The day after the fire in the Airin Slum, which was also the last day of Golden Week in May, Tosu Hideo arrived at Osaka General Hospital carrying a bulging black backpack.
Beneath Tosu Hideo's gaunt, pale human-skin mask, several veins bulged and writhed like living creatures. He covered his face and crouched on the ground.
"I killed them, I killed them. I killed people again!"
It wasn't just the two petty Boryokudan bosses. He had also set a fire, and the Yakuza he had knocked unconscious on the first floor had probably met grim ends too.
Counting the Matori Group members I killed in Shizuoka City, I've taken more than twenty lives now. I can't even count them on all my fingers and toes!
The five fingers of Tosu Hideo's left hand clawed at the human-skin mask on his face with such force that he nearly tore it off!
Tears streamed uncontrollably from his eyes. As Tosu Hideo looked at the tear stains on his hand, they seemed to turn into vivid crimson bloodstains, marks left by the people he had killed.
He had clearly been an urban office worker who had never even killed a chicken, yet now he had become a coldhearted executioner, a murderous monster.
Just how many people do I have to kill and sacrifice to Jashin before it's satisfied?!
After yet another slaughter, Tosu Hideo seemed able to feel the evil power Jashin had given him growing within his body. That ever-strengthening power was also eroding his will, until he plunged into a bottomless abyss, until he was beyond redemption!
Rather than end up like that, I'd be better off...
At that moment, Tosu Hideo felt not only overwhelming self-loathing but even the suicidal urge to end his own life.
But when he thought