Chapter 174
So this woman can cry over something like this, at a time like this.
Takanashi seemed to feel for the first time that he understood Haihara a little, but he wasn't happy at all.
In this office, scenes that cast a shadow over one's mood unfolded.
Looking at Haihara over the table, Takanashi instinctively reached out and stroked the woman's trembling back. Then, without the woman noticing, her hand slowly moved upwards to touch the woman's hair.
The young girl gently stroked the injured woman.
However, this was just her way of comforting herself, because the woman in front of her couldn't feel it.
After a while, Teacher Haihara stood up.
She tidied the table, carefully stored the photos in the cabinet, then stood there in a daze for a while before picking up a pack of cigarettes from her table.
Looks like this woman is going to go for a smoke again.
Next, Takanashi followed Haihara all the way to the open-air staircase.
Even though it was a dream, Takanashi could still smell the pungent smoke, and she coughed twice.
When she covered her mouth to stop herself from looking up, she suddenly realized that Haihara's gaze seemed to be fixed on the area below the railing.
If you're looking at the scenery, looking down is perfectly normal.
But the woman's gaze seemed to be fixed on just how high the building was, as if she were wondering what would happen if she fell.
Takanashi, stunned.
Then, she lowered her head, as if in a daze.
She spoke to Haihara, a past that could never respond, as if she wanted to make a feeble effort even though Haihara couldn't hear her.
"That's strange, isn't it...?"
She walked over step by step, following Haihara's gaze, and looked at the ground below the railing.
For a Magic girl like her, such a height is nothing.
But she was well aware of what such a height actually meant for ordinary people.
It will definitely hurt a lot.
Then, because this woman's body is very fragile, her already slender and delicate limbs will become unsightly.
"You're very afraid of pain, aren't you?"
As Takanashi spoke calmly, his hand had already reached out and grabbed the woman's arm, as if making a futile struggle.
But Haihara still didn't notice her at all.
She acted as if she didn't exist here.
This feeling of powerlessness made the Takanashi instinctively grip tighter.
She knew perfectly well that these were things that had already happened in the past, but she didn't want to see them happen again no matter what.
"Let's not do that... It'll hurt a lot and make you look terrible. You always say you don't care about your appearance, but you're actually very concerned about it, aren't you?"
Takanashi's tone, which started off as calm as ever, gradually shifted to revealing a wavering emotion. Her voice became increasingly flustered, revealing her inner turmoil.
Even so...
Even so, Haihara didn't look at her. Instead, she lowered her head and looked at the distant, empty ground, as if she was gradually being persuaded by some thought in her heart, rejecting Takanashi who was standing next to her.
"... Don't you still have a daughter?"
"She must be very important to you, right?"
"And there must be other people who care about you. Whoever they are, doing this is going too far. Do you want to escape everything and abandon them like this?"
When faced with the undeniable reality, Takanashi's tone and words became increasingly intense. She kept shaking the woman in front of her, gazing at her with a gradually crumbling expression.
Before that, everything that Takanashi had experienced became exceptionally clear.
A woman and the Student Council, dressed in a yukata, laughing from behind during the festival.
In the gray rain, a woman is seen being sheltered by an umbrella held by a strange young girl, and together they walk away towards home.
In that gray and white infirmary, the woman was touched by Kurosaki Asuka, her back seemingly conveying her feelings.
Everything about her felt unfamiliar and irrelevant to her.
In the end, this girl from R'lyeh, who had struggled to maintain her fragile self-esteem and her shattered sanity for so long, succumbed to despair at this moment.
She gripped the woman's sleeve tightly, her thin shoulders trembling slightly.
"If this is a nightmare, then wake up quickly..."
The woman's mind seemed to have been made up.
Just as she was about to do that, as if recounting something that had happened years ago, a huge explosion resounded in the school square not far away.
"---boom!"
Smoke from the explosion rose in the distance, accompanied by the still-burning flames.
After that, the flames spread rapidly, even setting fire to the school building where students were still present, turning the entire school into a sea of fire in an instant.
The woman's original intentions were thus temporarily halted.
The school echoed with students' panicked shouts.
Looking down into the corridor from the open-air staircase entrance, flames were seen spreading at the end of the corridor, engulfing the classrooms and the corridor itself, and the screams of students could be heard.
The alarm for the Monster's appearance was sounded shortly thereafter.
Takanashi looked at Haihara again, thinking that Haihara would abandon her previous idea and run away...
"Wait, teacher, where are you going? You're not going to...!"
She reached out her hand, but this time she couldn't grasp Haihara, because this was an unchangeable scene from her nightmare, and she couldn't stop Haihara from leaving.
And that was the final scene of the nightmare.
After the flames engulfed the entire classroom, Kuroki Yuka's mind went blank.
Faced with the raging fire, smelling the familiar burning odor, and feeling the intense heat, Kuroki Yuka so terrified that she could barely move, her whole body trembling violently.
She was the only one left in the classroom.
The side of the classroom near the window was left open due to the Monster's vandalism.
Everything is the same as before.
She was caught in the fire and was too terrified to move.
In this past nightmare, Kuroki Yuka begins to recall more and more of her past experiences, including her battles as Magic girl and her failure to save her friends in the final battle.
Now, she is trapped in the flames once again.
However, she discovered that she could no longer transform into the Magical Girl Dark Feather, no matter what she did.
With trembling hands, she tried repeatedly to press the Magic Crystal into the Magic Wand, but the Magic Wand did not respond.
--The Fallen Heaven no longer responds to her current call.
Right now, she can't transform into the Magical Girl Dark Feather; she's just a weak, ordinary person.
Despair gradually welled up in Kuroki Yuka's pupils, and those desperate eyes were soon to be consumed by the flames.
"Fallen Heaven, move... why don't you respond to me?"
She said in a voice that sounded like she was about to cry.
At this moment, she no longer resembled a Magic girl at all; she was merely trembling in the suffocating fire, struggling desperately in the face of fear and death.
She looked out of the classroom and was about to step outside when she saw flames spreading everywhere, blocking almost all her escape routes. In her panic, she was unable to calmly search for the right way out.
The fire gradually spread.
The heat around Kuroki Yuka grew increasingly intense, and this stifling heat and anxiety seeped into her heart, pushing her to the brink of collapse.
What should she do?
Someone, please save her...
It was all like a nightmare woven for her.
And now, she too is about to fall into an eternal slumber in this nightmare, never to awaken again.
Suddenly, she sensed something.
As she looked up out the window, the Monster who had attacked the school, the Monster who, though unfamiliar, seemed strangely familiar, was slowly raising a huge, flame-stained rock.
The Monster seemed to have noticed that some students were still trapped in the burning classroom.
Then, it raised the stone...
The stone was about to hit him at any moment, but Kuroki Yuka's legs were trembling uncontrollably, and he couldn't move at all.
She was gradually overwhelmed by despair.
Kuroki Yuka closed her eyes, not wanting to face what was to come.
But just as she heard the rumbling sound of stones being thrown at her classroom, causing the fire to surge forward, she suddenly felt herself being hugged by someone.
"---Bang!"
The rocks shattered, and waves of fire surged and spread everywhere.
In those few brief moments, before Kuroki Yuka even react, she felt herself being tackled to the ground.
She initially thought she had been hit, but her combat experience as Magic girl told her that she seemed to be almost unharmed.
When she opened her eyes again, she saw a figure.
She is being embraced by someone.
Someone I know very well.
"... Huh?"
Kuroki Yuka froze, momentarily forgetting her fear, simply staring blankly at the woman who was holding her.
Just as the rubble was about to hit her, the woman appeared in front of her and saved her.
However, the woman herself was hit on the forehead by a piece of debris, leaving a terrible abrasion and bleeding profusely.
Her gaze was almost frozen there.
Why... Teacher Haihara?
After that, the injured woman could only endure the pain, sigh, and look at her helplessly:
"I was originally planning to... not be able to do anything about you."
Chapter 104 Yes, I'm Magic girl.
The classroom was gradually engulfed by flames, and within the almost suffocating fire were two figures trapped inside.
Kuroki Yuka stared blankly at the injured woman who had collapsed in his arms, at the wound on her forehead, and at the blood dripping onto his body.
She was saved by the woman in front of her.
Why?
Kuroki Yuka has two questions that, under these circumstances, cannot be answered no matter what.
Why did this woman come to save him?
To risk one's life to save someone like oneself.
The woman usually seemed so cold and aloof, and we didn't have any special relationship; we'd barely exchanged a few words.
As things stand, with their injuries and the fire growing larger, they might be engulfed by the flames and die here. If the teacher hadn't done this, things wouldn't have turned out this way.
But why did the woman have the courage to rush in?
The flames were so scorching that her legs went weak and she couldn't move just being surrounded by them, but the woman rushed in and saved herself from the Monster's attack.
She's not Magic girl.
He was such a weak and ordinary person.