Amamiya Rin closed his notebook, stood up, and walked toward the corridor leading deeper into the room.
"Wait!"
The fortune teller's pupils contracted, and she stretched out a hand toward Amamiya Rin to stop him.
"The area ahead is private. It's not open to outsiders."
"There's something I want to clear up. If I'm wrong, I'll apologize then."
Amamiya Rin paid her no mind. He pushed open the small door left ajar and walked straight into the corridor.
"You filthy bitch! Behave yourself!"
Tomie shoved the fortune teller down onto the ground, then raised her right foot and stamped it onto her stomach. The crushing force wrung a cry of anguish from the fortune teller — but beneath that cry lurked a vicious killing intent.
"Damn it! Then die right here!"
Before the words had fully left her mouth, the fortune teller's robe stirred without wind, its hem suddenly curling upward and coiling around the ankle of the foot Tomie had pinned to her stomach, like something alive. A powerful force yanked at Tomie's calf, trying to fling her off.
Caught off guard, Tomie's body tilted backward — but the instant her balance shifted, she steadied herself. Her right leg tensed and swept around, her calf curling back to wind the length of robe around it several times, before she stamped down, grinding the balled-up fabric back into the fortune teller's body.
"Is that it? Just for show."
Tomie looked down at the fortune teller, the corner of her mouth curling into a mocking arc.
The fortune teller's features twisted with agony, but she wasn't ready to give up. The black dress on her body suddenly split open at the collar, shattering into dozens of pieces — and from among them, hundreds of strands like a nest of living snakes coiled up along Tomie's ankle, wrapping around her calf in the blink of an eye.
The next instant, the strands snapped taut all at once, each one drawing rigid, their edges gleaming with a metallic chill — like countless fine steel wires slicing into flesh!
"Shhrrk—"
The sound of tearing fabric rang out. Tomie's pant leg was shredded to ribbons in an instant, scraps scattering everywhere.
Then every strand snapped.
Those black strands, tough as steel wire, met something harder still the moment they bit into skin — snapping in the middle one after another, leaving nothing but a few shallow white marks on Tomie's skin.
Elsewhere, Amamiya Rin, walking down the passage, felt a similar resistance.
Dozens of black hair strands materialized out of thin air before him, fine and tough as steel wire, woven together into a great net stretched across the middle of the corridor.
Faint light glimmered through the gaps between the strands, like a trap a spider lays before catching its prey.
But Amamiya Rin's steps didn't falter. He walked straight into the net of woven hair.
The strands cut into his skin, leaving thin white welts, but they lasted only half a second before his swelling muscles stretched them taut.
Veins bulged along Amamiya Rin's arms, the lines of muscle standing out like a carved statue. He took a step forward, and his bulging muscles snapped every strand outright.
The severed strands slid off him, drifting away through the air.
"Mon— Monster!"
The fortune teller gaped, speechless, a sense of unreality washing over her mind.
She might be a witch with supernatural power, but her hair's tensile strength was no less than a 2mm-diameter steel wire!
For these two to snap it so effortlessly — was their strength measured in tons?
The fortune teller felt a wave of dizziness. If a human's strength was measured in tons, could they even still be called human?
"Putting up this much resistance — seems she really does have what I suspected."
Amamiya Rin brushed the last strands of hair off himself, glanced down at the tears in his clothes, and frowned slightly.
"Still not going to behave?"
Tomie's expression grew more dangerous by the second. She'd already lost patience with the fortune teller; her hands curled into fists, knuckles cracking sharply.
"Rin, is there any point in keeping this bitch alive?"
She turned her head toward the corridor, her tone thick with impatience and irritation.
"You've already figured out who she is, haven't you? Let's just deal with her now."
"Hold on a little longer. I want to be certain."
Amamiya Rin's voice carried from deep within the corridor.
"Besides, you hate the idea of more knockoffs being made too, don't you? No need to rush."
Tomie clicked her tongue and bore down harder with her foot, making the fortune teller's ribs creak under the pressure on her chest.
"Are we really going to turn a filthy bitch like this into a knockoff? Going by your notes, isn't she the type who'll sleep with anyone? Sees a good-looking guy come in for a reading with his girlfriend and just breaks them up..."
Before she'd even finished, Tomie's brow furrowed — she'd just realized this fortune teller's methods bore an odd resemblance to the knockoffs' own.
The only difference: the knockoffs did it out of spiteful amusement and vanity, while this fortune teller did it to collect heads.
"Got any ideas?"
Amamiya Rin asked, turning the question back to Tomie.
"Hmm... speaking of hair, mine has a special power too."
Tomie looked down at the fortune teller's long black hair, the corner of her mouth curling into a dangerous smile.
"How about I plant some of my hair into her scalp?"
Tomie's allure usually only worked on men, but a woman implanted with Tomie's hair would grow obsessed with Tomie, infatuated to the point of seeing visions of her and confessing love to her.
"No," Amamiya Rin shot the idea down flat. "Your hair will drain her nutrients. Within a few days it'll eat through all her vitality and leave her a hair-covered bag of bones. She'd be worthless that way."
"Then there's only that Vampire's trick left — put part of a brain inside her body, let it grow into a knockoff lodged within her, and use it to control her body."
Tomie pursed her lips in displeasure, grinding the toe of her foot into the fortune teller's stomach.
"Fine."
Amamiya Rin didn't object. He couldn't care less which method they used — as long as it turned this fortune teller into an asset for saving the world, any plan would do.
Listening to their conversation, the fortune teller's face went ghost-white, her pupils shrinking violently.
She'd thought of herself as no good person, but the way these two talked, they sounded even more terrifying than she was!
"Wait! Wait, wait, wait!"
The fortune teller's voice turned shrill as she scrambled to beg for mercy.
"I was wrong! I'm sorry! I shouldn't have tried to seduce your man! Please spare me! I'll do anything if you just spare me!"
"Bit late to be begging now, isn't it? You filthy bitch!"
Tomie sneered, her tone vicious.
Elsewhere, Amamiya Rin passed through the corridor and soon found a large door.
He pushed it open. Beyond it was another corridor — but not an ordinary one. It resembled the gallery hall of a museum, and along both sides stood two nude plaster statues, a man and a woman, both headless.
Amamiya Rin rubbed his nose as a strange odor hit him — a stench mingling spice, hair oil, and something stale and rotten.
The corridor was dim, but by the light filtering in from outside, he could just make out something hanging in midair deep within it.
Amamiya Rin walked a few steps deeper before the full sight came into view: countless threads hung down from the ceiling, and at the end of each cord was tied a human head.
Men's heads.
They hung suspended in midair at staggered heights, like some grotesque decoration.
Some had neatly combed hair and peaceful faces, as if merely asleep. Others had twisted features, their expressions crumpled together, frozen in the terror of their final moments. Still others had shriveled entirely, skin shrunk to deep brown and stretched tight over bone, eye sockets sunken into two black hollows.
Still, it was clear these heads had been well preserved, tended to regularly. And in life, every one of them had been handsome — sharp, well-defined features, ages ranging roughly from seventeen to forty.
Amamiya Rin's expression darkened slightly. By a rough count, there were about twenty-odd of them.
Which meant the fortune teller had broken apart more than twenty couples, and murdered more than twenty people to satisfy her own depraved cravings.
"Go ahead."
Amamiya Rin closed his eyes and said coldly.
"Yay!"
Outside the corridor, Tomie's gleeful voice rang out.
Tomie pressed the index finger of her right hand against her own brow.
With a slight push, the fingertip sank in.
Her expression didn't change at all, as though this were the most ordinary thing in the world.
Though she'd handled plenty of men's severed heads herself, and had once driven her fingers into a man's neck, watching this scene sent a jolt of horror through the fortune teller all the same.
Tomie stirred her finger inside the wound on her forehead and hooked out a small piece of grayish-white tissue.
Then the flesh around the wound writhed, sealing itself completely in under two seconds, without leaving so much as a scar.
Tomie bent down, her left hand prying open the fortune teller's mouth, her right hand bringing the grayish-white tissue forward. The fortune teller's eyes went wide as she tried to struggle, but the hand pinning her head down stayed like a mountain, immovable.
Tomie pushed the small piece of tissue on her fingertip into the fortune teller's open mouth. A slight tightening of her left hand, one small jolt, and the fortune teller's body arched sharply, her throat working — the grayish-white tissue slid straight down into her stomach.
"Done!"
Tomie stood up, dusted off her hands, and said with satisfaction.
Once that grayish-white tissue grew inside the filthy bitch's stomach into a full copy of Tomie's brain-body, it would parasitize her body like a cordyceps fungus. And the moment they no longer had use for her, it would simply drain her life force dry and burst free.
The fortune teller lay sprawled on the ground, retching. She clawed at her own throat, trying to force the grayish-white tissue back up out of her stomach.
But once Tomie's cells left her body, they took on a will of their own. The tissue had already sprouted tiny tendrils, anchoring itself inside the fortune teller. Short of surgery, there was no way to remove it.
But would she even get the chance for surgery?
Or rather — would Amamiya Rin and Tomie even let her reach a hospital before the brain-body finished growing?
At five in the evening, the setting sun's afterglow bathed the entire street in warm orange-red.
Amamiya Rin stood at the foot of the apartment building, Flesh-Mod Tomie beside him. She'd changed into a dark-colored dress, simple in cut, yet it traced the lines of her figure with striking clarity.
The curve of her shoulders, the muscular contours of her arms, the taper of her waist — all gilded faintly gold in the light of the setting sun.
A low engine rumble sounded in the distance, and moments later a sleek black luxury sedan glided up, coming to a smooth stop beneath the apartment building. The door opened, and Toshiyuki Eide stepped out briskly, an eager smile already spread across his face.
That smile froze the instant he laid eyes on Flesh-Mod Tomie.
His steps faltered. His eyes, as if drawn by a magnet, locked onto her face.
Flawless features, a sharp and striking presence, radiating a magnetism impossible to look away from.
But... something was different from last time?
"Miss Tomie... have you been working out lately?"
It was the only question Toshiyuki Eide could manage to ask.
The face was still the same face, but the build and the bearing were entirely different.
His tone carried both confusion and startled admiration.
The Tomie before him seemed like an entirely different person from before. The Tomie he'd met last time had been alluring, bewitching beauty; the one before him now was as taut and powerful as a lioness, every inch of muscle radiating strength.
If anything, she was even more captivating than before.
"This is Tomie's older sister. You can just call her Kawakami."
Amamiya Rin said flatly, introducing Flesh-Mod Tomie's identity to Toshiyuki Eide.
A fabricated identity, of course.
Hearing herself called the knockoff's older sister, Flesh-Mod Tomie folded her arms across her chest and let a smug smile spread across her face.
Just then, the apartment's glass door swung open.
Mara Tomie stepped out.
She wore a black cocktail dress that clung to the curves of her body, tapering from her chest down into a slim line at the waist. Her long hair spilled loose over her shoulders, the ends swaying gently with each step. She moved with an effortless grace, as if walking on clouds, every stride carrying its own unhurried rhythm. She came to Amamiya Rin's side and settled there naturally, looping her arm through his, the corner of her lips curling into the faintest hint of a smile.
Flesh-Mod Tomie's smile vanished instantly, and she shot a vicious glare at Mara Tomie.
Mara Tomie's response was oddly muted — just a slight nod, without provoking this volatile Flesh-Mod Tomie any further.
Flesh-Mod Tomie ground her teeth, her expression souring, and hooked her arm tightly around Rin's other side. The two of them flanked him, one on each side, neither acknowledging the other.
The instant Mara Tomie arrived, Toshiyuki Eide's gaze drifted toward her out of reflex.
But then his gaze slid right past her.
As if she were nothing more than a lamppost, a wall, a patch of empty air. Her face was every bit as breathtakingly beautiful, her figure just as alluring — yet his eyes simply couldn't settle on her, as though she were wrapped in some invisible film, automatically filtered out of his perception.
"Miss Kawakami, please, get in the car."
Toshiyuki Eide, sensing nothing amiss, opened the car door for Flesh-Mod Tomie with eager courtesy.
Flesh-Mod Tomie tipped her chin up, ignoring Eide entirely, and pulled Rin into the back seat with her. Mara Tomie followed suit, settling in beside Rin, the curve of her lips deepening just a touch.
Standing outside, Toshiyuki Eide's eyes swept over the three of them in the back seat. Irritation flared in him, his brow twitching, but he didn't lash out. He shot Amamiya Rin one cold look, then climbed into the front passenger seat.
"To Tsunekiyoshi Jingu in Akasaka."
At Toshiyuki Eide's instruction, the driver started the car at once, merging into the evening traffic.
____
⚡ BONUS CHAPTER GOALS
✍️ 5 REVIEWS = +1 Bonus Chapter
💎 100 POWER STONES = +1 Bonus Chapter
🔥 P@TREON (Walnut-chan): Read +40 chapters ahead and get access to over 60 exclusive stories!
🔥 New history: Zenless Zone Zero: The Retired Void Hunter — posted on The_Mikudayo