Chapter 119 : Incomplete Combustion (1)

Perhaps from the moment I abandoned everything I had experienced and fled to another past.

Because it feels like I’m living in a dream, not the real life that had continued from before.

Because it feels like I’m hiding in your warmth that changed everything.

Something that was burning deep in my heart seems to have gone out.

* * *

“Dodge!! To the right!!”

“Right?! Where are you talking about!! That’s the sea serpent’s tail!!”

Nayeon’s face turned pale, completely abandoning her military-style speech in the urgently unfolding situation.

In the midst of the sea serpent’s rampage filling her vision, which direction was she supposed to dodge?

Boooom―

The sight of the huge tail writhing in the seawater looked like several small hills wriggling and moving. In front of this sea serpent controlling this vast sea, she felt insignificant controlling just a handful of seawater.

‘This is on a completely different level from dealing with small demons coming up on the shore!!’

Nayeon was simply confused by this whole situation.

Thud

Without answering that, Yuki forcibly pushed Nayeon’s head to the right while riding the waves with the group and approaching the giant snake.

“Whoa?!”

Vision tilted to the right. Waves were tilting as much as the tilted vision.

“Uwaaaa?!”

“Poison gas!! Hold your breath!!”

The group was sliding on the right water surface in a completely lying position.

The sea serpent’s surging tail brushed over the group’s heads like a roof, sweeping their hair.

Swish

The poison gas glistening on the surface of the sea serpent’s entire body passed by narrowly, melting the ends of the group’s hair a little.

Hair ends melted away as if held to a fire.

Nayeon screamed, suddenly reminded of her father’s thinning hair before she returned rejuvenated from Elysion.

“Eek?!”

“Well done!!”

“We just need to keep dodging like this as we go!”

“I-I see.”

“Now again!!”

“Again?!”

Waves tilted again.

Attack shot towards the response team.

Guooooo―

Sticky killing intent.

Acrid smell.

Another attack narrowly brushed past.

Poison shot from the sea serpent’s head as large as a ship narrowly brushed over the group’s heads like a water cannon. The poisonous breath bounced off the surrounding raging waves and whirlpools, spreading around the response team.

“Whoa?! What do we do now?!”

“If we fall off here, it’ll attack from behind, so we have to go straight ahead!!”

“Really!! Never!! Going on foreign dispatch duty again!!”

Following Yuki’s shouted orders, Nayeon floated the group on sea foam and slid at full speed towards the sea serpent’s body, accelerating as much as possible as if surfing.

Hisssss

As the poison spread in the sea surrounded the response team riding the waves, Nayeon tried to float into the air, abandoning the waves, but Chen Lihua urgently pressed her shoulder.

“If we float in the air here, our starlight will be absorbed by [Plague]!! I’ll decompose the poison, so keep going forward!!”

“Ugh?! This is really driving me crazy!!”

Flash―!!

Yuki deployed a flame barrier to protect Nayeon and Lihua. At the same time, dozens of lightning bolts generated from Lihua’s shoulder heated up with vibrations and swept the sea surface.

Woooong―!!

Crackle

Plasma spread like glowing vines with the skull-resonating sound unique to high-voltage current.

Steam evaporating with a sour smell whenever it encounters lightning.

Hiss―

From the acrid steam came a sour smell that stung the nose along with tremendous heat. Every time the group advanced by decomposing seawater through high-voltage current, the sea serpent spasmodically spewed poison.

Guooooo―

Raging waves.

Shooting poison.

Ear-piercing roar.

Hiss

Hiss

Nayeon advanced through the poison-filled sea protected by Yuki’s flame barrier and Lihua’s lightning. The more they advanced through the endlessly raging waves, the more fierce attacks from the black sea serpent filling their vision continued.

“…”

While gauging the gradually narrowing distance with the sea serpent, Yuki still felt like she was walking in a daze through a dream.

No.

Perhaps from the day she returned to the past.

From the day she met Hikari.

Yuki felt like she had been living half in a dream.

‘Why does Hikari trust me so much?’

A thought that suddenly occurred while fighting a monster that could only come from myths.

A thought one shouldn’t have on a battlefield where hundreds of flames sparkle over the raging sea with surging waves and whirlpools.

If someone could see her thoughts, they would probably curse at her for thinking so nonchalantly in this situation, calling her crazy. But Yuki wasn’t living as fiercely in the returned time as she used to.

The incompletely burned firewood only spewed out embers, fighting weakly relying on past memories.

-Why aren’t you trying to save people!!

-We’re magical girls… we’re beings that protect everyone!

-We’ll surely become happy!!

The words her past self had spoken seemed to echo, urging on her pathetic current self.

A world rushing towards destruction. The world Yuki lived in desperately.

Yet a world that failed.

The incompletely combusted spark finally returned, finding the key hidden by the goddess of [Beginning].

To a world where there was a kind girl who watched her fight from another universe.

Thus her role ended.

Ah,

I see.

Why her heart only pounds and she feels happy when by that girl’s side.

Why she only feels alive when listening to that girl’s words.

Now in this world, only that girl recognizes the traces of Yuki’s fierce life.

Now in this world, only that girl can share the fierce memories of Yuki’s life.

The third star that bloomed while fighting demons.

The comrades she faced back-to-back with while crying.

The small happiness she barely found in a desolate world.

The evidence of her struggles in a world heading towards destruction.

All gone.

A painful but fiercely lived history.

In the changed past, only Hikari who came to greet her affirmed all of Yuki’s lost history.

‘I couldn’t fully exist in this world except by Hikari’s side.’

The current Yuki is not the Yuki who should exist in July 2012, but a foreign substance that returned with memories of changed past and future. But no one knows that, and people around her only see her as the ordinary Yuki of 2012.

Dad

Lihua

Natasha

Asya

They couldn’t recognize Yuki Shikishima, the foreign substance who returned from the future.

They didn’t know her as the wounded girl, the final magical girl.

They didn’t know the fierce trajectory of life Yuki had lived.

Yuki Shikishima couldn’t fully exist except by Hikari’s side.

Though she couldn’t say it proudly, Yuki Shikishima certainly existed in a world heading towards destruction.

What is her current self?

“We should prepare to board the sea serpent soon!”

“…”

“Yuki?”

Chen Lihua looked at the silent Yuki with questioning eyes. In the original world, she was a cynical girl who distrusted the world after experiencing certain things in America.

Yuki fought watching each other’s backs with Chen Lihua who had a cold and twisted sense of justice, not the kind and righteous friend Chen Lihua.

“Te-team leader!! Did you inhale poison fumes? Should I rinse you with clean water?”

Nayeon turned pale in an unfamiliar battle. In the original world, she was a hedgehog-like girl protecting her hometown for her parents to return to.

Yuki had met Nayeon, not the rookie magical girl who belatedly came out into the world, but the powerful magical girl desperately protecting her hometown sea while longing for parents who didn’t return.

‘It changed.’

Everything changed.

The sea serpent that turned unprepared Europe into a wasteland.

Magical girls who distrusted and fought each other to absorb each other’s stars, perishing together.

Adults who coveted magical girls’ power and died by demons.

A messed up world.

Unreasonable fate.

Extinct humanity.

Even so, Yuki lived fiercely there.

She fiercely proved herself even while shouting false happiness and fleeting dreams.

Even if they were painful times.

Yuki’s time continued there.

“…Magical girls.”

“Hm?”

“Yes?”

“Magical girls are beings that protect everyone… right?”

“You’re stating the obvious.”

“It’s something I heard to death from the company commander at the unit.”

“…”

Now what she desperately shouted was common sense that everyone knew naturally.

Yuki laughed because it felt somewhat disappointing and empty.

Though it should be something to be happy about.

Though it was words spread by a friend who said she changed because of Yuki’s words.

In a world that changed to her ideals without any effort, Yuki couldn’t burn truly.

“I’m sorry for saying useless things. Let’s charge onto the sea serpent soon. Everyone did well.”

“Don’t speak in such a solemn tone, it’s scary.”

“…”

Lihua hesitated, about to say something while looking at Yuki like that. Yuki smiled at Lihua and Nayeon, then wistfully looked up at the white light fighting in the sky.