Tokisaki Kurumi could be said to be the most popular Spirit in Date A Live.
With a stunningly beautiful appearance, a mature and charming personality, a subtly alluring quality that hints at truth, and her desire to stop everything, striving relentlessly, even at any cost, to prevent Spirits from destroying humanity, this obsession, stubbornness, and internal contradiction made countless people adore her.
Never expecting to see Kurumi here, although his memories of her from before his transmigration had faded considerably, Ryuya recognized her at first glance.
"Sir, do you know me?"
Noticing Ryuya's momentary pause of less than half a second, a bewitching smile subtly appeared on Kurumi's exquisite face.
She leaned slightly closer to Ryuya, sniffing like a cat, "Hmm, you smell wonderful. Have we met before?"
"We haven't met."
Completely immune to this level of teasing from Kurumi, Ryuya instead looked at Kurumi with great interest, "How strange. Why did Mio give you the power of a Spirit? Where did she go? Can you tell me?"
"Spirit!"
The moment Ryuya's words fell, after a brief moment of stunned disbelief, Kurumi erupted with immense power.
Her body directly sank into the shadows on the ground. Her final glance was quite fierce, seemingly warning Ryuya.
"She... she disappeared?"
"It's a monster!"
"Maybe a Spirit. That was really dangerous."
Witnessing Kurumi vanish silently, the ordinary people in the café felt uneasy, hurriedly paid their bills, and left. In an instant, Ryuya was the only customer left in the café.
"This... esteemed customer, we are closing early today. We apologize for what happened today, your order is on the house."
Seeing Ryuya still there, the café manager came over after a while to apologize.
"Oh, it's fine."
Ruffling the little cat's head, Ryuya didn't mind. He left the café alone, deliberately heading towards less populated areas.
After a while, arriving at the outskirts of the city, he suddenly stopped, quietly looking at a spot not far away as if someone was there.
"Ara, ara... what a formidable fellow. Did you guess I was following you?"
Moments later, a faint shadow appeared on the previously empty ground, and Kurumi emerged out of it.
The Shadow Domain was Kurumi's personal territory. Within it, she could freely store her clones and use it for rapid movement.
Finding Ryuya's gaze fixed on her, Kurumi proactively stood up from the shadows.
"Not a guess. I could see you the whole time."
Kurumi's Shadow Domain was essentially an act of hiding within a mirror world.
If it were the Ryuya from the previous simulation, he might have sensed Kurumi's location through subtle clues but could never have actually seen her.
But this time, with the Kabbalah Tree of Life, Ryuya could easily detect Kurumi's position, even see Kurumi and her numerous clones inside the Shadow Domain.
"See me the whole time? Sir, you do like to joke."
Having a natural favorability towards Ryuya due to the attraction the Kabbalah Tree of Life held for its kind, yet having been deceived by the Spirit of Origin before, Kurumi couldn't accept this bone-deep affinity at all.
Shaking her head, she removed her medical eyepatch. Beneath it, her eye shone with a golden dial, the hour and minute hands slowly turning… Kurumi's signature ability, Zafkiel!
"Alright, sir, no more jokes. I'd like to ask you, are you from AST or DEM?"
As her spiritual power circulating, maintaining a careful distance from Ryuya, Kurumi spoke cautiously.
"AST and DEM? Neither. But I might know the founders of both organizations. I've been looking for them lately, actually."
"Speaking of which, Kurumi, do you know where they are?"
"You know my name?" Constantly pursued by AST and DEM but having never had her true name leaked, Kurumi's expression clearly lost its earlier composure upon hearing Ryuya call her by name.
"Yes, I know your name. I also know some things about you, though I'm not sure if what I know differs from your memories."
Kurumi was originally a young lady living a pampered life. Her good friend, Yamauchi Sawa, was the first Fire Spirit.
But deceived by the Spirit of Origin and forced to kill her own friend with her own hands, Kurumi, upon learning the truth, wanted to use Zafkiel's power to travel back to the day the Spirit of Origin first appeared 23 years ago to change that history.
To achieve this, she didn't hesitate to kill nearly ten thousand humans just to gather sufficient energy.
Although these ten thousand humans were all evil individuals who deserved death, Kurumi was still regarded as the most dangerous Spirit by organizations like AST and DEM.
Recalling Kurumi's story, Ryuya didn't believe the Mio he knew would do such a thing.
But he wasn't certain of the specifics and couldn't directly ask Kurumi about her past.
After all, this Kurumi was from seven years before the main story's timeline. At this time, she was still somewhat Chuuni and emotionally unstable.
"You know about my past? That's impossible."
Shaking her head, those who should know about her affairs were probably all gone, except for one person.
As if thinking of something, Kurumi looked up at Ryuya and asked in a somewhat uncertain tone, "Do you know... the Spirit of Origin?"
"Well, who knows?"
Gesturing towards Kurumi, Ryuya never believed he could extract relevant information from Kurumi just through Talk no Jutsu.
"Is that so? Then I'll have to use some special methods."
"Zayin (Seventh Bullet)."
Directly manifesting her Angel, with a revolver in hand, Kurumi fired the Seventh Bullet, which could stop time for the target.
"Hmm?"
Easily dodging Kurumi's attack, Ryuya instantly appeared right in front of her.
Gently brushing aside the strands of hair covering her Zafkiel eye, he whispered, "Why cover up such a beautiful eye?"