He could not compromise with a hostage-taker! Doing so would only force him onto the back foot!
The instant that thought formed in his mind, the hand Amamiya Rin had wrapped around the cane subtly adjusted its angle, his center of gravity beginning to shift forward without leaving a trace, the friction of his shoe-soles against the floor all but inaudible.
"What you've been through may well deserve sympathy."
Amamiya Rin went on speaking, his feet sliding forward another half-pace, narrowing the distance from a little over seven meters down to seven.
"But the people you killed — they've already lost their futures."
Amamiya Rin's gaze locked onto the hand the Slit-Mouthed Woman had clamped around Sekiguchi's throat, calculating the angle and trajectory of his explosive thrust.
The state of Sword and Zen as One was quietly brewing within him, the adrenaline beginning to climb slowly, his senses sharpening, everything around him seeming to slow to a crawl.
"So — my apologies."
Amamiya Rin's voice remained level, his right foot stepping forward another half-pace, drawing the distance closer to roughly six meters.
"Your search for your family — and you yourself — let it all come to an end here today."
"Stand still!"
Although the Slit-Mouthed Woman was riding high on raw emotion, her beast-like instincts let her sense the danger in an instant!
Beneath Amamiya Rin's outwardly placid words lay a substantive, step-by-step closing threat!
Her injured body recoiled sharply backwards, and the Slit-Mouthed Woman clamped Teacher Sekiguchi even more tightly in front of herself, turning him into her human shield, her fingers sinking deep into the skin at the side of Sekiguchi's neck, and blood at once welled out.
"You take one more step, and I'll snap his neck! I mean what I say!"
Amamiya Rin's steps halted.
He stopped about six meters from the Slit-Mouthed Woman, the tip of the cane dipping slightly, yet the arm holding it raised was utterly steady.
"Do you know? Humans aren't the same as apparitions — wounds too severe, too much blood lost, and life itself is in real danger."
Amamiya Rin said calmly.
"What are you trying to say?"
The Slit-Mouthed Woman demanded.
"Even if I were to give in to you, for the sake of your own safety you'd still keep holding Teacher Sekiguchi hostage until you yourself were clear of danger before you'd let him go — and by then, the window for the best possible treatment will have long since passed."
Amamiya Rin's gaze slid across the Slit-Mouthed Woman's face and came to rest on Teacher Sekiguchi's face.
The two of them locked eyes. Teacher Sekiguchi seemed to have grasped Amamiya Rin's resolve from his words; a flicker of hesitation passed through his eyes — and then in the end, an expression of unflinching, throw-caution-to-the-wind determination took its place.
(My heart is unmoved. And yet I must hold to freedom. That is to say — the realm of no-thought, no-mind.)
Silently he sank deeper into the realm of Dhyana, forcibly cutting away all superfluous weighing and hesitation.
In this moment, Amamiya Rin's inner world manifested the empty realm of no-self.
(Peerless Swordsmanship · Sword and Zen as One!)
The Crimson Lotus Breathing technique, driven to its absolute limit, ignited the very last wisp of oxygen in his lungs, and adrenaline came roaring into his veins like molten lava. Everything in his field of vision slowed down — the Slit-Mouthed Woman's face, twisted with rage; her fingernails buried deep into Teacher Sekiguchi's neck; even the very trajectories of the beads of blood bursting from the wounds — all of it was crystal-clear.
With no visible warning whatsoever, in the very moment the Slit-Mouthed Woman was still wondering what exactly he meant to do, Amamiya Rin's body moved!
The cane-tip, which had been dipping slightly, snapped upward in a single instant. His entire body was like a powerful bow drawn fully back and then released — shifting from extreme stillness into extreme motion!
"Evil Thrust!"
With the ball of his left foot as a pivot, his heel ground violently into the floor in a sharp twisting drive, and his body shot forward as if fired by some invisible ballista, hurtling out along a single perfectly straight line!
The ordinary metal cane in his hand, in that instant, tore through the air with an ear-splitting shriek, transforming into a blurred grey streak that drove straight at the bloodshot right eye of the Slit-Mouthed Woman!
It was all too fast!
So fast that the Slit-Mouthed Woman's beast-like instincts had only just begun screaming a warning, the muscles of the fingers dug into Sekiguchi's throat had only just begun to tense and apply force — and Amamiya Rin was already right in front of her.
"Sploosh!!"
A wet, viscous piercing sound burst forth!
The tip of the cane, in that single instant, drove savagely into the Slit-Mouthed Woman's right eye! The enormous kinetic energy did not stall for so much as a heartbeat, surging onward along the length of the shaft!
"Egghh—?!"
The Slit-Mouthed Woman's anguished scream was choked off in her throat by the impact. Had she not been wounded, this dead-straight attack of Amamiya Rin's would, to her, have been no different from slow motion.
But she had been wounded by the blast — and the injury was no small thing.
For one brief moment, the sight that met the eye was the Slit-Mouthed Woman propped up on the cane, her feet leaving the ground, her entire body sent sliding and flying backwards out of control, as if she had taken a direct hit from a battering ram head-on!
Just like the very move the Slit-Mouthed Woman had used earlier on Tomie!
Amamiya Rin braced the cane with everything he had, his feet beneath him pounding the floor in a furious drumbeat of rapid steps, driving the Slit-Mouthed Woman's body before him as he continued his charge on down the corridor. The cane bored deeper through her eye socket and into her brain, bringing with it a grinding, churning agony and pitch-black darkness.
One step, two steps, three steps... Amamiya Rin drove the Slit-Mouthed Woman nearly five meters down the corridor with his charge!
"Boom!"
With a muffled thud, the Slit-Mouthed Woman's back slammed hard into the wall behind her.
And then, all of her strength seemed in an instant to be drained away. Leaning against the wall, her body slowly slid down until she sat on the floor; the lone remaining left eye stretched as wide as it could go, staring hollowly at Amamiya Rin.
The madness, the obsession, the venom that had churned within it — like charcoal burning itself out — rapidly dimmed, and at last was extinguished entirely.
Amamiya Rin's cane was buried deep in the Slit-Mouthed Woman's brain. The momentum of his forward charge had left his body leaning slightly forward, both hands gripping the cane, his chest heaving violently, every breath carrying a scorching current of air; the look on his face was one of agony so intense he seemed all but suffocating.
For the moment, the only sound in the corridor besides Amamiya Rin's heavy, ragged gasping was the far more urgent, agonized gurgling coming from the side of the wall.
That was Teacher Sekiguchi, whose neck had been ripped open in a great gash, blood bubbling up out of it in steady gurgles.
His situation was very bad. Amamiya Rin's rescue had not been wholly successful — in the very instant of being attacked, the Slit-Mouthed Woman had torn open a horrifying wound across Teacher Sekiguchi's throat.
He needed help urgently, right now — but Amamiya Rin couldn't get his voice out, and Teacher Ando and those children were obediently hidden away inside the storage room, growing uneasy at the sudden commotion outside, and then the equally sudden silence.
At the same time, within the [Tomie Network], a brisk, lighthearted ripple of thought came drifting across.
(Yo~! Nicely done there, Rin-kun. And here I was thinking that since you didn't bring your sword this time, you'd only dare to skulk around in the back clutching that piece of scrap metal — looks like you've got some spine after all! Wanna go for a night run together in a bit?)
That was none other than Tomie, who was still back at the rear playing dead.
Seeing that Amamiya Rin had not chosen to compromise just because the Slit-Mouthed Woman had taken a hostage, but had instead resolutely launched his attack — and had even killed the Slit-Mouthed Woman using the very same tactic the Slit-Mouthed Woman had used to kill her — Tomie was thoroughly pleased.
She had been figuring that she would need to go back and have Amamiya Rin drive a jeep around in special training sessions with her, in order to forge a flying-kick technique capable of countering the Slit-Mouthed Woman's high-speed charge — only then would she be able to go take her revenge on the Slit-Mouthed Woman.
She hadn't expected Amamiya Rin to be far less indecisive than she had imagined — willing to gamble with Teacher Sekiguchi's possible death, and to kill the Slit-Mouthed Woman in spite of it.
____
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🔥 New history: A Martial Arts Master Will Never Be Humiliated
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