After kicking Tsuna out of her room, Loki lay back on her bed, raising her hand to look at the rather simple ring on her finger.
"That guy seriously has no idea what he's doing… bringing me a ring like that out of nowhere."
"And then saying all that weird stuff…"
"All that talk about acceptance…"
Her voice trailed off, but the smile on her face deepened.
"I guess I can finally understand what those gods who fall headfirst into love feel like."
"So this is what it's like when the kid you've got your eye on does something like that."
Loki had never minded the idea of having a relationship with one of the children of the lower world. For things she hadn't experienced before, she was always happy to give them a try—
Especially if it was with a kid she liked, found interesting… or couldn't help but be curious about.
And Tsuna fit all of those boxes perfectly.
His uniqueness, his power, the traits she admired—honestly, even she had a hard time keeping her composure in front of him after that completely unconscious "proposal."
"Tsuna… you've realized it by now, haven't you?"
And as Loki guessed, the moment he returned to his own room, Tsuna finally realized what he'd done.
"Wait—don't tell me I basically proposed to Miss Loki?"
Yeah. He knew he'd seriously messed up.
Maybe it was because he'd been single for way too long.
Thirteen years in this life, plus thirty-three in his last one—yeah, that was a bit excessive.
He still remembered that he was supposed to keep a respectful distance from girls he wasn't close to. But somewhere along the line, he'd forgotten that some gestures could easily be taken the wrong way.
And handing someone a ring? Yeah, that was the classic way to cause a misunderstanding.
He quickly snapped out of his earlier panic.
Proposing wasn't embarrassing. Being rejected after proposing—that was embarrassing.
"Miss Loki didn't really seem like she was rejecting me, though."
"She wouldn't have accepted the ring if she wanted to turn me down. And what she said afterward… didn't sound like rejection, either."
"…Should I confirm it with her?"
After a moment of thought, Tsuna decisively scrapped that idea.
"No. Not for now."
"If Miss Loki doesn't deny or reject it, I'll figure it out eventually."
With that settled, he forced himself to stop thinking about it.
Whatever was going on with Loki could wait.
Right now, he needed to focus on Finn and Gareth—and on the deeper mechanics behind the Dying Will Flame.
"The Dying Will Flame becoming Tiona and Tione's skill instead of a magic did surprise me. I thought it'd show up in their magic slots if they gained that power."
"So… what's the difference between magic and skills, anyway?"
"Maybe magic has a limit on how many you can have, but skills don't?"
"No, that doesn't sound right either."
Judging the value of skills and magic by how many you could have was way too dumb.
After all, Annihilation Maker—the ability he possessed—was also categorized as a skill. That alone proved there wasn't a question of which was more precious.
The real difference seemed to be that magic was almost always active-use, while skills could be either active or passive.
That thought gave him an idea.
"So maybe Tiona and Tione got the Dying Will Flame as a passive power—that's why it's listed under their skills?"
"But even if it's passive, that power still—"
He froze mid-thought.
"Wait. Could it be that Tiona and Tione's Dying Will Flames require the rings I made to activate them? That would explain why their ability's called Dying Will Veins, and why it's categorized as a skill instead of magic."
"Miss Loki did say there's no actual difference between the Dying Will Flame and Dying Will Veins."
"So the real distinction lies in the conditions to use that power?"
"…There's no way to confirm that right now."
"Maybe only after bringing Miss Loki back to that other world—and letting her carry the Falna's power there—could we verify it."
"For now, I'll shelve that question. It's just my own curiosity about how the Falna system classifies abilities, anyway."
Since he didn't know whether it actually mattered, Tsuna decided to treat the whole investigation as just another personal hobby.
…Requesting flowers…
"Tomorrow it's Finn and Gareth's turn."
"I wonder… did Tiona and Tione's results come out the way I expected, or will it be something else entirely?"
He couldn't give himself a definite answer.
"But Tiona's attribute did exceed my expectations."
"I thought hers would align with Emotion, but it ended up being the same as Tione's—Lightning."
"So maybe the ability someone gets from the Dying Will Flame doesn't depend on what I expect—it varies based on the individual's emotional wavelength."
"The power only appears to come from my will because I'm the one who awakened it in them."
"The real test will be Finn and Gareth."
...
With all those thoughts swirling in his head, Tsuna eventually drifted off to sleep as usual.
When morning came and sunlight spilled across Orario, the first thing he did after waking was head straight for Loki's room.
Knock knock knock!
"You can just come in."
He paused mid-knock at her voice, then pushed the door open.
Loki was sprawled across her bed in a loose nightgown, her hair down instead of tied in a ponytail—tousled and messy.
"Ha~~~"
Half-asleep, Loki blinked blearily at the boy standing in her doorway.
"Figures. Only you would come knocking at this hour."
All this time, he was the only one who ever showed up at her room this early.
Even when something came up, most people went to Finn, Gareth, or Riveria first.
But Tsuna? If there was something on his mind, he'd head straight here without a second thought.
"I actually slept in today," he pointed out.
"That's you. I went to bed really late last night."
She yawned and stretched, then suddenly froze—her half-lidded eyes sharpening into something much more mischievous.
"You went to bed early last night, didn't you?"
"Gave me a ring, said all that sweet talk—and then you just went to sleep?"