"Mm-hmm."
Mara Tomie answered obediently, yet the arms wrapped around him didn't loosen in the slightest. She merely turned her body a little to the side, half of her still nestled against Amamiya Rin.
Swordmaster Tomie stepped forward coldly, seized Mara Tomie's arm in one grip, and yanked her off of Amamiya Rin.
"Isn't that sickeningly clingy?"
As she said this, Swordmaster Tomie took over Mara Tomie's spot, and clasped Amamiya Rin's hand in her own.
"Oh? You want to fight it out among ourselves?"
Seeing the counterfeit actually use brute force to pull her away, Mara Tomie's gaze shimmered, and a demonic aura almost tangible in its density radiated from her entire body. The cloyingly sweet, decaying scent in the great hall abruptly intensified, and even the light seemed to dim a few shades as it coiled toward Swordmaster Tomie.
In almost the same instant, Swordmaster Tomie's eyes turned sharp, and her hand had already settled on her sword hilt.
The lingering reek of blood still clinging to her body and the killing intent honed by slaughtering her way in all fused into a terrifying Sword Force that erupted with a thunderous roar!
For a moment, the air seemed sliced apart by an invisible blade, letting out a faint metallic ring—cold, keen, unstoppable—and it collided head-on with Mara Tomie's demonic aura!
In the great hall, two invisible forces met like fire and water, producing a soundless detonation. The light twisted and wavered between them, the cloying sweetness and the biting sharpness strangling each other, and the scalp-prickling pressure nearly suffocated the maid standing off to the side.
Watching the conflict on the verge of breaking out, Amamiya Rin let out a soft sigh.
"Oṃ—"
He opened his mouth, uttering only a single syllable.
The sound wasn't loud, with hardly any inflection at all.
It was like a clear droplet of water falling into a boiling pot of oil, and like a wisp of breeze brushing across a taut bowstring.
What should have exploded into an even fiercer collision—that future simply did not come to pass.
That syllable carried a strange sense of harmony and purity, rippling outward plainly and calmly.
Wherever it passed, Mara Tomie's pervading demonic nature and Swordmaster Tomie's razor-sharp Sword Force, like morning dew beneath a blazing sun, silently dissolved and vanished all at once.
The suffocating stickiness and bone-piercing chill in the great hall were swept clean, and the air began to flow once more, carrying the faint coolness peculiar to night, seeping slowly in through the open paper door, leaving nothing but a stillness like the calm after a storm.
The oppressive momentum surrounding Mara Tomie instantly furled its banners and stilled its drums. She blinked, a trace of unsatisfied petulance lingering on her face.
The keen Sword Intent around Swordmaster Tomie quietly withdrew as well. She let out a cold snort and turned her head away, but the hand resting on the sword hilt had already loosened.
Only then did the maid abruptly draw in a sharp breath.
She seemed to have just surfaced from deep water, gasping in great mouthfuls, fine cold sweat beading on her forehead, her face full of the terror of one who had narrowly survived disaster.
And it was precisely through this ordeal that she completely broke free of the enchantment Mara Tomie had earlier planted in her. In the instant her consciousness cleared, confusion, fear, and wariness all surged up into her heart at once.
"You people…! You! Why are you here? What have you done to Lord Takaichi?"
Clutching at her wildly pounding heart, the maid swept her gaze across the faces of the three people around her, finally settling on Amamiya Rin, who seemed to have the best temperament—and, of course, was also the most crucial. Trembling all over, she loudly demanded of Amamiya Rin.
"Please be quiet for a moment."
Amamiya Rin nodded at the maid, and as if the thought had arisen naturally from within her own heart, the maid's mouth hung open as she fell into a daze.
She had already forgotten what she had been about to do; even those violent emotions had utterly emptied away. Her heart became as blank as a plant, wanting only to be left alone in quiet for a while.
Amamiya Rin lightly patted the back of Swordmaster Tomie's hand, still resting on the hilt, then turned his head and smiled at Mara Tomie. That smile was very plain, yet it carried a power that set the heart at ease.
"All right, put it all away for now. The real business isn't finished yet. Perhaps you two will still have to cooperate from here on—it's better to get along a little more amicably."
Mara Tomie pouted, and that alluring yet dangerous aura around her silently retracted, until even Tomie's own demonic charm dimmed, making her look like an utterly ordinary schoolgirl.
Of course, this schoolgirl was prettier than ninety percent of schoolgirls.
Swordmaster Tomie let go of her hilt too, her face still wearing that cold expression, though her taut body had relaxed.
"What real business? And I need to cooperate with this creature?"
"Didn't we just talk about it a moment ago?" Amamiya Rin looked toward Mara Tomie, a hint of helplessness in his eyes. "You were clamoring about wanting to dominate this country, saying it would be too much of a waste to let it perish under her blade."
With that, Amamiya Rin's gaze shifted to Swordmaster Tomie.
"And you put out your own words too—something about not being afraid to perish under your blade?"
He paused, then continued.
"I think it's not a bad idea. One of you goes and replaces those rotten roots up top, taking hold of this country's political sphere and its voice. The other goes and sweeps away every last one of their forces of resistance."
As he spoke, Amamiya Rin gave a wry smile.
And Amamiya Rin's words left both Tomies stunned for a moment; even the air went silent for a few seconds.
Mara Tomie was the first to react. She tilted her head slightly, staring at Amamiya Rin's face, and for the first time a look of confusion appeared in those bewitching eyes.
"…Rin? That cooperation you just mentioned? You mean having us go do those things?"
She blinked, her tone brimming with thick disbelief.
"All this while you've been saving this one and helping that one, for the sake of a few people you don't even know, nearly throwing your own life away in the process. And now you're telling us to go dominate, to go sweep away? That doesn't sound at all like something you'd say."
Swordmaster Tomie didn't immediately pick up the conversation. She folded her arms, her brows knitting tightly together, sizing Amamiya Rin up and down, her gaze so sharp it seemed she wanted to cut him open and take a look inside.
"Has that old woman muddled your head with anger? Do you even know what you're telling us to do? Cut down every force of resistance? Dominate a nation's regime? Hearing words like these come out of your mouth… is strange. Extremely strange!"
"That's right—dominating a regime, slaughtering the forces of resistance, just like a villain. What man of justice would say such things, would do such things?"
Amamiya Rin nodded slightly, that trace of a wry smile already gone from his face, leaving nothing but calm.
"It's practically just like a villain—resorting to any means for the sake of a righteous cause. Those people who want to make the world a better place do the very same thing… Still, I'm probably nowhere near those humanity-loving ones of the moon world, am I?"
The corners of Amamiya Rin's mouth curled up, as if he were making a joke.
But his expression quickly turned composed once more.
"But even if it means resorting to any means, this is the only way. This country's upper class has already rotted through. That fellow called Takaichi isn't a single person—he's the representative of those people."
Cut down the claws and fangs that aid the tyrant, and dominate the roots that have already rotted.
Not for the sake of power, nor to make the world a better place, and with nothing to do with disputes over ideals—merely to eliminate that ugliness.
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