In the cold, sterile basement of the Public Safety building, the air felt thin and metallic.
Behind a massive, reinforced glass partition sat the Phase Devil.
It was a shifting, geometric nightmare—a mass of translucent, overlapping planes that flickered in and out of existence, looking like a shattered mirror that refused to stay still.
"There it is,"
Makima said, her voice echoing in the hollow chamber.
"It doesn't have a physical heart to pierce, nor a throat to crush. It exists between the 'here' and the 'there.' If you truly wish to leave, you must find a way to make it move you."
Momo shivered, her psychic senses screaming.
"Okarun, this thing feels... wrong. It's like looking at a headache."
Okarun stepped forward. As he approached, his Turbo Devil form reacted violently.
The "Speed" within him wasn't just about moving fast anymore; it was about the momentum of existence.
His white hair began to vibrate so rapidly it blurred into a violet mist.
"It's not just phasing,"
Okarun whispered, his analytical mind firing at 100%.
"It's vibrating at a frequency that bypasses physical matter. If I can match that frequency..."
Okarun didn't wait for a plan. He vanished.
He didn't just run; he accelerated into the "in-between."
To Momo and Makima, it looked like Okarun simply smeared across the room like a glitch in a video game.
He bypassed the reinforced glass as if it were smoke and slammed into the center of the Phase Devil.
"Okarun!"
Momo yelled, reaching out with her psychic hands, but she couldn't grab him—he was no longer "there."
Inside the collision, Okarun felt his cells being pulled in a thousand directions.
The Phase Devil tried to scatter his atoms across different dimensions to kill him, but the Turbo Granny's curse—the sheer, stubborn will to keep moving—held him together.
Suddenly, a new sensation took over.
It was an insatiable hunger.
'I need this,'
Okarun thought.
'If I take this, I can take Ayase-san home.'
He opened his mouth and let out a sound that wasn't a scream, but a high-frequency roar.
The Turbo Devil's "exhaust" turned into a vacuum.
The geometric planes of the Phase Devil began to shatter and flow into Okarun's chest.
"He's... he's eating it?"
Momo gasped, her eyes wide.
The room began to shake. The Phase Devil shrieked—a sound like grinding metal—as its very essence was stripped away.
Okarun's body glowed with an intense, flickering light.
His sleek racing-suit skin cracked, revealing a shifting, starry void beneath.
With one final, thunderous crack of displaced air, the Phase Devil vanished completely.
Okarun stood in the center of the containment cell, panting.
His appearance had changed. His white hair now trailed off into translucent ribbons that flickered like static.
He looked down at his hands, which were slightly see-through.
"I have it,"
He rasped, his voice sounding like it was coming from everywhere at once.
"I can feel the coordinates. I can see the folds in the world."
"Okarun, you did it!"
Momo ran toward the glass, but she stopped when she saw his expression.
He looked overwhelmed.
"Ayase-san, grab my hand!"
Okarun shouted.
"I can't hold this frequency for long! I'm going to jump us back to the shrine!"
Momo didn't hesitate.
She leaped through the shattered glass, grabbing Okarun's hand just as a massive halo of geometric light erupted around them.
"Goodbye, Makima-san!"
Okarun yelled.
Makima watched with a faint, unreadable smile as the two teenagers imploded into a single point of light.
The basement went silent.
"We're almost there!"
Okarun shouted over the roaring wind of the void.
He could see the familiar gates of the spirit shrine in his mind.
He pushed his new Phase-Turbo engine to the limit, tearing through the barriers of reality.
But as they broke through the final "skin" of the universe, something felt heavy.
The energy wasn't light and ghostly like Kamigoe; it was thick, dark, and foul.
CRASH.
They tumbled out of a rift in the sky, slamming through the canopy of a lush, deep forest.
They tumbled across the dirt, Okarun's transformation fading as he hit the ground, his body smoking from the heat of the jump.
"Ugh... my head,"
Momo groaned, rubbing her temples.
She looked around, expecting to see her grandmother's house. Instead, she saw ancient trees and a strange, oppressive atmosphere.
"Okarun... this isn't the shrine."
Okarun sat up, his glasses cracked. He looked at his hands—they were solid again, but he could still feel the Phase Devil's power humming under his skin.
"I know,"
Okarun whispered, his face turning pale as he felt a massive, surging presence approaching.
"The 'vibration' was off. We're in another world again, Ayase-san. And this one... this one feels a lot more dangerous."