Chapter 21: Chapter 20

"Haha, Kotori's reactions were great!" I chuckle as I walk through an alley, during the time we had breakfast I ran several tests with perception alteration on Kotori.

A lower level of sensitivity was added, which showed a subtle effect. Anyway, Kotori's Sephira analysis was...useless, I didn't even find it, really.

I don't know if I couldn't find it because Kotori isn't using her Spirit powers or if it's because her powers have already been sealed by Shiori.

But not all is lost after all, now I know where Mukuro is, so I just need to analyze her Sephira.

I activate my Astral Dress and fly up until I exit all the layers of the Earth and reach space, the view up here is beautiful but it's not what I'm looking for. I start flying over the planet while searching for the location.

Then I see a girl floating in space, she seems to be sleeping.

"Bingo" Now that I've found Mukuro, I activate a large barrier in the area along with my territory.

Then the girl moves, Mukuro must be one of the characters with the greatest ability to sense Reiryoku, so she noticed the barrier I made almost instantly.

"..." She stares at me but doesn't say anything.

After a few seconds of staring at me, she activates her Angel.

"Not even a conversation, how cold"

"Nathaniel" I activate my Angel to begin our "date".

She makes the first move.

"Jerez" She says and uses the key on the barrier, making it disappear.

"Tsk" However, my territory is active, so it's not a big problem.

I launch an energy cut at her, which she responds to with a type of energy shot that comes out of the tip of the key.

I keep launching cut after cut, she starts to be pressured by not being able to keep up.

"...Shifuru" She activates her "true potential" now the key has become a Halberd while her Astral Dress turned red and black.

"Lataib" I notice that she doesn't speak much, but that was to be expected from someone who has sealed their emotions.

Holes appear in space, with meteorites coming out of them, I don't know where she pulls them from and I'm not curious to find out.

"You really plan to kill me without a conversation first..." I say, transforming all the meteorites into dust with an energy shot similar to hers, as it's just a Reiryoku shot, it's no different from the normal cuts I make.

I feel danger and dodge to the side, I look at my hand, which now has a strange feeling, and see it slowly disintegrating.

I see her halberd behind me, only the tip is out, passing through a hole in space. My high level of Reiryoku makes the disintegration difficult, but at this rate, it will only grow.

At least this means that killing me is not so easy, even with an ability that breaks down the molecular bonds, I wonder if with this Mukuro could create nuclear fissions.

"Very clever, very clever" It was with this attack that she tried to kill the inverted Tohka, if I'm not mistaken, as her attack pierced the armor, it ended up hitting my arm.

It was stronger than I expected, after all, my armor is extremely resistant, and she broke it effortlessly, I think "broke" is the wrong word, she probably unraveled the armor.

I start using Reversal on the arm to restore what is being disintegrated while using Perception Shift to accelerate my thinking so that I can understand this ability more quickly. After a few hours in my mind, while in reality it was only seconds, I complete the analysis.

The weight this puts on my mind is terrible, but nothing that will affect me much in this battle.

I use Reversal on her ability, so my body stops disintegrating.

"How..." She seems surprised, of course, after all, I just thwarted the attack of her Angel, which should have separated my molecules.

I reinforce my body with Reiryoku while using Reversal on the energy of Nathaniel's blade, now instead of a cut when my Angel clashes with the Michael that is now Miguel since she has transformed, the energy explodes.

BOOOOMMM

"Ahhrg" She is thrown back by the explosion. I fly close to her and cut, she dodges just barely, losing only the arm.

"..." She seems indifferent to the fact, I wonder how she would react if her emotions weren't sealed. I notice tears on her face, a natural reaction of the body since her eyes are still impassive.

She grabs her severed arm, holds it in place, and uses Miguel.

"Segva" She uses Segva on herself to seal her injury and reattach the arm, as the cut made by Nathaniel was perfect, there was no problem.

"I understand, I didn't think you could seal your arm back in the same place" She never did this in the anime, so it's a surprise. It seems perfect, but if her arm had been deformed, it wouldn't have been possible to do this.

"You're very annoying...Lataib" She uses Lataib. When the holes in space start to form, I use Reversal to force the open space to close. Each hole begins to disappear before she can use them.

"!!!" She seems surprised by the portals that have just disappeared, now that I have a good analysis of the space, I can easily close these openings by reversing them, maybe I can even open them.

I incorporate this knowledge into the territory to automate it, now any new openings created will be automatically reversed.

"Lataib" She tries again, but fails.

"Lataib, Lataib, Lataib..." She keeps trying, but each new hole is closed almost instantly, rendering that ability useless.

She gives up and advances towards me, I block her Angel with a cut, she turns the halberd downward, backs up slightly, and advances, trying to pierce my heart.

I hold the blade of Miguel while moving Nathaniel in a horizontal cut, she dodges, and tries to pull Miguel, but I'm physically stronger than her, so the halberd doesn't move.

Suddenly the Angel disappears, and she retreats, making it reappear.

"...Segva" She uses Segva on my territory, sealing it.

"Good move, Mukuro" She doesn't seem to care about my compliment or the fact that I know her name.

I use Reversal on the sealed territory, restoring it to normal.

"It's a shame it won't do you much good" Fortunately, her sealing ability is simple, so I've already analyzed it, even though little time has passed.

"..." She starts to fly away.

"Gonna run away?" Since she has her emotions sealed, she's choosing the most rational way possible, so she must have judged that she can't win since most of her abilities have been proven useless.

I start chasing her through space, after a few seconds I catch up.

"You won't get away that easily..Urk" I feel a piercing pain in my heart, I look down and see a halberd piercing it, blood flows from the hole as my body slowly disintegrates.

I cough up blood, the taste of iron makes me uncomfortable as speaking becomes difficult. The blade of her halberd is large, so the hole in my chest is not small.

I look back and see a small portal.

"...How?" I look around and realize that we are outside my territory, but it should have followed me.

'Why is my territory stopped...' I think and find the answer, Mukuro sealed not only the territory but the entire space around it, I only reversed the territory, but the space still kept it trapped in place.

"HAHAHA what a move" For someone so emotional in the anime, I never expected a move like this, I should have taken this emotionless Mukuro more into consideration.

I move forward, removing the halberd while using Reversal to heal myself, fortunately she aimed at the heart, if it had been the head, I could have died.

"...Tsk" She looks at me and clicks her tongue, as if something she wanted didn't go as planned.

"YOU..." The anger at almost having died from something so stupid makes me want to tear her to pieces.

But once is enough, I move away from her to recover, deactivate and reactivate the territory around me.

She started flying around, looking for a chance to attack.

"Segva, Lataib" She seals the space, then opens it, allowing her to generate the attack, the halberd passes through the portal, aiming for my head, but I grab the halberd and pull it with all my strength.

Mukuro, who didn't expect it, ended up losing the halberd through the hole, without wasting time I grab it with force and throw it at her. She is surprised but quickly reacts, dodging.

"BELIAL"

I activate my Demon King for the first time, Nathaniel, which is in my hand, begins to disappear, and Belial appears in its place.

A dark aura surrounds me for a few moments before joining the blade of Belial, my Demon King seems similar to Nathaniel in terms of form, but its colors are black with dark purple, some light purple details, and 3 black and purple inverted crosses are engraved on the blade.

I quickly gain knowledge of what Belial can do, the ability to cause illusions that affect the target's 5 senses, basically an illusion indistinguishable from reality.

Mukuro trembles slightly with an instinctive reaction to Belial.

"This...what is this?" Mukuro asks, not understanding what happened to my Angel.

Although I already had almost everything I needed to use Belial, I didn't want to reveal it yet, but I can't let the fact that this girl almost killed me go unpunished.

I quickly move forward, she goes on guard, but in a single instant I disappear from her sight and appear on her left. Belial gave me a buff in all aspects.

"What, Arhg" I punch her in the face on the left, throwing her several kilometers through space.

I quickly approach and strike her stomach, pushing her even further away. When we get close to the moon, it's further than I expected.

I appear near her and strike again, pushing her to the ground of the moon.

"kuhh coff" she coughs up blood, while tears cover her face, but she doesn't show any emotion, only physical reactions to the pain she's feeling.

Blood flows from her nose, due to the gravity of the moon, the blood floats through space, forming blood particles around her.

Now that I've touched her, she's marked, and I can use Belial's ability on her.

"Let's see if your mind can handle my illusions" I use Reversal on her emotion seal, disabling it. She falls to the ground when I put her in multiple illusions. She first starts crying, then apologizing, tries to run away, and falls face-first to the ground.

"HAHAHAHA" she seems desperate, I'm making her see all kinds of things, from monsters to people she loved showing contempt, hatred, and disgust for her.

"ahhhh, hick please forgive me, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry sniff" She's crying on the ground, apologizing to nothing.

Seeing this scene, a smile appears on my face.

I decide to play with her a little more, activate more illusions related to her family, her feelings going from a mixture of sadness and pain to anger and hatred towards her family.

I place myself as her savior in the illusion, I'm not very sure about the construction of what she's seeing, since instead of doing something detailed, I decided to just specify a few things and let it roll.

"Aurélio-kun...please save me" I don't have much certainty about the content, but I hear her asking me for help, so I think the illusion is working perfectly.

For 2 hours I keep her in these illusions while analyzing her Sephira, during this time I obtained incredible results.

Somehow the Sephira is linked to the souls of the Spirits, theoretically I could keep the soul of a dead Spirit on Earth as long as I did something to trap it.

"...It's not a bad idea..." Mukuro, who is immersed in the illusions, won't see anything anyway.

"Aurélio-kun, I'll do anything...please don't abandon me" Mukuro says crying, she said a lot of things in the last 2 hours, but it was so much nonsense that I'm not sure what to say.

Interestingly, Mukuro didn't invert, even after all this time, but I don't know the reason, after all, she was exposed to extreme negative emotions for a long time.

I create a barrier and use Reversal to forcibly suspend her state, so the barrier doesn't deactivate even if I don't give it more energy, I place Mukuro inside the barrier.

"Well, Mukuro, I'll pull you out of this nightmare" I say to her, I notice a calm smile on her face, as if she had heard me, I hold Belial firmly and move it from top to bottom, decapitating Mukuro.

"It was easier than I expected...or more difficult since I almost died" I see the life disappear from Mukuro's body, but the barrier begins to glow and her Sephira crystal begins to emit a black glow.

"I guess it worked...maybe?" I'm not sure, I decide to restore Mukuro's body, even if it's now a corpse, I'll keep it stored in the basement for studies, of course it will remain inside this barrier, so it won't decompose, and since the barrier has Mukuro's soul, it may be interesting to see how the body reacts.

I use Reversal in space to do something similar to Mukuro, but instead of teleportation, it's more like inverting 100 to 0, so the distance from point A to B is 0, and it's as if I took a step and I'm in the basement.

So it can't be called teleportation, I send the barrier with Mukuro's body to the basement, even if I'm not close, the barrier won't dissipate, after all, the Reversal works passively.

"It's a shame...Mukuro is beautiful" I could have made her a possible ally, but it's no problem, I got a lot of useful things.

"Cough" I cough up the rest of the blood from the injury Mukuro inflicted, even though I've restored it, it doesn't mean there are no problems.

"I guess there was still some blood in my lungs..." Even when I restore a part, what was lost doesn't go away unless I make it disappear, so if I lose a limb and restore it, the lost limb still remains on the ground.

But I can convert the lost parts into Reiryoku, I do this with the blood in my lungs and it turns into energy.

"Much better, it was more uncomfortable than I expected."

I start flying back to Earth again, after a few minutes of flight, I arrive at the city of Tengu, I land on top of a building and lean against the wall, hiding in a shadow, sitting on the ground.

"What fatigue..." Using Belial for the first time and for so long put a greater burden on me than I expected.

I hear a sound.

"WHO'S THERE, COME OUT!" I'm not very happy to have a guest at the moment, so I shout for them to come out.

"H-hey I-I didn't come to cause trouble..." I look at who appears in front of me, a girl with long blue hair, brown eyes, and casual clothes.

'Shiori' I think of the person standing in front of me, 'Ah yes...I'm a Spirit, of course Shiori would try to seal me...HAHAHA' Sealing me is one of the most ridiculous things I've ever seen.

"Who are you?" Since it's not possible for me to know her, I start asking.