Part 3: Chapter 3

    Dressed in a colorful chinese-style one-piece, a woman walked briskly from West Eifuku station on the Inokashira line, following a path that ran along the train tracks. Her dark brown eyes shined with a ghostly light in the darkness, accentuating her beauty. Soon the woman stopped in front of a low-rise building covered in white tiles. The name "Sanzhi Electric Residences" was etched into the plate on the entrance to the building. Though it was a corporate dormitory, it was very well maintained and was on the scale of a high-class apartment building. Warm lights coming from various windows on the three-story building and the soft sound of air conditioner compressors reflected the calm and relaxation of the tenants within.
    The woman glared with malice at a corner of the top floor of the building.
    Shirasagi Yumiko, just you watch. I'm going to slaughter your whole family.
    Ohara's eyes glowed with a green aura, revealing the demonic power within her. She recalled how Yumiko injured her beloved Loki in the CAI room. Though Yumiko was really possessed by Izanami when she had fought Loki, to Ohara it was all the same.
    If something has happened to Loki, it's Yumiko's fault--there's no other way to look at it.
    Ohara's hatred for Yumiko far surpassed that of hers for Nakajima. Though Isma had instructed her to kill Nakajima, Ohara suggested that she it would be best to first draw him out by attacking Yumiko's family instead; though the plan had merit it was Ohara's hatred for Yumiko that was really behind her proposal.
    Trying to calm her emotions, Ohara closed her eyelids. Soon, the grim expression on her face disappeared, to be replaced by a smile. Taking in a deep breath, she started to climb the stairs.
    Right as the doorbell echoed for the second time, the door opened slightly, locked with a chain, bathing the concrete pathway outside with light. A woman looked through the crack with suspicion at this late-night visitor.
    "My name is Harayama, and I'm from Jusho High. About Yumiko..." Ohara could not risk using her real name.
    The door closed for a moment, and then with the sound of the chain being unfastened, it opened wiedly. A plump middle-aged woman stood in front of Ohara, looking up at her with eagerness in her eyes.
    "Thank you for taking the trouble to come out here in the middle of the night...have you learned anything new?" The woman hardly resembled Yumiko; her double-eyelids were about the only feature the two shared. Her barely 150-centimeter height and plump frame made her look jovial and pleasant. For an instant, Ohara's hostility was dulled.
    "Don't just stand out there! Come on in!" The voice seemed to come further in, from the living room, but then a handsome man with silvery-gray hair looked around the corner. The instant Ohara saw the man, she saw the resemblence to Yumiko in his good looks, igniting the flames of hatred within her. She felt the scales under her thick makeup hardening.
    "I'm sorry, I just got over-excited. Please, come in." Motioning for Ohara to come inside, Yumiko's mother locked the door. The man was returning to the living room when he heard a strange sound from the foyer, and turned around.
    The visitor was facing away from him, crouching as if to maybe take off her shoes, and his wive was staring at her with shock in her eyes.
    "Hey, what's wrong?"
    But instead of answering her husband, the woman simply gaped and spurted blood from the deep wound in her throat.
    "Heh, heh, heh."
    The woman facing away from him started chuckling. Yumiko's father watched as his wife, her throat rent in two, slowly collapsed to the floor of the foyer, now a sea of blood, with a look of disbelief on her face.
    "Gah hah hah hah!" The woman's laugh rose to a cackle.
    "Y-You bastard...!" The man gradually realized the seriousness of the situation.
    However, the woman slowly stood up and turned around, and the visage of her face froze Yumiko's father in his tracks. Her bronze face was framed by black hair, her crimson mouth slightly open, her silver eyes glittering with madness, looking him over. Ohara herself was taken aback by the force of her transformation. However, she was partially drunk with the mysterious power she had gained with Loki's blood running through her veins. Her hands, coated in purple scales, grabbed onto the man's throat, and she effortlessly lifted him in the air.
    The man's face started to turn purple. However, his primal survival instinct was not dead, and like a shrimp, his body shook, his legs kicking.
    Murmuring, Ohara squeezed tighter. "That's right, strugle. Struggle as hard and as vainly as you can."
    "Guagh!" With a bizarre voice that could only come from a larynx being clamped shut, the man's body spasmed and went limp.
    At that moment, the doorbell echoed throughout the apartment. Most likely, Yumiko's younger brother had come home. Licking the black blood off her razor-sharp talons, Ohara smiled at the fortuitous timing of the arrival.