Minagawa Akane elegantly lifted her foot.
Komuro Yota knelt on the ground, serving as a footstool to support his supreme deity.
Perhaps unable to accept this scene, Hannya sat far away with a cigarette, hiding himself in the shadows of the corner.
Only the gray-white smoke of the mist circled slowly like a snake, filling the small room.
"So, the numbers are quite significant?"
The man exhaled smoke and looked at Minagawa Akane with praise.
This woman had truly brought him many surprises.
"Over thirty." Minagawa Akane pinched the other's ear with her toes, and Komuro Yota immediately steadied his shoulders to hand her the low-footed teacup from the table.
"the mist Vessel has been found. Should I contact her now?" After taking a sip of tea and handing it back to Komuro Yota, Minagawa Akane idly toyed with the light-colored hair near her ear while talking. "I really do like the young people of today..."
Hannya 'tsked,' his teasing expression tinged with a subtle disdain. "Over thirty..."
"What else?" Minagawa Akane licked her bright red lips. "Let the Mortal feel the greatness of the mist..."
"I don't think you're doing this entirely for the mist."
The woman's play with her hair made Hannya's earlobes start to itch, and he instinctively pinched his mask-shaped earring.
Cold and sharp.
During their conversation, the rustling sound of insects flapping their wings was constant in the room.
"A wonderful sound... Prepare, Heart." Hannya crushed his cigarette. "After the mist ritual succeeds, I might be able to ask the Host for a ritual object for you."
"That way, the mist infection won't matter."
Although Hannya believed Minagawa Akane didn't care about the so-called infection at all; she truly seemed to enjoy it.
The woman remained indifferent as she listened, her attention seemingly entirely focused on her left foot.
With red oil painted on her toes, she toyed with the Boy's hair one stroke at a time.
Hannya curled his lip, stood up from his seat, and picked up his suit jacket to put it on.
Minagawa Akane suddenly spoke.
"Hayami Mari. There's always a girl following that brat. Should we deal with her in advance..."
Minagawa Akane narrowed her eyes. "She's been practicing vocal music at my place lately."
Minagawa Akane stretched out her slender arm toward the light, admiring it from all angles before aiming her open hand at the ground.
"Come." She beckoned to Komuro Yota, her sharp nails grazing his young chin.
The Boy looked up and offered his neck as if it were nectar.
Click.
Minagawa Akane gently gripped Komuro Yota, her slender and delicate palm suddenly exerting force!
Visibly, the Boy's face began to turn red and swell, his eyeballs bulging outward.
Harder... even harder.
Slowly, he began to desperately crave air, his face turning from red to purple as his whole body struggled uncontrollably.
Those 'ho-ho' sounds of struggling made Minagawa Akane feel a bit of disgust.
"A 'Contactee' has such powerful strength. Just how much interesting life have I missed..."
Seeing the woman murmuring in a daze, Hannya frowned and walked back. His thick fingers grasped Minagawa Akane's thumb and pried it open bit by bit, creating a small space for the suffocating Boy to breathe.
Minagawa Akane glanced at Hannya nonchalantly, and as his expression darkened, her red lips parted slightly.
"Oh, I hate you."
Following her playful and sweet tone, she loosened her hand.
Thud.
Komuro Yota slumped onto the carpet, gasping for breath, yet his eyes were full of longing.
"You'd better show some restraint." Hannya withdrew his hand, looking displeased.
"Not all Contactees possess strength like yours." He pointed to the corner of the woman's mouth—several wriggling white maggots were squeezing out from between her red lips.
Slurp.
Minagawa Akane pursed her lips and flicked her tongue, rolling the maggots back into her mouth as her throat moved a few times.
As an Origin Point level Ritualist, Hannya had also gone through a period as a Contactee, so he could well understand the shift in mindset after suddenly gaining extraordinary power.
It was just that this person was becoming more and more excessive.
"Take the task I gave you seriously and wait for the mist to descend. Heart, you... better not mess this up." Hannya straightened the hem of his dark-patterned suit, the warning from his lips carrying a breathy sound like the hiss of a venomous snake.
"If the girl beside Hayami Mari is troublesome, then don't move against her yet."
"I don't want any complications before the ritual begins."
"Don't forget, we volunteered for this task."
Leaving those words behind, Hannya hurriedly left the room.
Minagawa Akane ignored Hannya, watching his departing figure before turning her gaze back. She wrinkled her nose and sniffed the lingering scent of tobacco.
No, 'you' volunteered for it, not 'us.'
She raised her palm to fan herself, looking at Komuro Yota with interest. At this moment, the Boy was crawling at her feet, looking up with a face full of happiness and obsession.
"Teacher Minagawa!" There were still marks on his neck from where he had just been choked. "Please let me keep looking at you like this until the mist descends!"
At this moment, Komuro Yota was like a hound that had been starved for five days; while his features were slightly distorted, his nose twitched constantly along Minagawa Akane's body—he gently touched a few fallen insects in front of him with his fingers, and a long centipede crawled out from a crack, following Komuro Yota's finger onto his body.
"Cute little guy..." Komuro Yota picked it up as if no one were there and stuffed it into his mouth, with half of it still hanging from the corner of his lips.
"Am I really beautiful?"
Minagawa Akane opened her mouth seductively, and from the corners of her eyes, two insect legs with bristles emerged.
"More beautiful than Sen Getsusa? I remember Yota-kun liked that girl named Sen Getsusa quite a lot."
The distorted expression on Komuro Yota's face turned into a grimace.
Those words seemed to flip a switch in him, making the Boy shake his head violently in disgust. Immediately, he aimed his greedy gaze back at Minagawa Akane. "No, of course not. You are the only deity in my Heart..."
"My ruler, my mother—"
"The sublimation of my destiny."
... "Hey, how is it?"
Eriri poked her head around and whispered into Sen Getsusa's ear, her breath smelling of peach. Sen Getsusa glanced behind her, and sure enough, a bottle of soda with the same flavor was sitting on the table.
"How is what?"
The young girl sat up, turned her head, and pushed Eriri's head away.
"Teacher Minagawa!" Eriri's eyes widened. "Isn't she especially gentle, especially understanding, especially—"
Sen Getsusa rubbed her temples: "I'm asking for advice on vocal music, please don't look like such an obsessed woman."
Eriri pouted and shrank back: "Eh, speaking of which, recently, the area around the school has been inexplicably foggy."
The two girls chatted about gossip, scrolling aimlessly on their phones.
"It also says here that huge insects often appear in the first-floor restroom recently."
Sen Getsusa turned her head and leaned onto Eriri's desk. The screen showed the school forum: "Huge? In the girls' restroom?"
"Mhm, mhm, they say they're as long as centipedes and crawl super fast!" Eriri shook her hand, "Ew... just thinking about it is disgusting."
"Eriri is very afraid of bugs?"
"It's bugs that crawl super fast!" Eriri recalled the insects she had seen, and her palms started sweating.
Sen Getsusa blinked: "What does that have to do with being fast?"
Eriri: "It's the speed! Super fast! Super fast! The faster they crawl, the more I hate them!"
Sen Getsusa was extremely confused.
"Eh... does it have anything to do with speed?"
Seeming to realize that this Black, Fluffy Creature was going to argue with her, Eriri rolled her eyes at her, "Of course! The faster they are, the scarier they are, okay!"
Sen Getsusa bit her finger: "Hmm... so, if one day, Bor was frantically chasing Eriri from behind..."
She extended two index fingers, drawing a humanoid figure in the air: "And coincidentally, there was a cockroach crawling on his shoulder..."
Eriri helplessly propped up her chin: "You're an idiot... at a time like that, I'd definitely be more afraid of Bor!"
"Also, why would he suddenly start chasing me?"
Sen Getsusa smiled and tapped the forehead of the Little Golden Retriever: "I thought you'd say,'Since both colors blend together, how could I possibly distinguish the cockroach?'"
Eriri squinted: "You just had to pick two things with the same color."
"That's true. So, if Tomiya-kun was chasing you while riding a super-fast cockroach—"
Eriri gloomily reached out a small hand and covered her mouth: "Please stop talking, the image you described is too terrifying."
After laughing and joking for a while, suddenly, Sen Getsusa's eyes looked past Eriri, staring intently at the space behind the girl—she seemed to have seen something, looking at Eriri, then at the thing behind her, hesitating to speak.
"Don't move."
Sen Getsusa's smile vanished, her expression serious: "Don't move, Eriri."
The atmosphere instantly grew heavy.
Sen Getsusa slowly raised her hand, reaching toward the hair near Eriri's cheek, while gently reassuring her.
"Don't move, don't be afraid, it's just a tiny—"
Eriri froze in her seat, completely petrified. Her blue pupils stared intensely at Sen Getsusa's hand; in her view, the other girl's nervousness intensified her own panic.
Eriri's heart started pounding faster and faster, and her palms were sweating.
"A tiny..."
Sen Getsusa slowly approached, under Eriri's nervous, pleading gaze.
"A tiny..."
She touched the hair.
Then... Sen Getsusa opened her five slender fingers and placed them on top of her head.
And quickly shouted.
"Waaah! It's huge!!"
Sen Getsusa's scream made Eriri scream too!
"Ahhhhhhh!!"
She flailed her arms and started slapping her hair and neck!
After wriggling in her seat for a long time, she stood up and bent over, almost burying her head on the ground as she continued slapping herself.
"Quick! Quick, help me check! Is there more? Is there more? Is there more?!"
The Child was terrified out of her mind.
The next moment, she heard a soft laugh.
The girl raised her head blankly and saw Sen Getsusa standing nearby with her hands behind her back, tilting her head, her face full of teasing.
The sound of grinding teeth and shouting gradually grew louder.
"Sen! Get! su! sa! You idiot woman!!"
"Do you think you're funny!!"
What she received in return was the other girl's even happier laughter.
"Hahahaha Eriri, you are definitely the Master of Air Shampooing!"
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