Inori Yuzuriha's Singer's Sword knocked Keido's weapon aside without effort and plunged straight through his body.
Keido really was as full of openings as he looked. Even the image from Epitaph showed the same inevitable result: her blade piercing him through. Epitaph's visions were facts that would come to pass no matter what. Her invincible King Crimson was marching toward victory.
I win. My sword was faster by a heartbeat.
"It's over, Keido!"
Silver going in, red coming out.
No surprises. He was still just an ordinary human. That single thrust was enough to kill him.
"...Heh."
But then Keido's face twisted into a vicious grin.
A chill lanced through Inori. She had won, and yet there was no triumph in it. She knew, in that instant, that she had walked into his trap. Keido had let her kill him on purpose. But what was his game? What was the trap?
"Just as I predicted. Someone as ruthless as you would kill me without hesitation."
Blood trickled from the corner of Keido's mouth. He was barely clinging to life. But this way, his purpose was fulfilled.
Inori... this is bad! It's that woman... she's entered our body!
What?
Inori yanked the sword free, but it was too late.
The Singer's Sword, Mana's Void, had lost its pristine silver-white. The bloodstains from a moment ago were gone too. In their place was the dark, bruised purple of viral corruption. Worse, the blade's shape was swelling grotesquely, great slabs of purple crystal erupting across its once-elegant curves. The sword was contaminated beyond salvage.
Nngh...!
Mana let out a pained whimper. This sword was her Void, her very soul. Its corruption meant her spirit was being invaded. And Mana had just said "that woman" had entered their body. The only being Mana feared that deeply was the Eve of ten years ago. Which meant Keido's plan was...
Inori's vision blurred. She stumbled, nearly falling.
Her body turned to lead in an instant, as if someone had dropped a boulder across her shoulders. She fought for air, forced herself to breathe deep and hold her focus, but her sight kept swimming between clarity and fog. She looked down at her arms. Clusters of purple crystal had already begun to sprout from her skin.
Every tiny movement produced a crisp clink of crystal against crystal.
She knew what she must look like right now. The same as the original Inori in the canon ending, body consumed by crystal, even the memories of her own identity erased by Eve, vision blurring until blindness took everything. Her existence would be overwritten. She would become the new Eve.
So that's how it is.
Give Keido credit. The man had spent over a decade studying the Apocalypse and the nature of Voids. He was never going to be easy to deal with.
He knew he couldn't stop her. So he had built this trap for her to walk into, hiding Eve within his own body and letting the infection transfer through the killing blow. He would die for it, yes, but as long as Eve's resurrection succeeded, his life's ambition would be complete. He could die content.
"So the vision up there was just an illusion after all?"
Inori dragged her leaden body forward, but legs encased in crystal could no longer carry her properly. She raised her head toward the top of the staircase. There was no staircase. No throne. Eve and Gai Tsutsugami sitting before it had all been a prepared illusion, bait designed to lure her in. Now that their scheme had succeeded and Eve had entered her body, the disguise had no further reason to exist.
Mana, are you still there?
Inori knew she had been outplayed this time.
But she didn't stop thinking. She kept talking to Mana, and meanwhile, slowly, her hand crept into her coat pocket.
Heh heh heh... hahahahaha!
The voice was still Mana's, but the tone and atmosphere had changed completely. This was the soul that had been born when the virus entered Mana years ago, copying her memories and personality. After Mana's psychological defenses were shattered by her own brother calling her a "monster," Eve had triggered Lost Christmas. If not for the efforts of the first False King, Scrooge, she might have turned all of humanity into crystalline lifeforms right then and there.
Give up your resistance, you pathetic freak!
The voice mocked her without mercy.
Your purpose was always to be used by me. A manufactured monster like you, did you really think you could win?
Inori's eyes burned with pain. She knew blindness was close. Her consciousness was fading, and even maintaining this internal conversation was becoming impossible. Eve's invasion was far more severe than she had anticipated. The ending seemed fixed: Inori Yuzuriha would be consumed, body and soul. Her identity, her personality, sealed in eternal crystal, never to be free again.
Was fate truly that absolute?
But I, Inori, am not a slave to fate!
"King... Crimson."
Inori clenched her jaw and forced her crystal-laden body into motion.
Meaningless resistance. You exist only so that I may descend into the world. Why can't you understand something so simple?
Even if you have a Void that controls time, what of it? Your body and mind are almost gone. What can you possibly do in this state?
She knew time was running out. King Crimson and Epitaph could alter reality, but they couldn't reach the soul inhabiting her body. And yet she hadn't given up. She remembered one thing: the object in her pocket. It was the lifeline she had saved for last, the key to breaking her own fate.
"Inori! Hold on! I'll save you right now!"
Shu Ouma didn't understand what had happened. Inori had been fine one moment and then the Apocalypse Virus was eating her alive, crystals encasing her from head to toe. Compared to this, the patch on his own face was nothing.
He didn't know what kind of trap the enemy had sprung. But his Void could absorb the crystallization from others. Shu gritted his teeth, raised the hand bearing his gloved Void, and seized the girl's crystal-coated arm.
A warm light flooded through the body. Inori felt the crushing weight and suffocation vanish all at once. Her mind cleared. Her vision returned in full. But the boy who had taken that agony in her place was screaming.
"Shu... stop. You'll die! Don't do this. I have a way to deal with her!"
Inori knew exactly what awaited Shu if he continued. She barked at him to stop.
"Don't. It's fine, Inori. This is my choice."
Shu clenched his jaw against the searing pain. The ominous crystals began to spread wildly across his body, covering him inch by inch. The King's Void, with its power to absorb and embrace all things, could even rip Eve out of Inori's body by sheer force.
You little bastard—!
Eve felt the danger. She was being separated from Inori by Shu's Void. She could torment Inori and Mana at will, but against an external force like this, she had no defense.
The boy heard many voices. He saw many images. Memories belonging to Eve, to Inori, to Mana. How Eve had invaded his sister all those years ago. How Inori and Mana had gone from enemies to allies. It all played through his mind like a lantern show, and though he saw it all, he said nothing. He simply focused every last scrap of his willpower on one thing.
He would pull every trace of the virus inside Inori into himself.