Chapter 156

Megumi and Panda still need to prove they are not enemies so the talks with Hakari can move ahead, but Kirara remains certain they are school spies and keeps fighting. To end the scuffle and open a genuine dialogue, Megumi has to unravel the intricate rules governing Kirara's cursed technique.

Megumi spreads a swarm of rabbit shikigami across the rooftop to map where they can and cannot go. Each rabbit bears the symbol "★Acrux," the door carries "★Gacrux," and Panda has been tagged "★Imai." Kirara's innate technique marks cursed energy and treats shikigami like sorcerers, so the rabbits should swarm and smother Megumi, but he dispels them first. Comparing notes, the pair work out that the rabbits could near Panda and the second floor but never Kirara or the door, and Megumi guesses the motif is the Southern Cross constellation. Kirara's startled reaction confirms it, just as Megumi's reaction confirms his uncertainty to Kirara, who resolves to stop him before he reaches the door.

Megumi deduces the marks follow a fixed sequence rather than fixed positions, since Kirara can approach the door and he can approach Panda. Because Divine Dog could not reach Kirara, the technique must affect the user too, meaning Kirara stays outside deliberately to keep the conditions unmet. The constellation must hold five points, with a hidden middle star between them. Going on the offensive, Kirara marks a car with ★Imai and launches it at Panda, and when Panda throws it away it boomerangs back into his head. Megumi realizes a mark requires the user's direct contact and that objects must first be charged with another's residual cursed energy; reading the residuals, he locates a parking stop marked "★Mimosa," the fifth star.

Love Rendezvous, Megumi learns, sets five stars in a Southern Cross pattern that must be traversed in order of distance, from Acrux through Mimosa and Ginan to Gacrux. When Kirara strips ★Ginan from their own cursed energy to re-mark objects with ★Acrux and bury Megumi, Divine Dog reappears behind them: Megumi never dispelled it, only jammed it in a wall, waiting until Kirara stood directly between them to release it. Pinned and forced to cancel the technique, Kirara is restrained on the ground as Megumi simply asks to be heard.

This nineteen-page Volume 18 chapter concludes the Megumi and Panda versus Kirara Hoshi fight and is adapted in anime Episode 53. It serves as the definitive breakdown of Love Rendezvous, with the Southern Cross stars named individually, and pays off Megumi's recollection of Tsumiki teaching him about the constellation.