Trashiest Trash of Them All

Kiriko and Jeje ascend the stairs, as Kiriko plans on killing Misono and then herself. However, Mikuni accidentally interrupts her, causing her to turn the knife on herself. Jeje ends up shooting and killing her himself, as he claims Kiriko would not be able to find Heaven if she committed suicide. Mikuni seems surprised Jeje would still have those religious feelings, even as a Servamp. He asks if Jeje can use illusions like Lily, but Jeje admits he could probably only use the power of suggestion at best. Mikuni asks that Jeje “suggest” to Misono’s memories that Mikuni was the one who killed their mother, as the truth would be harder for him to hear.

As he starts talking about giving Jeje an item for a contract, Jeje thinks to himself how deep within Mikuni, there was a monster. Mikuni ends up giving Jeje the key to a music box his mother bought for Christmas. Jeje tells Mikuni he already knows that, because he watched her while she was picking it out. Mikuni then gives him the name JJ, or “Jeje.”

The next part of the chapter is Mikuni talking to Jeje about everything he knows about the current situation (or at least, a chunk of what he knows.)

“There were three Servamps still under C3’s control at the time. “Melancholy,” who was captured when the Count was murdered. “Sloth,” who fell into a sleeping curse immediately afterwards. “Envy,” who agreed to be sealed away. And there was also “Lust,” who had been in a contract with C3 for generations. The official record may have shown that they were under C3’s watch, but in reality, they were located beneath the Alicein family’s mansion.

200 years beforehand, following the Count’s murder, the Alicein and the Tsukimitsu family heads set up a double barrier to seal away the three Servamps (Melancholy, Envy, Sloth.) Whenever a new family head takes over, the barrier is deconstructed and recast with the new gatekeeper.

Eleven years ago (AKA eleven years ago from the time Mikuni was sixteen years old, timeline-wise) the Tsukimitsu family had an early change in their family head. Shirayuki, who had been the head of the family until then, retired from her position as the leader of the Tokyo branch. The eldest son, Iori, who was only eighteen years old at the time, took over the company. Everyone thought he was too young, but there were two reasons behind him becoming the new family head. He was brilliant and excelled in fighting, and was already the perfect fit for the role. The second reason was due to the fact Iori desperately wanted to be on the front lines with his friends.

Shirayuki tried to remind Iori of his role as the future head of their family, but Iori only wanted to fight with his friends. She took preventive measures against anything happening to him by giving him a big responsibility, hoping it would limit his recklessness. She hoped he would restrain himself for the sake of his new title.

Due to the change in the Tsukimitsu family head, the barrier had to be temporarily disabled in order to be reconstructed. That was the moment Mikuni’s mother stole Mikado’s brooch and broke the seal on the door. She wanted to make a contract with Envy, having just found out that Mikado was cheating on her.”

In present-day, Mikuni wraps up his recounting while mentioning it’s his first time having MocDonald’s and it was very oily. He goes on to say that he learned all of this while he was doing his own research, knowing at the time that he would one day be the head of the Alicein family. He says Mikado was sloppy about the whole thing, continuing the relationship over such a long time, assuming Kiriko would never find out. But when she opened the sealed door to release Envy, she also ended up releasing Melancholy in the process, who escaped. Every time another story about Melancholy’s actions popped up, Mikuni could tell how much it weighed on his mother’s conscience. For four years, she struggled with whether to forgive, or to kill.

Mikuni offers for Jeje to eat the food he didn’t want. Jeje puts a paper bag over his head because the outside world was too bright for him. As Mikuni laughs and pokes a hole in the bag for him to see through, Jeje muses on how Mikuni’s expression in that moment was the exact way a boy of his age should be. He proceeds to stack more bags on his head to make Mikuni laugh.

After they leave, Mikuni points out that it seems like they’re being followed, though not by anyone powerful. From the shadows, Tsurugi playfully notes how they’ve been found out, wondering what they were going to do now. Touma materializes from being invisible, telling Tsurugi it’s only because he never stops talking.

Touma greets Mikuni by name, telling him not to worry since he’s not there to hurt him. He introduces himself as a friend of Tsukimitsu Iori. Mikuni points out that if C3’s already getting in touch with him, maybe they weren’t such a useless organization after all. This makes Tsurugi laugh while Touma tells him to shut up again. Touma offers to lend Mikuni a hand (it’s the same scene from when Mahiru went exploring Touma’s subconscious mind) by at least giving him a safe place to live, telling him that the world was more dangerous than he realized. Mikuni seems to mull things over before casually agreeing, though Jeje wonders to himself just how far in the future Mikuni can plan ahead.

Present-day, Misono realizes that they’re getting close to the full moon. Jeje realizes it as well, thinking to himself about how he can still hear the music box’s chime, and how he hopes that once he’s lost his name, the ringing will finally stop.