"I prepared a new coffin for you." Meeting the girl's utterly hate-filled gaze, Phantom spoke airily, unaffected. "You can try to tell someone, but people lying in coffins can't talk."
"Damn it, don't underestimate me...!"
As the girl desperately struggled against him, the corner of her eye gradually caught sight of a mirror coffin behind Phantom—and she could no longer look away.
She recognized that person... No, she should never have been able to forget her! That beautiful, gentle, serene face, the long dark tassels hanging behind her, even the tears still clinging to her cheeks without falling... That was! That was my sister—Cure Tender! Hikawa Maria!
"Big Sister!?"
Hearing her instinctive cry, Phantom first kicked the unsteady girl away, then followed her gaze to the black-haired girl sealed within the coffin. "Cure Tender... is that it? So that's how it is?"
His gaze kept shifting between the person in the coffin and Iona's grief-twisted face. Their similar features brought realization to Phantom, and an amused smile appeared on his face.
He suddenly remembered the Pretty Cure who had once left a deep impression on him. "So that's it. I was wondering why you, whom I had just met, hated me too. Was it because I defeated your sister? So the little girl I spared that day has grown up and inherited her sister's mantle."
"Then blame your sister. Blame her for passing this cursed fate on to you."
"Shut—up—!!!" The aura erupting from Iona, whose rage had reached its limit under his mockery, knocked over countless coffins behind her. "You're not allowed to badmouth my sister! She did it to protect me!"
Even if it cost me my life!
"The only person I hate—the only one I'll blame—" She spun the Light of Love Bracelet on her hand. The