"CLANG!"
At that very instant, the meticulously crafted mechanical ōdachi slipped from her suddenly slack, powerless fingers, crashing heavily onto the dojo floor with a dull, muffled thud.
That sound only deepened the impression that her right arm had been severed.
Tomie was startled awake by the noise, and as she came back to herself, she instinctively reached out with her left hand to touch her right arm.
She felt it! Her right arm was still there!!
Yet even as the thought formed, she still could not sense the existence of her right arm at all. She gritted her teeth, straining with all her might to break through that suggestion that her arm had been cut away—but the harder she focused, the more firmly that sense of disconnection took hold.
"Just as I thought—you're relying on external tools. Your purity is far too low."
A swordsman… no. Having defeated the Tomie who fought with technology and dirty tricks through sheer raw strength, an ordinary swordsman was no longer enough to describe her realm. She could already be called a Swordmaster!
And what's more—a Heroic Spirit Swordmaster!
Swordmaster Tomie's gaze turned toward the ōdachi lying on the ground.
"I thought as much earlier—the ōdachi you were using is thicker than a normal ōdachi. If I'm not mistaken, it should be sound waves, am I right? If you weren't borrowing the power of external tools, then with the abilities you displayed just now, there's no way you'd still be unable to shake off the influence of my Heavenly Eye."
This so-called Heavenly Eye was the fruit of all the bitter years of training Tomie had endured, its purpose being to heighten the precision of her Consciousness Slash—to invest the entirety of her own existence into her line of sight, project it toward her target, and through the focusing and guiding of her gaze, make the opponent conjure the imagined sensation of exactly which part of them she was about to cut.
Without the aid of the Heavenly Eye, her Consciousness Slash would have been powerless against this crooked, heretical opponent before her.
"Tch!"
Evil Cultivator Tomie clicked her tongue in displeasure.
"It's infrasound, with a modified blade to assist it. The advantage is that there's no exempting yourself from it—even a beast with no intelligence at all would be affected. The drawback, well… I have to rely on a Hypnosis App. My own Hypnosis technique can't manage hypnosis without props."
But she didn't bother to hide any of it. After all, once the Dream World came to an end, the Tomie before her would learn all her methods anyway through the [Tomie Network].
Spiritual cultivation could not be copied, but anything that relied on technique could be replicated by anyone.
"The Nine-Shao Pitch-Setting Sword?"
Swordmaster Tomie tilted her head.
She recalled a wuxia novel she had once read in the library of the Illusory Dream Realm—who had read it before manifesting it into the Illusory Dream Realm, she had no idea—but it had mentioned a particular weapon.
The Nine-Shao Pitch-Setting Sword: four feet two inches long, its blade edge shaped in undulating waves, set with nine holes. When confronting an enemy, the sword's tone would surge and reverberate, throwing the foe's mind into disorder.
It worked by much the same principle as Evil Cultivator Tomie's mechanical ōdachi—though this woman's ōdachi produced an even more outrageous effect.
"Even if I've lost this time, just wait until I modify my weapon a little more. Next time, I'll definitely beat you."
With the left arm she could still move, Evil Cultivator Tomie picked up the mechanical ōdachi, tossed out those parting words, and then made her bedraggled retreat.
Meanwhile, in the real world outside the Illusory Dream Realm.
The night was thick and heavy, the apartment building silent and still.
A figure appeared without a sound on the balcony of Tomie's residence. She was of medium height, dressed in black clothes and trousers suited for movement, her frame lean but her limbs corded with hard, wiry muscle. Beneath a head of crisp, capable black short hair sat a plain, expressionless face. Anyone who had attended the party would, upon seeing her here, surely have recognized her as Takaichi's maid.
In this universe shrouded in darkness, evil never delayed, revenge was never put off until the next day—and neither was the abduction of a target.
The maid had come on Takaichi's orders, to seize Amamiya Rin and bring him to Takaichi to be used as a plaything in bed.
She stepped indoors and slipped into the bedroom, where she saw three figures lying upon the same bed, their breathing even, all of them fast asleep.
The maid arched an eyebrow, lifted the covers, and swept her gaze over them—then her eyes betrayed a look of astonishment.
Too clean!
There wasn't the slightest trace of filth on the bed. The clothes of Amamiya Rin and the two Kawakami Tomies were perfectly neat and tidy… wait!!
"Two of them?"
A look of surprise surfaced on the maid's face.
That Amamiya Rin and Kawakami Tomie shared the same pillow without anything having happened between them was already enough to startle her—but for two Kawakami Tomies, who were as incompatible as fire and water, to be lying in the very same bed shocked her all the more.
Could the organization's files be mistaken?
She was uncertain, alarmed.
"Could this be… Tomie's transformation…"
The maid recalled something Takaichi had once mentioned to her—that Kawakami Tomie was undergoing some kind of change, and was even suspected of having taken a book of black magic detailing how to become a Vampire.
Still, none of that mattered for the moment.
She had only to carry out the order Lord Takaichi had given her; there was no need to invite needless complications.
She drew a pre-prepared syringe from her bosom, sank the needle into the vein at the side of his neck, and pressed down on the plunger.
Amamiya Rin's brow furrowed faintly in his sleep, but the muscle relaxant took effect swiftly, and even that minute reaction subsided.
The maid put the syringe away, then pressed a towel soaked in a special chemical over Amamiya Rin's mouth and nose for several seconds, ensuring that even if he woke partway through, he would be unable to cry out or resist.
Then she wrapped Amamiya Rin's body in a thin blanket she had prepared and hoisted him over her shoulder with ease.
Her withdrawal was just as quiet and clean. She returned along the same route to the balcony and nimbly slid down a rappelling rope she had set up in advance along the exterior wall.
In the shadows below, a black sedan waited in silence.
The car door opened and shut. The maid tossed the blanket-wrapped Amamiya Rin into the back seat, then climbed in herself.
"Go."
She ordered the driver in the front seat.
The driver glanced at the rearview mirror, immediately started the car, and the vehicle slid smoothly out into the late-night streets.
Amid the jolting, Amamiya Rin's consciousness tore itself free from a chaotic void.
The first sense to return was hearing—the low droning hum of the engine, the sound of tires rolling over the road surface.
Then came touch—the binding sensation of his body wrapped in fabric, the feel of the car seat beneath him, and an all-pervading weakness, as though every muscle had ceased to obey him.
He wanted to open his eyes, but his eyelids were impossibly heavy, as if he'd gone three days and three nights without sleep. Still, his thoughts were slowly reviving.
Fifty years.
Fifty years' worth of memory within the Illusory Dream Realm overlapped with the few fractured hours of sensation in reality.
Fortunately, this round of cultivation had elevated his state of mind to a higher realm. His awakened self-nature combed the memories into a complete whole, allowing Amamiya Rin to quickly grasp his present situation.
It seemed he had been… kidnapped?
And only about an hour had passed since the moment he had fallen asleep?
This was the trouble with a Long Dream before it had been resolved: no matter how vast a stretch of time one spent within the dream, it corresponded to only a single second in the real world, and interrupting one's sleep could not interrupt the dream itself.
Of course, for him, this was no longer a problem.
Amamiya Rin pondered without haste or agitation, slowly regulating his breathing all the while, trying to recover some measure of strength.
But for some reason, his body was abnormally feeble, and the effects of his breathing technique weren't all that potent either.
Had he been injected with some kind of drug?
Amamiya Rin guessed calmly.
Still, it wasn't much of an issue.
Whoever had kidnapped him was simply out of luck—of all days, they had chosen this one.
____
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