Rush in directly?

Will I run headlong into the fantastical scene inside?

If I expose that I know about the modifier in front of Sakuragi's alter ego, who knows what might happen...

But thinking about how Sakuragi's persona just walked in with a dagger, Yan Huan gritted his teeth and knocked on the door,

"Knock knock knock~"

"Sakuragi, is that you?"

Just claim I saw her go in, so I came looking. Anyway, firmly deny seeing any dagger, and it won't raise suspicion.

Yan Huan thought to himself.

But after knocking a few times, there was no response from inside.

This made Yan Huan frown, and he finally decided to open the door.

"Click~"

He gently pulled down the door handle, and the scene inside surprised him.

"Beep beep beep..."

"Doo doo doo..."

The room before Yan Huan was empty, and who knows where that persona went after entering.

"..."

Yan Huan blinked, displaying confusion.

He could only hold the door for now and contemplate.

The next second, he made a decision, summoning the Love Compass with a thought.

At the same time, he pondered in his mind about the person he needed to find...

Should he look for the Sakuragi persona holding the fort?

No, that might lead to direct danger.

Since the one to be saved is the Sakuragi persona with mouse ears, might as well look for her.

"..."

Yan Huan recalled the appearance of the mouse-eared Sakuragi several times in his mind, and soon the compass in his hand started to spin.

"Squeak... squeak..."

After spinning a few times, the compass pointed directly at the room in front.

"?"

Yan Huan frowned, but still hesitated before stepping into the room.

As soon as he entered the room, the door behind him gently closed.

In its place, the entire nursery transformed into pixels in an instant...

It was as if it had turned into something like Terraria or Stardew Valley, with the entire room filled with richly styled pixelated blocks, becoming shiny and colorful.

Above, pixelated text with a fluorescent glow read,

"Baby, mommy will always love you!"

"Baby, fly assuredly, mommy will always follow!"

"..."

In the middle, there was even a pixel-style, very blurry "Holy Mother Statue".

But the figure in the Holy Mother Statue was obviously wrong; the veiled Holy Mother had somehow turned into a lovingly smiling Sakuragi Hitomi, and in her arms appeared...

It was himself, sucking on a pacifier?!

Meeting the gaze of the character in the pixel art, the corner of Yan Huan's mouth slightly froze, at a loss for what to say for a moment.

But as he looked, the fluorescence seemed to suddenly notice he was watching.

"!!"

Afterward, the text and the Holy Mother Statue all turned into question marks and exclamation marks, then immediately vanished without a trace.

"..."

This is...

Someone knows I'm here?

Yan Huan thought, just about to speak, when a door suddenly appeared on the wall beside him.

"Click~"

The door slightly ajar revealed a space so deep its contents were unclear.

Gazing into the endless darkness, Yan Huan instinctively felt a sense of resistance.

It's the kind of dark room he wouldn't even dare to enter when playing games in his past life...

"Squeak..."

But at that very moment, the compass in his hand slightly rotated again, pointing toward the dark room with the open door.

"..."

...

...

"Ah! Quickly... run!!"

In the colorful pixelated corridor, a petite Sakuragi was pale with fright, yet still managed to fly in mid-air, desperately pulling the mouse-eared Sakuragi ahead.

Behind them, the mouse-eared Sakuragi was almost collapsed, drenched in sweat, leaning against the wall, her gaze unfocused, she said,

"No... I can't... ha... ha... I can't run anymore..."

"You have to run, regardless! She's... she's coming!!"

The petite Sakuragi cried out in panic, but as she spoke, the colorful corridor ahead suddenly became pitch black, as if the power went out.

"Hehehe~"

An ethereal, echoing girl's laugh swept over with the wind from the darkness, making the petite Sakuragi shiver all over.

She looked up, and saw the corridor getting cut off section by section, burying everything in darkness.

"Snap!"

The spread of darkness was swift, soon engulfing the spot where they stood.

Amidst the darkness, the petite Sakuragi and the mouse-eared Sakuragi looked back in terror, to see that deep within the corridor, a smiling pair of eyes suddenly opened...

It seemed as if there were only that pair of eyes floating in the air.

"Hehe, can't run anymore, little mice?"

The eyes looked at them, speaking so gently.

Then, the eyes gently closed, as if blinking.

"I didn't expect that one Sakuragi could possess so many Barriers at once, the entire mall's nursery room is actually her Barrier..."

When the eyes opened again, it seemed, perhaps as an illusion, they were a bit closer in the darkness.

Close eyes~

"It seems true, as you said, every Sakuragi is special, be it in appearance or ability..."

Open eyes~

In the darkness, those beautiful eyes drew nearer.

The ever-echoing gentle voice also grew closer.

"Ugh... Perfect... Perfect Sakuragi is coming... quickly... get up!"

The petite Sakuragi was so scared her soul was about to fly away, and the mouse-eared Sakuragi, witnessing this scene, felt her heart nearly leap out of her chest in fright.

So, as if throwing caution to the wind, she twitched her ears and stood up again, dashing toward the opposite end of the corridor.

Yet behind them, the pair of eyes were still approaching, and the voice still echoed in their ears.