Toyokawa Shoko doesn't want to become a witch

“I know, Madoka, Kaname Madoka.”

"Oh......"

"She probably doesn't have any memory of it."

Judging from the way she greeted me, she really didn't remember me at all.

"Please, please keep this a secret," Flame said.

"Although I took the day off these past few days, I told Teacher Kazuko that I can't fall behind on my homework. Hey, Xiaoyan, can I copy your homework for a bit?" The deep red head was stacked on top of Xiaoyuan, and she grinned generously, revealing her eye-catching little tiger teeth.

It's a tiger tooth again.

Are tiger teeth also sold wholesale?

What's her name?

Xiangzi thought about it for a moment. She wasn't really familiar with anyone except Mami Tomoe and Homura. They hadn't exchanged many words during the meal.

“This is Kyoko, Sakura Kyoko,” Homura whispered in her ear. “She’s the one who secretly took the photo of Tomoe-senpai.”

Just as she finished speaking, a handbag hit Kyoko on the head, and then a third head with short blue hair piled on top of the red-haired head and smacked Kyoko's head hard with its chin.

Xiangzi looked at her face and for some reason felt that she looked a bit like Su Shi, but he couldn't quite put his finger on why.

"You have to do your own homework! Stop thinking about plagiarizing other people's hard work!"

"It's all because you wouldn't let me copy it. It's all Sayaka's fault."

"You always go to watch TV by yourself, and then you blame me."

"Being a magical girl is exhausting, both physically and mentally. There's no time to play, so how can you possibly concentrate on homework?"

"You guy!"

"Um...you two...we haven't even entered yet..."

"The one arguing with Kyoko, Sayaka, is Miki Sayaka..." Homura's forehead creased with annoyance, but she forced herself to continue introducing them to Shoko, "They're always like this... please don't mind them."

Well......

Xiangzi crossed his arms and watched Sayaka and Kyoko playing tag around the small circle in the middle of the doorway.

I didn't remember much from our last chance encounter. This time, I guess we'll be living under the same roof for a while. Oh, by the way, how many of them were there? One, two, three, four...

Four, plus myself and He Mu, that makes six people.

Xiangzi lowered his head and started counting on his fingers.

There is one room on the first floor, three rooms on the second floor, and an attic on the third floor...

“Wait, something’s not right.” Xiangzi was stunned.

That's not enough room! There are six people here, but including the attic room, there are only five rooms.

At this time.

Xiangzi felt his clothes being tugged.

=======

late at night.

After taking a bath, Xiangzi lay on the tatami mat, feeling warm all over. He leaned against the wall, held his tablet, and compiled the information he had collected that day into a simple mind map.

Under the entry for "Ode to the Party," there are two sub-entries: "Mysterious Curse" and "The Witch of This Shore." Xiangzi has already recorded a considerable amount of information in the sub-entry for "The Witch of This Shore," while the entry for "Mysterious Curse" currently only has the name "Mami Tomoe."

Since she hasn't had any direct contact with the magical girls of the Ode to Joy faction yet—not counting the one who attacked them at the old site, Xiangzi hasn't even seen a glimpse of them—she temporarily puts aside the clues related to the mysterious curse and focuses on the witch on this side.

This shore and the other shore...

If only objects are affected by the other side, it's not that difficult to understand. After all, objects have no subjective agency. As Yachiyo said, whether she throws the stone down or lets it fly into her hand, it is she, the person on this side, who exerts influence on the object.

But what about people?

What would happen if people on the other side attacked people on this side?

She had already experienced it all today; the encounter at the old site was clearly an attack by enemies from the other side.

The explosion started when Mutsu pushed him away. In the middle, he and Yachiyo ran around trying to avoid the explosion from the other side. Finally, he found an opportunity to fire a shot at the other, forcing him to leave and ending the battle.

This is how it is from this shore's perspective.

But what about from the perspective of the other side?

Xiangzi gently bit the stylus, looking at the draft he had drawn in the software.

She drew a forward timeline, from beginning to end.

Now, let's turn the timeline around from the end to the beginning.

The enemy on the other side hid in the shadows and was attacked by the rubble from this side—which was in the opposite direction to them. This shot was fired by Xiangzi. To the enemy, it was like seeing the stones on the ground suddenly return to their original state. The enemy was attacked by the suddenly restored stones and then launched a counterattack against Xiangzi. Finally, they used a bomb to "push" Mu from the room back to the corridor, and then disappeared without a trace.

Xiangzi finally understood why she could see bloodstains at first, but not after the cannon shot was fired.

The other party is on the other side and is injured by the suddenly restored rubble or rocket fragments. From Xiangzi's perspective, it is as if his rocket launcher "healed" the other party's injury.

That's why the bloodstains on the ground disappeared, because the other party was not injured at all in the "past" of the other side and the "future" of this side.

After sorting out everything that happened in that encounter, Xiangzi suddenly felt as if he had been enlightened.

Is this the kind of enemy we'll be facing in the future...?

She closed her eyes and continued to review in her mind how the world was viewed from the perspective of the other side.

It's a bit too difficult to understand, and even if you do understand it, it's still a bit vague.

No wonder Yachiyo said, "Don't try to understand, feel." If you need to think so much while fighting an enemy like this, it's impossible to come up with an effective countermeasure.

We can only get used to it gradually.

Xiangzi leaned against the wall and let out a long sigh.

Hey.

Just then, footsteps came from downstairs, and Mu, still sweating, climbed up to the attic.

Yes.

The solution to the problem of not having enough rooms was for Mu to come up and sleep in the same room as Xiangzi.

The Tale of Reincarnation: The Shore of Oblivion: Chapter 459 Bandaging and Applying Medicine

The five rooms downstairs are all small single rooms, and the beds are only big enough for one person. The attic has a poor ceiling and was originally used as a storage room, so sleeping is done on tatami mats. Therefore, all things considered, Mutsu is the most suitable place to move up.

Well, that's what they say.

Xiangzi felt it was a bit unfair to let Mu move upstairs like this, but since Mu herself suggested it, she had nothing to say.

That's settled then. Anyway, our families were close when we were kids, and we even slept together a few times.

"Xiang." Mu walked over and sat down next to Xiangzi while drying her wet hair with a towel.

"What's wrong?" Xiangzi looked up.

Mu shook his head again.

She simply wanted to call out.

Xiangzi tilted his body slightly and bumped Mu's shoulder.

The two of them often communicated without words; subtle gestures or glances were enough to convey their meaning. Xiangzi nudged Mu's shoulder to express her slight displeasure at being called out for no reason.

Mu's response was to lean on Xiangzi's shoulder instead.

This was just like when the two of them were alone. Mu stared blankly at Xiangzi's shoulder, while Xiangzi went about his own business, and they didn't bother each other.

The attic suddenly became so quiet that the only sound could be the clicking of the stylus on the screen.

"—Kyoko, didn't you say you were going to do your homework?!"

"I was just waiting for you to finish writing so I could copy it."

"Dream on!"

Yes, and of course, there was the noisy commotion from downstairs, with one person in red and one in blue.

After about ten minutes, Xiangzi finally finished organizing all her tasks for the day and put them into a mind map. She closed the protective cover of her notebook, put her hands on the floor, and let out a long sigh.

The magical girls of the Ode to Joy faction possess this power; no wonder the seniors at the gathering got stuck here in the previous playthrough.

Yachiyo said that Kamahama had long since become an invisible battlefield, where magical girls fight each other every day in every corner of the city.

The simple-minded and easily manipulated witch has even become a tool in the battle between the two sides.

According to the information Shoko obtained from Yachiyo, due to the existence of the witch on this side, the Kamahama Magical Alliance, despite having a significant numerical advantage, was unable to gain an advantage over the Ode Faction, and even maintaining a balance of power was somewhat difficult.

Yachiyo attributed her loss of power to the witch of this side, which allowed the Ode to fight from an unconventional angle. The magical girls of the Kamahama Magical Alliance were not used to this fighting style, which is why they were temporarily at a disadvantage. They believed that once they adapted to the attack methods from the other side, they could slowly turn the tide.

but.

Xiangzi realized immediately, after just one meeting, that Yachiyo's idea was completely impossible to realize.

If the Kamahama Magical Alliance is currently at a disadvantage, then they will continue to do so until they are completely devoured by the Ode Faction, with no chance of ever turning the tide—unless they seize control of the witches of this shore.

To be precise, when the opponent is able to return from the future via the other side, the outcome of one or two battles is no longer the key to determining the overall situation.

Perhaps because those involved are often blinded by their own perspective, only Xiangzi, a newcomer, realized one thing:

The most deadly "power" brought by the witch from this side is information.

Strength alone is not enough; information is the key to victory or defeat, and they never have as much information as the eulogists.

The Ode to the Soul returned from the future via the other side. They know everything that will happen in the future, no matter how far into the future it is. But at the very least, they can guarantee that the magical girls of the Ode to the Soul will always be one step ahead of the Kamibama Magical Alliance.

Difficult to handle.

Xiangzi closed his eyes, feeling a headache coming on.

"Sigh... What a thorny path this trip to Kamibara."

At that moment, a warm, slightly damp sensation covered Xiangzi's hands, which were bracing themselves on the floor.

Silent companionship is often the most heartwarming, and Xiangzi cherishes this simple and quiet time.

"Thank you." Xiangzi leaned towards Mu, resting his cheek on the top of Mu's head.

Turning her head slightly, she noticed the bandage on Mu's hand out of the corner of her eye.

"How's your hand?" Xiangzi asked. "Let me change your dressing."

"Actually, it's almost healed..." Mu looked down at her arm and hid it slightly behind her back.

She seemed unwilling to let Xiangzi see her wounded side, and appeared to be intentionally hiding something.

But Xiangzi still forcefully grabbed Mu's hand.

“You just took a shower, so even if you avoid touching your hands, they must still be wet. If you don’t change the dressing, it will smell bad inside,” she said. “Don’t think about relying on the magical girl’s self-healing ability to solve everything; it will increase unnecessary magic consumption.”

Mu nodded, letting Xiangzi do as he pleased.

Xiangzi then raised his hand and removed the bandage from Mu's hand.

"You said you were fine, but things haven't gotten any better at all."

That's a bit of an exaggeration. Xiangzi actually felt that Mu's hand injury was a little better than it was at the beginning.

Underneath the bandages was a rather strange-looking wound. It was deep and unlike a typical scratch. Xiangzi didn't know how to describe it, but he instinctively felt that such a wound could only occur when one was injured by something from the other side of the world.

Wouldn't that be...?

Does that mean Mu's wounds will never heal?

"Mu... your injury..." Xiangzi bit his lower lip, "was it from the explosion?"

Upon hearing this, Mu's pupils contracted to their smallest size, and Xiangzi could even feel her heartbeat become extremely fast in an instant.

It seems that my feeling that her wound had healed a little was just an illusion; this girl was trying to hide it from me.

Xiangzi stared into Mu's eyes until the shrunken pupils returned to normal.

"Why did you keep it from me?" Xiangzi asked.

"I'm fine." Mu tried to pull her hand away. "I just got cut by the sharp edge of a piece of glass."

"Nonsense." Xiangzi frowned and gently tapped Mu's forehead.