Chapter 020: Prelude to Mirror Flame

“So you don’t feel the pain of death at all, or was that just you guys being brave?”

Natasha asked incredulously, it seemed like in comparison to these three, she was merely a child crying over little things. From the tale that was told, it seemed like being put to death was a mere inconvenience.

“No no no. It’s not like that at all! I-In the first place, why was Leon the one who told the story while I was the one who agreed huh?!” Mirai made an angry face, something that appeared adorable.

“That’s because we don’t want crazy people like you to tamper with the timeline of events.”

“Ah, Yuki! I’m not crazy!”

“I thought for sure that you would notice me making a pun on your power at the end there but it seems like your attention span is too low.”

“I… I don’t know what to say to that.”

Natasha scoffed for a moment, pretended to be indifferent and looked toward the still driving Leon who looked around the area in caution.

Hesitating, she spoke, “So, ignoring those two. What are we going to do now?”

“Nothing for now, well… other than getting as far away from the auditorium as possible. No reason to say why.” Leon tapped the steering wheel for a moment.

While he was in his momentary contemplation, most likely internally reviewing their choices thus far, Natasha observed the boy around her age who a hidden intensity. Truth be told, she wasn’t nearly as casual as she presented herself to be.

But none of that mattered. The time wasn’t solely about her. Natasha observed his injuries, the veins on her temples throbbing as she blamed Mirai and Yuki again, both of which seemed to be healing with no care in the world.

‘His eye stopped bleeding, but honestly, will he be able to use it again? Though it doesn’t seem that damaged, so it should be fine… No, no, no. The fact it’s damaged and bleeding at all is the problem, it’s not fine at all.’

Natasha grumbled, and that seemed to take the boy out of his mind for a moment. It had to be said, that despite him doing this, he had kept complete control of the vehicle that was heading further south.

Leon looked at her and said with a laugh, “Looking back on it, that wasn’t the brightest of idea’s.”

“Who came up with that idea though?”

‘Because it definitely wasn’t you,’ she wanted to spit out, but held herself back.

“I thought it was a good idea…” A soft voice rang out, and Natasha didn’t need to turn her head to know it was Mirai.

Whether it was through her voice or the fact that she could still see her with Clairvoyance, both contributed to this fact. Natasha sighed, not once she expected anyone else to come up with such an impulsive idea...

“But, it got us here didn’t it?! Yes, it was a bt dumb, and impulsive, and it likely dragged everyone in the auditorium into danger, but we got together at least right?! That has to count for something, no, it’s counts for something. I’ve decided that.”

Seemingly finding her reasoning, Mirai’s eyes were suddenly alight with emotions—but the dash of craziness made Natasha slightly fearful.

She silently descided not to pursue this matter, and as if by will of divine providence, someone interceded on her behalf.

“Don’t just brute force your ideas on people,” Yuki pushed her head and used her other hand to rub her own.

Sighing, she looked at the two with a faint bit of remorse on her face, “I try, but always end up trapped in her enthusiasm, thankfully we went away quickly, before the worst could happen.”

This expression of seriousness on that delinquent really threw Natasha off by more than a few levels, but she supposed that even those who were unruly and full of mischief had their weaknesses. And it seemed like hers was just Mirai messing around, forcing her to tag along and clea up her messes.

"The worst huh..." Natasha contemplated her words and couldn't help feeling a dense chill in her heart when certain images began to flash past her mind.

“So even the cold and crusty ice queen can get cold feet huh?” Bouncing back from her previous contemplative mood, Yuki said smilingly.

And... her she goes, back to being an annoying delinquent—Natasha rolled her eyes.

“Nobody needed your input Yuki Ona,” Natasha sneered. “With your name, I would never expect you to be brave enough to risk a joke like this.”

'Yuki Ona, that was good,' Natasha gloated, eyes curling in satisfaction.

“Your the girl from the place that’s a coin flip between useless, inhabitable hard rock and cold, bone chillingly hard ice. After all his, I seriously don’t see how I’m the one whose the ice-lady.”

“I don’t remember half of my bloodline being missing!”

“Japan still has Hokkaido though…”

“Guys, stop… We’re supposed to be a team, kicking ass and saving the day!” As she spoke Mirai suddenly became excited and her voice started bleeding out loudly, “Yes! We’re the heroes and heroines!”

She threw a few punches.

“You guys are the ones fighting, I’m just the driver…” Leon lifted up his hands tiredly.

“That’s true, but you know. You’re really brave, even trying to sacrifice yourself,” Mirai blinked and looked at him incredulously.

“Yeah, what was that about…” Suddenly remembering this matter, Natasha brought her mind back on track and looked at him with a tense look. “You’re not suicidal are you?”

Natasha narrowed her eyes, as if daring him to say yes, even if it was impossible. If he was daring enough to be so, she would just kidnap him and lock him up in her room.

She had been thinking about this for a long time, but didn’t want to turn him from what was basically an acquaintance into someone who viewed her in fear or hatred. So she held back her urges and didn’t rob him away.

Stalking was enough, for now at least.

Leon waved his hands with a troubled face, “No way. I haven’t had a single suicidal thought in my life, I just thought that based on the circumstances at the time, letting Mirai and Yuki live was the right choice.”

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“Why though?” Natasha didn’t see the use in these two, as in the original story, they basically left everyone to die and barely escaped themselves despite being 4 star magical girls.

So much power, yet their impact was less than his, who had saved their lives and sacrificed himself in the end, allowing them to escape.

They possessed absurd magical abilities, controlled concepts beyond normal means and yet, still had to rely on an ordinary human.

To Natasha, such people were the epitome of uselessness.

The fact that she cared more for him than they also played a role, but that much was obvious and anyone who knew her—which was basically no one—could tell.

“I mean, as the ones with the powers, in terms of future use and impact on society…” Leon tried to explain logically but the three girls seemed very unhappy with his answer already and he wisely shut his mouth.

He turned his head this way and that way, and by his expression, he didn’t know what to say or do.

Yuki snorted, “I must say, he’s really stupid. In the second loop, this idiot didn’t even let us breath, directly taking away our Corastrum and running around to distract the Earth Hippo.”

“The Earth Hippo is scary and mean, I was really worried when he did that…” Mirai mumbled.

Natasha hummed, thinking about something.

—“’Does Leon have a hero complex?’ I mean, I don’t think so. His character seemed kind of awkward and logical though, nothing like when I was his age.”

Really convenient timing...

‘Oh, so he isn’t that type. A pity, it would be nice to play the villain to his hero,’ Natasha indulged in ridiculous thoughts.

These thoughts were cut short much sooner than expected however... As Natasha gloated, and then tilted her head in question.

Then...

All of a sudden she stopped, a familiar feeling coming over her and her mouth opened subconsciously to say: “It’s coming this way…”

Instantly, she felt the faint cheerful atmosphere is the jeep tighten. Seeing how smoothly the positivity melted off of all their faces, she realized that any joy or lightheartedness that was revealed earlier was merely a facade.

Or perhaps it was more that sense of "battle readiness" had already begun to beat itself into them all, so their transition from play to "work" was unnaturally smooth.

What ever it was Natasha was both on edge, weirded out by the sudden shift and excited, because she might actually have competent teammates.

“I feel like we’re accomplishing nothing here…” Yuki couldn’t help but mumble suddenly.

“It can’t be helped, there’s four of us here, so the topic naturally shifts suddenly. Barring that…” Leon looked at Natasha and asked, “Which way is it coming from?”

Natasha frowned, “I can’t really tell, but my senses keep telling me to avoid the leftmost direction—like, not once specific area but the entire left of us right now…”

Her expression twisted and became increasingly terrible.

The Flame Monkey was still incredibly far away and yet the danger didn’t decrease at all. The entire left of her side felt, and smelt of flames and charred material. Her left arm, eye, and side hurt like it was being burned by flames.

Clairvoyance warned of danger.

It also gave her a stricking headache, very uncomfortable! Truly, truly, uncomfortable!

“Why is it like this, why are my senses telling me to avoid the entire left side and why is that range increasing…” Her mumbling alerted the group and she saw, through her Clairvoyance, how their expressions became bad.

Yuki’s in particular, shed of it’s delinquent look, twisted in what she recognized as realization.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck! You said that your senses are telling you to avoid the entire left side right?”

“Yeah…” Natasha affirmed, and Leon’s expression paled as he turned the jeep, as if realizing something.

“And you said that that the range of the area we’re supposed to avoid is increasing right?”

“Yeah…” Her responses remained slow and quite frankly, half-witted.

However, this wasn't without reason!

In a more normal situation, Natasha would have been able to think of an answer and ascertain the next course of action. However, the entirety of her mind was spent on observing the left side of her current position or now, the rear.

She was observing nearly 1-1.5km of her left side and had yet to spot the Flame Monkey at all.

It was out of range, yet tr danger did not decrease and the sent and feeling of flames grew more intense.

She didn't know why, but she felt like she had also smelt a hint of burnt flesh along the wind but through some brainwashing, she forcefully made herself deny such a possibility. And if it could not be denied, she would convince herself that it was not humans that were turned into toast but animals.

Maybe it was that stray cat that stayed in a box on campus. Who knew where that little was, hopefully it wasn't burnt to death.

Natasha licked the inside of her mouth, and clenched her teeth. She had to distract herself, lest she vomit.

Her fragile concentration was later broken, but she wasn't annoyed at all, thankful for the more solid distraction.

“Hey. Hey, princess, I have a question,” Yuki suddenly shook her and Natasha looked at her in annoyance. She rubbed her left arm, feeling phantom pains.

“What is it, you’re breaking my concentration...!”

“Ignore that, try observing the sky.”

"That wasn't a question..." She mumbled instinctively.

Then, Natasha blinked. ‘The sky?’

She titled her head and subconsciously followed the request, as her vision reached further and further into the sky and became more blurry and abstract, likely due to her lack of power and control, Natasha had to rely on more obscure senses.

So, as her sense of feeling temporarily replaced her sense of sight, or rather, merged with it to achieve a more potent sense during Clairvoyance, she continued to ascend and observe.

At first there was nothing, and then she felt the presence of a flying creature—creatures, birds but they didn’t feel supernatural and had soft feathers, so she deepened her feelings.

Then, she realized, that these birds were fleeing, and at the feeling of what they were fleeing from, she gasped.

Hundreds, no, thousands of miniature locust or wasp like entities were swarming above but there were not living creatures like the birds were and felt more like projections.

Projections of flame, for their presence were hot and boiling, expanding and contracting wildly. These projections were very well hidden, merging with the surrounding sky and sunlight, like soldiers planning an ambush. Only, they hid not in rock or grass, but in the very fabric of heated light rays from the sun, and sky.

Their paths were not entirely straight but they were all coming from the same direction and their aura, which spilled out excessively, felt as if it could come to explode at the slightly touch or communion with a somewhat excessive force.

She blinked, and then her expression paled.

“Go, go right—front, drive full speed ahead! Like 300 meters, go right, quickly!”

“Already on it…”

Hearing his words, and seeing how he was already far ahead of her commands, Natasha realized that she hadn’t noticed how fast the vehicle was going until now.

“What did you see,” While wearing an expression that seemed to say that she hoped she was wrong, Yuki held onto her seat as well as several small pieces of glass tightly.

Strangely, despite her grip, she wasn’t cut by them.

Natasha, who felt like throwing up, said with a grimace, “Thousands of flying, flaming locust like things in the sky. All heading here.”

“Fuck! It’s just like that Earth Pig! I should have known it had an AOE attack… Uh, what do we do, what do we do?” Yuki scratched her head in a panic. Her grip on the shards of glass in her hand tightened subconciously, and she slightly, but not noticibly, relaxed.

Seeing her panic the finicky Mirai also panicked, but tried to comfort them with a few words, saying with a shaky smile:

“It’s o-okay, if we die, I can just loop back again—”

“You speaking like that pisses me off, don’t take death too lightly you know,” Natasha felt cold, and she instantly shut Mirai up.

The situation now dire, Natasha bit her lip and she suddenly felt a little grateful for Mirai even if she disliked her due to bias. At least, thanks to her, her lips wouldn’t look like an expired chew toy.

Though she didn't dare say she wasn't annoyed with this situation. One thing in particular...

‘Where are my powers already, hurry up.’

Clairvoyance was nice, it really was, but she really, really wanted something more on the side of beating things up.

With such thoughts in mind, Natasha didn’t even dare to move, just allowing Leon to drive like the wind toward another building complex in the near South.