Magical Girls Exposed!

She lay on the ground, trembling as she hugged herself tight.

But though Ayaka refused to look, the things she feared would not leave her alone.

Familiar voices rang out again. Tsukinomiya Yuki's and Tsukinomiya Sanae's voices overlapped, pouring into Ayaka's ears like a haunting spell.

"Sister... why won't you look at me...?"

"Ayaka, do you hate your aunt now?"

"Sister... I'm sorry..."

"Ayaka, when I'm gone, you have to keep living..."

Unexpectedly, the Fear Illusions did not say the horrifying things she had imagined—things like "It hurts" or "I died so unjustly," the sort of lines heard only in horror films.

Instead, they sounded like helpless final wishes from loved ones to those they were leaving behind.

And that was precisely what made Ayaka even more afraid.

She feared it was all real. She feared that her beloved younger brother and the aunt closest to her truly had died before her eyes.

"No... please don't... I'm begging you... don't say that... please..."

The gray-haired girl curled tighter around herself, trembling and muttering as though trying to become a ball.

Her awareness gradually slipped away. She no longer knew what she was saying; she merely whispered on instinct, driven by the longing buried deep in her heart.

Some of her words had even become incoherent.

This poor girl was on the verge of being driven mad by the Fear Illusion.

She could not break free. It seemed her fate was to sink into the illusion and finally collapse.

Yet Ayaka was Xiao Bai's sister. How could Xiao Bai possibly have left her without a safeguard?

So, just as Ayaka neared her breaking point, a beam of light burst from deep within the hospital in the illusion.

It was pure silver, sacred and dazzling against the darkness.

That holy light briefly