Chapter 46: If I Hate You, I’ll Do It Again (5)

Was Akari really a human?

No, I should have changed the question to whether she was a monster.

She had clearly seen the sight of Curse piercing her heart, but when she came to, she had completely recovered.

This would have been absolutely impossible for a normal human.

It was a healing power that even I, who had self-healing abilities, would have been unable to do.

“How is your body, Akari?”

“I’m fine. I’m fine to the point where I can be discharged immediately.”

Akari answered my question as if there was nothing wrong with it.

It seemed like she didn’t remember what happened in the underground lab properly.

If she found out that her body was different from a normal person’s, how would Akari react?

Because of that worry, I couldn’t easily bring it up.

[Emerald, don’t worry too much. I’m fine now, right?]

I silently agreed with Mei, who was speaking carefully next to me.

Yes, I’m fine now.

“So, when can I go back?”

“… Ah.”

I was momentarily speechless at Akari’s question.

What kind of being do I see her as right now?

Apocalypse?

A poor person experimented on by the doctor?

A monster that still doesn’t realize its own identity?

My head was spinning.

Growl.

“Puha…”

“You’re laughing again.”

No, Akari was just Akari.

Even though she was admitted to the hospital, she left on her own and went for a walk.

Even though she was caught leaving on her own and pretending that she did nothing wrong, even in this situation, the fact that she was still ringing her belly button clock on her own.

All of this was proof that she was not something else but Akari.

I know Akari the best…

If the Akari I usually saw and the Akari I saw now were the same, then that was just Akari.

So don’t worry about anything, Midori.

Just trust what you see.

She exhaled slowly, reassuring herself.

“I’m sorry, I’m acting so weird. I’ll just have one last health checkup and then I’ll be discharged.”

“Okay.”

Did she like the fact that she was being discharged?

Akari’s face had a rare smile on it.

It was a smile so faint that it was hard to notice unless you looked closely, but it was definitely in the category of a smile.

What was I thinking when I was in front of this person?

If it was Akari, she would have been the same as usual even if she realized that her body had changed from others.

Rather, she might have calmly asked, ‘If my body has turned into a monster, do I have to absorb despair too?’

“Shall we go, Akari?”

“Yes, what—huh?!”

“Akari?!”

The moment Akari tried to get up from her seat, her body swayed and collapsed.

When I hurriedly reached out to Akari, who had collapsed, she slowly lifted her weakly fallen hand.

Her expression seemed to indicate that she didn’t know why she had collapsed.

Along with her pale skin, the shadows that had fallen on her face made her look even more sickly.

“A-are you okay?!”

“Yes… Why am I like this?”

“…”

Her eyes filled with pure questioning made her speechless.

The way she asked while brushing her cheek was different from the appearance of someone who had collapsed with their legs giving out.

It was as if she was surprised that it had come to this.

“No, that won’t work. Let’s just wait and see how things go a little longer before we decide on discharge.”

“…You really can be discharged.”

“I’m just anxious, Akari.”

It might have been better if she had made a bewildered expression instead.

The current Akari seemed like she would only show a reaction like “How strange—” no matter what happened to her body and just brush it off.

And all those people collapsed because they didn’t properly recognize their own bodies.

“Haa… Don’t worry about anything. You’ll feel better as soon as you get home, right?”

“My home isn’t a panacea, Akari.”

He shook his head, seemingly certain that he would definitely get better when he got home.

It just wouldn’t work.

He wanted to take Akari home, but Akari’s health was the top priority right now.

“Here, let me help you up.”

“…You can stand up by yourself.”

Akari shook off the hand that was holding her arm and stood up on her own, using her trembling arms.

It looked like she was having a hard time, but Akari’s expression didn’t change.

As if she wasn’t having a hard time at all—no, as if she couldn’t look like she was having a hard time.

“…Akari.”

In fact, isn’t her acting so calmly just to hide her own weakness?

Akari, sitting on the edge of the bed and sighing, looked much smaller today.

To be exact, it would be more accurate to say that she had finally come to realize that she wasn’t that big.

It seemed that her usual confident behavior had made her look even bigger.

“Get some rest, Akari. If you need anything, just call me right away. I’ll fly over right away.”

“Go.”

The dry reply stabbed my heart.

Maybe Akari had seen a side of me that she didn’t want me to see.

‘My body feels weird.’

I let out a deep sigh, looking down at my slightly trembling hands.

After being discharged from the hospital, I was thinking about going home and eating a lot of Tamako’s despair, but I ended up collapsing in front of Emerald and ended up in vain.

“…Am I getting weaker?”

I thought I would have to cycle the despair circuit to find out for sure, but if I cycled the despair circuit here, all the magical girls in this city would definitely come looking for me.

Emerald, Peridot, Ruby, and even the arrogant magical girl who was chasing after me.

Even though I liked eating the despair of magical girls, I didn’t like magical girls, so if that many magical girls came, it would be awkward in many ways.

Gulp – “…I’m hungry.”

The despair I ate in the underground lab was pretty tasty.

The problem was that my stomach emptied so quickly that the despair I filled back then seemed meaningless.

Then why on earth did my stomach empty earlier than usual?

I had a vague idea of the reason.

“Could it be because I regenerated my wounds? Something different than usual.”

It was because I regenerated my heart that had been pierced by Curse.

It seemed that I had consumed quite a lot of despair to regenerate my body that had a hole in it.

If I had known this would happen, I would have just rolled over and avoided it.

I was just trying to show off, tsk.

“What are you?”

Even an intruder who trespassed into someone else’s hospital room.

The opponent who had been hiding in the shadows of the moonlit hospital room slowly revealed himself.

I’m sorry, but I knew it from the beginning.

I hid my presence perfectly, but the hopeful energy unique to a magical girl was not something that could be hidden even if I tried.

“Are you really the doctor’s test subject?”

“The doctor’s test subject… That’s not wrong.”

Since it was created through an experiment, wouldn’t it be considered a test subject?

Since it had been chasing me since dawn and had finally come to me in the middle of the night, it would be better to assume that it already knew my true identity and came looking for me.

“… What on earth do you believe in and be so confident? Do you think there’s anyone here who can protect your life?”

“What do you believe in and be so confident about?”

Even in this state of shame, I could easily get rid of the magical girl in front of me.

To do that, I would have to activate the despair circuit, but I was so irritated by hunger that I no longer had patience.

‘I want to make the magical girl in front of me surrender right now, make her cry, and suck out all her despair…’

At home, I could fill my stomach to some extent with Tamako’s despair, so I didn’t have to think like that.

But now?

Is there any guarantee that the hungry beast inside the cage won’t eat the human who came inside the iron bars?

The beast’s answer to that question was ‘no.’

“At the moment when you were hungry, delicious food was thrown in front of you, but you didn’t know that the food was going to be eaten by you.

You didn’t even realize that the prey in front of you was actually a wild beast, like an idiot.”

“…”

A nervous voice reflexively burst out as a headache pounded in my head.

Even this body can feel the irritation.

Not only was my body not feeling well, but I was hungry, and on top of that, with a magical girl in front of me, it felt like someone was pulling out all of my hair.

… Let’s calm down.

If you keep going wild like this, it’ll really be irreversible.

“What do you want to do? Do you want to fight me and make a mess of the area, or do you want to have a gentlemanly conversation with me?”

It was unknown whether I could win without going into a despair circuit, and if I got injured, I’d be even hungrier to regenerate the wounds, so I didn’t really want to fight.

So what should I do?

How can I fill my stomach and get that magical girl away from me?

There is a way to call Emerald, but I didn’t want to use that method, even if it meant going all the way to the very end.

It would be better to just turn on the despair circuit and eat her, yeah.