Aoko looked down at Touko lying in the snow-white sea of flowers, her eyes peacefully closed as if she were sleeping, a gentle smile on her lips, as if she had a good dream. However, the blood-stained flowers around her told everyone that not everything was so beautiful; this girl had died... Aoko knelt beside Touko, her calm and wise demeanor no longer sustainable. Her eyes, red from activating Magic, looked at her Older Sister, who had passed away peacefully. The crystal tears welling in her eyes could no longer be held back. She gripped and lifted the already cold, delicate hand, and crystal-like tears fell onto the pale back of the hand.
"Is this the ending you've always pursued? Is this the result you wanted?... You took on all the burdens without a word, do you think I'd thank you?! Stupid Older Sister, wake up! With me around, you won't get a moment's peace to sleep."
The hand with the Magic Crest tightly gripped the lifeless hand. The time axis, spanning past and future, appeared—a translucent, unreal, sky-reaching axis, traversing the entire life of the girl named Aozaki Touko.
Under the manipulation of the Fifth Magic, five minutes of Aozaki Touko's time, before and after her death, were extracted by Aoko from the time axis and cast into the infinitely distant future. The severed sections rejoined and healed. Aozaki Touko, lying in the sea of flowers, whether it was the wound where her body was severed or the blood that had soaked the flowers beneath her, vanished as if an unreal illusion.
Touko, restored to her original state, slowly opened her eyes, looking with confusion at the surrounding sea of flowers and the tear-streaked Aoko. Because she was the Touko from five minutes before her death, her memory was still at the point where she, Rin, and Alice were fighting the Old Magus.
"Aoko, what's going on? Is this, is this the Fifth Magic?! You've finally awakened!" Seeing Aoko, who had already transformed into a Magus, Touko immediately showed her joy. Although she didn't remember the sacrifice she made for Aoko, she was still that Touko.
She didn't remember, but she was still her, still that silly, clumsy Older Sister, whose heart and eyes were only for me. Before worrying about me, can't you first care about yourself?! Why didn't you believe I could handle it myself? Why didn't you discuss anything with me and face everything alone?... Aoko looked at Touko, who was even happier than herself because of Aoko's awakening of the Fifth Magic. She had a belly full of complaints but didn't know how to voice them. Finally, just like when she was scolded by her parents as a child and went to her Older Sister to cry, she threw herself into Touko's arms and burst into tears. Slightly surprised, Touko paused for a moment, then smiled and embraced Aoko, comforting her.
However, after only a few minutes, Aoko felt her hand grow heavy. She looked up and found that Touko had lost consciousness and fainted. After all, enduring the impact of the time axis being severed and reconnected, the shock to the soul level was a considerable drain.
Aoko gently laid Touko down on the flowerbed, looking at her sleeping Older Sister with tears and a smile... "Although I don't want to disturb you, it's better to deal with the current situation first..." At this moment, Alice's voice rang out, filled with exhaustion and weakness, reminding them feebly.
Aoko immediately looked in the direction of Alice's voice, only to see Alice, dressed in a black nun's habit, weakly kneeling slowly in the sea of flowers, finally collapsing to the ground and losing consciousness.
At this point, Aoko, who retained the strongest combat power, quickly stood up vigilantly. Before she could search for enemies outside her magical domain, a black and red object arced through the air from above, falling into Aoko's domain. It rolled a few times on the snow-white flowers, painting a patch of crimson on the white flower sea, and finally stopped in front of Aoko—it was Rin!
Rin's entire black night-suit was tattered, and her body was covered in gruesome wounds, deep enough to expose bone. Her flesh was torn and terribly mangled. Relying on sufficient physical fitness and powerful physical control to seal blood flow, she hadn't lost too much blood yet.
Realizing she had flown in front of Aoko, Rin, lying on the ground, gave a bitter smile: "I didn't realize it before, but I didn't expect that Old Magus to be so strong in the past. The rest is up to you, Aoko." After saying that, she tilted her head and also passed out.
Aoko at this moment felt an urge to curse. What was going on with her teammates falling one after another for no reason?! Had the BOSS not already died?! What are you all doing?!
Aoko looked up and out, and instantly understood!
Outside the flower sea domain, it had become a colorless world composed of black and white. In the positions where the four Old Magus of the past had jointly cast spells to block Rin and the fairy tale army, one was still standing! And this summoned Old Magus was not in the form of Fumizuka Yomogi, who had possessed him, but the Predecessor Magus of the Fifth Magic in his prime, during his middle age!
Aoko, now wielding Magic and having glimpsed the truth of the origin, instantly understood the truth of the matter. This Predecessor Magus in his prime had appeared entirely due to an accident caused by the previous Old Magus's collapse with the Fifth Magic.
And the Predecessor Magus of that era undoubtedly still possessed a Magic Crest, so his power to resist the World's Corrective Force was much greater. Later, because Aoko inherited the Fifth Magic, causing the Old Magus's existence to begin to crumble from the origin, and after the Old Magus existing in the present collapsed, this past him became the only Predecessor Magus in the current timeline!
Although from the origin, tracing down the timeline from the void, all existence related to the Predecessor Magus aozaki would collapse, before that, he had enough time to do many things.
No one could predict what crazy things a mortal who had mastered the world's peak power would do.
The Predecessor Magus, summoned by accident, had completely fallen into a state of madness.
"Die, die, die! This world! Die! You hateful ants! Die with this world!"
A curse, like the demonic sounds of a chaotic era, echoed in the black and white space. A black hole-like compressed air mass appeared high in the sky. Its violent pulling force dragged, crushed, and absorbed everything in the forest outside the southern district, not even sparing the nearby church! The super-compressed, moving airflow at the center had already formed a lightning-flashing plasma. This single attack could at least wipe the entire Misaki region, and even Mihonoseki not far away, from the map!
It was a city-level grand forbidden spell that even the Fifth Magic's acceleration couldn't quickly complete! The Predecessor Magus was just ready to drag all of Misaki to its death!
"Aoko..." Aoko, caught in a dilemma, heard a call from the ground in front of her. Rin, who had been briefly unconscious, woke up again. Rin, forcing herself to be spirited, said to Aoko: "Quickly use the Fifth Magic to summon you from ten years in the future. You can't be his opponent now. The future you should still be able to fight with all her might."
Aoko frowned and squatted down, saying to Rin: "Only a destined future can respond to a summon, and my future is inevitably still the Fifth Magus. Even the me from ten years later cannot compare to this old man who has mastered the Fifth Magic for over a hundred years."
"Then, what should we do?!"
Originally, looking at Aoko, who had emerged from thirty years of seclusion with perfected divine power, it seemed like a sure win, but they forgot that the opponent was not Touko from the original work/canon, but the Predecessor Magus aozaki, and in his peak era. Even if Aoko played with the Fifth Magic for another ten years, she wouldn't be able to beat an old driver who had played with it for over a hundred years!
"Then let's surrender..."
"Do you think he'd accept it..."
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