Ririko's voice sent a shudder through Valentin's heart.
Valentin's body moved like a remote-controlled machine.
His fingers trembled slightly as he reached for the scalpel on the operating table.
He gripped the handle and pressed the blade just below his cheekbone...
The tip pierced his skin. Blood seeped from the incision in a thin red line, running down his cheek and dripping onto his white collar.
Ririko watched him suffer at his own hands, her eyes curving as her smile grew wider.
Finally, she burst out laughing, the sound jarringly out of place in the room full of grotesque faces.
Valentin endured the pain of his skin splitting while his other hand fumbled across the operating table, his fingers brushing a cold, cylindrical object.
He angrily plunged the long silver tube into his arm, injecting its contents into his bloodstream.
Ririko stopped laughing.
She hadn't expected him to have hidden the real "Tomie Organization" here.
Valentin stopped moving the scalpel.
She saw his body begin to swell, from his shoulders to his chest, from his lower abdomen to his ankles. His skin stretched taut and shiny, like a thin membrane on the verge of bursting.
Tumor-like lumps of flesh began sprouting from his bloody face, half of which he had sliced away himself.
Ririko took two steps back.
"Bruce!" She turned and raised her hand, slapping his face twice with two sharp smacks. "Stop sleeping! Wake up!"
Bruce opened his eyes in a daze. He saw Ririko's face and was just feeling glad she was safe when he noticed her frantic expression.
He glanced past her at the monster swelling into some indescribable shape-
"What is that thing? What happened-"
Ririko pulled him toward the door.
"Valentin really has turned into a pighead."
Bruce looked at the man who had