"Don't come any closer!"
The Slit-Mouthed Woman's voice was hoarse and ragged, like sandpaper scraping. Amamiya Rin noticed that her throat was bleeding too — clearly cut by shards from the grenade.
"Come any closer… and I'll crush his neck!"
As she spoke, the Slit-Mouthed Woman's palm tightened, her fingertips piercing into Sekiguchi's throat. Blood trickled down along her fingernails. Sekiguchi's body shuddered, and he opened his eyes in a daze, letting out an anguished wail.
"Come on! You're a ghost-tale, you know! An urban legend, an undying, imperishable being! And you're taking a hostage?! Don't you think that's beneath you? What makes you any different from a human at this point?"
Amamiya Rin stood where he was, opening his mouth then closing it, closing it then opening it again, until at last he couldn't help but start griping out loud.
The Slit-Mouthed Woman was nothing at all like the urban legend he had imagined.
She was far too human!
Urban legends weren't supposed to be like this at all!
You lot are supposed to have your own rules and mechanisms, to act strictly according to the content of the ghost-tale. You're not supposed to kill anyone you see, you're not supposed to run away the moment you meet someone strong, and you're certainly not supposed to take hostages.
"The child…! The child! Give me… the child!"
The Slit-Mouthed Woman bellowed hoarsely, her fingers clamped on Sekiguchi's throat tightening still further. Beads of blood seeped out faster.
"Hm? On the brink of death — and you still want to grab a kid? Well, at least you've got some backbone! And here I thought you were just clinging desperately to life."
Amamiya Rin paused for a beat, then let it go.
Just now he'd assumed the Slit-Mouthed Woman was running away and taking a hostage just to save her own skin — never imagining it was in order to seize a child?
Alright then! That's not embarrassing at all! Even on the brink of death she was still carrying out her own urban legend.
"…A child?"
Teacher Sekiguchi, being held hostage, heard the Slit-Mouthed Woman's voice and gave a violent jolt. He opened his one remaining eye wide and laboriously rolled it to look at the Slit-Mouthed Woman's hideous face only inches from his own.
"You… you're looking for a child? Why…?"
Could it be…
Briefly jolted back to clarity by the pain the Slit-Mouthed Woman was inflicting on him, Teacher Sekiguchi in that instant suddenly recalled the guess that had flashed through his mind earlier in the staff room.
"You ask me why… That's my child… Those children… My children who were taken from me…"
The Slit-Mouthed Woman abruptly bent her head down, bringing her face close to Sekiguchi's. In those bloodshot eyes there churned a mad obsession and a pain that had sunk into the very marrow of her bones; her shrill, high-pitched voice echoed through the corridor.
In the storage room only a few steps away, Teacher Ando and the five elementary-school children inside naturally heard every word loud and clear.
For a moment, every one of them was struck dumb with shock.
"Teacher Sekiguchi's guess… was true?"
With his back braced against the table propped against the door, Teacher Ando felt his heart give a lurch, and his face went pale as well.
That meant — the Slit-Mouthed Woman's child was a student at this very school?
The five elementary-school students, too, opened their eyes wide in that instant, as though they had just learned some enormous secret.
"…Huh?"
Amamiya Rin couldn't help but freeze. This time, he really was thrown for a loop.
Though the mask on his face concealed his expression, the bewilderment in his voice was impossible to hide.
"You want a child? Wait — your child? You have a child? What kind of plot development is this?"
Amamiya Rin's head was in a bit of a muddle.
The way things were unfolding was nothing like what he'd imagined. Not only did the Slit-Mouthed Woman's behaviour pattern not match the urban legend — she even had a child, something the urban legend had never so much as mentioned!
Was it for real, or…
Or perhaps…
"Are you making up a child in order to survive — hoping I'll go easy on you?"
Amamiya Rin had never heard of this version of the Slit-Mouthed Woman ghost-tale. He raised his cane and took a step forward, the tip of the cane pointed straight at the Slit-Mouthed Woman's head.
Narrowing his eyes, Amamiya Rin calmly judged the distance.
One step, two steps, three steps, four steps… ten steps — that meant about seven to eight metres.
In the state of Peerless Swordsmanship · Sword and Zen as One, unleashing a thrusting sword technique — could he strike the Slit-Mouthed Woman's head before she killed Teacher Sekiguchi?
"What she said… might be true… But, don't…"
Teacher Sekiguchi forced his eyes wide open, looking toward Amamiya Rin in the shadows ahead, mustering what strength he had to give Amamiya Rin a warning.
However, before he could finish, the Slit-Mouthed Woman's palm clamped down so hard that he couldn't get out another word.
"Mine… she's my child…! The child I went through so much to bring into the world — and they said I had no way to raise her, and forcibly took the child away from me… Damn them! Give me my child back!"
The Slit-Mouthed Woman's breathing turned heavy and ragged, her hand throttling Sekiguchi's throat trembling slightly from the surge of emotion.
"I searched for so long… so many schools… so many records… and she's right here!!"
Her voice was as piercing as if it were tearing itself apart; her almost sobbing breaths carried more than a hint of desolation.
"Give her back to me… she's mine! No one is allowed to take her away!"
That was the cry of a mother — a cry given in order to see her own child!
Facing the Slit-Mouthed Woman's near-collapsed emotional outpouring, the face beneath Amamiya Rin's mask was unusually calm.
He swiftly sorted through the information he had just heard.
Perhaps the Slit-Mouthed Woman really did have a child.
She had once been human, had given birth to a child, but the child had been taken away.
Going by what she had said — "no way to raise her", "forcibly took her away" — it was very likely that a social welfare agency or the courts had intervened, deciding that, due to mental issues or financial circumstances, or some other reason, she did not have the proper capacity to be a guardian. So the child had been sent to an orphanage, and after that legally adopted by another family.
Once the Slit-Mouthed Woman found out, she had investigated all the way down the trail and finally come here.
A tragic past had given rise to a twisted monster.
However, the ripples this tragedy stirred up in Amamiya Rin's heart soon stilled.
This world had no shortage of tragedy and distortion — and besides, in the story the Slit-Mouthed Woman had lived through, was it really she who was the tragic one?
In order to find her child, the Slit-Mouthed Woman had attacked and killed so many innocent people.
Those victims had families too. The suffering their loved ones bore — was it really any less than the Slit-Mouthed Woman's? Were those shattered families not even more pitiable than a single mother who had lost a child due to her own failings?
What was more, if this present Slit-Mouthed Woman — drenched in blood, plainly unhinged — were truly to find her child, what would it be like for that child? A joyful reunion?
No. That would be true hell.
With an urban-legend monster of a mother latched onto her, the child's entire life would be dragged down into the abyss.
Compared to one monstrous mother's obsession, protecting that child — who probably knew nothing about any of this — and protecting the life of Teacher Sekiguchi right in front of him, was the higher priority.
"I think I more or less understand what you mean."
Amamiya Rin's voice came through the mask, calm without the slightest ripple.
"Your child was taken away. You feel it's unfair, so you've become what you are now, searching everywhere — and hurting innocents along the way… It's a pity, but that is not a reason for you to harm other people…"
With that, Amamiya Rin paused, a flicker of hesitation flashing through his eyes.
It seemed… something was off?
Whatever. Even if there were errors in his analysis, they were probably no more than a matter of sequence. What mattered was the here and now.
____
👻🔥Walnut-chan🔥👻
🔥 New history: A Martial Arts Master Will Never Be Humiliated
🎯 100 Powerstones = +1 Bonus Chapter for everyone