Magical Girl with Demonic Time Magic-Chapter 119: False or True Feelings

"Blegh." I vomit a black liquid into the toilet in Ayane’s house. The viscous fluid splashes into the bowl as I struggle to breathe.

"...Dammit..." I wipe my mouth with a tissue and flush, feeling nauseous and utterly exhausted. My head aches terribly from the nightmares and the memories I received.

I know what’s happening. This is Number 0’s plan to make me lose control. Every time I sleep, I have nightmares of Ayane betraying me, so I kill her, kill myself, and travel back in time. But along with these nightmares comes an extreme exhaustion that forces me back to sleep from sheer fatigue.

Yet these aren’t simple dreams. They have such an absurd level of detail that I can’t tell if it’s a dream, to the point where I question if this isn’t a vision of the future, since Number 0 possessed incredible temporal powers.

But the worst part is not knowing whether I’ve already truly killed Ayane or not. Each dream, each vision where I killed Ayane, feels real, and it’s driving me insane.

And one of the most damaging parts for my mind is the satisfaction I feel whenever she dies—that sense of mission accomplished when I kill her after she betrays me. This satisfaction is painfully addictive.

Because I love her, and I feel that if she betrays me, then she must be punished for it. Yet, I think I really did kill Ayane. I’m not sure, but I believe the last dream I had was reality, and I killed her without truly meaning to.

And it hurts so much. I feel my heart shattering into pieces every time that dream happens. Even that attack that will happen a few years from now was something Hexael carried out following the plan list that Number 0 made.

I honestly don’t know what to do. Isn’t this unfair to me? I did everything to protect Ayane, but ironically, I’m protecting her from the suffering that I myself caused her in the first place.

It’s horrible to know that all the monsters who abused her, all the suffering she endured, every pain she felt, only happened because I exist.

And it’s no use killing myself. First, because I’ll just go back in time, and second, because if I truly die, nothing happens. I’ll just reincarnate again, and Hexael will try the same thing once more.

’I hate this...’ I vomit the same black liquid again. For some reason, this black sludge keeps coming out of me constantly, whether through my tears or when I just expel it from my body.

I feel...violated. The love and obsession I have for Ayane was never truly mine. It was all from that strange, insane demon. It isn’t logical. It has no motive, and there’s no reason for this love to exist.

I have that demon’s memories, and it only loved Ayane because "why not?" There was literally no reason for it. It just saw Ayane, became temporarily interested in her, then got bored, and when Ayane stopped it the moment it was about to reset everything, it just decided that it loved Ayane.

Of course, not even Hexael knows everything behind this. In my memories, there’s a desire that always existed, and this is kind of the only logical thing about why Number 0 started to love Ayane.

That infinitesimal thing is the desire to "die" for real. Number 0 was a demon that couldn’t die no matter what, but also always knew the future. This made her an insane, crazy demon who did everything for the sake of "entertainment."

Ayane isn’t the reason that demon truly wanted to play this stupid reincarnation game. Ayane was just the trigger. Number 0 had already thought about killing all the demons and angels and reincarnating as a human long before she met Ayane.

However, Number 0 thought doing that wouldn’t be any fun, because she would still be superior to humans and would one day become a demon again. So she wanted an entertainment that would never end.

It was from this line of thinking that the feeling of "I love Ayane" emerged. It was never love. It was pure boredom. Number 0 just gave me what she thought was a way to never be bored again.

She made my life revolve around Ayane. She glued this sick thought of protecting Ayane and making her mine at any cost, again and again, no matter how many times.

She replaced boredom with obsession, judging that this would destroy the boredom, because I would always have something to think about. And this fills me with self-loathing.

Because my love isn’t genuine like I always thought. I always knew my love was wrong, but I always rationalized that even if it was wrong, it was still pure.

But with Number 0’s memories, I now know that the "pure" love I had was merely a means of entertainment. Can I really call this love? What’s the point of loving someone just because you were bored?

And does this "love" even really exist? Did love exist in this at any point? I have no way of knowing, and because of that, I feel sick about everything I’ve done. Even my limited capacity for emotions was only because I’m the reenactment of that monster who never felt anything for anyone. 𝚏𝕣𝐞𝗲𝐰𝕖𝐛𝐧𝕠𝕧𝚎𝚕.𝐜𝚘𝗺

And even the disgust I developed at being touched isn’t something of my own. It’s something from that monster who never liked being touched by anyone unless she allowed it.

And this makes me wonder, do I truly exist? And what am I if everything I have isn’t truly mine? Even who I was before has now been erased. The flood of memories has completely covered over the human life I once had.

Number 0 made a point of trying to erase me completely, and she’s succeeding. I don’t know how much longer I can remain rational like this, or how long it will be before I cause irreparable harm to Ayane.

I end up vomiting into the toilet again. At least this slime isn’t corrosive, so Ayane won’t even notice anything.

"I need to get out of the bathroom..." I’ve been in here too long. I can’t let Ayane see me in this wretched state.

’I just need to pretend everything is fine... I-I should be able to fix everything... I have power now... If I kill all the monsters and distance myself from Ayane, maybe I can stop this cycle...’ I lie to myself as I stand up, unsure if I can stop this at this point.