“You know, Tobi,” Seki said. He didn’t even glance at Shizukudani—his gaze was glued to Tobi the whole time. “I have a dream that I want to make come true.”
“…You mean…the dream you won’t tell anyone about?” asked Tobi. “The one you were keeping secret?”
“What do you think?” Seki asked in return.
Tobi didn’t know. He didn’t understand. He was at a total loss. He’d finally found him—the man he’d wanted to see for so long. The man he’d been searching for aimlessly for years on end. The only family he remembered ever having. Did he even have parents? He must, but he had no idea who or where they were. The only clues about them he’d ever had were his own name, Tobi Otogiri, and his brother. Surely Seki knew something.
Suddenly, Tobi realized that Baku had fallen to the ground in front of him. He looked like an ordinary backpack. A jolt of terror shot through Tobi. What if Baku was just a backpack? Tobi called out to him, but Baku didn’t answer. It can’t be. That’s not possible, Tobi told himself. But at the moment, he had no idea what was fact and what was fiction—no way of distinguishing lies from truth. He no longer understood anything.
“When a zingai consumes its master, it becomes something new. The embers of what it once was—a zin.”
Tobi heard Seki’s voice. His one and only brother was standing right in front of him. Was this man really his brother, though? Was he truly the real Seki?
By that point, Rukana Shizukudani had been swallowed by her zingai. She was somewhere within Cipher’s grotesquely bulging belly. A new pair of eyes had appeared on Cipher’s face, giving it six in total, and something seemed to be growing above its four armlike legs. Bulging protuberances stretched out from its torso, eventually forming a third pair of arms. They were slender, compared to the others, with lead-like blackish gray skin. Cipher had always appeared monstrous, but now it was a true monster, plain and simple. Tobi felt like he was having a nightmare. Could this all be a dream?
“Incredible, Rukana,” Seki said as he reached up to stroke Cipher’s nightmarishly distorted head. “You really did have what it takes.”
Cipher closed all six of its eyes, and its uncomfortably smooth, excessively large lips trembled. “Master S,” it said with Shizukudani’s voice.
“You’re still yourself, even after becoming a zin. Truly incredible.”
To be continued.