The corner of Amamiya Rin's mouth twitched.
She could recognise him even through a mask?
It seemed the impression he had left on the Slit-Mouthed Woman the first time around had been rather too vivid.
Nevertheless, faced with the Slit-Mouthed Woman barrelling straight toward him, Amamiya Rin's expression did not change. He loaded the round cleanly and raised the gun to aim.
The entire sequence took roughly half a second.
Half a second, however, was more than generous time for the Slit-Mouthed Woman, whose baseline sprint was thirty-three metres per second — sixty-six barely counting as fast for her.
In the blink of an eye, the Slit-Mouthed Woman had already crossed the near-hundred-metre length of the corridor and materialised directly in front of Amamiya Rin.
And yet — almost in the same instant the Slit-Mouthed Woman launched herself forward — the figure who had been standing with arms folded just ahead and to the side of Amamiya Rin moved.
No preamble. No hesitation.
Tomie's left foot drove forward in a single explosive step. The compact muscles of her calf pulled taut, coiling force into the ground; the floor trembled faintly beneath her. The face behind the children's mask showed nothing, but the eyes above it were burning with the fierce, hungry light of someone who had been waiting for exactly this.
「Your opponent is me, ugly!」
The words were not even finished before her right fist shot out like a shell from a cannon.
Thirty years in the dream-realm boxing gymnasium — tens of thousands of straight punches thrown at sandbags, at sparring partners, at imagined enemies — had long since carved the mechanics of power generation into her very soul.
With Crimson Lotus Breathing surging her body to its absolute limit in a single instant, she twisted every ounce of her strength into one condensed point. Her fist split the air with a low, heavy shriek.
The Slit-Mouthed Woman's charge was stopped dead — wrenched to a halt by that sudden, ferociously powerful blow.
The scissors she had swung caught Tomie's arm in passing, a grazing cut; but Tomie's fist had landed squarely, emphatically, in the Slit-Mouthed Woman's lower abdomen.
「Thud——!!」
The dull crack of a fist driving into flesh detonated through the corridor.
The Slit-Mouthed Woman's body jackknifed violently — like a shrimp slammed in the belly — and the brute force launched her skidding backward half a metre, the soles of her shoes shrieking against the floor tiles.
She did not fall. Instead she used the backward momentum to shed some of the force, and from somewhere beneath her scarf came a low, pained grunt.
「Is that all?!」
Tomie shook out her wrist, and the voice beneath the mask carried undisguised contempt.
In truth? That punch had felt like driving her fist into a solid wood post wrapped in rawhide — absurdly dense.
The ugly thing had a sturdy frame, she would grant her that.
Well — this was a body that could run a hundred, even two hundred metres in three seconds. That kind of density made sense.
The Slit-Mouthed Woman said nothing. Those venomous eyes bored into Tomie for one long, murderous beat — then her silhouette blurred and seemed to vanish, moving like a teleport.
In the span of a breath, that enormous pair of scissors came screaming through the air with a sound like tearing fabric, thrusting straight for Tomie's throat!
Tomie's right foot snapped back in a sharp retreat. Her body flowed naturally with the step, gliding half a pace to the left and rear; her upper body angled slightly right.
The tip of the scissors passed so close to her neck it nearly kissed the skin. The cold draught it dragged along raised every fine hair on the back of her neck.
「Too slow!」
Even as she evaded, Tomie's left arm had already snapped out — a quick, venomous jab, precise as a striking serpent — and cracked solidly against the side of the Slit-Mouthed Woman's right wrist, the joint that held the scissors.
「Crack!」
The Slit-Mouthed Woman's wrist went numb and the thrust was knocked off-line. She reacted with extraordinary speed — immediately changing tactics, converting the stab into a horizontal sweep, the scissors carving in to shear through Tomie's waist!
But Tomie, anchored in the Dhyana state she had deliberately entered, had already anticipated the move.
She dropped low — her body compressing like a coiled spring — and the scissors screamed over her head, severing several strands of hair that had caught in the wind. In the instant the blade passed, Tomie's right fist had already gathered beneath her, and she drove a savage uppercut upward from below, slamming hard into the exposed soft flank of the Slit-Mouthed Woman's abdomen — the flank laid bare by the overextension of the sweeping scissors.
「Ugh!」
The Slit-Mouthed Woman let out a strangled grunt and fell back again, the searing pain in her belly causing her movements to stutter fractionally.
「Not done yet!」
Tomie pressed her advantage without a breath's mercy. Her footwork was swift and light as a butterfly's, closing the distance in an instant; left and right, she rained rapid-fire jabs in a relentless flurry — targeting the Slit-Mouthed Woman's face, chest and shoulder hollow in rapid succession.
These jabs did not carry the same devastation as her heavy punches, but they were fast, the angles were cunning, and the body powering them — reinforced through multiple stages of compression — was not far behind the Slit-Mouthed Woman's own. Even jabs, at this level, were enough to disrupt, to pressure, to throw her opponent's rhythm into disarray.
The Slit-Mouthed Woman was forced onto the defensive, swinging her scissors to parry; for a moment she was actually flustered by the dense, rapid-fire barrage.
The speed advantage she had always relied upon found itself stifled by Tomie's near-prescient defence and fluid, close-in footwork.
Tomie's guard was watertight — both arms like iron gates, always closing in time to seal off the incoming line of attack.
What infuriated the Slit-Mouthed Woman still more were those eyes. Through the absurd little eyeholes of that ridiculous mask, the gaze looking back at her held not one scrap of fear — only the burning, almost ecstatic gleam of someone who was genuinely enjoying a fight.
「Damn you!」
The Slit-Mouthed Woman let out a shriek and her speed spiked again without warning. Her silhouette blurred to the edge of visibility; the scissors became a dark gale, abandoning any pretence of straight combat and stabbing, slicing, hacking at Tomie from every angle at once!
The pressure surged.
Tomie's pupils contracted slightly. Her breathing pattern shifted in an instant, Crimson Lotus Breathing driven to the absolute ceiling of its range.
With Dhyana's amplification pushing her kinetic perception and neurological response to their outer limits, she was no longer simply chasing the blades with her eyes — she was sensing the current of killing intent with her mind, feeling where it would land before it arrived.
A half-beat ahead of each strike she felt the point of impact, and her body moved like flowing water: with a thread's margin to spare, she dissolved that ferocious onslaught — and still had enough left to counter.
In the storage room, Sekiguchi and Ando felt their legs buckle beneath them, and they barely avoided crumpling to the floor. They steadied themselves against the wall, drew breath, and then hurried out into the corridor to look.
The sight of Tomie and the Slit-Mouthed Woman's battle unfolded before them.
「...Hiss...」
Both Sekiguchi and Ando sucked in a sharp breath and stood there, dumbfounded.
The woman in that ridiculous children's mask was holding her own against the Slit-Mouthed Woman — bare-handed?
This was absolutely insane. That thing was a monster!
Both men felt their entire understanding of the world beginning to tremble.
Yusuke, standing behind Amamiya Rin, had his eyes shining. He didn't practise boxing, but men instinctively worship raw power — even without knowing that his opponent was the Slit-Mouthed Woman, the fluency of those punches and the sheer physical force behind them had seized his complete attention.
Amamiya Rin held the modified firearm up but did not fire. Tomie and the Slit-Mouthed Woman were both moving far too fast; pulling the trigger carelessly risked hitting one of his own.
Out in the corridor, Tomie was growing more excited with every exchange.
Thirty years of boxing experience had long since seeped into her bones. Combined with the explosive power and endurance that Crimson Lotus Breathing provided, and the anticipatory perception and reaction speed that Dhyana granted, every movement she made was clean and efficient — not a single motion wasted.
Straight punch, cross, hook — combinations flowing without end; footwork dancing light and quick, maintaining always the ideal distance from the Slit-Mouthed Woman.
Her punches were heavy. Every blow carried genuine weight; when the Slit-Mouthed Woman used the scissors to block, she could feel the vibration punching straight through the blade and into her grip.
Unable to break through after sustained assault, the Slit-Mouthed Woman was growing increasingly frantic.
The speed advantage she depended on could not be fully brought to bear against Tomie's near-prophetic defence and tight, compact guard structure.
Tomie's defence left no openings. Both arms functioned like iron shutters, always moving in time to seal the attack lane.
What enraged the Slit-Mouthed Woman most of all was that woman's expression — through the comical little eyeholes in that absurd mask, those eyes showed nothing resembling fear. Only a brightness that was almost enjoyment, the pure, fierce light of someone relishing the fight.
「Bastard!」
The Slit-Mouthed Woman screamed, and her speed lurched upward once more.
____
👻🔥Seek: Walnut-chan🔥👻
🔥 New history: A Martial Arts Master Will Never Be Humiliated
Let's hit these goals:
🎯 100 Powerstones = 1 extra chapter for the public!