*
"What did you do this time?" (Myuu)
For a moment, it felt like affectionate warmth had permeated my entire body. I didn't understand why, but hearing 'this time' gave me undeniable joy. It led my cheeks to getting strained from all the smiling before I finally calmed down. She herself, seemed to not notice. But it didn't matter, all the more that it made me happy. From all of that blissful exhilaration held inside me, I immediately switch to a more serious expression.
"... I killed the assassin, the one that took my memories. I buried his corpse into the ground if you want to see, we may only be able to find a bone shard or 2 since I did it so well."
"... You... Did? In that condition?" (Palmicia)
Their faces were coloured in vibrant surprised, some forgetting that they could move their eye brows as their expressions froze into place. Palmicia moved a bit closer to inspect my own face, determined to see if I was lying or not. I gave her the same blank stare into her own eyes. My chin was shaking involuntarily from the pressure, but I slowly got used to her intimidation as I continued on despite the shivering. It was hard to see if you were walking buy, but it was noticeable once you look closely.
"Alright, that's enough. Palmicia, please don't do anything reckless... Say, if she somehow relapses into a worse state... You will bear the consequences." (Gerald)
She released her own pressure. Unlike the other 3 of us... Other 3 of us? Gerald had a slightly more defined face with perfectly shapely cheeks, cute accommodating nose that fit her face like a correct puzzle piece that connected all her features together. Ultimately, she could conjure up such a mature aura by looking with a poker face, but sometimes she... Sometimes?
It looks like I still have some traces of my memories... But rather than memories they are more like remnants of my feelings towards them. Respect, admiration, pity, ridicule, sympathy, joy. Bits and pieces of multiple emotions surface at once to give me a past impression I had, and so I sometimes manage to put some of this feelings into words, but stop halfway when the feeling becomes to vague for me to define with words...
It sucks. Why...! Why Is the most important part missing...?! Damn it! It hurts! It's suffocating to live like this! This was the only new feeling I've had that I could call my own! Pain! This pain of not remembering my past self... And the pain of letting down my friends as a result of this... I... I don't feel much of this suffering because of myself.
For me, my memories are gone and as such I don't feel like anything is missing. The feeling of emptiness I get in my heart is not from my lost of memories. It is from the failure of not being able to fulfill the role of my past self. It is from not being able to replace Higuresawa Kaori for her friends. It was like a bottomless pit that I was falling through, unable to reach the opening as I stretch my hand futilely.
If one were to compare my current state, I would be like the person who had been forced to watch countless videos of Higuresawa Kaori as a magical girl, and then forced to replace her. These feelings like gratitude and admiration towards them... They don't feel like my own. They feel like some unnatural drug pumped into my veins, trying to stimulate how the real Kaori would feel. It was sickening, at the same time it felt like her friends were hurting the most. So all I can do is grin and bear with it.
I am but a lost soul with no identity.
"Tch, née Kaori. Let's spar. You could beat that assassin right? Then you won't have a problem with me." (Gerald)
We moved to that that construction site in order to avoid destruction to our surroundings. She cracked her knuckles, the soft clicking sounds reverberated into my ears as we stretched to get our muscles ready. I lightly hopped on the ground to get my calves and feet ready, as I seem to use them a lot. I bent my back down to lower my center of gravity to gain more stability, then I stomped my right leg into the ground in front of me. At the same time I punched the air with my right hand while pulling my left hand back.
"Fuuh~!"
I took in a deep breath and relaxed as I focus my eyes onto Gerald in the distance. Despite the large area inbetween us, it was a distance not worth mentioning for magical girls, as it could be crossed in an instant. I leapt with all of my energy, my body felt weightless as my surroundings turned into a blur, but my fist was able to focus on a target.
I swing a lateral arc with my right hand and I prepared my left fist at the side by bending my left elbow backwards. My left fist was next to my chest and near my armpit and my right was stretched as far as possible. My right leg hits the ground right in front of Gerald as I transferred all the momentum into my fist with the help of my passive. She walks to the right side of my body without urgency, my fist misses and the air pressure blew a sand storm.
When the storm cleared, there was a ridiculously large crater on the ground. Immediately, I formed a barrier with my second skill and blocked to my right as a large mass of jett black hits me like a truck. My barrier shatters and the impact sends the blood rushing to my arms, giving them a peach pink hue as I regained my footing. I bent my legs as I made them made contact with the ground, the momentum of Gerald's attack was still pushing me so I was sliding on coarse sandy ground.
As I slid to a stop, I look for Gerald and kicked the air in front of me with my skills enhancing my leg. A large sound burst forth from the collision, she must have ducked low to ambush me the moment I stopped sliding, but my prediction was spot on. I had actually planned on stomping the ground to kick sand into the air, so I could relocate myself and find where she's hiding. Lucky for her, she had blocked with her left arm. Spears of jett black flew toward me at high velocities.
But I was used to such attacks. Even if they were 10 times faster than me, I would be able to dodge them. That was just the kind of attack this body was used to. It was an absurd skill and essentially an extremely rare ability in this world, since it allowed me to fight those of a higher grade above mine. Just what kind of inhuman training did Kaori go through? No, I knew Palmicia was the host of the training but I don't remember the contents. Just what was she planning to fight...?
In any case, it no longer matters to me during battle. I will take advantage of this body's strength, and then I will fight to survive. I will fight to exist as myself. Not the previous Kaori, not anyone else. Just myself, however empty my personality is. I'll survive, live a normal life... And fill it with colour.
Dodging the deadly spears, I combined the act of evasion and pushing forward, saving time to close the distance between us. Gerald sees through it easily and rushes at her highest speed with a giant coated fist of black mass. It was the right move for her, since I'm seperating my concentration between evading and moving forward, making my speed far slower than hers. So if she rushed forward, she would be able to deal more damage with her higher velocity.
I stomp deep into the ground to form a crater and moved the environment around with my second skill. A giant metre long diameter tendril of sand and rocks rose from the ground to rush at Gerald and break her momentum. She stops just before ramming into the tendril and smashes it away with her fist. But it made her stop moving with her previous momentum, bringing us to an even state. I leap laterally to the side and began running at a curved trajectory, all the while shooting up the sand into the air and obscuring her vision.
.... How do I defeat her? She was definitely a long ranged fighter, but that didn't mean she was completely weak in short range as well. In fact her power is too versatile, to shape conceptual darkness into anything she wanted. But that's okay. Because Kaori is strong. So I'll make it through this. How else would someone with such low grades keep up with these higher grade friends. In this group of 4 described to me by Myuu, it seemed I was the weakest. I was the only one stuck in B grade.
I leap in once more, turning on Magia Retainment and using more magical particles. Retainment status: 40%. I bent my body low and changed trajectory by forcing the wind around me to part along with ejecting my legs at a steep angle. It felt like second nature as there was no hesitation or time lag in the maneuver. It was pulled of perfectly.
In these kinds of maneuvers where I have to move in absurd ways that no other magical girl does, the biggest obstacle was air resistance. Lucky for that, my skill was suited for these kinds of problems. For me, making an air resistance shield was cheaper use of magical particles than any other magical girl using their skills to replicate this effect. That was why it was so uncommon for them to bounce around at tight trajectories like this, often my movements take them by surprise like this.
Due to the air resistance if anyone else did this they would lose momentum. But I kept mine. Rushing in through the sand cloud from an unexpected and low angle, I changed directions once more, which forced her to conjure up a barrier at the last second. As her barrier had to cover all directions, it was weaker than a concentrated lower coverage barrier. She couldn't tell which direction I was coming from after all.
Launching my fist, it landed flatly on her barrier caving in the conceptual darkness. As I pushed forward with all my strength it split into pieces and my fist falls in. From behind the barrier, her own fist shot forward into my face with a large mass of conceptual darkness wrapping around it, while mine shot into her chest from the previous momentum. 2 impacts reverberated into the air with a loud clap, their power forcing the both of us onto our knees.
"Kgh! You think that's enough? Any further and one of us will die."
"Mhghh! Fine... It would be bad to cut down on our own combat power. Hey, you came here to fight that cult. I came here to break myself out of this cycle, this malicious web of threats and deceit. Even after losing your memories, you still seem like the same person while we sparred. "(Gerald)
She held in her pain while biting her lip, slowly fleshing out her thoughts to prepare for the big question. I could see this coming, we weren't living in a personal base. We had been living in a guest room, so it is more likely that we were a travelling group. I can remember all their names and every other magical girl Kaori has met, but I don't remember any of the events between us. So I can only guess, this journey has a goal. Gerald had only confirmed my thoughts huh...
"The thing is, do you think Kaori would continue on after losing her memories? What do you believe, as Kaori herself, what she would want to do from now on? " (Gerald)
The arid afternoon air brushed past my cheek, with no cool respite in sight my heart begins to beat faster at the mention of my objective. My ears pick up a soft ringing frequency and my hands trembled. Did the battle cause blood to rush to my head, or was I truly nervestruck by this question? Was it asked to me or the past Kaori?
What do I want to do? I want to fight that cult as well. I want to kill their leader and take my revenge. For this feeling of emptiness, for this pain and guilt that I cannot make the few around me happy. My very existence... My memory loss is a hindrance to them. For sure, I can say that much. Finally, I want to thank them, for allowing me to exist. I wonder if there was a skill out there that could restore the past Kaori. Would I be with them or would I oppose them?
"I want to kill the progenitor."
For now, I have no choice but to focus on this.