Unrelated, I did a re-read, and I realized that White Chain is basically the only one of the three that’s consistently drawn as “beautiful” (when out of her stone armor). Even when she gets angry (“SUBMIT!”) she becomes more statuesque than ugly.

Allison can pull some super-derpy/ugly faces (and I love her being drawn like that), Cio tends to be abruptly monstrous or weird or sexy, but White Chain is rendered by and large in a way that’s very pretty/beautiful, and that even continues if you look at Aspected Chaos’ design…it’s a lot further along on the “conventionally pretty” spectrum than Allison and Cio usually are.

I think this is really cool, that there’s something so subtle reinforcing that she’s an angel.

I love the New Coke inspiration for Nukoku’s name.

Musings…

I was thinking before that “eyes opening” was a theme, as it certainly was for White Chain, but if you put the three next to each other now, White Chain’s eyes have opened, Allison has one open and one closed, and Cio/Nukoku has hers closed. So I wonder if Nukoku might “stay” with her eyes obscured/gone to keep up an underlying theme that they are three possibilities along a spectrum.

It is interesting that Nukoku is so focused on small, quiet things, as that is the opposite of what you’d think devils would want. The opposite of greed and consumption. It’s also the opposite of White Chain’s arc, where White Chain is becoming a ruler (as far as we can tell so far), when for so long she was the one taking orders, not giving them.

I think more evidence is piling up that devils/angels become more powerful when they adopt a bit of their opposite counterpart. White Chain, originally of the cold white flame, now has a human body which is the warm black flame, and is a Demiurge. And Nukoku, the hot black flame, rejects who she was when she was a demiurge, and has enough order to her now that she could come back without an intact mask–she might have taken this increase in orderliness from White Chain while they were merged (along with Allison) as Aspected Chaos.

(My theory before is that Metatron is so powerful because his insanity is chaotic and basically brings devil-like chaos/creativity to him, while Himself has bound himself up with laws and order, normally an angel thing. So White Chain and Nukoku are paralleling this, just in a somewhat different way.)

You could also take “Reborn Sin Against Heaven” as an angel-style name…which is quite odd, and interesting, for a devil. Also, if “reach heaven through violence” is a thing, would “Reborn Sin Against Heaven” be reaching heaven without violence?

The jury’s still out, however, if Nukoku’s pink blood has anything to do with Incubus. We might still see Nukoku do a final transformation. Although, I think White Chain and Allison might also get another transformation before the book is done, too, as their arcs also aren’t complete.

Edit: Someone on the main website suggested Nukoku might actually bear Incubus’ key after Maya was done taking him apart. Which…would make a lot of sense? If White Chain can “redeem” Solomon David’s key of diamond/pride, then maybe Nukoku can turn Incubus’ key into something softer, like love. I’d kind of really want a flashback though of seeing all that go down.