Toyokawa Shoko doesn't want to become a witch

Page 552

Why don't I feel like I'm about to win? Is it because at this point, I realize it's too easy to end it all?

The closer he got to victory, the more uncertain Xiangzi felt.

Mingming, we're about to win!

She glanced out the corner of her eye at the floor-to-ceiling window; the outside world showed no signs of being enchanted.

Nirvana is growing weaker and weaker. If this continues, all that is needed is for me to insert the blade into Nirvana's body, and everything will end.

But why am I starting to feel afraid?

when--!

Unintentionally, Xiangzi knocked the gun blade in Nirvana's hand aside, leaving Nirvana wide open and completely unprepared.

Now even her unconscious movements when she's distracted can break through Nirvana's defenses.

Is this an opportunity to kill her?

At this moment, Xiangzi hesitated again.

She clenched her teeth, her eyes narrowing.

Don't hesitate any longer, Xiangzi! Isn't this the ending you've been pursuing for over forty cycles?!

This is where it all ends!

He cast aside all hesitation and thrust the blade forward.

brush--!

The blood-stained spearhead emerged from Nirvana's back.

With a whoosh, Nirvana—the moon chair—spit out a mouthful of blood and slumped softly onto Xiangzi's shoulder.

Meanwhile, throughout the reed plains—

Flame activated Time Stop, only to find that his opponent had vanished into thin air before time stopped; Timoris dissolved into dissipating white light before Hailing; Meow Dream stared in astonishment at the fist that should have smashed into Amoris's face, but instead shattered the wall; Mutsu looked up at Nirvana, its expression contorted in a ferocious grimace, gradually dissipating in the sky...

Doloris raised her hand, looked at her gradually fading palm, then turned her gaze to Chu Hua, revealing a helpless bitter smile.

"It seems the matter has been settled," she said.

"Really?" Chu Hua breathed a sigh of relief, her shoulders slumping softly. "That's good."

“I’m about to disappear,” Dolores said again. “This time it really is goodbye forever.”

“Although we’ve only known each other for a short time, and most of the time we’ve been fighting each other.” Chu Hua walked up to Dolores and took her hands, which were gradually fading away. “But I will remember you, my other self.”

“Thank you.” Dolores looked at Chu Hua, her bitter smile softening slightly. “As another version of myself, you showed me a different future. Thank you.”

The words fell.

Chu Hua grasped Dolores's hand, only to find it empty. The other self before her, like a mirror image, had turned into specks of light and vanished into thin air.

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

“It’s…it’s over…” Xiangzi gripped the hilt of the sword piercing Nirvana’s abdomen tightly, his lips trembling uncontrollably.

It should all end here.

After more than forty cycles of reincarnation and over three years, she finally found the variable that would lead to her rebirth and finally brought it all to an end.

ended.

It really should end now.

She was so tired that she could barely walk.

Seriously, please don't continue like this.

The Tale of Reincarnation: Bonds - Chapter 737 Memories Come Like Wildfire

The torrential rain that had lasted all night finally subsided, and the morning sun pierced through the clouds, shining on the ruins of the city.

Xiangzi tilted his head back, letting the rain fall on her face.

The stage set had just left Mitakihara, yet the city was now completely empty.

Xiangzi slowly lowered his head and looked at Akemi Homura, who was lying in his arms, covered in blood.

Flame's eyes were no longer focused; in her hand lay a broken Soul Gem, within which lay a newly formed Seed of Lamentation.

Xiangzi picked up the seed of lamentation left behind by Yan, looked at his own reflection in those broken eyes, and murmured in a hoarse voice that only he could hear:

"What...what did I do...?"

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

"What—what are you showing me?"

Just when she thought the long struggle had finally come to an end, she suddenly felt a sharp pain in her brain, and a memory like a 4:3 black and white movie surfaced in her mind.

Xiangzi's pupils suddenly contracted, and his hand gripping the sword hilt tightened unconsciously, pushing the blade even deeper.

Nirvana suddenly coughed up a mouthful of blood.

However, because Xiangzi accidentally pushed the gun blade a little deeper, the distance between them was once again brought closer.

Nirvana forced a smile, endured the excruciating pain, raised his hands, and tightly embraced Xiangzi.

"!"

"Shh, don't talk."

Nirvana coughed up another large clump of dark red blood, which splattered onto Xiangzi's shoulder, making her long blue hair sticky. She grabbed Xiangzi's head and pulled it towards herself, pressing her forehead tightly against Xiangzi's.

"What did you do to me?! What did I see?!" Xiangzi hurriedly released his grip on the sword hilt, trying to push Nirvana away. "Did you show me that?!"

However, Nirvana's force was surprisingly strong, as if it had used up the last of its strength in this life, pressing down hard on Xiangzi's head, making their foreheads press tightly together.

"You want to know the truth? You want to know what those numbers mean?" She grinned, revealing a ferocious laugh. "Then I'll tell you now."

"Wait... no!"

Struggling was futile; the more intense, stinging pain stimulated Xiangzi's brain, sending more memories into her consciousness.

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

"Senior...once again, it's just us left."

Flame stood at the edge of the ruins, gazing at the witch device floating in the air. Her body was covered in wounds, and the filth of the Soul Gem almost completely filled the gem.

Xiangzi was kneeling on the ground, a few meters away from Yan, and he didn't look much better.

"This is a first for me. I was approached by you out of nowhere, invited to see Takihara out of nowhere, and out of nowhere, I'm fighting against the Witch's Night with you..." Xiangzi clutched the wound on her abdomen, gazing at Homura's retreating figure.

"That's because you were once a very powerful witch, so powerful that you were comparable to the stage props. I thought that if we could stop you before you became a witch... we would have a chance." Flame shook her head with a wry smile.

"...In the end, I still couldn't avoid becoming a witch." Xiangzi took out her soul gem and examined the filth inside.

There was a gruesome crack on the Soul Gem. This crack wasn't from the battle; it had already appeared before Flame found him.

She followed Homura to Mitakihara after hearing that Homura had a way to stop herself from gradually turning into a witch.

In addition, the gem's condition was almost full, just like the flame's, and its own level of contamination was even higher than the flame's, to the point that it was seriously affecting the body.

Pain and helplessness permeated every corner of my body.

She clearly felt that she was getting closer and closer to becoming a witch, closer and closer to the very thing she feared most.

Xiangzi struggled to his feet and slowly walked toward Yan.

"Xiaoyuan is dead too. Do you still intend to continue?"

“Of course…of course we must continue…” Flame raised her hand tremblingly, reaching for the small round shield fixed to her other hand. “As long as we keep going…we will eventually succeed…”

“But Kyubey also said,” Xiangzi drew closer to Yan, “that Xiaoyuan’s karma will become stronger and stronger as you reincarnate more times. Do you really want that?”

The action of opening the mechanism suddenly stopped.

"Don't say such things..." Yan said, choking back tears. "Senior, please, please don't say such things again..."

"I can't walk with you forever. In the next reincarnation, I will become the blank-slate Toyokawa Shoko again and re-explain everything. It will take a lot of time, right?"

"If this continues and you're all alone... you'll go crazy sooner or later."

"No...no..." Yan's expression instantly collapsed after Xiangzi said those words.

"The things you've always insisted on, in the end..." Xiangzi stood less than a meter away from Yan, head bowed, and said softly, "are all just wedding clothes for them."

"Stop talking!"

"..." Xiangzi looked away, opened his mouth, but then gave up.

"Even if we really end up like you, what should we do, senior?" Yan covered her face, tears streaming through her fingers. "Are we... just going to give up here?"

Yan himself did not realize that his soul gem had turned completely black, and fine cracks were gradually appearing on the surface of the gem.

"I don't want to give up... I don't want to give up... I really... don't want to give up..." Yan choked back sobs, repeating the same sentence over and over.

As time went on, her tone and manner of speaking began to become increasingly strange.

Xiangzi couldn't bear to tell Yan what he had observed.

Even if Flame wanted to reincarnate again, it was too late. Her Soul Gem no longer had enough magic to activate the mechanism of the small round shield, and they no longer had any Lament Seeds left.

For Flame, this is the last cycle.

All that awaits her is the fate of becoming a witch. (镹0轳思〦6霓覇尔。 玐/Q*【u〓n)

Of course, the same applies to myself.

“Qubi told me about a possible solution,” Xiangzi said in a low voice, “but…”

"But? But what—"

boom--!

A gunshot rang out, replacing Homura's questioning. The bullet shattered Homura's Soul Gem, taking her life before she could fully transform into a witch.

Yan's body slowly fell backward, lying in Xiangzi's arms, finally becoming that dead, unseeing look.

“But I need you to die.” Xiangzi said with a gloomy expression, as if pulling the trigger had exhausted all her strength. “I’m sorry, Yan, I don’t want to become a witch, and... I still want to live.”

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

The Tale of Reincarnation: Bonds - Chapter 738 Fragments of Memory

"don't want--!"

Xiangzi used all her strength to finally push Nirvana away, but she herself fell to the ground because of the excessive force.

With a thud, Xiangzi fell into the pool of blood at Nirvana.

The blood from Nirvana soaked almost half of Xiangzi's body, and when she stood up, she slipped on her hands because of the blood.

Nirvana, kneeling on the ground with the spear blade that Xiangzi had stabbed into his chest, kept spitting out blood and bits of internal organs, staining a large area of ​​the surrounding space red.

Even though she was dying and too weak to move, Nirvana's face still wore a despairing grin.

"That's not my memory! Why would I kill Yan? I had absolutely no reason to do that! I wouldn't—I wouldn't do something so despicable!!!" Xiangzi's pupils trembled as she looked at Nirvana not far from her. "What you showed me...it was all fake..."

"Wait... what's that? And what's that flying out of you...?"

Xiangzi finally noticed the scattered points of light on Nirvana's body, which were converging on him.

"This, what is this?!"

Xiangzi braced herself on the ground and crawled backward several steps in a disheveled manner, trying to shake off the points of light converging on her as if they were some kind of filth.

But no matter how much she struggled, every single point of light that emanated from Nirvana's body eventually merged into her body.

"This is the answer you wanted. Don't you understand? Every time we fall into Nirvana, the 'past' we return to is actually a completely new timeline. Every 'I' is a different individual. Our experiences have many similarities, but also many completely different aspects. But no matter what, the final result is the same."

"I went back to the past so that you would kill me, and you will face the same future as me."

"Didn't you... come back to change the future that will become Nirvana?" Xiangzi's pupils dilated to their maximum. "This cycle of reincarnation, where the next me kills the previous me... what is the point of this cycle?"

Shouldn't death, the attainment of Nirvana, be the end? Why did it turn out like this? Why can't I be liberated yet?

I've persevered for so long, fought so hard for so long, but what was it all for...?

A tear slid down Xiangzi's cheek.