"Origami-chan… but weren't you suspended?"
"What is that equipment—"
No interest in catching up with former colleagues. Tobiichi Origami switched from cannon to blade and dove—going straight for a killing blow.
"'Michael—'"
Everything went dark. Origami's perspective and altitude lurched violently, and dozens of pitch-black portals materialized around her from nowhere, sealing off every axis of movement.
"Stop it, Mukuro!" Shiori called out.
Unnecessary. At Mukuro's command the portals disgorged a barrage of debris—rocks from somewhere beyond the sky, dense as a downpour.
Crude. Against the current Origami, this was barely an irritant—flies buzzing past her ear. She swept her blade in rapid arcs, dicing the incoming stone to rubble, while her Territory auto-intercepted whatever slipped through the gaps.
"Look out!" Captain Kusakabe tried to warn her—this was the exact same trap the entire AST unit had walked into when they first arrived.
The golden-haired girl leveled her key at Origami and twisted it, as if working an invisible lock. The Territory encasing Origami's body dissolved without warning—a blunt reminder that not every Spirit relied on nothing but raw power like Yatogami Tohka.
Michael—an Angel capable of "opening" or "locking" any target at will.
Even with Origami's reflexes snapping her sword up in a block, the debris punched through. One rock connected squarely with her abdomen. A heavy grunt tore out of her.
That first opening was all it took—the follow-up attacks came faster than she could track. She'd barely gotten her hands on the new unit and was already taking her first beating before her new gear's grace period was even over.
"Origami! Stop it, Mukuro—both of you, stop!"
"Is that really your only line? Itsuka Shiori—or are we already on first-name terms." Even while pressing her attack, Mukuro kept speaking in the same toneless voice. "You know her, don't you. You go on and on about wanting to save me—but when I move against your friend, all you can do is stand there and talk. So what exactly can you protect?"
She stopped tracking Origami. The key vanished into the void again—this time pointing straight up at the pitch-black sky.
Nothing happened. For about two seconds, nothing happened at all.
Then Kotori's voice came through the earpiece, barely holding together: "Is this real?!"
"What's going on?"
On Ratatoskr's observation feed, a point had materialized at atmospheric altitude. The word "point" was relative only because it was being compared against the size of the Earth.
A portal—identical in type to the ones Mukuro had opened against Origami—and squeezing through it was a meteorite. Even without factoring in velocity, its mass alone would inflict catastrophic damage across half of Tenguu City.
Mukuro watched Shiori's reaction. "Speechless. I'm honestly astonished that someone like you could have said what you just said—"
She stopped.
Her brows drew together. Her hand flew to her chest.
Simultaneously, the personnel monitoring her emotional data aboard Fraxinus watched the flat-line readings lurch. The bar tracking mood had plummeted by a significant margin—while the rest of her emotional parameters barely stirred.
This wasn't the seal weakening. This was a Stand attack.
At the top of the alley incline, a small girl in a baseball cap crouched with her chin in her hands. Behind her, a gaunt figure holding a set of scales stood in the shadows.
Yimi studied the girl in the revealing outfit. "You look really familiar."
Even though she herself was the one who had crashed into her—but she'd forgotten where she'd seen her before.
The cat was in a bad mood. She had spotted a golden person bullying her temporary litter-scooper.
Fair's fair—if you're making her miserable, you get miserable too.
"That sensation…" Mukuro's brows drew tighter. She raised her key toward Yimi. "Who are you?"
"Yimi!" Shido immediately reverted to excellent background decoration.
The kitten tilted her face toward the sky. Her ears shifted faintly inside the cap.
A faint change in the air triggered her animal instinct—something overhead was deeply wrong.
"Shiori, focus on what's in front of you. Leave whatever's up there to us." Kotori steadied herself and began activating Fraxinus's Eternal Spear to attempt a long-range strike.
"Meow?"
The cat had no earpiece. She had no idea anyone was already handling the problem above her.
The portals surrounding Origami had stopped disgorging new debris—Mukuro's attention had shifted to the newly arrived Yimi. That didn't mean Origami, already wounded, had any reserves left to press the fight.
She clenched her fists in humiliation. She'd closed the gap in strength considerably—so how had she been crushed this completely? Was the gulf between human and Spirit truly this absolute? Had she always been fighting a losing battle?
Seeing that Origami was fine, Yimi knew she had to deal with whatever was overhead first. She didn't know exactly what it was—but she knew it was a problem.
Yimi pressed down against her canvas sneakers, drew on the Reiryoku she'd managed to recover, and flew.
"Yimi! Please—Kotori, save—"
"'Please'—and what feeling is behind that word, exactly?" Thanks to the kitten's Stand, a genuine trace of irritation had finally crept into Mukuro's voice.
She also assumed Shiori, earpiece and all, was talking to the girl who had just taken flight.
"She's one of the Spirits you sealed, isn't she. Did you also promise her 'I'll protect you'? If so—were you serious when you said 'please'?"
"That's—" Shiori's voice dried up.
What argument did he have? Should he say Yimi hadn't been sealed by him? He had promised to protect her.
Should he say Yimi didn't need worrying about—that her power of misfortune redirection kept her safe? That logic was flawed from the start.
Just whose behalf was he making those "I'll protect you" promises on?
Shiori stared at the ground, silenced by a handful of blunt words.
Though honestly—Yimi's method of handling a meteorite probably wasn't going to involve redirecting it somewhere else, was it?
"I'm flying by myself!" The kitten looked down at the city shrinking beneath her, and her sour mood dissolved almost entirely.
In the dark, her pupils dilated automatically—cutting through what human eyes couldn't reach—and she finally spotted the mass descending toward her. No friction yet, no fire on its surface. But its size was bigger than anything Yimi's mind could frame a reference for.
Her mouth fell open slightly.
She slapped both cheeks. Then Yimi—carrying only a sliver of Reiryoku—summoned her Astral Dress.
No dramatic motions. Just that single act.
The moment the Astral Dress materialized, she felt the pull of the neighboring realm—and was flung back out—and with it, the distortion of a full Spacequake unfolded around the meteorite, sealing the space it occupied with complete, undiminished force.
Meteorite crisis: handled.
She dismissed the Astral Dress to conserve Reiryoku and drifted back down. Her gaze settled on Mukuro, who had finally stopped attacking. The scales-bearing Stand surfaced behind her once more—and in her hand materialized a spear whose edge blazed so searingly bright that a single direct look sent a jolt of pain straight through the eyes.
"Progenitor Spirit?" Flat declaration. No hesitation.
"N—probably not?" Shiori had no better answer.
He looked at the little cat, with attack written plainly all over her face.
Two Spirits in direct conflict. The most troublesome situation. Though Miku had set a precedent for this.
But it didn't happen.
Mukuro and the kitten locked eyes for a moment. Then Mukuro opened a portal with Michael to her side, stepped through, and was gone—retreating entirely.
A rational calculation: prolonged exposure to something capable of disturbing her locked heart was too dangerous. She needed distance before any further unsealing could take hold.
"Don't run!" Yimi swung the Stand like a tether and hurled it after her.
"The line is 'don't even think about running,'" Shiori said—correcting the grammar even as she caught Yimi and swept her up, legs kicking at empty air. "Let's check on Origami first!"
She watched the portal—already shrunk to fist-size—close and vanish from sight.
Then Shiori set the little girl down.
Origami had been the one to attack Mukuro first. Letting the clueless Yimi pick a fight with someone whose history she didn't know would have been wrong—and honestly, Shiori suspected Mukuro might not have won against Yimi anyway. Unless that key of hers could open the glow that wards off misfortune.