"Not bad. Although it's not as good as the high-end hotels I lived in before, it's close enough. This room is mine."
A Tomie walked to the bedside in her high heels, her fingers brushing over the dust-accumulated bedpost. She surveyed the layout around her and spoke as if it were a matter of course.
Compared to the Japanese-style room downstairs, this Western-style room was more spacious and suited her tastes better.
"We two will live in this one. You two live downstairs."
Another Tomie took the opportunity to assign the rooms.
There were four of them and two rooms. Asking any two of them to sleep on the sofa or in the utility room would certainly please no one; they had to pair up.
"Ha! Why does it belong to you? Just because your skin is thicker and your face is bigger than ours?"
The Tomie assigned to the Japanese-style room immediately bristled. She stared viciously at the Tomie opposite her and retorted loudly.
"Because I saw it first! What, you have a problem with that?"
"I have a huge problem! You think you're the only one with eyes?"
The Tomies once again displayed their signature talent for infighting, completely ignoring the oppressive atmosphere and potential danger of the room as they quarreled endlessly.
No one noticed that in the corner of the room, a patch of particularly heavy shadow seemed to squirm.
A pale face peered out from the shadows. Black eyes, hollow and devoid of any luster, stared straight at the four arguing women.
It was a little boy with deathly white skin. He was completely naked, wearing no clothes at all. He had appeared suddenly in a gap that no one had perceived, as quiet as a forgotten doll.
He tilted his head slightly, as if confused by these women making such a racket in his home.
The temperature in the bedroom slowly dropped, and the air became even more gloomy, yet this failed to attract the slightest attention from the Tomies. They were arguing inextricably, glaring viciously at one another.
The little boy tilted his head, and with bare feet, walked step by step into their midst. He looked up, gazing expressionlessly at the four of them.
A Tomie was waving her arm, arguing excitedly. Her gaze swept over the top of the little boy's head, as if glancing at a piece of debris or furniture, without pausing in the slightest.
The little boy stood quietly between the four quarreling Tomies just like that, ignored as if he were non-existent air.
He blinked his hollow eyes, seemingly unable to comprehend this phenomenon.
So, he opened his mouth.
The corners of his mouth stretched toward his ears in an inhuman arc, almost splitting to the roots of his ears, revealing a pitch-black oral cavity.
"Meow—!!!"
In the next moment, a cat cry, shrieked to the extreme of shrillness, exploded violently from his throat.
This sound was completely unlike anything a human could produce. Carrying an incomparably intense penetrating power, it drowned out all the quarreling and stung Kawakami Tomie's eardrums with pain.
The arguing came to an abrupt halt.
The four Tomies shuddered simultaneously, startled by this sudden noise. They lowered their heads in unison, their astonished gazes finally focusing on this bare-bottomed child who had appeared in their midst at some unknown time.
However, the astonishment lasted only for an instant, immediately replaced by intense annoyance and irritation.
"Where did this brat come from! Can't you see we're discussing serious business?"
The Tomie standing at the very front raised her eyebrows. Her right hand formed a knife hand, the muscles of her forearm tightening instantly. Her fingertips were like sharp arrowheads, slicing through the cold air as they stabbed toward the little boy's eyes with lightning speed.
"So noisy! Uncultured brat!"
Another Tomie moved almost in sync. She took a deep breath, expanding her chest. Her right hand formed a knife hand, abruptly slashing upward from her waist. It was an incomparably sharp upward slash, the edge of her palm aiming for the little boy's jaw, as if to slice him open from bottom to top.
"Annoying brat, don't get in the way!"
The third Tomie adopted a kesa-giri stance. Her arm, like a true sharp blade, raised high and swung down violently with the twisting force of her whole body. The edge of her palm chopped ruthlessly toward the back of the little boy's neck, the movement ferocious and merciless.
"Get lost!"
The fourth Tomie's attack was even more vicious. Her right arm was like a taut bowstring as she unleashed a savage horizontal chop straight at the little boy's temple. The heel of her palm carried a momentum that seemed to tear through everything, aiming for a one-hit kill.
Four fatal palm strikes created blurred afterimages in the dim light.
Eye-stabbing, jaw-splitting, neck-breaking, skull-crushing—attacks launched from different angles almost sealed off every possibility of evasion for the little boy.
The limit-breaking burst brought by the Red Lotus Breathing allowed their movement speed to exceed their own physical limits.
Those natural yet vicious killing moves vividly displayed the absurdity of the intruders acting as hosts and behaving with utter barbarity.
Pfft! Smack! Thud! Crack!
Dull impact sounds rang out almost indiscriminately.
For a moment, the Tomies' palms and fingertips clearly felt the sensation of hitting a solid entity—it was a strange feeling, cold and stiff.
Before even a look of confusion could surface in the little boy's large, hollow eyes, his thin, small body was torn and impacted by several massive forces simultaneously, and he was flung violently backward.
Returning to exactly where he had come from, the small body smashed directly into the patch of shadow in the corner of the room. Like a water droplet merging into a lake, he vanished silently.
However, although the brat had vanished, the stagnant air in the room and the increasingly icy chill proved that the little boy who had just appeared was no hallucination.
Only, this bizarre interlude did not arouse Kawakami Tomie's vigilance.
Just a ghost? What's the big deal about a brat?
They had died an unknown number of times. If not for their undying bodies, they could have organized a Night Parade of One Hundred Demons long ago.
"It hurts!"
Kawakami Tomie shook her arm and rubbed her chest, a look of grievance actually appearing on her face.
"To actually make me hit someone... doing such a crude thing made my hand hurt."
"Cut the crap. With my skin being so delicate, wouldn't it hurt when hit with force? Honestly, popping out suddenly to scare people."
"Smelly brat! My nail almost broke!"
...
The Tomies complained and cursed. No one cared about Saeki Toshio's sudden appearance; they only cared about their own losses.
However, probably because attacking Saeki Toshio had allowed them to vent their anger, the tension between the Tomies was no longer so explosive.
"How about this? There's no result in continuing to argue. We'll take turns living in the master bedroom, switching every two days. How's that?" Kawakami Tomie proposed.
The other three looked at one another.
Although they were still unwilling, continuing to argue was indeed not a solution.
"Fine, let's do as you said."
The three Tomies curled their lips and nodded, accepting the proposal.
The four finally reached a consensus and began tidying the room together, preparing for the night's rest.
____
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