Chapter 46: Become One with Me-I, the Earth’s Only Superpowered Human(Tezcatlipoca)

“The birthmark on your face… Why is it gone?!” Mieya Mineyama stared at Mio Ito’s face in disbelief, and Mana Mizuhara wore almost exactly the same expression.

In their eyes, the girl stood at the edge of the harsh spotlight, half her face bathed in white light, the other half lost in black shadow. Yet whether it was the clearly visible right side or the dimly lit left, the marks once left as if gnawed by a vengeful spirit had vanished without a trace.

Mio Ito’s face was now flawlessly smooth.

Freed from the stain of the birthmark, her figure and features were almost exactly as before, but that face…

It possessed a breathtaking beauty.

“I never imagined… Senpai would be this beautiful without the birthmark…” Mana Mizuhara gazed at Mio Ito, her mind momentarily adrift.

On the other side, as she looked at Mio Ito, Mieya Mineyama’s expression twisted with something almost ferocious—still incredulous, but now roiling with jealousy, resentment, anguish, and a storm of other emotions.

“…You… you actually got rid of it, and now… now you look like this… Why? Why you?!

“Why aren’t you tormented inside the way I am? Why can you always remain unshaken? Why, even after everything, can you turn yourself into someone else… You birthmark girl! Is this what you looked like all along? Was your birthmark just stuck on? Have you been laughing at me in secret all this time?!”

Mieya seized the stun gun and stumbled toward Mio Ito, as if longing to grapple with her. But as she reached Mio, the latter looked at her and spoke gently.

“…Mieya, you really do hate me.”

“Of course I do!” Mieya gripped Mio’s shoulders in fury, as if to pour all her anger into her, fingernails digging deep into Mio’s flesh.

Yet Mio seemed utterly insensible to pain, her face unchanged.

She only raised her hand and reached to her waist.

“I’m truly sorry… Mieya.”

The look on Mio’s face was half-apologetic, half-mysteriously smiling.

“My existence has been too great a burden on your heart.”

“…So you realize it, then? Who’s really the source of all this?” Though Mieya clung fiercely to Mio’s shoulders, her strength seemed to fail her.

Her body trembled, her chest a cauldron of emotions even she couldn’t name.

“In that case… I’ll give you a chance, Mieya.”

Mio withdrew her hand from her waist.

This time, something was in it.

—A knife.

“Mieya, isn’t this what you’ve always wanted to do? Don’t worry. Just as you’ve always imagined, you can deal with the source of your suffering.”

The girl smiled, reversed the hilt and blade, and offered the knife to Mieya.

“Go ahead, Mieya. Kill me.”

Both Mieya Mineyama and Mana Mizuhara, who lay on the ground not far away, watching intently, froze where they were.

—Why is this happening?

—Mio Ito had just lost her birthmark, become impossibly beautiful. Why would she now let Mieya kill her here?

—Is she… not afraid? Not even a little bit regretful?!

“Are you mocking me?” Mieya forced the words through clenched teeth, her eyes locked on Mio.

“I only… want you to be happy, Mieya.” The girl’s smile was faint, her gaze soft.

Strangely, as Mana Mizuhara watched that smile, it reminded her of the shop manager, Seki Tani.

“Happiness… Ha… happiness…” Mieya’s hands shook like a Parkinson’s patient as she slowly took the knife.

Yet the moment she gripped the hilt, she stilled.

“You think I won’t do it?!”

Like a frenzied soldier on the battlefield, Mieya raised the knife and plunged it viciously at Mio Ito!

“Don’t!!!”

Mana Mizuhara’s body tensed, blood boiling, as she shouted at Mieya.

But—the knife had already struck!

A sharp sound. The blade slid into Mio Ito’s chest without resistance; perhaps because it moved so fast, there wasn’t even blood as it was withdrawn.

But Mieya, her eyes red with rage, raised the knife again and stabbed at Mio once more!

“…Senpai, stop!” Mana Mizuhara screamed.

Once, twice… three times, ten times, twenty times…

No matter how Mana screamed and begged, Mieya kept stabbing Mio Ito with all her strength.

—Chest, abdomen, shoulders, arms, cheeks, neck…

By the end, the girl’s body was nothing but wounds, blood pouring in streams, flesh ragged and exposed, the once beautiful face now monstrous again.

Only then did Mieya Mineyama regain her senses.

“Th-this…”

She staggered back, the knife falling from her hand in panic.

Mana Mizuhara’s mind, stunned by the scene, went utterly blank.

Yet even in that dazed emptiness, some part of her noticed something wrong—

Strange…

By all logic, if a person were stabbed like that, their heart would have stopped long ago. Why was Mio Ito still standing?

And—

The knife that had fallen from Mieya’s hand—

It had landed and, like slicing tofu, its sharp blade pierced straight through the floor, standing upright.

“M-Mieya…”

The blood-soaked girl, her throat and windpipe slashed, could only rasp hoarsely.

Yet on her face, there still seemed to be a smile.

“…At last, I’m going to die… Are you happy now?”

“Happy…”

Mieya clenched her fists, her eyes meeting Mio’s, bloodshot and wild.

“How could I be?! I thought everything would be better if you just died… So why am I still in such pain?! Why, after killing you with my own hands, do I still see nothing but darkness?

“No matter what I do, I can’t erase that shadow… Hey, whether you live or die, are you always going to be the obstacle I can’t surpass… But, but… there’s nothing more I can do… Ha ha ha ha… uuuuu…”

Mieya’s legs gave way and she collapsed to the floor, laughing and sobbing hysterically.

Mio Ito gazed at her.

Then, to Mana Mizuhara’s horror, the girl—who by all rights should have been utterly dead—took step after step to Mieya, and, her body still bleeding, gently embraced her:

“Whether dead or alive, can you never overcome me? Then, Mieya, would you like to try another way?”

“What… way…”

The blood that once streamed naturally from Mio Ito’s wounds suddenly seemed to come alive, each drop linking with the next, weaving together into a scarlet robe that slowly settled over them both.

“This world is filled with suffering.

“Human beings create hostility because of differences in beauty and ugliness, status, wealth and poverty, intelligence and foolishness. We divide ourselves, erecting walls between mind and body that leave us isolated, unable to understand one another, condemned to loneliness and pain, forced to survive in the cracks.

“…But now, things are different.

“Your flesh will become my flesh, my blood will become your blood. Between your soul and mine, there will be no more barriers—pain, torment, hostility, misunderstanding… all will be unraveled, and you will find supreme release.

“—Mieya, become one with me.”

Mio Ito’s words carried a fatal allure, her whispers as seductive as a devil’s, yet as gentle as an angel’s blessing.

Meanwhile, the blood from her body spread outward, meters, tens of meters, turning the surrounding floor into a pool of blood.

Wherever the blood pool spread, a strange, fresh fragrance arose. As it drifted through the air, not only Mieya but even Mana Mizuhara’s face grew dazed, her ears echoing with Mio’s whisper.

“…Become one with me…”

“If I do that… will there be no more pain?” Mieya murmured.

“…That’s right.”

The crimson robe enfolded Mieya tenderly, caressing her lips and brow, until at last, both she and Mio Ito were swathed within.

From outside, one could see only a vast sphere of blood, exuding a sweet fragrance.

“If that’s so…

“…I want release.”

“As you wish.”

The moment Mio Ito’s voice sounded, the two figures pressed together.

In the next instant—two became one, the fragrance thickening until it grew overpowering.

At the same time, the blood sphere contracted sharply.

From a swollen orb, it shrank to a thin skin clinging to the figure within.

As if everything inside the sphere had been wholly absorbed by the being within.

At last, even the thin outer layer was drawn away, and the girl, her body now spotless but standing on a floor still slick with blood, appeared once more in the world outside the sphere.

She stood barefoot on the blood-soaked floor, unharmed as ever.

But her features had subtly changed, as if her original face had been adjusted to include a trace of Mieya Mineyama.

“Well, Mieya, how do you feel?” The girl quietly asked the soul that had belonged to Mieya, deep within her mind.

Though she asked, in that moment, they were wholly fused; the answer was known the instant the question was voiced.

“…Mio, I’ve never felt such happiness, such peace.”

Mieya’s voice rippled contentedly in the depths of her soul.

In that instant, all hatred was utterly released.

“Just as I thought,” Mio Ito smiled, pressing her hand to her chest.

“No need to hurt anyone else, and still you can reach a state as equal and inclusive as death—if all others could become one with me like this, then the world I long for could truly be realized.”

Thinking thus, the girl looked at Mana Mizuhara, still lying on the floor, caught in a dreamlike trance by the heady scent from the blood pool, and a strange light flickered in her eyes.