"Then let's tear up our alliance."
It answered calmly, without a hint of panic.
"You..."
Cocolia's instinct was to fire back.
But the moment she opened her mouth, the icy gaze forced her tongue back down.
More precisely, some instinct told her to keep quiet.
Even if she was no weaker than her opponent, there was no need to let a verbal dispute sour their relationship.
"...In that case, I'll take the man with passable Honkai Energy resistance, and the little girl from the Kaslana family, without hesitation."
"Clang, clang—"
What had seemed like a stalemate had turned into a one-sided assault.
Or rather, it could no longer be called a battle. It was nothing but torture and humiliation.
Not just an insult to Raiden Mei, but an insult to the "Thunder Queen."
[How much longer are you going to wait?]
The power flowing out of her spoke for the first time.
[How much longer are you going to endure this level of humiliation?! How much longer are you going to put up with it?!]
...Ah, figures.
The protagonists of hot-blooded manga always had more than one person in their heads. I wonder if I'll end up with enough for a whole mahjong table.
[Do you really think that if you keep sucking up to them, one day they'll suddenly take pity on you and stop?]
[Waiting has never been the way to make them say, "I'm sorry. What I did before was wrong. Please forgive me. I promise I won't do it again!"]
I know. But so what?
[You should awaken my power. You should accept the power inside you. Isn't that what hot-blooded manga protagonists always do?]
But...
I already have.
Deep in her inner world, Raiden Mei finally closed her eyes in relief—
[—If you went to a proper medical facility now, there might still be something they could do. You might live another ten years. Maybe.]
[—Three years.]
[The ten years I mentioned before. Now that you've suffered a longer period of Erosion, and fought using Honkai Energy, you have at most three years left. And most of your organs would have to be replaced with machines.]
Faced with the voice whispering in her ear,
with the thing tempting her from within,
the disgust and fury rising from the depths of her soul boiled up like water surging back, overflowing. Something welled up from the depths of her consciousness, almost instinctively, beyond her control.
It spread across the innermost parts of her heart with an absolute, corrosive force, coating them in a foul stain that could never be erased.
Something inside her seemed to have completely rotted, bubbling up with black froth.
All she had left to vent was her rage—
A rage with no purpose—
A rage that threatened to swallow, tear apart, and burn her alive. She wanted to unleash it, no matter the cost. If there was nothing inside her, then she would vomit up her bile, her organs, every last thing.
"He came to save me."
"He came to help me."
"—He believes in me."
She screamed as though she wanted to howl her very self into existence.
"But I... I can't do anything. All I do is bring suffering to the people around me!"
"My body is being corroded, my organs removed, and every moment brings the agony of being slowly carved apart—"
"How can he possibly say he believes in me?!"
[...]
[If you keep this up, you'll die.]
"But if I accept this power, he'll die. He'll die in the most horrible way imaginable."
Remembering the cases Kiana had once told her about, Raiden Mei's voice gradually sank lower.
"You..."
As if delivering an ultimatum, she pressed her tongue against her upper teeth. The girl spoke with a pause between every word.
"—Another Me, do you want Jiang Cheng to die?"
[...]
And so the battle continued.
She swung her blade, missed, took a hit, defended, failed to block.
It was like repeating the same set of moves over and over.
Mei had wanted to regret stopping her training after her father went to prison for financial fraud.
But on second thought, her swordsmanship was indeed useless against machines. Besides, her teacher, the Homu Sword Saint—no, her father—was in prison too.
She really had nothing left.
[...]
Now that she thought about it, everything in the life of Raiden Mei seemed to spell failure.
She was a young lady, yet also a chuunibyou.
She was a top student, yet bullied at school.
She had finally become the protagonist of a hot-blooded manga, only to be too afraid to go berserk in the end.
If I were a manga protagonist, the person writing this story would definitely be a flop, right? Who would create such an incompetent, contradictory character?
I'm such a failure.
But in the end, if there was even one person who cared about me, then maybe this life wouldn't seem completely pointless.
"..."
Jiang Cheng wanted to reject this self-destructive choice. He wanted to stop Raiden Mei from doing this.
But that was exactly why he could see so clearly that her current predicament was entirely because of him—
Because he was here, she didn't dare unleash her authority. Because he was here, she kept herself restrained every moment.
You could unleash a Great Honkai in a city because there was no one left in the world you cared about. The people who died were just numbers—that was what made it possible to act without restraint.
...Herrscher of Thunder.
This wasn't freedom or recklessness at all!
The problem was, I had a way out, but you didn't! I could go to the Elysian Realm. I had a safe place. You...
...You only had this place.
PS:
Secret Agent? Magical Girl? No, Both!
Xingyong Yujiu, an unlucky middle schooler who claims to live a daily life full of mishaps.
But thanks to her secret-agent talents in dreams, whenever she falls asleep, she becomes the invincible agent "Tapir"!
She heads off on adventures in the dream world to save her childhood friend, trapped in a nightmare-induced slumber.
But then a monster called Nightmare appears in that dream world, trying to bind people with "nightmares"!
With a mysterious red capsule and a driver she obtained in the real world, Yujiu transforms into Cure Zeztz!
"Impact!"
"Stream!"
"Recovery!"
"Wonder!"
Make your dream come true. Good luck!
She must shatter the shackles of Nightmare, who seeks to imprison her dearest friend!
Entrusted with her friend's smile, Yujiu's dream mission as Cure Zeztz begins!
Chapter 23: So, You Call Me Cheng-kun? (Revised)
"I haven't done anything, and people care about me, yet I can barely even realize it."
"If it weren't for Kiana, I might... really have kept running away."
"Running away from other people's concern, from their attention."
"Because I've already lost the ability to do that."
They were in the middle of a battle, and she had to struggle with all her might just to find a moment to breathe—
Yet the girl had started chatting.
Her voice was gentle, as if she were telling a story.
"Did you know? When I first started getting bullied, someone reached out to me."
"To be precise, she had reached out to me long before that. Back when I was still a young lady, everyone fawned over me and gave me all kinds of exquisite, extravagant gifts: grand birthday parties, luxurious necklaces, precious gems... But what I remember most was the little girl in the shadows. She only gave me a crepe. You could buy one from a street vendor. It was cheap."
Bronya had no emotions. Even now, still a doll who only knew how to follow orders, she wouldn't stop attacking because of a story like this.
Her lance swept through the air, and solid cannon shells fired from their launchers. A handgun followed close behind. The young girl held down the trigger—
Fire.
Bright red blood spattered, but Raiden Mei's voice didn't change in the slightest. She continued in the same captivating tone, as if turning the pages of a book and telling its story.
"To me back then, it was no different from the necklaces and jewelry. It was just something a little more novel, so I went over to take a look. I only meant to confirm what it was and then leave. But at that very moment, she suddenly grabbed my hand..."
"Mm... The people around me were startled. The security guards almost dragged her out, but I'd already started learning swordsmanship back then. She looked pretty well-behaved, and she didn't seem bold enough to do something like that without a reason, so I wanted to ask what she was trying to do."
"She said she'd become my one and only friend. She wouldn't treat me like the others did. Real friendship didn't need money."
"It sounds ridiculous, doesn't it?"
"That's what I thought at the time. Later... I thought the same thing after Father went to prison."
"So when my classmates started looking at me with disgust, I went to find her and bought a crepe."
"Even though everyone was avoiding me, and I'd fallen from my place at the top of the social circle, I still dressed the way I used to. I hoped we could travel together, just as we'd promised to become best friends. Actually, I still had plenty of money back then. Father had left me several villas, a few sports cars, and a black card with no spending limit."
"Without knowing that Cocolia had her eye on my money, all she had to do was become my friend, and she could have lived a life of luxury she'd never even dreamed of. After all, I'd never lacked for any of that, ever since I was little."
"But..."
She broke her promise.
That girl, her sister, her best friend, had broken her promise.
Jiang Cheng wearily closed his eyes and let darkness swallow the world. Perhaps he was imagining what had happened. Or perhaps he simply didn't want to see the tragedy unfolding before him.
"Drip—"
What was that on the ground?
Why did something that looked like a drop of water... sound so irritating?
Before you continue