Toyokawa Shoko doesn't want to become a witch

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There's nothing we can do about it.

We can only start from scratch and teach them little by little.

Xiangzi rubbed his forehead, looked at the four little ones who were in complete chaos, and sighed.

Hopefully, there's still enough time.

Ladies and gentlemen, you have waited a long time for this moment.

"I've optimized the route map. Kyoko, stand in this position first. You and Sayaka are in a group, so only you can have physical contact with Homura. To avoid touching anyone else, you must..."

"What's the purpose of this grouping?" Kyoko scratched her head and asked疑惑地.

"Didn't you say you couldn't understand it?"

"That's true."

“But that’s a good question,” Xiangzi said. “Let me correct what I said before. I said that you don’t need to understand the contents of the notebook, you just need to follow my orders—I take that back now.”

"What...does that mean?" Kyoko's bad premonition grew even stronger.

"You all need to learn this." Xiangzi slammed his notebook on the table. "I don't expect you to understand everything, but at least you need to know what you should do, why you should do it, and why you can't do it."

Xiangzi finally realized that it was no use simply making these kids follow his ideas.

Only by understanding "why do it this way" can they have a clear central idea when taking action and be able to adapt to unexpected situations.

"Ah—" Kyoko let out a wail, clutching her head and collapsing under the table.

Of all the students, she was the only one whose grades were so bad that she dropped out of school and no teacher cared about her—she was completely hopeless.

[He groped his way in the dark, sweat seeping into the floor.]

The sun rose in the west, and before dawn, the rehearsals had already begun in full swing. In the middle of the open space, there was a small Bluetooth speaker, and Xiangzi's phone screen displayed a circular image of the album, which slowly rotated as the music played.

Xiangzi, carrying a flashlight, walked to Xingzi's side.

Apricot, like a ghost, followed the optimized route on the ground step by step.

"Not bad," Xiangzi said.

"Haha..." Redhead smirked, with thick dark circles under his eyes. "That's great, of course."

She gave Xiangzi extra help all night last night, so how could it be bad?

Xiangzi nodded and accompanied her slowly along the route drawn on the ground, occasionally offering a few pointers. After completing a full round and confirming that Xingzi was truly fine, she moved on to the next person.

“Sayaka…”

That deep-seated, undeniable impulse makes you eagerly anticipate it.

"One, two, three, four, one, two, three, four..."

Sayaka was focused on her footsteps and the route she was taking, and didn't notice her surroundings.

"Hey, watch out!"

Sayaka's steps suddenly stopped as someone grabbed her hand and pulled her back a short distance.

At the same time, she fell into someone's arms.

"Kyoko?!" Sayaka's eyes widened as she stared at the face so close to hers. "What are you doing—"

She was just about to get angry.

"I'm sorry, it's my fault," Flame said softly.

She stood on her own path, looking in Sayaka's direction, still shaken.

She encountered a slight problem just now, which caused the journey to be delayed by a few seconds, resulting in a mishap with Sayaka.

“We’re in the same group, so we can talk.” Kyoko grinned, revealing her little fangs, and looked at Sayaka.

“But it’s different from the scheduled time.” Sayaka pushed Kyoko away and frowned. “The times will be different.”

"It's only a few seconds off, no big deal." Kyoko shrugged. "It's better than running into another group, right?"

"Sorry, if it weren't for me... huh?"

Her apology was interrupted halfway through. Kyoko, with one arm around someone's neck, laughed heartily.

"It's okay, it's okay. There will always be times when you're not familiar with something. You'll get used to it eventually."

[Can you see it? A burning dream is drawing near to you.]

You simply can't resist it, can you?

It was late at night, and all was quiet.

A dim light was on in the room, and Xiangzi sat under the light, performing his daily routine of weapon maintenance.

Reinhardt is a prop, not a weapon that magical girls are born with (although this gun blade is much more useful than that short and small tattered hidden blade), so if it is not maintained, it will easily age or develop some problems.

However, Xiangzi had a habit of maintaining her guns when she used them before, and maintaining weapons was also a way for her to relax and relieve stress.

In the quiet room, Xiangzi wiped Reinhardt's sword blade with an alcohol swab while pondering how to optimize the content on his laptop.

Suddenly, she raised the blade of her gun, gazing thoughtfully at the magazine that gleamed faintly in the dim light.

Click.

Xiangzi shook out the magazine, and then... put his soul gem inside and slammed it onto the magazine.

She held the gun blade, pointed it at the sky, and placed her finger on the trigger...

"boom."

In the end, the gunshot only came out of his mouth. Xiangzi put down the gun blade, shook out the magazine, and poured out his soul gem.

Delete, who was originally huddled in the corner, looked up when he saw this.

"You wouldn't want to try using your own flowers as bullets, would you?"

"How could that be?" Xiangzi shook his head with a smile.

It’s ridiculous.

She just happened to think of it.

The gunblade was designed for use with the Seed of Lamentation. Although the flower can be inserted, it's hard to say whether it can be fired.

“Actually, it’s not impossible; theoretically, it’s possible,” Delete answered her question. “The weapon in your hand has a very simple structure.”

"So what if the structure is simple?"

“The structure is simple, and many things that ‘I thought’ might actually work unexpectedly,” Cupid said.

"What kind of description is that?"

“Somewhere in the universe.” Delete wagged his tail and continued, “Flowers, Soul Gems, and Grief Seeds are all essentially materializations of the soul. The principle behind this weapon is to utilize the properties of the core (Reinhardt’s Grief Seed) to uncontrollably activate the soul, and then unleash this energy through the structure of the cylinder—like gunpowder being fired, or sodium being thrown into water.”

"In essence, the weapon itself is not powerful; the power it can unleash ultimately depends on the quality of the bullet."

“It depends on the amount of gunpowder.” Xiangzi picked up his cracked Soul Gem and placed it under the light. “The Flower is the highest quality kind, far more powerful than the Soul Gem and the Seed of Lamentation.”

How much power can be unleashed when flowers are used as ammunition...?

“The flower’s resilience far surpasses that of the Seed of Lamentation and the Soul Gem. This weapon cannot destroy your flower. Even in your current state, it can probably withstand many shots.” Delete scratched his face with his ear. “Even if it were destroyed, it would only cause the flower to undergo an irreversible transformation, turning it into a world-destroying flower.”

“However, this weapon also cannot unleash its full power.” Delete stepped out from the corner into the light. “You can try it when you’re out of bullets.”

“I have plenty of reasons to lament, there’s no need for that,” Xiangzi shook his head.

"What about special effects? Aren't you curious about what kind of special effects your flowers can produce?" Delete said. "Abilities related to Nirvana, although not the complete version..."

“...That would make me lean more and more towards Nirvana.” Xiangzi frowned. “I don’t want that.”

Wasn't everything she did just to avoid becoming Nirvana?

"Well, how about we make a bet? I bet you'll know how to use it when you've exhausted all your strategies."

"Here we go again." Xiangzi rolled his eyes. "At that point, we have to try anything, even if it's just a lifeline. Isn't that obvious?"

"The question is when it will come to that. Maybe that day isn't too far off, maybe you'll fight Mami to the very end, and then you'll have no choice but to..."

"..."

Xiangzi shook his head and put away the well-maintained gun blade.

Her gaze lingered on the notebook for a moment, then shifted away awkwardly, and she walked to the closet to take out her bedding.

"Go to sleep."

Xiangzi made the bed and gently touched the lamp with his finger.

The room was plunged into darkness.

Ladies and gentlemen, this is the moment you have been waiting for.

[We groped our way through the darkness, sweat soaking into the floor.]

In the darkness, Mami Tomoe lit a candle.

The firelight illuminated the cold, white castle, which, or rather the church, was her protective barrier.

The ceremony will be held on June 1st as scheduled, within the barrier. To ensure the ceremony proceeds smoothly, the barrier will overlap with reality, yet possess its own independent space.

As the ritual progresses, this isolated space will gradually merge with reality until the ritual succeeds, the Witch of This Shore is resurrected, and the protective barrier will lose its function.

By then, my mission will be complete.

Mami sat on the throne in the center of the hall, legs crossed, gazing indifferently at the flowers in her hand.

Those are the flowers of the witch of this shore.

"Why did things turn out like this..." she murmured to herself, "...Why did we end up like this, Flame?"

Unfortunately, Homura from the future couldn't hear what she was saying and lay quietly in Mami's palm.

Mami closed her eyes and grasped the flower from the Witch of This Shore.

Focus on the present moment; don't miss out on something exciting while trying to guess what's to come.

The sun rose in the west, and June 1st was one day closer.

The cold sunlight shone on everyone, chilling them, but it couldn't dampen their enthusiasm.

The four girls' teamwork had improved a lot compared to before, but some things still went wrong today. At first, Xiangzi thought it was a problem with their coordination, but after he drew up each girl's route map separately, he realized that there were still too many overlaps between them.

Although everyone had arranged their times to be staggered, after practicing all day yesterday, we realized that relying solely on staggered times to avoid collisions had too low a margin for error.

In actual combat, it's definitely not just about running and jumping; they will face much greater pressure—Mami will definitely try her best to stop them, and the probability of making mistakes will be higher.

Um......

Xiangzi stood to one side, and Hemu stood shoulder to shoulder with him.

Both of them already had a foundation, and they were completely familiar with the route in less than half a day of practice. As familiar as they were, "group performance" is inherently like the barrel effect, where the weakest link is magnified infinitely. No matter how strong their features were, they could hardly play a decisive role.

what can we do about it.

Xiangzi squatted down and used the tip of his gun blade to draw a rough sketch of the route on the ground, but he was stumped.

"Xiang, is it okay if we take a detour?" Mu suddenly asked. "If we take a detour, we won't have to cross paths, right?"

She used a silk thread to hook up a fallen branch and used it to draw several other routes around the group of people.

That way there's no overlap.

“That’s true, but it’s a detour…” Xiangzi hesitated. “There are a few stages where the timing will be very tight.”

"If the routes intersect, time will be spent waiting, and in the actual implementation, a lot of time will be wasted."

“That’s true… then let’s try drawing a few alternative routes.”

Xiangzi used the blade of his gun to further refine the route Mu had drawn, and nodded.

"Just follow this."

The best is yet to come, but don't worry, it will be revealed to you soon.

It was another sunrise in the west and sunset in the east. They packed their things, removed all the plastic wrap, restored all the modified items, and left the small village hidden deep in the mountains with their luggage.

Before leaving, Xiangzi went to the passage on the other side and saw that, just as Maruyama Aya had said, the thing was no longer visible. It was probably not put down yet, or it might have been taken away.

She had figured it out: behind the whole thing, there was the shadow of one, or even several, mysterious people from the other side. They always appeared when she needed them most, providing crucial help.

The eulogists would never do such a thing, so it must be someone from their side.