"What are you doing?" The little cat shoved at Shiori, assuming she was up to another sealing scheme.
But Shiori's form flickered again—proof enough that time was running short.
"Yimi, I'll be brief. I've come back from the future."
The chain of events leading here traced back to the Third Sephira Spirit: Kurumi Tokisaki.
Known as the deadliest Spirit—both in the number of lives she had taken and the danger she posed—her power was not bluntly overwhelming like the Tenth's or the First's, but ranked among the most versatile Angels in existence. Zafkiel, in appearance a massive antique clock paired with two flintlock pistols, carried twelve distinct effects corresponding to the clock's numerals. Shiori's presence here was made possible by the bullet Kurumi most wanted to use—and the most costly: Yud Bet. The Twelfth Bullet, which sent her physically into the past.
Temporarily, of course.
By comparison, the Sixth Bullet—Vav—which sent only one's consciousness into a past body—might actually qualify as the more legitimate form of time travel. But Vav could only reach back a few days at most.
"Yimi. In the future, you get killed."
She had come back to change that.
The helplessness had always been the worst of it—never having the power to protect the Spirits, exactly as Mukuro had said so sharply at their first meeting. The Spirits could die? She hadn't truly believed it until she'd seen what DEM was really capable of; before that she'd assumed all Wizards were bumbling amateurs like the ones in AST.
But the first casualty had been the youngest. The one none of them had expected. Killed by Mio before any of them even knew—
"Future?" The little cat turned the word over—a somewhat rare vocabulary item for her.
Shiori gently patted the back of Yimi's head. "Don't be scared. It'll be okay… You've probably already figured out that the First Spirit is Reine-san. Don't let her realize you know."
"Today, 'I' should be at a house covered in Virginia creeper, north side of the city outskirts. DEM will trigger a Spacequake alert and attack. Find 'me' there and tell her the First Spirit's true identity—then tell her to solve it the way we always do."
Shiori even pointed north to help with orientation. During the explanation, her form flickered again.
She'd materialized here because Origami had knocked her out and left her safely away from the battlefield.
Shiori's figure began to grow translucent—her time running out. She'd come back to this moment without having done a single thing, but at least… at least changing what happened to this child would be enough.
Feeling the world pull and push at her, Shiori rushed through everything she still needed to say:
"Don't let the First Spirit catch on. Have 'the other you' ask Kurumi for help. Mukuro is somewhere above the atmosphere. And Origami—"
She was gone.
"Origami?" Yimi stood blankly, counting on her fingers everything Shiori had just said.
What's a Virginia creeper?
Several tigers draped lazily across a rooftop materialized in her imagination.
Right on cue—as though confirming every word future-Shiori had spoken—the Spacequake alarm rolled out across the city. People enjoying a rare weekend sleep-in cursed under their breath and shuffled toward the shelters.
"Little one, did you get separated from your parents? I can take you—hey, wait—!"
One of Shiori's three chatty classmates spotted a motionless small child in the middle of the street, tried to do a good deed, and found herself neatly sidestepped.
Yimi furrowed her brow. Useless future-Shiori had dumped too much information at once; she couldn't possibly retain all of it. But the part about losing—that had come through loud and clear.
She couldn't understand it. She was strong now, stronger than she'd ever imagined being. Was the First Spirit even stronger than her?
But clever Kitty quickly arrived at the logical conclusion: the First Spirit looks like Grandma, so that's probably why she's strong.
Yimi pointed herself in the direction Shiori had indicated and launched into the air.
Bzzzt—
The evacuation window was short. Within moments, DEM had opened its assault against Fraxinus. Yimi, flying openly through the open sky in broad daylight, naturally registered as a target.
Bandersnatch—DEM's mass-produced autonomous combat units. Mass-produced meant foot-soldier tier, by definition, but the laser fire these machines put out could carve a respectable gap in any human building.
Yimi raised her hand. Dozens of floating funnels fanned out from her palm.
"Exterminating Angel."
Crisscrossing beams punched through the cloud layer, all but quartering the sky above Tengu City. Every Bandersnatch in sight dissolved to cinders. A Spirit Crystal purified countless times over was now operating at a level that should have required Inverse-mode to reach.
"Damn her—" Origami's back molars were close to cracking.
She wasn't blind. Those cat ears belonged to exactly one person.
She had given explicit instructions, again and again. Was that cat deaf?
"My, my. You've already noticed, have you? Good thing little Shiori warned me—or you might have stabbed me in the back." A familiar voice—warm, unhurried—appeared beside Yimi's ear.
Or not quite beside it, actually.
Love Train blazed passively, deflecting incoming misfortune away from Yimi.
As a side effect: the captain of a nearby DEM squad, Jessica, dropped dead with a fatal wound through the chest less than a kilometer away—struck down before she could even launch her attack.
This hadn't come from anything external striking Yimi. The truth was far more unsettling: a figure had been ejected from inside Yimi's body.
"Oh, that was dangerous. You really are something. I thought I had a bit more time to sleep…"
Phantom.
The one who had given Yimi the First Sephira Crystal to begin with. More precisely—she had been hiding inside that crystal all along.
"Was it a mistake, I wonder? I thought letting Shiori seal you would be enough…"
A Holy Corpse was not something that a few sealed, degraded Sephira Crystals could ever substitute for. Someone had simply taken those crystals as a convenient power bank to help digest it.
"Pure white…" From a distance, Origami narrowed her eyes against the light that compelled calm in all who faced it. "Is that the First Spirit?"
"Where did you come from?" Yimi looked down at her own body.
Her clothes were gone. The only thing covering her now was the radiance of Love Train—and along with her clothes, the Exterminating Angel she had just unleashed at full power for the very first time.
That was gone too, of course. Because the First Sephira Crystal was now held in Phantom's hand.
Phantom's voice stayed warm: "Such a disobedient daughter. You've gone beyond my predictions. I thought you'd only interfere with my plans a little—I didn't expect you'd go far enough to find something you were never meant to see."
"But it's not time yet. That child still hasn't absorbed all the Spirit power. I have to stay with her to guide the process."
"Who are you?" The little cat leveled her scarlet lance at Phantom.
Unlike before, Yimi could see straight through the pixelated distortion to the face underneath—a face like a younger version of Fake-Grandma, yet sharing nothing with Real Grandma.
"Well…" Phantom beckoned, and a second figure answered the call. It wore Reine's face; Yimi recognized it instantly.
The two reached out, hands crossing, foreheads touching—and merged into one.
This was the First Spirit, complete.