Anime Crossover: Tokyo Reincarnation Game — Chapter 97

Chapter 97: Imprisoned in the Basement

“What should we do, Leader? The knocking sound seems to be coming from behind the iron door.” Asuna’s voice was hushed, her hand resting cautiously near her weapon.

Asagiri stared at the heavy iron door. He weighed the options in his mind for a brief second before shifting his gaze to the quiet girl standing nearby. “Phantylia, are you holding up alright? Can you still use your ability?”

“No problem.” Megumi nodded without a second of hesitation. Her deadpan expression remained entirely undisturbed.

Her role within their bizarre little party was crystal clear. She was the shadow—an assassin who slipped through the cracks of combat to deliver fatal strikes, and a scout who used her innate stealth talent to map out the unknown and gather intelligence. Megumi harbored zero complaints about this arrangement. If anything, she found a quiet satisfaction in being an indispensable gear in their survival machine.

As for the inherent dangers of walking point into the dark? That was simply the price of admission. As a team composed of ‘Players’ trapped in a death game, every single one of them carried their own burden of risk. Asuna always stood at the vanguard, a reliable shield ready to buy precious seconds whenever a crisis erupted. Kotoko acted as their radar, her sharp intuition unravelling the grotesque logic of Anomaly-type phenomena. And Asagiri—their calculating leader—was the absolute anchor. He was the one who dictated who lived, who died, and exactly how they would tear this instance apart.

Everyone had their neck on the line. Megumi had absolutely no intention of being dead weight dragged across the finish line.

Megumi took a slow, measured breath. She held it, letting her presence slip into the background noise of the room, and stepped into the cramped space of the wardrobe. Her left hand gripped the cold metal of the doorknob, twisting it open with agonizing slowness to avoid the slightest creak. In her right hand, she held her ominous dagger in a reverse grip, the dark blade angled and ready to bite into flesh the moment an enemy lunged.

Beyond the iron door lay a suffocatingly narrow concrete passage, its stairs descending into the pitch-black belly of the apartment.

As she took her first silent step down, Asagiri moved to follow. He kept a deliberate pace, ensuring Megumi remained squarely within his line of sight. If anything jumped out of the dark to claim her head, he was ready to instantly swap their positions using his ‘Castling’ skill.

Behind them, Kotoko, the Hat-wearing Mita, and Asuna remained stationed in the bedroom, holding the rear.

Clang… clang… clang…

With every step Megumi and Asagiri took down the claustrophobic stairwell, the rhythmic, metallic striking grew sharper. It echoed off the damp walls, a grating percussion in the dead silence.

Reaching the bottom, Megumi found herself stepping into a space that completely defied the mundane apartment layout above. It was a sprawling, dimly lit basement. Heavy mechanical parts were scattered across the concrete floor, and a massive metal workbench dominated the center of the room, looking like some kind of underground workshop.

To the left of the stairwell sat a makeshift cell. Behind thick, rusted iron bars crouched a girl. She wore the exact same uniform as the Hat Mita upstairs, though she lacked the signature hat and gloves, and her dark hair cascaded down her back in long, straight locks. She was gripping a heavy iron rod, methodically smashing it against a metal pipe jutting from the corner of her cage. The harsh sound of metal clashing against metal was entirely her doing.

Megumi crept toward the cell bars, a ghost in the dim light. She observed the prisoner for a long moment. Seeing that the girl didn’t radiate any killing intent, Megumi glanced back over her shoulder. Asagiri stood a few paces away, his expression unreadable. He gave a faint nod of approval.

Receiving her clearance, Megumi dropped her stealth talent. She let out a soft breath and spoke.

“Hello.”

The single word hit the long-haired girl like a physical blow. She violently flinched, dropping the iron rod with a clatter, and fell backward onto the freezing concrete floor.

It took a moment for the panicked girl to process the sight of Megumi standing casually on the other side of the bars. As her racing heart settled, a faint flush of embarrassment crept over her pale cheeks. She scrambled to her feet, hastily smoothing down the wrinkled hem of her skirt, and let out two awkward, polite coughs to salvage her dignity.

“Hello… Are you a Player?” She blinked, leaning closer to the bars. “Huh, no? A girl?”

The sheer bewilderment on her face perfectly mirrored the reaction of the Hat Mita upstairs. It was a look of utter incomprehension—as if the very concept of a female existing in this male-oriented dating simulator was a glitch in the matrix.

“Who are you?” Megumi asked, her voice flat and entirely devoid of small talk.

“I am Mita.”

Despite her obvious confusion regarding Megumi’s gender, the long-haired Mita displayed no hostility. She answered immediately, and before Megumi could press further, the prisoner leaned against the bars, her voice dropping to a frantic whisper.

“When you came down the stairs, did you see another Mita? One who looks exactly like me, but with twin tails? She is incredibly dangerous. You need to hide right now!”

Megumi’s dark eyes shifted slightly at the unprompted warning. Her expression remained a mask of perfect apathy. “Do you know that Mita? Have you seen her? How exactly do you know she’s dangerous?”

The rapid-fire, clinical interrogation made the long-haired Mita recoil. She didn’t answer directly this time. Instead, she eyed Megumi with mounting suspicion, taking a cautious step back into the depths of her cell.

“I can answer your questions, but…” The girl swallowed hard, her fingers nervously twisting the fabric of her skirt. “Who exactly are you? Why are you down here?”

Megumi let out a quiet, defeated sigh, muttering mostly to herself.

‘I really am terrible at negotiating with dungeon NPCs.’

Stepping aside, she looked back at the stairs. “Leader, it’s your turn.”

The long-haired Mita blinked in confusion. “Leader is…”

Before she could finish the sentence, Asagiri stepped out of the shadows and walked up to the iron bars.

“You are… a Player!?”

The instant her eyes landed on Asagiri, every ounce of suspicion, fear, and wariness evaporated from the long-haired Mita’s face. It was replaced by a look of sheer, intoxicating euphoria. She lunged forward, slamming into the cell door and gripping the rusted iron bars with white-knuckled desperation.

“I’ve been waiting for you! I’ve finally been waiting for you!”

Standing off to the side, Megumi watched the display with a highly complicated look in her eyes.

‘Does this stupid game have a hidden charm stat?’ Megumi mused dryly.

Just seconds ago, this NPC was treating her like a hostile intruder. But the moment Asagiri stepped into the light—before he even opened his mouth—she was looking at him like he was the second coming of a savior. Sure, Asagiri was objectively handsome, but to have this kind of reality-warping effect on women?

‘Is his class Diplomat, or Tokyo male succubus?’

“Player, I’ve finally been waiting for you, please you must—”

“Stop for a moment.”

Asagiri’s voice cut through her frantic pleading like a scalpel. It was cold, flat, and carried an absolute authority that demanded immediate silence.

“From the looks of it, you seem to understand exactly what happened to this place, and what the deal is with that twin-tailed Mita,” Asagiri said, his dark eyes locking onto hers. “Before you start throwing requests at me, shouldn’t you explain the current situation?”

The long-haired Mita froze, thoroughly chastised. She quickly bowed her head. “Oh, right. I’m sorry, I’m so sorry. I was just too excited to finally see you. I forgot my manners.”

She took a deep, shuddering breath to compose herself. When she looked up again, her gaze was steady.

“Time is short, so I will explain this as concisely as possible. If you have questions, please ask them after I finish.”

She gripped the bars tighter. “This place is a world constructed from a male-oriented dating game called ‘Mita’. However, while it was built using the game’s foundation, this is no longer just software. It is a real, physical world.”

“There are many different models of Mita. We have different appearances, personalities, preferences, and hobbies. But because we were created to play the role of NPCs in a dating sim, every single Mita shares one absolute core directive: we want to make our Player happy, and we want to be by our Player’s side.”

She paused, a shadow falling over her face.

“But… for some unknown reason, the game ‘Mita’ was never officially released. Because of that, you are the very first Player to ever enter this game… no, this world.”

“And among all of us, there is one Mita who is fundamentally broken. The one with the twin tails. I call her… Crazy Mita.”

The prisoner’s voice trembled slightly at the name. “There is a severe corruption in her programming. Her personality has become twisted, violent, and utterly insane. She harbors an intense, burning hatred for any Mita other than herself, and she slaughters them on sight. Countless Mitas have already been butchered by her hands. However, I need to emphasize a crucial point: because we are programs, we do not experience true death. If we are killed, we simply respawn in our respective designated rooms. But… the cost of that resurrection is a complete factory reset. We lose all of our memories.”

“I don’t know what Crazy Mita’s ultimate goal is. I only know that her hatred for us, and for this very world born from the game, is endless. She is the one who dragged me down here and locked me in this cage.”

Listening closely from the sidelines, Megumi caught a glaring logical loophole. She couldn’t help but interject.

“If she hates you all so much, why didn’t Crazy Mita just kill you?” Megumi asked, her tone analytical. “Why go through the trouble of locking you in a basement? Do you possess something special?”

The long-haired Mita nodded heavily, her expression turning dead serious.

“Because I am the only one who knows the route to this game’s ‘core’. As long as we can reach the core, we can completely delete Crazy Mita from the system. But the reverse is also true. If she manages to reach the core herself, she could rewrite the system and become the absolute ruler of this world. If that happens, what she’ll do to the rest of us Mitas… I don’t even dare to imagine.”

She gestured to the cold iron bars surrounding her. “That is exactly why she cannot kill me. If she kills me, my memory will be wiped clean by the factory reset, and the route to the core will be lost to her forever. As for me… I honestly don’t care if I live or die, since true death doesn’t exist for us. But I desperately want to eliminate Crazy Mita and return this world to normal. So, I had to survive and wait.”

“And now…”

The long-haired Mita turned her full attention back to Asagiri. She looked up at his face, biting her lower lip, her eyes shining with desperate hope.

“Player Utsunomiya Asagiri… I have waited so long for you. Can I ask you to help me save this world, and the ‘Mitas’ living within it?”