to wear me down! I need to look something to ease the pain. Nitori's no good. She's probably got only her work things on her.'

As she was searching and limping around Presto's attacks, she caught a glimpse at the nameplate beneath the floorplan on the wall. It was a metallic item and was reasonably far enough away to remain cool from the heat. Now with a clear objective, she dragged herself towards it.

'Wait, something's off,' she thought as she approached it. She noticed an oddity on the nameplate itself but was not sure what it was. Inching closer towards it, she saw it! She then shot a fierce look towards Nitori, a high-risk plan that just might work was about to be set in motion.

From Presto's perspective, the fierce glare looked like the breaking down of the psyche of a weakling that put up a face of bravado. He had seen it before; they always start blaming their friends or plead for help when death lingers. His sly slender eyes grinned in silent glee to see that the strong prey has finally shown her true colours. The flustered shades of red on Nitori's cheeks and her look of shock told him that it was probably the blame and anger. How beautiful.

'My co-workers always looked down on me for being the observant person I am. Too weird, too creepy, bah! They never knew that I knew what they were truly like on the inside: heartless, greedy and selfish. No one makes 'friends'. They get together for mutual interest and leave them in the dust when they gain nothing. It takes a few nudges to push towards the edge and make that side shine. This is no different. With my ability, Looking Glass, this is too easy. We'll see, Judge Eiki! Who shall be judged right here? You or me? I cannot wait to see your agony up close!'

However, he thought wrong! Since he was looking at the Judge from a side profile angle, he did not see that a ferocious smirk accompanied the glare! A look of determination and power!

'What are you thinking, Shiki?!', Nitori seemed to ask with her eyes. 'I can't read minds so you're gonna hafta spell it out for me!' The determined look that the Judge was giving her was telling her that she figured it out. But what? What was it? Was it something she missed? Did technology fail her at the most crucial moment? What, what, what?!

As if sensing her confusion, the Judge pointed towards the nameplate with her shotgun before resuming her dodges. Nitori looked at the nameplate in question. It was too far away for her to see from her current position but she also did not want to risk running into the hallway of balls of fire so she reached into her ruck sack and fished for a pair of her handmade goggles. The goggles, unassuming in nature, had many functions including zoom, multiple types of vision within the spectrum of light and the ability to have her own interactive interface to easily do things a normal smartphone can do like arrange meetings. She had loads of those. Did not like them.

Donning the goggles, she zoomed in closer to inspect the nameplate. Her eyes grew wide. It was unbelievably shiny and reflective! It was also gold rather the normal dull steel which piqued her interest even further. But what stood out the most was the reflection: the fireballs were coming from behind the Judge!

'WHAT?!', blurted Nitori mentally. 'The fireballs were coming from behind this whole time?! Why does it still appear like it was coming from the front-!' A flash of realisation struck Nitori! She now knew what the Judge was planning. But that meant she began to worry whether Shiki would be able to pull it off or if her assumption was correct at all. Life or death hung at the balance of this one assumption!

'Come on, come on! You can do it!', she cheered in her mind as her eyes were transfixed on every movement Shiki made, hoping that she would be able to make it to the nameplate.

Every hop, every jump, every limp forward; her eyes followed in anticipation and anxiety. The heat and humidity of the environment made her sweat but it could not compare to the chilling grip of fear that caked her in beads of icy cold drops.

She gulped.

Shiki missed a step and fell but got up on her feet in time to avoid a fireball to the head.

It was a heart-stopping moment but the fall helped Shiki slide closer to it. While her shotgun did misfire; the pellets marking the area near the nameplate, it did not matter. She was now in reach.

Nitori's teeth clenched. Her breath held. What was Shiki going to do now? She was right there. What would she do? What? What? What?!

Then, with inhuman reflexes, Shiki propelled herself away from the incoming wall of fireballs with her injured leg and spun around in mid-air to face away from Presto. Nitori's jaw dropped, surprised at the course of action taken. Her face asked a multitude of questions that were never going to be answered on the spot as she then saw Shiki flick her shotgun into firing position and shot at the empty hallway, away from Presto. Time appeared to crawl as Nitori's eyes tracked the movement of the shotgun pellets. Then, instead of hitting the wall at the end of the hallway, the pellets hit an invisible person-shaped wall which, if the outline provided from the blood spatters were to suggest, got stunned back and keeled over in pain.

A triumphant smirk cracked on Shiki's face; it told Nitori that whatever Shiki had planned worked. She could not take it. Her pent-up anxiety took over and she felt the strong to say something. Anything! "Shiki! W-w-what the hell was that?!", she half-stammered. "No, seriously – what the heck was that?! What were you thinking?!"

"Why don't you see for yourself?", replied Shiki while pointing behind her.

Nitori snapped her head to look behind Shiki and saw that Presto was bloodied and on his knees. She then snapped back towards Shiki, "Yeah, I know that but that still does not explain how you did, well, all of that?!"

"Heh."

Heh?

"What?", blurted Nitori.

Shiki stood up, her smirk remaining in place, and turned to Nitori. "You know, for an engineer, I thought you'd be a lot more perceptive than this."

Nitori's face flushed with anger but Shiki did not give her a chance to speak her mind.

"I know that you know that we both saw the weird reflection on that map nameplate. It was in reverse. In that reflection, the fireballs came from behind me instead of the front which meant that I've been going about this the wrong way. However, that also meant that I've figured out how Presto's trick works. The problem was I didn't know how."

Nitori watched as Shiki knelt again to aim her shotgun towards the groaning demon. "So, you meant to say that, despite not knowing how Presto was even doing what he was doing or if what you thought he was doing was correct at all, you took a gamble on it?!", she exasperated.

"That's right!", was her friend's reply, much to her disbelief, annoyance and a mixture of emotions that could not be explained. "You see, the misfire my shotgun had earlier wasn't a misfire at all—it was a test to prove my point."

Wha-?

"You are aware that a shotgun shell contains multiple pellets, right?"

Nitori nods.

"Well, I thought if my assumptions were true, he would have had to pull us into this place in one way or another and I couldn't shake the feeling that that nameplate right there was the answer to it all."

Shiki points towards the area of the misfire. "Notice how the nameplate remained untouched? By right, at least one pellet was guaranteed to hit it especially given the range and yet, it's clean."

Skeptical, Nitori approached the nameplate with caution to investigate this claim. She checked up and down; no blemish was to be found. She was, understandably, dumbfounded. Then, it hit her. The arrow of realisation hit her like a baseball to the face; the key to their predicament lay with that nameplate. "Wait, if that many pellets missed the nameplate then that means that they never missed at all! They went through!", she exclaimed with her hands waving in front of her. "And if they went through, that means that it must be a portal of sorts!"

Whizz!

She suddenly heard something zipping by. Coincidentally, her hands felt light all of a sudden. She took one look at them and began trembling. All the blood in her face vanished. Her palms were now empty charred holes. "Ah…ah…ahhhhh! My hands!"

"You…you thought you could get rid of me so easily, huh?!"

Her head snapped towards the voice, her heart now dropping to the ground; Presto was on his feet and in the proper direction from which he was shot at. "Did you really think that you could forget about ME?!", he roared, his bulging pulsating heart fully visible on his chest as Nitori saw that, with his lab coat torn up by Shiki's shotgun, his protruding veins were centred towards his heart. She was not sure what he had done or undergone to have his heart grow to that size or even be as fascinatingly gross as it was. What she did know was that it made him look terrifying.

Presto staggered as Shiki proceeded to shoot him over and over with a seemingly endless supply of shells. But, much to Nitori's horror, he kept moving towards them. One stride at a time.

He began to cackle as he realised that the shotgun did nothing to him. "Idiots! You are only delaying the inevitable! Once I get my hands on you, I will take immense pleasure in watching your eyeballs pop out of their sockets as I wring your neck dry!"

He then turned his wild gaze towards Shiki. "You!", he shouted with conviction as he pointed an accusing finger. "You think you're so clever with your wits and theories about how my [Looking Glass] works. Hoo boy. But I must confess, you really fooled me there with that crazed angry look you had earlier towards your friend there. Yeah. Got me good."

Nitori ignored the pain in her hands as she was now confused. And by the raised brow on her shotgun-toting partner, so was Shiki.

"Here I was thinking that I could finally see it: I, Presto, bringing out the true base instinct of people out of the Judge of Paradise herself. You know how people are, don't you? Soulless, condescending maggots that only suck up to you because you can do something for them. No one cared who I was until someone wanted a diagnostics test or fix their machines. But did they care about me? NO!"

By this point, Shiki has stopped shooting as she was shocked by the sudden outburst of anger and his outlook in society. At least, that was what Nitori thought as she felt the same way.

"But…", Presto continued, prompting Nitori to keep whatever she had in mind on hold. "That all changed when co-founder Orin approached me. She told me that the Underground was in dire need of a social uprising. An upheaval. A revolution. To restore Hell to what it once was. I thought it was all nonsense but then she offered me something special; this body. She told me that she needed help strong-arming some of my colleagues into cooperating and that she also needed someone to act as both a prototype for this vessel of demonic energy and quelling any resistance the employees made."

"And you're telling us this, why?", Shiki asked with uncertainty.

"Silence!", he bellowed. "You're going to die anyway so I might as well tell you as you would be the last people hearing it."

'Wow… Just wow,', thought Nitori.

"With my disdain for this dreadful excuse we call 'society', I whole-heartedly accepted! And then—"

"I'm sorry but can you just… get to the point already?", Nitori interrupted meekly. "Not to be rude or anythin' but you did burn holes into my hands and I'd rather you finish up quick before I start contemplating killing myself to be rid of your babbling."

"I don't… how could you… what the… argh! Fine! If only it means killing you first…", he grumbled. "To cut to the chase, my [Looking Glass] is essentially a separate mirror dimension of my own. As the name suggests, it pulls people in via reflection. Once in this pocket dimension of mine, your vision is the opposite of what it should be. What's written left-to right is right-to-left and what's in front of you is behind you. The only constant is the portal of entry. Now, I don't know how you deduced that yourself, Judge, but the fact remains that it was all in vain! If my heart is untouched, I will remain impervious to even death itself! No number of bullets can kill me! I don't even need my ability to end your lives; I'll just burn pretty holes into your skulls and let my name be immortalised in the black remains of your brains!"

He then lights up his hands, creating two large flaming fireballs. Nitori felt helpless as she saw Shiki try shooting his hands to no avail. She closed her eyes. There was nothing else she could do. Wait. The nameplate from earlier. If the pellets did indeed go through and, as Presto confirmed, it was a portal, didn't that mean that...

Squish!

'This was it,', Nitori thought. 'My life has come to an end. I hope Marisa doesn't cry for me when she finds my—wait. I don't recall burning being associated with wet squishiness before.'

Nitori slowly opened her eyes. As vision returned to her bit by bit, she could see that Presto was now standing still, his fireballs gone. His face a look of shock, fear and disbelief. Through his chest, a feminine hand was gripping his squished deformed heart.

"Cheers, ze! The cavalry's here! At least, I think that's how the line went…", she heard a familiar voice say. "Marisa? Is that you?"

Emerging from behind Presto, out came Marisa and Sanae walking towards her. Tears began to flow from her face. However, she noticed something was amiss; Reimu was not present.

"Hey, where's Reimu?"

Marisa said nothing, pointing towards the figure standing over the now dead Presto's body with his heart still in her hand.

"Jeez, why do I have to do this part? You have a .50 calibre revolver, for crying out loud, Marisa!"

"Gotta save 'munitions, y'know? 'Sides, you have that nifty trick of 'floating' in and out of reality so that means that you could literally phase through his chest and kill him."

"Fuck you."

"You're welcome."

'Ah, still at it I see,', thought Nitori with an uneasy smile. Then, she felt a firm grip on her hands. "Oh, my goodness! Nitori! Are you alright?"

She looked up to see that it was Sanae who held her hands, her eyes looking like they were about to cry. "Naw, this is nothing," she assured her. "I think I've got a first-aid kit somewhere in that rucksack of mine. Would you be a gal and fetch it?"

With a determined nod, Sanae went over to her rucksack and came back with the kit. She opened it up and saw all of the usual things one would find in a first aid kit. The green spray bottle, however, struck her as odd as Nitori saw her brow raise a bit.

"Ah, that there is a multi-purpose aid spray,", Nitori said. "Use that on my hands and then go over and use it on Shiki's burnt leg."

"Isn't it supposed to be Eiki because Shiki is her last name?", Sanae asked.

"Whatever, it's short and rolls off the tongue better," huffed Nitori. "Now hurry up and spray."

Sanae then applied the spray as instructed. Sure enough, despite Sanae's perceived apprehensiveness, both Nitori's and Shiki's wounds were fully healed after a few seconds.

"Whoa, Nitori, how does that stuff work?!", exclaimed a surprised Shiki as she tested her healed leg.

"It is laced with stem cells that are programmed to quickly identify any damaged cell and then replace it and multiply to regenerate any wounds."

"So, like healing sprays from Resident Evil then?", Sanae asked.

"What's a 'Resident Evil'?", Nitori answered which prompted the green-haired shrine maiden to wave it off and sigh in despair.

She looked around to see that the whole team was reunited. She could only hope that the others and fellow survivors have been this lucky.

"Wait, hold up,", blurted Nitori, the question that had been at the back of mind since the reunion re-emerged. "How did you guys find us in the first place?"

"Oh, that? We were inspecting that nameplate because it looked weird when all of a sudden iron pellets came right out of it!", answered Sanae. "Nearly blinded Reimu and I!"

Nitori could feel a smug aura from Shiki's general direction.

"Heheh, 'I'."

"Dear lord, Marisa, really?", Sanae exasperated. "That's such a lame pun."

"See, even Sanae thinks your puns are bad,", Reimu butted in.

"Heh, 'see'."

"...dammnit."

In an unknown sector not found anywhere on the facility's map, the pained wails and shrieks of a woman could be heard. She had been locked away in there ever since Olivia's plan had been set into motion. Staring with dead eyes, every crack of the wall was counted as it was her only means of keeping her sanity intact. This…thing that she had become. The fate that had fallen upon her. She did not want anyone to find her in such a state. Feeling it coming with movement, pulse and convulsion in her, she let out an inhuman scream that echoed throughout the sector.

Another one had been born.

Death, she felt, was the only salvation for her.

A/N: Yo! Sorry for the long hiatus. Been busy adjusting to my new accommodation in university among other things. Hopefully, it won't take me 4 months to publish a new chapter. Till next time!