Toyokawa Shoko doesn't want to become a witch

To intruders, the library may still be the same neatly arranged and easily searchable library.

Let me take you on a tour of a tragedy that took place in some unknown corner of this city...

"What is it doing?"

Mu had a bad feeling.

Mortis seems to have become... a tour guide?

Is it leading those intruders on a tour here? Does that mean they might see Xiangzi's memories?!

Is this Mortis's true purpose?

Mu's pupils shrank, then his gaze sharpened.

Two or even three times more threads than before shot out from Mutsu towards the countless miniature gardens floating in the air.

She had to stop Mortis before he showed Xiangzi's memories to the outsiders.

As for the countdown... I just need to wait until the time is up before I strike.

Those memories were Xiangzi's most taboo secret, absolutely, absolutely not to be known by anyone else.

=========

Toyokawa Shoko struck first, which Shoko anticipated. The fan-shaped bullets from the No. 20 shot grazed past Shoko's head, but before the shattered mirror fragments hit the ground, Shoko's counterattack had already begun.

As he leaped to the side to dodge the bullets, Xiangzi adjusted his balance in mid-air, pointed the gun at another version of himself who rushed out of the mirror, and pulled the trigger without even aiming.

The same gun, the same fan-shaped jet of lead bullets.

Same result.

However, there is still a slight delay from the moment the finger applies force, to the trigger completing its travel, to the firing pin igniting the primer, and finally the bullet leaving the chamber.

It was enough for Toyokawa Shoko's feet to touch the ground.

As if she could foresee the future, before Xiangzi had fully pulled the trigger, she landed and immediately shifted to the side, leaving the gun line before the bullet even left the barrel.

Even after leaving the mirror, the two people inside and outside remained perfectly synchronized, flying in the same direction with almost identical movements. Before landing, they twisted their waists, completed a mid-air rotation, and landed on their backs. Upon touching the ground, they rolled backward due to inertia to dissipate the force.

As soon as Xiangzi landed, he raised his gun again and aimed it at Fengchuan Xiangzi.

The same applies to 1VI0I珊（q二）兒久迩-/面.

The dark muzzle of the gun was pointed at Xiangzi's forehead.

Click.

The trigger was pulled.

Flames, like dragon's breath, spewed from the muzzle of the gun.

boom!

They were too close. For shotguns, being too close makes it harder to hit them, and there's even a chance of hitting them but not killing them.

There was a case of someone who was hit in the head by buckshot and lost half of his head but survived. The doctor who spent 23 hours saving him said that it was fortunate that the gun barrel was very close to him when he was hit. If it had been farther away, he would have lost his whole head instead of just half.

Therefore, the trigger that was pulled at the same time also missed.

The gun barrel was almost pointed at his face, but he could easily dodge it by simply tilting his head slightly.

The deafening gunshot instantly ruptured their eardrums, blood flowed from their ear canals, and the buzzing sound was like a thunderclap in their brains, leaving the two identical people frozen in place for a moment.

It was only a short while before they realized that closing the distance was ineffective, so they immediately dropped their long guns and drew their short guns from their holsters.

It was another mirror image of the action.

They pulled the trigger at the same time.

In a silent world, bullets collide at extremely close range and bounce off in different directions.

The two men were now so close that they could touch each other with their hands outstretched—a distance far too close for a pistol.

Xiangzi saw Toyokawa Xiangzi open her mouth and say something, but she couldn't hear anything. However, she sensed an attack coming from outside her field of vision.

Toyokawa Shoko emerged from the mirror, his dominant hand strangely becoming his left, while his free right hand produced an identical M1911, which he intended to press against the lower left rib of Shoko.

Once this shot is fired, the bullet will penetrate through the ribs, directly piercing the heart of Erju (7)liu氿衤三陸, depriving Xiangzi of his ability to move.

but.

They were always the same person. If Toyokawa Shoko could think of something, how could Shoko not have thought of it?

As if she had anticipated Toyokawa Shoko's actions, she reached out with her left hand in advance and, before the dark muzzle of the gun was pressed against her heart, she gripped the slide of the pistol and pushed it back.

Click.

Toyokawa Shoko pulled the trigger, but failed to engage the hammer.

Neither gained an advantage. After a brief entanglement, the two figures separated, their gun-wielding hands tucked into their chests, their shoulders turned to face each other.

The reason for crouching down to the chest instead of sticking out is to reduce the range of motion and make it easier to turn the gun at close range.

Facing the enemy from the side rather than head-on is to reduce the area exposed to attack.

This is a technique taught by that bastard dad's tactical shooting instructor.

Xiangzi was listening nearby and clearly took it all in.

The buzzing sound in her ears gradually disappeared, her hearing slowly returned, and she began to hear sounds again.

The other side is obviously doing the same.

“If you were taught by the same master, you can’t break their skills.” Toyokawa Shoko smiled sarcastically.

"Who shares the same master as you?"

Xiangzi pursed his lips and wiped the blood from the glass cuts on his face with the back of his hand.

"You opened fire the moment we met. That's quite a unique way to welcome me, even though we're the same person."

"It's because it's the same person that we need to strike first."

Toyokawa Shoko tilted her head, grinned, and said with a smile.

"If I don't do it this way, how can I kill you and then take your place?"

Toyokawa Shoko appeared very excited, breathing rapidly, her face flushed, and her heart rate high.

Xiangzi had never seen her lose her composure.

"Are you the monster from urban legends who crawled out of a mirror, killed the original owner, and took their place?" Xiangzi frowned.

The person in front of me was unusually excited, almost like...

A beast driven to the brink of despair.

"Maybe," Toyokawa Shoko shrugged. "You're too long-winded; I can't stand it."

"You couldn't stand it anymore, so you decided to act on my behalf and kill those sixteen incorrigible cultists, is that it?"

"Why are you still thinking about that matter..." Toyokawa Shoko looked surprised. "It's because you're too weak that I couldn't help helping you, okay?"

"help me?"

"of course."

"In other words, you interpreted your act of venting your desires as 'helping me.'" Xiangzi suddenly put down his gun, his hands hanging at his sides, staring at Fengchuan Xiangzi in a blatant manner. "In other words, whether it's an excuse or you really think that way, you've made yourself someone's appendage."

Xiangzi's voice suddenly became very soft, so soft that it seemed as if he was talking to himself.

"Counterfeit goods can never become genuine goods. Always treating oneself as someone's appendage is nothing but an escape."

The truth was peeled back like an onion, layer by layer: about herself, about Toyokawa Shoko, about everything they were seeing now, some guesses, until just now, she was finally able to confirm it.

If she could, she hoped she was wrong.

But......

"So you can't become Toyokawa Shoko either."

Shoko Toyokawa habitually retorted.

Little did he expect that he would fall into an abyss from which there was no bottom.

whereabouts.

Then it falls again.

"......right."

Xiangzi, like a puppet with its strings cut, hung his head dejectedly.

"Maybe I'll never become Toyokawa Shoko, but what about you?"

She tilted her head, her bright golden eyes fixed on Toyokawa Shoko.

"You've abandoned your weakness, abandoned your humanity, and consider yourself a mere appendage of a familiar. You refuse to face reality, hiding behind the mirror and watching all that you've created happen. How do you compare to me?"

"......What's the meaning."

Toyokawa Shoko's expression froze.

"What do you want to say?"

"Isn't it very simple and clear?"

Xiangzi took out his Walkman, pressed play, and the spinning cassette tape began playing Part A.

“I recall what you said to me in my dream, every conversation we had, and the disgust in your eyes—that disgust was almost exactly the same as when I saw Motoyo Nagasaki; it was disgust for my past self.”

"Why do you always know a little more than me? Why are you always able to make the right choices for me? Why can you control this body at will?"

The person facing you is someone who betrayed the world.

That's exactly the lyric.

"Because you are the one who recorded this tape, you are the witch's rebirth, you are the one who deceived the world, Toyokawa Shoko."

Oblivionis, the familiar, dropped his Walkman on the ground.

He drew his pistol and aimed it at Toyokawa Shoko.

"I'm just your pawn, aren't I?"

The Tale of Nirvana: Staying True to Myself: Chapter 142 This is Me (A Two-in-One Story)

Broken water droplets fall from the sky through the clouds, one or two drops at a time, until they all come together and become rain.

"Whether you become a witch or Xiangzi, the decision should be in your hands."

"Thank you for listening to my rambling."

After saying everything he wanted to say, Xiangzi's fingers trembled as he tapped "End Playback" on the screen, which was now a patchwork of yellow and green, with less than 10% of the screen still legible.

But after clicking several times without hearing the stop sound, she simply tossed her phone aside.

As a result, even the phone wouldn't listen to me anymore.

Looking up at the sky, the pattering rain stung my eyes.

She tossed the filthy Soul Gem to the ground, along with the gun she dared not pull the trigger on her head, like trash.

"Have you finished saying your last words?"

Another version of myself asked calmly from the side.

"..."

Xiangzi hung his head and remained silent.

The Soul Gem was clearly overflowing, yet she hadn't become a witch as Kyubey had predicted... Was this another chance from heaven, or just a fleeting moment of brilliance before death?

His eyes shifted to the hunting rifle lying on the ground.

She swallowed.

I just failed once.

I recorded my final words in order to make up my mind.

But when she finally picked up the gun, she found that no matter what she did, she still couldn't pull the trigger.

"The choice is yours: to die or to become a witch."