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farlynthordens · 9 months

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SKB Volume 9 Summary

this is a summary of important points, including spoilers and new characters.

Vols 2-5 now have official translations! | Volume 6 | Volume 7 | Volume 8 | Volume 9 (here)

As always, my translations of characters' names or other new things introduced in the book likely won't be accurate to the official version.

"The Black & White Coexisting Spacetimes Theory: like how objects have a reflection in the mirror, the world is made up of 2 spacetime layers that similarly coexist in a balance with each other." This idea has not yet been proven to be true, but it was realized by high priest Ochagama. ...

A woman with long, billowing hair like flames stands looking up at Mt. Fuji - akaboshi bisco, also known as red the twinshroom, and the last mushroom keeper on earth.

Her full body tattoos are the manifestation of the souls that reside in her. they glow and throb with a dull pain. she HAS to win this, not just for herself, but for all those lost, and for....

Milo, also known as blue and the other half of the twinshrooms. she and actagawa find red, and blue scolds her for going off alone. blue is described as being small, and with a panda-like mark and bright eyes.

R: "Like I'd actually go by myself. I keep my promises!" Red gets onto actagawa and pulls in blue for a tight hug, basically shoving blue's face right into her chest. R: "C'mooon, don't be mad at me... If we're dyin' then we're doin' it together, right?" B: "Hmmph..." And yet somehow, like always, blue was assuaged by her words. B: "We can't die though, we have to come home alive for Sugar." R: "Oh yeah, how is he?" B: "Sleeping soundly ... Tirol set up a barrier dimension with mantras, so they shouldn't be able to be found from the outside." R: "...And where is Tirol now?" B: "Ummm...."

Tirol [male] runs up behind them. he's short and has jellyish-like hair.

Tirol explains their plan to defeat the rust god, who steals people's souls and makes their power his own. they have to attack from outside the rust god's visual range, because once they're in his sights it's all over.

It's revealed that pawoo died a while ago after trying to fight the rust god.

Main universe: Bisco wakes suddenly in a panic, having just seen red's life through his dreams. he accidentally wakes sugar, who tells him he just had a bad dream and needs to get some sleep before their beach trip in the morning.

The whole family is sleeping together in a tent, seemingly all living a traveler life together for the time being. pawoo and salt are to bisco's one side, sugar and milo on the other.

The memories of the dream rapidly fade, but bisco can't shake the disturbing feeling he got from it. he is unable to sleep the rest of the night.

Red's universe: the rust god, named rust (yes i know. naming choices) sits atop a throne on the pinnacle of mt. fuji. he is an automaton, but looks like a young boy. the souls of countless people swirl around him, asking rust to grant their wishes for wealth, talent, and power.

Rust seems bored by all the souls pestering him. with each snap of his fingers, he grants their wishes... or at least appears to. by doing so, the souls declare their fealty to him and he absorbs them into his body.

A tiny, flying bug-like creature named N'badu asks rust how the souls tasted, to which he replies they were disgusting.

They go for a walk and look down over the fields full of rust-covered statues - people whose souls had been taken.

When rust first began taking over, he would simply kill all who opposed him and take their souls that way. However, n'badu came up with an idea where those who willingly gave up their souls would have their wishes granted by rust.

The vast majority of humanity chose to give up their souls in exchange for a wish. less than 2% of the population is still alive.

Rust is quite pragmatic, asking why humans chose to stop fighting and why they wanted wishes when the wish was simply a hallucination they saw as their soul was consumed. if the humans had attacked en masse, even he would not have been able to stop them all in one blow.

Despite the massive amount of souls he has, rust is not satisfied. he wants a high quality soul, one that burns with strong passion and a willful fighting spirit. he remembers hearing that red was still alive, and says that she's perfect to be his target.

Like rust, red has an ability that allows her to absorb souls into her body. this is a passed-down mushroom keeper skill in this universe.

As if on cue, red appears. actagawa casts a tiny shadow against the backdrop of the full moon from how far away they are. red shoots at rust with a powerful poison arrow and the resulting growth eviscerates mt. fuji.

Red cheers that she defeated him. her tattoos are lit up like fire from activating the souls' maximum power. however, the mechanical pieces that had rained from the explosion come back together. rust begins to reform right in front of them.

He sends red and blue flying and crashing into the rocky ground with punches and kicks that contain unbelievable strength. both beaten and bloodied, red cradles blue in her arms. Red: "It's impossible... I thought I killed you...!" Rust: "And you did. ... But it matters not if I die once or twice, for I can revive once for each soul I contain." Red is overcome with a sense of despair. She was a human who could only die once, while Rust could brush it off like a minor scrape.

Rust loves those who are strong, who fight against fate and do everything they can to survive... so that he can watch them break down, grovel, beg for forgiveness at his feet.

He thinks of how he can make red truly go mad with despair. his first decision? to kill actagawa right in front of her...

Main universe: Bisco wakes up screaming in terror. he's on the beach next to actagawa, and gives him a hug. he later talks to tirol (who came with the fam to the beach) about his nightmares, and she explains the black & white spacetimes theory to him.

Tirol says he shouldn't worry about what he saw since there's no way to travel to other timelines. he should just be happy he ended up in the "good" one.

Sugar is playing in the water when a meteor appears in the sky. as the protector of earth, she tries to destroy it. on the first hit, it doesn't break. she goes to hit it again, but senses it has an energy like it's alive.

Sugar sees that the meteor was actually a human woman. she creates a platform to pull the woman onto, with not only her clothes but also her eyes gone from having burned up. R: "W... who's there.... Is that you, Milo? You're safe, right? Don't worry, I'm fine, I'll protect you..." S: "It's okay, Sugar will make you better again!" R: "...Did you say, 'Sugar'??"

Sugar uses her powers to restore red's eyes, heal her body, and give her a new set of mushroom keeper clothes. able to see again, red hugs sugar tightly and cries. sugar is confused. red realizes something is off too.

She marvels at the existence of the alternate timeline being true, before trying to wrack her brain for what happened during her fight. she only remembers tirol sending her away, and that she has a mission: to devour her other self.

Riding on actagawa, bisco arrives to see if sugar is okay. the instant red and bisco lock eyes, they go into battle mode.

They realize simultaneously that they're both akaboshi bisco. bisco jeers that there's no way red is the strongest mushroom keeper since he already exists, but it's quickly made clear that red can overpower him. she is able to deflect his arrows, then when they cross blades he's barely able to hold her off. he tries to stab her, but doing so only makes the metal of the blade bend.

She breaks bisco's nose before grabbing his neck. She shoves his head underwater as if trying to drown him. R: "That's right. I'm 'Akaboshi Bisco.' ... To save the future of my timeline, I'm goin' to take your soul!"

S: "Wait, that's my papa?! Or, um, my mama?! But my mama is Milo...?!" ... R: "Havin' both of us be called 'Bisco' is a pain in the ass! In my timeline, me n' Milo are called Red and Blue. If you need a name for me, then call me Red the Twinshroom!" B: "Well ain't that a fancy name, huh?" R: "Somethin' like 'Enoki' is good enough for you ... You're so damn tiny, can you really use a bow lookin' like that?" B: "You're just too damn muscly! ... Besides, it's 3 against 1, you think you can win?" R: I'm alone, huh...? You'll regret sayin' that."

She summons a giant bow that glows orange, which she calls the crab god's bow. it's made from actagawa's soul.

Bisco and sugar summon the choushin bow. red knows of this power, but it was never able to be used in her world. they clash and are perfectly matched.

Bisco calls the souls in red's body "evil spirits" and this sends her into a rage. as they fight at close range, glowing vines come out of red's arm and form into shishi's signature sword.

Red's body starts burning up from overusing her powers. as she's dying painfully, all she can think about is fighting and winning so that everyone's deaths were not in vain.

As red falls unconscious and bisco catches her, she thinks of blue... R: (I guess I really can't do this on my own... I need you... Milo...) ... She holds Blue's corpse in her arms, unable to stop the continuous bleeding. Red's clothes become increasingly stained, trembling in anguish and despair as she feels the body of her loved one growing cold. R: "No.... no!!! I'm gonna die with her!! Just kill me! Please kill me too...!"

The squad brought red to banryou-ji, where milo runs tests and watches as she sleeptalks and writhes. he gently touches her face and this seems to make her calm down.

Tirol, Bisco, and Pawoo force their way into milo's space and stare at red like a zoo exhibit. as usual, they all start bickering and the noise wakes red.

Red can't see very well, but freaks out upon realizing she's tied down. she activates her powers, and flexing her muscles breaks the metal bonds. milo tries to explain things, and hearing his voice makes her pause. R: "Who... are...?" M: "I'm Milo! I'm Bisco's partner, and I've gone to school, so you have nothing to worry about!"

She becomes enraged at remembering blue's death. everyone backs off while pawoo handles things, but red easily knocks pawoo's staff away.... before jumping in to hug her.

Red is happy to find that "her husband" is "alive". everyone shouts at pawoo to knock red out, but pawoo is too taken in by red's brazen affection. bisco says to keep her hands off of his wife, and pawoo passes out from happiness at two biscos fighting over her. Milo watches all of this with great amusement.

Tirol hears the voice of her counterpart in her head. he shares his memories of the alternate timeline with her, and she projects them to everyone else.

Tirol's memories: he managed to save red just before rust killed her, but she was frozen in shock after blue's death. she only snaps out of it once she sees tirol hurting his own body from using mantras to protect them.

Tirol says that to get stronger than rust, she needs to take the soul of her alternate self. tirol uses his remaining life energy to activate the ultimate mantra, Akasha Tripper, which can send people across realities.

R: "Stop it! Why are you dyin' for me?!" T: "Call it my selfishness... Is it so bad?" R: "I thought you hated me...!" T: "I don't bother arguing with people I hate ... Goodbye, Akaboshi. Be nice to the other me."

Seeing tirol's memories clears red's amnesia. she apologizes to milo and pawoo for acting out. pawoo gives her a hug, seeming to feel bad for the horrors she experienced.

Red's universe: using tirol's soul, rust and n'badu figure out how to activate akasha tripper. rust plans to go steal souls from the other timeline, but he wants to preemptively cull the mushroom keepers as well as sugar who is a god that could rival him.

Rust possesses their world's (red's son) sugar now as well since tirol is dead and the mantras protecting sugar faded. sugar seems to be a normal baby.

N'badu borrows a soul from rust and transforms its former physical appearance - and it's none other than amli. n'badu enters the portal and goes to carry out rust's command.

Main universe: having received her counterpart's technical knowledge, tirol programs a copy of akasha tripper. pawoo is restless, really wanting to be helpful but unsure what she can do. seeing this, tirol thinks of something and tells pawoo to sit tight.

Meanwhile, milo has been refereeing bisco and red's endless competitions to see who's superior, which includes tests of strength and speed to who can cook better or watch a horror movie for longer. everything's ended in a tie.

B: "Next we'll see who can grow more shimeji mushrooms!" R: "You're on. I'm gonna cover this whole damn country in 'em. ... Milo, get out the manta bow! I'm gonna win this!" M: "Huh?! But, uh...." B: "Hey, the hell you think you're doin'!? You can't take someone else's partner!" R: "Just lemme borrow him for a bit. Bad enough you're a guy, but you're stingy too. No one in the whole universe knows how to work with Milo better than me!"

They grab milo's arms and fight over him, until bisco suddenly falls down. he looks at his hand, only to see that it isn't even there.

N'badu, also skilled at programming, was trying to overwrite bisco's timeline with a fake reality where he and milo don't exist. tirol just barely managed to stop the change.

Tirol says they need to find the person who cast the wish to overwrite the timeline and stop them.

Banryou-ji transforms into a tetsujin being piloted by pawoo. using pawoo's massive love energy, the tetsujin activates akasha tripper. bisco tells her to stop because it's dangerous, but red shuts him up. R: "Thanks. Love you, Pawoo! I can feel the love you've given us. Just for you, I'm gonna win and come home safe!" P: "Yes, honey...!" B: "What the fuck?! Cut this out, Pawoo is married to the one and only Akaboshi Bisco...!" R: "Yeah? And that's me." B: "No! I'm only talkin' about ME! Because... I love Pawoo MORE than you!!!" he shouted like a child who didn't want to be one-upped.

Bisco, milo, and red get sucked into the portal and hold onto each other so they don't get separated. milo passes out from moving at high speeds. he's squashed between the 2 biscos.

Bisco's senses are telling him that they might not come out of this alive, and tells red: if things turn dire, she can willingly take his soul. but in return, red has to promise to protect his family.

In the false reality: Izumo has become the new capital, and all religious sects were forced together to become one under the rust god. it's gone from six towers 108 to represent every former sect. everyone is praying and giving their energy to the rust god, which is being used to form this fake reality overwriting bisco's world.

The trio falls from the sky and crashes thru multiple towers. red wakes up, feeling something pressing on her chest and figures some rubble landed on her.... but she opens her eyes to see milo kissing her.

She sends him flying in her rage, but then cries thinking about how she cheated on her husband. she accuses milo of making her pregnant (she's not). milo was just giving her CPR because she stopped breathing. red turns... well... red in embarrassment.

Trying to pull herself together, red talks proudly while still blushing hard. R: "...Anyway! You said you're experienced but turns out you're [the other reality's milo is] nothin' special! Don't tell me that's the best you got. With kisses THAT shitty, you'd never excite even a single girl." M: "Okay..." He presses against her. "Should I give you a real kiss?" He was not joking. His eyes narrowed, and Red felt herself being oppressed by his aura. It was like that of a hunter aiming to take down a predator in one shot. M: "Are you scared? You're the one who picked this fight..." R: "Uh, um...! Milo! I was jokin'! Just..." M: "Mm-mm, I'm not letting you get away. This is the perfect opportunity to teach you a lesson..." R: (Is this really what Mllo would'a been like if she was a guy?!)

But milo pulls off of her when he hears bisco calling for them. red is extremely confused, having accepted that milo was going to kiss her. milo says red needs to be careful about protecting herself from shitty men since she doesn't have blue around to help.

They find bisco.... who has turned into a palm-sized kinoko. milo exclaims at how cute he is and tries to tickle him, but bisco blasts him and tells him to focus on the serious task at hand.

They get attacked by Kyurumon and Corpulo (fire and gold tower leaders). corpulo says he'll let red live if she becomes his whore, and then an arrow slices through his throat. "How dare you say something so disgusting to Bisco... Do you regret it? Ah, maybe you didn't even have time to." Red stands there in shock at Milo's incredible readiness to kill. He then turns to look at her. "He can't talk anymore, so don't worry!" he said with a smile. B: (Scary, ain't he.) R: (Way more than Blue...)

Kyurumon uses gold creation mantras to draw in lots of people and makes them form into a giant mass. milo has a plan to fight it, but red won't listen and just blows holes in the amalgamation without caring if she kills anyone.

Bisco says Red won't listen to milo since they aren't partners. to become her partner, he needs to use her REAL name. M: "...Actually, I wouldn't be cheating on you, would I?" B: "Huh?!" M: "Are you telling me it's okay? Even if it's just for a minute, I'm going to be someone else's partner--" B: "The hell're you talkin' about?! Just do it already!"

Milo calls for red... or now bisco, and stops her just before she fires an arrow that would've surely decimated the city. she felt blue's presence in his voice, and can feel her partner's warmth on her back... She scolds herself for being so easy to sway.

The trio commits yet another act of religious impersonation. red and milo use the mantra bow and fire a jizou-shroom, which creates a giant jizou shaped figure. bisco jumps onto its head and pretends to speak as the "great spore buddha" to the people, and those in the amalgamation come to their senses and leave quietly.

Red doesn't feel good about this win. she's never used jabi's jizou-shroom because it's useless for battle, but bisco explains that wanting a way to end battles without killing was what made jabi create the jizou-shroom in the first place. R: "You fight, and one side is gonna die - that's just life. Jabi's dream was nothing more than that!" ... B: "We don't wish for things hopin' they'll come true. I think what life's really all about is dreamin' and chasin' after those dreams."

Red gets angry, saying that bisco can only dream of nice things because he's had good luck. she acknowledges his way of thinking isn't wrong, but to remember that those who dream are protected by those who see reality.

A decrepit kelshinha tries to steal the scriptures to regain his power and take back the title of "rust god." amli (n'badu) appears, mocking him for his weakness. amli's hair has now grown long, and he is the official rust god of izumo.

Just as n'badu is about to kill kelshinha, red and milo bust in to protect him.

N'badu breaks a hole in the floor under kelshinha and he plummets. bisco jumps in after him. milo and red escape the building, but n'badu follows them. N: "I see that the other world's Blue also has some level of mantra power ... But compared to what the real Blue could do, yours are child's play. One who was raised in the comfort of the good timeline could never be fit to be Red's partner. You're nothing but a weakling using the name of the Twinshrooms." ... Red explains who n'badu is and tries to form a plan of attack, but now milo is the one not listening. M: "You think I'm not good enough? You think I don't have what it takes to be Bisco's partner...! Even though I... I even had one of his kids....!"

N'badu keeps prodding him when he realizes how well it's working. R: "Don't let him provoke you! you gotta work together with me here--!" N: "So useless. You can't do anything without Red's power, can you? Just a poor little star who can't shine on his own. All you do is drag your partner down..." M: "SHUT UUUUUUUPPPPP!!!"

Enraged, Milo expels massive amounts of energy and summons the mantra bow by himself. he fires it, only for n'badu to stop the arrow easily and sling it back at him.

A fully powered kelshinha appears and protects milo from the attack. kelshinha absorbed kinoko!bisco and is borrowing his energy.

Kelshinha fights n'badu using new techniques that are a mix of mantras and mushroom energy, which he invented on the fly. it looks like he's going to win, but n'badu manages to snag bisco from him, which causes kelshinha to weaken and fade from existence.

Red convinces kelshinha to give her his soul. they use his soul's power to form a new bow, and fire a shot to destroy amli's body. amli's soul is set free and he talks one last time to red, thanking her for all she's done.

The reality they're in begins to fold in on itself. the trio tries to escape thru the akasha tripper portal, but then milo is grabbed and dragged back.

N'badu took control of kyurumon and used her powers to form a new human amalgamation. the energy from the peoples' prayers is closing the portal, so milo tells red and bisco to leave him behind. he'll defeat n'badu and rejoin them later. red is hesitant, but bisco says they should always trust when milo says he'll do something.

Milo defeats them quite fast and sets everyone's souls free. n'badu is extremely pissed about this defeat to the point he no longer cares about going after red. the portal closes behind milo, and he considers what to do to get out now.

Blue's soul appears and she passes on her powers. she says he has the potential to attain new powers that no one's ever imagined. blue's soul, as well as all the others around him, are absorbed into the emerald cubes, and the unstable spacetime reforms into something new...

While n'badu kept the trio distracted, rust had gone to the main timeline.

He destroys the banryou-ji tetsujin instantly. pawoo fights him, only to create a repeat of what happened to red in her final battle: rust's body explodes to pieces and pawoo thinks she won, only for rust to reform and attack her while she's unaware.

Tirol is frozen as she watches pawoo get beaten bloody by rust, unable to hold a candle to his power. T: "Someone, please, save her...! Save my friend! I'll give you all the money I've got, just please...!"

Rust threatens to kill tirol unless pawoo gives up her soul, to which she agrees. rust then goes to kill tirol anyway, but is stopped by a rainbow-colored blast. S: "You promised all your money, so give it!" T: "?!?!" S: "Juuuust kidding!" T: "She really IS the daughter of those idiots..."

Sugar heals pawoo and lets the two escape while she faces rust. for the first time ever, rust feels excited, knowing there's a chance he may lose.

Red and Bisco (still a kinoko btw) are stuck in the cold, dark subspace tunnel after the exit back to the main timeline closed.

Red summons all the souls from her body and uses them to form a path that points to where the portal should be. without the soul's power in her she loses not only her tattoos, but she feels incredibly cold and exhausted.

Bisco offers up his soul if it means keeping her alive. she refuses it, so instead he heats up his own body using the spores inside him, and acts like a heating pad to keep red warm.

Somewhere else, Milo wakes up.... standing at the front of a college classroom giving a presentation. he finishes his report on apollo particles and the perceived benefits and dangers of it. the professor praises him for a great job and class is then dismissed.

B: "Well that was something. You spend your free time thinkin' about that sorta stuff?" M: "Of course not, I just chose that topic because it would make the professor happy." B: "Gross." M: "Lying is the key to getting ahead in life!" he says with a wink. "By the way, are you ready for your presentation next week?" B: "All I gotta do is read the script you wrote me, yeah?" M: "No! You need to rehearse what you'll say if the professor asks questions too ... I'm trying to make sure you graduate, so come over to my place again to practice!"

Milo latches on to bisco's arm and asks if he wants to go out for ice cream. but as they're walking, things start to go wrong. someone drops chemicals out a window over their heads. a professor uses an apollo particle-powered canon to kill students. bisco acts like everything is normal.

Bisco offers to help with the professor's 'tests', aka volunteering to be killed. milo takes bisco's place, absolutely refusing to let him die. just as he's about to be shot.... domino appears.

She fights the professor (n'badu), saying that blue created this space and n'badu has no right to be in it.

Bisco, who is merely part of the illusion, acts as n'badu's ally and shoots at them. domino 'kills' him, and milo tries to rush to his aid.

Domino chases off n'badu and helps milo wake up from the hallucination.

Domino leads him to where blue wanted, so he can learn the soul absorption technique...

Red's dreams: red absorbs actagawa's soul and gains the crab god's bow, which is said to have a power equal to a hundred million souls. if rust gets hit with a single shot, even he would die from running out of souls to restore himself with.

Red is unable to get the bow to draw. blue uses a mantra whip to snare rust, but he isn't fazed. he grabs blue and holds her hostage, yet even so blue still tells red to shoot so they can win - so they can protect the future of the world for sugar.

Red fires.... and misses. blue is tossed by her feet. She missed to not hit her partner. As long as Milo was alive, as long as she at least had her partner by her side, then...

But rust took that away from her too, killing blue by tearing out her heart. Red screams in anguish and tries to comfort blue as she dies.

Rust tells her to stand up and fight, but red refuses over and over. she's going to die with milo. she begs rust to hurry up and kill her already...

Red wakes up in a fit, upset for wasting the lives of everyone who loved her and upset at bisco [/herself] for being loved by everyone when it's impossible to live up to their expectations. B: "If you don't wanna fight the rust god, then you don't have to. You should just live the life YOU want." R: "But then everyone's love for me would have been for no--" B: "People don't love you just because they expect something from you in return."

The voices in red's mind telling her to fight and win were not the souls, it was her own voice. SHE was the one burning. but even if bisco tells her 'live how you want,' what can she do in a world where everyone she loves is already gone?

Bisco invites her to come to his world and live with his family. R: "Won't it be kinda complicated havin' 2 Biscos around?" B: "I'm already havin' to do the work of 2 husbands, so havin' another Bisco would make it even out." Red smiles and agrees to it.

The subspace tunnel's raging blizzard is gone. red calls the souls back to her body, and they glow rust eater orange now, instead of the ashura red they had been before. she feels she's realized her true self, granting her a new form of power.

She summons a new weapon called the Atman [True Self] Crossbow and fires it, tearing open a new exit in the subspace tunnel.

Main universe: back to sugar and rust's battle. rust questions why sugar is fighting so hard to protect the earth when living is only a series of suffering and chasing after dreams that may never come true. R: "Protecting these lifeforms amounts to nothing more than prolonging their suffering ... Let us work together to free the humans from having to live in fear." S: "The one living in fear is you! ... The reason you grant wishes all the time is because you're scared of what humans could accomplish by their own power. People will never rise up if they never learn what they're capable of."

Sugar creates a giant chain to ensnare rust and drags him along the rocky mountainside. she goes to finish him off before his body reforms again, but collapses from exhausting almost all of her power.

Rust, having used billions of souls, begins to age. when he reforms, he looks like a man in his 20s instead of a child.

Rust strangles sugar until she passes out. just as he's about to kill her, n'badu takes over her body and begs rust to reconsider since sugar's powers could be useful to him. rust has no interest.

Realizing that n'badu is useless to him too, rust goes to kill the both of them. n'badu activates sugar's powers and tears open a hole in spacetime, allowing red and bisco to return.

With her new powers, red delivers a punch straight to rust's face and heavily damages him. feeling proud of herself, she touches her tattoos and tells everyone to watch as she finishes this.

Rust slices through her stomach... but gets stuck in her muscles. red uses the opportunity to punch the shit out of him, knocking limbs off and causing mushrooms to grow across his body. kinoko!bisco activates his choushin ability to heal red while she keeps fighting.

Rust continues to age. he forms his arm into a giant drill made up of layers of spinning gears, stabbing it straight through red's chest.

Red grits the pain as the drill keeps destroying her and bisco tries to keep up with healing the damage. she pulls rust closer and wraps her arms around him, activating her soul power and using her insane strength to crush rust's body.

Bisco warns that if he uses the choushin ability any longer, the amount of rainbowshrooms in her body will kill her. red is moments away from destroying rust, but bisco makes the decision to separate the 2 of them to save her life.

Red's chest wound heals completely. rust has cracked and aged to the point of a dying old man, and he panics at the loss of his youth and beauty. he grabs bisco... and sticks him inside his body to absorb his powers.

Overflowing with power once again, rust flies high into the air and sends giant spinning gears raining down across the continent, killing many people and stealing their souls.

She summons the crab god's bow, but rust mocks if she'll have the heart to fire it and kill her own self when she couldn't even kill blue.

Seeing her hesitate, bisco calls out to red. "I'm givin' you the name of 'Akaboshi Bisco', so...! Protect the planet I care about, and all the people who loved me! Use your bow to save all of it! BISCOOOOO--!!" The instant that Red heard Bisco's cries, she felt 'love' well up from deep within her. In that moment, Red felt a love for the self that stood before her eyes. (I get it now...) (I love...) (Bisco [myself]...)

With the power of her realized self-love, she transforms her bow into the Red Star's True Self bow ** . her arrow pierces thru bisco and rust... only for bisco to realize he isn't dying, but transforming back into a human.

Bisco falls from the sky and red catches him. he's confused how he's still alive, but red says that this is her own ultimate bow technique - it isn't meant to kill, but to let things live, just like the technique that jabi invented.

Rust has been restored into his all-powerful form, but red is calm. burning hot, red tattoos suddenly cover rust's body and destroy him from the inside out. red's arrow awakened all of the souls in him and they were now trying to escape.

Rust continues to burn but doesn't die. bisco says they should end things since they've already won. R: "Okay, we'll need the choushin bow." B: "Seriously?!" R: "We need a way to calm the souls and send them off, but my bow can't do that. We need your power, the choushin bow's power of dreams!" B: "But I can't do it without Milo...!"

Bisco tries to summon the choushin bow but fails. up til now he and milo had used their combined power/belief in each other to create it...

So red helps him, by believing that he can do it. by believing in bisco [themself]. and it works - they create and fire the Ultimate Self-Truth bow ***. the souls are calmed, and return to the great cycle of life.

R: "Man, you're so easy to use. Your big sister gives you just a li~ttle encouragement and you completely go off." B: "What part of you is sisterly? You're just 'big'." R: "Chose your words more carefully when talkin' to a lady, you shrimp!" They start fist fighting and rolling on the ground, but red pins him after a few minutes.

After an awkward moment of silence she thanks him. she leans in and... looks like she's about to kiss him...... bisco is confused and so am i as the reader. they both sit up in a hurry when they hear n'badu fly to them.

N'badu laughs maniacally and disrespects the pieces of rust's automaton-corpse. he reveals that he was the one who created him.

Red throws an arrow at him and takes off one of his legs, only for one of her own legs to disappear. red asks why they're connected like this, and n'badu states that not only did he create rust... but all of the existence that red had known, including herself. her entire timeline was made from a divergence in bisco's.

Seeing red fading from existence, bisco grabs n'badu and heals him to restore red's body.

N'badu projects a dark aura over them, showing memories of past battles and what could have happened if they hadn't won. bisco and milo managed to stave off destruction over and over, but all of those divergences to bad futures still existed within the subspace of reality. those divergences came together to manifest n'badu.

N'badu brings out the sugars of both timelines, using them and the remaining souls he has to form them into "sugar the universe-creator."

When bisco looks up to the sky, there is a giant goddess casting light over the entire planet. a new universe forms in her hands, turning the blue afternoon sky black as night.

N'badu says he is the father of the universe. he orders sugar to overwrite all of existence - every world, every timeline. bisco runs towards the goddess and n'badu orders her to protect him. with barely a flick of her finger, bisco's arm is torn off.

Bisco uses his remaining hand to reach out toward sugar, his voice weak. B: "Sugar... let's go home... we'll go home.... to Milo..." S: -My love. Who is this human?- N: "Oh, you don't even remember who Akaboshi Bisco, your own father, is?!" he exclaims with faked surprise. "He's your very, very beloved papa. Before you turned into the creator of the universe, you loved your papa and mama more than anyone else." S: -That is true.- Sugar and bisco look at each other, exchanging many words in a single look. despite her memories being gone, the bond of their hearts has not completely disappeared. N: "Ahh, how moving! ...Now what the fuck are you waiting for? Kill him." S: -Yes, my love.-

A beam of light pierces bisco's eye, yet he continues to look up at sugar....

TO BE CONTINUED.

The book ends with a teaser quote and placeholder title for volume 10:

“Do partners stay together forever? Until they die?” “Yeah.” ... Sabikui Bisco 10, the final volume: Promises

Other notes:

In the family beach scene, Bisco is still fully clothed besides his cape. he's developed a phobia of the ocean mostly because milo told him a scary story about how vengeful spirits all live at the bottom (milo didn't intend for him to take it seriously). he shivers from remembering "an underwater adventure" they did with actagawa a number of years ago, which I think is a reference to one of the short stories included with the anime BluRay discs.

When Red explains her nickname "Red the twinshroom", "red" is written as 火星, the planet Mars.

Pawoo trained bisco in using a staff so now he's much better at it.

Tirol's great-grandpa (the high priest) fucking died off-camera and we only get a single sentence about it, which says he died from eating too much daifuku. RIP king

The fake realities that n'badu and blue create are referred to as Svapna Akasha.

Male amli is taller than bisco.

Main universe amli saw her alternate self via dreams like bisco did. when she wakes up, she's sad that she's still short.

The college scene: we get to see more of domino's personality, which is that she's very girly and very self-assured. she has painted nails and checks if she needs to fix her makeup. she takes a selfie with milo.

The college scene: Milo scolds himself for not realizing bisco was a fake sooner - "He was weirdly obedient, didn't make sarcastic remarks, and didn't pick fights. I'm so stupid, someone so plain could never really be bisco!" the fake bisco also implied he didn't like sweets, which is very anti-real bisco.

Salt never existed in red's world.

** Red Star's True Self Bow: 真我赤星弓 (shinga sekisei-kyuu), pretty literal translation. and of course red star/sekisei is the same kanji as "akaboshi".

*** 真我超信弓 (shinga choushin-kyuu), i wasn't sure how to make this name short and understandable. since "choushin" means "ultimate faith", this bow's name is "ultimate faith in one's true self".

Red is mentioned to have a high-quality, extremely study cloak. she can use it to deflect attacks.

#sabikui bisco #rust eater bisco #akaboshi bisco #nekoyanagi milo #akaboshi red bisco #sbkb summary series

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