Kanjuro walked slowly to the pool of blood, ignoring the terrified gazes gathering around and the sirens approaching from the distance. He leaned down elegantly, watching the dying Matsumoto Sayuri lying in the blood.
Her pupils had already begun to dilate, and her life was rapidly fading, but her last remaining consciousness was still tenaciously focused on Kanjuro's face—on that smile that was exactly the same as when they were in the sixth grade, a mixture of evil and pure playfulness.
"I... have never... changed," Kanjuro said softly, his tone so gentle it was almost eerie, as if stating a matter of course. This gentleness formed a hair-raising contrast with his current actions and Sayuri's near-death state.
He reached out his hand, his movements gentle as if afraid of breaking a precious piece of porcelain, and picked up the blood-covered Matsumoto Sayuri, whose vital signs had almost vanished, in a princess carry. The pure white wedding dress was soaked with blood, becoming heavy and sticky, forming a piercing contrast with his clean and expensive clothes. Sayuri's body leaned limply in his arms, having lost even the strength to struggle or respond, with only a faint, about-to-stop heartbeat proving she hadn't completely stepped into death.
Kanjuro held her, ignoring all the chaos around him, and walked straight towards an inconspicuous but exquisitely decorated hotel on the street corner. His pace was steady and his expression composed, as if he weren't holding a dying body but just a drunken female companion.
Entering the hotel, he checked into a room. Throughout the process, although the front desk clerk was horrified by the blood-covered, unconscious woman in Kanjuro's arms, under Kanjuro's cold gaze and an invisible, suffocating pressure, they didn't dare ask a single question and tremblingly handed over the room card.
Entering the spacious guest room, Kanjuro gently placed Sayuri on the large central bed. Blood quickly stained the white sheets red.
He stood by the bed, the smile on his face gradually fading, replaced by a focused and indifferent expression. He extended his right hand, palm up, and began to chant ancient and obscure syllables in a low voice—forbidden knowledge sourced from the dark bible.
As he chanted, a visible, black mist-like energy began to gather and swirl in his palm, emitting an ominous and cold aura. The temperature in the room seemed to drop suddenly, and the light dimmed a bit.
"In the name of the shadows, trace the source of life, reshape the collapsed body..."
He whispered the command, slowly pushing the mass of black energy toward Sayuri's body.
The black mist was like living tentacles, quickly wrapping around Sayuri's broken body, penetrating into every wound, every inch of fractured bone, and every damaged internal organ. A bizarre scene occurred—those bone-deep wounds began to wriggle and heal at a visible rate, the shattered bones made faint "crackling" sounds as they automatically reset and reconnected, internal hemorrhaging was forcibly stopped, and damaged tissues were forcibly repaired and regenerated in a way that transcended modern medical understanding... This wasn't gentle healing, but a domineering authority akin to "reconstruction." It crudely reversed the process of death, forcibly pulling life back into this body.
Minutes later, the black energy receded like a tide, returning to Kanjuro's body.
On the bed, Matsumoto Sayuri's originally paper-white face regained its color, her chest began to rise and fall steadily, and all the horrific wounds on her body vanished without a trace, leaving not even a scar, as if that fatal car accident had never happened. Only the blood-soaked, dark red wedding dress proved that everything just now wasn't an illusion.
Her long eyelashes fluttered a few times, and she slowly opened her eyes.
Her gaze was initially vacant and empty, but then, the tragic and desperate memories from before she lost consciousness flooded into her mind like a tide, making her gasp sharply and instinctively curl her body up. She looked at her intact body in disbelief, then looked up at Kanjuro, who was standing by the bed, watching her with that familiar evil smile.
"I... I didn't die?" Her voice was hoarse and trembling, filled with the daze of surviving a disaster and immense confusion.
Kanjuro leaned down, propping one hand on the bed beside her ear, trapping her in his shadow, and smiled. "Did I allow you to die?" His fingertips lightly brushed her cheek, which was as smooth as ever. "Your life is mine. Without my consent, even the Reaper cannot take you away."
Matsumoto Sayuri stared at him blankly, feeling the cold touch of his fingertips and the unquestionable absolute control in his words. Fear, shock, the lingering terror of being forcibly pulled back from the edge of death, and... an indescribable, distorted awe and dependence on this power that transcended life and death, crazily intertwined in her heart.
The wedding she tried to escape, the resolution of using death to prove her point—in the face of Kanjuro's inconceivable power, they had all become a pale and laughable joke.
Kanjuro looked at the complex emotions in her eyes, knowing she was completely caught and could no longer break free. He stood up and began to methodically take off his blood-stained coat.
"Now," he said in a flat tone, yet with final authority, "we can have a good 'reunion.' As for that wedding, and your father... they will receive the news they 'deserve.'"
Matsumoto Sayuri lay on the soft bed, looking at the ornate crystal chandelier on the ceiling, feeling as if she had just woken up from a nightmare only to fall into a deeper, inescapable dream world ruled by Kanjuro. Her life and her will seemed so insignificant in the face of absolute power. And this time, even the final exit of "death" had been personally severed by the man before her. Matsumoto Sayuri looked at Kanjuro's eyes, which seemed to see through everything yet were cold and heartless, and her voice trembled with despair: "Kanjuro... what exactly do you want? What do you want from me?"
Hearing this, the corners of Kanjuro's mouth curled into a charmingly evil arc. He leaned down, close to her ear, like a devil's whisper:
"You wanted to use death to prove your love. I gave you the chance, but unfortunately... you failed." His fingertips slid across her restored neck with a shudder-inducing touch. "Suicide is just one way to die. Similarly, there is another way to die that you can choose."
Sayuri's heart sank suddenly, and an ominous premonition seized her breath. "Which... which way?"
Kanjuro looked straight into her terrified eyes and clearly uttered four words with a kind of cruel poetry:
"Dying of pleasure."
!!!
Matsumoto Sayuri felt as if struck by lightning, her face full of disbelief. She suddenly shrank back, her voice shrill: "Are you crazy?! What kind of way to die is that?!"
Kanjuro, however, leisurely appreciated her fear and resistance, his tone flat but carrying an unquestionable logic:
"Aren't you constantly talking about proving your love for me? Loving me enough to die for me?" He tilted his head slightly, his eyes filled with mockery and a cold expectation. "Then, in the height of pleasure, completely surrender your life, your consciousness, and your everything to me. Burn until you are nothing, until 'death'—isn't that the most perfect and thorough proof?"
His words were twisted and mad, nakedly binding love and death, possession and destruction together.
Matsumoto Sayuri looked at him, looking at this man she had adored in her youth, who now seemed like the incarnation of the abyss. She understood that this was not a request, but a command; this was not a choice, but the ending he had long ago written for her. Resistance was futile, escape was impossible, and even the freedom of death had been stripped away by him. A massive, suffocating sense of helplessness swept over her, while at the same time, the unextinguished, twisted attachment deep within her and a desperate, moth-to-a-flame impulse began to quietly surge.
She closed her eyes, her long eyelashes trembling violently as if she were in a final mental struggle. Ultimately, as if using every ounce of her strength, she squeezed out four words through her teeth with a sense of resigned, reckless determination:
"...Go ahead and try."
These words were like opening Pandora's box.
Kanjuro smiled—a cold, pleased smile of someone who had gotten exactly what they wanted.
One day and one night... three days and three nights... four days and five nights... except for the occasional forced feeding of some life-sustaining liquid food and water by Kanjuro, all of her time was lost in that endless, seemingly bottomless 'proof'.
She was sometimes conscious and sometimes dazed; her memories became fragmented, leaving only the physical instinct of trembling and the scent and control of Kanjuro, which were deeply branded into her nerve endings.
On the sixth day... when the first rays of morning light shone through the gaps in the curtains, it all came to an end.
Matsumoto Sayuri was like an exquisite doll that had been completely broken and discarded, her eyes hollow and empty. Her vital signs had not vanished, but her spirit and will seemed to have been completely hollowed out and crushed, leaving her in a state of near-collapse suspended animation.
Kanjuro stood by the bed, impeccably dressed and indifferent, as if the entertainment that had just concluded was merely a slightly prolonged activity. He glanced at the woman on the floor, who looked like a broken lily; there was no trace of pity in his eyes, only the satisfaction of having everything under control.
He dressed Sayuri in death clothes, took out his phone, dialed a number, and calmly instructed:
"Come and clean up. Send 'her'... to Inspector Matsumoto. Consider it a... 'gift' for his daughter's wedding."
He placed special emphasis on the word "her," his voice dripping with endless mockery.
Of course, Kanjuro knew perfectly well that Matsumoto Sayuri would not truly die. Her body had been repaired and "enhanced" by him using the power of the dark bible. Her current near-death state was more of a self-protective dormant state following extreme mental and physical exhaustion. As long as he wished, he could "awaken" her from this state at any time, just like playing with an interesting toy.
His subordinates entered the room soundlessly, skillfully wrapping the unconscious and dying Matsumoto Sayuri in a blanket and quickly carrying her away.
Kanjuro walked to the window, overlooking the gradually awakening city, a cold smile playing on his lips. What expression would Inspector Matsumoto have when he received this "grand gift"? Anger? Collapse? Or fear?
None of that mattered anymore.
What mattered was that he had once again proven his absolute control—he could bestow life, and he could toy with it at will; he could give the ultimate pleasure, and he could bring total destruction. Matsumoto Sayuri, with her nearly broken body and spirit, had completed this absurd and cruel "proof of love" and had completely become another possession in his collection, marked as his alone, with her life and death decided by him.
As for the future? Perhaps one day, when Kanjuro felt bored, he would "resurrect" her again to continue this unfinished "game." After all, for someone eternal like him, this was merely a trivial interlude in the long passage of time. And Matsumoto Sayuri, whether alive or dead, could never again escape the web he had woven. A few days later, at the Matsumoto Mansion.
The doorbell was pressed urgently, carrying an ominous foreboding. When Inspector Matsumoto opened the door, he saw not the expected visitor, but two expressionless men in black suits. They were carrying a long object tightly wrapped in a heavy blanket, and without a word, they placed it on the cold floor of the foyer.
"Is this the home of Inspector Matsumoto?" one of the men in black asked in a flat voice.
"Yes... it's me. What is this?" Inspector Matsumoto frowned, an inexplicable sense of unease rising in his heart.
The man in black did not answer, merely bowing slightly before turning and leaving quickly, his movements so clean and efficient it was as if he had never appeared.
The sense of unease grew stronger. Inspector Matsumoto hesitated, then crouched down, his hands trembling as he untied the knot of the blanket. The moment the blanket fell away, the blood in his entire body seemed to freeze instantly!
Wrapped inside the blanket was his daughter, who had been missing for several days and was about to have her wedding—Matsumoto Sayuri!
She was wearing an eerily plain white dress (the "death clothes" Kanjuro had mentioned), her eyes were tightly closed, and her face was as pale as if all the blood had been drained from it. She lay there quietly, like a jade carving that had lost its life. What made his heart stop even more was that he couldn't feel any obvious signs of life from his daughter; her chest didn't rise or fall at all, just like a... dead person!
"Sa... Sayuri?!" Inspector Matsumoto let out a heart-wrenching roar and lunged forward, his trembling fingers reaching for his daughter's breath—it was so weak it was almost undetectable! He immediately pressed his ear to her chest—her heartbeat was slow and faint, like a candle flickering in the wind!
She wasn't dead! But she wasn't far from it! This was an extremely bizarre near-death state!
"Who?! Who did this?!!" Inspector Matsumoto's eyes nearly split from rage; the immense anger and heartache made him almost lose control. He suddenly remembered that before his daughter disappeared, she had seemed uneasy and mentioned... Kanjuro? That little punk who had pestered his daughter many years ago and whom he detested to the core?!
Could it be him?!
The thought burrowed into his brain like a venomous snake. Combined with the rumors he had heard recently—about a mysterious young man named Kanjuro whose methods were god-like, whom even the high-ranking police officials were secretive about, and how some bizarre cases eventually ended up going nowhere... a chill instantly surged from the soles of his feet to the top of his head, overriding his anger.
If it really was Kanjuro... if he truly possessed the mysterious powers and cold-blooded methods from the rumors... Inspector Matsumoto held his daughter's cold body, tears streaming down his face, but what he felt more was a fear that pierced through to his very marrow. He was a veteran policeman who had seen countless heinous criminals in his life, but an existence like Kanjuro was completely beyond his scope of understanding. That was a pure evil and power that stood above the law, morality, and even life and death.
He was furious, wishing he could immediately tear the bastard who hurt his daughter into ten thousand pieces!
But he was even more afraid! Afraid of Kanjuro's incomprehensible power, afraid that further retaliation would fall upon him or his other family members, and afraid that he wouldn't even be able to protect this last, dying daughter!
The intertwining of this anger and fear almost drove the old inspector, who had always been known for his toughness, insane. He held his daughter like a wounded beast, letting out suppressed and painful whimpers. He didn't dare to curse loudly, or even easily call for an ambulance; he was afraid that any action might once again draw the gaze of that demon.
Ultimately, the extreme fear crushed the backbone of his anger.
He tremblingly took out his phone, calling not the police station or an ambulance, but a private number, his voice hoarse and filled with humble pleading:
"Hello... is... is this Mrs. Suzuki? I... I am Matsumoto... I beg of you, can you... can you contact Mr. Kanjuro? My... my daughter, she... I beg him to be merciful and let Sayuri go... I'll agree to any conditions... I only ask... I only ask him to let my daughter go..."
To Tomoko Suzuki on the other end of the phone, whom he had met once through business and who was said to be close to Kanjuro, he cast aside all his dignity and pride as a policeman, leaving only the most humble plea of a desperate father.
He knew that in the face of absolute power and terror, his so-called status, duties, and even his anger appeared so laughable and powerless. His only thought now was to do whatever it took to exchange for the possibility of his daughter living, even if that possibility remained in the hands of that devil.
Inside the Matsumoto Mansion, only the weeping of a broken old man and a heavy, terrifying shadow named Kanjuro remained. His daughter's "body" was that silent, most cruel warning and declaration.
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