Chapter 172

JAA headquarters calls out to Base 06 as X's organization overruns it, but no one answers; every defender lies dead at the hands of Takamura-Uzuki. Kanaguri films the carnage from a distance, finally convinced that Uzuki really did absorb Takamura's personality at the museum. Beside him, Akira sickens at the sight, and though Kanaguri reminds her she chose to come, she forces herself to keep watching and insists Uzuki must be stopped. Kanaguri, treating the massacre as a test of the new persona, doubts that is possible.

Kumanomi approaches, stunned that Uzuki could wipe out a base while wounded, and wonders whether their plans can still proceed without Gaku or Haruma. When she leans in to catch his muttering, Takamura-Uzuki slashes her mechanical arm apart and swings again, only for Akira's quick reflexes to throw her clear. Kumanomi, baffled at being attacked, wrongly blames Akira's presence and demands she restore Uzuki, refusing to retreat even as Kanaguri keeps filming his so-called protagonist.

Within Uzuki's mind, a lone Takamura sits in a black void until a Rion figure appears, cuts him down from behind, and seizes control. Rion-Uzuki halts his blade inches from Akira's face, moving Akira to tears, and hurls Kumanomi across the room when she readies scrap metal to attack. Rion-Uzuki tells Akira to flee, explaining that Uzuki cannot yet control the Takamura persona, which is merely his memory of an out-of-control killer who mows down friend and foe alike. Confirming she is only Uzuki's recollection of Rion, the figure reveals that the real Rion told Uzuki a great deal about Akira, and a faint smile crosses its face as Uzuki begins to recall his history with Rion.

Takamura-Uzuki annihilates JAA Base 06 while Kanaguri records and Akira looks on. The rampaging persona attacks his own ally Kumanomi, severing her mechanical arm, until a Rion personality surfaces inside Uzuki and takes over to protect Akira. Rion-Uzuki explains that each persona is a fragment of Uzuki's memories and that his Takamura only replicates a mindless killer. The chapter reveals that Rion once told Uzuki much about Akira, opening the door to their shared backstory.

Titled Mirage (Shinkirō), this is the one hundred seventy-second chapter of the JAA Jail Arc. It ran in issue 31 of 2024 on July 1, 2024, and is collected in Volume 20. Takamura appears only as an imagined figure inside Uzuki's mind, and Rion is glimpsed as the personality that overtakes him.