She possessed a face of unparalleled beauty, a bewitching power that could devour the minds of any man. Any man who saw her true face would, without exception, fall into a mad, obsessive infatuation that ended in self-destruction.
Kawakami Tomie was exactly that kind of witch.
The men present instinctively turned their heads away, not daring to meet the black-clad woman's gaze, even as cold sweat soaked through the backs of their clothes. Their hearts churned with anxiety and regret, but above all, with bewilderment.
Kawakami Tomie was one of the guests who had attended the wedding — so why had no one noticed until now?
Was that person really Kawakami Tomie, after all?
"No — it must be Kawakami Tomie!"
The moment such doubt rose in their minds, it was instantly swept away.
That woman's allure was even more terrifying than the legends described. If she wasn't Kawakami Tomie, then who could she possibly be?
"It's that monster! Why is she here?!"
"What is Ultraseven even doing? Why didn't it finish off this witch too?!"
"Bodyguards! Quick! Kill her! Kill her now!"
...
Terror and fury swept through the entire gathering, and the nobles tore off their veneer of refined courtesy entirely, howling with twisted, savage faces.
The bodyguards surged forward, each armed with stun batons and riot guns — some even drew real firearms, the black muzzles leveled at Mara Tomie as fingers tightened on triggers.
"Bang!"
With the crack of a gunshot, a bullet tore through the air, streaking straight for the space between Mara Tomie's brows.
Mara Tomie remained leaning against the pillar, the corner of her mouth curved in that same ambiguous, seductive almost-smile, her eyes flicking sideways as if watching a troupe of clowns. She didn't so much as twitch a finger.
But the bullet stopped half a meter from her face.
It wasn't blocked by some invisible barrier — it was caught, pinched between two fingers of a large, pale-skinned hand.
Flesh-Mod Tomie had appeared in front of Mara Tomie without anyone noticing when.
Her right hand hung in midair, the deformed bullet pinched between her index and middle fingers, thin wisps of smoke still rising from its metal surface.
In that instant, the air in the entire courtyard seemed to freeze solid.
The bodyguard who had fired the shot went pale, his face twisting with horror.
That hadn't been a riot gun — it was a real firearm, loaded with real bullets. And yet the other side had caught it between two fingers?
"Am I dreaming?"
A ghastly smile spread across the bodyguard's face, and his body began to sway slightly, as if he were about to collapse into sleep.
To him, everything that had happened today felt utterly unreal. The Tsuneki family's new bride had suddenly transformed into an Ultraman and flown off, and among the guests had appeared both a terrifying witch and a steel-fisted beauty who could catch bullets bare-handed. Wasn't this some absurd Nightmare?
Flesh-Mod Tomie loosened her two fingers, and the bullet dropped to the ground with a sharp, clear clink.
"A dream? Then why not have one you never wake up from?"
She tilted her head slightly, her neck giving off a series of cracking pops, her face twisting into a cruel, savage grin.
Before the words had fully left her mouth, her body had already vanished from where she stood.
Not fast — gone! As though someone had simply cut that frame straight out of reality.
The next instant, she stood before the bodyguard who had fired.
His pupils contracted, and he raised his gun on instinct — but all he had time to see was a fist expanding to fill his entire vision.
"Bang!"
The fist punched through his chest and out his back, dragging shredded cloth, flesh, and shattered ribs along with it.
The bodyguard looked down at the hole in his chest, his expression still frozen in that instant of shock. When Flesh-Mod Tomie withdrew her fist, the corpse dropped to the ground with a heavy thud.
The remaining bodyguards froze for a heartbeat, horror rising on their faces — but before they could react, Flesh-Mod Tomie was already moving.
She moved so fast that only afterimages remained. Her right hand shot out, seized the wrist of the nearest bodyguard's gun hand, and twisted hard. The crack of shattering bone rang out as crisp as a snapping branch. Before his scream could even leave his throat, she flung him bodily into two others, and all three tumbled into a tangled heap.
At the same moment, her left hand swept out, a knife-hand strike landing on another man's neck. With a crack, the sound of his spine snapping and the sound of his body hitting the ground came almost simultaneously.
The third, the fourth, the fifth, the sixth… Flesh-Mod Tomie moved like a meat grinder running at full power. Blood and flesh sprayed wherever she passed — her body was so overwhelmingly strong that even a mere brush from her at full sprint was enough to cripple a person.
A thick reek of blood spread through the courtyard, mixing with gunpowder smoke and incense to produce a sickening stench.
Witnessing this horrifying spectacle, the nobles' minds simply stopped functioning.
Was that thing even human? Was that Tomie? Why were there two Tomies? Why did Tomie possess such terrifying power?
These questions rose in their minds one after another, with no answers to be found. That skin-crawling sight assaulted their vision, and pure terror flooded their thoughts with a single, unified impulse.
It was the instinct to survive — an instinct strong enough to override everything else.
"Run! Run for your lives!"
In an instant, heart-rending screams echoed through the jingū. The nobles who had once considered themselves above all others abandoned every last shred of dignity, fleeing like headless flies toward the jingū's gates.
Some were shoved to the ground. Some trampled over the bodies of others to push forward. Some crawled and scrambled on hands and knees. Sumptuous kimonos were trampled to rags, expensive leather shoes went flying off, and every last trace of their earlier composure and dignity shattered on the ground.
And yet, no matter how desperately or how pathetically they struggled, the outcome would never change. The reason Mara Tomie hadn't used her Hypnosis on them was that, by Amamiya Rin's judgment, they no longer counted among the humans worth protecting — and also because Flesh-Mod Tomie, single-handedly, could wipe them all out with ease.
Flesh-Mod Tomie planted her foot, and the flagstones beneath her split into a spiderweb of cracks. She leapt into the crowd like a tiger among sheep, her arms unleashing a monstrous strength capable of shattering stone and cracking open the earth, tearing the nobles before her into heaps of bloody flesh with her bare hands.
Within a matter of seconds, dozens of corpses lay scattered across the courtyard.
Blood trickled through the gaps between the flagstones, gleaming a dark crimson in the warm glow of the lanterns, like a carpet unrolled across the ground.
The remaining guests broke down completely.
"Help! Somebody help me!"
A woman collapsed onto the ground, scrambling backward on hands and feet, her face streaked with tears and mucus.
"Don't kill me! Please, don't kill me! I'll give you anything you want! Money! Status! I'll give you everything!"
A portly middle-aged man dropped to his knees before Flesh-Mod Tomie, begging piteously.
"Ultraseven! Save me! Please, save me!"
Someone else pressed their hands together, praying desperately to the sky, calling out for the Ultraseven who had just departed.
"Ultraseven! Aren't you the guardian of humanity? Aren't you supposed to protect people? Save us! Please, save us!"
How absurd.
These very nobles, who had always looked down on others, treating human life as worthless, who had once laughed at the wails and pleas of their victims, were now crying out to the heroes of children's stories to save them.
"Ultraseven really is the guardian of humanity. But tell me — trash like you, are you even still human? The reason Ultraseven left so easily, refusing to answer your cries for help, is that you've already been struck off the human register."
Flesh-Mod Tomie sneered with contempt, pressing her palm down on top of a noble's head. With only the slightest exertion, his skull caved straight into his chest cavity.
Witnessing this scene, hearing the words Flesh-Mod Tomie spoke, the surviving nobles who had not yet died felt an indescribable despair wash over them.
If the light itself had abandoned them, then even that last flicker of hope for survival would cease to exist.
____
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