Chapter Forty: Speak properly, don't act rashly!

Back at home, Utagawa Kaede sat on the sofa, supported by Tomie. The events of the day had left his mind feeling overloaded.

Why did Tomie know such high-ranking officials? What was the deal with that strange, malevolent spirit, and why had it suddenly dropped dead?

After a quick wash in Utagawa’s home, Tomie had changed into one of his white shirts, which she had found in the laundry room. The hem barely covered the base of her snow-white thighs. She walked over in slippers, carrying a bowl of warm water, and knelt before him.

"What are you doing?"

"Cleaning you up. And take that shirt off; I’ll wash it for you."

As she spoke, Tomie wrung out the towel and began to wipe him down from the head.

"Is the pressure alright?"

Her voice was incredibly gentle, a stark contrast to the Tomie who usually told him to go die or resorted to physical violence at the slightest provocation.

"Are you feeling alright?"

Faced with the question, Tomie paused for a moment, then gave Utagawa a sharp slap on the shoulder.

"You really can't say anything nice, can you!"

She wiped him down carelessly and was about to remove his pants when Utagawa stopped her.

"I'll do it myself."

Watching him limp toward the stairs, insisting on changing his own clothes, Tomie rolled her eyes once she realized the reason.

*Tsk... as if I haven't known about that little thing’s existence for a long time.*

Upstairs in the bedroom, the younger version of Tomie tearfully fussed over the injured Utagawa, insisting on seeing his wounds.

"Does it hurt a lot...?"

"Yeah... a little."

"Don't go playing with that madwoman again next time!"

"..."

*That madwoman is basically you, too...*

However, Utagawa was already used to the daily split personality between the younger Tomie and the older one; in fact, it would be more concerning if she weren't split.

After offering a few words of comfort to the younger Tomie, Utagawa changed his clothes and headed back downstairs.

While Utagawa had been upstairs, Tomie had returned to her own home, still wearing only that shirt. Yuko Matsushima looked at her granddaughter—bare-legged, her hair slightly damp—and a knowing, maternal smile spread across her face.

"Make sure you take precautions."

Tomie, who was about to head back upstairs, rolled her eyes at the comment.

"That blockhead is like a wooden fish—he only makes a sound when you strike him..."

After that retort, Tomie went to her room and rummaged through her wardrobe for a pair of stockings she hadn't worn in a long time.

She chose a black pleated miniskirt and black silk stockings, tucked a pair of white ones into her pocket, and hurried back downstairs.

Yuko Matsushima watched her youthful, beautiful granddaughter and gave her a thumbs-up.

"Go get him!"

Facing her grandmother’s encouragement, Tomie blushed—a rare sight—and hurried off.

When Utagawa walked down the stairs to find the living room empty, he was momentarily confused. Then, Tomie sauntered in from the doorway, wearing the black stockings and small heels.

Utagawa blinked, swallowing hard in spite of himself.

When it came to legs, he had never seen anyone who could compete with Tomie. The fullness and graceful roundness of her thighs transitioned perfectly into the taut, slender elegance of her calves—fleshy yet possessing the most perfect curves.

It was the kind of leg shape that could grace a magazine cover with a single snapshot.

Seeing Utagawa’s dazed expression, Tomie smiled, walked over to the sofa, knelt on it, and patted her thigh.

"Come here and lie down."

Utagawa complied. The soft, rustling sound of his ear rubbing against the silk stockings was intoxicating.

As she gently stroked his ear, Tomie’s expression was exceptionally tender.

"Don't you want to ask me anything?"

Utagawa, eyes closed as he enjoyed the massage, spoke in a lazy tone.

"If you wanted to tell me, you would have."

Tomie’s lips curled upward. Her fingers traced his jawline as she began to slowly recount the time before she was adopted by Yuko Matsushima.

Before that adoption, the young Tomie, having just evolved her hive-mind consciousness, had been busy eliminating her split-off entities to ensure her own singularity.

To achieve this goal quickly, she inevitably had to rely on the power of others. After all, Tomie herself had no way to locate those fragments quickly. Even with a hive-mind, the fragments wanted to hide.

Even if she could sense their general direction, hunting them down one by one was a massive chore.

In the process of controlling various people to deal with the fragments, Tomie discovered how powerless ordinary people were when faced with her.

A simple sentence or two was enough to twist their will and drive them insane.

This efficiency, however, couldn't keep up with the speed at which the fragments were splitting further.

Therefore, to better achieve her goals, Tomie began targeting politicians and high-level officials.

However, the difficulty of controlling and influencing these people was significantly higher than with ordinary folks, especially when it came to politicians and military figures.

Some of them were essentially pure political animals; her charm had almost zero effect on them.

She had even been killed by them a few times. If not for the fact that she had deliberately suppressed her regenerative abilities to avoid exposure, she likely would have ended up being captured and dissected.

Kazuwa Arima was one of the power bases she had personally fostered to achieve her ends.

"Wait? You... you fostered a politician?"

Faced with Utagawa’s shock, Tomie turned his head and began to massage his cervical vertebrae.

"Fostering him wasn't as troublesome as you think. Apart from a very few, trading favors for sex and power is common in political circles."

"I only needed to find a suitable woman, entice her to consume my cells, and once she possessed a portion of my charm, she would naturally fall under my control."

"Then, through that woman, I could get a grip on the leverage held over those executives. Isn't that an effective way to rise quickly?"

"Hiss..."

Tomie’s explanation left Utagawa silent. Thinking about it, it was logical. After all, the real world wasn't a story limited by fragmented information.

Tomie possessed an almost unanswerable, distorting charm for ordinary people, along with the infinite error-correction of her regeneration.

As long as she had any brain at all, she was never going to be just a mindless vase who only knew how to manufacture fear and enjoy slaughter.

In a sense, if this world lacked supernatural powers, Tomie could truly destroy it if she wanted to.

"You seem surprised that I would do this? I thought you would have figured it out by now."

"..."

*I'm sorry. I’ve underestimated you all this time, thinking you were just a twisted woman who, because of your immortality and the suffering you endured, could only think about taking revenge on society.*

"So, is Kazuwa Arima under your control now?"

"Not exactly. But his wife, who is also his biggest backer—Saori Inoue—and the entire Inoue family behind her, are basically under my control."

"...."

Seeing Utagawa’s silence, Tomie leaned down and greedily nibbled on him for a while.

After a long moment, she wiped the transparent trace from the corner of his mouth with her finger.

"So, do you need me to take care of you~?"

*Slap!*

Utagawa swatted away the hand that was sliding down his abdomen and grabbed her by the hips to push her back.

"Talk properly! Don't mess around!"