The room lay silent, an uneasy darkness stood amongst the two of them.
Senshi was motionless as her heart became restless, her instincts told her to move back, to get away, but she stepped towards him.
"Tamari? You- why are you here?" She reached out to him but withdrew her hand instead. "You- you're not Tamari... Not the real one..."
Half his face lie cast in shadow, but his expression was one of reassurance and trust. "Senshi, I heard you had gone a little crazy, and I had hoped the rumors weren't true." He chuckled. "But I see they weren't even close."
"No, it's not me-" She replied. "The records, those girls, these memories... Nothing makes sense, it can't be true. That's not how I "remember" it."
"...Remember what?" He asked, his face grim.
"That you would kill your own father!" She said, welling up with tears. "You- you were so kind and caring... Despite everything else, despite your father..."
"You're exactly right," Tamari stepped closer; arms placed upon her shoulders. "That wasn't me, it wasn't real, can't you see?"
He said, "It's me- Tamari; in the flesh and blood." He placed their heads together. "Here before you, you know you can trust me. Come on Senshi, don't you remember? Remember "us"?"
"Wha?" A flood of memories came pouring into her head, "Ngh..." her hand went to her face as a feeling of warmth and "love" came upon her.
Tamari slowly embraced her; he held her head over his shoulder as he softly spoke. "I" remember the days we watched those orange sunsets, and the times we relaxed in the cool ponds on those hot summer days..."
"The world was so simple back then, just you and me..." He said, "Together against the world, heh- don't you wish it could have just stayed that way?"
"Ngh..." Senshi began to well up with tears as she returned his affection, holding him.
"The day we played in that golden field, as you looked for flowers and I looked for crickets..." A darkness began to surround them, closing off the exits and any means of escape.
"I remember how we laughed, how the sun made your skin glisten, and how much I loved your long beautifully violet hair, which swayed in the wind like flowers in the meadow."
He sighed, "And at that point... I knew how much I loved you."
"I... I didn't know you felt that way..."
Senshi's hands fell, as she stepped back. "...But you're wrong-"
"Senshi?" Tamari replied.
She looked up, her eyes not with tears but anger. "Because the "real" Tamari would never say any of that mushy bull-crap."
Tamari stepped back; his composure changed to frantic vulnerability. "What!?"
"Tamari knew how much I hated my hair;" She said, "Your third-rate fraud!"
"Tch-" His face grew over in a hideous mangled mask of flesh and insects, "You little brat;" he said, his voice deep like thunder, crackling like lightning. "You think you have the upper hand because you've seen through me?"
Senshi quickly reacted, throwing a punch square in the face. "Hah!"
Tamari smiled a wicked, toothy grin, unaffected by Senshi's blow. "Heh, it seems you have yet to realize the extent of my power."
"Wha-!?" Senshi jumped back.
The room began to melt away as the landscape turned to that of a forest, hung with the mummified corpses of victims. "You'll have wished I left you in your pathetic little world," the dead began to rise from behind her; they're rotten limbs falling from they're cadavers. "After I hang you by your entrails and grow drunk on your blood."
------
The Genkan began to topple around Tamari, exposing a grim scene of mountains of bodies; drained of blood, void of life. His friends and father dissolved into fleshy paste, pooling around him.
"Ugh... What the hell?" Said Tamari disgusted.
"I was so hopeful you would accept me and this world..." said Mother as the liquified remains began to slowly seep into her skin. "Much more so than that girl..."
"Wha? A girl?" Said Tamari. "Wait- You mean Senshi? She's here!?"
Mother began to grow before him, twice her original size, her skin turned pale as her hair turned a sickening greenish purple. Her teeth grew jagged like thorns; long spider-like legs protruded out from her back as disgusting red eyes emerged from her skull. Her body grew into a grotesque amalgamation of both spider and human, nightmarish in size and proportion.
Tamari gulped looking upon her hideous form. "A Jorōgumo..."
"I don't usually play with my food, but for you I'd like to make an exception." She hissed.
Tamari quickly turned away, running for cover behind the mounds of dead bodies, "Crap-crap-crap" plunging into a pile of corpses; he retched, trying to forget the smell and the touch of pulped flesh.
"Damn, with neither my original body nor my naginata I couldn't even hope of harming her."
The spider's human body hung limp as her legs scurried around searching for Tamari- "Gah... Come on out Tamari! You cannot hide from me forever- This nest is my domain!"
Tamari held his breath as she roared, praying she wouldn't find him. "Mgh..."
He saw a light coming from a small opening; he slowly crawled towards the hole, squeezing himself through- "Ngh... Gah!"
He breathed a sigh of relief; but his sliver of hope soon turned into a shard of despair as a large shadow loomed over him. "Found yoooou~" grinned the spider.