Infinite Journey: Dark Souls

"Then you can analyze it a little longer! I'll bring the fight back to a level playing field!"

Deep purple, following Xiao Yan's reply, lit up the vast battlefield.

They were hourglasses, seemingly endlessly turning back and forth. The hourglass markers were on every member of the Ash Force participating in the battle. Except for Ribbonflame, because she was already in the time-stopped world, witnessing the Witch's Kiss light up one by one, and witnessing those who were about to be at a disadvantage due to the brief time stop escape fatal attacks.

The charge halted, shields were raised, and ash blocked the monster's beam. Spears thrust and sabers missed, and Kyoko and the monster Sayaka were locked in a stalemate once more. Two of the giant muskets, a fraction of a second too slow, pulled their triggers, their golden torrents of magic narrowly meeting the oncoming stream of their own kind. Blades spun, spiraling and slicing, the chain spear was severed, and Artesius regained the upper hand.

The fleshy tentacles suddenly pulled the trio apart, and after retreating slightly, the mist revealed its form.

The gray world has finally returned to normal.

In the short period of time that it was swallowed up, the situation changed twice.

The heart of the ribbon flame also rose and fell twice.

However, she didn't care about her companions. She cared about Zhi, who had merely been forced back, and whether she could rise again to break the black curse, thus completely destroying the so-called giant monster and allowing her magic power to smoothly return to her body.

She was completely unaware that even her own magic could not possibly be tainted by such a thoroughly dark curse.

The witch on this shore sheathed her sword once more.

His slightly bowed body was gathering the flames for his next sword-drawing slash.

The ribbon flame awaited.

Destiny Sixty: Humans' brains are really not very sharp; they can't even see through the truth behind the truth.

The two witches' domains clashed. Braids and sand marked out their respective territories.

Against this backdrop, the golden-white demonic eyes peered through the boundaries of the realm, directly gazing upon the witch's true nature.

The katana, sheathed, remained undrawn for a long time.

Do you know what she saw? Zhi felt she saw an abyss. This wasn't a metaphor, it was an analogy. Because since becoming ashes, she had only witnessed two things that could contrast with the profound blackness before her. One was a demon, the other was the abyss of the flame. The demon was evil controlled by will, the abyss was chaos manipulated unconsciously.

Given the countless curses gathered before us, the latter is clearly a more suitable analogy.

As expected, this battle was far from simpler than defeating any giant magical beast. Although she and Xiaoyan had stopped believing it was just a simple magical beast from the moment they saw it, this thing wasn't merely a product of Ribbon Flame's magic. Faced with the truth before them, they still needed a piece of the puzzle to fully confirm the witch's true nature.

Countless doll heads surrounded the witch, staring back at her golden, white demonic eyes. Without a doubt, if the golden blades reappeared, they would mercilessly unleash the black curse once more.

Zhi roughly knew where she was going to strike; it wasn't the bright pink dress hanging beneath the crown. Even if the dress foreshadowed some message, what truly unleashed the black curse was the wheel-like woven fabric beneath it. Perhaps it should be described as a bizarrely styled clock face; if you parted the braids, you could find a shield that Zhi recognized all too well.

"Cutting down the shield will solve everything," Zhi guessed. She could only guess, because she couldn't see the abyss within the shield at all.

A golden-white line of fire shot out.

On the battlefield where the situation was constantly changing, Ribbon Flame saw these two thin points and one line.

She couldn't help but begin to pray. She prayed to the only god she acknowledged, the Law of the Circle.

I pray this attack will bring an end to the conflict.

A straight line is the most convenient way to define a line segment. However, it doesn't mean that two points are absolutely necessary for the line segment to be straight. A straight line is composed of many points, and the golden-white fire line is no exception. The extreme displacement caused each step of Zhi Ta Kong to leave a point in continuous spacetime. Her flames strung together these points, completing the line in the blink of an eye, as if the line had existed from the beginning.

No wires are needed at all.

【Ichi no Tachi - Cloud Radiance】

The golden-white blade marks were observed by the doll's eyes. Countless eyes, even those that didn't see the process of the connection, saw its end—wherever their gaze fell, lay the spread of the curse. Before the clockwork-like woven fabric, black once again, in its inky form, blocked the blade's path.

"Lily!"

"Hey witch over there, take this magic cannon shot!"

【Immorality: A Glimpse of Time】

A golden-white blade folded upwards. Like a mischievous brush tip, it didn't dip into ink but licked it, swiftly gliding across the entire black curse. The First Blade struck what it truly intended to cut; even if the dense curse wasn't completely severed, a narrow golden-white gap was thinned. Then, a deep purple magic cannon charged upwards.

Time and curse corroded each other. It was like hot oil and boiling water, repelling each other the moment they collided, splashing out boiling droplets.

The narrow slit disrupted the curse's overall structure, and the deep purple sand, tinged with a touch of gold and white, emerged from its cocoon. The braids coiled as the curse was pierced, forming a shield that blocked the direct hit from the magic cannon. The originally grayish-white hair also thickened with black, holding its own against the deep purple for a moment, almost ignoring the gold and white.

Jin Bai deftly bypassed the braided hair, her sword-wielding hand still positioned in front of the braid's obstruction. Yet, her strike landed squarely on the clock face. Just like the slash she delivered against the ribbon flame blocking the anthropomorphic monster. A slash of will, whatever the mind desired, that's what the sword would strike.

【Selflessness and the wondrous existence of emptiness】

Unwittingly, the slash hit its target.

This was a new technique she mastered while fighting "Shiki" in [Kara no Kyoukai]. This subtle, transcendent style of swordsmanship had reached the level of "martial arts." It could only be understood intuitively; even if she wanted to explain it, she couldn't. However, the witch before her didn't need an explanation; the trembling braided fabric was enough to indicate that the shield hidden beneath it had been cleaved open.

"Success!"

The most excited person wasn't Zhi, who was falling from the sky and maintaining her broken spirit state. Nor was it the Witch of the Other Shore who stretched out her braid to support Zhi. Rather, it was Ribbon Flame, an outsider who was on the battlefield but not involved in the fighting. After witnessing all of this, she cried out excitedly, and even her voice lost its coldness in her excitement.

Yes, how could she not be excited?

The witch—no, in her understanding—the death of the colossal magical beast meant the return of her stolen magic. The reason was clear: beneath the trembling, crumbling braids, she could clearly see the shield hidden there. Wasn't that one of the powers she had discarded? Didn't this prove that her magic had been taken by this thing?

Even if the dress under the crown looks like a round armor, it has absolutely nothing to do with her regaining her magic power!

Yeah?

She immediately noticed something else she had lost.

A longbow resembling a flowering branch.

To be precise, it was a magical arrow shot from a longbow. Its deep purple hue formed wings, making the arrow resemble a large, intrusive bird, instantly swooping down upon the shield that was directly facing the attack. The bird flapped its wings, and the arrow's sharp tip grazed the crack in the shield. Then, incredibly, the unintentional slash from the shield was blocked.

The bird broke in two, but unfortunately the shield didn't.

The excitement turned into utter disappointment, and the overwhelming grief and indignation made Ribbon Flame shout out again.

"How is that possible!"

The piercing sound drowned out the ashes and the battle cries of the monsters, the clash of spears and sabers, the roar of the golden magic bullets, and the scraping of chain guns and battle blades. The trio blocking the special monsters not far from her couldn't help but turn back to look at this girl whose emotions were changing so frequently.

Blood trembled, sheathed her sword, and the weaver leaped from her braid, landing back on the top of the witch's hat.

Together with Xiao Yan, she kept watch on yet another figure breaking through the miasma.

A pink dress flowed gracefully, and shoulder-length pink hair cascaded down her back. A red ribbon, instead of being tied into pigtails, was fastened to her bangs and knotted into a bow on the side. A gentle smile graced her round face as a magical girl slowly descended before the witch.

That's how it should be.

This is what a circle should look like.

The monster Yuan, who stopped the Weaving Slash, appeared quite differently to those in the know—she wore a pink dress with a pink, shoulder-length fringe of hair cascading down her back. A stiff smile was etched on her round face, and her empty eyes were spheres dotted with black dots. Her limbs were pierced by steel wires, the joints connecting them merely bearings.

The doll greeted everyone who looked over with her stiff smile.

"What an intense battle! But I can't let this guy get out of there!"

The actions of all parties on the battlefield in Fate 61 all contained intelligence.

"That was quite an intense battle. But are you sure your magic was there?"

With a stiff smile, Warcraft Circle greeted everyone who looked over.

Upon hearing the voice from the ribbon flame, the tone and the deep purple arrow seemed perfectly matched, both cool and aloof.

Huh? Did she just hear two different voices at the same time? The first sentence of both voices was exactly the same, but the second sentence... the one impersonating the round-shaped monster should have been in a declarative tone, and should have been in a gentle voice.

There was someone else talking to her.

She whirled her head, then turned again. A 360-degree battlefield came into view: ashes, magical girls, and monsters clashed on a floor paved with blood and lamenting cubes. Apart from that, there were no other suspicious figures who could clearly hear her ask the same question.

"Who are you?!"

"You are Warcraft Circle!"

Zhi's voice and her question rang out simultaneously. The monster Yuan chuckled at Zhi's guess, tacitly agreeing. But the air remained silent in the face of her question; no one answered.

"It seems your subordinates, and those flesh-and-blood monsters over there, have given you a thorough report of my information. Unfortunately, based on the combined intelligence from both sides who have seen me, are you certain that I am the Monster Circle? Or rather, do you know what my stance is in standing here to stop you?"

The longbow was drawn, the figure composed and unhurried. The magical beast protectively cradled the trembling witch, waiting for her to re-braid her plaits and wrap them around a clockwork-like wheel to conceal the scar on her shield. The process was slow, and she used this time to ask Ash a question. Her manner of asking the question was like that of a novelist who had crafted a brilliant plot, eagerly awaiting the reader's interpretation.

The skirt of the doll dress fluttered in the wind, synchronizing with the dress under the witch's crown.

"Who I am is unimportant. What matters is that you believe those black curses are inherent in your magic?"

"...I recognized your voice...it's you...Why are you concerned about my magic?!"

Another conversation was taking place, one that only the ribbon flames could hear.

During this other conversation, Zhi began to unravel the truth behind the Warcraft universe.

"You are not just the monster Yuan. We still cannot see through your identity. All signs point to your connection with the new magic that Ribbon Flame has acquired—the miracle resulting from 'Yuan's unforgettable longing for each other,' and the power represented by that bow. Apart from that, your actions remain inexplicable. Could it be that you are simply in league with those monsters?"

The battlefield, now in its final moments, has come to a standstill, but the mutual crushing of ashes and monsters continues.

The monsters fell one after another, lamenting how the Rubik's Cubes had covered the ruins. The earthy ground was almost invisible; one could almost believe it was made of tiny black cubes. The situation was changing; with the ashes advancing relentlessly, victory seemed nowhere near. This was because the monsters connected by black threads were gone, and a black curse seemed to emanate from their braided hair.

"I just want to confirm one thing: is what you just saw really your shield?"

"Of course! That's mine! I haven't been able to use it since I came into this world—!"

"You can't use that shield. That's right, you have no idea what's inside."

The ribbon flames and the cold voice argued. She was stunned by an answer she had uttered herself. She remembered that she couldn't use the shield, so did the witch associated with the shield truly possess the magic she longed to reclaim? Or—she looked at the magical beast circle over there, and the longbow in her hand—where was the magic?

"Hehehe, hahahaha! I thought you could guess more thoroughly, Ori, and over there... should I call you a witch? Homura Akemi. What you guessed only went a tiny bit deeper into the truth, you didn't get to the point at all."

"So, you're not simply on the same side as the monsters? In that case, we need to clarify your stance. Ah, since you stopped us from defeating that thing, it means you were using her?"

"Hmm, we've gone a little deeper now. Can you guess what we're going to do?"

The magical beast Madoka, stared at by Ribbon Flame, was completely oblivious to the additional gaze fixed upon her. She played a guessing game with Ori and Homura, seemingly stalling for time. The thing behind her had gradually changed the color of her braids, turning them into a pure black, exactly like Homura Akemi's.

The blackness is stained by a curse.

"Are you trying to remind me that my magic is in that... in that guy disguised as a circle?"

"No, I told you, I just wanted to check what was inside the shield."

"What else could be inside my shield? No! What's inside the shield doesn't matter, what matters is reclaiming my magic!"

"Actually, the important thing is the shield; the bow isn't a good weapon."

"What? You actually belittle the important power that Yuan gave me!"

"..."

On this side, Ribbon Flame was angered by the mysterious voice. However, her angry rebuttal was met with silence on the other end. She instinctively felt that the other party hadn't severed the connection; this communication method, similar to magical girl telepathy, had simply been redirected. And the redirected location... she finally turned her attention to the confrontation between Ori and Madoka.