(Tch!)
Vampire Tomie clicked her tongue in irritation, her sharp canines grazing her lower lip.
The scattered glow of streetlamps seeping through the window lit up the undisguised envy on her pale cheeks.
(Strip it down and all she's doing is stealing life force from outside herself, then using that life force to strengthen her body. What's the big deal? How is that any different from a vampire?)
In truth the difference was enormous, and however much it galled her, Vampire Tomie had to admit it.
Blood and life force looked like the same thing, but academically they were nothing alike, and all Vampire Tomie could control was the blood inside her own body. Compared to life force given physical form through the power of the Soul Reviver's Sword, it fell far, far short.
Her own ability needed further development.
Vampire Tomie found herself turning the problem over.
She hadn't needed to hurry before. Out of several hundred Tomies, she alone had obtained supernatural power. That was no longer the case. Those counterfeits kept unlocking cheats more absurd than the last, and next to them, a vampire's power looked pitifully small. (Due to caching issues, users please visit directly in your browser: Tiantian Read Novels, cure for your book drought, 𝒕𝒕𝒌𝒔.𝒕𝒘, super complete site, for the fastest chapter updates.)
Still, even without life force given physical form, that didn't mean she couldn't develop the Ripple Breathing Method herself.
Ripple Overdrive, at bottom, was nothing more than using a special rhythm of breathing to control the circulation of blood, and through that to interfere with the entire body, generating the energy of life from within.
At most, her Ripple Overdrive would simply lack Swordmaster Tomie's special effects.
"Ripple Overdrive..."
At the same moment, Flesh-Mod Tomie was mulling over the Ripple Overdrive that Swordmaster Tomie had developed.
She had no Soul Reviver's Sword, but through Swordmaster Tomie's perspective she could feel the presence of that materialized life force all the same.
The life force Swordmaster Tomie had poured into her body amounted to roughly a century of an ordinary person's lifespan.
Not a great deal, but since her own life force never drained away, she could borrow it, develop a Ripple Overdrive of her own, dig out her own life force, and give it physical form without the Soul Reviver's Sword... which sounded a little too difficult. No matter. She had time enough and chances enough to fail.
(By the way, you said those moves were only crude applications. So in your view, what would a profound application look like?)
Flesh-Mod Tomie forced down the urge to start experimenting on the spot, keeping her sprinting rhythm steady while she put the question to Swordmaster Tomie in the depths of their shared consciousness.
At the Takaichi residence, Swordmaster Tomie did not answer at once. She rose to her feet and let her gaze drift across the members of the negotiation team.
"Tell the people outside. In a moment, I'm walking out there, and I'll cut down every enemy I see."
Anyone who wants to live should run. If they don't run, they've no grounds to complain when I cut them down.
That was the meaning that showed in Swordmaster Tomie's eyes.
The negotiation specialists turned toward Mara Tomie, as if seeking their master's permission.
Mara Tomie tilted her head, let out a soft laugh, and waved a careless hand.
"Go on, go on. Carry this Swordmaster's words out there word for word."
With her consent given, the negotiators and the tactical officers finally left the main hall.
Out through the garden, past the line of armored vehicles and barricades, the lead negotiator walked straight to the Superintendent-General beside the command vehicle.
"What's the situation inside? Is that young man in the white kariginu safe?"
The Superintendent-General took two urgent steps forward, pressing the negotiator for an answer.
"The hostages are all alive, but unconscious, the young man included. The perpetrator doesn't seem to regard him as any different from the others," the negotiator reported, his face grave, his manner steady.
The Superintendent-General let out a breath at that.
As long as they were alive, this hadn't reached the worst case yet.
"And then? What demands has she made? Ransom? Release of accomplices? Political conditions?" The Superintendent-General pinched the bridge of his nose.
"No demands at all. She told me to pass on a message. In a little while she's going to walk out of there, and she'll cut down every enemy she sees," the negotiator said, shaking his head, blunt about it.
The air froze for several seconds.
The senior Metropolitan Police Department officials standing nearby exchanged blank looks. The Superintendent-General had gone still too, his expression locked somewhere between confusion and disbelief.
"Ha... hahaha..."
After a moment, fury pushed the Superintendent-General into laughter, the veins standing out on his forehead.
"Walk out? Cut them all down? Who does she think she is? Some great Swordmaster out of the old days?! This is the modern era! Out here she's facing dozens of automatic rifles, armored vehicles, helicopters! Where did this lunatic crawl out of?"
He slammed his fist into the car door beside him with a resounding clang.
Not the worst possible situation, but something extremely close to it had arrived: the perpetrator was insane?
He wasn't afraid of schemers who wanted something. He was afraid of madmen who wanted nothing, because a madman's mind ran on chaos, and nobody could predict what a madman would do.
"Superintendent, she isn't holding the hostages for leverage. She's declaring war on us. Either she's insane, or she has absolute confidence. But we can't gamble on the former," the Deputy Superintendent-General said, his face solemn.
"...If she's the latter, all the better."
The Superintendent-General's brows knotted, and something wary flickered deep in his eyes.
At their rank, they knew a certain amount about supernatural phenomena. He thought of the grotesque state of the corpses inside the Takaichi residence, of the bodyguards wiped out to the last man under impossible circumstances.
This time, the perpetrator might genuinely be a madwoman with supernatural power.
"Insane talk is insane talk, but we can't afford to be careless."
He forced himself calm, nodded, snatched the handset the communications officer held out, keyed the transmitter, and barked out his orders.
"All units, attention! The target is about to show herself! Repeat, the target is about to show herself! First and Second Assault Teams, meet her head-on! Fire Support, heavy machine guns in position! Anti-Armor, launchers ready! Non-Lethal, water cannon standing by, and wait for my word! Primary objective is suppression! Take her alive if possible! If the situation goes out of control, lethal fire is authorized, but under no circumstances is the main building to be hit!"
The orders went down the line fast, and the cordon that had been sitting silent came alive.
Bolts racked one after another. Heavy weapon mounts thudded down onto the roofs of armored vehicles. Two light machine gun squads and five rifle sections laid interlocking fields of fire across the garden, snipers had long since settled into position at a distance, and every black muzzle and gun barrel swung toward the Takaichi residence. A massive water cannon truck rumbled closer, its thick nozzle adjusting angle, primed and waiting.
The whole encirclement was a trap drawn tight, lethal firepower converging from every angle on that silent Japanese estate. The air carried the weight of a coming storm, and every muzzle, every barrel, every searchlight waited for the killer to appear.
Not long after, a figure stepped out of the main house and into the open ground of the garden, fixed in place by countless searchlights and gun sights.
Just then a thin bank of cloud slid aside, and cold moonlight poured down unobstructed, spreading over the garden like quicksilver, lighting up the newcomer's face.
Time seemed to stop for an instant.
The Superintendent-General, and many of the soldiers watching through scopes and binoculars, held their breath without meaning to.
This was not the snarling monster they had braced themselves for.
This was a woman. A woman so beautiful she was almost uncanny.
Long black hair fell like a waterfall, a few strands brushing pale cheeks in the night wind. Her features were as exquisite as a doll carved by a craftsman who had poured his life into it, every line placed just so, and yet edged with something inhuman and keen. Clear moonlight washed the fine line of her profile until her skin looked nearly translucent.
She wore simple dark clothing. Her frame was straight as a blade. In her left hand she held a short sword of strange make, and in her right, a snow-white tachi.
Surrounded on all sides by steel and murderous intent, the woman who had come out of the main house slowly lifted her head toward the bright moon hanging in the night sky, her cheek traced in beautiful outline by its light.
Her gaze was serene, as if all those black muzzles and thick barrels around her simply did not exist.
"Fine moon tonight."
Swordmaster Tomie's voice rang out, clear and bright, carrying with unusual sharpness through the silence.
Astonishment spread across the Superintendent-General's face.
"You've got to be joking," he muttered, the absurdity thick in his voice.
That face beneath the moon was beautiful to the point of unreality, nothing at all like any of the savage monsters he had pictured.
His adjutant's eyes had gone wide too, his grip on his weapon loosening slightly. More than a few of the soldiers watching through scopes let their fingers drift off the trigger guards.
"A... a woman?" someone murmured, disbelief filling the words.
"Is she moon-viewing? Here? Now?"
All this machinery of war, mustered against a woman like that?
Was that beautiful woman really not some young noblewoman from a prominent family who had wandered onto the wrong scene at the wrong time?
They hesitated, glancing at one another, confusion written on every face.
And in that brief bewilderment born purely of her appearance, Swordmaster Tomie's expression changed.
"Seeing a moon this bright makes me want to cut someone down..."
Before the words had finished, the corners of her mouth drew slowly apart. Not a smile. Something with a far more savage curve to it.
The beauty beneath the moon, in that instant, radiated a cold and absolute killing intent.
She stood where she was, her body unmoving, and yet everything about how she felt to them had changed.
The pressure swelled so abruptly it was nearly physical, an unseen weight settling onto every chest.
The air grew heavy. Even the beams of the searchlights seemed to dim a shade. The night wind died.
Every soldier watching Swordmaster Tomie felt his heart give one heavy lurch.
It was not the tension of facing an enemy. It was the instinctive tremor of an animal that has come face to face with a higher predator.
Her force was too strong. Her presence was too strong.
Beneath that beautiful shell, something far vaster was radiating pressure as a living thing.
As the power of the Soul Reviver's Sword drove that torrential life force into her body, Swordmaster Tomie's presence as a single living being rose without limit on the surge of it, like a creature standing above humankind.
A Swordmaster Tomie like this had no need to deliberately aim that unfathomable Consciousness Slash at anyone. She had only to stand there and let her life force circulate normally within her, and ordinary people could feel with perfect clarity the gulf between themselves and her. It was a fundamental difference in the order of life itself.
The Superintendent-General pinched his own thigh hard, forcing himself back to clarity.
"Final warning! Drop your weapons and release all hostages immediately! This is your last chance!" He pressed the transmitter and shouted it at the figure in the garden.
Swordmaster Tomie moved.
She only stepped forward. One step.
BOOM!!!
An indescribable Sword Force erupted outward from her like an invisible tidal wave.
There was no wind, yet the fine grit and gravel on the garden ground began leaping wildly. There was no sound, yet every eardrum buzzed, and every heart felt as though a huge unseen hand had clamped down on it.
The nearest shield officers felt as if sledgehammers had struck their skulls. Their vision blackened, their legs went to water, and they nearly dropped to their knees.
It was presence amplified to its absolute limit, blended with Sword Intent into a crushing psychic weight. She did not need to draw her blade for people to feel they were being attacked, and overwhelmed.
Swordmaster Tomie took another step.
Unhurried, unbroken in pace, as if strolling through her own garden.
But with every footfall, that terrible force grew a degree heavier, and the pressure on the soldiers nearest her sank a degree deeper. The air seemed to congeal into iron plate. Breathing became almost impossible.
"O-open fire! Open fire!"
The Superintendent-General's face had gone bloodless. Under that crushing weight he could not force out another word of surrender terms, and the will to survive tore the shout out of his throat.
Rattattat!!
At the command, the soldiers overcame their instinctive terror, or rather, trained muscle memory moved for them, and they squeezed their triggers at Swordmaster Tomie.
Muzzle flame spat out. Bullets ripped the air apart into streaking lines of fire, all of them converging on that solitary figure beneath the moon.
Facing the downpour of lead, Swordmaster Tomie did not so much as alter the rhythm of her stride. The Soul Reviver's Sword in her hand lifted, seemingly at random, and swept once across.
CLANG-CLANG-CLANG-CLANG!!
In an instant a deafening chorus of metal on metal rang out, almost drowning the dense crackle of gunfire.
Under moonlight and searchlight, all anyone could see was a flowing white radiance shimmering around her, and as that sword-glow wound and coiled, sparks burst open again and again like festival fireworks.
The snipers at a distance watched the whole thing through their scopes, and the sheer absurdity of the scene left their mouths hanging open, disbelieving cries escaping them.
"What is that... what the hell is that?"
Every round fired at Swordmaster Tomie, from the front and from the flanks alike, was struck aside or batted away with perfect precision by that short sword.
No. Not by the short sword, strictly speaking, but by the light streaming off it. It could hardly be called a short sword anymore. Pure white sword-light poured out of the blade and clung to it, refusing to disperse, taking shape as a Sword of Light nearly two meters long. Flickering in and out of sight, its glow shifting bright and dim, it displayed within that storm of gunfire a toughness with real substance to it and an explosive strength beyond measure, blocking, deflecting, and sweeping away every dense volley that came.
____
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