Chapter 118: The Kaguya Impostor
Everyone stared at the single, abruptly written word on the table. The basement fell into a brief, tense silence.
"Who on earth left this?" the blonde man couldn't help but ask. "There's no beginning or end to it. What is it trying to say? Why is this entire instance just one riddle after another?"
"Could it be a trap?" Tao Shou said warily. "I remember that guy, Lu Bowen, was the last one to leave the cabin. Maybe he's trying to lead us in the wrong direction on purpose?"
"No," Yotsuya Miko shook her head, her expression firm. "At that point, he hadn't yet started cooperating with the ghost." She turned her gaze to Haruto. "Haruto, what do you think?"
"I actually know who wrote this," Haruto began, spreading his hands in a casual shrug. "But I can't guess the real instance task—well, it's not that I can't guess, I just can't be certain."
The first half of his sentence made everyone's eyes light up with hope, but the second half left them utterly baffled.
If anyone else had said such a thing, they would have dismissed it as nonsense. Wasn't the instance's objective written in plain sight on the wall in letters of blood? But coming from Haruto, the statement carried an entirely different weight.
"Don't dwell on what I said," he continued, his tone nonchalant. "If I've guessed correctly, with our current strength, it's impossible to win. But if she doesn't stop you, you can just wait for the TV to turn on and the well to appear, then try throwing Sadako's remains inside."
A chill washed over the group.
Impossible to win?
The words struck Yotsuya Miko and Tao Shou particularly hard, for they had witnessed a fraction of Haruto's true power.
Tao Shou's voice trembled as he asked, "Why can't we win? Is there something we haven't noticed? And... Big Shot, don't you still have those talisman cards your sisters and elders gave you?"
Yotsuya Miko also looked at Haruto, her expression laced with nervousness. She knew his strength better than anyone present, save for Kaguya. Even in their third instance, when facing a so-called "false god," Haruto had maintained a relaxed and composed demeanor, treating the life-or-death struggle as little more than a vacation.
But now... from the moment the rope snapped, to Lu Bowen's reappearance in the bamboo forest and his mysterious transformation into a monster, Haruto had grown increasingly serious.
"The talisman cards Yukari and the others gave me can indeed kill the opponent," Haruto explained, his gaze distant. "But they can't kill them completely. To put it another way, the opponent can resurrect infinitely, both in body and soul."
"B-Big Shot, you're not joking, are you? This is only my second instance... How can it be this hard?" Tao Shou's voice was shaking uncontrollably.
The blonde man had already slumped to the ground, his face a mask of utter hopelessness. If what the big shot said was true, this was where they were all going to die.
"Why would I lie to you?" Haruto gave them a sidelong glance. "If that thing had chosen any one of you, or even me, we wouldn't be losing. But as it happens, she chose Kaguya."
Everyone froze. In perfect unison, their heads snapped toward Kaguya.
Kaguya, who had been standing silently, seemed momentarily taken aback. Then, the corners of her lips curled into a subtle, knowing smile. She gracefully smoothed her skirt and settled into the wooden chair behind her.
The look she gave them was no longer a disguise. It was laced with a faint, unconcealed mockery.
Haruto's words had revealed far too much. Combined with the single, incomplete character on the table, it was proof enough: besides them, Sadako, and those rabbits, another person existed here—someone who was either deliberately avoiding them, or someone they simply couldn't see.
The answer was clearly the latter.
And that invisible person was Kaguya.
A wave of terror washed over the group. They took two stumbling steps back in unison, putting as much distance as they could between themselves and the woman who looked like Kaguya.
"Not bad," she clapped softly, a playful smile gracing her exquisite features as her gaze swept over them.
"When did you start to notice?"
Her question was a confession. The lack of denial confirmed Haruto's every suspicion, and the faces of the other players grew even more rigid with fear.
"From your initial reticence," Haruto said calmly. "It wasn't exactly silence, but your gaze was always fixed on me. I felt something was off back then, but I didn't pay it much mind. What truly made me suspicious was your performance when we were analyzing the blood words. It was too leading. You told us there might be a fake among the players and that the words might have been tampered with. That only made me more suspicious of you."
He continued, his logic sharp and cutting. "By that stage, I was already on alert. So when we went down to the basement, I had you answer the ghost's phone call. If you were the real Kaguya, you would have acted without a second thought. But you hesitated. You were worried Sadako would disrupt your plans."
"And outside, your suggestion to leave was just a pretext to use Lu Bowen as your pawn. With Kaguya's appearance and power, you easily made him revere you like a goddess, to the point where he would willingly sacrifice his life for you. Am I right?"
The woman who wore Kaguya's face didn't answer. She simply sat there, her dark, unblinking eyes fixed on Haruto.
"It's fine if you don't answer," Haruto curled his lip in disdain. "When Lu Bowen was thrown into the well, you were the one who paused time, weren't you? After stopping time, you forcibly snapped the rope. Being able to do that shows you not only possess all of Kaguya's strength but also aren't suppressed by the instance's rules. And the extra line in the blood words... you probably added that yourself, using the power of Eternity and the Instant to make it impossible to erase."
Stopping time?
The words sent a shockwave through the room. Yotsuya Miko managed to remain relatively calm, but the others were already dumbfounded, their mouths agape.
If that was true... how were they supposed to fight?
Not only could she tamper with the rules of the instance, but she was also immortal and could pause time itself? Even a true god might only be at that level.
A thick, suffocating despair spread through their hearts. They finally understood what Haruto meant when he said they couldn't win. If the opponent hadn't chosen Kaguya, they might have stood a chance.
But right from the start, she had taken out their strongest player and stolen all of her power.
How do you fight that?
How on earth could they possibly win?
"Back then, I used one of Yukari's talisman cards to forcibly probe the entire instance, which confirmed my suspicions," Haruto's expression grew grave as he stared at the fake Kaguya. "But there's one thing I don't understand... My probe showed nothing unusual about you. Why?"
A confident, almost smug smile appeared on the impostor's face. "If Yakumo Yukari had come in person, she might have seen through my nature. But with just a single talisman card? How could it possibly uncover the truth?"
Haruto walked to the table, staring at the single, incomplete character. "This was supposed to be the character 'Zi' (自), wasn't it?" he mused, tracing the stroke in the air. "It's just that the real Kaguya didn't have time to finish writing it."
Clap. Clap. Clap.
The fake Kaguya rose from her chair and walked slowly toward Haruto, her eyes filled with genuine appreciation. "As expected of my dear Ryuko."
She reached out her hand. "Ryuko, how about you come for a walk with me? If you're willing, I can end this instance right now. You should understand that as long as I wished it, none of you would have had the slightest chance of winning from the very beginning. The moment this instance opened, you had already lost."
Haruto didn't take her hand. "Indeed. From the moment you chose Kaguya and successfully copied her, we were likely destined to have no chance. But you should also be clear about something: from the very start, you had already lost. You cannot win."
The fake Kaguya's hand froze in mid-air. She didn't respond.
Everyone else, stunned by the sudden turn of events, felt a glimmer of hope rekindle in their hearts. From Haruto's tone, it seemed there was still a way out.
"Since you possess Kaguya's memories, you should know very well that Yukari would never sit idly by," Haruto continued, his voice cold and certain. "When the time comes, not only her, but Eirin will also enter this place to completely eliminate you. Even if you possess Kaguya's full strength, you have absolutely no chance of winning against them."
"So, from start to finish, there has only ever been one way for you to win: by making me choose you. By convincing me and, by extension, Yukari, to help you. To let you become the real Kaguya."
Hearing this, though still a bit confused, the other players roughly understood.
They were the ones with the upper hand after all.
The people backing Haruto were unimaginably powerful.
They could win!
"Sigh~" The impostor let out a light, theatrical sigh. She then smiled sweetly, tucking a watercolor pen she was holding into her sleeve. "The Ryuko of today is quite cute, but he tends to overthink things. And his brain is still a bit lacking."
Haruto frowned, then summoned a small mirror from a gap in space.
When he saw the crude furball pattern that had been drawn on his face at some unknown point, his entire expression instantly darkened.
"You bastard," he growled. "You even copied her unscrupulous personality along with everything else."
"This was always my personality; there's no such thing as copying," the fake Kaguya snorted and walked slowly toward him.
Haruto's brow furrowed, but he didn't retreat. He wanted to see what this impostor intended to do.
She reached out and pinched his cheek, then rose slightly on her tiptoes and gave him a quick, soft kiss on the forehead.
"You bastard!"
A phantom figure flickered into existence out of thin air.
It was none other than the real Kaguya. Before her form had even fully solidified, she pulled a talisman card from her sleeve and gave it a light squeeze. Her previously illusory body instantly became solid, and without a moment's hesitation, she delivered a fierce, flying kick.
The fake Kaguya was sent tumbling across the floor, rolling several times before coming to a stop. She rubbed her waist, grimacing as she muttered under her breath.
"Furball it... I forgot about this part. I really shouldn't have delivered that kick back then..."
Haruto's cold gaze fell upon her. "Do you have anything else to say?"
The fake Kaguya bared her teeth, then stood up and spread her hands in a gesture of surrender. "What else can I say? Since you're unwilling to go for a walk with me, Ryuko, then... goodbye."
As she spoke, her right hand suddenly shot up and gripped her own neck. Her knuckles turned white as her fingers dug into her skin, tightening with terrifying force—
Thud.
Under everyone's astonished gazes, her head fell cleanly to the floor. Her body collapsed beside it, gradually dissipating into motes of light and vanishing into nothingness.
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