Chinatsu faced Tohka, who was constantly acting spoiled in her arms. She tried everything: gently patting her back, stroking the silly girl's head, rubbing her scalp, and even smoothing out her messy hair from all the rubbing.
She also used the gentlest possible tone to comfort her. Although it was utterly incongruous with her current aloof appearance, it finally calmed Tohka in her arms a little, and she no longer clung to Chinatsu like a koala, constantly rubbing against her.
"Cough... cough cough..."
Chinatsu cleared her throat, seized the opportunity to slightly distance herself, quickly adjusted her collar and hair, which had been messed up from the rubbing, and tried to regain her serious, profound demeanor, as if burdened with a great responsibility.
She took a deep breath and, using a deliberately seductive and mission-driven tone, said to the now-calm Tohka:
"Tohka, can you feel it? This world's rejection and hostility towards humans, towards us Spirits. Those ASTs that attacked you are just the tip of the iceberg of human tyranny."
She raised her hand, her fingertips seemingly imbued with invisible electric light and spatial ripples, her voice taking on a guiding, impassioned tone:
"Join our Anti-Entropy! Fight with us to overthrow this unjust order and secure the rightful survival rights and freedom for all Spirits! Our goal is to create a paradise for Spirits, where we are no longer hunted!"
"Let us tell the whole world that they may take our lives. But they will never take our dignity... and our freedom!"
She felt that although her speech was a bit chuunibyou, its momentum and core message were spot on, enough to shock Kotori and the others on the Fraxinus.
It was hard to imagine that Chinatsu was more passionate than the original author.
Now, it depended on whether Tohka would agree.
However, Chinatsu clearly underestimated Tohka's "purity."
Tohka tilted her head, her amethyst-like eyes full of great confusion. She blinked, seemingly trying to digest Chinatsu's long string of "righteous" words, but she clearly failed.
For her, concepts like "overthrowing tyranny" and "fighting for rights" were too abstract and complex.
With Shido, the "Understanding" who had just tried to give her a name, and Chinatsu, the confirmed "kindred spirit" and "source of a pleasant scent," Tohka very simply... gave up thinking.
She skipped all the complex parts and grasped the core question that concerned her most and was also the simplest. She looked at Chinatsu with those incomparably clear eyes, her tone innocent and with a hint of anticipation:
"So... after joining that Anti-Entropy, can I always be with you and Shido?"
Shido: "???"
(W-wait! Isn't the topic jumping too much?! How did it suddenly jump to "always be together"?! And why am I included?!)
Chinatsu (to herself): "..." (I... I...) (A mouthful of old blood was stuck in her throat.)
(Silly girl! I'm talking about revolutionary ideals, and you're talking about forming a group to live together?! How did your brain make that connection?!)
Looking at Tohka's gaze, which was utterly without pretense, pure to the point of suffocation, Chinatsu felt her carefully prepared grand narrative and cool persona utterly shattered at this moment.
She didn't know whether to laugh or cry, her mouth twitching slightly. She could only dryly try to correct her:
"This... the goal of Anti-Entropy is a grander cause. A personal wish like 'being together' is probably... not our organization's primary objective..."
"No!"
Tohka, however, shook her head with unusual determination, not giving Chinatsu a chance to finish her sentence.
As if afraid they would run away, she suddenly reached out and tightly hugged Chinatsu's arm, pressing half of her body against her.
Then, she stretched out her other hand and accurately grabbed the arm of Shido, who was still in a daze, pulling him closer.
Thus, Tohka tightly hugged Chinatsu with her left hand and firmly held Shido with her right, sandwiching herself in the middle. She beamed with a brilliant smile and loudly declared:
"I want to be with you two! We must be together!"
Her posture was exactly like a child who had finally found her long-lost "parents" and refused to be separated again.
On the left was "Mom, who looks a bit fierce but smells good and seems to have no way of dealing with me," and on the right was "Dad, who is a bit clumsy but is willing to give me a name."
Chinatsu: "!!!" (Internal collapse: Who's your mom?! And what's with this strange sense of déjà vu?!)
Shido: "!!!" (Body stiff: W-what's going on now?! Am I being forcibly bound?!)
Sandwiched by Tohka like a human pendant, Chinatsu's splendid Herrscher attire and deliberately maintained aloof aura appeared incredibly pale and ridiculous in the face of Tohka's overly simple, unadorned, and clingy "wish."
She could even feel the same bewildered stiffness coming from Shido next to her.
(Miscalculation! A huge miscalculation! Why did I come out to cause trouble?! Wouldn't it have been better to just lie in the shelter?!)
Chinatsu shed tears of regret. Her "Anti-Entropy great cause" and "Shido correction" plans, under Tohka's powerful "innocent" offensive, had gone bankrupt before they even officially began, and were now careening in an extremely bizarre direction.
Chinatsu felt Tohka's undeniable strength on her arm, and seeing her happy expression of "the three of us will be together forever," her heart was filled with a tremendous sense of powerlessness and déjà vu.
Could it be... this is what Ancestor Kevin felt back then?
An absurd thought surfaced in her mind.
Trying everything, exhausting all her efforts, to bring back even one Herrscher willing to fight for humanity into the Elysian Realm for Elysia, to let her know her sacrifice wasn't in vain, to leave a spark of hope for future generations... but what was the result? The herrscher core of reason was given to Welt Yang and Bronya, and while they did fight for humanity, their ideals didn't align with Kevin's.
The Herrscher of the Void, Sirin, directly flipped the table; the Herrscher of Thunder, Mei, was indeed swayed (crossed out) moved, but her core loyalty was still to Kiana... After all the twists and turns, didn't Kevin eventually use Mei's concern for Kiana as a weakness to indirectly "lure" the Herrscher of Thunder's power back to his side through Kiana?
So, after going in a big circle, trying to directly trick... er, recruit innocent Herrschers/Spirits with noble ideals and revolutionary slogans, it simply doesn't work, right? In the end, it all comes down to bonds and "weaknesses"?!
Looking at Shido and herself, one on each side, forcibly "bound" by Tohka, Chinatsu was utterly speechless, questioning the heavens.
Her "Anti-Entropy recruitment" plan was declared completely bankrupt in the face of Tohka's simple and crude "be together" logic.
Not only did she fail to trick Tohka away, but she inexplicably formed a strange "trio," or rather, a "family of three" unilaterally recognized by Tohka.
This development was even more bizarre than Fraxinus's capture plan!
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