Chapter 286: Return to the Body (Patreon)

Amamiya Rin opened his eyes.

The night wind of Shibuya rushed against his face, carrying the heat of the bustling city. He found himself leaning against Flesh-Mod Tomie's shoulder, standing on a relatively secluded stretch of sidewalk.

Occasional pedestrians hurried past them, drawn by their striking appearances, unable to resist slowing down to glance back, their eyes lingering.

Flesh-Mod Tomie merely lifted her gaze indifferently, casting a look as sharp as a tiger's, her brows carrying undisguised impatience. Under that glare, the curious glances snapped away at once, and passersby hastily turned and hurried off.

"Awake?"

Flesh-Mod Tomie spoke, her tone carrying a stiff edge of displeasure, without a trace of gentleness — yet the arm wrapped around Amamiya Rin's side held steady, supporting his lower back and shoulder, bearing up his still-weakened body.

Amamiya Rin nodded lightly and slowly straightened. He raised a hand to rub his stiff, aching neck and shoulders, then rolled his shoulders to work out the stiffness, pressing his fingers into the muscle to ease the discomfort that had built up while he'd been unconscious.

Deep in his consciousness, the aftershocks of the earlier argument still lingered within the Tomie Network, though most of it had already settled.

"Sorry for making you worry."

"Hmph."

Flesh-Mod Tomie let out a sharp huff and turned her head abruptly away, fixing her eyes on the flickering neon signs along the street, her words sparing no mercy.

"Who'd worry about a scumbag like you."

She released her hold on Amamiya Rin and stepped back half a pace, crossing her arms tightly over her chest, adopting a pose that clearly meant to distance herself from him — yet her feet stayed rooted to the spot, not moving an inch.

"I was really worried about you, you know~ Rin."

Mara Tomie's voice drifted over from the other side, light and airy, her tone sweet as melted honey, wrapped in a tender, clinging warmth.

At some point, she had silently slipped behind Amamiya Rin, her footsteps making no sound at all.

Mara Tomie leaned in slightly, resting her warm chin gently in the crook of his shoulder, her soft hair sliding down over his shoulder and brushing against his neck, leaving a faint, itching sensation.

A pair of slender arms wrapped naturally around his waist, the grip gentle yet unmistakably possessive, as though trying to draw him entirely into her domain.

"Honestly, abandoning us to go fight such a powerful enemy alone with an outsider."

Mara Tomie's tone carried a faint note of reproach, the corners of her eyes drooping slightly, her irises shimmering with a soft light — yet the corners of her mouth curled gently upward.

That expression was anything but a complaint; it was clearly coquetry, every trace of tenderness in her features aimed entirely at Amamiya Rin.

Igarashi Sakuko stood a few steps away from the pair, utterly at a loss, her body faintly tense.

Having been mysteriously brought here from Tsunekiyoshi Jingu, she still hadn't made sense of the situation before her, her mind full of bewilderment and confusion.

She had finally waited for Ultraseven to wake, but the tense, ambiguous love-triangle scene unfolding before her left her too afraid to even breathe loudly. She could only stand carefully in place, breath instinctively hushed, eyes darting nervously between the three of them.

Amamiya Rin neither resisted Mara Tomie's closeness nor made any gesture of encouragement, maintaining his composure throughout.

He raised his right hand on his own, fingers slowly unfurling, and a faint pale-blue thread of light emerged from his fingertips — warm and clear — before vanishing beneath his skin in an instant, leaving no trace behind.

The Divine Warrior Form remained stably in place. Even though the physical body of the Ame-no-Murakumo blade still rested in Hinako Shimizu's hands, the sword's spiritual essence had already fully merged with the light-power within him, becoming an inseparable part of his body and strength, forever coiled in the depths of his consciousness.

"Um... Mr. Ultraseven?"

Igarashi Sakuko hesitated for a long moment before finally speaking carefully, her voice tinged with timidity, her eyes full of concern for Hinako Shimizu.

"Is Hinako... is she all right?"

"She's fine." Amamiya Rin turned to look at Igarashi Sakuko, saying calmly, "We just returned from Ebisugaoka, where we joined forces to defeat a powerful monster that had been lurking there."

"That's good..."

Igarashi Sakuko let out a long breath, her tensed shoulders finally slumping, the anxious knot in her chest fully released.

But then her eyes suddenly widened, filled with shock.

"A monster? There's really a monster in Ebisugaoka?"

"It's an avatar of Yamata no Orochi. It's been sleeping underground beneath Ebisugaoka all along, called the Water Dragon by the locals for generations."

Igarashi Sakuko's mouth fell open into a round shape, and she stood frozen in place, countless fragments flashing through her mind.

The ancient legends passed down through generations in the village, the faded, mottled murals on the shrine walls, and the rambling stories about the Water Dragon that the village elders used to tell after drinking, back when she was a child.

She had always known that the fox spirit truly existed, and that the sacred tree of the shrine held extraordinary spiritual power, because these were things she had witnessed with her own eyes.

But the Water Dragon — such an exaggerated legendary beast — she had always assumed was just a rumor spread by the fox spirit in some contest for faith and worship. She had never imagined it might actually exist in the world.

For a moment, Igarashi Sakuko's mind reeled, and she couldn't collect herself for a long while.

Amamiya Rin continued, "We fought with everything we had, and finally managed to defeat it. In the end, Hinako Shimizu awakened the Ame-no-Murakumo blade buried deep within the shrine, and used it to deliver the killing blow to the Water Dragon."

"The Ame-no-Murakumo blade?" Igarashi Sakuko's voice suddenly rose an octave, her eyes filled with disbelief. "You mean the legendary Ame-no-Murakumo blade?"

As the next head priestess of the shrine, she had studied its ancient records since childhood, yet she had never known that her own family's shrine concealed such a rare and legendary treasure!

"That's wonderful... Hinako, that girl, is really something..."

Igarashi Sakuko murmured to herself, her eyes dimming slightly, her voice carrying undisguised envy, and a faint trace of jealousy.

The Ame-no-Murakumo blade had been hidden in her own family's shrine all along, yet in the end it was Hinako Shimizu who had claimed it, wielding it as a weapon against the monster.

Ultraseven had been the one she'd met first, yet in the end it was Hinako Shimizu who became the human host of the Warrior of Light.

All she had done was borrow five hundred yen and fail to return it promptly — did that really deserve such a lopsided reversal of fortune?

A wave of quiet resentment rose in her chest, and Igarashi Sakuko's eyes reddened.

"Speaking of which," Igarashi Sakuko said, turning her face away to look at the distant lights, forcing a smile as she asked, "why did you suddenly come back, Mr. Ultraseven? Aren't you staying united with Hinako anymore?"

At those words, Flesh-Mod Tomie's face twisted into a cold sneer, and the corners of Mara Tomie's mouth curled into an inexplicable smile.

"I have more important things to do."

Amamiya Rin seemed not to notice the expressions on the two women's faces, his eyes fixed solemnly on Igarashi Sakuko as he spoke.

"Besides, the light won't fade away completely just because I've left. Hinako Shimizu's heart still holds fast to the conviction of protecting this world. Even though we've parted ways, she can still fight for the peace and justice of the Earth, carried forward by that resolve alone."