"Hello? Brother, are you there?"
No response.
The heavy coffin remained silent, Kira's voice echoing hollowly through the vast, empty hall. The silence was stifling, broken only by the rhythmic drumming of rain against the window panes.
Kira glanced at his watch: 7:20 PM.
He calculated the time mentally. Almost there, he thought. The seeds had been planted long ago; it was time to harvest.
He placed his hand on the heavy lid. Killer Queen mirrored the movement.
Click. The sound of the detonator.
The lid didn't just break; it dissolved like snow under high noon. The thick, aged wood disintegrated into splinters, then into molecules, then into invisible ash.
The interior was empty—just as Kira expected.
Well, almost empty. A single corpse lay at the bottom. The eyes were wide, the skin not yet pale; death had been recent. Strangely, there were no wounds, no internal trauma. It looked as though the man had simply lost his soul.
Clutched in the corpse's palm was a finger—dark purple, gnarled, and ancient. One of the sources of the plague.
If Kira recalled correctly, this man was the one Hanami had referred to as "Tunzei."
"Quite the performance," Kira murmured.
BOOM—
Sheer Heart Attack was still rampaging across Hanami's body. Everywhere the little tank treaded, skin shattered and fire seeped into bone. Hanami struggled to shake off the sub-Stand, but it was futile.
He was a walking pyre, yet he refused to die. His mind was fixed on Kira Nanami. He finally understood: Kira was already inside the hall!
I cannot let him reach it... I cannot let it end like this... He chanted the words like a mantra, forcing his broken torso to move. He endured the mechanical tank's assault, crawling inch by inch toward the nightclub.
Nearby, Todo coughed up a mouthful of copper-tasting blood. Hanami's earlier strike had fractured both his forearms, and the shockwave had rattled his internal organs.
Wincing at the pain, he helped a slumped Mechamaru to his feet.
Mechamaru's eyes were still somewhat hollow, but the spiritual poison had receded enough for him to regain consciousness. He turned his neck stiffly, looking at Todo.
"Why did you save me?"
"What?" Todo blinked, dazed.
"Why did you swap with me back there?" Mechamaru's voice was a low rasp. "I'm just a Cursed Corpse. Even if I'm smashed to pieces, I can be repaired. It doesn't matter what happens to this shell."
"Why save me? You almost died. You shouldn't have..."
THWACK!
Todo slammed a fist into Mechamaru's metal chest.
"Bastard!" Todo roared. His face turned a deep, furious crimson, veins bulging in his neck. "A Cursed Corpse?! Is that what you think you are?!"
"You're a living, breathing human being!!"
"You're my friend! I don't have many friends! If I don't save you, who the hell am I supposed to save?!"
"Idiot!"
Mechamaru stared blankly at the enraged Todo. Todo's arms were broken, hanging uselessly from his shoulders; his face was covered in blood, and his breathing was ragged. Yet this man was screaming at him, bleeding for him, telling him he was human. Not a tool. A person.
"Jackass!" Todo punched the metal chest again. "Moron!"
Mechamaru didn't resist. He just listened to the words echoing in his mind. Am I a living person, too? I'm not just 'Mechamaru'... I'm a human?
Todo braced himself against the ground, slowly standing up. He extended a trembling, scarred hand toward Mechamaru to pull him up.
"Let's go. The fight isn't over. We still need you, you idiot."
Mechamaru looked at the hand—broad, thick, covered in scars, and drenched in rain.
He took it.
"I have to become a Sage... I cannot die yet... I must die at the right time... to become a Sage..."
Hanami crawled. The freezing rain lashed his mangled shoulders and his shattered spine. His body was losing heat.
Because his temperature had dropped so low, Sheer Heart Attack—which targeted the highest heat source—had finally rolled away, leaving him to die alone in the cold wind.
The distance to the nightclub, once a mere few steps, now felt like an ocean. He crawled like a moth toward a flame, knowing the fire would kill him but unable to turn away. He refused to die like a stray dog in a gutter. If he was to fall, he would fall with dignity.
"Hey. You're about to die, you know."
A soft voice drifted through the rain. A pair of wooden geta appeared in front of Hanami's eyes. A shadow fell over him, blocking the freezing downpour; an umbrella had been opened.
"You were tricked, you know. There was never a Cursed Spirit that could swallow the negative energy of all Kyoto."
In Hanami's peripheral vision, the newcomer knelt and pulled back his hood.
It was a man's face. His hair was perfectly groomed, save for a single long strand hanging over his left eye. He squinted slightly, offering a gentle, practiced smile.
"My name is Geto Suguru. Do you want me to save you?"
Under the umbrella, the man named Geto reached out a hand to the dying Special Grade.
Snap. Snap. Snap.
Kira Nanami leaned against the coffin, trimming his fingernails. One by one, the clippings were meticulously collected and placed into a glass jar.
One, two, three... ten.
He counted them twice. Satisfied that the set was complete, he tightened the lid of the jar, tucked it into his pocket, and wiped his hands. Should I do my toenails too while I'm at it? he debated internally.
This was the "masterpiece" that a battered, pale, and frantic Todo saw when he pushed open the doors:
Kira Nanami Sitting on a Coffin Trimming His Nails.jpg
"Oh, you're here. I've been waiting a while." Kira waved casually.
Why do you make saving the world sound like a casual game of mahjong? Todo thought, his face darkening. He looked at the serene Kira and asked, "Is the Curse dealt with?"
"There was no Curse."
Kira looked at his hands, not bothering to look up. "We were lied to."
He stood up and walked toward Todo.
"There was never a monster that could eat the despair of Kyoto. The villains weren't absorbing the negative energy... they were just inciting it. They wanted the chaos, but they never intended to harvest it."
"They put on a grand performance to fool everyone—not just the sorcerers, but the other Curse Users too. The rank-and-file probably died believing that coffin was full of power. Their sacrifices were useless. They died for a boss who gave them nothing."
"There is no second 'King of Curses.' This was a scam—a massive, world-class deception played on both sides."
"Impossible!" Todo snarled immediately, staring into Kira's eyes. "Then what was that pressure? That suffocating, terrifying majesty we felt earlier?!"
"Tell me, Todo. The Poin 'Tunzei'... what emotion does it govern?"
Silence. A long, heavy silence.
Finally, Mechamaru's mechanical voice trembled. "Fear?"
"We were poisoned. We've been poisoned from the very beginning. Even Hanami was poisoned by his own teammates. And the purpose was simple..."
"All of this—the grand stage, the bloody performance—it was all a smoke screen. The enemy has a different objective entirely."
Kira checked his watch. Time was up.
"Todo, remember that task I gave you in the car? Let's go. The real show is about to begin."