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Time seemed to slow to a crawl.
Kitamura's hairpin stabbed into the concrete, spraying chips in every direction.
Akuto instinctively tried to step back.
But a curtain of light was faster!
With a low hum, it enclosed a two-metre radius, locking everything inside.
In that instant, a blinding brilliance bleached the entire street pure white.
In the blink of an eye, the light stripped every colour from heaven and earth.
"Akuto, this is as far as you go!" Kitamura howled like a madman.
"My power's fading…" Akuto stared at the body that belonged to Miko.
The black curse marks on her were visibly draining away.
The eyes that had belonged to Akuto slid shut once more.
Miko's pupils flashed back to gold, filled with bewilderment and shock.
"Tarō—do it now!"
Though it felt like an eternity, in reality only twenty seconds had passed.
Kitamura's clothes were soaked; sweat dripped from his chin and nose.
Everything hung in this moment.
The man called Tarō gripped a hammer, pale as paper, shaking like a leaf.
He was terrified.
Facing Akuto, he couldn't even find the courage to raise the weapon.
Blood roared in his ears; all he could hear was a ceaseless buzzing. "Tarō!!!"
Tarō saw Kitamura's mouth stretch wide in a slow-motion roar, veins bulging at his neck.
He could read the frenzy and fury in the man's eyes.
The voice sounded impossibly distant, barely a whisper.
"Move! You'll kill us all! You have no choice!"
"Tarō—move! We're out of time!"
Bang!
Something inside Tarō's mind snapped.
Time snapped back to normal; sound returned, and with it the stench of blood and drifting dust.
"Aaaargh!"
With a roar, Tarō swung the hammer in a wide arc and smashed it into Miko's back.
Thud.
There might have been a sound—or perhaps absolute silence.
Miko simply stumbled a single step forward.
No pain.
Yet a hulking, rune-covered spectre was visibly flung out of her body.
That soul—Akuto—still clung, trying to re-merge with her.
Tarō swung again with everything he had.
Crack!
In that instant, the bond between Miko and Akuto was torn apart.
Akuto's form shot away like a cannonball, twisted mid-air, and landed as a single finger on the ground.
"We won!"
Kitamura yanked out the hairpin and drove it clean through the finger; white light surged anew.
The dust settled.
Everyone exhaled as though drained of every last ounce of strength, faces chalk-white.
Kitamura flashed a cold grin and turned to the stunned Miko. "Rest easy, Miss Yotsuya—we've ripped the cursed spirit out of you!"
"We'll seal it properly."
'Please leave the rest to us.'
Two suited men seized Miko's arms and marched her away; her mind reeled.
"Lord Akuto… lost, just like that…"
Though she had watched it all, a fierce premonition surged inside her. "This can't be how it ends!"
Her thoughts were paralysed; she had no idea what would come next.
Or how the Exorcism Society would treat her family now that Akuto was gone.
But one thing she knew for certain.
The Exorcism Society was anything but good.
Bang-bang!
In a sudden burst Miko leapt, spinning mid-air to kick both captors aside, then sprinted toward the sealed finger.
Gasps erupted on every side.
"Stop her!"
"Mr. Tosou!"
Kitamura roared; behind the distant Mr. Tosou two spectres in business suits shot forward and blocked Miko.
"Out of my way!"
She slammed a fist into the nearest spirit.
The blow merely forced it back a step.
An instant later both spectres had her pinned.
She could even smell the reek of the dead clinging to them.
'Is this really the end…?' Miko struggled with all her might, but the two spirits held her fast.
Time seemed to slow again.
Something inside her felt ready to burst free—
As natural as a morning yawn.
She felt it.
Miko copied what Akuto had shown her before, she extended her index and middle fingers toward the spectre.
"Dismantle!"
Swish!
Like a bowstring released.
Invisible slashes wove into a net and crushed forward.
The two suited spirits had no room to dodge.
In the next instant they stood frozen.
Then, to everyone's horror, they shattered into countless square fragments that scattered like glass.
Whoosh!
Miko sprang like a panther, reached the evil-suppressing hairpin in two bounds, and swept it aside with a low kick.
Ding!!!
The hairpin flashed iridescent in the sun, arced through the air, and landed metres away.
She slid across the ground, spread her arms wide in front of the finger, chin jutting in defiance. "Yotsuya Miko, your actions now endanger national security!"
"The Special Grade spirit behind you could slaughter thousands across Japan—move aside!"
Miko glanced warily around. "Sorry. I'm protecting my husband—and I don't trust any of you!"
Compared with Akuto, these people looked more like man-eating demons themselves—
Beasts that devoured without spitting out the bones.
Behind her, the finger lifted, then shot forward like a bullet.
"Look out!"
Every head snapped toward the flying finger.
It flashed past and plunged straight into the mouth of one suited exorcist.
In the next instant—
Curse marks raced outward.
The man, once a hundred and sixty centimetres tall, writhed and stretched to a hundred and eighty-five; his hair blushed pink.
His scrawny frame filled out.
His face twisted, reshaping into Akuto's features.
A second pair of eyes snapped open.
A terrifying aura erupted like a shockwave—
Wild, frigid.
A grin split Akuto's face. "Heh-heh-heh… ha-ha-ha-ha-haaa!"
He grabbed the straining suit jacket and tore it away, revealing a chiselled torso laced with curse patterns that looked ready to explode with power.
Running both hands through his hair, he beamed pure elation.
"I really ought to thank you."
"You've given me true freedom!"
"Impossible!" Kitamura stumbled backward and crashed onto the ground, face slack with disbelief.
"No—this can't be!"
"A Special Grade spirit seen by an ordinary driver? It makes no sense!" A colossal misconception underlay everything.
Apart from Miko, almost no one in the world could perceive a finger without a tool.
The finger earlier auctioned had been pre-treated to keep it visible.
In other words, from the instant Akuto was torn out of Miko the finger was completely invisible.
Only specialised lenses could reveal it—or let a chosen few see it.
Kitamura could see only because every senior in the Society wore tailored glasses.
Precisely because they could see, every one of them had taken precautions; possession had been impossible.
What can't be seen can't be touched—that was the iron rule.
For Akuto to possess anyone else had been unthinkable.
No one had even considered it.
It had been a flawless plan.
Akuto chuckled softly.
"So—am I talking to a genius or a complete idiot?"
He strolled to the Society's van and kicked aside the wreckage, revealing a bisected alloy safe.
Normally it would open only with the correct code.
But the slash he had casually delivered before Kitamura and the rest knelt had served a purpose.
He retrieved the finger, yet instead of swallowing it slipped it into his pocket.
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