Toyokawa Shoko doesn't want to become a witch

Aine has no way to avoid it now.

"Explain yourself clearly, what exactly happened to Su Shi?"

"I don't know..."

"tell me."

"......don't want."

"Little Love."

"Please...please stop pressuring me..." Aine was on the verge of tears. "It's something I don't want to talk about...something I don't want you to know..."

The addition of the lamp became the final straw that broke her back.

Ai Yin felt a lump in her throat and covered her face in despair.

"...I didn't want you to know that Su Shi had become a witch..."

The temperature seemed to drop suddenly, and the room felt like an ice cave.

Tears streamed down my face through my fingers.

Click.

A crack is spreading in my heart, and along that crack, the fissure keeps widening.

"I know I'm weak... and you've always complained that I'm a burden... I can't do anything right... I've almost died once or twice... and you always have to save me... so when Su Shi told me she was actually using me... I couldn't be angry at all... cough cough... Su Shi... wanted to use me to pull you back... and I wanted to use her too... use everyone... to cling to her powerful backers... and live a life where I could survive without much effort..."

Aine murmured to herself intermittently in the deathly quiet room.

"I am such a despicable person... I'm so despicable... how could I possibly... still be angry with Su Shi... especially... Su Shi... who turned into a witch in front of me..."

She recounted, bit by bit, what had happened when she met Su Shi the night before.

No one spoke in the room; they all listened quietly. Or rather, they were speechless.

Only Aine's faint sobs remained in the room.

The lamp supported Aine, whose head drooped listlessly, her pupils like a polluted well, the dark pupils dilating as if they were ink.

No one could see her expression, and no one knew what she was thinking.

Lixi opened her mouth, her vocal cords twitched, but the sound got stuck in her throat, turning into a low gurgling. Her head was spinning, as if someone had hit her on the head with a hammer, and her whole brain was buzzing.

Her worldview was shattered for the second time at this moment—the first time was when she became a magical girl.

"Xiao Xiang told me about this yesterday," Deng suddenly spoke, breaking the silence. "I was still wondering whether or not to tell you."

"Will you blame me for not telling you?" she asked again.

No one answered her.

The last rays of sunlight disappeared through the window, plunging the dilapidated room into darkness. Everyone was immersed in their own little world, just like the rainy day when Xiangzi announced Crychic's disbandment.

The Lost Story: The Lost Child - Chapter 293 Disbandment

The last ray of sunlight disappeared through the window, plunging the dilapidated room into darkness.

The lamp was against the door frame, blocking the way out of the small room.

With nowhere to escape, Ai-yin had no choice but to find a small corner to hide in.

Lixi stood in the center of the room, her mind blank, like a demagnetized cassette tape, filled with static. It took her a long time to understand what Aiyin had said.

Magical Girl, Witch, Destiny Winged Robe Wu Ni Jiu Liu San (Part 2)

A jumbled mess of things.

Finally, the tape reached the end and stopped abruptly. Lixi's sluggish brain finally remembered what the lamp had just said.

I already knew yesterday.

"Lamp, do you also know about the witch?" Li Xi asked, licking her dry lips.

Do you know that we've been monsters since the moment we made our wishes?

The lamp nodded gently.

"So you all knew, but no one told me, right?" Li Xi's eyes widened suddenly, and her voice rose several octaves. "I was the only one kept in the dark, wasn't I?"

For some reason, Li Xi felt as if she had been stabbed in the back by the person she trusted most, and her heart ached.

In the end, he realized he knew nothing, like a brainless deer, blindly stumbling around in the forest, getting his antlers stuck between branches.

"All I know is that magical girls can turn into witches..." the light whispered. "I don't know... about the Sousei Association..."

"Su Shi is already a witch, what's the point of mentioning her now! She's dead to us!"

Lixi clutched his head in pain as charred fragments fell from his wounds, like ashes or dead butterflies, to the ground.

"Or, we could go find her now, kill her, and that would be the end of it!"

"No!" The lamp's voice drowned out Li Xi's for the first time. "Su Shi can still be saved! As long as we work together, we can bring her back!"

"Becoming a witch means there's no hope left." Lixi glanced at the scattered pieces on the ground, touched the other half of her charred face, and suddenly deflated. "If what you're saying is true, then we're doomed the moment we become magical girls... Magical girls... Make a wish..."

She smiled absentmindedly.

"...It's all fake."

Whatever she wished for when she made it, it's meaningless now.

The air was so oppressive that it was hard to breathe; the ceiling felt like it was pressing down on your head.

No.

Not everything is meaningless.

And there's the lamp. The lamp hasn't made a wish yet; she hasn't become a magical girl. As long as she doesn't take that step, the lamp won't become like her, a... monster.

Lixi raised her head and looked at the light.

The lamp looked at Lixi and felt a chill run down its spine.

Those eyes look so familiar.

That kind of gentle gaze that could drown you.

“By the way, Lamp, you’re not a magical girl yet,” Riki said. “As long as you don’t make a wish, you won’t turn into one like us.”

"Don't even think about becoming a magical girl anymore, okay, Tsubaki?" Aine wiped away her tears and smiled in return. "You haven't made a wish yet, and don't even think about making one... Miracles and magic... we've all been fooled..."

"Don't get involved with us anymore. Let's go back to our normal lives." Li Xi sighed. "It's not too late."

Unexpectedly, by keeping the light on and letting her think about her wish before making it, they actually saved her.

It's a good thing the lamp didn't turn into a magical girl.

Ai Yin and Li Xi thought of it at the same time.

They glanced at each other and saw the same thought in each other's eyes.

"So that's what you were thinking..." The two women were reflected in Deng's amber eyes.

""Um.""

Aine and Riki surprisingly gave the same answer.

In their hearts, only the lamp is a pure land, an absolute sanctuary that cannot be polluted. No matter how desperate or depraved they become, as long as the lamp remains, as long as the lamp is protected, they are far from despair.

As long as the light is still working...

[Gao Songdeng, your talent is excellent, better than theirs.]

If you make a wish, your companions won't have to work so hard.

[You're putting them in danger because you've been hesitating.]

[If you want to contribute, why not join the fight? You keep talking about a "community of shared destiny," yet you can't even stand on the same side as them.]

You're capable of everything, yet you do nothing.

Before Delete took over from the regular Cupid, it kept telling itself this, and Lamp thought it was absolutely right, not a single word of it was wrong, and it had thought so from the very beginning.

At this moment, the magical girls learned the whole truth, while they remained as ordinary people, standing aside. They were clearly the ones most qualified to condemn it, yet not one of them said such a thing. They were the ones who were holding others back, and they were the ones who had the ability to change the situation, but everyone was tolerant and indulgent towards them.

No one blamed her, and no one asked her what she thought.

Whether it was Xiangzi, Aine, or Lixi, when they placed their hopes on Deng, they never asked her what she thought.

Everyone placed their hopes on her, just like parents who wanted their sons to succeed, putting their hopes and pressures on her shoulders.

Don't associate yourself with us anymore.

We're doing this for your own good.

Looking at her skirt, he took two steps back and retreated outside the door.

The door frame separated her from the two magical girls. The chandelier in the hallway illuminated her feet but not the room where Aine and Riki were.

At this moment, they no longer seemed to be one; a hundred high walls stood between her and them. The promise of a lifetime, the pact to get lost together, the shared destiny—it was all a lie.

"So... even a lifelong promise... was all a lie...?" the lamp said in a trembling voice. "Everyone who's held on until today... it was all a lie..."

The sound of insects flapping their wings lingered overhead. She looked up at the moths fluttering and circling under the electric light, trying to fly into the light.

The lights were so bright that she had to squint to see them.

She looked at the moth that couldn't break through the lampshade and touch the hot wick, and suddenly she understood.

So she was that moth.

"I'm done......"

The lamp murmured.

"I never want to be a magical girl again."

The Tale of the Lost: Chapter 294 A Hero Cannot Desert His Path

"And then, what happened to the lights?"

"Deng left first, then Lixi, and I stayed until the very end to make sure everyone had left something before I left."

"...And then you came looking for me?"

"Ah."

How did you know where I was?

"I have Ms. Rinrinko's contact information."

"Ah... I hope all the magical girls active in RiNG have Rinrinko's contact information."

"perhaps?"

"I wasn't asking you." Xiangzi shrugged, turned his head, and looked at the pink-haired boy who had been following him around. "Are you planning to keep following me forever?"

"Until you agree," Ai Yin declared firmly.

"Huh?" Xiangzi raised an eyebrow.

This girl suddenly appeared in front of him without saying a word, asking him to teach her how to become stronger. Then she said that if he didn't agree, she would follow him forever. As a result, she really did follow him all the way, like a piece of chewing gum that he couldn't shake off.

Xiangzi asked what she wanted to do, and Aiyin replied that she wanted to become an apprentice, which almost made Xiangzi laugh so hard he almost choked—of course, she only thought it in her mind.

Finally, when all else failed, Xiangzi asked Aine to tell her what had happened that made her make such a decision, which led to the scene described above.

The story is far more brutal than imagined, and, moreover, there's a lamp involved.

Actually, Xiangzi felt relieved after learning about this. The girl, Deng, said she didn't plan to be a magical girl anymore... which was exactly what she had expected.

As for Li Xi, Xiangzi had already privately asked Hai Ling, who was also present at the time, and Hai Ling said that Li Xi could be left to her, so Xiangzi didn't need to worry about anything.

Only Aine remains.

Ding dong.

The tram arrives.

Xiangzi looked up and, after confirming twice that he hadn't mistaken the station, stepped off the bus first.

Aiyin hurriedly followed after the warning lights came on, walking quickly beside Xiangzi.