Chapter 134: Iwanaga Kotoko's True Feelings
The next second, before Kōsaku Hosokawa could even react, a fair, slender hand reached straight out from his phone screen.
A sharp dagger flashed in that hand. The movement was precise, practiced, almost casual, like someone cutting a chicken at the market.
The blade slid across his throat.
"Bang…"
"Cough… cough…"
Hosokawa's phone clattered to the floor.
He staggered back two steps, one hand flying to his neck. He tried to speak, tried to form a sound, but no words came out. The moment his mouth opened, bloody foam sprayed out. Bright red blood kept spilling between his fingers, unstoppable, warm, and terrifyingly fast.
In the corner, the bound woman watched in horror, eyes wide and shaking.
Then, slowly, a girl with an adorable face crawled out of the phone screen.
She wore a red sweater, a blue skirt, and red striped knee high socks. Her smile was sweet, almost childish, and somehow far more unsettling because of it.
"Interesting. So interesting~"
Crazy Mita tilted her head, watching Hosokawa as he sank into his own blood. His body thrashed weakly, like a fish trapped in a shallow pool turning red.
Her grin only grew brighter, revealing two small, cute fangs.
"You're not dead yet, are you? Don't be so fragile~"
She pulled a handheld chainsaw from her inventory and pressed the button.
The chain blade screamed to life.
Slowly, deliberately, it drifted toward Hosokawa's face.
…
Half a minute later, the apartment door was kicked open.
"Bang!"
The sudden explosion of sound yanked the woman back from the edge of fainting. Hope flared in her eyes as she looked up.
But it was not the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department.
A tall, mysterious figure stepped in, wrapped in a black trench coat. A dark gray mask covered his face. Black gloves hid his hands, and chains were wrapped around his right forearm.
Asagiri.
His gaze swept over the scattered gore, then landed on Hosokawa's head, neatly placed on the living room table like a grotesque centerpiece.
"Resolved?"
Crazy Mita stood there with a blood stained chainsaw, her face lightly spattered as if she had only been playing in something messy. She nodded eagerly, eyes shining.
"Yes, all resolved. I checked his phone too. He was just an ordinary person."
"Good. Go back first."
"OK~"
Crazy Mita lifted a hand and flashed a cheerful V sign.
Then her figure faded, disappearing as if she had never been there at all.
Asagiri did not even spare the trembling woman in the corner a glance.
He walked straight to the master bedroom door, turned the knob, and opened it.
"Bzz… bzz… bzz…"
The buzzing of flies hit him first.
The sight that followed was worse.
There was no bed. No furniture. Just an empty room, and a metal cross embedded into the wall.
A headless corpse was fixed to it.
Where the neck should have been, the cross section was dark red and rotting. The limbs and torso clearly did not belong to the same person, yet they had been forcibly sewn together with needle and thread. The air was thick with decay, sharp and nauseating.
And in Asagiri's vision, in the layer of the world ordinary people could not see, something stood beside the cross.
A headless Banshee.
It resembled the stitched corpse, but its surface was far more rotten. White maggots wriggled across it, crawling in and out of cracks that should not have existed.
The moment the door opened, the Banshee slowly turned.
Mouths split open at the severed neck. More mouths appeared along the seams where the limbs had been stitched to the torso.
Male voices. Female voices.
All crying out in the same warped tone.
"It hurts… it hurts so much…"
"Human Asura."
Asagiri's eyes did not change. There was no disgust, no fear, no sympathy.
He switched his Persona to Human Asura and summoned it.
A presence like a mountain dropped into the room.
Human Asura was more than two meters tall, overwhelming the space with sheer size and pressure. The Banshee's eerie wailing faltered, as if even it understood the gap between them.
"Bang!!!"
Human Asura did not waste time. It could not speak, and it did not need to.
It existed for one purpose.
To tear apart this twisted creature, born from resentment and the distortion of Hosokawa's actions.
The Banshee was pinned down, its many mouths wailing miserably.
But Human Asura was not a being that knew pity.
And Asagiri did not possess compassion for something like this.
No roar. No speech. Only a chilling silence.
In that silence, Human Asura ripped the headless Banshee into pieces, tearing rotten flesh and corrupted malice apart as the cries collapsed into broken, fading noise.
When it was over, Asagiri stepped forward and pulled out a small bottle of transparent liquid, something Iwanaga Kotoko had prepared long ago.
He sprinkled it gently over the corpse on the cross.
A faint radiance bloomed.
The broken pieces of the Banshee shimmered, and the five mouths that had been sobbing in agony fell silent.
Five different voices spoke the same words, quiet and sincere.
"Thank you…"
Asagiri did not answer.
He only nodded once.
Then he turned and left the apartment.
…
Ten minutes later, at the entrance of a convenience store on the street.
Iwanaga Kotoko held a can of juice and took a small sip, wearing a bright, satisfied smile.
"Even though I prefer black tea, drinking sweet, freshly squeezed juice on a peaceful night like this is a special kind of happiness~"
Asagiri popped open the can in his hand and took a deep drink.
"What are you even talking about? I don't understand a word of it. I'm drinking iced cola."
"You don't just drink iced cola," Kotoko shot back. "You only drink iced cola."
Then she stretched, raising a hand to rub her eyes. Sleepiness softened her expression.
"Oh dear, sitting on the train for so long really is tiring. Before we leave tomorrow, we should visit the Mountain God and the yokai again and tell them the commission is complete. After that, I want to go back to the hotel and rest early~"
"I'm pretty sure your real intention is somewhere else."
Kotoko's face instantly warmed. She turned her head away, whispering.
"It can't be helped. I ate eel rice."
"Eel rice doesn't work like that."
"Whether it works or not isn't the point." Kotoko huffed. "Haven't you heard? Sincerity creates miracles."
She shuffled closer to him.
As if it were already routine, Asagiri bent down without being asked.
Kotoko jumped onto his back in one smooth motion, pressing her cheek against the back of his neck. The clingy, obedient warmth of a kitten clinging to its favorite person.
"Let's walk back," she murmured.
"As in, walk back to the hotel from here?" Asagiri asked, amused. "That's at least an hour. Do you want me to borrow prosthetic legs too?"
Kotoko curled her lips, dissatisfied.
"Isn't your stamina amazing? Besides, I want to enjoy this, my boyfriend carrying me, a little longer. I'm already saying something this shy out loud. How unromantic of you."
Asagiri kept walking down the street with her on his back, smiling.
"Is it possible I already guessed what you wanted, but I still wanted to hear you say it yourself, so I said that on purpose?"
"Really?"
Kotoko's mood visibly lifted. Her voice turned light and cheerful.
"If you want to hear it, I can say it to you every day."
She fell quiet for a while, then spoke again, softer this time.
"This time… you actually took part in a monster commission. How do you feel? The scene in that apartment… did it make you feel disgusted? Or… resistant?"
In a normal campus romance story, that single question would take four or five episodes to untangle.
But Asagiri was not a normal slice of life protagonist.
He already knew what she was asking.
"You're worried that after seeing monsters and Banshees up close, I'll think it's disgusting or troublesome. You're worried that after finally clearing a Dungeon and returning to the real world, I'll still have to help you deal with these commissions. That I'll start feeling uncomfortable, and eventually keep my distance from you."
Kotoko gave a small, helpless smile.
"You saw through it…"
Her voice turned flat, almost too calm.
"I… I've never really had friends. Or lovers. I never thought about building those kinds of relationships. With who I am, the God of Wisdom of the yokai, carrying the responsibility of guarding this world's order, living in a different world… I'm abnormal."
She tightened her arms around him, just a little.
"But you, Asuna, and Megumi… you're all people I cherish. People I absolutely don't want to lose."
"With you, I can say whatever I want. I don't have to hide what I am. So if you think helping me handle these commissions is too troublesome, just tell me. And I won't…"
"Enough."
Asagiri shook his head, cutting her off gently, a smile in his voice.
"Why are you suddenly saying things like that? That doesn't sound like you."
"Didn't I tell you? Teammates should tolerate each other and understand each other."
"Helping you with yokai commissions you can't solve alone is the same as helping Asuna find her path. In the end, we're teammates who can entrust our lives to each other in a Dungeon."
His tone was steady, certain.
"After returning to the real world, we're still teammates."
"It's natural for teammates to help each other. None of us will find it troublesome, just like you don't find us troublesome. This is trust. This is reliance. A bond that goes beyond everything."
On his back, Kotoko's purplish blue eyes brightened, as if someone had quietly lit a lamp inside her chest.
The heaviness vanished from her expression. Her usual playful lightness returned.
She stuck out her pink tongue and lightly licked the side of Asagiri's neck, just like a cat.
Then she leaned close to his ear and whispered in a voice that was sweet, teasing, and undeniably dangerous.
"Then, my handsome boyfriend… when we get back to the hotel room later, do you want me to do some things for you that are troublesome, but very fun?"
.....
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