"Still grieving over Kawahara Miyuki? It seems the feelings he poured into Kawahara Miyuki ran quite deep."
Amamiya Rin sighed.
He hoped Kogure could pull through as soon as possible, and also hoped he wouldn't end up like those extreme fans of Fujino Terumi—who, upon seeing their idol dead, chose the very same manner of death to follow her into the underworld.
"By the way, Inspector Indou, why the sudden question about where I was and what I was doing yesterday?"
Amamiya Rin asked, as though it had only just occurred to him, with a faint trace of puzzlement.
"Let me tell it. Yesterday we ran into the Slit-Mouthed Woman."
Kazumi Junya, having finished filing, walked back over and picked up the thread of the conversation.
"The Slit-Mouthed Woman? How did it go? Did you catch her?"
Amamiya Rin's gaze sharpened, and he immediately asked.
"I suppose you could say she was caught? Yesterday, while Kogure and I were on patrol, the Metropolitan Police Department here received an emergency call saying the Slit-Mouthed Woman had appeared at Shimokitazawa Elementary School. Only, before the call even came in, someone had already stepped up out of a sense of justice and finished off the Slit-Mouthed Woman."
Recalling what had happened the previous night, Kazumi Junya's expression was rather peculiar.
"Stepped up out of a sense of justice?"
Amamiya Rin asked in surprise.
"That part would be nothing in itself, but the two people who stepped up were both wearing Ultraman masks, so their identities are unknown—all we know is that it was one man and one woman. The man among them was leaning on a cane, and the Slit-Mouthed Woman's cause of death was the cane being thrust into her eye, driving deep into her brain and killing her."
"Leaning on a cane? So you think it was me?"
Amamiya Rin murmured to himself, lost in thought.
"With my swordsmanship skills... defeating the Slit-Mouthed Woman... it really would be possible."
Kazumi Junya gave Amamiya Rin a peculiar glance, shook his head, and said with certainty: "You couldn't have done it."
"Couldn't have? Why are you so sure?"
Amamiya Rin lifted his head and asked, a little unconvinced.
"Your technique may be very strong, but without enough raw strength, you simply couldn't take part in a battle like that. You didn't see the traces left after the fight. I suspect that even if the Slit-Mouthed Woman were struck head-on by a car, she'd still come out on top—yet those two masked people, once the battle was over, neither of them had their mobility affected in the slightest."
Kazumi Junya recalled the corridor he'd seen the night before, the marks of destruction on the walls and the fire-equipment cabinet, and his voice carried a note of astonishment.
Though he hadn't witnessed it with his own eyes, anything capable of causing that kind of destruction—the Slit-Mouthed Woman was absolutely not human, and the two who'd crossed blades with her didn't seem like normal humans either.
"I've looked into your condition. Being able to move about with a cane already counts as strong; in a burst, you'd have more than enough to knock down an ordinary person. But that masked man is different from you. Though he leaned on a cane, his walking posture and movements were crisp and clean—clearly a man in good health. The cane was probably just a disguise, or part of a cosplay."
Kazumi Junya didn't think at all that Amamiya Rin could be the Ultraseven who had defeated the Slit-Mouthed Woman.
Although Amamiya Rin had once displayed a hand of exquisite swordsmanship in the hospital lobby, his strength at the time was only at the level of an ordinary person; he'd escaped purely by technique, and there was no way he could have crossed blades with the Slit-Mouthed Woman.
But this was also thanks to Japanese society's extreme emphasis on the right to personal privacy—just like in Detective Conan, in this era, apart from important places such as hospitals, you basically wouldn't see surveillance cameras.
Otherwise, no matter how impossible it seemed on the surface for Amamiya Rin to have defeated the Slit-Mouthed Woman, he would still have been exposed as the very Ultraseven who had destroyed her.
"It sounds quite exaggerated."
Amamiya Rin clicked his tongue in wonder.
"Of course. After all, it's a ghost story. The legendary Slit-Mouthed Woman has a top speed of two hundred meters in three seconds; even without a weapon, she could ram an ordinary person to death."
Kazumi Junya remarked with feeling.
"That strong? Then the Slit-Mouthed Woman was really finished off? Completely dealt with?"
Amamiya Rin asked in disbelief.
"She should have been finished off, I suppose? But... it feels like there are even more doubtful points."
Kazumi Junya hesitated, unable to decide.
"What is it?"
Amamiya Rin asked curiously, though his heart remained perfectly calm. The so-called doubtful points were probably suspicions about those two suspicious figures who'd stepped up wearing Ultraman masks, right?
"Did you know? The Slit-Mouthed Woman has a child, now twelve years old, attending Shimokitazawa Elementary School."
Kazumi Junya knit his brows and relayed to Amamiya Rin this piece of news he'd heard yesterday.
Amamiya Rin also put on a suitably surprised expression.
"There's such a thing? The Slit-Mouthed Woman's child? Can its authenticity be confirmed?"
"It can't!"
Kazumi Junya's answer was unusually decisive, which left Amamiya Rin stunned for a moment.
Because, judging from Kazumi Junya's tone and expression, what couldn't be confirmed didn't seem to be whether the Slit-Mouthed Woman's child attended Shimokitazawa Elementary School, but rather...
"The Slit-Mouthed Woman doesn't have a child at all, because the timing doesn't add up. According to the testimony, the Slit-Mouthed Woman's child was born in the very year she became the Slit-Mouthed Woman. But it's now already been fifteen years since the year the Slit-Mouthed Woman came into being, so the Slit-Mouthed Woman's child couldn't possibly be twelve."
Seeing the puzzlement on Amamiya Rin's face, Kazumi Junya laid out where the doubtful point in this news lay.
"Could it be that..."
"It couldn't!"
Amamiya Rin was just about to ask whether the child might have been born after she became the Slit-Mouthed Woman, but he was cut off by Kazumi Junya.
"The Slit-Mouthed Woman would have no reason to give birth to a child three years later. Setting aside whether any man would fall in love with the Slit-Mouthed Woman—does an urban legend like the Slit-Mouthed Woman really have the function of bearing children? Nothing of the sort has ever appeared before."
While Amamiya Rin and Kazumi Junya were discussing the Slit-Mouthed Woman, over at Shimokitazawa Elementary School, in the sixth-grade classroom.
It was break time. Sunlight streamed in through the glass windows, and the air was charged with a restless excitement.
A crowd of students gathered by the window, their eyes shining brightly.
"It's true! I saw it with my own eyes!"
Michina, her hair tied in twin tails, said excitedly as she gestured.
"That Slit-Mouthed Woman was this—tall! And her face was split open from here, all the way to here!"
Her finger traced exaggeratedly from the corner of her mouth to the base of her ear.
"She was holding a great big pair of scissors!"
The boy named Kenta cut in, spreading his arms to their limit.
"When she swung them, whoosh—too fast to even see!"
"And then? And then?"
The other classmates gathered around craned their necks, firing off questions impatiently.
Yesterday something had happened at the elementary school, and although the teachers had urged them to head home as soon as possible, all sorts of rumors had long since spread around.
"And then Ultraman Leo showed up!"
Another boy who'd taken part in last night's incident wore a proud look on his face.
"He zipped right in front of us in a flash! The Slit-Mouthed Woman charged over, and Leo punched her right in the gut with one blow—bam! So awesome!"
"Not one punch—it was a whole—lot of punches! Like this, and this!"
Another kid imitated Tomie's swift, fierce jabs, his little arms thrusting rapidly forward, drawing a chorus of gasps from those around him.
____
👻🔥Heey! Walnut-chan for more chapters!🔥👻
🔥 New history: A Martial Arts Master Will Never Be Humiliated
Help us reach these goals:
🎯 100 Powerstones = +1 universal bonus chapter