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

Unable to fulfill her duties as a Seraphim girl, and with even her desire to fall into darkness going unanswered, Helica wondered what meaning her existence held.

When Helica regained consciousness, she belatedly realized just how far her self-destructive thoughts had strayed from the responsibilities of a magical girl.

It is I who shamelessly claims to protect this hopeless world, and it is also I who desperately tries to escape and hide in the darkness.

I don't deserve to be called a magical girl at all!

But I am a magical girl!

Yuuki Yuki's listless gaze seemed to have inflicted another deep wound on Helica's heart.

Is this all?

Herlica heard Yuuki Yuuki ask in a similarly weak and somewhat hoarse voice.

"Huh?" Helica didn't understand; she couldn't comprehend what Yuuki Yuuki was saying.

Perhaps she wasn't unaware, but the lingering effects of the previous experience had prevented her from thinking clearly enough to understand what Yuuki Yuki was trying to convey.

Will doing this make you feel better?

Yuuki Yuki was still lying there, her body bearing the obvious marks left by Helica's attack, lying there motionless.

Herlica felt as if her heart, pounding violently in her chest, was about to leap out of her chest.

Take a deep breath, hold it, and exhale.

No, it's still jumping too fast.

Try again. Take a deep breath, hold it, and exhale.

It still didn't work; just looking at Yuuki Yukino's face made it impossible for my heart to slow down.

Instead, his heart started beating faster and faster, and his face grew increasingly pale and gloomy.

"Well……"

Yuuki Yukina, drawing out her words, struggled to sit up from the floor and pulled down the fabric that Herlica had pushed up to her collarbone, covering her body, which was covered in bruises from Herlica's actions.

Then, Yuuki bent down and used the triangular piece of cloth hanging near her knees to properly cover certain parts of her body that should not be exposed, before looking once again at Helica, who was trembling and sweating profusely.

After getting dressed again, Yuuki carefully extended her hand to Helica.

"Do not touch me!"

As Helica shouted, and as Yuuki felt a sharp pain in her fingertip, she instinctively pulled her finger back.

"Herika, are you alright?" Yuuki frowned, wanting to reach out her hand again.

"Shut up!"

Surrounded by electric currents, Helica looked at Yuuki Yukino with a somewhat resentful, but mostly helpless, gaze.

"Who are you?" Helica hissed like a frightened little animal.

“I am who I am,” Yuuki Yui answered without hesitation, gently rubbing her stinging fingers.

"No! That's not right at all! You're a corrupted magical girl, everything you've done must be part of a conspiracy!" Herica waved her arms and loudly denied it.

"You approached us, spent so much time with us, ate barbecue together, went shopping together, studied together, looked at the stars together, went to the beach together, participated in volunteer work together... You must have had your own purpose!"

Herika recounted the beautiful everyday moments they had experienced, one by one, while inwardly denying the beauty of those moments, yet she couldn't find any reason why Yuuki Yuki would do such a thing.

The only thing Helica could hold onto was the fact that Yuuki Yuuki was a corrupted magical girl.

"Yes! You are a corrupted magical girl! You approached us and became one of us, there must be something you want to do!"

Even with a different way of putting it, Helica could only convey so little.

In her agitation, Herlica repeatedly expressed her distrust of Yuuki Yuuki and her resistance to Yuuki Yuuki's identity in her own words.

Also, her incomprehension of Yuuki Yuuki.

"But what exactly do you want to do?"

When asked this question, Yuuki Yuki kept her mouth shut and remained silent.

“I already know who you are. Whatever your plans are, they should end here, shouldn’t they?” Shan Liu

Herlica continued her relentless pursuit, bombarding Yuuki Yuki's seemingly impenetrable defenses with question after question.

"Then why did you save me? And when I did so many terrible things to you, weren't you worried that I would make you unable to get up again?"

Herlica continued to question him, but to her own eyes, Yuuki Yuuki's silence made her look like a clown performing a one-woman show, just talking to herself.

"Why are you pretending to care about me at a time like this? What exactly do you want?!"

"Why didn't you fight back? Why didn't you lay a hand on me? Knowing how much I love you, why are you still so cruel to me?"

"Why, why don't you act like a corrupted magical girl, undergo a complete personality change, and proudly announce your plans to me?"

Herlica's tone rose higher and higher, like climbing a staircase, until her throat began to sting and her voice began to crack.

In the pitch-black sky, the rumbling thunder gradually intensified, as if hovering overhead, waiting to fall with the rain.

Suddenly, Helica's high spirits plummeted to rock bottom.

It sounds like she's still talking to Yuuki Yuuki.

But this one sentence was Helica's own muttering.

"In that case, wouldn't I be left with nothing but my love for you, and a lifetime of guilt, to send you to the end you deserved?"

The sonata-like thunder struck the dome of the hot spring inn, tearing a large hole in the ceiling above the girls' heads.

A few rays of moonlight, barely penetrating the clouds, streamed into the room.

The lightning bolt illuminated Helica's yellow outfit, which she had changed into at some point, and her profile, which was now clouded with gloom.

"Ugh."

Yuuki sighed heavily and stood up from the ground, pressing down on the charred tatami mat.

Tentacles crawling up from her feet covered the girl's entire body, like a flower bud about to bloom.

Reflected in Helica's golden pupils, the flower bud bloomed in the pitch-black night.

The screams and footsteps of the surrounding girls became the background music, accompanied by the shouts of the teachers urgently organizing the staff.

But those were just background noises; the girls standing in the center of the room were completely unaffected by their surroundings.

"So it's still like this after all?" Yuuki Yui's grimoire opened on its own with the rustling of pages. "We haven't actually talked about anything yet, is this it?"

"That's it." Helica opened her palms, as if a warhammer had fallen from the void and landed on the tatami mat, denting the entire floorboards: "To settle things with my heart."

Chapter 111 On the Ruins

With a deafening clap of thunder, the entire hot spring inn shook violently.

After a brief silence, the female student, her face filled with terror, rushed out of the door.

"Run! Run!" Someone shouted loudly, and the girl's voice echoed in the corridor, immediately arousing more people's resonance.

The corridor was immediately filled with screams and footsteps as the girls rushed towards the stairwell. Many of them, unable to find their shoes in their haste, had to walk barefoot on the cold floor.

Casual wear, pajamas, school uniforms—the girls' clothes were all different, but without exception, they were frozen at the moment the thunder struck. Some even had only time to wrap themselves in towels and, with their hair still wet, re-enter the corridor and merge back into the crowd.

"Don't panic! We're here! Evacuate in an orderly manner!"

The director, who had been carrying a megaphone since the start of the school trip, shouted at the top of his lungs. Even without the megaphone, his powerful shout was clearly heard by everyone amidst the chaotic chatter.

Those girls who disliked her nagging all chose to obey at this moment, as if they had found a pillar of support, and gradually began to restore order.

The girls helped each other up and quickened their pace, fleeing the building that could collapse at any moment.

Fortunately, all the girls living in this hotel are from Tsukimi City, the birthplace of magical girls.

Even more fortunately, the sudden panic did not rob them of their judgment. Under the guidance of their teachers, the girls squeezed into the safety passage in an orderly manner amidst the chaos.

Pushing open the emergency exit door, the chilly autumn wind blew in, bringing a sense of comfort to the girls who had been in a panic just a moment ago.

In the spacious courtyard of the hot spring inn, more and more people gathered, some with fear on their faces, and others with confusion.

"Is everyone...is everyone alright?" The current student council president, Azusa Niijima, immediately began helping to restore order.

"Thank goodness... I'm alright," someone in the crowd replied.

Then the already chaotic situation boiled over even more.

"Wait, Miko is gone."

"Mikan from our group isn't here either!"

"Someone has fainted! Wanwan, Wanwan, move quickly!"

Of course, there were also those who didn't understand the current situation and only knew how to follow the runaway, quietly asking the people next to them.

"What happened? A lightning strike?"

The person being questioned did not speak, but pointed with a trembling finger to the roof where a crack had been struck by lightning.

Following the direction of her finger, the chaotic situation was temporarily calmed down, and everyone's attention was focused on the point she was pointing to.

What truly silenced everyone was an even greater crisis.

Everyone saw the blonde girl and the pink-haired girl facing off behind the broken cement wall.

"Is that... the pink demon from Moonsea City?"

"Are those two... saying something?"

Herlica gripped the golden warhammer tightly, her eyes, brimming with lightning and tears, reflecting unwavering resolve, as if she had made her final decision.

"You've transformed but aren't you going to make a move? Fate?"

Yuuki Yuki looked at her quietly, a complex emotion flashing in her eyes, but she quickly regained her composure.

"It's unnecessary to hurt innocent students."

"You seem to have never shown me any mercy."

"If I hadn't held back, you wouldn't be standing here now."

"Really..." Helica lowered her head and sighed softly.

Herica's body disappeared briefly, and with a flash of electricity overhead, the girl wielding her wand suddenly appeared behind Yuuki Yuuki.

"How utterly shameless!"