The next morning.
As usual, Mamoru woke, learned Yakumo's whereabouts from a Medical Team member, brewed a pot of green tea, and carried the warm tray toward the studio.
Inside, only the hush of brush on canvas broke the quiet. Yakumo sat before her easel, back to him, painting intently. He set the tray on a low table and glanced at the bright day outside.
"Lovely weather. Fancy a walk through the village?" He asked her turned back.
Yakumo gave no answer, didn't even pause, as though lost entirely in her own world.
Mamoru's brows drew together in the faintest of frowns, though he said nothing and simply poured a cup of tea in silence. Carrying the cup to Yakumo's side, he offered it with a gentle smile. "Have a sip first. Take a break."
The brush in Yakumo's hand paused mid-stroke. She set it down slowly, turned to look at him, her face expressionless, and answered softly, "All right."
The instant her gaze met his, Mamoru's body tensed without conscious thought. Those eyes were as calm as ever, yet for some reason, they sent an inexplicable shiver through his heart.
"What is it?"
Seeing him lost in thought, Yakumo spoke, her voice pulling him back.
Mamoru snapped back to himself and pushed the cup another half-inch toward her, masking his reaction with a smile. "Nothing."
"Still half-asleep?" She took the cup, fingertips brushing his, and sipped. "You're always the last one up."
"Maybe… I've been having trouble sleeping lately." Mamoru said.
"Insomnia?" Yakumo lifted her eyes, curiosity flickering within them. "Sneaking out at night to do something you shouldn't?"
"Of course not." Mamoru shot back, forcing lightness into his tone. "I'm a good kid."
"Mm—" Yakumo drew the sound out, neither agreeing nor teasing. "A good kid?"
She set the half-empty cup on the cluttered table of paint tubes and palettes with a soft clink. "Thanks for the tea."
With that, she reclaimed her brush, attention returning to the canvas. The conversation was over.
Mamoru took the hint. His gaze swept across the painting—pale outlines suggesting a human figure, details still indistinct—then, finding nothing more to hold him, he left the room.
The instant the latch clicked shut, Yakumo's brush hesitated again, so briefly the pause lasted less than a heartbeat before the strokes resumed as though nothing had happened.
...
Over the following days, strange occurrences multiplied throughout Satomi Villa.
In the Medical Team lounge, opening the door sometimes revealed not the familiar room but some other chamber that shouldn't exist within the villa or even an entirely alien place. Long corridors turned endless, exits forever receding no matter how far one walked. Space itself warped and twisted.
Power shorted out nightly, plunging the villa into darkness until the lights mysteriously revived.
After midnight, the great front door thundered with knocks, yet when anyone rushed to answer, the entrance stood empty, only night wind drifting past.
Beyond the windows, shadowy shapes flitted past in quick, blurred motion, accompanied by unidentifiable sounds.
In everyone's mind, Satomi Villa had become a haunted house steeped in unease.
All these reports came from the two Medical Team members lodging there.
By now, their nerves were frayed: dark rings circled their eyes, voices thin with exhaustion and lingering fright.
Mamoru himself had witnessed none of it. Troubled, he sought out Yakumo and asked whether she had experienced the same. Yet her reaction was startlingly calm. She looked unruffled, even steadier than him.
She said, "Perhaps everyone was simply over-tense and in need of rest."
Mamoru said nothing more at the time, only filed the remark away.
Until one deep night—
On the second-floor windowpane, a ghastly shape suddenly pressed itself flat. Clinging like a gecko, its contorted face gleamed a dead bluish-grey in the moonlight, skin creased with grotesque lines. A long, slimy violet tongue dragged across the glass with a slow, grating scrape.
Eyes brimming with venom and hunger bored through the dark, locking on the figure seated cross-legged on the bed.
Within the room, two pale blue lights hovered in the thick blackness, cold flames rising from the depths of an abyss.
Mamoru sat centered on the mattress, chin propped on one hand, elbow on knee, the other hand resting loosely on his ankle. His expression was almost serene as he lifted his gaze to meet the monstrosity outside.
A dead hush held the air, only the steady lick of tongue on glass told time still moved.
This silent standoff had lasted nearly an hour.
It wasn't that he lacked the power to act, he had already obliterated the creature twice. Yet no matter how he destroyed it, moments later, it reappeared in the exact same spot, the same posture, an unbreakable loop.
At first, he had wondered if he were dreaming, but instinct rejected the thought the instant it arose. He knew the difference between dream and reality better than anyone.
"Tch, relentless." He murmured, the sound swallowed by the hush.
Since physical annihilation failed, the solution had to lie deeper. Understanding first, then action. He chose to observe rather than strike a third time.
Before his next move, he needed to grasp what this was, how it functioned.
Through those blue pupils, the world resolved into a complex weave: solid matter interlaced with a cyclically regenerating illusory force, forming a near-perfect closed circuit.
He was certain that this was a genjutsu woven by Yakumo, only she could make illusion this real.
This was no ordinary technique, its nature was far stranger. Even the Six Eyes couldn't pierce its core at a glance.
Analysis required time. So he held the motionless pose, channeling immense calculative power through eyes and brain like a precision engine, dissecting every node of energy, every shifting detail, hunting the single flaw that must exist.
Pale blue light flickered in the dark, reflecting the eternal, horrible face beyond the glass.