Amamiya Rin didn't pick up where Tomie had left off. He yanked the cane back out, gritting his teeth against the searing, burning pain in his chest cavity and the dizziness that felt as though his head might split apart. He staggered a step back, planting the cane against the ground, and only just managed to keep himself upright.
Disordered neurotransmitter secretion, palpitations, chest tightness, stabbing pain behind the sternum, respiratory alkalosis… the side effects of the Peerless Swordsmanship · Sword and Zen as One state truly were enormous. It was a lucky thing his body was sturdy enough — and that he had the self-healing capacity of Tomie cells.
Otherwise, after a single strike, his opponent wouldn't die before he himself collapsed first.
After resting for a little while, Amamiya Rin made his way back toward the storage room.
Already a small puddle of dark red had pooled on the floor. Sekiguchi's complexion was a frightening white; the eye that was still intact was half-open, the pupil somewhat unfocused.
Amamiya Rin pounded once on the door of the storage room.
"Call for an ambulance!"
Before the words had even finished leaving his mouth, the strain had pulled at his chest cavity again, and what followed was a fit of violent coughing.
From behind the storage-room door came a rustling sound. A few seconds later, the door was pulled open from the inside, and Teacher Ando's pallid face peered out, his eyes wary as he scanned the corridor.
When he saw the thoroughly dead Slit-Mouthed Woman, and then saw Sekiguchi lying in a pool of blood, the muscles in his face couldn't help but spasm.
Without the time to even start thinking through exactly what was happening, Teacher Ando frantically fumbled his phone out of his pocket and dialed 119, the emergency line.
Kenta, Michina, and the rest of the little kids came pushing out through the storage-room doorway one after another as well.
And the moment these audacious little kids looked up, they spotted Amamiya Rin propped up on his cane, wearing the Ultraseven mask.
All at once, their eyes flew wide — wider and brighter than light bulbs.
"Seven! Ultraseven!"
"Seven, did you come all the way here just to fight monsters?"
"I knew it — Ultraman is real! Dad lied to me and said Ultraman didn't even exist."
"Seven, weren't you supposed to be unable to transform anymore after your leg got crippled?"
They came rushing up in a swarm, staring intently at the cheap plastic mask on Amamiya Rin's face, calling out at the top of their voices in excitement.
"That was a lie. Dan Moroboshi could transform into Ultraseven just fine — he only said he couldn't so that he could keep Ultraman Leo around as a fighter. He was just stringing Ultraman Leo along."
Amamiya Rin said it without the slightest restraint.
"Eh?"
"Eh, eh??"
"Eh, eh, eh???"
...
The moment the words left his mouth, the few elementary-school kids were all left utterly dumbfounded.
What did he mean, Dan Moroboshi actually could transform into Ultraseven, but in order to have one more fighter on the team he duped Ultraman Leo into thinking he couldn't transform anymore?
A Warrior of Light shouldn't say such dark things!
Having just finished dialing 119, Teacher Ando caught Amamiya Rin's voice, and an indescribable expression came over his face.
"Sir, I am their teacher Ando. May I ask your name?"
His face shifting, Teacher Ando decided he wasn't going to let this masked weirdo Amamiya Rin keep messing with his students, and addressed Amamiya Rin in a respectful tone.
"My name… you can call me Seven."
Amamiya Rin thought briefly, then offered up the name of the mask outright.
Teacher Ando was once again rendered speechless.
"A code name, then? All right — since you have no intention of revealing your true identity, I won't ask any further."
Glancing at the mask on Amamiya Rin's face, Teacher Ando came to the realization that if the man before him were willing to expose his identity he would hardly be wearing a child's toy like this — and so he didn't press the matter.
"An Ultraman can't let other people know who his human host is — otherwise the Ultraman has to leave the Earth!"
Unlike Teacher Ando, whom Amamiya Rin had left speechless, the children all wore expressions of perfect matter-of-factness.
Because — well, isn't that just how Ultraman works?
"Then…"
Teacher Ando looked toward Tomie at the far end of the corridor, then trailed off awkwardly.
"Le… Leo… Miss Leo?"
Granted, with the dim light and the distance, it was hard to see clearly.
But that person was thoroughly dead, wasn't she?
Her body had been all but sliced open by the scissors. No matter how tough she might be, she couldn't possibly hold out until the ambulance arrived, could she?
Kenta, Michina, and the other kids also noticed Tomie collapsed at the end of the corridor, and they craned their eyes wide to see.
"Ultraseven, is Ultraman Leo hurt?"
Michina asked, worried.
"Don't worry. Ultraman Leo is wounded, yes, but she's only reverted from Ultraman form back to her human host. She's a little exhausted right now — give it a while and she'll be all right."
Amamiya Rin shifted his body to block Teacher Ando's and the schoolchildren's line of sight.
"Ah! Big sis! Big sis… are… are you still alive?"
At that moment, a panicked, distressed cry came from behind.
It was Yusuke!
After the battle down below was over, the middle-schooler who had come in with them earlier looking for his little sister had finally made his way down too.
(Come to think of it… the name Michina sounds awfully familiar.)
Amamiya Rin mulled it over, but didn't dig any deeper. Right now, the most important thing — the top priority — was fobbing off the boy named Yusuke.
"Don't worry about her. Come over here first and take a look — is your little sister here?"
Amamiya Rin turned his head and called out to Yusuke, who was standing at the top of the stairs at a loss.
Hearing Amamiya Rin mention the very person he cared about most, Yusuke, exactly as expected, immediately put Tomie out of his mind, hurrying over with his face full of worry.
"Onii-san!"
Seeing Yusuke come rushing over, Michina shrank her neck guiltily and then ran out to meet him as well.
"You're not hurt?"
Yusuke pulled his little sister tightly into a hug, then carefully checked Michina's body all over. Finding no obvious wounds and no tears in her clothing, he finally let out a breath of relief.
However, the instant Yusuke confirmed that Michina was unharmed and the just-survived-a-disaster expression on his face had only just begun to relax, his face hardened straight back up.
"Michina!"
Yusuke's voice rose, full of anger and the lingering chill of fright.
"Do you have any idea what time it is? Why didn't you come home? Mom's nearly losing her mind! And why on earth did you all run over to the school?"
Michina shrank her neck and offered a small-voiced defense: "Because… because we heard there was a Slit-Mouthed Woman here, so we wanted…"
"Wanted what!"
Yusuke cut her off furiously, his words trembling a little from his agitation.
"That's a real monster! Didn't you all see it just now?! Do you have any idea how dangerous that was?! If it hadn't been for… if it hadn't been for…"
He glanced at the masked Amamiya Rin standing nearby, swallowing the rest of his sentence — but the fear and reproach in his eyes hadn't dimmed one bit.
"You almost died! Do you understand that?!"
Yusuke knew that his little sister had a strong mind of her own, and that she'd always been a sensible kid.
But what he had never, ever imagined was that the one time his strong-minded little sister decided to act like a foolish, careless kid, it would be for the sake of going off and doing something this dangerous.
Michina's eyes reddened around the rims at her brother's shouting, and she ducked her head, not daring to speak.
The four kids beside her also quietly shrank back a little themselves.
Teacher Ando and Amamiya Rin watched Yusuke chewing Michina out without stepping in to intervene.
Their take on it was exactly the same as Yusuke's.
Little kids running off at this hour of the night, going adventuring instead of going home? How could that ever be acceptable?
If these had been their own children, they would have already pulled out the Seven Wolves belt and given the little brats a good thrashing.
____
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🔥 New history: A Martial Arts Master Will Never Be Humiliated
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