There’s still a lot we don’t know about inversion.
This was what Kotori had said to Shido after he’d seen an inversion for the first time.
A conversion of the Sefirah attribute that occurred due to the Spirit falling into a deep despair. A phenomenon where the Spirit value showed as a negative and transformed into a different kind of power.
Shido knew of three Spirits this had happened to.
One was Origami. On a day in her youth, she had sworn to seek revenge on the enemy who had killed her parents. When she found out this enemy was, in fact, her own time-traveling self, she had inverted, unable to bear the cruel misery of the discovery.
Another was Nia. Held prisoner for long days by DEM, she had endured cruel tortures beyond imagination. When those memories were brought back to her, she had inverted.
And the third was currently standing before him.
“Toh…ka…?” Shido wasn’t sure if there was any point in calling her name—after all, she did not recognize this name as belonging to her.
Last September, Shido had been fatally injured by the Wizard Ellen Mathers during a fight at DEM Industries’ Japan branch. While he’d clung to life thanks to Kotori’s healing flames, Tohka had fallen into despair after witnessing his presumed death, and her Sefirah inverted. What had appeared then was the same Dark Tohka who was looking down on them from the streetlight.
Her expression and tone of voice were the same as always, but she was something else—something not Tohka. They were looking at an inverted Spirit who wielded the enormous power of a Demon King.
“Wh-why is Tohka inverted…?” Shido managed to say, anxiety and confusion causing his mind to spin. The fact that she was inverted meant that she had encountered a deep despair recently. A black emotion so dark that it was on par with Shido being killed. What on earth could have happened to her while he’d been gone?
That was as far as his investigative deduction could go before it was interrupted. Still standing on the streetlight, Tohka threw her right hand out to one side, and ebony particles converged to take on the form of a sword.
“Ngh! Nahemah?!” he gasped. The Demon King Nahemah. This sword was Sandalphon’s counterpart, carrying unparalleled destructive power. Who knew what damage she could do if she swung it right here in the middle of the city?
“Stop, Tohka! You can’t—”
“Quiet. Begone,” she interrupted, clearly not inclined to listen to him, and narrowed her eyes coldly as she swung Nahemah.
A slash of the blade that could only be described as a black light carved out a crescent moon arc as it closed in on Shido and the Spirits by his side.
“Uh?! Aaah?!” He shrank in on himself.
The next instant, he heard Mukuro’s voice.
“Lataib!” She threw Michael up into the air and opened a large door in empty space that sucked in Tohka’s slashing attack. The aftershocks of the blow that escaped the range of the door gouged into the earth, leaving enormous claw marks in the concrete sidewalk.
“Ah?!”
“Wh-what was that?!”
The passersby in the area cried out at the sudden explosion.
But Tohka herself did not deign to look at the masses. She turned sharp eyes on Mukuro, the Spirit who had nullified her attack.
“You.” She sniffed disdainfully. “The fact that you stopped my attack means you are prepared to accept your fate, then.”
“I should speak those same words to you.” Mukuro scowled in annoyance. “What have you come for? Your memories have been locked by Michael. Should you interfere any further with Muku and her lord, she shall show no mercy.”
“Do your worst. I will make you regret surviving that attack.” She kicked off the streetlight to drop down to the ground. Slowly readying Nahemah before her, she approached Shido and the two Spirits.
“Mmm.” Even Mukuro had clearly picked up on the fact that the inverted Spirit before her was an enormous threat. Eyeing Tohka carefully, she dropped her center of gravity and readied Michael like a lance.
The situation was explosive. The air between the two Spirits crackled, and Shido took a step back.
“Hngh,” he groaned. He couldn’t exactly just leave them to go at it, though. In a full-on fight between Tohka and Mukuro, the city would be razed.
Though when they stood at the ready like this, the tension refused any entry to outside trespassers like an invisible wall. There wasn’t actually a wall there, like a Wizard’s Territory, but a reflexive terror took over his brain and kept his feet planted where they were, the instinctive worry that any mere human who tried to come between these Spirits would be instantly crushed like an insect.
The average person couldn’t have even safely stepped between them, much less stopped their violent clash. But that didn’t mean he could simply turn around and walk away. Steeling his resolve, he took a step forward.
He then felt a hand on his shoulder. Origami.
“Itsuka, leave this to me,” she said softly. “I…have an idea.”
“Huh…? B-but…,” he protested, but she had clearly made up her mind.
A nervous look on her face, she stepped in between Mukuro and Tohka. “Please wait a moment!” she said, her voice shaking only a little.
“What?”
“You intend to interfere?”
Mukuro and Tohka both stared daggers at her.
“E-eeep!” Origami jumped, her eyes filling with tears as if to make a lie of her earlier courage.
She managed to hold her ground somehow and began to speak hesitantly in a weak voice. “Uh. Um. So. Please calm down and listen to me…Mukuro.”
“…Hm-hmm?” Mukuro furrowed her brow dubiously.
Origami stared into Mukuro’s eyes for a second as if steadying herself and then continued. “M-Mukuro, you like Itsuka, don’t you? That’s why you hate Tohka for coming to take him away.”
“…Mm. Well, that is a simplified way of saying it, I suppose. Although you are included in Muku’s hatred as well.” Mukuro held Michael up, and its dangling rings jangled together.
“You can’t! Itsuka hates violence! A-and I’m pretty sure there’s another way to win his love!”
“…Hm-hmm?” Mukuro cocked her head to one side, a complicated look on her face.
Tohka took an impatient step forward, and Origami gasped, turning toward her.
“T-Tohka, you have to calm down, too!” she pleaded. “What’s your objective here?”
“ ‘Tohka’? Do you mean me?” Tohka scowled. “Well, fine. You would know my objective? This boy, he once scorned my hardships. I cannot be satisfied until I wipe out this humiliation. I care nothing for you or the key Spirit, but if you stand in my way, I will show you no mercy.” Her voice was a fount of unbridled, murderous rage.
Origami felt beads of sweat pop up on her forehead. But something Tohka said caught her attention, and she timidly asked, “Itsuka, hardships… Are you maybe talking about when you manifested at DEM headquarters?”
“The place is unknown to me.” Tohka sniffed indignantly. “However, I clearly remember the humiliations I was made to face.”
“…I wasn’t there, but I did hear about what happened,” Origami said slowly. “It’s true that you perhaps faced defeat by Itsuka’s hand—”
Tohka swung Nahemah, grazing Origami’s cheek and scraping the ground with the jet-black blade.
“Eep!” Origami shrieked.
“Watch your mouth,” Tohka snarled. “Who was defeated by whom?”
“I—I’m sorry. I phrased that wrong!” Origami quickly backtracked. “When you faced off against Itsuka before, you may not have had a very good experience because of an act of God…”
“…Hmph.” Tohka snorted, a grumpy look on her face. But this phrasing seemed to be acceptable, at least, and Origami sighed with relief.