A Little World in the Dust - Finally

"I'll keep going, until the moment I see them again! Neumann-chan is still fighting your leader, Xiao Wu and the Moon Woman are still rescuing Ye, and I... at the very least, I have to see them come back safely before I can die in peace!"

"They... aren't coming back!"

Void Realm waved a hand, and a string of bandages like bands of vacuum shot toward Si Nan Ying. She dodged at once, but her hand slipped and she fell off her floating bubble—only to evade them by a hair's breadth.

"They'll come back for sure!"

"No, they won't! The Leader himself made a move... Never mind Tartaglia and Urushihara... Neumann is surely dead!"

"Even so, I'll believe in her! I'll believe she'll come back!"

The bandages that grazed over her head sliced away half of Little Ying's hair. A few centimeters more and they would have peeled her entire scalp off, but her luck came through again, and the Grim Reaper brushed past her once more.

"Why should the weak fight? Someone like you is completely... useless!"

"Because Ye and I are friends! And I'm friends with everyone else, too! You're the bad guys! What's wrong with helping my friends beat the bad guys? And who says whether I'm useful or not—you?"

"...Talking to you is a waste of time."

"Take this!!!"

Little Ying unleashed a sky-filling swarm of bubbles. Dazzling explosions in rapid succession nearly covered an entire stretch of sky, yet Void Realm simply disappeared, lightly wrapped in bandages. When he reappeared, he was right in front of her.

This is bad, this is bad. I wanted to say something cool and act all tough...

Little Ying had been pretending to stay calm—or thought she had. In truth, her heart had long been shaken to the core.