Toyokawa Shoko doesn't want to become a witch

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However, if you can't do it, you just can't do it.

The lamp's eyes seemed to possess a kind of magic, making Su Shi believe that she truly had a way to end the nightmare that was troubling Xiangzi.

"...Let me check when the express train departs." Su Shi looked down and picked up her phone. "The wind is already quite strong now, so it's not impossible for the train to be canceled."

"Thank you, Su Shi." Deng smiled gently.

Su Shi blushed as she looked at Deng's face.

“I don’t need your Xie Qi’er’s coldness,” she said. “I agree to let you go to the Reed Plains, but I must go with you; I can’t let you go alone.”

“That’s what I thought too.” Deng tilted her head. “Thank you very much, Su Shi.”

"..."

Su Shi sighed, put away her phone, picked up her small bag from the bedside table, grabbed the lamp by the wrist, and strode out.

"Huh?" Deng blinked, confused.

"I found it. The next bus is the last one back to Luweiyuan. It leaves in fifteen minutes. Let's go now," Su Shi said calmly. "If we dawdle any longer, we won't be able to get back."

========

Bang Chi, Bang Chi, Bang Chi.

The express train travels much faster than a regular tram, and the swaying and vibrations caused by its high speed are amplified by the strong winds. Tsurugi leans against the window, looking somewhat unwell, and gazes up at the increasingly dark sky.

The sun sets around 6:30 in the summer, but it's already completely dark now.

The lamp frowned as it gazed at the dense, dark clouds.

The laptop lay quietly on my lap, inside a waterproof, sealed bag. Knowing it was going to rain soon, I had stored it away carefully beforehand.

This is something that needs to be given to Xiangzi.

Su Shi sat by the aisle and paid for her ticket with the patrolling ticket seller. When she turned around, she noticed that Deng's expression didn't seem too good.

"What's wrong? Are you carsick?" Su Shi asked.

"A little," Deng said with a pained expression.

"Then take a rest."

“No, there’s no need.” The lamp shook its head. “I can’t sleep right now. If I close my eyes, I’ll see some very bad things.”

As soon as he closes his eyes, the lamp can see Xiangzi's memories.

She wanted to save Xiangzi, but she couldn't bear to see him in such pain any longer.

"How about we chat?" Su Shi said, shifting her shoulder closer to the light. "Distracting yourself will make you feel better."

"What does Su Shi want to talk about?" Deng leaned on Su Shi's shoulder cooperatively.

What did Delete say to you?

"It's nothing, I just told her about things beyond cause and effect, you should know that by now."

A familiar voice came from above Su Shi's head.

Su Shi raised an eyebrow, watching Delete, who was scrambling down from the luggage rack with its head down. This somewhat special Kyubey had always appeared and disappeared mysteriously, sometimes right next to them, and might have been eavesdropping on their conversations.

That alone is enough to make Su Shi have a very low opinion of it.

"You and your clansmen all said she wasn't qualified, so why are you going back on your word now?"

“According to Gestalt analysis, the lamp does not have the qualifications, but that is because the past her used up this wish. After all, this is a power that transcends time. You can think of it as the past lamp borrowing the present lamp's wish to make a wish for itself. Doesn't that make it much easier to understand?”

"...Is it Fairy Tale Town?" Su Shi's pupils widened slightly.

"That's the wish, you're right."

"..." Su Shi turned her head away awkwardly, her face turning as red as a cucumber.

Doesn't this mean she's the one who prevented the lamp from making a wish? Thinking about it that way makes me feel so guilty. Can't I just find a crack in the wall and crawl into it?

"However, although the wish has been overdrawn, the power beyond cause and effect still exists within the lamp's body and can be mobilized at any time. In other words, she can enter the blooming state at any time."

"Mmm." The lamp nodded, her eyes innocent. "Although I don't quite understand, Delete means I can become a magical girl."

"Sigh, so you didn't understand anything at all..." Su Shi sighed and rubbed her forehead. "If I didn't know the whole story, you would definitely have been tricked."

The lamp scratched its cheek, lowered its head, and began to play with the thin strings of its clothes.

“Now you know I wasn’t lying,” Delete said. “Lamp has that talent; it’s something she was always meant to have.”

“Even so… in past cycles, the lantern must have become a magical girl.” Su Shi lowered her head and sighed, “But Xiangzi has never succeeded.”

“This cycle is different,” Delete said. “This is the last cycle—for ‘this Toyokawa Shoko’.”

"What do you mean by 'the last cycle of reincarnation'? Is Xiangzi confident he can achieve Nirvana? Then what are we needed to do?"

"Of course not. It should be said the other way around: Nirvana cut off all of Xiangzi's escape routes, forcing her to fight to the death."

"..." Su Shi swallowed.

A decisive battle to the death.

Is this what "the last time" means...? Wait a minute?

What else did Delete just say?

[This Toyokawa Shoko]?

For some reason, when Su Shi realized what she had just heard, the hairs on the back of her head stood on end.

"What do you mean by 'this Toyokawa Shoko'?!"

“Although I only realized this recently, and strictly speaking, it can’t be called that, they are still the same person.” Delete explained slowly, “The last Toyokawa Shoko was the Nirvana that stood in your way. By analogy, whether going forward or backward, you should understand.”

Su Shi cast an incredulous look at him.

“The lamp already knew in advance.” Delete shifted his gaze to the lamp. “I have a feeling that you know more than I do.”

"...I saw it in my dream." Deng nodded and said softly, "Xiao Xiang of the past, Xiao Xiang of the future...That's why I must save her."

"Light." After recovering from the overwhelming amount of information, Su Shi asked again, "Can I ask you what you plan to do? What method do you plan to use to save Xiangzi now?"

If everything is as Delete said, then the duration of this cycle is far more than the forty-odd times Xiangzi mentioned. It could be eighty times, one hundred and twenty times, or even more... an uncountable number of times.

Every few dozen struggles give rise to a rebirth.

Killing Nirvana is not the means to end the cycle of reincarnation, but the key to unlocking a new cycle.

Under such conditions.

How does Deng plan to save Xiangzi?

“We’ve already discussed it,” Delete said. “This plan is feasible.”

"We've discussed it, but what exactly is it like?!"

“I have my own thoughts, and this is a secret between Delete and me.” Deng clasped her hands together and said apologetically, “I’m sorry, Su Shi.”

"I'm starting to regret agreeing to bring you along."

"But there's no turning back now." Deng hugged the notebook in her arms tightly. "Let me be willful this once, and just keep going like this."

The Tale of Reincarnation: Bonds - Chapter 741 I'm Sorry, Xiao Xiang

Flame did not breathe a sigh of relief when he saw Nirvana disappear.

After all, in her memory, Nirvana's death was only the beginning of everything; the most crucial moment was yet to come.

Even though Nirvana is dead, the storm swirling over the Reed Plains shows no signs of abating. Perhaps at this moment, the magical girls in Mitakihara are engaged in a final battle with the long-established stage setup.

In the memories transmitted from the future, the stage setup did indeed disappear in the end, along with all the witches in the world.

The world has been transformed into a completely new environment, but it's no better than the present, and in fact, it's worse and more hopeless. She traveled back in time through memory transfer to prevent this new world from being created.

The key to everything lies with Xiangzi; Xiangzi's choices will determine the future of the world.

Now that point is finally approaching, she...

Yan quickened his pace, rushing towards the rooftop where Xiangzi had fallen, clutching the cassette recorder he had obtained in the Kingdom of Gods.

The cassette recorder has been transferred to this side via the other side of the divine realm, but she still can't use it.

Only Xiangzi knew how to use it and what might be inside.

She must delete O7貳（四）at the right time and hand it over to Xiangzi.

==============

When Yan arrived at the rooftop, she realized that she seemed to be the last one to arrive.

When Miaomeng saw her coming, she forced a smile and greeted her.

"Oh, you're here too." Miao Meng forced a smile, but ultimately couldn't manage a genuine laugh.

Xiangzi's current state made her lose even the will to make jokes.

"What happened?" Flame walked to Meow Dream's side and asked in a low voice.

“Actually, I don’t know either.” Miao Meng sighed. “After Nirvana disappeared, we rushed over here. Chu Hua was the first to arrive. I heard that when she arrived, Xiangzi was already like this.”

She looked up at the girl with empty eyes, who had been placed aside by Chu Hua in a sheltered spot by the rain, and who was sitting quietly on the ground.

Chu Hua and Mu Mu leaned against Xiang Zi, but Xiang Zi didn't react at all. No matter what they said, Xiang Zi would only give a simple reply.

Even after a while, Xiangzi didn't have the strength to respond.

"She looks like a puppet, without any reaction, completely at the mercy of others." Miao Meng sighed. "I wonder what happened after Nirvana died to make her like this."

"Perhaps, I saw my own future," Flame said softly.

"You know what happened to her?" Meow Dream looked at her in surprise. "You know why she became like this?!"

"Yes, I know a little." Flame nodded.

The future Toyokawa Shoko tells him about the things that happened in the past, including the fact that he was killed by Shoko at the very beginning. Some vague impressions of these things remain in the memories sent back from the future.

For Xiangzi, there are more than seven thousand versions of himself, and each version of himself has to go through forty or fifty or even more reincarnations, which is tens of thousands of years, endlessly repeating the same thing: finding a new future.

Yan herself has struggled in the cycle of reincarnation for a long time, continuing to this day. She has had many thoughts of giving up... But Xiangzi, she has actually continued this so many times.

A full 7,776 times, more than 300,000 cycles, more than 20,000 years.

This number was far beyond Flame's comprehension.

But verbal accounts are never as real as seeing it with your own eyes.

Xiangzi's appearance at this moment was truly heartbreaking.

Like a broken puppet, her clothes torn, her limbs broken, even the strings that held her no longer wanted to approach her. She sat in the corner of the rooftop, quietly watching the heavy rain outside. Even when the wind blew raindrops at her, hitting her face and even her eyes, she didn't react at all, as if she were dead.

She is still alive and breathing.

But, that’s it.

"If you know what happened, is there any way to help her?" Miaomeng asked again.

"..."

The senior said that this Walkman should be given to the past self at the right time... but Homura hesitated at this moment.

Is now the "right time"?

"I'll give it a try," Yan said helplessly.

She slowly walked up to Xiangzi and squatted down.

"senior."

"......"

"Senior, are you alright?" Yan asked again.

There was still no progress.

Yan looked up, pleadingly looking at Chu Hua and Mu.

Chu Hua shook her head at her, indicating that she was also helpless.

Since they are unwilling to respond, then is the only way to change the situation, besides having a cassette player in hand?

Yan took out his Walkman from his pocket and handed it to Xiangzi.