Magical Girl with Demonic Time Magic-Chapter 135: Temporal Insanity

"The lunch is wonderful, Setsuna!" I say as I taste the spaghetti Setsuna made. I didn’t know she could cook such delicious food; the meat sauce is marvelous, almost like something from a fancy restaurant.

"I’m glad you like it, Ayane," she says while finishing her meal. I finish mine too and stand up to take my plate to the sink.

"Don’t worry about it, I’ll wash everything, Ayane. You can go rest and–"

Crack

When Setsuna touches my hand to take the plate, I let it go. It falls to the floor as I pull my hand away from her so fast that I hit the table, breaking off a piece of wood that flies up towards the ceiling.

The plates shatter on the floor as my hands tremble with fear. Setsuna looks at me with surprise while I hide my hands behind my back.

"H-Huh?" I make a confused sound. When Setsuna touched me, I suddenly felt something bad. My wings open defensively as the sound of falling sand becomes oppressive.

"..." I look at Setsuna’s hand and see it’s bleeding. I pulled my hand back so fast that just the wind from the movement injured her.

"S-Sorry, I... I don’t know what happened..." I say, confused, while she looks surprised, as if this wasn’t supposed to happen.

"...136... or is it 176?..." Setsuna picks up an hourglass that was on the counter. There’s enough sand for about seven more hours.

"...You seem incredibly strong now, Ayane. Congratulations," she says as I summon my staff and create a barrier around myself.

"..."

"Why are you doing this, Ayane?" she asks, more to make me think. My heart races as I lock her in a barrier too and release my own.

"..." Momentarily, the barrier changes color, turning white, until it begins to glow with a gold and silver shine. The barrier hardens, becoming tougher than anything I’ve ever made before.

Along with that, a clearer vision comes to me. The contact when she went to take the plate reminds me of a projectile piercing through my head, my body falling to the ground, and her smiling at me with an empty gaze.

"You... you killed me," I say without understanding. My mind fills with confusion, my heart seems to drown in sorrow as tears stream down my face.

"So we’ve reached this stage now? First time you’ve truly remembered... That’s right, Ayane, I killed you. Many times. Did you never ask directly what magic I have? Or if it had any interesting ramifications? Well, my magic is [Time]."

"But that doesn’t matter much, does it?" She hits the barrier, which doesn’t even budge.

"Strong enough to trap me... Impressive, Ayane. You’ve evolved a lot, congratulations... I’d say 88%." She says this with a gentle smile, but I immediately recognize the falseness in her words. I shrink the barrier, forcing her to crouch down inside the box.

"...So you can perceive my lies now?..." She smiles, and when I see that smile, a painful memory flashes back to me—my arm being torn off while she laughs at my despair.

"Ayane, could you please let me out? Or will I have to break this?" she says as more memories surface of the cruel things she has done to me.

"W-Why? W-Why would you do that... I-I don’t understand... what... is happening to me... and to you." I ask, crying, as I shrink the barrier further. It’s now only one meter tall and one meter wide.

"...Because I love you, Ayane... I love you so much... and I want to see you well... but I also enjoy killing you." She says this with a disturbing smile on her face, but I feel that this is only a half-truth.

"I..."

"Ayane, I still can’t stop. You haven’t yet achieved what you need to achieve." She says this while vanishing from inside the box. I quickly move my staff to the right, blocking a stab, while I kick, hitting her in the stomach.

"..." She falls to the floor, spitting out a strange black substance.

"S-Setsuna!!" I kneel down, seeing the hole in her abdomen, but before I can react, she shoots me with her sniper rifle. The shot completely destroys the right side of my body, and I collapse to the floor.

"...Still so naive, Ayane... This won’t work if you hesitate. You were doing so well, you should have just kept going... Ugh... Never mind. We’ll do better next time." Her tone of voice is dark and disturbing to me, yet also cold and lifeless, like a machine.

"...Are you still alive? Impressive. The previous Ayane couldn’t even handle having her throat slit, but you... you can withstand having your entire torso destroyed. I guess that puts you in the angelic elite." She grabs my hair and pulls, lifting my head.

"Ayane..." She seems like she wants to say something, and in my memories, this would normally be an apology, but then her eyes widen.

"..."

"H-Hahahaha... I guess it’s no use anymore, Ayane... You really bring out the worst in me..." She slams my head against the floor with force, breaking part of my skull. The pain is horrible, but I can’t scream, and for some reason, I don’t die immediately. 𝗳𝐫𝚎𝗲𝚠𝚎𝗯𝕟𝐨𝘃𝚎𝗹.𝗰𝗼𝗺

"You look beautiful like this... I like it... and I feel strange for liking it... I feel dirty, and with the feeling of being dirty comes this unpleasant itch." She starts to ramble, talking more to herself than to me.

"You know, I feel like preserving your body in this state would also be charming... Wait, why was I making you stronger again?... Sorry, my mind is a little confused with the visions I’m having..." She wonders as if something is wrong.

With that, I feel my heart breaking even more, as if the Setsuna I love is completely disappearing.

"..."

"Are you still alive?" she asks while still holding my head. She seems surprised by my current resilience.

"You know, if I regenerate your body and lock you in a cage, will you one day love me as much as I love you?... Maybe... I’d like you to love me as much as I love you... Ah, how foolish I am..." She speaks with this bizarre tone of voice.

"Hey, Ayane, did you know I was the one who killed your parents? Well, like this." She lifts my head while aiming her pistol at some kind of portal. I try to speak, but only blood comes out of my mouth.

In the portal, which works like a mirror, I see my parents. They are in a car driving down the street. I recognize the street—the same place where their accident happened.

The light turns green, and the car starts to move, but then Setsuna shoots the "mirror." The mirror ripples like water as the shot enters and hits the car’s engine, causing it to crash.

I see oil leaking as the engine starts to catch fire. Tears stream down my face as the portal closes.

"...Ah... Now I understand... So that’s why your parents’ death was so strange... Yeah, how come I never thought of that, right? I killed them because they were an obstacle... You don’t need them... That shot traveled to the past.... It’s a fun power." She says this with a lunatic tone as, filled with hatred, I move the only arm I have left and punch her in the face.

The punch does nothing because of all my injuries, but she makes a strange pained face. One of her eyes cries while the other looks at me with a disturbing hatred.

"See you again in yesterday," she says while crushing my head with force against the floor, destroying it. Everything immediately goes dark for me.