Gento said, “I found her wandering around near the studio and so asked about you. She led me here. Hyota knew this was the lair of the Master, but she proved helpful in any case. Seems her benefactor had ventured into a most dangerous place, and she had gone for help. Admirable sentiments. So I rose to the occasion.”
At that point, toyed with in unseen ways, Kotomi arched her back. Gento explained with an evil smile, “You should be able to guess from her deportment what kind of pain she is tasting, and how and where she is being chastened.” He spoke softly, as befitting a devil about his business. “What to do, what to do? Release her. Or not. It’s all the same to me. But if I do, I expect just compensation in exchange.”
“Hyota is here too.”
“Irrelevant. You know well his willingness to die happily for my welfare.”
“Why should the girl prove any more valuable?”
“Perhaps she is of no use to the you that is you. But what about the you that leads such a sentimental, mundane life the rest of the time? Saving the girl who tried to kill you could prove lethal. First, I’ll have you step away from my abode.”
Setsura was standing right next to it. Gento reached out and made a beckoning motion with his left hand. The casket began to slide away.
“Hyota, get my father’s head and get on board.”
The black silhouette perched unsteadily on the lid of the casket. Cradling Byori’s split head in one hand, the other couldn’t quite hold his own in place. The casket slipped through the flames and approached the fissure and floated across it. The same technique that Setsura had used.
“I would love to throw down with you here and now, but my abode takes precedence. We’ll meet again soon enough.”
With a wink that would make any woman go weak in the knees, Gento departed with Hyota, leaving Kotomi behind.
Setsura crossed the fissure. Cutting the devil wires binding Kotomi wasn’t difficult. Her face, twisted with pain, briefly showed a broad smile.
A springing, uncoiling sound rang out from inside her body. Setsura jumped back. Her face clouded over. Kotomi screamed. Dozens of red lines crisscrossed her body. The screams stopped. The air sparkled red.
A myriad of red coils sprang from her body. Zigzagging back and forth, they streaked at Setsura. Sliced apart from the inside out, Kotomi crumbled to the ground, a cruel lump of flesh.
Keeping one eye on her, Setsura cast out his devil wires. The blood-drenched coils fell to the ground where they hopped and spun, but like insects meeting insecticide, soon fell still.
With a glance at the squirming organs buried inside the bloody mass, Setsura made for the door. The far side of the fissure was already a furnace. Almost in concert with these movements, two tendrils of flame snaked across the gap, splashed against what once had been Kotomi, and covered the floor like a sheen of oil.
The door had barely closed when the entirety of Studio 13 was engulfed in the fires of hell.