Even if you're a corrupted magical girl, you still have to try to redeem yourself.

This is a flawed idea from the start, but some correct insights can be gleaned from it.

It wasn't until Baqi posted photos of Hyakki Senyu and Koumori having dinner together that Yuuki Yuuki realized she had overlooked some important issues.

Baqi and I have analyzed that someone is manipulating the actions of Hong Moli and Bai Gui Qianyou, and this has been confirmed by the game's plot. The two of them are the executives of the villainous organization, and the mastermind is that arrogant student council president.

It has been analyzed that Hong Moli may be manipulated to some extent, and it has been almost confirmed that Bai Gui Qian You is Hong Moli's weakness.

Koumori threatened Yuuki Yuuki, saying that if she didn't surrender, she would target people important to Yuuki Yuuki, but only Yuuki Yuuki and Koumori Yuuki Yuuki knew about this threat.

People who are very important to Yuuki Yukino—such as her older sister Yuuki Tamaki—could not possibly know that she is being used as a hostage to blackmail Yuuki Yukino.

Even though she was taken as a potential hostage, Tamaki Yuuki's freedom was not restricted. Tamaki is now going to work and living a normal life.

If Hyakki Chiyou were also a potential hostage, then her actions would be equally unrestricted, and she could eat and drink normally, and be intimate with Hong Moli.

Yes, there are no problems up to this point. If you think about it that way, Huan and Qianyou are no different.

However, Tamaki and Chiyu have a fundamental difference: Tamaki is an ordinary person, but Chiyu is not. Chiyu possesses power no less than that of Koumori, and she is also a corrupted magical girl.

Due to habitual thinking, Yuuki Enishi failed to connect the two events immediately.

Another thing that Yuuki En overlooked was that Koumori mentioned targeting people important to Yuuki En, and that Baqi should also be included.

After all, it was the object of my first experience in every sense of the word, so it was extremely important.

How did Yuuki Yukino deal with Tomoe? She called her over directly, confessed everything, and then had Tomoe keep watch for her while she slept soundly.

Why would Yuuki Yukino do this? Because Tomoe is also a magical girl, so knowing the truth would be more advantageous for her.

Once Tomoe learns the truth, she transforms from a hostage used to threaten Yuuki into a force that Yuuki can rely on.

Even though Hong Moli was ordered to be eliminated, she did not take Bai Gui Qianyou with her, and even avoided Bai Gui Qianyou and acted alone.

If we let Hyakki and Senyou know, the best choice would be for the two of them to work together to come up with a solution or to resist this threat.

Why doesn't Hong Moli do that?

This is the real reason why Yuuki Yuki insisted on finding Tomoe.

Yuki Yuki took a few more bites of food and tasted all the dishes the two of them had ordered.

To be fair, the food at this Chinese restaurant is indeed quite good, definitely better than what Yuki Emi makes herself.

Stir-fried shredded pork with green peppers, braised shrimp, and Mapo tofu—these are dishes that evoke nostalgia, even though they don't taste quite the same as I remember.

There are still some things that taste just like the ones I remember, and egg fried rice is one of them that almost no one will mess up.

"Baqi, do you think you're important to me?" Yuuki asked halfway through the meal.

"Isn't it important?!" Ba Qi's chopsticks, which she was about to use to pick up food, fell onto the table with a clatter. Her pupils trembled, and tears welled up in her eyes.

"I'm not saying it's not important! Wait! Don't cry! Calm down!" Yuuki Yuu had only seen Inuyama Tomoe cry once, back when they first met at the Yanxia Cafe. If it happened again, Yuuki Yuu wouldn't know how to comfort her.

It's better to skip the preamble and get straight to the point.

"What I mean is! If Baqi is important to me, then Hong Moli, who knows my true identity, should also make a move against Baqi, right..." Yuki Yuki told Baqi what she had been thinking before she came.

"So, I'm really curious, why didn't Hong Moli discuss it with Bai Gui Qian You, and why did she deliberately avoid Bai Gui Qian You?"

"Well, I do have an idea," Baqi said after listening for a while. "Don't you think Hong and Baigui are a bit too normal, Xiaoyuan?"

Normal? After Baqi's reminder, Yuuki Eri seemed to have touched on something important again.

It has to be said that she definitely made the right choice in coming to this Chinese restaurant.

"In terms of time, Hyakki and Kurenai must have fallen into darkness earlier than me. I don't know the exact time of their fall, but it's true that they had already fallen into darkness before I transferred here."

Yuuki Yukina didn't react, so Baqi continued to patiently guide her, waiting for Yuuki Yukina to discover the answer herself.

"But, neither of them ever acted like that crazy woman in green or that woman with voluptuous breasts. On the contrary, they lived very normally every day at St. Yuu Academy. Remember what I just told Xiaoyuan? Hyakki Senyou was a very ordinary child. Can she still be ordinary after being corrupted?"

Why does this plot seem familiar?

"Xiao Yuan realized it?" Ba Qi's eyes lit up, a knowing smile on her face.

Indeed, Yuuki Yukino had already realized it.

"If we do this, and they don't resist, we can control the Black Demon Mark?" Yuuki Yuen frowned.

That's how that mysterious person tricked Miya Miya and Rie Tsukimi back then.

Again? Always using the Black Magic Pattern as a theme is getting old, isn't it?

But Yuuki Yuki has to admit that this is very tempting for every fallen magical girl.

"You got it right!"

If, just if, that villainous student council president somehow learns that he possesses this power, then he will lose control of Koumori and Hyakki Senyou, which is why he has to kill him.

Some clues have begun to connect.

However, Yuuki Yuki's initial question remained unanswered.

"If that's really all there is to it, why can't Hong Moli tell Bai Gui Qian You?"

Any comments or suggestions are welcome!

Chapter Thirty-Four: Let's take the initiative once again!

The conversation at the Chinese restaurant was somewhat chaotic, but it can be summarized in three points.

Firstly, Hyakki Senyou is very "ordinary," making it difficult to understand what she is thinking. To achieve this, one must either have a very deep mind or simply not be thinking about anything at all.

Secondly, the fact that Koumori and Hyakki Senyu, as corrupted magical girls, were not affected by the Black Magic Mark suggests that they must have some means to resist or control it. This may be related to the fact that Yuuki Eri was threatened and even hunted down by Koumori.

Thirdly, Hyakki Senyou is Hong Moli's weakness. Considering that Hong Moli intentionally concealed Hyakki Senyou from Yuuki Yuki's pursuit of her, and given the indirect evidence from when Yuuki Yuki tricked Hong Moli away, it is almost certain that Hong Moli was coerced by someone using Hyakki Senyou.

Therefore, the questions we ultimately want to understand are quite clear, basically the following: how did they resist the Black Demon Mark, and how did someone use the weakness of Hundred Ghosts and Thousand Ghosts to coerce Hong Moli into obeying?

There are also some minor questions that need to be answered, such as why Koumori knew Yuuki Yukino's identity, and what the connection is between this matter and the mysterious person.

The topic has returned to its origin, which is the question that Yuuki Yuki wanted to understand first: how was Koumori coerced?

After the two talked about it, Yuuki Yuen was even more confused. If obedience was used to exchange for the method of controlling the Black Demon Mark, it should be an ordinary transaction. It was hard to connect it with the matter of using Hyakki Senyou to coerce Koumori.

There are far-fetched explanations, such as letting Hyakki Senyou go berserk due to the corruption of the Black Demon Pattern if she doesn't help, but Yuuki Yuen always felt that such explanations couldn't convince herself.

After summarizing the situation with Baqi, Yuuki Yukino returned to the initial question:

"If that's really all there is to it, then what is there that Hong Moli can't tell Bai Gui Qianyou?"

"Well, these are all just our conjectures, and their correctness remains to be verified. Continuing to reason based on errors will only lead to incorrect answers." Baqi changed the subject, not directly answering Yuuki Yukino's question, and showing no intention of even discussing it.

Baqi is right. The two of them sitting here discussing things are ultimately just their own guesses. But they can't just sit here and wait for their doom without making any preparations.

As the saying goes, make bold assumptions and carefully verify them. How can you verify something if you haven't even made an assumption?

Ba Qi pursed her lips, put down her chopsticks, hesitated, and turned her gaze elsewhere, suddenly becoming uneasy.

After a long pause, Baqi said in a somewhat unnatural tone, "Besides, I think the problem might not be as complicated as we think. Xiaoyuan doesn't understand these two children, but I do. Hong Moli is incredibly stupid in some ways."

With her straightforward personality, Yuuki Yukino would definitely see right through any attempt by Baqi to express her thoughts indirectly.

"Baqi, why do I feel like you're pleading for your junior classmates? That's not what you said when you asked me to kidnap Hyakki Senyou." Yuuki asked in a half-joking tone.

"Things change, you know. I was analyzing things while chatting with Xiaoyuan! Just now I discovered something rather strange, so I changed my mind a bit," Baqi replied shyly.

"Oh?" Yuuki Yuen was indeed very curious about what Baqi had suddenly thought of that would cause such a big change in her attitude.

"There's one thing I didn't understand from the beginning: how did Hong know Xiaoyuan's true identity?"

Yuuki Yukino's curious expression was clearly encouraging Baqi to continue, and Baqi didn't hesitate any longer.

“I’ve thought about this too. Nothing happened when we first met at the school gate, but the second time we met was at the Moon Sea Tower. I was the only one who hadn’t transformed at that time, and that’s when I was approached. Ignoring external factors like the mysterious person leaking information, the problem could only have occurred at the Moon Sea Tower.” Yuuki Yui explained her past deductions.

“That’s what I thought at first too, but that’s not right. Xiaoyuan, do you remember that woman with the big boobs also mentioned that Hong and Bai Gui tried to recruit her? She said that two people suddenly appeared in front of them and said that they either cooperated or they would kill her. That’s probably something like that, right?” Baqi continued.

"That's probably what they said." Yuuki Yui thought back for a moment. She couldn't remember the specific conversation, but she couldn't forget the incident of rescuing Miyashita Mia from Helica and then being carried away and put into a suitcase by Miyashita Mia. The person who went with her to rescue Miyashita Mia that day was Baqi, and the hotel where Miyashita Mia stayed was also booked by Baqi.

"Xiaoyuan, have you noticed? As long as it's a corrupted magical girl, they can always accurately find out the person's true identity. So I boldly guess that some of them have this ability to distinguish who is a magical girl. Otherwise, let alone Xiaoyuan, how did they find that woman whose black magic markings were hidden under her collar?"

Yuuki Yukino drew out her words, clearly not having considered this possibility—the ability to instantly tell if someone was a magical girl, a power she'd only used to appease Herika and the others: "Hmm..."

Seeing that Yuuki Yui seemed to accept this explanation, Baqi continued, "Also, whether it was going to find Yui or that big-breasted woman, Koumori didn't do it based on her own subjective will, but rather on someone's orders."

“Yes, that’s right.” Yuuki Yuen pondered Baqi’s words for a moment, then nodded.

"And what about me?" Baqi asked again.

"Huh?" Yuuki Yukina was taken aback by Baqi's question.

"They should be contacting all the corrupted magical girls, right? But I haven't heard a thing. Whether they're trying to win me over like they did with the big-breasted girl or trying to take me down like they did with Xiaoyuan, there should be some news, right? I haven't heard a thing at all!"

Yuuki couldn't figure out how this matter had anything to do with what Tomoe wanted to say, but she still answered seriously: "Maybe there's an order to it? Like, taking care of me first and then considering your matter?"

“Xiaoyuan is right, that is indeed a possibility. I’ve also thought of some reasons, either they don’t know my real identity yet, or they don’t intend to contact me.”

"I don't think I'm anything special, but if they could find even Tsukimi Rie, who has never revealed her Black Magic Mark, how could they not find me?"

"It's even more contrary to their usual style of doing things if they don't plan to contact me, Xiaoyuan understands, right? Of course, the brief exchange at the Moon Sea Tower that day might count as contact, in that case, they should have tried to win me over on that day, right?"

"So, taking all these factors into consideration, I've come up with another possibility: is it possible that they deliberately didn't contact me?"

"It's quite simple to figure out the specific reason. If they don't come to me, then I'll just take the initiative to reach out to them, right?"

Chapter Thirty-Five: I Was Surrounded by Magical Girls

Yuuki Yuki stumbled and ran wildly through the speeding tram.

At the far end of the carriage, Hong Moli, wielding a chainsaw, approached step by step. The double saw, held horizontally, pierced the wall of the carriage, cutting and sending sparks flying. The high-speed rotating saw blades left a long, smooth cut on the carriage amidst the ear-piercing metallic vibrations and explosions.

The thud of heels on solid ground was more heart-pounding than the whirring of a chainsaw motor, signifying that the distance between Koumori and Yuuki Eri was steadily closing.

With her arms crossed, Hong Moli used the blades of her twin saws to cleanly slice the upper part of the speeding tram, as if a wallpaper knife were cutting through white paper. The unsupported roof of the carriage was thrown behind by the moving train due to inertia, spinning and crashing into the tunnel. After a dull thud, gravel fell like raindrops.

If Yuuki Yuki had crouched down any slower, she would have been cut in two along with the train car.

Amidst the heavy rumble, the tunnel we had just passed through collapsed like toppled dominoes.

The damaged carriage went dark in an instant. In the pitch-black tunnel, the unsettling footsteps grew closer. The sparks from the chainsaw occasionally scraping the floor were enough for Yuuki Yuki to judge the distance between the two.

Yuuki Yuki continued running, using all her strength to escape the collapsing tunnel and the ever-approaching Koumori.

Just before Yuuki Eri reached the next carriage, the ground in front of her was neatly sliced ​​open, and the train, now without its power chocks, slowed down more and more amidst the teeth-grinding friction of the iron.

At the edge of her vision, Hyakki Chiyu, dressed in a kimono, slowly sheathed her katana, which reflected a cold metallic glint, and looked at her with the same gaze one would give a dead man.

Hong Moli had already arrived behind Yuuki Yuuki, and under the chainsaw that Hong Moli held high, Yuuki Yuuki's vision went black.