Chapter 16

**Chapter 16** is the sixteenth chapter of the *Dead Mount Death Play* manga.

## Summary

The intruder struggles to his feet, and, when Misaki Sakimiya acknowledges his toughness, quips that he 'made' his skin pretty thick. As his fake face melts off, he also removes his mask, revealing a bald head and a burn scar across the left side of his face. Unfazed, Misaki urges the twins to hurry upstairs; though they hesitate, Shizuki Shinoyama ultimately grabs his sister Kazuki's hand and breaks into a run.

As the twins flee to safety, Misaki looks over at the intruder and judges him to be on "this side," to which he identifies her as the assassin-killer Zaki. Both of them recall seeing each other before; he vaguely recalls her from his first time at Youtoukorou, and she remembers how he was the only one keeping an eye on her while bickering was going on at "Polka-kun's building."

The intruder's glove crackles, and he asks "Why are you with Polka Shinoyama" right before hurling a lash of fire in her direction. Out loud, he muses that she could also have a target in the Shinoyama Family, or that she was hired by Rozan Shinoyama to kill the assassin targeting the Shinoyama house—both possibilities that she denies right before charging at him.

Leaping over his answering stream of fire, she drives her foot into the second-lowest rung of a ladder on her descent with such force as to bend the ladder entirely, a demonstration of strength that gives the intruder pause. Picking up one of the metal pipes in the pile next to it, she goes on the offensive once more.

While they battle, the intruder attributes his lack of hurry to the 'fact' that neither the twins nor Misaki will escape the inferno consuming the house. (As he speaks, the twins' flight is halted as falling ceiling beams and other debris block the corridor in front of them). He boasts that he knows precisely how and how long it will take for the house to burn down, and makes his exit.

Meanwhile, Tsubaki Iwanome shows Tena Sorimura pictures of the skeletons spotted in the Shakuzawa Building fire, attributing the fire to the Fire-breathing Bug. He takes credit for the nickname, and recounts a basic *modus operandi* of the troublemaker: the Bug leaves the message "This world is a buggy program" as a calling card at the scenes of his crimes; he poses as someone involved in his target locations and takes his time methodically making preparations, planting gunpowder behind paintings and detonators on the roof and under floors—which is why his target locations will burst into flames so suddenly.

In the Shinoyama manor, Kazuki urges a coughing Shizuki to keep low so that he does not breathe in smoke. Teary-eyed, Shizuki wonders if 'this' is their punishment—if their sister Suzuka is mad at them—and Kazuki cannot bring herself to forcefully protest. Recalling how she had held her charred pouch at Suzuka's funeral—the one that cost Suzuka her life—she agrees that Suzuka must be mad and takes Shizuki's hand. With beams and ceiling chunks seconds away from crushing them, the twins resolve to apologize once they reunite with Suzuka in the afterlife.

An enormous crash follows, but pain does not. The twins open their eyes to find their half uncle Polka—really the Corpse God—giving them a soft smile, relieved that he made it in time *this time*. Behind him, the two huge skeletal hands which caught the debris toss the material to the side. He reminds the two that the fortuneteller they met said they have a future, before asserting that Suzuka is not mad and will always love them. Unbeknownst to either twin, Suzuka's spirit—looking more human than ever before—is kneeling with them, her arms around their shoulders.

In the penitentiary, Iwanome muses that the Bug would have to excel at disguises and have certain freedom of movement to pull off their arsons. When he comments that Sorimura could do the same thing, Sorimura remains silent.

Back at the manor, the twins safely reach the immensely relieved Shinoyama servants clustered outside the mansion. The intruder—now disguised as a female maid—is shocked to see them still alive, and rounds the mansion corner intending to retreat for now and try again later. He stops when the Corpse God calls him out and plays the innocent employee, but the Corpse God says there is no need for the intruder to lie when the color of their soul has not changed. With his Evil Eye, he has seen what he was too distracted to notice the day before: the spirits of the two Shinoyama employees whose identities the intruder stole, their faces charred black and black holes in place of eyes and mouths.

The spirits reach out to the intruder, both demanding to have their faces returned. The intruder looks back with a bewildered cry; as Misaki delivers another flying kick to his cheek, she observes his voice is reverting to his own. Though her dress is slightly burned and soot smudges her exposed skin, she is in fine fettle.

As the 'maid' staggers to his feet, he silently wonders how Zaki survived and out loud expresses disbelief that "Polka" saw through both of his disguises. Corpse God assures him that he would spend one hundred years killing him if he only had his magic; alarmed that he is afraid of a "mere kid," the intruder prepares to attack. His glove crackles; he admits that the Corpse God's "middle school student who's just found he has superpowers" vibe reminds him of himself when he first awoke to his fire powers—and sets off a loud explosion of power right there and then.

Both spirits flinch back in fear, and the intruder sneers that he does not fear "Polka" at all if "Polka" is afraid of fire. Behind the wall of flames, the Corpse God summons the last of his magic with the intention of not letting the intruder escape no matter what; however, he freezes when he senses *two* lifeforms beyond the flames—the life color of the new arrival nothing but foreboding.

From a dark vortex in the wall behind the intruder, a hand reaches for the intruder's head. In the next moment, Lemmings leaps through and slams the intruder's head into the ground—the wind from the movement displacing the flames enough for the Corpse God to see.

Elsewhere, Takeru Shinoyama affirms that the fire has burned out and prepares to handle the aftermath.

## Trivia

* This chapter reveals that one of the bodyguards who accompanied the twins to the abandoned building in Chapter 12 was Know, directly using a Chapter 12 panel for verification.
* The bonus three-panel comic succeeding this chapter in Volume 2 reveals what happens to the spirits of the two servants Know impersonated: the bodyguard dies of fright upon seeing Lemmings, while the maid reclaims her face from Know and forms a contract with Corpse God.