“What is going on with Mukuro anyway?” Shido muttered to himself on the Tengu Tower observation deck, a troubled look on his face.
Mukuro had grown pale the moment they stepped into the tower, then collapsed—a far cry from the engaged, excited girl she had been up to that point.
However dangerous a Spirit she may have been, the fact remained that she was someone to be protected, even if she had locked everyone’s memories away. He couldn’t help but be worried.
“…”
He glanced at Tohka sitting with her arms crossed, looking quite put out.
“What?” Tohka, with her keen eye, noticed this and glared in return.
“…!” He jumped. “O-oh…”
Origami had gone with Mukuro to the washroom, which inevitably led to this configuration. The tension in the air had been something else.
At any rate, perhaps because Tohka understood this to be a contest, she was currently sitting and waiting quietly. If she started to rampage for some reason, he had no way of holding her back. His nervousness was to be expected.
“…”
But when he really thought about it, it was strange to be face-to-face with an inverted Spirit. He had so far encountered only three inverted Spirits, including Tohka. They had all begun attacking indiscriminately the second they inverted, so he’d never had a proper conversation with any of them.
“Oi,” Tohka said abruptly.
He jumped in his seat. “Wh-what?!”
“It’s starting to—no, it’s been bothering me for a while now,” she said, turning cold eyes on him. “This ‘Tohka’ you keep saying, is that my name?”
Shido was seriously surprised at the unexpected question—less for the content of it and more at the fact that she had spoken to him first—but he nodded as he stared back with wide eyes. “Yeah. It is.”
“Did I—no, I mean, did that me pick this name?”
“No… I did,” he replied honestly.
“…”
She stomped on his foot without a word.
“Owww! Wh-where’d that come from?”
“Somewhere.”
“Uh-huh…” Shido lifted his face with a scowl. “Do you have another name?”
“No. So while I don’t care for it, you may call me by this ‘Tohka’ name.”
“Yeah? Okay, then. Tohka,” Shido said, and Tohka once more stomped on his foot.
“Wh-why…?”
“Because.”
“…”
Shido cleared his throat to try and pull himself together. “So, Tohka, what exactly are you? What is this whole inversion thing? And like, what is a Spirit even…”
“Inversion?” She shot him a dubious glance. “So that’s what you call the phenomenon of turning into me from that me.”
“Mm… Well, yeah.”
Tohka sniffed contemptuously. “I don’t care for it. To start with, I am the personification of the Sefirah.”
“Huh? Wh-what do you mean?” he asked, bewildered.
Kotori had given him the rundown on inversion when it happened to Tohka before. But Ratatoskr hadn’t completely grasped the phenomenon, and so that explanation had been a fragmented mix of information and inferences.
Tohka scowled in annoyance. “When the primeval Spirit partitioned her powers and created the Sefirahs, their attributes were in what you would call an inverted state,” she told him. “The primeval Spirit, however, changed them into their current state. In other words, your premise is backward.”
“Wait. What on earth for…?”
She shrugged. “Presumably to make them more compatible with the people of this world. The Sefirahs are not originally of this world. In their original state, they would eat too much into the human body.”
“Huh?” Shido was confused. He got to his feet and grabbed Tohka’s shoulders as he threw out questions like an interrogation. “H-hang on. I don’t follow. The primeval Spirit made them more compatible with humans? Why would she do that?”
Tohka scowled, grabbed his shirt with one hand, and hoisted him up off the floor.
“Ngh… Ah…?!” he cried.
“Mind yourself, human. I did not speak to you because you desired it. It was a mere diversion.” Tohka narrowed her eyes and tightened her grip. “Hmph. So weak. Perhaps I will simply take your lips like this. Curse that girl. This way would indeed be faster.”
She placed her free hand under his chin and slowly brought her face closer.
“Uh. Um. Tohka?!” he yelped.
“Fool.” She sniffed and turned her face away, looking bored. “I would not. It means nothing unless you first yield your heart to me.”
Just then, something flashed in the corner of his eye, and he heard a shriek.
“Aaah!”
Tohka’s grip weakened, and Shido dropped to the floor.
“…! Koff! Koff…!” When he lifted his face, coughing, he saw Mukuro standing there looking serious, the key Angel Michael in one hand.
“What is your intention?” she demanded. “That you would lay a hand on my lord?!”
“…Hmph,” Tohka said, irritated, and turned cruel eyes on Mukuro. “This has nothing to do with you.”
“How dare…?!” Mukuro did not flinch in the face of Tohka’s threat. In fact, rage colored her face, a burning conflagration, and just as Tohka had with Shido moments ago, she grabbed Tohka’s shirt.
“W-wait, Mukuro! I’m okay, so—” Shido tried to stop her.
But Mukuro paid him no mind, her murderous glare fixed on Tohka. “You would purloin my lord? You would whisk away the person Muku loves, the person who loves Muku?”
“That is of no concern to me. How bothersome. Release me.” Tohka scowled grumpily as she held her right hand out straight and made it flash through the air.
A thin cut raced across Mukuro’s cheek, while a lock of her hair was sliced off and danced into the air.
“…”
Mukuro gasped and released Tohka.
This was not because Tohka’s attack had scared her, though.
She didn’t touch her bleeding cheek; she simply stared, stunned, at the golden hair slowly drifting to the ground.
“Aah. Aaah. Ah…” Her voice shook, and her eyes were wide. “How. Dare. Youuu!”
The world in front of Shido suddenly grew bright. Tohka went flying, smashing through the glass of the observation deck, and danced up into the sky.
“…! Wha…?!” He instinctively twisted away from the fragments of flying glass and quickly lifted his face again.
Chaos had descended on the observation deck. The tourists around them screamed and rushed the elevator.
But this was only to be expected after one of the windows had been so spectacularly shattered and a girl blown outside. Not to mention that the girl who had been blown outside and the girl who had sent her flying were now standing with no issue on the outer wall of the observation deck.
“You.”
“I’ll. Kill you. This is…unforgivable. Reprehensible!”
Tohka and Mukuro, who had at some point manifested her Angel Michael, faced each other on the exterior wall of the observation deck, both standing perpendicular to the wall as if they had no use for gravity.
But the girls themselves seemed not to notice the abnormality of this. A dangerous air radiated from them both.
“Muku’s hair… You cut. Muku’s hair,” Mukuro uttered as she glared at Tohka. “The hair that my lord, the hair that my lady…praised.” Particles of light began to cluster on Mukuro’s skin and take on the shape of a glimmering robe.
Her Astral Dress. A Spirit’s absolute armor and bastion.
“…! Mukuro! You have to stop! Tohka didn’t mean to!” Shido cried out in a panic.
Mukuro was not listening. She tightened her grip on Michael and stabbed the tip of her Angel into her own chest.
“Wha—?!”
“Michael. Siffleur!” She twisted the Angel with a klik.
In that instant, her Astral Dress flashed and changed form. The graceful silhouette shrank dramatically, turning into something that reflected her rage.
At the same time, Michael also changed in appearance. The staff-shaped Angel executed a transformation into a form reminiscent of a large Chinese-style polearm.
If her Astral Dress and Angel had, up to that point, been those of a female sage who had renounced the material world, then their current appearance corresponded to a malevolent warrior general.
It was not a Sefirah inversion. But the instant that she executed this transformation, a concentrated Spirit power radiated outward from her, generating enough force to shake the very air around her.
“Wh-what the…?!” Shido cried, racing up behind her.
“Mukuro!” Origami shouted, hot on his heels.
One among their group simply narrowed her eyes with fascination. Tohka.
“Ho-ho? Excellent. The battle for the taking of the lips is over. This way is indeed preferable. More straightforward.” And then with a daring smile, Tohka waved her hand.
Instantly, an Astral Dress the color of night wrapped itself around her, and the Demon King Nahemah appeared in her hand.
“I cannot. This is unacceptable,” Mukuro said, enunciating every word. “I shall return you to the void! I will leave no speck behind!”
“Excellent.” Tohka grinned. “Come, then. I will remove that head from its shoulders.”
Mukuro and Tohka. A Spirit of unfathomable power and an inverted Spirit squared off.
✦ ✦ ✦
