Inside Inori's inner world.
What is this? What have you done?!
The lofty will of Da'ath, Eve's consciousness in the form copied from Mana Ouma, cried out in a voice thick with disbelief.
She had expected this takeover to be simple, effortless. This woman was nothing but a manufactured vessel. By every right and reason, she had no grounds to resist.
But she had done exactly that. The forces that should have shattered Inori's existence with ease could no longer harm her at all. It was incomprehensible. This was not the kind of problem that Time Erasure alone could solve.
Mana felt it too. The flame of her consciousness, which had been guttering toward extinction, suddenly received a massive bundle of fresh kindling and roared back to life.
She awoke in the mindscape. What she saw was a strangely dressed Inori in an outfit that bordered on indecent, and opposite her, another version of herself in a purple-black gown, face stricken with shock. That was Eve, struck speechless by Inori's power.
"There are limits to what humans can do, Eve. In my brief life I've learned one lesson: the more you rely on scheming, the more cornered you become. You have to surpass being human."
...
"What are you talking about...?"
"I reject my humanity, Eve!"
The effect only lasted five seconds, but that was more than enough for Inori to settle everything. Those were five seconds in the real world; against an invader inside her own mind, she could spend an entire day talking and it would still amount to no more than the blink of an eye outside.
Inori's face showed not a trace of fear. The red-and-gold hem of her dress rippled in an invisible wind.
"No... impossible... you're... consuming me?"
Eve collapsed to the ground. The girl's form she had copied from Mana was already beginning to disintegrate.
No matter what corrosion Eve inflicted, it could no longer affect Inori's spirit. Even in the real world, Inori's body was now clad in that scandalously gorgeous goldfish-themed dress, and it was not a garment but Stand power, a force from the future shielding her flesh. The crystals could no longer infect her body in the slightest, because for these five seconds, Inori was no longer human.
"I am the executor chosen by the will of Da'ath for biological selection! No living thing can resist the Apocalypse's invasion!"
Eve watched her own body turning transparent. The tables had turned completely. The disposable vessel Inori, who should have been devoured and erased, was now consuming Eve instead.
"You do represent Da'ath, and you did inflict devastating erosion on me. But those crystals you're so proud of can never hurt me again. Pile on as much as you like. Even if you concentrated every last particle of Apocalypse Virus in the entire world on me alone, this body would simply absorb and dissolve it all."
"This is King Crimson: the Ever Crown. This is the future Inori, a monster beyond the reach of your pathetic crystal virus, a monster without a name."
"What incredible luck! If I hadn't fallen for your scheme and killed Shuichiro Keido, I never would have gotten this perfect chance to erase you for good!"
"I... why... how..."
Eve sank to her knees. Everything below her waist and from her arms down had already scattered into countless particles of light. Even her voice was breaking apart, the vocal cords failing, collapsing into something inhuman, like a bear with a shredded throat, like a bellows full of holes. Ugly, and nearly unintelligible.
Everything she had stolen from Mana Ouma, she would now spit back out.
"You're just a vessel that was manufactured! Stop putting on airs and let me eat you!"
From that half-dissolved body, now growing more transparent by the second, came a sound that would scrape the inside of anyone's eardrums raw.
"True supremacy lies within my power!"
"The sovereign is me, Inori. That has never changed!"
Inori strolled behind her at a leisurely pace, covered half her face with one hand, leaned down, and whispered the final sentence of execution into the ear of the woman who was about to vanish entirely.
"In the world where time has ceased to flow, sing your elegy."
Neck, face, and finally the eyes. Everything that had been Eve disintegrated without a trace. She probably couldn't comprehend, not even in her final second of consciousness, why the will of evolution and selection that could subjugate every living thing on the planet had no effect on Inori. But none of that mattered anymore.
Eve was immortal, because the will of Da'ath would never allow her to die. But she had now been completely absorbed and dissolved by a higher being, an ultimate lifeform beyond even Da'ath's comprehension. There was no possibility of a counterattack. Not ever again.
In that moment, Inori Yuzuriha, the vessel built solely to resurrect Mana, the artificial girl born destined to die, had at last conquered fate. She had rewritten her own ending. She alone was the one and only Ever Crown in this world. The first napkin was in her hand.
And then every crystal encasing her shattered. Inori opened her eyes, ready to greet a new future.
...
...
"Didn't expect you to be that kind of King Crimson~"
Inori looked down at her own body. Gorgeous as it was, the outfit was pretty embarrassing... Why would the future King Crimson evolve into an object-type Stand? But this was no time to worry about such things. What could possibly feel better than humbling a self-proclaimed god and rewriting your destiny?
"Inori...? No, that's impossible! Where is Eve?"
Gai Tsutsugami reflexively took a step back.
He stared at the red-dressed girl emerging from the stone cocoon like a newborn butterfly. That bearing, that aura she was radiating... there was no doubt this was Inori. But could this really be happening? Had she used some bizarre Void ability again? No, that was absolutely impossible. Inori was just a human. How could a mere Void have defeated Eve?
"I already ate her."
Inori smiled pleasantly, one fingertip pressed to her lips, the long trailing sleeves billowing like crimson flames. Something about this outfit was wrong, Gai could tell. Having watched Inori break free, he knew she wouldn't spare the man who had just tried to stab her in the back. But the fabric felt strange to him, almost... alive. It seemed to breathe, to flutter of its own will.
As though it were not clothing, but a second skin worn over her body.
"You find it hard to believe, Gai Tsutsugami?"
"It's the final result guided by a tremendous vortex of fate... What exactly did you do?"
"You're right. On the original trajectory, my existence would certainly have been discarded by Eve." Inori nodded, following his lead. "But the reason that both fate and God failed is the same. They made me angry."
"You... are you really from another world?"
Gai's throat quivered with difficulty. He suddenly recalled what the Grave Keeper had said to him before.
If that weren't the case, he truly couldn't think of any other explanation.
"Hmm, well~ that's possible too, you know. But do you really have time to worry about me right now? Because you're about to go to another world yourself~"
"...Ah. I know."
Gai showed no panic at her words. The moment he'd seen Inori, not Eve, emerge from that cocoon, he had already steeled himself. A woman who would silence anyone who learned her true identity... what reason would she have to spare him now?
I'm sorry, Mana. In the end, I couldn't save you after all.