Having shaped the vessel of the hypnosis app into the form of an ōdachi, giving it the image and the qualifications to mock the Swordswoman Tomie, Tomie took up her own blade and went back to settle the score with the Swordswoman Tomie.
When she slid open the sliding door of the dojo, the Swordswoman Tomie was sitting cross-legged at its center, eyes closed in quiet meditation.
Hearing the disturbance, she did not even open her eyes—she only curled the corner of her mouth into her habitual sneer.
"Well now? After hiding away outside for so long, you've finally decided to come crawling back? Or did you just figure the begging was sweeter someplace else?"
Tomie paid no mind to the taunt. Cradling the ōdachi, she walked to the center of the dojo and came to a stop seven or eight paces away from the Swordswoman Tomie.
She tapped the end of the scabbard lightly against the floorboards, producing a dull, heavy thud.
Only then did the Swordswoman Tomie open her eyes. Her gaze swept over the oddly shaped, mechanical-looking ōdachi cradled in Tomie's arms, and the mockery in her eyes grew thicker still.
"Those who learn from me, live; those who imitate me, die. Have you ever heard that saying?"
The Swordswoman Tomie rose to her feet at a leisurely pace, disappointment seeping into her tone.
She had assumed that for the counterfeit to slip away and then dare to return, it must have hit upon some new idea of its own.
And yet—it was actually just imitating her?
However, upon hearing the Swordswoman Tomie's jeer, Tomie did not fly into a rage at once as she had before.
A strange smile surfaced on her face, mingling long-suppressed exhilaration with a certain itching, eager malice.
"Quit your blathering. You think I'm weaker than you? Then come and find out—just who is strong and who is weak."
Tomie released her cradling grip on the blade, shifting to grasp the middle of the hilt with one hand, the heavy blade angled down toward the floor as she confidently issued her challenge.
Watching the Tomie standing across from her, the Swordswoman Tomie's mouth gradually curled, splitting into a somewhat ferocious grin.
She did not reach for the real blade set down beside her—she merely stepped forward half a pace, casually.
She stood still.
A keen, cutting aura gathered around her entire body, and the Swordswoman Tomie locked onto the Tomie across from her with a gaze like cold lightning.
"Slash."
A single, simple word, falling like a bead of ice upon the ground.
In the very instant the syllable left her lips, an exceedingly sharp Sword Force erupted from her body, ignoring the distance of space, cleaving straight for the brow of the Tomie across from her!
The Tomie opposite sensed the danger almost the very same moment the Swordswoman Tomie's eyes shifted.
But there was no time to dodge. The greatest virtue of the Consciousness Slash was that to be seen was to be struck—it could neither be evaded nor defended against.
The Tomie holding the ōdachi shuddered violently, feeling a tearing, agonizing pain run from her left shoulder to her right flank!
It was as if a cold blade had truly cleaved her open on the diagonal.
Her eyes saw nothing at all, yet her nerves and brain faithfully relayed the signal of having been cut.
She staggered half a step, her face paling for a moment.
But she did not fall, and her grip on the blade only tightened.
The pain was real, but the wound was false.
Tomie told herself this over and over, fighting against the phantom pain that nearly bent her double.
"Ha…"
Tomie let out a breath and lifted her head, ferocity and exhilaration in her eyes.
Gripping the ōdachi in both hands, she thrust it forward with a fierce, sweeping motion!
"My turn! Flame Breathing! Fifth Form: Flame Tiger!"
As the blade tore through the air with a roar, a sound wave—blending a low droning hum with a high-frequency tremolo—was triggered from the multiple channels within the blade, spewing forth along the arc of the slash!
In an instant, at the edge of her vision, a leaping swath of orange-red abruptly shot upward.
Bursting heat sprang from nothing, the scorching gust of air transforming into a roaring tiger that lunged at her face. In that moment, her skin actually felt the searing sting of being roasted by high heat, and her nostrils caught the smell of something charred.
"Hmph."
The Swordswoman Tomie let out a muffled grunt, her body swaying slightly, yet she stood her ground without retreating.
She closed her eyes, forcibly severing the visual interference and concentrating her consciousness on resisting the discomfort of her skin.
But the burning sensation persisted all the same, exactly as if she were truly being scorched by flames.
Bizarre—this counterfeit's Consciousness Slash was truly bizarre.
Her Sword Force was plainly nowhere near her own, yet the intensity and richness of her Hypnosis far surpassed hers. A single thrust could conjure such a savage illusion of blazing fire—it was outlandish beyond reason.
How was it being done?
While the Swordswoman Tomie was still bewildered, Tomie pressed her advantage without mercy. Her wrist turned again, the trajectory of the ōdachi shifting as she spun and slashed once more!
"Water Breathing! Eighth Form: Waterfall Basin!"
The ōdachi swept out in a vast arcing path, the frequencies within it changing abruptly.
In the Swordswoman Tomie's ears, the thunderous roar of a rushing waterfall exploded. Heavy currents enveloped her whole body, a suffocating sensation clutching at her throat, water pressure crushing her chest cavity, her lungs aching as if aflame.
Even the floorboards beneath her feet seemed to become a torrential whirlpool, the illusion of lost balance forcing her to divert her attention to steadying her lower body.
"Thunder Breathing! Seventh Form: Flaming Thunder God!"
A piercing electric current crackled from the blade. The Swordswoman Tomie's field of vision was flooded with searing white, countless twisting bolts of lightning bursting apart in the air, coiling toward her!
In that instant, every muscle in her body was struck at once with the numbing paralysis and stabbing pain of electrocution. The utterly real sensation of the shock sent the Swordswoman Tomie twitching all over for a few jolts.
"Flashy nonsense!"
The Swordswoman Tomie knit her brows tightly, resisting with sheer force of will.
Flames, torrents, lightning… this counterfeit's Consciousness Slash was no longer a simple cut, but had evolved into an intricate deception of the senses.
Moreover, it did not seem to be a mere mental attack or hypnotic trickery—willpower granted no immunity from it. There was nothing to do but endure it head-on.
"Not bad—it can be cut after all!"
The Swordswoman Tomie drew in a deep breath and slowly exhaled. Her figure went taut, her aura surging sharply, those eyes turning deep and cold. Her keen Sword Force imploded inward—her body seemed to become a black hole, drawing the dojo's entire space, light, and sound, and even Tomie's very line of sight, toward herself.
The Tomie holding the blade across from her felt her breath suddenly seize.
Within her perception, the Swordswoman Tomie's figure had not grown larger, yet it had become infinitely vast, infinitely heavy.
That weighty presence and killing intent were like a sharp tachi, which—within her sight—the Swordswoman Tomie grasped in both hands and slowly raised.
The blade's edge had not yet moved, yet the killing intent, like a glacier made solid, froze over every inch of air around her.
The Swordswoman Tomie did not stir at all. She merely gathered the whole of her spirit, her will, and that absolute certainty of the outcome of the kill—honed through countless real strikes—and through her own eyes, through her own gaze, came crashing down upon the Tomie across from her!
Her gaze swept across, sliding from Tomie's cheek toward her right arm.
"Sever!"
A single, resolute kiai. The pupils of the Tomie opposite contracted sharply.
Within her perception, time itself seemed to warp in that instant.
She saw, clearly, the Swordswoman Tomie's figure seem to blur for a single moment—a flash of cold light, faster than the limit of visual capture, glimmered out from the other's waist, splitting the air as it came, slicing across her own right arm.
"Shk!"
The phantom sound of a keen edge slicing through fascia and severing bone rang out within her mind.
Immediately after came the searing pain in her right shoulder, and the emptiness that followed it!
The lightning-swift slash had severed her right arm clean at the shoulder. The blade-holding arm parted from her body and dropped toward the floor.
In that moment, Tomie could no longer feel the existence of her right arm at all.
____
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