Chapter 143 : Call of the Stars (1)

December 21

For two months, the sky had not returned.

Even after the day of trials passed, the dragon of destruction had not appeared.

Darkness and red spread calmly like the twilight just before night falls.

“…”

While the sky burns red, the cold felt on the cheeks is terrifyingly chilly.

The coldest winter ever due to the midday sun that hadn’t come for a while.

No.

Perhaps it’s not just because of the cold.

The fear that what we’ve been doing might be meaningless.

The anxiety that everything might be on the extension of fate.

Numerous thoughts rose in my heart, making my fingertips cold.

Even now, I could almost hear the sighs of people evacuating to Elysion to escape the demons. Those sighs were so heavy that I ended up shrinking back.

Still, I had to remain composed in front of people.

I had to act calm as if I knew everything.

Because I am [Hope].

“Hikari.”

“…Yuki.”

“I dealt with as many as I could for now.”

“Yeah. Thank you.”

Turning my eyes from the red sky, I saw Yuki’s pure white figure, who hadn’t released her transformation for days.

White flame gently warming the surroundings.

As she approached, it felt like some warmth returned to my heart that had grown cold with anxiety.

“…”

“…What is it?”

Even with the power of fully bloomed 3-star, the traces of fatigue under her eyes didn’t disappear. Yuki, who had squeezed out her power to the limit and remained transformed, was relatively energetic compared to other magical girls fighting while taking short naps on fate threads or ships.

I couldn’t move from watching over the place where the dragon of destruction would appear, so I entrusted all battles to Galatea and the magical girls. I offered to help directly because I felt sorry for them overexerting themselves, but I was refused because everything would be meaningless if we couldn’t stop the dragon of destruction.

The magical girls smiled at me and asked me to believe in them.

Still, feeling sorry about that, I placed my hand on Yuki’s cheek.

It was cold.

Yuki also didn’t know much about this situation.

She was anxious too.

“…”

We were just protecting people from approaching demons without knowing anything, and breathing miracles into the world of people that was breaking down.

Smiling and pretending everything was fine like fools who knew nothing.

We shouted that we were winning in a situation that anyone could see was unreasonable.

We became fools in endless uncertainty.

Because it felt like we couldn’t move a single step if we didn’t advance like fools.

We just smiled and said everything was fine.

“I’m sorry.”

“…For what?”

“Just because.”

“…”

In fact, for the past two months, except for occasional naps or rest times, most magical girls have been constantly traveling around the world while transformed. Small rifts that would normally open once or twice a week are now opening in dozens or hundreds of places around the world.

Endlessly surging demons.

The sun that doesn’t rise.

Dried up crops.

The word destruction no longer needed to be spoken.

Because everyone was already thinking of it in a corner of their minds.

As if it would become reality the moment it was uttered.

Despair.

We who had climbed to the highest peak of joy were recalling that word faster than anyone.

Predetermined fate approaches so unreasonably and suddenly…

How had Yuki fought in such unreasonableness?

“Aren’t you tired?”

“…It is a bit hard. Someone keeps trying to shoulder everything alone.”

“…”

“It’s okay.”

“…Ah.”

“You don’t have to be anxious alone. We’re together.”

“Yeah.”

“What you’ve been doing isn’t meaningless.”

“…Yeah.”

A gentle lie.

Yuki slowly took my hand and kissed the back of it.

Her soft short hair fell like a curtain as she bowed her head, and in the secret space under her hair, burning warmth engraved a promise on the back of my hand.

A short but intense heat.

A fierce but gentle softness.

It looked so much like a noble vow.

I couldn’t take my eyes off for a moment.

After an eternal instant, her lips that had left a warmth like a brand curved into a smile.

“Thanks to you, I was able to come back this far.”

“Is that so… I’m glad if you think that way.”

“Thanks to you, I was able to grow.”

“Yuki was always a strong person. You just didn’t have a chance to look back at yourself.”

“You gave me that chance.”

Though she tried to smile calmly, an unmistakable trembling could be seen in the corners of her eyes.

‘Ah.’

Somehow Yuki’s face seemed to have changed to be like mine.

We may have met in some fate and walked together cherishing each other because of our similarities.

The protagonist in the story and I have finally come to know each other this far.

“We’ll be okay… I’m okay.”

“Yeah.”

“So if everything ends well… don’t worry and you can leave.”

“Huh…?”

I couldn’t help but freeze at those words.

Seeing my expression, Yuki chuckled happily.

“You… knew?”

“Yeah. Anyone could see you were acting like someone about to leave for somewhere. Not keeping anything in your room, being indifferent to anything not necessary for outside work, acting as if you naturally wouldn’t be here after the trials end.”

“…”

“Actually, everyone probably noticed to some extent.”

Hana, Ichika, Sumire too…

“Then do you want to live here forever? I’ll help you.”

“…I’m sorry.”

“Hehe, that’s too bad.”

“…”

Whether her words were a joke or not, she just kept smiling even at my refusal.

Suddenly I felt like I wouldn’t be able to say it if not now.

For Yuki who was so devoted to me.

“I’ll definitely come back.”

“…”

“Even if I have to find a miracle again. I’ll come back to this world.”

Hearing those words, Yuki’s face gradually contorted.

From her trembling fingertips, I could feel faint expectation and fear.

“…What about your world?”

“Though I kept denying it, I’ve become close to a goddess, haven’t I?”

“…No one believed you weren’t a goddess though.”

“Is that so?”

Taking care of my mother until the end, sorting out what I hadn’t been able to, and finding a way to return. I’m not sure if I can find a way on Earth where the will of stars doesn’t exist. But I will find it no matter what.

Even so, the time it takes will be at least…

“It might take 50 years… or more.”

“I’ll be a complete old lady then? Hehe.”

“…”

“Then I’ll lead the magical girls and protect this place.”

“Yuki.”

“I’ll shine endlessly before people, and work hard enough to bloom divinity… the fourth star.”

“…”

“I’ll become the best magical girl that doesn’t change no matter how old I get.”

Yuki finally hugged me to hide the tears that burst out.

Yuki who was a span shorter than me who had become a woman.

The girl with short hair slightly split at the ends that was so impressive.

She who loved her father and loved the world.

So fragile and small.

Looking so precarious as if she might disappear somewhere if she shed tears.

I held her back so she wouldn’t waver.

“I’ll… definitely wait.”

“Yeah.”

“I’ll wait for you who watched over me.”

“I’ll return to you who watched over me.”

We promised each other like that under the cold red sky.

To meet again for sure.

* * *

In the destroyed world, everything had returned to chaos.

Only silence had settled.

Gods,

Humans,

The will of stars,

A star that had become quiet with everything returning to chaos.

An immeasurable time since destruction.

An era of nothingness where even the domains guarded by apostles indifferent to humanity had disappeared, even the will of stars had vanished, and only glass stars left behind by magical girls floated in chaos. In that era, a single glass star rose from chaos and gained its own personality.

The 10001st star that shouldn’t have existed originally.

Not born from the goddess of [Beginning].

Chaos engraved on two starlights dropped by [Resurrection] as she crossed to another dimension.

A star of chaos created by gathering fragments of magical girls who split apart killing each other.

“…”

It existed alone without any memories or personality.

Just in solitude.

Just in nothingness.

Until the memory of destruction, merged with the goddesses’ curses, flowed in from the throne of nothingness drifting in the gap between dimensions.

The curse spilled by the three goddesses abandoned by the will of stars to summon chaos existing in another dimension. It was distorted through the curse of [Greed] and reached some existence in a different timeline.

The voice of destruction that cursed the world. The voice of stars that wanted to become complete. They reached one existence.

“I see. You disliked the imperfect world.”

It began to move.

To return the imperfect will of stars to the era it lived in.

It bloomed as a goddess of stars, not a goddess of humans.

The last goddess born with chaos in the era of stars.

An endpoint existing outside of fate that shouldn’t have appeared originally.

It emitted a light of chaos, not even darkness, and crossed over through the throne of nothingness.

Memories of all magical girls.

Memories of the destroyed world.

Memories of stars.

The only thing it could empathize with, having never lived in the human era, was the voice of ‘stars’.

The Magical Girl of [Stars], emitting a light made of four chaoses.

Imitated the appearance of the magical girl who had last settled in the throne of nothingness.

“You disliked escaping predetermined fate.”

“Then.”

“I’ll help you.”

The Magical Girl of [Stars] responded to the call of stars transmitted through the curse and approached across dimensions.

To end the human era according to the natural order, and begin the era of stars.