I mean, the top just happens because color has 'inherit' by default. The latter is specificity, and normally what I think of when I hear "cascading". But, it turns out that isn't cascading either [0].
Cascading refers to the order stylesheets have priority when loaded by the browser. Going to have to update my definitions for the future. I always thought cascading referred to how specificity worked.
Edit: no wait, specificity is part of cascading, cascading refers to the entire process of determining which style applies, including specificity. Inheritance on the other hand is not part of cascading. My definitions were right, don't need to relearn anything.
[0] https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/CSS/Cascade