Magical Girl with Demonic Time Magic-Chapter 127: A Difficult Choice

"...Ghmm...haaa...haaa" I slump against a crumbling tree with a dull thud. My breath comes in ragged gasps, my heart is pounding wildly as I spit out a black mass that seems thicker than before.

I hear the hiss of this sludge as it starts to eat through the tree’s roots, accompanied by a plume of rising smoke. It seems more corrosive than in the past—this mixture of obsession and the Number 0’s power is proving more destructive than ever.

"..." I look at my veins, now completely black, throbbing with a sickly hue that’s impossible to hide. Because of this, I can’t go to school, so I just stay here.

’Ayane’s angelic power surged... a massive increase.’ I can see Ayane’s power from here, all the way at her house. Unfortunately, this hurts me, because it means I’ve already killed Ayane at least twice, maybe more?

I don’t know. My sense of reality and lies is a jumbled mess, and I can’t tell one from the other. I only know I’ve killed the real Ayane a few times. The fact that she’s stronger now proves it.

After all, the only way for her to get stronger this quickly is through death—dying and coming back to life—while the Number 0’s power forcibly molds her talent, strengthening her like a battery storing energy.

"Ahh, I want to tear my eyes out..." I murmur, staring at the building ahead. After I used more of the Number 0’s power, visions started appearing instead of nightmares.

If before I needed to sleep to have nightmares, now just having my eyes open is enough to start seeing things I don’t want to see. It always involves Ayane doing things that fill me with hatred.

So if I sleep, I have nightmares, and if I’m awake, I have visions that are even more realistic than the dreams.

And naturally, it all involves her. It’s always her, and it frustrates me because the endless repetition makes it feel real, which fuels this desire to destroy everything. I know this is bad for me. It’s simply become a battle of endurance.

The more I try to distance myself from Ayane, the more she tries to get close to me, and the worse things get for my mind, creating this chaos.

"..." I open my bag and take out a knife, stabbing it into my wrist to test my blood. It’s the most reliable method to measure how much I’ve been "corrupted" by the Number 0’s power. All that spills out is this same black liquid.

The knife itself corrodes completely, melting away just from minimal contact with a bit of my blood.

’It’s worse than 3 days ago...’ I noticed my body was changing, so every day I cut my wrist and check the appearance of my blood. It was slowly changing, and now it’s this black mass pretending to be blood.

Hexael doesn’t appear to me anymore either, probably because he got what he wanted. He’s turning me into this aberration and isn’t showing his face so I don’t kill him.

He knows I want to kill him. He knows if I get the chance, I will kill him. However, he also knows I will kill him someday, because the more power I use, the easier it will be to find him.

So he’s "gambling." He stays hidden, knowing that if I fail, he just needs to find my new reincarnation. And if I succeed, even if he dies, he’s already accomplished what he wanted.

’I should stop treating Hexael as a he... after all, it’s a girl... that fucking bitch... she’s lucky I haven’t found her yet.’ I shift slightly, moving away from the black liquid while stopping my thoughts about Hexael.

’There must be something I can do... something before Ayane remembers her past lives and becomes slightly immune to the time resets.’ At some point, when Ayane is strong enough, she will remember when I turn back time, and she will remember her first life.

’A safety method...’ I refuse to become what the Number 0 wants. If it’s all just a matter of time until I’m completely lost, then I’ll do something that neither I nor the Number 0 can fix.

’...The Number 0 wanted to make Ayane strong... but clearly with limits... so... if I make Ayane stronger than me...’ The Number 0 had a weakness, a weakness that no one ever noticed.

A weakness that not even Hexael knows, and this is also the reason why the Number 0 only wanted to strengthen Ayane up to a certain, limited point.

And that weakness is that the Number 0’s power is absolutely stable, as time itself should be. In other words, it never, ever grew stronger, just as it never grew weaker. This means that if something became stronger than the Number 0, it would never be able to evolve, since its very existence depends on the "Stability" of its own concept.

’Yeah, I bet even she didn’t foresee this...’ The Number 0 relies on pure selfishness. She thinks I will be as selfish as her and follow her plans exactly as she wanted, and she’s right... however, the Number 0 forgot that love can be even greater than selfishness.

’If I do this, I’ll never be able to defeat Ayane in a fight again... it also means our relationship will be destroyed...’ I look at the ground, thinking about whether I really want to do this.

If Ayane is stronger than me and knows the things I’ve done, she will never stay with me and might even kill me, which is terrible, but maybe I deserve that after everything.

"Do I love Ayane more... or the possibility of having her for myself?" I ask myself this question. If I love Ayane more, I should choose to make her stronger than me so I can never kill her again.

But if I love the possibility of having her for myself more, I should keep her weaker than me. That way, I can start over as many times as I want to win her over as many times as necessary.

"..." I can’t find the answer. It’s not easy for me to choose this, because it’s a choice between myself and the one I want to protect. I don’t know what will happen if I decide to do this.

’Whatever my choice is... I must do it before I lose to the Number 0’s memories and the false visions I’m forced to see...’ I get up from the ground, trying to think about my next steps.

I’ve already eliminated 70% of the monsters in this world, and with me having "my" memories, I know that the super monster attack that "destroyed" the world before won’t happen.

That’s why I only need to eliminate the remaining monsters, and with my own magic, I can make it so monsters never born on this planet again.