Flag Game Chapter 18

The eighteenth chapter of the Darwin's Game ~Flag Game~ novel.

## Summary

The Sunset Ravens building consisted of 15 floors, 14 floors and a basement, and the flag was placed in a room on the 8th floor. The windows of the room were all bulletproof and the door a thick metallic one, which meant that it wouldn't be easy for Wadatsumi and his men to get through, however Rein knew that they needed to be taught a lesson as a deterrent to prevent similar incidents from occurring in the future.

As part of her plan, Rein locked the two elevators, forcing the enemies to use the emergency stairs on the east and west sides of the building. She also had Sui and Souta set up walls of ice beforehand on the odd landings on the east side and the even landings on the west side, forcing the enemies to zigzag their way up through the building in order to get to the floor with the flag. Rein hid behind a sandbag barricade at the 2nd floor west stairway entrance, waiting for the enemies to appear, and she began firing as soon as someone appeared in the hallway she was in.

The enemies hurriedly hid themselves, though she continued to fire, and she apparently hit them as she heard someone cry out in pain. The enemies blindly fired back from behind their hiding place, which she dodged using Laplace, causing the annoyed enemies to throw a frag grenade at her. Rein had been waiting for this moment; she switched her Skorpion vz.61 to semi auto, used Laplace to see the grenade's trajectory, and fired, the bullets knocking the grenade back over. Upon hearing the explosion and screams, she used her phone to see the security camera footage, and saw that three men were lying on the ground unable to fight. However, she didn't see Wadatsumi, causing her to feel a chill. She immediately abandoned the barricade and made her way up to the 3rd floor, only to encounter Wadatsumi.

Upon seeing her, Wadatsumi activated his sigil Shark Bite, which transformed his arms into shark heads. Although her head hurt from repeated use of Laplace, Rein ignored it and activated it again. She aimed her gun at Wadatsumi's face without stopping, causing him to shield his face with his left arm and attack with his right, which she took advantage of by slipping under his left arm. She threw a flash grenade behind her and didn't stop to look back, running through the hallways to the east stairs. Looking down, she saw that the ice wall on the landing below her had been smashed to pieces, causing her to consider climbing down and running away, nevertheless she decided to go up instead. She knew that if she ran outside, she'd have to deal with enemies she'd encounter, while if she stayed behind she only had to fight an enemy whose abilities were known.

A minute later, Rein stopped in a hallway near the center of the 7th floor to catch her breath, while at the same time looking around for enemies. During the previous minute, she had used up all of her flash and frag grenades in addition to two of her spare magazines. Wadatsumi appeared from a hallway to her left, causing Rein to shoot while running in the opposite direction. In response, Wadatsumi shielded his body with his shark hands and kept on going. Rein quickly used up all 30 shots, forcing her to swap to her final spare magazine. She felt that something was strange, as the bullets didn't do much damage even if they hit somewhere other than Wadatsumi's transformed arms, and his attacks were awkward and lacked spirit. She tried to determine if it was a trap or something else but couldn't come up with an answer.

Rein made her way up to the 8th floor. The 8th floor had numerous wire traps covering the hallways with high voltage electricity running through them, in addition to the lights being turned off and the windows covered with plates of iron, making it completely dark. Rein had the upper hand here with Laplace, and Wadatsumi stopped instead of pursuing her into the dark hallway. Dodging the wires based on memory, Rein stopped at the middle of the hallway and turned around, readying her Skorpion to fire at Wadatsumi who was still standing at the entrance. However, Wadatsumi didn't move, which puzzled her, making her wonder why he wasn't attacking. Suddenly, she felt her intuition warn her, causing her ready herself to dodge an attack. Right after, Wadatsumi's right arm extended like a tentacle, reaching out 10 meters ahead in an attempt to wrap around Rein's right arm. Rein managed to dodge it, however it broke her posture, and the tentacle wrapped around her left ankle. She then shouted into her transceiver that the man wasn't Wadatsumi.

## Characters

* Kashiwagi Rein
* "Wadatsumi"

## Sigils

* Laplace
* Shark Bite