Geno's body suddenly swelled in size, but the sudden change didn't seem to concern Black Veil Marionette much. Her body flickered all over, as if half-turned to garbled code, and Geno's strike passed clean through empty air.
Confused, Geno turned his head — just in time to see the flicker across Odile's body vanish, right before she kicked out at him.
But to Geno now, Odile's attack barely registered.
The thick-skinned Dead End Butcher wasn't about to flinch at some toothpick of an attack.
"Tickling me, are you? Eat this!"
Geno's fist came crashing down, but she dodged it with the same trick as before — clearly the move cost Odile very little. Maintaining his Dead End Butcher form, on the other hand, cost Geno plenty.
"How am I supposed to hit this thing?"
Geno was thoroughly irritated. That feeling of not being able to land a hit, not even able to touch her, while she couldn't beat him either — it was maddening.
It was as annoying as getting stuck fighting some gimmick-mechanic boss down in the Abyss.
Just as Geno was wondering whether to try something else, Twiggy's figure suddenly appeared.
She swung her blade in a single stroke, aiming to cut clean through Odile's waist — but Odile dodged it with Dephase.
Then, countering Odile's retaliation, Twiggy dodged nimbly and landed on Geno's shoulder.
"I found a way."
"Really? Tell me, quick."
Hearing that Twiggy had found a solution, Geno's eyes lit up. He leaned his head in, eager to hear the details.
"Just keep attacking. That's all you need to do."
With that, Twiggy leaped down. Geno had no idea what she meant, but he followed her instructions anyway.
After all, a fighter ought to act like a fighter — with a living strategist of his own on the team, why bother racking his brains?
He spread his huge hands wide and threw himself at Odile in an unending assault.
Seeing this, Odile used Dephase again — but the instant she dodged Geno's attack, she caught sight of Twiggy's saber swinging in.
Clang!
Saber met leg-spike — the first real contact between them since Odile had entered her second phase.
"Just as I thought — no ability is invincible."
From the earlier exchanges, Twiggy had already noticed: every time garbled code flickered across Odile's body as she entered Dephase, she couldn't attack — and Dephase seemed to have a cooldown besides.
It was brief, but brief enough for Twiggy to seize the opening and strike.
And Odile's counterattack just now had confirmed Twiggy's theory.
"Geno! Attack faster — more often!"
"Got it!" Geno called back, then shifted into his Feeding Stance, four arms flailing in a frenzy. In this state his attacks came faster, his strength grew, his speed increased.
Of course, the cost was steeper too.
With his attacks coming even faster, Odile's room to dodge kept shrinking, forcing her to lean more and more on Dephase — and every time Dephase ended, Twiggy was right there to punish the gap.
Odile was now trapped in a vicious cycle: use Dephase and get punished for the opening, or don't use it and get pummeled outright.
Knowing this would only grind her down to a slow death, Odile made a bold decision.
She chose to meet Twiggy's assault head-on, determined to settle things with the white-haired girl once and for all.
Geno threw another punch. Odile went for Dephase again, garbled code lighting up across her body — but the instant Twiggy appeared right in front of her, the flickering code abruptly vanished.
With a wet, piercing sound, Odile's leg-spike drove deep into Twiggy's body — and in the same breath, Geno's fist sent her flying.
Trailing gusts of wind from the blow, Odile's body slammed hard into the wall.
"Twiggy! Are you all right?"
"I'm fine. It didn't hit anything vital."
Twiggy pressed a hand to her chest, brow furrowed. A moment later, and the spike would have struck her core dead-on.
She lowered the hand covering her chest, and what lay beneath was revealed to Geno.
A core, twisted and dark as a black hole, pulsed within Twiggy's chest — just like the cores carried by every Ethereal.
"That's... don't tell me you've already—"
"That's right. I'm an Ethereal now too."
Ever since the last incident, Twiggy's body had been stuck in the same half-formed state as Grace's — caught somewhere between human and Ethereal.
But now, however you looked at it, Twiggy had become a fully-realized Ethereal.
"Is it the ring?"
"Partly — but not entirely. I'll tell you the details once this is over."
Twiggy shook her head. The ring, really, was only a trigger. The heavy Ether Corruption it caused had deepened her transformation, but the root cause was that she'd chosen Etherealization herself.
With only the strength she'd had before, she'd have fallen behind Geno sooner or later — and she refused to spend her whole life trailing after him, a doll he had to protect.
This was the conviction Twiggy had held onto from the very start — otherwise she'd never have chosen such an extreme cure for her own genetic defect.
Twiggy had no regrets. But Geno, looking at her now — fully, irreversibly turned Ethereal — felt something tangle inside him.
Part worry, part a sliver of secret gladness.
Yes, gladness. He should have felt only sorrow that Twiggy had become an Ethereal, but deep down, Geno couldn't suppress a flicker of quiet relief.
As a rational, self-aware Ethereal living among humans, he was, in the end, still different from everyone else.
An Ethereal was an Ethereal — once one, always one, for life.
Even though he thought of himself as human, there were the nights he couldn't sleep, the pain that hit whenever he took off his wristband, the thrill that ran through his body the moment he stepped into a Hollow.
At those times, a deep sense of inferiority welled up in Geno — the gnawing awareness that he wasn't the same kind of being as the person he cared for, and it tormented him.
That was why, hearing that Twiggy had also become a rational Ethereal, he'd felt that secret gladness.
But hard on its heels came a wave of self-loathing for even having such a thought.
"Geno? What are you spacing out for — the fight isn't over yet."
Twiggy's voice cut through suddenly, snapping Geno's wandering thoughts back to reality.
He shook his head, tossed the trivial thoughts aside, and refocused fully on the fight.
Odile, sent flying by Geno's punch, had only just struggled back to her feet. Judging by her battered, half-shattered body, the price she'd paid was steep indeed.
"Ooohhh—"
Suddenly Odile let out a piercing shriek, loud enough that Geno and Twiggy instinctively clapped their hands over their ears.
At the same moment, rustling noises began drifting in from outside the room — the sound of Ethereals drawn in by the commotion.
"Can't win, so you call for backup? Ganging up 'cause we're outnumbered, huh?"
He said it lightly, but Geno wasn't actually too worried — no matter how many small fry showed up, they were still just small fry.
____
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