"You're here, huh—another me?"
Seeing Tohka in front of her, Demon King Tohka lazily greeted her. But this time, Inverse Tohka didn't seem inclined to fight—after all, they weren't mortal enemies.
"What were you doing earlier? Why didn't you just explain everything to me? You made us end up fighting in the sky for no reason—what a mess."
Realizing the two of them had probably misunderstood each other, Tohka also had no interest in fighting here. Besides, this was her own mental world—who knew if fighting here might scramble her brain.
"Hey, who told you to show up blocking my way without saying anything? Why wouldn't I attack you? Was I supposed to just let you chase me around?" Hearing Tohka's complaint, Inverse Tohka answered without a shred of guilt.
"Hey hey—so just because I was in your way, you fought me?" Hearing that, Tohka was speechless. Wasn't this person a little too domineering? What was her brain made of—muscle?
"By the way, why did you drag the Space Stone in here? Don't forget the Tesseract contains tremendous energy—if you set it off, half of America might end up blasted into the sky."
Not wanting to dwell on it anymore—since she hadn't really lost anything—and considering neither of them had used lethal force during the fight, Tohka wasn't actually hurt: "Also, why did you seem so weak? I remember during that Apocalypse incident; your attacks were way stronger than mine."
"Hmph—you have the nerve to say that?"
Hearing Tohka's words, Inverse Tohka's forehead popped with veins: "If you hadn't been jumping around like crazy and accidentally triggered the Kaballah Tree of Life, then forcibly split me out of your body—I was just an energy form then, of course I'd be a lot weaker. And if you'd cooperated even a little, all those things flying around would've been dealt with long ago."
"Ah, is that so… Well, it's not like I did it on purpose, ahahaha." Hearing that, Tohka gave an awkward laugh. She'd mainly been worried about Miku Izayoi's safety.
And now that she heard this voice, she remembered that the one who'd helped her deal with Miku Izayoi that night had been Inverse Tohka. So theoretically, she couldn't be planning to hurt Miku Izayoi.
"Hmph, forget it—anyway, my goal has already been achieved." Looking at Tohka with a sigh, Inverse Tohka decided not to argue further. She couldn't exactly pin Tohka down and beat her—never mind whether she could even manage it, they were still sharing the same body. She wasn't some masochist.
"Hmph, do you see this Tree of Life?" But since Tohka had asked, Inverse Tohka decided to explain her plan. After all, if she wanted to do anything, she'd need Tohka's cooperation.
"Yeah, what exactly is this thing for? It's been sitting in my consciousness all this time, and I never felt anything from it." Hearing that, Tohka looked genuinely innocent—she really had no clue what it was for, though it certainly sounded impressive.
"This…well, I'm not really sure either." Hearing Tohka's question, Inverse Tohka replied righteously.
"Uh…" Well, that left Tohka momentarily speechless.
"But as a spirit crystallization, I have a special connection to the Kaballah Tree of Life itself. So, I do know how to further unlock the power of this World Tree—but to do that, you can't do without the Space Stone." Even if she didn't know exactly what it could do, Inverse Tohka still explained.
"Mm, so how do you unlock the Tree of Life?" Hearing that, Tohka was intrigued. She really wanted to know how to use this thing—after all, having something that looked like a cheat but couldn't be used was frustrating.
"At present, the World Tree has a total of ten nodes. You've already activated the tenth. But the other nine also need to be unsealed by you. As for what will happen once they're all unsealed, I don't know—but I imagine when that day comes, you'll become a truly powerful being."
"Mm…and how do you unseal them?" Tohka asked excitedly, but after a moment she seemed to recall something and looked hesitant: "Don't tell me you want me to go seal spirits? Isn't that kind of…"
At that moment, Tohka recalled what Shido Itsuka did in the original story, and she felt a little frantic.
"Mm, no need to do that." Giving Tohka's strange expression an odd look, Inverse Tohka had no idea what she was thinking. After all, their memories weren't shared: "What you're talking about—sealing spirit power—would likely impact the spirits' own crystallizations.
Unless those spirits were out of their minds, they'd never agree. It would drastically weaken them. These nodes already exist—you just need each spirit to pour a large amount of their energy into breaking them open. Though it takes a lot, they'll recover before too long."
"Uh, okay…" Hearing that, Tohka first let out a sigh of relief. She really didn't have the same mindset as Shido Itsuka to build a massive harem.
But for some reason, she still felt a tiny bit disappointed. Even so, she was a little speechless at Inverse Tohka's words—it really did sound like those spirits might actually agree to this.
"So, to find those spirits, the Space Stone is absolutely necessary." Though their memories weren't shared, she still retained fragments of Tohka's thoughts.
"Fine, I get it. But do you know how to use this gem? Just look at Loki—he clearly didn't know what he was doing." Tohka wasn't making this up—probably only Thanos truly understood the Infinity Stones. Everyone else was just crudely tapping their power. She didn't believe that simply using it at a basic level could let someone jump to another world.
"That…will require experimentation. But you don't need to worry—since we have the Kaballah Tree of Life, nothing bad will happen to you. All right, time's up—you should leave for now. Once I've tested things out, I'll find you. Thanks to you activating this thing, at least now we can communicate." Seeing that Tohka still wanted to say something, Inverse Tohka simply issued her eviction notice.
"Hey, hey—you…"