Lucia also looked somewhat surprised. But only that his secret had been discovered. It only made him scratch the back of his head.
“Are you…the previous Eve?”
“Seems that way. Or at least my body is.”
He moved his hand in front of his face and the skin of that hand, that face, and the rest of his body grew brown. His androgynous build grew rounder and more feminine.
“It apparently belonged to a girl named Lucya who was chosen by Avalon, the Adam from a few thousand years ago,” he calmly explained. “Although I had my female cells sealed away. Oh, but I can turn back pretty easily. The seal placed on me by that old hag Lilith is coming undone. I think she doesn’t care much about me anymore.”
Machina and Ange both stared.
Machina’s was the obvious reaction. FeTUS had spent so long gradually developing the Holy Grail needed to save humanity from the rivalry, yet the original they were trying to reproduce had been so close by.
As for Ange…
“That’s the perfect person to keep around Adam. Although sealing away your sex kind of defeats the purpose.”
“Lilith set that up. She was thankful she had created me, but she lacked confidence in herself. She was afraid Mutsuki-kun – that is, Adam – would choose me again since I was young and she had grown so old. That’s why she tried to restrict me by making me a guy.”
“I see.”
The other two were still too shocked to say much, but Miss Y seemed to have figured something out. Her eyes stopped glowing for a bit as she began to think.
But she stopped that line of thought before finishing.
“So this boy is what remains of Eve and Miss E is an Eve-based clone.” She looked to Ange. “Then who are you?”
“Eh? Who am I? I’m Jiyuuni Ange of the angel combat division.”
“Is that all? Hm, your DNA is normal, your parents were some nobodies, and you have nothing special about you save for your exceptional Fruit of Knowledge.”
“Well, excuse me for having nobody parents. Not that I ever knew them.” Ange was angry, but then she calmly continued. “I was simply made Fujita Mutsuki’s bodyguard because I was in the combat division.”
“And no other reason?”
“Um…”
Finally, she recalled something that had flashed through her mind earlier.
She was different from those other two.
The world had changed based on Fujita Mutsuki and his Adam DNA. With the exception of this rabbit since she was not a living creature, all life forms around the world had been changed.
The only people unaffected were Mutsuki’s family, Lucia whose DNA was closest to the Adam DNA, and Machina whose womb was a duplication of that.
She alone did not fit in there.
“…”
What did that mean?
She was not sure if she understood that or not. She bit her lip and looked away from those flashing eyes.
Had anyone noticed the flush to her cheeks?
“Well, no matter.” The stuffed rabbit turned back toward Lucia. “The current Adam boy, Fujita Mutsuki, is both Adam and a modern human. That means the source of his bloodline is the previous pair: Avalon and Lucya.”
“Oh, so I might be able to physically interfere with him even now.”
“If that body is based on Fujita-kun, then it contains a large number of your cells after you healed him so many times. The possibility is high.”
Lucia and Machina began working out a plan.
Mutsuki’s cells contained a large number of Lucia’s cells. Enough to change his biological sex.
Lucia could get in there. And only into the Mutsuki part of that Mutsuki-Lilith mixture.
And if he could get in there…
“O’clock, lend Miss E your power.”
It was not visible in the grassy field hologram, but the giant rabbit decoration in the actual hall leaned forward. It entered the field and made a straining sound as it stood up.
“Hee hee. This is my greatest masterpiece. I assure you it has a 100% chance of defeating any intelligent being.”
Miss Y tossed Machina a pocket watch she had pulled from somewhere.
It needed to be wound and the second hand ran a little slow.
“Thank you. You can entrust Miss A’s will with us.”
Machina tightly wound it.
“Hmph. Her will is not what matters.”
That was apparently the startup switch. When the giant rabbit began to move, the stuffed one turned to the side.
She faced the rocking chair Miss A always used.
She said nothing more, so the others took a step back.
Lucia, Machina, and even Ange did.
“That takes care of the three Witches, but he’s bound to have a few angels defending him,” said Ange.
“I will deal with them,” said Machina. “FeTUS and Miss A have spent centuries researching how angels use their flames and how to control them. The result of all that research resides within me.”
“Once we find Mutsuki-kun, I’ll contact him,” said Lucia. “I’ll find some way of drawing that old hag Lilith out of him. And then…”
“Defeating demons is an angel’s job.”
They knew what they had to do.
The only remaining opponents were the living being closest to being classified as a god and Michael, the glorious sword of heaven that humanity worshiped like a god.
They could not imagine how outmatched they would be here, but they had been given the will to fight back.
They were proud of that fact alone, which only solidified their resolve.
They were proud that they wanted to save Mutsuki.
When the grassy field hologram disappeared, they saw the hole in the collapsed elevator hall outside the half-destroyed hall.
If they looked up through there, they were sure to see the ship on which he rode.
They brought their feet together and leaped outside.
“…”
But the other two failed to notice that Ange alone seemed somehow distracted.
Adolescent Adam 9: Chapter 4 – Queen Lilith
Another glowing seed flew to the bottom of the pool.
After watching the Witches head to FeTUS HQ, Rapha cleaned up after dinner and gave that seed a somehow thoughtful look.
“I know it’s said angels value order.”
A blonde woman had appeared next to him at some point.
When viewed through male eyes, that looked like a woman. She looked like Queen Lilith, but somehow less refined and less toxic.
“So what do you think of this sight? A world void of discord. A world with an order defined solely by happiness.”
She indicated the pool that was piling up with seeds now that they had left the ocean and the seeds had ceased drifting aways.
That was another “world”. Countless people had gathered there and were living together. It was a world containing only the happiness of being surrounded by the one they all loved.
“Good question.” Rapha maintained his thin smile. “I suppose I would call it a surprise.”
“A surprise?”
“I do think it is an ideal world. There is no conflict, regret, or death there. As an angel from heaven, I assumed the human conception of heaven did not actually exist, but this must be it here.”
He turned toward the woman with no change of expression.
“But I am surprised that this is the world that Fujita Mutsuki would want.”
The woman was no longer there. Nor was the young man named Avalon. It was now a short teenage boy.
“If you sought a perfect world, I thought it would be a more compact place with much more gentle changes. I am surprised you wanted such a rapid change to a discord-less world.”
“I see.” This must have been a new opinion for the boy because his gaze wandered across the pool. “But in the end, I decided this was the only option. It had to be a peaceful world where everyone could be happy.”
“I agree wholeheartedly with that conclusion.”
“Over the past five days, I came to think that humans ultimately carry something horribly vile in their hearts, so there was no way to create a world where everyone would be happy.”
“Again, I agree.”
“So I decided this was the best method. I would become everyone’s ‘happiness’. In exchange, they would abandon that vile part inside them. I still think this is the best method.”