Toyokawa Shoko doesn't want to become a witch

"What wish do you have that you want to fulfill?" Cupid asked.

“I want to become strong, I want to have power,” Asagiri said.

"Then sign a contract with me and become a magical girl."

Asagiri made a wish.

She wanted to become strong.

Therefore, after she became a magical girl, she was very strong and could stand on her own without having to team up with others.

But only strength matters; Asagiri's heart remains unchanged, just as it was before.

She still didn't dare to fight back against those who bullied her, didn't dare to use the power of a magical girl to take revenge, didn't dare to kill, and didn't dare to leave the oppressive family that trapped her.

......

My mother got divorced.

It was less of a divorce and more of an escape.

Her family was very patriarchal; her father would beat her mother when he was drunk, and her brother would just stand by and watch. Eventually, her mother couldn't take it anymore and secretly ran away.

Asagiri was left alone at home, facing her angry father.

Every night she would crawl back to her little bed with bruises on her body. She was a magical girl, so she wasn't afraid of being beaten anymore.

She liked to fall asleep holding the crayons her mother gave her and an umbrella with her favorite cartoon characters drawn on it.

The umbrella was also a gift from her mother.

My mother is a sentimental person who loves rainy days. When she gave Asagiri an umbrella, she said, "Asagiri, you should learn to appreciate the rain. Rain is beautiful too."

From that moment on, Asagiri began to enjoy the rain.

......

"What the hell is this?!"

Despite his severe headache, Xiangzi picked up his Remington M11, aimed it at the witch's head, and prepared to pull the trigger and end it all.

【don't want! 】

Xiangzi's pupils suddenly contracted to their smallest size, and he couldn't pull the trigger no matter what he did.

The sound of candy echoed in his mind. The twisted witch's words sounded like something no living being could make, but Xiangzi could understand them.

It was as if witchcraft was her native language.

Please, please listen to my story.

I don't want to die like this.

At least one person will remember me, even if it's just one.

"Interesting." Cupid wagged its tail and quietly observed everything.

......

It happened on a rainy evening.

[What happened when I opened my most cherished umbrella after school.]

Asagiri's favorite umbrella, the one her mother gave her, the one that made her love rain.

Several holes had been ripped into the umbrella, and the tattered fabric drooped down, forming triangular gaps in the fabric. Rainwater trickled through the holes and fell onto Asagiri's shoulders.

“This suits you better,” they said with a smile from behind the morning mist.

They were the ones who cut open the umbrella; of course, who else could it be?

[I am Asagiri's despairing heart. Today, the umbrella my mother gave me was slashed open, so I am the umbrella's dark purple hue.]

Asagiri laughed along with them.

"Yes, this suits me better."

She smiled brightly, opened her umbrella, and stepped into the rain.

Tears mingled with the rain, unseen by anyone.

......

Xiangzi looked up at the azure sky drawn with crayons and smiled along with them.

Rainy days always seem so similar.

Tears streamed down her cheeks, dripping onto the witch's mask-like smiling face.

......

No matter how outrageous their actions were, Asagiri never retaliated.

That day, Asagiri buried her rotten umbrella in the soil by the river. Actually, she hadn't used the Seed of Lamentation in a long time, and she didn't care anymore.

A few days later, she sat quietly in the empty classroom after school, her soul gem filled with filth.

Those people who bullied me are here again. What do they want this time?

Asagiri no longer cares; she will never care about anything again.

The Soul Gem hatched the Seed of Lamentation, drawing all life in Class 3-E into the Witch's Barrier.

A witch named Candy was born.

......

Xiangzi lowered his head, knelt in front of the witch, and placed the witch's head on his lap.

For it, the separation of the umbrella handle and the canopy was like the separation of its upper and lower body; it was almost dead. The canopy had disappeared without a trace, and the handle was slowly becoming transparent.

Is the candy going to die?

Xiangzi didn't speak, but instead raised his right hand and covered Candy's smiling face mask, with the mechanism on the wrist guard aligned with Candy's forehead.

Every magical girl has her own unique soul weapon. Xiangzi's soul weapon is the hidden blade, and its manifestation is her magic.

The entire bracer is the component that activates the magic; the hidden blade is almost useless and can only be used as decoration.

Today, Xiangzi decides to use it to kill the candy.

【Thank you. 】

"farewell."

Xiangzi said softly.

The hidden blade in her wrist guard pierced out, ending the witch's life.

The Tale of Nirvana: Where Did You Sleep Last Night: Chapter 8 Who is the Witch?

After Candy died, the witch's barrier began to collapse. The crayon drawing was covered with realistic lines, which became more and more numerous and more materialistic, until finally the traces of the crayon drawing disappeared completely, and the surrounding environment became an abandoned old school building.

The red and black magical girl outfit transformed back into cheap clothes, and Xiangzi, still kneeling on the ground, returned to the classroom of Class 3-E in the real world.

The rain outside the window stopped, and the blood-red sunset shone in, illuminating Xiangzi. His pale blue hair appeared even lighter, almost white, under the rich sunlight.

"Explain," Xiangzi said coldly.

"Explain what?" Cupid tilted his head.

Why do I see those things?

"what?"

"Stop playing dumb." Xiangzi raised his head in disgust. "Asagao, Candy, whatever you call her, I saw her memories and understood her language."

“Magical girls are the offspring of witches, and witch language is the mother tongue of the soul, so it’s only natural that they can understand it,” Kyubey said.

“No, that’s impossible.” Xiangzi shook his head. “I’ve never encountered anything like this before. All the witches are incommunicable, like wild beasts…”

The pupils suddenly contracted.

"Beasts can't talk, so if candy isn't a beast..."

"You still have memories," Kyubey kindly reminded her.

Before he could finish speaking, Xiangzi grabbed him by the neck and pinned him to the ground.

"Tell me quickly, what do you know!"

"How can I tell you something if you're choking me?"

brush---

The hidden blade pierced through the wrist guard, and Xiangzi pulled out an M1911, pointing it at Qiubi who jumped out of the shadows again.

"explain."

“I don’t know either,” said Cupid. “You know we don’t lie.”

“They’re just hiding key information, of course I know that.” Xiangzi threw the tattered, doll-like corpse of Qubi in front of Qubi. “Tell me everything about Candy’s strange behavior and those inexplicable memories.”

Cupid opened his mouth and ate his own corpse, licked his lips, and looked up at Xiangzi.

"I'll answer whatever you ask, but the actual answer is: I only have assumptions, do you want to hear them?"

"Do not talk nonsense."

"You may not know this, but you are the only magical girl I've ever seen whose Soul Gem is cracked like this and still alive. Normally, you would either become a witch or the gem would shatter completely and you would die. No magical girl has ever lived for more than a day after her gem cracked. Not only did you not become a witch, but you also didn't die, and you lived for half a year."

Qubi jumped off the desk, ran through the shadows of the desk legs, then jumped back onto the desk and squatted down in front of Xiangzi.

"I deduce that the crack in the Soul Gem will cause the soul to leak out, and conversely, something will leak into the crack, such as the witch's magic or something else."

"You mean the memory of the candy... seeped in through the crack?"

“This is an assumption based on your unique sample, and it’s not guaranteed to be correct,” Kyubey said. “Not just Candy, all the witches you’ve encountered have probably had some of their Soul Stone mixed in with it, but as you just said, Candy is special.”

“She’s not a beast.” Xiangzi frowned. “What I saw was what she wanted me to see.”

"Perhaps. I kind of hope you can live a little longer, Toyokawa Shoko."

"why?"

"Observing a single sample may help us discover many things that we haven't discovered before."

Cupid jumped onto a table in the corner of the classroom and wrapped his tail around a black object on the table.

"This is your spoils, don't forget."

The seed of candy's lament fell on Asagiri Aya's former desk, the slovenly and dilapidated desk in the entire classroom.

Like the Soul Gem, the Seed of Grief looks like a gemstone artifact. The jet-black gem is encased in pure silver decorations, and a slender silver needle pierces through it. The needle tip lands on the desk, defying physics and standing the entire Seed of Grief upright. No matter how it is moved, the Seed of Grief remains like a roly-poly toy, with the needle tip always on the ground.

Xiangzi walked over, picked up the Seed of Sorrow from the candy, and carefully put it away.

"Aren't you going to remove it?"

Cupid squatted on the desk, with the dazzling light of the setting sun behind him.

"Won't absorbing too much filth lead to the birth of a new witch? What happens to the Sorrowful Seeds after they've been used up?" Xiangzi turned to ask Kyubey.

“We’ll take care of it.” Kyubey wagged its tail. “The energy was collected the moment the magical girl turned into a witch. Witches are just industrial waste after all, so they have to be disposed of.”

“Industrial residue…” Xiangzi smiled sarcastically. “We’ll see. Didn’t you say that the candy was special? Then perhaps her Seed of Sorrow is also different. I’ll keep it for now.”

Xiangzi lifted his long hair, which looked silvery-white in the setting sun, and walked over the desk where Qubi was squatting.

As the sun gradually sets behind the tall buildings, the angle of the light gradually narrows, and less and less sunlight remains in the classroom.

"Oh, right, Toyokawa Shoko."

As darkness gradually spread, Qubi called out to Xiangzi.

Xiangzi turned around and glanced at it impatiently.

"Is there anything else?"

"A friendly reminder: Magical Girl Battle Rule #3: Regardless of whether you use the Grief Seed or not, you should check the Soul Gem for impurities after each battle, especially for someone as critically ill as you."

Tick, tick, tick...

The sunlight completely withdrew from the classroom, and darkness enveloped Qiu Bi and Xiang Zi.

There was still a clock in the classroom that hadn't been removed, ticking away as if counting down.