If one arm could grow, so could two, three, four. Within moments, Kawakami Tomie had taken on the form of a creature with six arms and three heads.
She looked down at her four new limbs and flexed them experimentally, like a child playing with a new toy.
Two arms threw shadowboxes in the air, imitating a boxer's stance. Another two folded across her chest. The remaining pair stayed busy in their own way — one elbow propped under her chin, the other absently twirling a loose strand of falling hair.
"Not flexible enough... I need more heads..."
Kawakami Tomie's brow furrowed slightly. She lowered her head. The flesh of her neck thickened, the skin on either side swelling at a visible, unsettling speed.
First on the left — a thin fissure crept from behind the ear down to the jaw. The skin peeled open on both sides like the petals of a moist flower, exposing the glistening, pulsing tissue beneath.
Then, within that blurred and shifting mass of form, the outlines of eye sockets, a nose bridge, and lips began to take shape.
In a matter of seconds, a second head grew fully and completely from the left side of her neck.
At the same moment, a third head emerged from the right.
Three perfectly identical faces crammed onto a single neck, however, was — by any measure — a tight fit.
The moment Kawakami Tomie tried to turn her head, her cheek bumped directly into the ear of the face beside hers.
"Tch. You're in the way."
The central head muttered its complaint without reservation.
Still — with two extra heads sharing the command load, all six arms became noticeably more coordinated. Fingers opened and closed. Wrists turned. Each arm performed a different motion with a fluency that marked a clear step forward.
She tried taking a step forward.
Her body lurched violently — she nearly pitched straight into the ground. She caught herself just in time, bracing several arms against the earth.
"A standard frame can't support the weight of three heads and six arms. I'll need to scale up."
Analyzing the flaw in her body's structure, Kawakami Tomie commanded another division.
A layer of new tissue, glistening with a wet sheen, seeped from every pore across her skin — like living, animate wax in slow motion. It proliferated at a rate visible to the naked eye, spreading rapidly across her entire body. The circumference of her arms, the thickness of her torso, the girth of her legs — all grew in tandem, evenly, uniformly.
This was not inflation. It was not bloating. It was something built outward from the body's surface — a genuine, structural expansion of flesh, like pressing fresh clay onto the outside of a sculpture. The clothes that had fit her moments before were stretched to their limit, strained into a second skin against her rapidly enlarging frame, and let out a shrill, strained tearing sound under the pressure.
Within a few breaths, Kawakami Tomie's height stabilized at roughly two meters.
Bone and muscle had grown in sync, and she stood solidly on two feet at last — three heads and six arms no longer top-heavy, no longer ungainly.
And yet — that imposing, massive frame topped with her still-gorgeous face and still-porcelain skin produced a wrongness that no amount of staring could resolve. It was deeply, fundamentally uncanny.
"Is this the limit?"
Amaziya Rin extended a finger and poked her in the abdomen. His fingertip sank into pale, yielding skin.
"Three heads, six arms, and gigantism — I won't deny these are abilities that could give you an edge in combat. But your potential shouldn't stop here."
He wasn't satisfied. He hadn't expected her to become Kars, the Ultimate Being, overnight — but a transformation at this level could only bully humans who didn't use firearms.
"Isn't this enough?"
Kawakami Tomie flashed a wicked grin. She reached out with both hands, grabbed Amamiya Rin around the waist, and lifted him effortlessly into the air.
The gap in strength was so absurd he couldn't struggle free. He could only hang there, held up like a doll.
Looking down at her three faces, all wearing the same expression of impish amusement, Amamiya Rin could only sigh and roll his eyes.
"Bullying me? Sure, you've got that covered. But the thing you want to kill is a demon, isn't it? You really think you can fight the Apology Demon with this level of strength?"
The moment she heard the Apology Demon's name, Kawakami Tomie's expression darkened. Her grin vanished. Her interest in tormenting Amamiya Rin evaporated.
"You always have to ruin everything."
She opened both hands. Amamiya Rin dropped straight down, hit the ground, and stumbled before catching his footing.
"And it's easy to criticize when you're not the one doing it."
Kawakami Tomie shook all six arms with irritation, and her enlarged form began slowly contracting.
The extra heads and arms melted back into her body like wax returning to the mold, restoring her original shape. She adjusted her torn clothing with restless hands, her voice carrying the full weight of her annoyance.
"Do you think controlling a body is easy? Just being able to consciously trigger the division is already incredibly difficult! Don't treat me like I'm empty-headed. I have thought about this — I've mapped out the path to getting stronger. Directed division of bone and muscle. Internal organ division within the body. Combining division and fusion to produce more efficient muscle configurations. Stimulating bone proliferation to form an exoskeleton. Splitting functional tissue layers beneath the skin. But it's not that simple, is it? You were the one who told me I was reaching too high — and now you're the one making exactly those demands!"
She threw it all out in one breath, pouting and fuming. She had worked painstakingly to gain conscious control over her body's division — and then gone further, developing a combat enhancement form that actually worked.
And this was what she got?
Aamamiya Rin didn't encourage her. He didn't praise her. He just piled on more requirements.
Did he think she didn't know they needed more power to fight the Apology Demon? He always had to spoil everything!
"Infuriating! Do you think we haven't been trying?"
"We've been working at this for years! Do you have any idea how unbelievable that is for us?"
"That's right! Working hard to get stronger — besides us, is there any other Tomie in the world who would do something like that?"
"If you want so much, why don't you try it yourself? Standing there criticizing without doing a thing... Rin is such an idiot!"
"We've already done something incredible — a word of praise won't kill you. You're always so harsh with us! Why can't you spare even a little of the patience you show everyone else for us?"
"Strike! We're going on strike!"
The surrounding Tomies swarmed in from all directions, voices piling on top of one another, each one chiming in with her own grievance — a chorus of wounded, indignant complaints that came at him from every angle, relentless and impossible to field.
"OK, OK! I was too impatient."
Aamamiya Rin raised both hands in prompt surrender, his tone softening immediately.
"Managing to consciously control division and achieve even a basic transformation — that genuinely is significant progress. You've all done well. But I know your potential goes beyond this. You can go even further."
He knew perfectly well: there was no harder battle in the world than arguing with a woman.
And truthfully — this time, he had been too demanding.
For Kawakami Tomie's personality to have endured this far was already extraordinary, exactly as they had said. No other Tomie could have pushed herself through this kind of training. Even knowing the Apology Demon existed, any other Tomie would simply have chosen to avoid it. The fact that these ones had persisted — that, genuinely, was because of one person.
____
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