Chapter 233: She Is Mine!
“I checked the Demon Snake’s seal, and for now, there are no problems, and…”
“What did you say?!!!”
Sakuraba Masashi slammed his coffee cup down on the table, spilling over half of the black liquid due to inertia. However, Sakuraba Masashi didn’t have time to worry about that. Based on his understanding of his close friend over many years, although Kurokawa Iori’s personality might differ slightly from his true form due to wearing [Skin], his current calm demeanor in front of him proved that he was being serious.
“Asking you to help kill Sato Shinichi was indeed because of [Coffin]. It’s inconvenient for me to act in the school right now, and my true form cannot be exposed until I obtain that item. Besides, that guy Sticky Hetuan is also troublesome.”
Kurokawa Iori tilted his head slightly, looking at Sakuraba Masashi, who had suddenly become emotional, and replied earnestly.
“I’m not talking about that!!”
Slapping his forehead, even Sakuraba Masashi’s other stiff cheek twitched slightly. He looked at his overly serious friend with a dark expression, patting his chest to calm his emotions.
“Hmm, is it a new plan? To control the other party using [Skin], and at the same time, use her emotions to restrain [Shadow]’s actions? But doing so is risky. You don’t usually like such unstable control methods, do you? Or did you ask Kirie for help?”
After calming down for a while, Sakuraba Masashi managed to recover from the shock of hearing the news. His mind raced, finding a plausible excuse for the other party’s actions, and he replied.
“It’s not a plan.”
“I want to marry her.”
Kurokawa Iori denied Sakuraba Masashi’s guess without mercy. Then, as if remembering a scene, a hint of longing appeared on his gentle face. He looked at the wall and spoke word by word.
“…”
“Wait, wait, wait, let me confirm a few things first!!”
The entire room fell into a mysterious silence after the young boy uttered those words. Seeing the expression on the young boy’s face, which was almost impossible for him to show, Sakuraba Masashi didn’t know how to arrange his own expression. He grabbed Kurokawa Iori in front of him.
“You are your true form right now, aren’t you? You aren’t playing a joke on me with an empty Skin, are you?”
A purple venomous fang shot out from Sakuraba Masashi’s right hand, directly cleaving towards the young boy’s head. Although in Sakuraba Masashi’s cognition, Kurokawa Iori’s current Skin was the one [Shell] had used for the longest time, the current situation was so bizarre that he doubted the authenticity of the person in front of him.
“Ding—”
The sound of metal clashing echoed in the silent room. A scarlet shadow flashed, and the purple venomous fang was directly shattered. What appeared before Sakuraba Masashi was the young boy’s mouth, opened against the laws of human anatomy, and his tongue, covered with sharp teeth, extending out of his mouth.
“Fine-tuning is troublesome.”
Kurokawa Iori glanced at Sakuraba Masashi faintly. The tongue in his mouth slowly retracted into his mouth, and the fingers of his right hand transformed into countless small flesh-colored tentacles, slowly mending the torn surface skin caused by over-extending his mouth.
“This… are you serious?”
Sakuraba Masashi touched the back of his neck, still finding it hard to believe what he was seeing. Even if he were told that a high-ranking hero from the Heroes Association had defected and joined the organization, it would be more believable than his close friend Kurokawa Iori falling for a woman!
Well, she was a fifteen or sixteen-year-old schoolgirl.
“Yes, I found it. The feeling I’ve been looking for.”
The tentacles on his right hand retracted, forming into a palm again. Kurokawa Iori returned to his previous calm demeanor and replied.
“Hiss, so you developed feelings for her, a junior subordinate with a rather special identity, hmm? A schoolgirl under sixteen?”
Sakuraba Masashi’s expression was truly marvelous. After all, hearing such a thing from Kurokawa Iori was completely unexpected.
Shell, Kurokawa Iori, or rather…
Monster.
Those two words were Kurokawa Iori’s taboo, but even to his close friend Sakuraba Masashi, someone like him could only be described as a monster!
Sakuraba Masashi no longer remembered how the two of them got along, but he clearly remembered the main reason why they became friends: during a cadre meeting, he, who had extensive experience researching cursed objects and the Underworld, was one of the only two cadres who did not directly attack him.
And now, such an indescribable monster, who lived by parasitizing others’ bodies and manipulating their skins and emotions, was telling him that it had found someone it wanted to marry?
Just thinking about it sent shivers down Sakuraba Masashi’s spine.
But what bothered Sakuraba Masashi even more was that Kurokawa Iori had also played the small game of emotions for a while before. But no matter how carefully it managed and acted, no matter how many identities and scenarios it switched to experiment with, the end result for its so-called “loved ones” was always the same: they became a part of its body.
After that period, Sakuraba Masashi had never heard him mention anything about it again. But why was he suddenly talking about such things now?
“Yes, if it’s her, she will surely understand me!”
Kurokawa Iori nodded, his eyes narrowed, and a hint of a sickly smile appeared on his face.
“Alright, although I probably can’t understand you in this regard, I respect your decision. But you really need to consider the hidden dangers of [Coffin]’s identity. For you to pull her in while Uncle Fukada is away is already crazy enough. If you end up eating her, I’m afraid even the boss won’t be able to stop him.”
“Moreover, I feel her talent is really good. Instead of playing emotional games with you and being eaten, she might as well come under my command. If her ability growth potential is high enough, she might even be able to take a cadre position.”
Sakuraba Masashi rubbed his nose somewhat helplessly and said casually. Sakuraba Masashi actually had a good impression of Shimizu Kazumi, and her abilities were related to the Underworld. Perhaps the solution to his other half’s body lay with her.
And knowing Kurokawa Iori’s emotional games intimately, he could be 100% sure that the only end for this unusual little guy was to be swallowed by those tentacles, so he wanted to make a final struggle and see if he could try to save her.
“Kurokawa?”
Sakuraba Masashi, who was looking down at something in his arms, suddenly felt something was wrong. He slowly looked up and saw a scene that made him instinctively start casting a protection spell.
“Hey, hey, hey, you’re not going to fight me over this again, are you? I just mentioned it casually.”
The delicate young boy curled up from the surface like a deflated balloon, clinging tightly to a certain object. A thick black tentacle extended from his hollow mouth, and his original skin peeled off like clothes, revealing a scarlet light within the black, twisted space.
The chaotic and disgusting room also began to squirm at this moment. The constantly rolling flesh seemed to be fabricating a new body, surging towards the inside and squeezing inward.
And only after that clean human skin completely peeled off did the mouth-like organ in the black shadow slowly open. Unspeakable murmurs seemed to explode directly in people’s hearts, frantically impacting everyone’s minds. And in those murmurs, only one low echo was Repeated.
“She is mine!”
(ps: I worked hard to find my state. Given that Yugan stayed up so late, please don’t scold me QAQ)
