"I'm going to skin you alive!"
That kind of threat is usually something the powerful hurl at the weak — not meant literally, not actually possible. Just words.
But here, in this apartment, the words had become a statement of fact.
Kawakami Tomie stood barefoot in the middle of the living room. Her perfect, flawless body was fully exposed to the air, her long black hair cascading down her back, making her skin look even more porcelain-white — and making the red traceries across that skin even more stark.
Amamiya Rin stood behind her. His left thumb and forefinger pinched a small tuft of hair at the back of her head; his right hand held a slender fruit knife, its tip resting lightly against the back collar of her bodysuit.
The fabric split open in a single clean line.
He drew the blade slowly downward — not fast, but unnervingly steady — tracing the curve of her spine in one straight vertical stroke. He stopped only when the tip reached the hem of the skirt.
He set the fruit knife aside on the coffee table. Then, pinching the torn edges of the fabric between his fingertips, he slid both index fingers into the gap and pulled outward to either side.
It gave way with unsettling ease.
A sharp, grating tear rang out through the quiet living room as Amamiya Rin ripped the split in the bodysuit wider.
Then he pushed both hands inside, palms moving against Kawakami Tomie's skin, forcing himself to ignore the discomfort as he worked upward — widening the gap all the way to the top of her head. He flipped the fabric forward over her face like pulling off a sweater, then slowly dragged it down.
It took no small amount of time and effort.
Only when the last scrap of fabric finally cleared her ankles did Amamiya Rin straighten up and let out a long breath.
He was holding a complete bodysuit. It hung limp in his hand, still faintly shaped to the contours of a body, still holding its warmth — the only difference being the straight slit running down the back.
Sew a zipper into it, and it might be wearable again.
Kawakami Tomie, meanwhile, was now truly, entirely bare. The word "naked" had ceased to carry any meaning where she was concerned.
The dark-red webwork of exposed tissue spread across Amamiya Rin's field of vision. Kawakami Tomie's eye sockets and lips formed soft depressions; her ribcage expanded and contracted minutely with each breath; every muscle was defined with brutal clarity.
It was hard to believe someone like this could still be alive. Could still be standing.
"Absolutely hideous!"
The head resting on the sofa offered its verdict without a shred of tact.
It was Tomie's severed head. After a full night of growth, it had already regrown most of a chest and shoulders — another day or two and it would be whole.
The body, for its part, had already grown back an entirely new head.
Of course, the Kawakami Tomie currently experiencing the alchemical salve was not a newly-generated Tomie. She was one of the original batch — the one who had set her sights on becoming a Vampire, who had rushed back from out of town early that morning, and who was also among those afflicted by the curse, her appearance having been compromised.
Hearing Tomie's jab, Kawakami Tomie turned her head and fixed the severed head with a vicious glare. The exposed masseter muscles bulged with the force of it, giving her face a ferocity as grotesque as something out of a painted-skin ghost story.
"Hah! You've got nothing but a head left and you're still running your mouth!"
Kawakami Tomie stormed toward Tomie, radiating fury with every step.
She couldn't exactly argue with Tomie's point — so she decided to respond with action instead.
"Help! Rin! She's going to hurt me!"
Tomie, completely unburdened by any sense of dignity, immediately called out to Amamiya Rin for rescue.
"You were the one running your mouth and setting her off. Who else is there to blame?"
Amamiya Rin gave a slight shake of his head and laid the bodysuit he'd just removed flat on the coffee table.
Behind him, Kawakami Tomie grabbed Tomie by the hair and hoisted her into the air.
"What do you think you're doing?! Let go! I will bite you — don't think I won't!"
Tomie flailed in mid-air, snapping at Kawakami Tomie's wrist — and missing cleanly as Kawakami Tomie pulled her hand back without effort.
Kawakami Tomie let out a cold laugh. Both hands gripping Tomie's hair, she swung her arm in a wide arc, turning Tomie into a living windmill, spinning her in circles through the air.
"Yaaaah——!!"
Tomie screamed. The world wheeled around her in a dizzy blur — sofa, ceiling, Amamiya Rin, and that red, skinless body flickering past in rapid rotation.
Her long hair was yanked taut with every revolution, the rush of wind loud in her ears, and the freshly-grown stump of shoulder carved wild arcs through the air.
"Alright, that's enough. Surely you've had sufficient revenge by now?"
After a moment, Amamiya Rin stepped in.
Kawakami Tomie paused — clearly not yet satisfied.
She spun Tomie around two more times out of pure spite before finally, lazily, coming to a stop and dropping the dizzy head onto the sofa.
"Thwump." Tomie's face plunged straight into the cushion.
She wrenched her face free, eyes still spinning, and spat through gritted teeth: "You little... I'm going to kill you... I swear I'm going to kill you..."
"Ha. You? Kill me? With your mouth?"
Kawakami Tomie folded her arms, the exposed muscles of her chest rising and falling with her breath. Terrifying as she looked, not one ounce of her arrogance had diminished.
"How does it feel?"
While Kawakami Tomie and Tomie bickered, Amamiya Rin reached out and pressed a finger against Kawakami Tomie's body.
The sensation was springy and supple — like touching something delicately woven and elastic.
The surface was smooth, the texture clearly perceptible beneath his fingertip; with a little pressure he could feel the subtle rises and falls beneath — warm and deeply strange.
"A little cold. A little odd. A little itchy."
Kawakami Tomie found this grotesque form impossible to tolerate — and had no intention of adapting to it. She was deliberately accelerating her own regeneration.
"The itching is normal. Your nerve endings are directly exposed to the air. And without skin as a barrier, you'll lose moisture very quickly."
Tomie's regenerative power moved swiftly.
In under a minute, a complete layer of new skin had spread across her entire body — snow-white and utterly indistinguishable from what had been there before.
Of course, even if there had been some difference, the Apology Demon's curse would have prevented Amamiya Rin from noticing it.
On the coffee table, the shed bodysuit was also undergoing its own regeneration.
That said, growing from a bodysuit back into a complete human body would take two or three days at the very least.
The fully-restored Kawakami Tomie dashed off into the bedroom. When she emerged, she had changed into a simple, clean-cut white dress.
The morning light had just crept over the windowsill, settling softly over her.
Her new skin was blindingly white — like freshly fired fine porcelain, carrying a clean, gentle luminescence. Standing there in the interplay of light and shadow, she looked like the first fresh leaf after rain: naturally, effortlessly pure.
She walked over to Amamiya Rin and slipped her arm through his with easy familiarity, tipping her face up to look at him, her voice carrying the faintest trace of a pout.
"Rin, come take a walk with me. Just around the neighborhood — and breakfast while we're at it. I've been travelling all morning and I'm starving."
Amamiya Rin looked at her and could sense her real intentions clearly enough.
She wanted to find men. To verify whether her appearance had been restored.
And at the same time — to give Tomie's severed head a little more time to recover, so that when they returned, it could serve as a sacrificial offering for the ritual to become a Vampire.
____
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