(Enough!)
Amamiya Rin's will cut through the squabbling Tomies.
Far away in Tokyo, Amamiya Rin lifted his glass of ice water, took a sip, and frowned.
(Why didn't anyone bother to verify first whether these loading workers had ever been exposed to Tomie's influence?)
At lunch that morning, the plan he had received through the [Tomie Network] had been straightforward enough: go to the distillery, identify the men who had been driven mad by Tomie, implant flesh-buds in their bodies, wait for the Tomie consciousness within those fragments to awaken, and then have the newly manifested Tomies take control of those men — thereby seizing the distillery and claiming the revenue from Tomie's brewed products.
In practice, however, Tomie had been far too rough about it. She hadn't checked at all whether her targets had actually been affected.
(Oh, it's a minor thing, don't worry about it, don't worry about it.)
Tomie's attitude was exactly as expected — breezy and unbothered, not giving the slightest thought to the lives of ordinary people.
(Then allow me to assist you in contemplating the Five Aggregates, severing your afflictions, shattering your attachment to self and phenomena, and guiding you gently toward nirvanic liberation — I wholeheartedly wish to help you attain Buddhahood. I do hope you won't mind.)
The thought arose in Amamiya Rin's mind, and he was on the verge of helping Kawakami Tomie directly realize the state wherein all phenomena are empty of inherent nature.
(Wait wait wait! I was joking! Why are you taking it so seriously? Being this serious is how you end up with no friends, you know.)
Kawakami Tomie hastily backed down — and even as the words left her, her hands were already driving into the foreheads of the loading workers, her movements lightning-fast. The few fragment-bodies, each no larger than a fingernail, had absolutely no time to react.
By the time they registered what had happened, they were already sitting in the palm of Kawakami Tomie's hand.
(And the rest of you — behave yourselves. If you get too rowdy, Rin-kun is going to get angry.)
Kawakami Tomie pinched the little scraps of flesh between her fingers and smiled — the kind of smile that didn't reach her eyes — as she issued the threat.
Through the connection of the [Tomie Network], even if she were to burn those flesh-fragments to ash, they would simply grow back. With her immortal body elevated to such a degree, Kawakami Tomie had only one natural enemy: the Dhyana cultivation of Amamiya Rin. Were that not the case, she would never have dared to dig flesh containing cranial nerve cells out of her own skull.
(Damn you! Don't push it! Keeping us trapped inside these disgusting men's bodies indefinitely — I will absolutely snap!)
(Exactly! Being stuck inside a stinking man is even worse than Dhyana — and it's not like Amamiya Rin can maintain Dhyana twenty-four hours without a break.)
But Tomie would not capitulate so easily. Waves of defiant intent radiated out toward Kawakami Tomie. If they were going to suffer either way, there was no reason to bow their heads to some other counterfeit.
(One week. Just one week — after that, other counterfeits rotate in for their shift.)
Kawakami Tomie immediately put forward her terms. She wouldn't admit it openly, but these were still Tomie after all; she had anticipated from the start that they wouldn't accept so easily, and had come prepared.
With their minds connected through the network, every consideration Kawakami Tomie had weighed was instantly transparent to the others. Negotiation was pointless. They had no choice but to hold their noses and accept her arrangement.
At the same moment, Amamiya Rin heard the Coach's call for the second round of compression training to begin. He gradually withdrew his attention — and found that the gym staff had already started putting him to the rack.
That was not a figure of speech. Not in the slightest.
The staff had already secured him into the torture device known as the Sapposhi.
When the ropes snapped taut, the wooden board at his front slammed into his abdomen and crushed his viscera; the board at his back ground into his shoulder blades and spine as if trying to pulverize them. His arms, twisted behind him, emitted a series of crackling pops at the joints. Enormous pressure bore down from front and back simultaneously, as though his body were about to be sheared clean through.
Every bone in his body screamed. The agony crashed over his nerves in waves, like a tempest-lashed sea. The veins in Amamiya Rin's forehead stood out in ridges; his jaw shuddered beyond his control; his vision blurred at the edges. That unbearable, searing pain propagated outward through the [Tomie Network] — and even filtered through the static of the other Tomies' scattered thoughts, enough of it came through for them to feel it as their own.
In the café, Kawakami Tomie's brow twitched sharply. The hand gripping her glass tightened by degrees — but she forced herself to bear Amamiya Rin's savage agony, maintaining her composure in full view of everyone around her, not allowing a single crack to show.
Just then, the bell above the door chimed. Kawakami Tomie glanced toward the café entrance, and saw a woman push her way inside.
The new arrival was reasonably attractive, though leagues behind Tomie herself. Her jet-black hair was pulled back in a clean ponytail; she wore a black base with a light gray cardigan, and looked to be somewhere in her mid-to-late twenties. That combination of details matched precisely what the woman had described to Amamiya Rin over the phone as their means of mutual identification.
"Hey. Over here."
Kawakami Tomie set her glass down with a heavy clunk and waved the woman over.
The woman spotted Kawakami Tomie. A flicker of involuntary surprise and puzzlement crossed her eyes — there and gone in an instant. She walked over quickly and said in a low voice, "You're the one who arranged to meet me?"
Kawakami Tomie tilted her head and propped her chin on the back of her hand. "You've already taken up three days of Rin-kun's time," she said, without bothering to soften it. "Don't waste any more of mine. Get to the point, and let me deal with it cleanly."
The woman hesitated, studying Kawakami Tomie's face — but at those words, she confirmed that the beauty sitting before her was indeed the friend Amamiya Rin had mentioned on the phone.
"I'm sorry. Something came up that I really couldn't leave, so I'm late."
The woman sat down across from Kawakami Tomie, rubbed her right eye, and continued.
"My name is Hayashi Naoko. And you?"
"Tomie. Kawakami Tomie."
Kawakami Tomie's lips curved upward in that proud way of hers.
"Ms. Kawakami…"
The woman called Hayashi Naoko trailed off after saying Kawakami Tomie's surname, at a loss for what came next. She studied Tomie with a guarded, uncertain look — as if she could not quite convince herself that the woman before her would actually be of any help, rather than simply becoming another victim.
"Stop wasting time, plain-face. Unlike you, my time is extremely precious."
Kawakami Tomie tapped the tabletop with her fingers, irritation rising.
She had far less patience for unremarkable men and women than for men of exceptional quality — especially now, when she was simultaneously enduring the violent physical sensations feeding through from Amamiya Rin while still maintaining a normal conversation with the woman in front of her. All for the sake of some errand Rin wanted handled, which she personally couldn't care less about.
Hayashi Naoko's expression darkened slightly. No woman could simply absorb that kind of treatment from Tomie.
But she held herself together. However unpleasant Tomie's manner, she had still come here to help — because Naoko had asked.
"I used to work as a makeup artist. Things were going fairly well for me in the industry, and among the talents I worked with was a household-name pop star… Kawahara Miyuki."
Hayashi Naoko looked down and began to recount the story from the beginning.
"The longer we knew each other, the closer we got… She used to always say my eyes were beautiful. But after that summer courage-test program, she changed completely. Became a totally different person."
"Beautiful eyes…? Two plain women complimenting each other to feel better?"
Kawakami Tomie let out a contemptuous little laugh — entirely missing the point, and managing to be cutting in the process.
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