Artificial Otsutsuki

Deep in his consciousness, Kanami could clearly sense the scene Chomei was recalling.

"Impossible? Are you saying the images in your mind are a genjutsu?"

Kanami spoke calmly.

The Seven-Tails' expression twisted.

"How could I have said something like that? Did I really say that? But I truly considered Fū my best friend!

I never stopped her from making friends. She was the one who insisted on introducing every one of them to me!

That's right. She did it herself!"

Chomei clung to the thought like a lifeline.

"If you hadn't told her, 'If you don't cut ties with them, I won't be your best friend anymore,'

do you think Fū would have gone out of her way to introduce all those friends to you?"

Kanami looked at Chomei coldly. "You think humans are no good, but what makes you any better?

For your sake, she risked damaging her relationships with her other friends by introducing you to them. Yet you wouldn't even let her have friends besides you."

At Kanami's words, Chomei's expression darkened.

"That's not true! I'm not like that! I never interfered with your friendship with Fū!"

"That's because you never saw me as an ordinary person. If I were just an ordinary human, you wouldn't have let Fū be my friend."

Kanami cut straight through Chomei's excuse.

No matter how stubbornly Chomei argued after that, the Seven-Tails had no convincing rebuttal.

Chomei knew that if Fū hadn't willingly let its ideas influence her, its attempts to manipulate her would never have been enough to change her.

"Don't worry. I won't kill Fū, and I won't kill you. I don't know what you told her, but I never intended to kill you."

Kanami continued, "I'm just borrowing some of your power."

By then, Kanami had used the