Chapter 72: The Unraveling

The pool of black ink, the supposed "memory," begins to glow.

It is not the cold, silver-white light of the web. It is not the furious, hungry red of the Assassin's eyes.

It is a golden light.

It is a warm, pure, defiant gold, pulsing up from the impossible depths of the black pool. It is a light of life. It is Mizuki.

The Spinner King sees it. His panic turns to fury.

IT LIVES.

He rears back, his humanoid torso contorted in rage. He raises two of his colossal, spear-like legs. He is going to impale the pool. He is going to destroy the memory and her with it.

"NO! YOU WILL NOT!" Kizawa roars.

He is no longer a statue of despair. He is a blur of motion. He charges the King, his twin blades a whisper of steel. He is not trying to kill it. He is a distraction. He is buying her time.

"FOR MIZUKI!" Hachiro bellows, his voice raw. He charges with Kizawa. His one good fist, wrapped in its green chi-splint, is cocked. He is a cannonball of pure, suicidal loyalty.

The King hisses, forced to divide his attention. He cannot strike the pool while these two insignificant, infuriating insects are attacking his legs. He lowers one leg to crush Kizawa.

Kizawa is a leaf on the wind. He is not there. He is already running up the other leg, his blades screeching uselessly against the alien chitin, drawing its gaze.

Hachiro slams his fist into the King's ankle. The impact is a deafening CRACK. The King's leg buckles, not from the damage, but from the searing pain of Hachiro's Miasma-chi. It BURNS him.

POISON! the King screeches in our minds.

While the three of them are locked in this impossible, lopsided battle, I am watching Erima.

She is not fighting. She is holding the rope. The rope that is still attached to Mizuki.

"Erima! PULL!" I scream.

"I AM TRYING!" she grunts from her perch. "It is not ink! It is thick like tar! She is stuck!"

The golden light in the pool intensifies. It pulses, faster and faster.

And Mizuki rises.

She emerges from the black pool in a single, glorious eruption of light and water.

She is not drowned. She is not broken.

She is reborn.

Her hair is a river of *pure, molten gold, streaked with silver lightning. Her eyes are burning white. Her kimono is gone, burned away, replaced by an armor of *pure, solidified Phoenix-flame.

She is not Mizuki anymore.

She is the Phoenix.

YOU. The King stops fighting. It stares at her in *absolute, cosmic terror.

Mizuki hovers in the air above the pool, her new power a sun in the Abyss. She looks at the King.

She raises her hand.

'First Flame', her dagger that is lost in the fall, materializes in her hand in a flash of golden light.

She opens her mouth. Her voice is not her own. It is a chorus of a *thousand, angry souls.

"I remember," she booms.

"The pool," I breathe, my mind finally understanding. "It is a memory. His memory. Of all the souls he has eaten."

She did not drown in ink.

She is baptized in the agony of his victims.

And they have lent her their power.

"You will NOT take ANYONE ELSE," she roars.

She points her dagger at the Spinner King.

"You are a bully. A parasite. A thief."

She closes her fist.

"And you are DONE."