"..." After buying things with Ayane and returning home, I went to sleep, but I felt a strange restlessness, and when I put my hand on my chest, my heart was racing.
I couldn't sleep and was anxious all the time, and besides that, Hexael appeared in my room and just watched me in silence with a smile that I can only describe as disgusting.
He didn't meow, didn't speak, just watched me with that disgusting smile as if he knew why I was restless, but he didn't say anything. Unable to sleep and restless like this, I just lay in bed looking at him staring at me.
When morning came, I had breakfast and went to school still with this bad restlessness and accelerated heartbeat, it's as if I felt that something bad happened, is happening or will happen.
At school, Ayane wasn't there, and that only increased this bad feeling, and I obviously didn't ignore it as just a feeling, but I didn't do anything yet, I waited for the class to end and left immediately for the magical girl base.
I'm not sure why this was the first place I went, I just felt that this was the place I should go, entering the base everything was normal, but I went to the receptionist looking for Ayane in a hurry.
"..." I'm in front of her, who's doing some research on the computer, but it takes almost two hours for her to approve and give me that information, and out of nowhere she gives me coordinates to go to an area in the base, I run to that area, the bad feeling increasing.
I didn't dismiss these bad feelings as something trivial for a reason, as a magical girl I've noticed that many of my basic senses have been amplified to the max, reaching superhuman levels.
So nothing prevents my ability to sense things and my instincts from also rising to extremely high levels.
Arriving at the wing that the receptionist said I could find Ayane, I notice that it's the medical wing, I simply invade the room and find Ayane lying on a bed sleeping while a girl is using some magic on her.
I know who this girl is, she was mentioned in the papers I signed, her name is Kiyomi Sayaka and she is the person responsible for purifying the minds of magical girls who have suffered something on missions, usually the one responsible for taking care of girls who have been severely tortured or raped.
She has pink eyes and blonde hair while being short with large breasts and has the magic called [Sweet Dreams] with a branch of light healing, she is literally one of the most important people in the base.
It's thanks to her that the numbers of suicides or completely broken girls is reduced to a minimum, and of course if Ayane is here it's because she needs to, but the fear she suffered on our first mission obviously wouldn't be enough for her to be sent to this place.
"What happened?" I say coldly, a harsh tone with a touch of anger, the woman who was healing Ayane momentarily looks at me.
"I believe you are her friend?" She says composedly, but her expression is obviously serious and somewhat sad.
"Yes," I say only yes, approaching the bed where Ayane is "sleeping" or rather, she is in a light coma caused by Kiyomi so that she can purify Ayane's mind.
"What happened to Ayane?" I say, trying to keep my composure, but hundreds of bad feelings seem to explode, and I'm almost certain that this is something that happened last night after we parted ways.
I clench my hand trembling with extreme force to the point of injuring my hand, while feeling totally strange with everything besides feeling a lot of anger.
"...I'm sorry to say, but last night between 2 a.m. and 6 a.m., Ayane was 'used' by a monster...we believe she encountered a monster on her way home."
"Or rather, the monster found her and attacked her, from what we can tell Ayane even fought against the monster but was defeated and a fatality occurred, when she was found her condition was not very good."
"She was crying and was in very bad shape mentally, so she was brought here urgently, luckily she doesn't have many physical injuries, probably because as a support the monster wasn't that interested in hurting her."
"..."
"What happened to the monster?" I question, my voice devoid of any distinguishable tone.
"It's dead, Lenore was sent to the location after Miss Ophelia had a slight bad feeling."
"Thanks to Miss Ophelia, Ayane was only with the monster for a few hours before it was about to change location, but it was found before that," Kiyomi says without really seeing this as a good thing.
I look at Ayane, who seems to be sleeping peacefully, but the suffering she endured during those hours is something she won't forget, and as soon as she wakes up, she will clearly be shaken.
"Could you tell me the exact location where she was found?" I ask with a smile and a calm tone, Kiyomi has a noticeable shiver in her body.
"She was found 7 blocks from here in a construction site, and the place where she fought the monster was also in front of that building..."
"I understand, thank you for the information," I say, leaving the room with nothing but pure hatred, I practically run through the facility's corridors, leaving this place as fast as I can.
Activating my magical girl outfit and searching for the place in a hurry, I jump across the buildings with nothing but bad feelings and self-blame going through my mind. As soon as I arrive, I see Hexael on top of a building as if waiting for me.
"You knew..." I say only that, this is the reason he was staring at me last night, he knew about this, and he kept quiet knowing how much I would suffer knowing that I had failed by being too slow.
"Hihihihihi maybe?" He says only that with a little laugh, while I grab my gun aiming at my head, I have a strong desire to hurt Hexael now, but this is not the time to waste time on that.
'If I kill myself now, I'll return during our shopping at the store...' I mentally calculate, and even in a somewhat desperate way, where I would be 24 hours in the past, finding a midpoint where I can avoid this problem.
Without delay, I shoot myself in the head, a precise shot that destroys all vital parts for survival, ending my life in exchange for going back 24 hours in the past.
"..."
"..."
"So that's how it is..." I murmur, opening my eyes, it was fast and without delay, everything just darkened as when you sleep and I just woke up here in the past as if waking up from a good night's sleep, I see Ayane excited to shop with me.
"Setsuna, is there a problem?" Ayane asks when she sees my blank expression, I look at my shaking hands, not out of fear, but out of anger at myself for having failed in just a few days.
I went back a few days and I've already failed once, this opens the question, if I don't pay Hexael with evil acts, I'll get weaker and maybe I won't even be able to use my power.
If I can't use my power, I won't be able to save Ayane, what a great brother I am, letting her be used by monsters all because of my incompetence.
"S-Setsuna, are you okay?!" Ayane asks alarmed to see some tears on my face, I just wipe the tears and give a fake smile, I shouldn't show my bad feelings to Ayane.
"Yes, I'm great, I'm just so happy to have a friend like you here with me, I've never been through this before," I say to avoid alerting her to my true feelings.
'So that's how it is,' I take a deep breath, feeling the effects of Hexael at their maximum, Hexael has already made it clear that he amplifies my bad feelings to the maximum, and thanks to this, at the moment I have an insane and violent desire to kill.
I want to kill the monster that did that to my sister as violently as possible, but giving in to hatred is not good, it's exactly what Hexael wants, and that's why he didn't warn me anything.
Because he knows that with each bad thing that happens to Ayane, I get worse and more uncontrollable, I have several conflicting desires at the moment, the desire to protect Ayane, the desire to do bad things just to get stronger, and the desire to kill.
"Ayane, what do you think looks good for my house between these two?" I say, picking up two things for home. For now, I'll just continue the shopping normally.
And when it's time to go home, I'll make Ayane go a different way while I go after the monster that did this to her.
"Well, I think that one," Ayane says with a smile, choosing one of the things I show, completely oblivious to the myriad of bad feelings I have at the moment or to what is going to happen to her.
"Great, let's keep going," I say, pretending everything is fine, pretending I don't know what's going to happen to her, pretending I didn't just kill myself, I'm great at pretending, I've always done it.
I just hide the anger, hatred, and intent to kill to use later, as long as I'm normal, everything will be fine, I'm not afraid to kill myself.
It was strange, fast, and simple, she suffered, so killing myself was the most obvious answer, why be afraid when the second chance is within my reach?
As soon as I knew what happened to her, I almost pulled out my gun and killed myself right there, but I needed to know the location where she was taken before, because just going back knowing so little could only hinder me.
"..." So I just keep pretending everything is fine as we repeat all the shopping we did, the same things that made these shopping trips fun are repeated, and it will continue like this until it's time to leave.