Whoosh!
The Slit-Mouthed Woman's massive scissors sliced through the cold air and closed in an eyeblink — but in the exact instant the blades touched skin, Amamiya Rin twisted his right heel inward, pivoting from the hip. His body, as if yanked by an invisible cord, slid half a step to the right.
At the same time, the bone blade gripped in both hands swung upward, its flat angled to hug the side of the scissors, and with a subtle outward flick he redirected the thrust along its own line of force.
Shhkk——!
Steel shrieked against steel. The lethal scissor-tip grazed past the artery running along his neck, and the touch of cold metal raised every hair on his skin.
Amamiya Rin seized that razor-thin opening. Riding the deflection, the bone blade swept back in a sharp reverse slash — aimed straight at the wrist gripping the scissors.
The cut was precise and vicious. Before the Slit-Mouthed Woman could react, the keen edge had already traced a thin, red line across her wrist.
But her response was savage beyond measure.
Even as the wound opened, the arm holding the scissors wrenched direction by brute force of shoulder — like a man swinging a sledgehammer — and the scissors came sweeping horizontally at Amamiya Rin on pure arm strength alone.
Amamiya Rin clearly read the moment the deltoid in her shoulder pulled taut. Inhuman monster or not, her mechanics were entirely human.
He reacted instantly — left leg driving back into the ground, right leg braced as the pivot — and his body arched to its absolute limit in a full back-bend, a perfect bridge.
The scissors tore through the air with a ferocious gust, skimming just above his abdomen. The pressure wave broke against him like a small explosion, leaving his chest and gut feeling bruised and hollow.
With both hands pressed to the ground and his left leg coiling, Amamiya Rin struck like a snake leaving its burrow — his lower leg pistoned forward, driving a hard kick straight into the Slit-Mouthed Woman's shin!
Thud!
He had aimed for a weak point — but the impact felt like kicking a concrete wall. The rebound rattled up through his leg and left it tingling and numb.
Amamiya Rin made the call without hesitation. Using the rebound from that very kick, he fired his core muscles and executed a clean, tight back-roll, buying himself roughly two meters of separation.
Almost the instant his body vacated the spot, the Slit-Mouthed Woman's scissors came crashing down with a dull, heavy rush of air — CRACK — and gouged a small crater into the concrete where he'd just been, chips of stone flying in all directions.
The moment the roll completed, Amamiya Rin's feet were already solid on the ground. He transitioned from motion to stillness and settled into a low crouch, bone blade held steady in a middle guard, the tip angled slightly down, eyes locked on the target ahead.
An opening.
Amamiya Rin's chest compressed sharply, as though he were packing every cubic inch of surrounding air into his lungs.
"Evil Thrust!"
A detonation of a kiai tore from his throat!
At the cry, every muscle in his body snapped taut like a drawn bowstring pushed past its limit!
The coiled right leg drove down through the ball of the foot — heel grinding into the earth — and the rebound surged upward through shin, thigh, hip, and core, linking into a single explosive torque!
BOOM!
Dust kicked up from beneath his feet. Amamiya Rin's body became a low-skimming blur of afterimage as he exploded forward!
The bone blade's tip adjusted its angle mid-charge. Arms, body, and blade fused into one rigid steel axis in that instant, channeling every ounce of momentum into the single point of the tip — without reservation!
The blade split the air with a sharp, piercing hiss, skimmed past the edge of the Slit-Mouthed Woman's falling scissors, and drove straight into the vulnerable area at her inner thigh.
Shk!
A sound rang out — distinct from striking metal or bone — the slightly muffled, unmistakable noise of a keen edge finding flesh.
The honed tip of the bone blade found the weakly defended inner surface of the Slit-Mouthed Woman's leg with perfect precision.
"Yaaaaah——!!!"
Even a creature beyond human reckoning like the Slit-Mouthed Woman, struck so brutally in so critical a spot, let out half a shriek — a warped, pitch-broken wail tangled with searing agony and disbelieving fury. Her body seized rigid for a moment — and then detonated outward, a powder keg ignited, violent force erupting in all directions.
"Die — just die!"
Heedless of the bone blade still buried inside her, she swung the scissors up like a warhammer and brought them crashing down at Amamiya Rin — barely a hand's width away — with a brute, lawless force that defied all reason. The speed was staggering. The power was enough to shear a car in half.
But the instant his blade connected, Amamiya Rin had no thought of pressing the advantage.
Almost the very moment the hit registered through the blade, his gripping hands were already twisting — widening the wound even as he wrenched the blade back out.
Simultaneously, the same stance that had driven him in — equally suited to rapid directional change — shifted its center of gravity, snapping hard to the right, left leg as pivot, right leg driving backward.
Shhkk!
The bone blade tore free, dragging a splash of dark blood with it.
And Amamiya Rin's body, riding the rebound from that push-off and the precise shift of his center of mass, flowed like a fish through water — hugging the arc of the Slit-Mouthed Woman's savage swinging scissors — and slipped away in a lateral half-step at a perilously narrow angle.
The cold tip of the scissors grazed across his thigh. He had not quite gotten entirely clear — the edge bit through skin and muscle, opening a wound more than ten centimeters long.
A sharp lance of pain exploded from the site, and warm blood soaked rapidly into his trouser leg.
Amamiya Rin grunted through his teeth, swallowed the screaming pain in his leg and the hollow post-burst fatigue, and used the momentum of the lateral sidestep to roll away to the side and rear.
The roll was a little ragged — but it worked. He put nearly three meters between himself and the Slit-Mouthed Woman and left any potential pursuit behind him.
He dropped to one knee, propped himself up on the bone blade, steadied his weight, and looked up at the Slit-Mouthed Woman.
She was not pursuing him.
She had not moved from where she stood. Her body was braced against the nearby wall, her core and abdomen convulsing inward in spasms — as though shocked by electricity — instinctively curling around the unbearable pain. Her legs were clamped tight together, trembling uncontrollably, and fouled blood was pouring steadily from the wound, running down the inner surface of her thigh and pooling in a dark red puddle on the ground.
The precise, vicious strike Amamiya Rin had landed — not lethal in the conventional sense, yet more devastating than lethal.
The Slit-Mouthed Woman was utterly incapable of moving. All she could do was glare at Amamiya Rin with those eyes brimming with festering hatred.
Amamiya Rin met her gaze without so much as a change in expression, and opened his mouth to speak the incantation he knew would work.
"Hair wax! Hair wax! Hair wax!"
Three times in a row. The look the Slit-Mouthed Woman leveled at him grew more ferocious with each repetition — the look of a thing that wanted to devour him alive — shot through with a deep, seething resentment.
Reluctantly, she turned and fled. Her legs clamped together in a grotesquely rigid, tight-kneed gait, shuffling away in small, rapid, lurching steps — twisted, pitiful, undignified — yet somehow, not slow at all.
Half-dragging herself, stumbling, she vanished into the shadows at the far end of the alley.
____
👻🔥Walnut-chan in "P" for more!🔥👻
🔥 New history: Danmachi: Summoning Ruri Gokou, And other Chuunibyou Brats
Help us unlock these community rewards:
🎯 100 Powerstones = +1 Bonus Chapter for everyone