The afternoon's activities were, as ever, a form of torture that went by the name of pressurization training.
(Tedious work.)
Alchemist Tomie's response was dismissive and ice-cold.
As far as she was concerned, a salve for repairing the skin of ordinary people was nothing but a squandering of her research time.
The task of preparing the muscle-cultivation paste for Kawabe Mayo had been delegated to Alchemist Tomie.
(Tedious, yes — but valuable. You do intend to continue your alchemical research, don't you?)
(The artificial human Homunculus and the Philosopher's Stone — if both black magic and alchemy exist in this world, then the Paracelsian system of alchemy must surely have produced results on both fronts.)
Though the muscle-cultivation paste was, in itself, useless to Alchemist Tomie — across thirty years of alchemical research, she had discovered the profound allure of the art, and had likewise confirmed the mystery and grandeur that lay at its heart.
If she could one day reproduce the Homunculus — that bottled figure of boundless knowledge and boundless energy — and the Philosopher's Stone, what did any of the counterfeits amount to?
(Then — do you have the funds to continue your research?)
(...)
Alchemist Tomie had no answer to that.
Funds?
From the money Vampire Tomie had skimmed from the distillery, she had received her share — several hundred thousand. But for alchemical research, that sum was nowhere near sufficient.
(For the sake of returning to a normal person's body, I imagine Miss Kawabe won't be stingy.)
Amamiya Rin's words were a light that cut through Alchemist Tomie's fog.
It had never once occurred to her to exchange labor for compensation.
But now, bound by Amamiya Rin's restrictions, she had no means of running her usual schemes.
The muscle-cultivation paste — this formula had just handed her a legitimate channel for income. And not merely selling it to Kawabe Mayo: she could register a patent, leverage her own charm, and maximize the formula's profits to their fullest extent.
Once that thought settled into place, Alchemist Tomie's mood brightened at once, and she agreed to Amamiya Rin's proposal without another word of protest.
By the time they emerged from the Drink Sports Club, evening had fallen. Along both sides of the main street, the lampposts were flickering on one after another, neon light and shadow trading places in alternating pulses, and the night breeze swept across Amamiya Rin and Tomie, carrying with it a chill that raised the hair on the skin.
Tomie lifted Amamiya Rin — whose movements were still severely restricted — into the back seat of the jeep, then circled around to the driver's seat and started the engine.
The engine growled to life, the car joined the flow of traffic, and they followed the city's main arterial road, heading toward Shimokitazawa.
Not long afterward, the two of them stepped out from a car park on the outskirts of Shimokitazawa.
Amamiya Rin walked with a single crutch, carrying no sword bag.
Tomie had a violin case in hand.
They found a teishoku-ya nearby and ordered a generously portioned tonkatsu set and an unaju.
The food had only just been set on the table when Amamiya Rin's phone buzzed.
He set down his chopsticks, drew out the phone, and saw that it was an email from Mamiya Yuka.
The contents were exactly what he'd been waiting for: materials related to the Slit-Mouthed Woman.
He opened the email and scanned through it quickly.
Most of the content was in line with what he already knew, and some of the finer details held no particular significance.
There was, however, information of value.
[...Multiple witnesses have reported that the Slit-Mouthed Woman moves with extraordinary speed — like a gust of wind, gone in the blink of an eye. In one unpublished interview transcript, a man who claimed to have been chased through the streets at night stated that her running speed exceeded that of a car. Others have said she can cover a hundred meters in three seconds, two hundred meters in three seconds, and there are even accounts of instantaneous teleportation...]
A hundred meters in three seconds, at the slowest.
Amamiya Rin turned that figure over in his mind, and the ghost-like afterimages of the Slit-Mouthed Woman from their battle two nights ago rose again before his eyes.
At the time, he had only registered that she was moving at a speed no human being could match — and though he had pushed his neural reaction speed to the very limit of what the human body could sustain, it still hadn't been enough to beat her head-on; he had only won through technique.
Seeing it laid out in numbers now, the Slit-Mouthed Woman's speed was even greater than he had imagined.
No wonder she had taken Tomie's head off in a single pass the first time they met.
Amamiya Rin's brow furrowed.
At that kind of speed — had he not caught her off-guard and exploited a gap in her defenses, he very likely would have died again.
Still… she was beatable.
Amamiya Rin's gaze shifted to Tomie, then to the violin case.
With Flesh-Mod Tomie's physical constitution pushing out her absolute peak strength, combined with her immortal body, she wouldn't go down so easily — and if he came in from behind to pin down the Slit-Mouthed Woman at the right moment, the odds of defeating her weren't low.
「Leave it all to me!」
Sensing Amamiya Rin's train of thought, Tomie lifted her head and flashed a bright, easygoing grin, still chewing a piece of tonkatsu.
「When the time comes, I'll send that thing flying with a single punch!」
It was only after polishing off three heaping bowls of pork cutlet rice that Tomie finally walked out of the teishoku-ya beside Amamiya Rin.
「Where to now?」
Tomie carried the violin case, her other hand tucked casually into her jacket pocket.
「A sweep around the elementary school.」
Amamiya Rin moved on his crutch, eyes sweeping in all directions.
「The records say the Slit-Mouthed Woman appears most often in the window from late afternoon to just after nightfall — she particularly favors the area around elementary schools. The last group of schoolgirls I ran into all claimed to have encountered her outside their school. Conveniently, there's only one elementary school in this part of Shimokitazawa.」
That morning, before leaving the internet café, Amamiya Rin had already looked into the layout of the Shimokitazawa area — naturally, he hadn't overlooked the location of the elementary school where the Slit-Mouthed Woman might appear.
With that, Amamiya Rin set off on his crutch in the direction he had memorized.
Tomie picked up the violin case and fell into step beside him, her pace light and unhurried.
They had walked some distance when Amamiya Rin suddenly stopped, extending his arm to the side to block Tomie.
「Mm?」
Tomie raised an eyebrow.
「Up ahead.」
Amamiya Rin lowered his voice and tipped the end of his crutch toward the street corner.
Two men were standing under a lamppost, talking. One was lean and tall, dressed in a casual suit; the other was stocky and broad-shouldered, wearing a jacket.
Kazumi Junya and Kogure Soichiro — both in plain clothes — had just come into Amamiya Rin's field of vision.
「What are they doing here?」
Tomie recognized them too.
「Probably investigating, same as us.」
Amamiya Rin pulled Tomie back into the shadow of a building at the roadside.
「Running into them now would be a nuisance — the explanations would be endless.」
There was no way he could explain why he was here together with Tomie… well, technically he could, but it would be an enormous bother, and if something happened later, the explanations would only become more difficult.
Kazumi appeared to be briefing Kogure on something; Kogure nodded intermittently. Neither man was looking in their direction.
Amamiya Rin's gaze swept quickly across the surroundings and landed on a toy shop nearby that hadn't yet closed for the night.
Its display window was hung with an assortment of cartoon masks and toys.
A thought sparked. Amamiya Rin pulled Tomie through the shop door.
The shop was nearly empty of customers; the proprietor was a middle-aged man, idling away the time in front of a small television.
Amamiya Rin didn't linger over the selection — he walked straight to the mask display, picked two large plain masks, and paid.
He handed one to Tomie and put the other on himself.
They were the large size, though even so, the fit was a little snug for an adult face.
「What is this about — it's so childish.」
Tomie held the mask by its edge with a look of distaste, but pressed it onto her face all the same.
「It'll do for now.」
Amamiya Rin said it as he glanced once more toward the distance.
Kazumi and Kogure were still in the same spot, looking around, but hadn't turned to look their way.
He considered for a moment, then shrugged off his own dark outer jacket and gestured to Tomie: 「Swap jackets too.」
Tomie was wearing a slightly oversized black jacket. She shrugged it off cleanly, handed it to Amamiya Rin, and took his outer jacket in return, draping it over her shoulders.
Amamiya Rin pulled on her jacket. Between the swap and the masks, as long as no one came close enough to look carefully, they shouldn't be recognizable.
Under the lamppost at the street corner, Kogure rolled his stiffened shoulders and checked his wristwatch.
「Kazumi-senpai, should we keep going?」
It was nearly eight o'clock, and the sky had gone completely black.
They had been circling through this part of Shimokitazawa — especially around the elementary school — for close to four hours now. Not only had they seen nothing of the Slit-Mouthed Woman, they hadn't even spotted a single pedestrian behaving suspiciously.
「Look at the time… I don't like today's odds. She probably won't be showing herself. We've been at it all day — how about we find an izakaya nearby first and get something in our stomachs? I know a place with great yakitori.」
Kogure couldn't help himself.
Continuing to patrol was only wasting time.
And besides — did the Slit-Mouthed Woman really exist? Was she really on this street? They'd been patrolling for two days now, two days without a single trace. What if she'd already moved to a different part of the city?
「Let's do two more circuits, Kogure. The data shows her activity window isn't fixed — she often appears at the school gate between afternoon and early evening, but there are sightings in the dead of night too. We came all this way; let's stick it out a little longer.」
Kazumi Junya shook his head, declining the suggestion.
Kogure's shoulders sagged. He was about to say something more when his gaze drifted absently across the pavement on the other side of the road.
Two figures were making their way along the opposite side.
One of them was walking with a crutch — though despite the crutch, the pace was remarkably brisk, which made one genuinely wonder whether the crutch was serving any real purpose.
As for the girl beside him, she had a sizable violin case in hand. Was she one of those band-girls that had gotten so popular lately?
What made the corner of Kogure's eye twitch was that both of them — fully grown adults — had cartoon plastic masks on their faces. The kind meant for children.
They were suspicious-looking, certainly — but it was the sort of suspicious that left one without the energy to investigate further.
「Kazumi-senpai, take a look over there…」
Kogure nudged Kazumi lightly with his elbow and tilted his chin toward the opposite side, the resignation in his voice unmistakable.
「What is going on with people these days — grown adults, walking around in children's toy masks.」
Kazumi followed his gaze and caught sight of the peculiar pair as well.
The distance was too great and the light too dim to make out their faces clearly, but those two oversized cartoon masks stood out with surreal vividness in the night.
「Cosplay? Or some kind of performance art?」
Kazumi murmured, a slight twitch tugging at the corner of his own mouth.
The male figure's costume was fairly self-evident, but the female one… it was as though she were playing around with something entirely new and novel.
Still, Kazumi didn't pay them much mind. Tokyo had no shortage of people in eccentric getups. Children's masks were rarer, but hardly remarkable.
He watched the two of them for a moment, confirmed they were doing nothing out of the ordinary — just walking — and withdrew his gaze.
「Never mind them. Focus on the mission.」
He clapped Kogure on the back and gestured for them to move on.
Kogure threw one last glance at the two masked figures across the road, muttered something about weirdos under his breath, and immediately fell into step behind Kazumi.
Amamiya Rin and Tomie's path wove past Kazumi's patrol route, and roughly fifteen minutes later, they arrived at the front gate of the elementary school.
The black iron fence stood firmly shut. Beyond it, the school grounds were drowned in a deep, heavy darkness — the only lights were the lone security booth by the entrance and a scattering of lit windows in the distant teaching block, their glow faint and isolated, lending the entire campus an air that was empty and still, bordering on desolate.
「What time is it even — school let out hours ago, there's not even a ghost in sight.」
Tomie transferred the violin case to her other hand, her voice muffled beneath the mask. She scraped the toe of her shoe against the ground with barely concealed impatience.
「Even Kazumi and his people didn't think it was worth wasting time here. I'm telling you, tonight is going to be a dead end. The Slit-Mouthed Woman isn't a salaried office worker — she's not going to clock in on schedule to scare people.」
She patted her stomach as she said it.
「That tonkatsu from earlier feels like it's almost gone already…」
As Flesh-Mod Tomie's muscle density had been rising sharply, so too had her appetite and her stomach's capacity to digest.
Amamiya Rin didn't engage with the topic of her food intake. His gaze moved carefully over the school's perimeter walls and the quiet streets surrounding them.
「We'll run a patrol with the school at the center. Curses attract curses — between us and the school, there are two factors drawing the Slit-Mouthed Woman in. The odds of her appearing aren't low.」
He thought it through for a moment, then made the call.
At that very moment, the sound of hurried footsteps came from a side alley nearby.
Amamiya Rin turned.
A boy of around fifteen came running toward them. He wore glasses, his face was handsome in a delicate way, and the anxiety written across it was unmistakable.
He slowed as he drew near, his gaze shifting back and forth between the firmly shut school gate and Amamiya Rin, then after a brief hesitation he approached them.
「Excuse me.」
The boy caught his breath. His tone was urgent but perfectly polite.
「Have you seen a sixth-grade girl — about this tall, twin tails, wispy bangs? She's my little sister. She's a sixth-year at this school. She should have been home long before now, but she still hasn't come back.」
He held up a hand to indicate the height as he spoke, casting glances at the teaching block behind the fence.
Amamiya Rin shook his head.
「No. We only just arrived here ourselves.」
He paused, then added:
「Are you sure she didn't go somewhere else with a classmate?」
「She wouldn't!」The boy shook his head firmly, brow creased tight. 「Michina is a good girl — if she were going out with friends, she'd always come home first and tell our mother. And… it's not just Michina. Several of her classmates are also missing — they haven't come home either.」
「More than one? All from this school?」
Amamiya Rin pressed him.
The boy nodded immediately.
A cold weight settled in Amamiya Rin's chest.
Elementary schoolgirls. Vanishing at dusk. This location — it fit squarely inside the Slit-Mouthed Woman's hunting grounds.
But then…
「That doesn't add up.」
Amamiya Rin murmured to himself.
This school already had the legend of the Slit-Mouthed Woman circulating — including knowledge of her weaknesses. It shouldn't have been possible for her to claim so many elementary school students in a single evening.
「Unless…」
A possibility surfaced in Amamiya Rin's mind.
The sort of plot device no horror story was ever without.
「Surely not.」
「Mister, do you know where my sister is?」
Catching the shift in Amamiya Rin's expression, the boy stepped forward anxiously.
「There's a fifty percent chance…」
Amamiya Rin turned back to look at the teaching block.
「That you'll find them inside the school.」
____
👻🔥+40 ch: Walnut-chan🔥👻
🔥 New history: Uchiha Reborn in Jujutsu Kaisen: The System Thinks I'm in Konoha, but I'm Not
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