At the same time, deep within the mansion, the maid who had abducted Amamiya Rin also received the report.
"Is this some kind of joke?"
The maid couldn't help but knit her brows.
It was hard to see it as anything other than a joke.
The master of this mansion was one of the nobles who ruled this country—how could anyone dare to storm in wielding nothing but a tachi?
Were they insane? Or simply seeking death?
Though such thoughts arose, she did not dismiss the reality of it.
She had followed Takaichi for several decades, seen a great deal of the world, and had even experienced death and resurrection once herself. Naturally, she knew this world was full of all sorts of strange things.
Things that seemed impossible were not always absolutely impossible.
The maid strode swiftly toward the surveillance room in the west wing of the first floor.
The wall of screens was split into dozens of feeds, covering every corner inside and outside the mansion. The security personnel had already pulled up the live footage of the main gate and the courtyard.
The maid's gaze swept across them. In the image, that black-haired woman holding a tachi was walking slowly along the gravel path, her face piercingly clear beneath the night and the surveillance lens.
No—rather than saying she was piercingly clear beneath the surveillance lens, it would be more accurate to say that person's very existence stabbed at the maid's eyes!
"Kawakami Tomie? How could it be her?"
The maid's pupils shrank violently, and a chill shot up her spine.
How could it be Tomie?
This question filled the maid's heart.
Kawakami Tomie, who had not the strength to truss a chicken and knew only how to use her charm to drive men to madness, had actually stormed into the mansion of this country's ruler with a tachi in hand?
"You've got to be kidding me. This is absurd!"
The maid pressed a hand to her forehead, feeling as though she might be dreaming.
But reality was always so cruel—having lived so many years, she understood that truth all too well.
Taking a deep breath, the maid looked carefully at the screen.
The Tomie who had appeared at the mansion gave off a completely different impression.
The Tomie at the party had been ravishing yet frivolous. Though she differed from the Tomie of past records, that Tomie's eyes had held only Amamiya Rin—even a bystander could feel Tomie's love for Amamiya Rin. That did not match the records in the files at all.
And this Tomie on the surveillance feed matched the records of Tomie even less.
Her steps were steady, her expression calm, like a true Swordmaster. The aura radiating from her body carried an intangible pressure that could be felt even through the screen.
The men who opposed this Tomie hadn't been affected by her charm at all? That was the greatest anomaly of all!
"How is that possible?"
The maid's thoughts descended into chaos.
She simply could not comprehend what on earth was going on.
She had heard before that Tomie had undergone changes—could this be that very change? Among the individual Tomies, had one appeared who abandoned her charm to study swordsmanship, or even one who had genuinely fallen in love with a man?
"Capture her—preferably alive. Cut off her limbs if you must; as long as she's still breathing, that's fine."
A glint of sharpness flashed in the maid's eyes as she immediately issued the order.
The organization had always studied Kawakami Tomie through female researchers and unwitting outsiders, all because of Kawakami Tomie's demonic charm.
But if Kawakami Tomie's charm had already lost its effect, then didn't that mean the organization could perform human experiments on Kawakami Tomie without any reservations whatsoever?
Having issued this command, the maid instinctively wanted to relay this good news to her master.
Yet just as she was about to leave the surveillance room, on the monitor screen, an unbelievable scene unfolded.
On the gravel path, Swordmaster Tomie's steps were unhurried, neither fast nor slow.
"Halt! Halt! Can't you hear me? This is your final warning!"
The lead guard captain barked out again. His companions behind him adjusted their footing in unison, shields tilting forward, the metal points of their riot forks gleaming coldly under the courtyard lights. Several guards concealed among the shadows and corridor pillars had already drawn pistols from their waists.
But how could Swordmaster Tomie ever heed their warnings?
As Swordmaster Tomie took her next step, the guard captain's gaze turned fierce, and his right hand slashed downward.
Three security squads sprang into action at once—one advancing from the front, one from the right, and one from the left.
Each squad held the same formation: a shield-bearing guard in the center, with the two guards on either side wielding a riot fork and a tachi respectively, completely sealing off any space in which Swordmaster Tomie might maneuver.
Even a gun-toting bandit, faced with this airtight formation, could only retreat and never advance.
But Swordmaster Tomie's advancing steps did not pause for even an instant.
Her right thumb gently pushed the sword guard open.
"Click."
A faint sound, clearly audible in the silent courtyard.
In the very instant that sound reached everyone's ears—
"Slash——!"
The crisp, clear kiai was no furious roar, yet it carried the sharpness of a blade drawn from its sheath, exploding directly from the depths of their minds!
With Swordmaster Tomie at its center, an overwhelming, irresistible Sword Force erupted with a thunderous roar. The air turned thick and heavy, the light warped and flickered, and in the eyes of the guards moving to surround and kill Swordmaster Tomie, the world seemed to have been set to slow motion—every step they tried to take felt impossibly difficult!
It should have been so, yet the black-clad woman ahead of them moved at a speed that was downright terrifying!
At some unknown moment, the blade was already out of its sheath. The snow-bright edge carved a chilling arc of light, curving at an inconceivable angle around the shield he had braced forward, boring toward his armpit like a venomous serpent.
Accompanied by a burst of agony, the guard in the center felt his right arm lose all weight—the entire limb had flown off in the very instant the blade's light flashed past.
He was by no means the only one attacked. The vision of the guard on the left, holding a tachi, was completely filled by a horizontal streak of silver light.
The slash came far too fast for him to react. He could only watch helplessly as that blade's light swept across his neck, drawing up a spray of warm blood, his head flying free from his body.
The guard on the right, holding a riot fork, watched as the tip of that tachi became a single cold star, rapidly magnifying within his pupils. In an instant, violent pain and darkness descended together.
But this was only the beginning.
The blade's light splashed outward, like a blossoming flower of death.
One man saw the blade's light cleave diagonally into his shoulder blade, the crisp snap of his fracturing collarbone seeming to ring beside his ear.
One man felt a chill in his calf, the searing pain of a severed tendon dropping him to one knee.
One man was struck across the flank by a heavy reverse kesa slash, his innards spilling out through the torn-open belly.
...
The nine guards who had sprung into action met their own distinct fatal cuts, all within the span of a single second.
For a moment, heart-rending screams tore through the heavens. The guards either clutched at wounds that did not exist at all and stumbled backward, or simply crumpled to their knees.
Shields slammed against the ground, riot forks flew from hands, tachi clattered down.
Nine faces contorted in identical fashion, brimming with pain, terror, and confusion.
The violent phantom pain and the experience of death battered their brain and nerves, plunging their consciousness into a brief blankness and chaos.
____
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