Toyokawa Shoko doesn't want to become a witch

Page 536

"My barrier."

Mu snapped his fingers.

The unprecedented blackness spread outwards from her own point of origin until it enveloped the flames as well.

Only after the two disappeared from the real world did the black and white world turn back into color, and time resumed its flow.

The Tale of Reincarnation: Bonds - Chapter 711 When the Ring is Formed

"here it is......"

Yan opened her eyes and looked around.

Countless glass boxes surrounded the area, arranged neatly like bookshelves. As far as the eye could see, the glass boxes stretched endlessly in the pure black space.

And those transparent glass boxes...

"Are all those people inside alive?" Flame asked, pointing at the glass box closest to her, her teeth chattering.

If every box contained a living person, then all those glass boxes...

"You're overthinking it." Mu waved his hand and walked forward from behind her. "It's just some memories that keep replaying."

"Phew." Yan breathed a sigh of relief.

"If you don't follow, I won't be responsible if you get lost," Mu said, pausing slightly ahead and turning back.

"what."

Yan adjusted her glasses, smoothed her long hair that had been messed up while running, and caught up with Mu's pace.

Along the way, I followed Mu and browsed through the memories stored in each glass box.

"What are all these?"

"memory."

"Yes, whose memories?"

"Everyone's memories," Mu said calmly. "Everyone in this world."

"How many would that be...?"

“Just kidding, actually it’s only the memories of the people from Reed Plains.” Mu shrugged, his steps swaying like a penguin. “I can’t fit any more in.”

"That's quite an exaggeration." Flame looked around at the glowing, transparent glass boxes. "Is the entire Reed Plain inside?"

"Ah."

......

After that, there was no more conversation. Flame focused all her attention on the glass cases around her, intently watching the memories inside, which seemed like a TV series.

Mu led the way quietly ahead.

It wasn't until much later that Mu slowed down and stopped in front of a glass pavilion.

Mu walked into the pavilion and sat down first. Yan sat opposite her.

"You can talk freely here." Mu picked up the mango juice on the table and took a sip.

"Senior Mu..."

"Ask me anything you want to ask," Mu said. "I'll explain everything to you."

"What happened in Reed Plains? You and... Senior Xiangzi, you've both changed a lot," Yan said. "Was it... that you lost to Nirvana?"

"No, Xiangzi won." Mu sighed, resting his chin on his hand. "He used all his strength and finally won."

"But why, why would she...?"

Flame gestured towards the outside of the barrier.

Why did Xiangzi undergo a new rebirth?

She also noticed that Mu's way of addressing Xiangzi seemed to have changed, becoming much colder and more distant.

“I don’t know.” Mu shook her head. “After Nirvana died, it seemed like she saw something, and then she turned into this…”

She looked up at Yan.

“…She betrayed us.” Mu paused. “No, perhaps in her eyes, it was we who betrayed her.”

"What do you mean?" Yan was completely confused.

“Xiang took on a lot of things she shouldn’t have had to bear, and she had a mental breakdown,” Mu said. “After killing Nirvana, she saw a future that was much further ahead, but she didn’t want to tell us. Not long after, she became the way she is now.”

At this point, Xiangzi was addressed as he had been before.

"We, as familiars, have also been affected." Mutsu raised his head, revealing a wry smile. "The four of us have all changed to some extent."

"Xiangzi completely changed, eventually becoming less than human. During the transitional period of her final rebirth, she frantically tried to return to the past, but without exception, she failed."

"Chu Hua was the one who argued the most with Xiangzi during this transition period, and when they finally separated... she had given up hope on Xiangzi's state."

"Then you..."

"What do we want to do?"

"Ah."

“I want Xiangzi to stop suffering so much, Chuhua wants her to die (to be free), and the other two don’t really have any opinions,” Mu said. “By the way, my name is Mortis now. The name Ruoye Mu has died along with Xiangzi’s death.”

“Mortis…” Flame murmured, looking down.

The brain quickly processed what Mortis had said.

Did Senior Xiangzi see the future before she became Nirvana? Did she see an even more distant future, which is why she was in despair?

And Murtis... did he separate from Xiangzi to free her from this predicament?

"I have a plan that I need your help with," Mu suddenly changed the subject. "It's something only you can do."

"What?" Yan looked up.

"Your ability to rewind has disappeared, hasn't it? You can no longer reset time after the 27th."

"Yes, it seems like you feel the same way, senior."

"Because the time after the 27th entered a 'black box,' at which point 'Forgotten Shore' and 'Nirvana' were in a state like Schrödinger's cat, possibly existing and possibly not existing."

"Wh-what cat?" Yan was completely bewildered.

"The disappearance of the ability to rewind is because the 'Nirvana' and 'Shore of Oblivion' that support your rewinding may disappear at any time due to future changes, and cannot be fixed within this period of time." Mortis paused. "This is what the Cupid named Delete told me. Actually, I don't quite understand it either. In short, after the 27th, the Nirvana that supports Xiangzi's rewinding died, and you, have not yet blossomed and become the Shore of Oblivion."

The source of one's own power to rewind is the forgotten shore, which is the future self. The reason one cannot use rewind is because the forgotten shore has not yet been born.

That really sounds like something Delete would say.

This—this is a never-ending cycle.

“Delete speculates that this is where supercausality was originally born.” Mortis raised his hand, making a gesture like a horizontal 8, with a slight upturn at the corner of his mouth, “based on the formation of your and Xiangzi’s Möbius strip.”

Every few dozen cycles actually constitute a larger cycle.

Mortis seemed to be engrossed in this loop, but in the next instant—

“We want to find a way to break this cycle.” Mortis’s tone suddenly turned cold, and his sharp eyes swept over Flame’s entire body. “Actually, it’s quite easy; all we need to do is die.”

Yan suddenly gasped.

She could sense that Mortis was serious for that moment.

"But if that's the case, Xiangzi will never be free, and will always be searching for a way back to the past—and this world will have no future to speak of."

However, that cold gaze flashed by in an instant, almost like an illusion, and quickly disappeared.

"So?" Flame swallowed hard. "You want me to become the forgotten shore, sent back to the past... hoping that we can solve this problem in the next cycle of reincarnation?"

"exactly."

Mortis nodded.

"But this process is dangerous, and you'll be no different from dead. To protect you, we'll go back to the past with the fragments of you that were torn apart—at the same time, Dolores will try to kill Xiangzi, who's following your trail back to the past—"

That is, the Nirvana that occurred on the 27th.

The Tale of Reincarnation: Bonds - Chapter 712 The Long-Awaited Otherworld

Bang Chi, Bang Chi, Bang Chi.

The train wheels rumbled rhythmically over the gaps between the rails. Outside the window, the sun gradually dipped below the telephone poles, its rays turning crimson and streaming into the carriage.

"Finally, in order to activate the so-called 'super-causality,' I, in the future, with the belief that I was destined to die, faced my future predecessor—that is, Nirvana—with the flower that Mortis gave me."

Sitting on the train back to Reed Plains, Flame spoke slowly.

“I succeeded. I became the Forgotten Shore, regaining the ability to rewind time. Everything was just as Mortis planned. I became the Forgotten Shore, losing my human form and the ability to fight, turning into a machine that provides the ability to rewind time…” Flame gripped the flower in her hand tightly. “According to the plan, I will send them back to the past through familiars.”

"What about the Bremen Symphony Orchestra and Nirvana?" Xiangzi asked, licking his dry lips.

"They came back with me, through the passage to the other side, which is my familiar."

"If that's the case, then when we reset time before, those who came back from the future..."

“If we are at opposite ends of a line, one end being our past and the other being the ‘past’ of Nirvana—that is, the more distant future, and the point of resetting time is the midpoint of the line, then at the moment of resetting time, everyone will return to either end of the line,” Flame explained. “The priority of this shore of oblivion is higher than the other shore passage as a familiar.”

"I see." Xiangzi nodded in understanding.

"...Mortis showed me his memories of the future," Flame continued. "Because I received too many memories in a short period of time, the supercausality that had been dormant within me...awakened."

She took out her Soul Gem and stared blankly at the purplish-red flower.

"...That's about it."

"..." After hearing this, Xiangzi silently lowered his head.

The reason why Nirvana occurred on that day has come to light with Yan's retelling.

Xiangzi initially thought she would be very excited after learning the reason for Nirvana's appearance, but now she finds herself unexpectedly calm.

Perhaps Delete had already guessed this when he deduced that supercausality was a Möbius strip. He was trapped in an infinite cycle because of Nirvana; Nirvana returned to Number Twenty-Seven to change the past, and his act of returning to Number Twenty-Seven, ironically...

No matter what, I am always trapped in this cycle that I have created for myself.

Xiangzi wasn't particularly excited.

However, they felt extremely disappointed and even dejected.

Disappointment in myself.

She sighed and gripped the tram's handrail tightly.

"But there's still a chance, isn't there?" Xiangzi said softly. "This time is different from the last. You came back from the future to change it. You also awakened the Flower's power ahead of schedule..."

"So this time we're sure to succeed." Yan grasped Xiangzi's hand.

“But the Bremen Symphony Orchestra, they should have the same goal as me, so why are they—” Xiangzi shook his head, “It’s still because of me.”

Ultimately, nirvana is all about oneself.

"Doloris's only goal is to kill Nirvana, and she has to kill it herself. To achieve this goal, she needs to collect enough flowers to break free from Nirvana and become an independent witch," Flame said. "In the future, the flowers that were originally prepared for Doloris were used on me (Forgotten Shore). Doloris can only start all over again."

"Mortis told me all of this; in reality... I haven't seen it with my own eyes."

“I’ve already seen it.” Xiangzi rubbed his temples and sighed. “She’s right.”

If the hatred in Doloris was truly as Flame had described, then she could understand it.

However, understanding does not equate to approval. Flame and Mortis paid such a high price to achieve the possibility of breaking the Möbius strip; if Dolori were to squander it on his own, wouldn't all their efforts be in vain?

“Speaking of which, I do know where Dolores is, and Mortis too,” Miaomeng, who had been quietly listening to their conversation, suddenly said. “This is something I’ve been wanting to discuss with you for a while now.”

“Doloris, Mortis, and the girls they kidnapped, Mami Tomoe and Motoyo Nagasaki, I’ve been investigating them for several days now, and I’ve roughly found their ‘location’.” Meow Dream crossed her legs, touched her index finger to her lips, and slightly curled the corners of her mouth.

"Where?" Xiangzi turned his head and asked.

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

When the boundless green wilderness appeared before their eyes, Yan's eyes widened.

At the edge of the wilderness, a castle-like building could be vaguely seen. The surroundings were filled with highly saturated green, like something out of a fantasy game, and even the wind seemed visible to the naked eye.

This is the place that Miaomeng mentioned.