Anomaly

After drawing the two girls' attention, Golden Phantom Spirit slowly raised her left hand.

Her slender fingers resembled newly blossomed orchids, somehow evoking the dangling fingertips of a mysterious maiden in temple murals;

Under the light, her pale skin faintly emitted a golden glow, adding an inviolable holiness to her presence.

Even if the two little ones were not hand fetishists, they found it hard to look away now.

So this was the Kira Yoshikage Machine...

Just as the two little ones stared in fascination, specks of light quietly emerged from her palm. At first, they were only stardust-like glimmers, but in an instant, they transformed into dancing golden flames.

And that was not all. With a gentle sweep of her slender finger, the firelight condensed into a soaring eagle.

Every feather outlined in golden flame was distinct, and when its beak opened slightly, they could even hear its clear cry.

The flame-born spirit circled around her three times before obediently landing on the tip of her left finger and scattering into stardust.

"Whoa! That's fucking awesome! Is this some kind of magic?"

"Impossible! This isn't scientific!"

The two little ones cried out at the same time.

"This should be the 'cheat ability' we got from transmigrating—the power inherited from the Three Phantom Gods."

"If my guess is correct, corresponding divine powers should also be sleeping within your bodies.

Try making yourselves some clothes. There's no one else around, but staying naked all the time is really improper."

"?!" ×2

The air froze for a moment.

"Ahhh, why are you only bringing that up now?!"

The two immediately snapped out of the divine miracle Golden Phantom Spirit had suddenly displayed. Only then did they realize they were still in a state that would never pass censorship, and Red Phantom Spirit was so embarrassed that she did not even know where to cover.

2000 TEARS LATER...

"Hah... hah... H-how could this happen? That's impossible!" The red-haired girl lay sprawled on the sand.

"I danced forty-eight different divine dances, recited the Heart Sutra and the Tao Te Ching, and even danced Gokuraku Jodo three times..."

She suddenly rolled over and slammed a fist into the ground. "Is this shitty divine power deaf?!"

The blue-haired girl sat nearby with her knees hugged to her chest, staring up at the sky as she muttered to herself:

"Assuming divine power follows the principles of quantum mechanical observation, perhaps it needs specific triggering conditions..."

All around her were densely packed mathematical and physical symbols, along with all sorts of dazzling equations and inequalities that were exceptionally effective at putting people to sleep...

Hm? That shouldn't be possible.

Golden Phantom Spirit, who had been watching the entire time, was also somewhat surprised that the two could not use their powers.

She could clearly sense the energy surging within them. Violent lightning and destructive gales coursed through their bloodlines, yet they were like beasts behind frosted glass—possessing only might, with no way to be controlled.

Could something have gone wrong with their souls during the separation? If so, that would be troublesome.

Thinking of how long it had taken the two to wake up earlier, Golden Phantom Spirit could not help associating it with this worst-case possibility.

However, her expression did not change in the slightest. A guess was only a guess. For now, she wanted to see whether external intervention could help the two awaken their powers.

Silently mobilizing the divine power within her, Golden Phantom Spirit slowly approached them and pressed her cool palms against their foreheads.

Golden divine power seeped in like a trickling stream. In an instant, three forces intertwined in the air, forming ancient and sacred phantom silhouettes of deities.

"Wait, this feeling—is it—"

"It's coming, it's coming!"

Before the words had even faded, crimson lightning and azure gales exploded!

The blast wave overturned the entire stretch of sand. Two figures were sent flying like kites with severed strings, leaving only Golden Phantom Spirit standing at the center of the storm.

She raised a hand to smooth back her disheveled hair, then gazed thoughtfully at the two trails gouged into the scorched ground. "Their souls are fine, but their control... is close to zero."

While helping them guide their power just now, Golden Phantom Spirit had clearly sensed through both physical contact and energy contact that there was nothing abnormal or discordant about the two girls' souls.

Their inability to use the power inside them was simply because their control was insufficient.

But if there was nothing wrong with the two of them, then the problem was...

The two had been blasted very far away. It took Golden Phantom Spirit some time to retrieve the dusty little ones one by one.

After confirming that neither had suffered any serious injuries, she brushed the dirt off them.

Then golden flames wrapped around the two, and in the blink of an eye, they were once again dressed in matching plain white gowns.

Seeing that the two would not be waking anytime soon, Golden Phantom Spirit simply laid them side by side. She then sat nearby hugging her knees, keeping watch so that some strange creature would not carry them off.

The golden figure sat there quietly, her crimson eyes gazing toward the distant azure sea as she began reflecting on what had just happened.

Using the other two as a reference, this body of mine seems able to use and control power more freely... but emotionally...

With the other two as a comparison, Golden Phantom Spirit had nearly confirmed that the problem lay with her own body.

She began questioning herself inwardly:

Why did I remember the scene of the souls separating and awaken first? Why can I use my power so freely? Why am I lacking in emotional sensitivity...?

Gol↑den↓ Phan↑tom↓ Spi↓rit.

Shaking her head, she flung away the increasingly strange images in her mind and ignited golden flames in her palm once more.

Quietly holding the flame, Golden Phantom Spirit slowly closed her eyes, determined to follow this Divine Fire deep into her soul and find the answer.

Second by second, time passed. The process was far longer than she had imagined, and this attempt appeared to be quite difficult for her as well.

A butterfly wreathed in flame beat its wings and kept moving upstream against a pitch-black river, seeking its source...

After an unknown amount of time, her crimson eyes finally opened again. She had returned from the depths of her soul.

The originally violent flames in her palm changed the moment she opened her eyes again, gradually becoming a gentle radiance that spilled through the gaps between her fingers.

Light. Pure light... Heliopolis. So that was it. Was this because of Him?

The Creator God of Light - Horakhty was the highest-ranking deity to appear in the Yu-Gi-Oh! anime, and one of the few cards capable of ignoring the rules and directly winning a duel.

In ancient Egyptian mythology, He was the unity of the morning, noon, and evening sun, and could be considered another form of Ra.

So this is the true nature of this body's power... It inherited the godhead of the Creator God, yet what it wielded was the lesser power of the sun god. No wonder it came so easily.

It was like having the KGB investigate MI6—effortless~

And the lack of emotional sensitivity was because the divine rank was too high, affecting my humanity?

Honestly, if she had not truly seen during that deep dive into her soul that the "human" part of it still held the dominant position, she would have suspected that a "god" had possessed her.

Although Heliopolis stood on the side of justice and kindness in the anime, the light He represented was fundamentally without moral alignment or emotional preferences. After all, the sun would not begin rising in the west and setting in the east merely because humans wished it so.

That neutral-leaning power was reflected in Golden Phantom Spirit by greatly weakening her human emotional sensitivity.

Whether one called it arrogance or indifference, she often could not help viewing things from the perspective of someone looking down from above, or merely an observer.

From a rational perspective, that was not necessarily bad. On the contrary, being unaffected by emotion and able to remain objective and calm at all times was something many people sought their entire lives without attaining.

But she did not like it. The human part of her soul told her so.

Having figured out the fundamental reason behind her "anomaly," she still had no solution for the moment, but she nevertheless let out a small sigh of relief.

But Takahashi-sensei once said that Heliopolis also symbolizes the radiance of life and motherhood... Golden Phantom Spirit lowered her head slightly to look at the two little ones leaning against each other.

I hope this isn't some kind of flag.

Having finally understood the answer to her own problem, Golden Phantom Spirit began sorting through her memories again.

The Three Phantom Gods, the Creator God, and the other elements that had appeared before their transmigration had all appeared now. That meant what remained was...