Maybe from the moment I escaped to another past, leaving behind everything I had experienced.
It feels like I’m living in a dream rather than in a real life that has continued on from the past.
It feels like I’ve hidden away in your warmth that changed everything.
It feels like something that was burning deep inside my heart has been extinguished.
＊
“Move!! To the right!!”
“To the right?! What do you mean?! That’s the tail of a sea serpent!!”
Na-yeon, in a state of urgency, completely dropped her military tone and turned pale.
In the chaos of the sea serpent right in front of her, which direction was she supposed to escape?
KWAAAAA
The sight of the giant tail writhing in the sea looked like countless small hills twisting and moving, making her feel small in the presence of the sea serpent controlling this massive ocean.
‘This is on a whole different level than dealing with small monsters coming to the shore!!’
Na-yeon was just confused by the situation itself.
KWAK
Without answering, Yuki pressed Na-yeon’s head forcefully to the right while maneuvering through the waves.
“Wah?!”
Her vision tilted to the right.
The waves tilted accordingly.
“Uwaaa?!”
“Poison!! Hold your breath!!”
The group was completely flattened, sliding along the right surface of the water.
The rising tail of the sea serpent swept over their heads like a roof, brushing their hair aside.
SHHAAAK
The surface of the sea serpent, glistening with poison, narrowly passed over and began to eat away at the ends of their hair.
Like hair held over a flame, the tips were melting away.
Na-yeon suddenly thought of her dad’s thinning hair before she returned young from Elysion and screamed.
“Eek?!”
“Good job!!”
“Just keep dodging like that!”
“T-That’s right.”
“Again now!!”
“Again?!”
The waves tilted once more.
Attacks were aimed at the response team.
KUOOO
A dense killing intent.
A sickening smell.
Once again, an attack grazed by perilously.
Poison shot from the massive head of the sea serpent like a water cannon, barely missing over the heads of the group. The toxic breath spread out around them, bouncing off the crashing waves and whirlpools.
“Wah?! What do we do now?!”
“If we fall here, we’ll be attacked from behind, so we have to go straight ahead!!”
“Really!! I’m never going on foreign deployments again!!”
Following Yuki’s loud order, Na-yeon launched everyone into the sea foam and accelerated as if they were surfing, sliding at full speed toward the body of the sea serpent.
CHIIII
As the poison spread in the water surrounded the team riding on the waves, Na-yeon tried to take to the air, but Lee Hua urgently pressed down on her shoulder.
“If we go up into the air from here, the starlight will be absorbed by the [Plague]!! I’ll decompose the poison, so keep going!!”
“Eek?! This is driving me crazy!!”
FWOOSH
Yuki unfolded the Flame Barrier to protect Na-yeon and Lee Hua. At the same time, dozens of lightning bolts sprang from Lee Hua’s shoulder, vibrating and scorching the surface of the sea.
WHOOOOO
CRACK
The distinctive sound of high voltage electrified the air as the plasma spread out like glowing tendrils.
Each time lightning collided, steam evaporated with a sour smell.
CHIIII
The dense steam was thick with a sour smell and an oppressive heat. As the group advanced by decomposing the sea water with high voltage current, the sea serpent spasmed and shot poison wildly.
KUOOO
The waves crashed.
Poison was shot.
A deafening sound rang in their ears.
SSHHH
SSHHH
Protected by Yuki’s Flame Barrier and Lee Hua’s lightning, Na-yeon moved through the poisoned sea. The more they pushed forward through the relentlessly crashing waves, the more fierce attacks from the black sea serpent filled their view.
“… .”
Yuki, measuring the closing distance to the sea serpent, still felt like she was walking in a dream.
No, perhaps from the day she returned to the past.
From the day she met Hikari.
Yuki felt like she was half-living in a dream.
‘Why does Hikari trust me so much?’
Amidst the fight against a monster that belonged in mythology, that thought suddenly crossed her mind.
It was an inappropriate thought to have in a battlefield where countless flames sparkled above, on a raging sea with crashing waves and whirlpools.
If someone could see her thoughts, they would probably think she was insane, asking in this situation what she was thinking so calmly. But Yuki had not been living as fiercely as she used to since returning to this time.
The half-burned firewood merely coughed out sparks while weakly fighting, relying on memories of the past.
– Why aren’t you trying to save people!!
– We’re magical girls… we protect everyone!
– We will definitely be happy!!
Her past self’s words echoed, chastising her current foolish self.
A world rushing toward destruction.
The world Yuki desperately fought to survive.
Yet a world that still failed.
The half-burnt embers eventually returned, looking for the key that the Goddess of [Start] had hidden.
To a world where a kind girl watched her fight from another universe.
And thus her role had come to an end.
Ah.
I understand now.
Why my heart races and I feel happy only when I am by that girl’s side.
Why I feel alive only when I listen to that girl’s words.
Only that girl recognizes the traces of Yuki’s fierce struggle in this world.
Only that girl can share the fierce memories of Yuki’s past life.
The third star that bloomed while fighting monsters.
The comrades who cried and faced each other.
The small happiness she had barely found in the devastated world.
The evidence of her struggles in a world nearing destruction.
Everything has vanished.
The painful yet fiercely lived history.
Only Hikari, who emerged from the altered past, positively acknowledged Yuki’s lost history.
‘I couldn’t fully exist anywhere but next to Hikari in this world.’
The current Yuki was not the Yuki who should exist in July 2012 but a foreign entity that returned with the memories of a changed past and future. However, no one realized that; the people around her only saw her as an ordinary Yuki from 2012.
Neither her dad,
nor Lee Hua,
nor Natasha,
nor Asha,
recognized the foreigner, Yuki Shikishima, who had returned from the future.
They did not know her as a hurt girl and the last magical girl.
They did not know the fierce trajectory of Yuki’s life.
Without Hikari, Shikishima Yuki couldn’t fully exist.
Although she couldn’t proudly say it, it was clear that in a world on the verge of destruction, Shikishima Yuki had existed.
What am I now?
“I need to get ready to ride the sea serpent soon!”
“… .”
“Yuki?”
Lee Hua looked at the silent Yuki with a questioning gaze. In the original world, she was a girl who had experienced various things in the USA and had a cynical personality that mistrusted the world.
Yuki fought alongside Lee Hua, who had a cold and twisted sense of justice, not her kind and righteous friend who protected each other’s backs.
“Team, Team Leader!! Did you drink poison smoke? Should I rinse you off with clean water?”
Na-yeon, turning pale in the unfamiliar fight. In the original world, she was a girl with a prickly personality, protecting her homeland where her parents would return.
Yuki had not met the fledgling magical girl Na-yeon, who had just stepped out into the world, but a powerful magical girl Na-yeon who desperately fought to protect her home sea while longing for her parents who didn’t return.
‘It’s changed.’
Everything has changed.
The sea serpent that turned Europe into chaos without any warning.
The magical girls who fought and eventually destroyed each other in suspicion over absorbing each other’s stars.
Adults who were killed by monsters while coveting the power of magical girls.
A chaotic world.
An unreasonable fate.
Humanity’s ruin.
Even so, Yuki lived fiercely there.
Even if she shouted false happiness and fleeting dreams, she fiercely proved herself.
Those were surely painful times.
But there, Yuki’s time continued.
“… magical girls are.”
“Yeah?”
“What?”
“Magical girls are beings who protect everyone… right?”
“That’s a given.”
“It’s something I heard to my heart’s content from the company commander back at base.”
“… .”
Now the words she once shouted desperately are common knowledge everyone knows.
Yuki felt a sense of loss and emptiness in that realization, causing her to smile.
It should be a joyful thing.
It was a word spread by a friend who said she changed because of her words.
Yet Yuki couldn’t truly ignite in a world that had transformed effortlessly according to her ideals.
“I’m sorry for saying something unnecessary. Soon we’ll dive onto the sea serpent. Great job, everyone.”
“D-Don’t say that in such a heavy tone; it scares me.”
“… .”
Lee Hua hesitated, wanting to say something as she watched Yuki. Yuki smiled at Lee Hua and Na-yeon, then gazed softly at the white light fighting in the sky.
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