"This place..." Yuuko mutters as she looks around.

Surrounding her are wooden Japanese building in the style of the first half 20th century. Based on how sparse the scenery is, she concludes that this may be a village somewhere in Japan. She is outside the school yet it is still unsafe because the red world also covers here. The bright sun is right above her head yet there is no sun light at all, only the red light shone down. This world's sun is eerie like a moon in a cloudy night. With the void of human presence, this place looks like a desserted village commonly seen in horror movie. It is too quiet that sound of tree branches moved by the wind can be heard clearly.

The samurai armor girl surveys the surrounding to look for that slit mouth woman but there is no sign of her. Instead, she finds a notice board right next to a house. The picture posted on there catches her attention and she approaches to read the article about it.

"June 28th 1956 Culprit of the mouth ripping incidents is on rampage: 38th victim detected." The title of the article says.

It reports that a serial murder was going on with the victims all have their mouths ripped off and bodies cut in many places. The crime took place mainly in the countryside, at the center of Japan. Police has begun their investigation for more than 3 months but there is no result. The number of victim just keeps increasing and citizen has lost their trust in police. The victims are all beautiful women in 20s without any common traits. One strange thing that occured to all of them is that their corpses disappeared right before funeral day. Even with tight protection, the corpses still mysteriously vanished without explanation. People suspected that the culprit is actually a ghost having grudge against beautiful women.

The picture is the face of a woman with her mouth completely gone. Between the jaw and the nose is only ground flesh. Her eyes shows the terror she saw when facing the murderer.

Reading the article, Just when Yuuko frowns her eye brows, her sense of danger ticks off. A hand holding a knife suddenly appears on the notice board and stabs at her eyes. She swings her sword cutting that hand off then moves her leg to kick the board. The hand burns into dust and the board turns back to normal. However, the noise has stirred up the silence of the place and footsteps can be heard in all four directions.

Surrounding her are the women she killed at the school gate but they are different now. Firstly, their masks are gone, revealing the faces behind. Their mouths deform in many terrible ways that describe how crazy the culprit who did that is. Some have their cheek skin torn off, some have teeth all pointing out of the mouth, some have mouths bended in strange angle, and there are persons without a mouth. Comparing to them, the leader's mouth is the least deformed as it is only slit from ear to ear. If a normal person sees this scene, he may faint on the spot. Even Yuuko feels shiver all over her body.

Their eyes are all focusing on the girl in armor. If piercing people with gazes was possible, Yuuko would be dead many time. She gets into combat stance and concentrates only in one thing: kill them all again.

Unlike before, they use many weapons this time: pitchforks, hatchets, shovel, scythes, axes. Their equipments make Yuuko more serious as she waits for them to come.

Three hatchets fly towards her, deflecting them a high pitched noise bounces off of her katana. Like a signal, the whole crowds charge at her at the same time, intending to overwhelm her with number. Yuuko also dashes toward them with low stance. She swings her sword in an arc, opening the stomachs of those in front of her. The pitchforks at the same time pierce through the air, aiming at her head. Yuuko further crouches down to evade by a hair breath and cuts those pitchforks at the handles. Her weapon is swung again, beheading those who hold the pitchfork.

The women who stand behind do not flinch from their comrade deaths. They step forward and attack in the same manner. Yuuko has no choice but to step back. A woman with axe circled behind and brings the blade down on her head. The samurai girl steps sideway, dodging that axe, and holds that arm with her armpit. She then sweeps the feet of one behind her then throw herself on the back. The woman's body get slammed heavily on the ground along with the head, only to have it crushed by a strong stomping later. Yuuko throws the picked up axe, splitting another head in half, charges at the horde and continues with the slashing.

*After 30 minutes*

Yuuko is still swinging her katana around but her rough panting shows that her limit is near. After killing a hundred of them, she stopped counting and just continued on slashing. She does not understand what happened. Those women just keep coming and coming without limit. Her muscles are crying in pain as they demand for oxygen and rest but she ignores it and keeps moving her arms.

(I cannot afford to continue like this. I need to escape to get some rest.) Yuuko thinks.

After slicing a white dress woman in half, the katana in her hand suddenly shines with white light, blinding the surrounding. Two heads fly in the air and in Yuuko's hand is a naginata. Like Hinami, she can create any weapon by imagination but it is limited to melee weapons only. With it, she intends to break through them and go to the church located 500 meters away.

She spins the pole with great force, hitting those near her away. Getting a clear area, her knee bends forward, the other leg extends behind, the two hands hold tightly the spear, pointing it forwards. Yuuko makes a sprint and thrusts her weapon. The blade pierces through one stomach, then another one behind it. She keeps running and five persons get skewered on her naginata. The five person skewer is lift on the ground then thrown at another crowd of ripped mouths. A pathway is now open for her to pass through. The spear shines then returns in her hand.

With desperation, she finally gets inside the church and locks all those women outside. Luckily, there is no one inside. The reason she chooses this place is because the building is sturdier than normal house with very high windows. With no simple way to get inside except the front door, she can be safe for a while and take a breath.

Her armor becomes a mess with all the blood on. She cleanses it with the white flame but the uncomfortable feeling still remains. Hunger assaults her as her stomach is rumbling. She could not eat much when the incident started. In addtion, her throat is dry, seeking for water. All discomfortable sensations come to her just when she can get a break.

(I need to get back to school and regroup with Makoto and Hinami. I already have enough of this. I really want to go home.) Wishful thoughts come in her mind as she leans her back on the bench.

Even in this creepy world, the Jesus statue in the middle of the hall still looks holy. She is not a Christain but looking at the statue brings peace in her mind. Her eye lids become heavy and somewhere in her brain tells her that it is okay to sleep.

(Just only 5 minutes. Just only 5 minutes. Just only...) Yuuko keeps reminding herself so then gradually falls asleep.

Right at the feet of Jesus, a cat statue is shining with white light.

*Outside the church*

Lexar is standing on the rooftop of the church. Surrounding the building is the wall of white flame. The disfigured women voice their inhuman scream of anger outside. No matter what method they do, they cannot get in. The cat is glad that he can be useful in the situation like this.

"Sacred base": it is one of his newly acquired abilities when he gave power to Hinami, Yuuko, and Makoto. It can create a protection area for the partners to rest in a period of one hour. The requirement to set it up is a place with a lot of positive energy.

It's probably that he leveled up by unlocking the girls' power. More information flows to his head. The concept of positive energy and negative energy comes from that. Positive energy is generated from the positive feelings such as happiness, hope, dream; and the negative energy is the opposite. The lights inside any personfs heart is actually a representation how much energy they have, not the dream like he hypothesized. His thinking from before is proven false, thus information needs to be analyzed again. However, he doesn't have time for that now. The important issue is to help Yuuko escape here.

His right eye changes into "Clairvoyance" and surveys the whole village. There is no sign of normal people except those crazy women shouting below. He tries to find their leader but it is also unsuccessful. He does not know what her scheme is but it is definitely very dangerous for Yuuko. Suddenly, Lexar discovers a strange point about those ripped mouth women. There are total 190 women but for every appearance, five of them have the same look. This implies that there are only 38 different inviduals. 38 people match with the 38 victims of the serial murder. He also finds 5 persons with the same appearance with the 38th victim.

(Did they multiply? If it is their ability, perhaps there is a real one among the fakes?) Lexar thinks as he activates his "Potential" eye.

In his eye, the women turn into lumps of black liquid. Only 38 of them still have human bodies with black flame covering. The flame is much weaker compared to that Yoshida's so he is not affected by it. With this,he has a clue how to defeat this endless wave.

An hour nearly passes but he was not able to find anything useful. Discouraged, he goes inside the church while carrying a bag containing sausages, snacks and mineral water. Those are things he fetched from a store not so far from the church. With the leveled up body, he was able to jump between houses that are even 20 meters apart and went to the store without using the ground.

Yuuko is still sleeping soundly on the bench. The atmosphere inside "sacred base" can help people relax and improve regeneration with positive energy. He does not understand why this church has so much positive power while it is in a world of negative energy. Perhaps, this church is also an important clue to escape here.

The cat lands on her lap, caressing the girl's face with his tail. With her sleep disturbed, Yuuko slowly opens her eyes and wakes up.

"Hm?" She finds a cat tail, dangling in front of her face. Annoyed, she gives a slap on the cat body, throwing him off a bench with a loud "meowrr".

His call completely wakes her up and her head starts thinking fast. The samurai girl is scared at how much she slept. This place is dangerous yet she dozed off for a long time. If the enemy was here, her head would separate from the body. But then she calms down that she realizes she is still in safe.

"That really hurted." The cat speaks in Japanese.

Shocked, Yuuko prepares her katana and points it toward him.

"Wait, wait, wait. I'm not your enemy. I don't have any intention to hurt you." The cat hurriedly speaks.

"Lexar?" Yuuko recognizes her friend's pet.

"Correct. Lexar is the name. Nice to meet you." The cat speaks happily.

"Are you really a cat? Cat cannot speak."

"Of course, I am not a normal cat. Normal cat cannot give people power, you know."

"Give people power? Is that you who sang that chant?"

"Correct! And that's my job, a magical girl selector." Lexar says with a prideful attitude.

"I don't think there is any magical girl who is old as me or so bloody violent." Yuuko denies being a magical girl.

"You girls are magical enough for me. Anyway, I am sure there are a lot of questions but we have no time. I will tell you what I found about the bunch outside."Lexar then starts teaching her about the duplicate women and the real ones.

"So my job is to defeat the real ones, right?" Yuuko asks after being given a clue how to defeat those women.

"It is expected end the wave but I am not really sure what will happen next. We must not let our guard down. The time is up now. Get ready, Yuuko."

"Un, I understand. I'm counting on you for this." Yuuko gets into fighting stance while looking at the door.

The silent door until now makes a great "Bang" noise. The firewall isolating the church is extinguished and those women are breaking door. Knives pierce through the door with many holes. They are big enough to see the horrible faces on the other side.

A second loud "bang" comes and the gate is open. The women immediately fills the church hallway as they run toward her.

"It's time for round three. Let's go, Lexar." Yuuko makes a confident smile then charges ahead.