"Who… who is that?"
Images flickered through Shu Ouma's mind like a revolving lantern — strange, half-familiar faces cycling past in rapid succession. The memories his brain had sealed away in a protective fog, the blank year erased from his life, began rising back to the surface. Only fragments, sparse and scattered, but he saw them nonetheless. The amber light drained from his eyes.
Christmas. A church. A pink-haired girl in winter clothes.
"Shu."
That's not Inori's voice — not Miss Inori's.
Shu knew. Even though the resemblance was uncanny, even though the cadence was almost identical, he understood with absolute clarity that the woman standing before him was not G-Inori. But how could that be? Miss Inori was right here. She was right here. Then what were those images? What were any of those flashes he'd just seen?
"Shu, what's wrong? Your sister is right here."
Her voice was soft — sweet enough to turn his bones to water.
The Inori in front of him shifted, drifting closer, leaning toward him with a tenderness that looked like she meant to gather him into her arms.
Under any other circumstances, this was the kind of thing Shu Ouma wouldn't have dared even dream of. But something — perhaps a psychological scar left behind by the incident all those years ago — snapped inside him the moment she drew near. The scream tore out of him before he could stop it.
"Monster!"
He scrambled backward as if he'd seen a ghost, the distance between them widening in an instant. His shirt was already soaked through with cold sweat.
The word landed like a poisoned blade driven straight into her heart. The smile on the Inori-wearing face froze. For a long moment she didn't move — just stood there as the expression slowly died, replaced by a vast, hollow loneliness that had nowhere to go. She lowered her head. The fringe she'd recently trimmed wasn't quite enough to hide it.
Shu came back to himself. He couldn't even explain why he'd said monster — it felt like something branded onto his soul, a reflex he had no power to refuse. And now, watching the woman before him — watching "Miss Inori" — he could see clearly that his words had wounded her.
He opened his mouth to apologize.
And then her expression changed entirely.
That flawless face twisted — humiliation blazing into fury, teeth grinding so hard it was a wonder she didn't crack them. Her eyes, usually so beautiful, contracted to pinpoints and shook like aftershocks. If anyone were to photograph her like this and put it online, the Egoist image would be in ruins before morning.
"Damn it all!!!"
The elegant idol-singer let out a string of curses and drove her foot into an aluminum can nearby, sending it skidding away across the floor.
Someone once said:
We are all soldiers summoned by fate.
But this world gave me a truth. Fate gave me King Crimson — an invincible Stand — and the power to erase time. That much is beyond question. Fate chose me. Chose me to pay the price of becoming Inori Yuzuriha, and in return gave me an unassailable place at the summit.
I am no ordinary soldier.
And yet — this me, this version of me, somehow didn't know there was another "person" living inside my own body. Man or woman, Mana Ouma or someone else entirely — it doesn't matter. I will not allow anyone but myself to govern what is mine.
This is my resolution. My vow. I decided it the moment I woke in that sleep pod: never become someone else's tool. Never play the helpless heroine again. Climb to the top of this world on my own will.
But then this happens.
You — Mana Ouma. You were supposed to become something attached to me, subordinate to me. Your soul was supposed to be the final step I used to reach the summit.
Damn it.
I, Inori, will not be defeated by something this trivial. I will hold onto my pride.
Inori — Inori Yuzuriha — clenched her jaw, expression dark and sharp enough to frighten. She stood, and walked straight toward her room.
"Miss Inori? Where… where are you going?"
Shu's thoughts were in knots. He watched her recede into the distance, her silhouette lengthening in the moonlight. She gave him nothing — not a glance, not a word — as though she hadn't heard him at all. Then the hallway corner swallowed her, and she was gone.
"You — can you hear me? Mana Ouma!"
Back in her room, door locked behind her, Inori Yuzuriha turned and demanded of the empty air.
Why are you angry?
The voice came from inside her own head — and it carried the exact same timbre as her own.
Just as she'd suspected. Her understanding of this anime, this world, had been far too shallow. Mana Ouma's soul wasn't drifting somewhere outside — she'd been living inside this body all along. The things Shuichiro Keido had said back then, about letting her roam freely to build up "affinity" — said it as if he could reel her in whenever he pleased —
That man. That parasite who crawled out of a toilet. Did he honestly think I was still the obedient fabricated vessel he could push around?
The reason for all his talk: he had planted Mana's soul inside this body long before any of this began. She'd simply been sleeping — sleeping until she encountered Shu Ouma, until she gradually started to wake. Looking back, it made sense — ever since she'd enrolled at Tennouzu High, there had been those moments of mental drift, that creeping inability to even enjoy a meal.
"I know everything you've done," Inori said sternly. "You brother-obsessed freak. Don't even think about taking over my body."
That's a bit much, Mana replied with a soft laugh. Aren't you the monster that was manufactured?
"Hmph. We're nothing alike."
"Being called a monster is a compliment, as far as I'm concerned." Inori smiled, self-assured. "I intend to become the Nameless Monster that makes everyone fear and dread me."
"Getting worked up just because your little brother called you a monster — at the end of the day, you're still just a fragile little girl. Even after the Virus chose you as Eve, you wanted to make your not-yet-born brother your Adam. Quite the brother complex, isn't it~"
If there was a contest for sharp tongues, Mana would need several hundred more years before she could compete with Inori. With a few effortless words, she had summarized everything Mana Ouma had ever done — and delivered it in the most unsettling possible tone.
"I have to admit… little Inori, you're far more difficult than I imagined."
"I thought that once I woke, I could push you aside at any time. It seems that's not possible."
Mana didn't sound angry. She simply laughed — light, easy.
Given what Inori knew of her, this wasn't how things were supposed to go.
"What do you mean? You just succeeded — you swapped into my body just now! You took control!"
Inori gripped a strand of her own hair, and there was genuine unease in her voice.
"That was only a desperate attempt — I caught you in a split second of distraction, and it only lasted a few seconds. If you wanted control back, you could take it at any moment."
Mana's voice fell into something quieter.
The chance to meet her beloved brother — and all she could do was hide inside and watch from far away. Even saying a single word to him had become too much to ask.
"Because… little Inori's soul is too strong."
There was a faint bitterness in her voice. A faint, reluctant envy.
"What does that mean?"
"That strange thing — the one you call King Crimson. It only follows a strong-willed person it recognizes. My personality is too gentle… it can't even hear my voice. It can't even sense that I exist."
Inori felt the tension in her chest ease by a measure.
She nodded slowly, some understanding settling into her expression. The anger faded.
She remembered: when Jotaro's mother manifested a Stand because of DIO's resurrection, Avdol had explained it this way — a Stand fights driven by the strength of its user's spirit, propelled by a combat instinct that belongs only to the Stand user. Even if Mana possessed some version of that instinct, it clearly wasn't nearly enough.
Just as no one else could wield Star Platinum using a Stand Disc, Mana could not use Inori's King Crimson.
"I was genuinely afraid just now — afraid you'd use my body to do something strange with Shu Ouma." Inori said it like a passing observation. "If you had, I would've had to kill him to get it out of my system."
She said kill the way someone else might say stretch my legs. And Mana, having watched Inori's behavior from within for this long, knew perfectly well she meant every word.
Deep inside Inori Yuzuriha there existed something — a will — that could, when the moment demanded it, take a life without hesitation or remorse. An obsidian will, cold and absolute.
But Mana Ouma had her own reason to keep enduring in this form: her most beloved person. Her brother. Shu Ouma.
"If you kill Shu, I will never forgive you."
Mana's voice shifted — suddenly, completely serious.
"I will use every means available to me. I will torment your soul with everything I have. Perhaps it won't cause you real harm… but you will suffer for it. You will be in agony. Your strength means nothing against me. You can't defeat me, because…"
"I am you."