"Looking for you? Explain to me what's going on."
Kotori frowned, not understanding, while Yuki smiled and began to explain.
"It's much easier to bring her to Fraxinus."
"No, I can't do that."
For Kotori, it was much simpler if Diva was now looking for Yuki. Yuki could just show up and bring her over, without the need for a fight or winning her over—Diva was already in the bag.
Kotori saw it this way, but unfortunately, this wasn't what Yuki wanted.
"Are you avoiding her?"
Yuki's refusal made Kotori realize something else: it seemed that Yuki didn't want to approach Diva.
At first, it was the same. He used dreams to get Diva interested in him, though Kotori didn't know what Diva dreamed of. She knew it wouldn't be easy.
Still, Yuki seemed unwilling to get close to Diva...
"....."
"What are you hiding?"
Yuki's silence only deepened Kotori's suspicions.
"Nothing, it's not the right time yet."
"What?! Seriously, you're not going to do anything? If Diva gets hurt, it's your fault!"
"..."
With the Castle in the Sky and the broken ocarina, Yuki didn't want to risk being in contact with Miku. He didn't know what would happen if they got together, and although he trusted his ability to stop the resonance, he wasn't sure if Lilith would awaken the Demon King.
"Hey! At least tell me the reason!"
"Yuki, where are you going?"
"Nushi-sama..."
"..."
Yuki no longer wanted to talk and walked out directly, followed by Mukuro and Tohka, leaving Kotori frustrated and the rest of the crew unsure of what to do. It was the first time Yuki had behaved this way.
"Hya~ Koto-chan, don't look at me like that, I don't know either."
Nia couldn't bear Kotori's gaze and dodged the bullet. She knew a little about what was happening with Yuki, but still, she wouldn't speak without Yuki present...
"Tsk! What's his emotional state?"
Since Nia wasn't reliable, Kotori had to figure out what was going on with Yuki another way, and one of those ways was the emotional state meter.
"It's stable now, but there was a change when Diva appeared..."
Reine, as an analyst, made a report on Yuki's condition and showed it to Kotori, who, upon seeing it, thought deeply...
(Is Yuki afraid of Diva, or is it something else? Is there a connection between them that I'm missing?)
Yuki is a very mysterious spirit. The fact that he's a man makes him unusual, and he shares certain similarities with Kurumi. At first, Kotori thought Yuki was Kurumi's counterpart and that they were both one spirit, which would also explain why they both had the same golden eye.
But she was wrong. Yuki wasn't simple, and the more she learned about him, the more mysterious he became in her eyes.
It seemed his connection with the spirits wasn't as straightforward as it appeared.
"Tsk!"
Annoyed, Kotori crossed her arms. Fortunately, Diva managed to escape from AST on the screen, and her data was also collected.
---
Of course, Yuki didn't worry about Miku anymore. His main priority at the moment was repairing the ocarina...
"Focus and follow my instructions."
"..."
As an Asura World Spirit, Eggy had a lot of knowledge and experience in matrices and rituals that could help with the ocarina. All she needed was Yuki's strength, as hers wasn't enough. She took Yuki's hands, they sat in the lotus position, and closed their eyes...
The ocarina floated between them, and its cracks glowed, slowly closing the gaps. However, the repair was very slow. As a cosmic-level weapon, fixing it wouldn't be easy...
(Requiem...)
Murmuring, Yuki remembered fragments of that damn game's story, as well as the weapon of the Void Hero and its origin—the creation of the Ultimate Weapon.
Requiem was originally a coffin. According to the background story of his character's avatar at the beginning of the game, the Void Hero lost his father in the war against the Abyss invasion. He was a young war hero who fought for his people. Creatures from the Abyss devoured his father, who protected their village, and his body was never found, leaving the Void Hero's mother with an empty coffin as a tribute to her dead husband.
The Void Hero was very kind and loved his family deeply. At a young age, he didn't want to see his mother suffer, so he took on all her pain. He carried the empty coffin and joined the war so that his small village wouldn't be attacked by the Abyss creatures, thus beginning his mission to save the world. And that's how Yuki started the game...
Carrying the coffin onto the battlefield, it eventually became his weapon. According to the game's story, it was believed that the Requiem gained consciousness through the war and bonded with the Void Hero as his armor. As the war progressed and the Void Hero's comrades fell, he gathered their weapons from the battlefield and placed them all in the coffin as a tribute to those who died for the world.
As the war went on, the Requiem grew stronger and stronger. Some even believed that the Void Hero's father's soul protected him as his beloved son, while others thought the coffin came to life thanks to the gods' blessing. But of course, that wasn't true.
The Void Hero's father's soul was devoured, and the gods still hadn't paid attention to the weak child carrying an enormous coffin on his back in the middle of the battlefield.
So what was the spark that gave life to the Requiem?
For Yuki, who was playing the game, it was still a mandatory event, while for the Void Hero, it was a life-or-death battle that involved the world's consciousness. The Mother of All had to fight, and the Void Hero used the coffin to protect her, which led the world itself to bless him and create a consciousness in the coffin as a gift for his bravery.
Later, the Holy Trinity Goddess blessed him. The 'Parallel' ability was created, and with the weapons in the coffin, the Void Hero was officially born...
A title fitting for his situation, as before he collected the soldiers' weapons, the child who joined the war carried an empty coffin.
His title didn't come from the void in his heart from death, but from the empty coffin he carried.
Every weapon inside the coffin became the nightmare of Abyss creatures, and the Ultimate Weapon reached its peak when the Hell Empress relinquished her throne, and the Void Hero led all the demons of Hell to fight for the world.
The story was very good—this was the reason Yuki became addicted to that damn game. All the scenes and battles were a marvel.
Of course, Yuki never thought for a moment that such a game was real, or that such an Ultimate Weapon existed.
And worse yet, that such a weapon would now give him a headache...
However, lamenting wouldn't help at all. Yuki knew that sooner or later, he had to face the coffin, and he definitely couldn't afford to lose.
So before it tries to devour him, he must become stronger and subdue this weapon. Therefore...
(Before it tries to regain its strength, I must bring the spirits to the Crown while preventing the Demon King from being unleashed.)
The coffin would try to devour him—he was very aware of this. In the last timeline, that version of Yuki had to sacrifice Mukuro to temporarily seal the Requiem.
But Yuki wouldn't make the same mistakes. Now, he knew what needed to be done.
There had to be a happy ending in this timeline, and for that to happen, the first spirit had to join him. Only then could the Requiem be stopped...
But before that, there was still work to be done. He didn't have enough strength yet, and there were still many empty thrones left.
----
TN: Interesting...