"Tch!"
Kawakami Tomie's face twisted with undisguised revulsion. No — revulsion wasn't quite the right word. It was something closer to loathing.
She reached into her pocket and produced a matchbox she'd prepared ahead of time. She drew out a single match.
The moment it struck, an orange flame leapt to life, dancing against the dim light.
As long as they didn't move, they were manageable — but the workers, faces slack with manic devotion, were churning the contents of the vats with all their strength, pouring nearly every ounce of their attention into the chunks of Tomie flesh and liquor sloshing below. These particular pieces of Tomie had never been touched by Aizawa Yuuma's curse, and even reduced to scraps of meat, their allure still vastly outstripped that of Kawakami Tomie.
The moment Kawakami Tomie struck that flame, the nearest worker stirring the vat snapped to attention. He wheeled around and caught sight of her holding the lit match — and his face contorted into something savage and feral.
"What are you doing? What do you think you're doing?!"
He flung down his stirring pole and hurled himself at Kawakami Tomie with a shriek, his expression murderous — as if he meant to tear her to pieces.
"Out of my way."
Tomie didn't even glance at him. Her arm swelled and warped in an instant, and she swatted the lunging worker away with a single open-handed blow that sent him careening through the air.
At the same moment, the match slipped from her fingers, tracing a faint arc through the air before dropping into the vat of flesh-pink liquor below.
A soft hiss.
The instant the flame touched the liquid, the orange light plunged downward — and then the oily film floating on the surface erupted into a bloom of blue fire that spread with terrifying speed.
The floating fragments of cheeks and flesh curled and blackened in the flames. Eyeballs burst with wet pops, sending murky fluid splashing up over the rim of the vat. The sweet reek of fermenting liquor merged with the acrid stench of charring meat into something that seared the nostrils.
"AAAAAHHHH!!"
Screams erupted from inside the vat — screams that didn't sound human. Not one voice, but countless voices layered over one another, a shrieking chorus so piercing it felt like it could puncture an eardrum.
In the wavering firelight, twisted faces bloomed and writhed — eyes stretched wide open, red lips contorting in silent anguish, opening and closing in the flames.
"Stop! What are you doing?! Stop it now!"
The workshop exploded into chaos. The other workers spotted the fire and dropped whatever they were doing, swarming in from all sides.
They came with dark rings sunken beneath their eyes, their whites veined with blood, their expressions utterly unhinged. Tomie watched these maddened men coming at her with cold eyes. Her arms swelled and stretched with startling speed. She reached out and locked her fingers around the throat of the first man to reach her, and flung him into the man behind him — both of them tumbling together into a vat.
"Boxer shorts! Boxer shorts! Do you pathetic mortals really think you can defy me — Tomie?!"
Before the rest of them could react, Tomie had already plunged into their midst. Her warped hands cut and clawed in motions so fast they left only afterimages.
Amid dull thuds and brief, cut-off screams, any worker who came within her reach was sent flying backward at an even greater speed than he'd arrived.
In under two minutes, every last worker lay sprawled across the floor, broken and scattered like discarded dolls — not one of them capable of further resistance. All they could do was stare up at Tomie with their bulging, bloodshot eyes.
"Congratulations, you insignificant little humans. I have come to rule over you. Prostrate yourselves before my blood and my power!"
Kawakami Tomie rose onto her tiptoes, arched her body back, and made her proclamation to the fallen workers in a tone that was equal parts imperious and intoxicated.
Looking up at that towering figure looming over them, even the workers who had already lost their minds felt a cold dread crawl instinctively from the soles of their feet straight up to the tops of their skulls.
The wavering firelight danced behind her, stretching and twisting her shadow, throwing it long and distorted across the mottled walls and the broken bodies strewn across the floor.
When the iron door of the workshop swung open again, every last worker had become Tomie's servant.
On each of their heads, hidden beneath dark hair, a faintly pulsing flesh-bud had taken root — its tendrils burrowing deep into the brain, coiling tight around their thoughts.
Far away in Tokyo, Amamiya Rin passed through a narrow alley and arrived at his destination.
"This is the place."
Hayashi Naoko, who had been leading the way, slowed her steps.
Amamiya Rin sharpened his focus and looked up. An abandoned office building stood in isolation before them.
Years of neglect had left its exterior walls crumbling and decrepit. Most of the window glass had already shattered. In the slanting afternoon light, the whole structure threw a long, suffocating shadow that fell over both him and Hayashi Naoko, pressing down with a palpable, leaden weight.
"Let's go."
Amamiya Rin's gaze sharpened slightly, and he and Hayashi Naoko walked together into the abandoned building.
The afternoon sunlight was carved into ragged fragments by the building's outer shell, slanting in through broken windows and casting a few dull yellow patches on the dust-thick floor. Fine motes of dust drifted through the air, dancing soundlessly in the occasional shaft of light.
Amamiya Rin and Hayashi Naoko climbed to the fourth floor and stepped out of the stairwell into an open, undivided space.
What had likely once been planned as an office floor was now nothing but bare load-bearing concrete pillars, standing in the dimness like silent giants.
"Over there."
Hayashi Naoko's voice echoed through the wide, hollow space. Amamiya Rin followed her direction, his gaze cutting through the maze of amber light and pillar-shadows, until it settled on the far corner of the fourth floor.
Between several thick load-bearing pillars, a patch of floor had been cleared. Against the wall stood a table, on which rested a brass candelabra holding a single slender white candle. The candle's flame flickered and guttered, casting unsteady shadows in every direction.
Scattered across the table and the surrounding floor were strange implements: what appeared to be silver-handled knives and small silver bowls, their edges smeared with unidentified dark residue; several clay pots left open, containing something desiccated that looked like a mixture of dried herbs; and various objects of uncertain purpose assembled from feathers and thin bones bound together. An old, yellowed book lay open.
And — an Iron Maiden.
It stood roughly the height of a person, its shape like an upright human-shaped coffin. The surface was dull metal, dark and aged. On the front, two hinged doors hung open, their surface pocked with rust. Visible on the inner face of the doors were rows of short iron spikes, their tips catching the dim light with a dull, baleful gleam.
Amamiya Rin and Hayashi Naoko walked closer. The nearer they drew, the more clearly Amamiya Rin caught the smell — an unsettling blend of blood and dust, clinging and thick.
"It was here..."
Hayashi Naoko couldn't help but press her fingers to her eyes, as if trying to scrub away the terrible sight she had once witnessed.
Passing between the load-bearing pillars, Amamiya Rin noticed a faded portrait hanging on the wall.
The woman in the painting was beautiful — beautiful to the point of looking almost pathological, beautiful in a way that carried an unmistakably sinister edge. Dressed in the unmistakable fashion of a European noblewoman, she was beautiful in a way that seemed entirely out of place in a classical painting.
"Elizabeth Báthory..."
Amamiya Rin murmured the name aloud. If his suspicion was correct, the woman in the portrait was the original — the archetype — of the great dragon girl. In a world where multiple distinct species of Vampire and dark magic genuinely existed, Elizabeth had very likely been a true Vampire in every sense of the word.
Kawahara Miyuki had become a Vampire in Elizabeth's mold — through some form of specialized dark magic.
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