Toyokawa Shoko doesn't want to become a witch

Page 559

“Finally, the cycle of more than seven thousand times was broken. The lamp sacrificed itself to create new possibilities... I can’t let her down.” She took a deep breath, her lips trembling as she looked up at Flame with a broken expression. “Besides... I’m tired, so tired that I don’t want to move anymore.”

"Is this the result you wanted—trading a complete stranger for some so-called 'new possibility'?!" Yan gritted her teeth and walked towards Xiangzi. "What kind of person are you?! At a time like this, you're going to cower like a coward?! Are you really the senior I know?!"

Yi Lin Yao Qi~ Wu Jiu Si Jiu Ba She grabbed Xiangzi's collar, revealing a look of disappointment and frustration.

However, even when forcibly dragged up, Xiangzi had an indifferent deadpan expression, as if she wouldn't react no matter what Yan said.

A surge of anger rose within him, and Yan raised his hand, intending to slap the flame.

brush--!

The hand that was about to slap was stopped by another person.

"That's enough," Mu said softly, grasping Yan's wrist. "That's enough."

"Senior Mu." Yan turned her head, looking at her in disbelief, "Even you..."

In the blink of an eye, Xiangzi had been snatched from her hands.

Chu Hua, holding the distraught Xiangzi in her arms, shook her head at Yan.

“Xiao Xiang has already done enough,” Chu Hua said softly. “Even if she continues, she will only continue to sink into a cycle of despair.”

"But the future world is not what you imagine—"

The future world is not what you imagine at all.

“Let the future handle its own affairs.” Chu Hua frowned. “Isn’t shifting responsibility back to the past also a form of escapism?”

Chu Hua had been watching Xiangzi from behind for far too long, witnessing his repeated falls into despair and despair. She didn't want to see him struggle any longer.

That's good too.

Chu Hua thought selfishly.

The matter has been resolved, hasn't it? Soon there won't be any more witches, and Xiao Xiang won't have to worry about becoming Nirvana anymore.

Although it's not perfect, isn't it a good enough ending?

Why force Xiaoxiang to continue?

Chu Hua lowered her head and hugged Xiangzi, who was sobbing slightly.

"It's okay if you don't try anymore, Xiao Xiang. It's okay to cry, it's alright..." She whispered comfortingly in Xiangzi's ear, "No matter what, I will always be by your side."

The Tale of Reincarnation: Bonds: Chapter 744 Epilogue - Part Two

The world seemed to change quietly, but it wasn't until a few days later, when the magical girls on the rooftop that day made a conscious effort to understand, that they realized the world had indeed changed.

The most significant change is that the creatures known as "witches" have disappeared, replaced by "monsters" born from human negative emotions. While the two share many similarities, they are completely different.

Witches need magical girls as larvae, conceived from despair, while magical beasts are like mushrooms in the forest, sprouting everywhere after a rain. Although they are not as strong as witches, they have the advantage in numbers.

However, the comparison between witches and magical beasts is meaningless to most magical girls. Because in their memories, the concept of a "witch" has never existed.

correct.

After the flowers of creation and destruction altered the rules of the world, they also rewrote the memories of all humanity, and even history. Witches completely disappeared from human memory, replaced by magical beasts. Apart from a few people on the rooftop that day, no one remembered the existence of witches. Even the magical girls facing the stage setup in Mitakihara had their memories of the stage setup replaced by a powerful magical beast.

Of course, this is only one of the effects of the rule change. There are many subtle details in the new world that are different from the past, making it particularly difficult for magical girls who retain memories of the old world to adapt.

No matter how much time has passed, it's hard to get used to.

"Hey, Su Shishi, Li Xi." One day, after defeating a monster, Ai Yin suddenly called out Su Shishi's name on a whim.

"Ok?"

"Actually, I've always wondered why we teamed up in the first place?" Ai Yin tilted her head, revealing her shiny little tiger teeth as she grinned.

"You're so bad, you'd have been killed by the monster if I didn't help you." Li Xi put her hands behind her head and said in a not-so-friendly tone, "If it weren't for the tradition of seniors mentoring juniors at the gathering, I wouldn't bother with you."

"Huh, is that so?" Aine blinked. "I'm not that bad."

"Who said there wasn't? You were incredibly bad at the very beginning, okay? It's already a high compliment that you didn't make things worse."

"Hehe?" Ai Yin's expression changed, and she moved closer to Li Xi, asking with a smug look, "It was like this at the beginning, but how about now?"

"Tsk." Li Xi turned her head away. "It's passable."

"So you're saying you're fairly satisfied?" Ai Yin excitedly climbed onto Li Xi's shoulders. "Yay!"

"Get down here!"

"Don't be so angry, Tanuki~"

"I told you not to call me that!"

After the two of them joked and teased each other for a while, Ai Yin noticed that ever since she asked the question, Su Shi seemed to have been silent, as if she had something on her mind. She slowed down and gradually fell behind.

"Hey, Li Xi, wait a minute, Su Shishi seems to be—"

"Get down—me!"

thump--!

Aine landed on her bottom.

"Ouch......"

Ai Yin rubbed her bottom, got up, and happily returned to Su Shi's side.

"Is something on your mind?" she asked with concern.

"......"

"Su Shishi?"

"...I saw it on the recruitment board, so let's just put us together." After a while, Su Shi lowered her eyes and said softly, "Li Xi, what you said about experienced people mentoring new people was actually something I mentioned to convince you."

She was answering Ai-yin's initial question.

"It seems so." Li Xi recalled for a moment and found that her memories of that time were not very clear. "Time flies so fast. It feels like it was just a short time ago."

"Yeah, it's been so long already." Ai Yin put her hands on her hips and sighed, "We're almost graduating from high school without even realizing it. The other day, our teacher talked to us about our college applications. What are your plans for the future?"

“I plan to apply to the police academy,” Li Xi said. “Many seniors are in the police academy, and as a magical girl, entering the body is where I can best utilize my advantages.”

"Oh, what lofty aspirations!" Ai Yin's eyes sparkled. "I want to study fashion design in Paris and then come back to open a clothing factory."

"Is that all the aesthetic sense you have?" Li Xi glanced at her, shook his head dismissively, and sighed.

"Hey hey hey hey hey! You're teasing me again! You always tease me, did I touch your cake?!" Aine crossed her arms, her cheeks puffed up like steamed buns. "Tanuki, you win!"

"Haha." Li Xi rolled her eyes. "Since when telling the truth is considered mean?"

"Hmph, I'm ignoring you." Aine turned her head to the other side.

She inadvertently caught a glimpse of Su Shi's forlorn expression.

Monster hunts usually last until very late, and by then it's completely dark. The neon lights of the reed plains are on, and the rush hour lanes are dotted with red brake lights, like stars fallen to the ground. The city's light pollution has dimmed the sky, but the moon remains conspicuous.

Su Shi's figure appeared particularly lonely under the neon lights, with a faint, inconspicuous light seemingly reflecting from the corner of her eye.

"Su Shishi?" Ai Yin raised her hand and wiped away the tears that had welled up in Su Shishi's eyes. "Did you remember something sad?"

"Two years have passed." Su Shi raised her head and murmured, looking at the seemingly unchanging moon, "...Lamp, are you watching over everyone?"

Two years have passed since that day. In those two years, it seems like everything has changed, yet it also seems like nothing has changed.

However, no one remembers her anymore.

Su Shi still hasn't gotten used to the days when "Gao Songdeng" never existed.

"I... I'm not feeling well." She lowered her head and rubbed her eyes. "You and Lixi can have dinner together. I'm going home now."

As she spoke, she turned and walked toward the entrance to the nearby tram station.

Aiyin stared blankly as she disappeared into the crowd, feeling a strange emptiness in her heart.

"Hey, Tanuki."

"Hmm?" Li Xi walked to her side, arms crossed over her chest.

"Have we forgotten something?" Ai Yin murmured. "Forgot something very important."

The empty space in her heart seems very important. The reason she inexplicably wanted to ask this question today is because she felt a void in her heart.

“…” Li Xi turned her head away and scratched her head. “Now that you mention it, I also…”

She clutched her chest, feeling a tightness in her chest.

"Li Xi also feels like something is missing, right?"

"Ah."

"What exactly is missing...?"

Ai Yin stood with her hands behind her back, gazing in the direction where Su Shi had disappeared. She remembered that Su Shi seemed to have mentioned a name when she was talking to herself earlier.

"Who is the lamp...?"

=============

The night is getting dark.

The neon lights created a starry sky-like scene at Flame's feet. She sat on the edge of the boom of a construction site crane, hundreds of meters high, her legs dangling in mid-air, looking down at the city called Reed Plain.

Two years have passed since then.

She lived a peaceful life in Mitakihara for two years.

Madoka was unharmed, and so were Mami, Sayaka, Kyoko, and everyone she knew. With the magical girls working together, the powerful monster was finally defeated, and everyone welcomed the first sunrise after the disaster—this was what had happened in the new world.

For Homura, whether in the old world or the new world, she was not in Mitakihara that day. So, it doesn't really matter. Everyone survived, and Mitakihara achieved a perfect ending.

However, Flame was not satisfied with this ending.

For Flame, the memories transmitted from the future, along with her memories of the entire old world, remained in her mind. For her, the future of this world would be chaotic.

Before long, supercausality will truly appear in the sight of humans and incubators, and Earth will fall into a long war in the struggle for this power that can reverse the future.

No, in fact, based on the investigation over the past two years, there is still a lot of information that the incubators have not told her. Perhaps the war between humans and incubators has already begun, but it has not yet been brought to the forefront.

She couldn't just sit idly by and wait for the inevitable future to arrive; she had to find a way to prevent it from happening.

For two years, she worked tirelessly on this matter.

She would make regular trips to the Reed Plains for the sake of that person who was crucial to the whole affair.

Today is the regular time to come to the reed field.

Yan lowered her head, looking at her toes and the city below them.

"It's almost time, my senior should be home by now." She glanced at her watch. "I'll finish up my part-time job and then go find her."

"I've thought about your statement carefully, Homura Akemi." Kyubey crouched behind her. "But whether it's the anti-universe or a completely new timeline, Gestalt has no record of it."

"Then, what about Delete?" Flame turned around, already used to Kyubey's sudden appearance.

"Delete, is that the incubator you mentioned who was expelled from Gestalt due to mental illness?" Kyubey shook his head. "There has never been such a record."

“Impossible.” Flame hugged her knees. “Whether it’s the old world or Delete, they both exist. I’m not the only one who has seen them with my own eyes.”

“But it’s just you—even if there were more people, what you’re saying would just be hearsay, and there’s no evidence to prove its existence. I can consider it a kind of ‘collective illusion’.”

“Then I can also consider your boasting of ‘omnipotence’ as just self-praise.”

"We never claimed to be omnipotent."

"But the way you all acted made it seem like you had everything under control." Flame turned around and looked at it disdainfully.

“Humans are so hard to understand,” Kyubey said. “We’ve never expressed ourselves that way.”

"Tsk." He clicked his tongue, turned around, and put his gaze back on the reed field at his feet.

Basically, the conversations with Kyubey were all pretty much the same, making it difficult to extract any useful information from them. But Flame knew very well that these incubators were just pretending to be stupid.

“The concept of ‘supercausality’ is indeed very interesting,” Kyubey said. “If such a power truly exists, our strategy should be decisively different from what we have now.”

"Where's the witch? Aren't you interested?"

“Compared to true entropy reversal, the method of using a large amount of emotional energy to stop entropy increase is obviously not enough,” Kyubey said. “If supercausality really exists, it will definitely be the most precious treasure we need to strive for.”

“After all, you incubators are the kind of creatures that only care about goals and results.” Flame stood up from the iron frame and looked down. “Cherish these last moments of peace. Humans are not ants who have always lived under your control.”

Thick, black fog enveloped the building under construction, dimming the neon lights beneath their feet.