The two captains, Yor and Chisato, agreed with everyone's proposal.
They made one thing especially clear: the team's overall performance came first. No one was to act recklessly for points. Avoiding casualties and preventing accidents mattered more than anything else.
After reaching a consensus, the group split into teams.
The first team consisted of Kaguya, Yor, and Ai Hayasaka.
The second team consisted of Yui, Yumiko, and Ryuji Momo.
The third team consisted of Chisato, Takina, Kurumi, and Mizuki.
The fourth team consisted of Yukino, Haruno, Shizuka Hiratsuka, and Sae Chabashira.
The final team consisted of Utaha, Eriri, Sayuri, and Megumi Katō.
In total, they were divided into five teams.
Each team had to do everything they could to protect the more vulnerable members, such as Sayuri and Kurumi—Walnut—so as to ensure their safety.
"Alright, everyone, move out!" Chisato called. "The moment you find the target, make as much noise as you can and alert the others immediately!"
Once the plan was set, everyone moved without hesitation.
From the highest point of the hospital, Yami Tsukishiro stood in silence, watching the figures below as they sprang into action.
There was no chaos.
No selfish scramble for points.
No one was trying to outshine the others.
Seeing that, a faint look of satisfaction appeared in his eyes.
This was exactly what he had wanted.
Unity. Cooperation. Teamwork.
Still, Yami Tsukishiro had no intention of stepping in easily during this assessment. Even if someone ended up seriously injured—even if they suffered something as severe as a broken arm or leg—he would not help lightly.
Because this was not a game.
This was real combat.
The point of the mission was to make them experience the weight of life and death for themselves.
Inside the academy, they could charge forward without fear.
But the real world was different.
Far crueler.
Only by facing that reality could they truly understand what power meant.
Yami Tsukishiro's gaze slowly shifted toward the window of one of the hospital's operating rooms.
Inside, an evil monster far beyond the girls' imagination was quietly lurking in the darkness.
"Grow stronger," he murmured.
The night breeze carried that quiet hope away.
A moment later, his attention turned toward the lives in the hospital that had not yet been touched by the monsters.
There was no doubt about it.
They were human.
Survivors still hiding somewhere inside the hospital.
Yami Tsukishiro was not the kind of man who carried some noble desire to save the world.
But when faced with people trapped in despair, utterly helpless, it was hardly difficult for him to lend a hand—especially when he had more than enough power to do so.
Once he confirmed their positions, his figure vanished from the rooftop in an instant.
…
Outside the Curse Domain, heavily armed troops had already surrounded the entire hospital.
They were fully prepared to respond to any emergency.
After reporting the situation to his superiors and receiving clear instructions, the commanding officer lowered his military phone and turned his eyes toward the sealed hospital.
Now, all they could do was wait.
At that moment, something in the shadow near one of the armored vehicles suddenly moved.
The officer's eyes sharpened at once.
He stared carefully—and then froze.
To his shock, a figure in a hospital gown slowly stepped out from the writhing black shadow.
"A patient?! Soldiers!!"
The officer roared at the top of his lungs.
His voice rang out across the area, calling the soldiers over at once.
This, of course, was Yami Tsukishiro's doing.
He had been safely transferring the survivors out one by one.
But even so, his expression remained grim as he walked the blood-soaked corridor.
The stench of blood hung thick in the air.
The floor was smeared red.
Along the way, curses and monsters burst out from hiding again and again, only to be swallowed instantly by the endless darkness spreading beneath his feet, vanishing without a trace.
Yet the reason Yami Tsukishiro was frowning had nothing to do with them.
It was because he had noticed something deeply strange.
Up to this point, every survivor he had successfully escorted out had been a seriously ill patient.
And what confused him even more was how they had survived.
The monsters had passed right by them without harming them at all.
Not far from those same survivors, mutilated corpses lay scattered across the floor, their internal organs torn apart and left in bloody pieces by the evil spirits.
That alone was enough to prove the monsters had killed people right in front of them.
And yet… they had spared these patients.
In that instant, a thought flashed through Yami Tsukishiro's mind.
He began analyzing the common traits they all shared.
Not only that, several of them appeared to be suffering from terminal illnesses that current medical technology could not cure.
It was a grim discovery.
And a deeply unsettling one.
For some reason, it reminded him of an old movie he had once seen.
World War Z.
In that world, a sudden zombie outbreak had swallowed society whole, dragging everything into chaos and panic like a living nightmare.
People ran in terror, desperately searching for somewhere safe, only to be hunted down all the same.
And yet, within that nightmare, the protagonist discovered something unexpected.
The zombies ignored humans who were already gravely ill.
That same strange phenomenon now seemed to be happening here.
Which only made Yami Tsukishiro more certain that something was off.
"…The last one."
He spoke the words quietly to himself.
Before he realized it, he had already arrived in front of the final ward.
Maybe here, he would finally be able to confirm his suspicion.
The door opened on its own.
A gust of wind slipped inside, carrying with it the sharp, unpleasant smell of medicine.
The windows were wide open.
As the door swung wider, the air inside and outside the room began to mix.
The wind grew stronger.
White curtains fluttered softly in the moonlight.
Bathed in that pale glow, Yami Tsukishiro could clearly see the scene inside.
A thin black-haired girl was sitting against the hospital bed.
She gently brushed aside the strands of hair blown across her face by the wind, then turned to look at him standing in the doorway, her eyes filled with confusion.
"Are you… a monster?" she asked in a hoarse voice. "Or a patient here?"
Yami Tsukishiro took a few slow steps forward.
"Neither."
His sharp gaze swept across her in an instant, and from her haggard, withered appearance alone, he made his judgment.
There was no doubt about it.
The girl before him was a seriously ill patient, someone whose body had already been worn down by suffering.
To confirm it, he activated his observation ability once more and focused on the girl.
[Name]: Konnoki Watuki
[Rank]: Level 0
[Race]: Human
[Meme]:
A-Rank: Gene Lock
[Status]: Infected with the HIV virus, has been without treatment for a long time, severely malnourished, heavily eroded by negative energy.
AIDS is on the verge of fully breaking out, and death is imminent.
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