Kamoshida's Palace…
"Did you guys find anything?" Morgana jumped onto a table, his expression grave, as he looked at the other two.
"Absolutely nothing! We can't even find a single Shadow! What the hell happened?! The entire Palace is empty! Kamoshida, that Shadow Yukino, they're all gone!" The boy with the codename Skull, whose real name was Ryuji Sakamoto, paced restlessly beside the table. On his phone screen, which he held down, was the same "Access Denied" message that Yukino Yukinoshita saw in the real world.
"This is bad. This is really, truly bad!" Morgana lowered his head, his small paws restlessly tapping on the table. "We don't know what happened in the real world, we don't know why all the Shadows in the Palace disappeared, and now we can't even leave the Palace. Without any clues, we can't get out of this mess."
"As for why Kamoshida's Shadow disappeared, it should be related to him disappearing in the real world," Morgana's expression grew even more grim. "When a person's real body disappears, their Shadow in the Cognitive World's Palace naturally disappears as well."
"So, that means Yukinoshita-san must have..." Ren Amamiya stopped mid-sentence, but the other person and cat instantly understood what he was trying to say.
"Damn it! What happened?!" Ryuji Sakamoto slammed his fist on the table, making Morgana jump.
"For now, we can only hope that Knight, who is still in the real world, can handle whatever's going on," Morgana sighed. "The rest of us will continue to explore this Palace, leaving no stone unturned!"
The Velvet Room - Jail
"Hehehehe, humans are truly a constant 'surprise.' I'll just have to wait and see what you can accomplish."
"But who is that human who managed to evade my monitoring?"
"I'm so glad you guys came here on a motorcycle! With this mobility, we can save a lot of time," Taichi said, wearing a helmet and hugging Mordred's waist tightly, turning his head to thank Yukino, who was also holding onto his waist for dear life.
"What did you say?" Because of the high speed, Yukino Yukinoshita couldn't hear what the person in front of her was yelling and leaned closer. But she still couldn't hear him. The speedometer was at its maximum, but the person riding the motorcycle could still react quickly and skillfully dodge the obstacles on the road. With this kind of riding skill, Yukino Yukinoshita thought Mordred could definitely win a motorcycle championship.
As for why a person from over a thousand years ago could ride a motorcycle... Yukino Yukinoshita didn't want to think about it. After all, this world was already ridiculous enough.
The motorcycle began to slow down and stopped in a rather old alleyway. Akane Shinjo was there, poking her head out and looking both ways. When she saw the armored "monster" on a motorcycle approaching, her expression changed, and she quickly pulled her head back.
"Akane! It's me!" Taichi quickly yelled.
Three seconds later, Akane ran back, showing half of her body, ready to run again if things went south.
"Naruto-kun?"
Taichi took off his helmet, revealing his face. Akane finally sighed in relief and walked out of the alley.
"Did a monster appear?" both Taichi and Akane asked at the same time.
"You don't know either?" they both said in unison again.
Taichi rubbed his forehead in frustration.
"Yuki-Yukino Yukinoshita!" Just as Akane was about to exchange information with Taichi, she saw Yukino Yukinoshita, who had just taken off her helmet, behind him, and her face went blank. Although she had already met Tae Takemi and had seen Ren Amamiya from a distance, she hadn't played that game much, so they didn't have much of an impact on her. But Yukino Yukinoshita was different. The light novel and anime series had been popular for a while, and she had watched some of it, so seeing Yukino Yukinoshita in real life made her feel a little more like she had truly transmigrated.
"It's nice to meet you," Yukino Yukinoshita said, forcing herself to endure her unsettled stomach as she wobbly got off the motorcycle and greeted Akane.
"The situation is urgent," Taichi said, his words nearly making Akane's heart stop. The last time an Ultraman said that, he was about to kill Astra. Although they later found out the whole disaster was a misunderstanding and Astra wasn't the culprit.
"All of Shibuya is surrounded by a barrier, and the living beings inside lost their physical bodies in that fog. Their souls appeared and were then sealed by some unknown cubes, and then a group of bizarre-looking monsters took over the streets. Akane, does any of this match anything in your knowledge base of monsters?"
"Currently, no," Akane said, looking away from Yukino Yukinoshita and shaking her head. "But it's also possible that the monsters I've seen weren't updated to this one. It's also possible that what caused this disaster isn't a monster but some other 'unidentified entity' in this world."
"Did you find anything else?" Akane asked Taichi.
"The Cognitive World Palace is currently 'access denied'," Taichi replied. "I'm guessing that even if this disaster wasn't caused by the Cognitive World, it probably has some connection to it. Besides that, nothing."
"What about that person? Did they not find anything either?" Akane asked, glancing at Yukino Yukinoshita and hinting at Ultraman X.
"Our energy systems are different. Right now, he's monitoring all the cameras within the barrier and analyzing this energy system, all while assisting me. But even so, we still haven't found a trace of the mastermind," Taichi said, feeling that X was too busy.
"As expected..." Akane calmed herself down and looked around. "So what do we do now?"
What could she, a quasi-ordinary college student who had just been through some fantastical things but had no power, do? She could only wait for the person with the headache to take charge.
"We'll have to sweep the map in areas with no security cameras and those outside of camera range," Taichi said, feeling that without any clues, the only way was a stupid method: meticulously exploring the invisible areas step by step.