From the booth by the floor-to-ceiling window, Amamiya Rin studied the other customers.
Not many of them believed in Ultraseven. Among the ones who hadn't been there in person, it split about fifty-fifty.
Still…
"No one's putting a stop to it."
"What?"
"Ultraseven's appearance, and the way word of it keeps spreading — the authorities still haven't labeled any of it a rumor," Amamiya Rin said, turning back from the window to Tomie.
(Why is that, do you think? Shall we ask the Magic Conch Shell?)
A bright, lively woman's voice rang out inside Amamiya Rin's head.
In a guest room of the Takaichi residence, Mara — worshipped by the rich and powerful — curved her lips into a beautiful arc.
(Hey! Don't just butt in. This is date time, mine and Rin's.)
Flesh-Mod Tomie's thoughts barged into the Tomie Network, thick with irritation.
(Say what you like, but that muscle-brain of yours can't keep up with Rin's topics, can it?)
Chin propped on one hand, Mara teased the Tomie who had nothing going for her but brute strength, smiling the whole time, the way one might poke at a kitten that puffs up at the slightest provocation.
(What did you just say?!)
A cross of angry veins popped out on Tomie's forehead, and her knuckles cracked as her fist tightened. At the table across from them, a customer glanced over on reflex, then hurried his eyes away.
"That's enough."
Amamiya Rin raised a hand and pressed it down over Flesh-Mod Tomie's clenched fist.
(You wouldn't want the muscle-brain you keep talking about to come over and beat you senseless, would you?)
His words and the gesture let the air out of Flesh-Mod Tomie's temper, and kept Mara Tomie from needling her any further.
No — the Tomie playing the role of Mara knew exactly where the line was. Even if Amamiya Rin hadn't stepped in, it never would have gone that far.
Mara Tomie lifted the teacup a maid had brought her and smiled without a word.
Flesh-Mod Tomie puffed out her cheeks and let out a sulky snort.
"Anyway, what she means is probably that the authorities are burning all their capacity covering up the business at the Takaichi residence."
(Correct~ Here's a kiss as your reward~ darling.)
Mara Tomie's soft laughter drifted through the Tomie Network.
(Still provoking me? Fine! Tonight's wedding banquet — I'm coming too!)
Flesh-Mod Tomie's lips pressed into a thin line, her jaw clenched until the muscle bulged, the outline of the bone sliding faintly beneath her skin.
If that impostor wanted to make trouble during her date with Rin, then the impostor had no right to complain when she turned up at the banquet and crashed the impostor's cozy little world alone with Rin!
(Huh? How can you do that?)
Mara Tomie's voice went instantly pitiful, as though she'd suffered some tremendous injustice.
(Objection overruled. Tonight, even if a mountain stands in my way, I'll punch a tunnel straight through it!)
Flesh-Mod Tomie lifted her chin, wearing the look of someone both haughty and thoroughly pleased with herself.
"Sir, your beef curry rice."
The server had come over with a tray. She set the steaming plate of curry down in front of Amamiya Rin, then turned to Tomie.
"And for you, miss — creamy mushroom pasta, Caesar salad, and an ice cream soda."
"Thanks."
Amamiya Rin nodded and picked up his spoon.
The smell of curry drifted up into his nose. The rice was plump, the beef stewed until it fell apart.
He scooped up a spoonful and put it in his mouth.
"How is it?"
The server's interruption had pulled Tomie — freshly committed to ruining someone's evening — out of her quarrel with Mara. She came back to herself and looked across the table at Amamiya Rin.
"Not bad."
Amamiya Rin swallowed and took another spoonful.
"Only you would call food like this, in a place like this, 'not bad.' We'll let it slide today. Our funding's secure now, so next time we're picking a proper upscale Western restaurant, at the very least."
Tomie grumbled as she jabbed her fork into the cream sauce, twirled up a huge clump of pasta and stuffed it into her mouth. Her brows eased a little.
One cheek bulged out, working steadily as she chewed, like an angry hamster.
Amamiya Rin smiled, noncommittal. He had no particular standards in this area — as long as it wasn't unpleasant, it was fine, and he couldn't taste the difference in the premium ingredients of a so-called high-class restaurant anyway.
Still, if the Tomies enjoyed it, he'd let them have it. It was nothing more than ordinary appetite and vanity.
Sensing Amamiya Rin's indulgence — or perhaps his tolerance — Flesh-Mod Tomie frowned, finding it all rather anticlimactic, and circled back to the earlier subject: why the authorities hadn't come out and denied any of it.
"What do you mean, they're using everything they've got to cover up the Takaichi residence?" Tomie asked, puzzled.
"Over a hundred special police officers dead. Three helicopters blown out of the air, seven or eight armored vehicles wrecked, the command vehicle carved into scrap, the Superintendent-General and the Deputy Superintendent-General both perished on the spot — and on top of that, her Six Paths, Five Rings: Kurikara Divine Blade. Casualties and a spectacle on that scale carry no less weight than the Giant of Light incident in Nerima Ward. The upheaval they'd cause would be far greater."
Amamiya Rin spoke without hurry, laying out the political calculus behind it for Flesh-Mod Tomie.
"And yet here we are, and we haven't heard one person mention the Chiyoda Ward incident. Nothing on television, nothing in the papers. Barring surprises, the government's hand is behind the wall-to-wall coverage of the Giant of Light incident in Nerima Ward as well — they want to stoke an entertaining story hot enough to bury the noise out of Chiyoda Ward."
He paused, then added,
"And barring surprises, some of the credit is hers. Takaichi, or someone else with a voice that carries, floated the plan in the conversations happening at the top."
"That one went on a killing spree and the fallout was enormous. Are you telling me the Giant of Light incident doesn't have any?"
Flesh-Mod Tomie took a sip of her ice cream soda and lobbed the question at Amamiya Rin.
Amamiya Rin shook his head slightly and went on explaining. "It has fallout, but the noise is louder. We're talking about an area two kilometers across, with at least a thousand people who lived through the Giant of Light incident or watched it happen. Suppressing that isn't easy — especially when a far more serious crisis has surfaced elsewhere. Rather than splitting their strength to smother two incidents at once, they'd rather fan the flames of the one that poses no threat to them and use it as cover for the other. After all — the Giant of Light, Ultraseven, an esper who wipes out vengeful spirits — whatever the truth is, letting it spread as rumor does them no harm… Although I imagine the politicians are thoroughly baffled right now about just what manner of existence Ultraseven appeared as."
Yes — just what manner of existence was Ultraseven?
While Amamiya Rin and Tomie sat discussing it, the Giant of Light incident had become the hottest topic in all of Tokyo — and for the politicians at the top, who had only barely managed to bury the Chiyoda Ward massacre, it was now the single biggest headache of all.
"There's really an Ultraman out there in the world? You have got to be joking! Wasn't it just a gas leak?"
Faced with statement after eyewitness statement, with photographs and video, the politicians insisted, one and all, that they couldn't accept it.
It was simply too absurd to be true — and so they took the very excuse they'd fabricated to cover up the Chiyoda Ward massacre and mistook it for the truth of this one.
____
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