"Hana" sighed softly, and stretched out her hand — a white dandelion materialized in the air before her.
Then that dandelion scattered in an invisible wind, its seeds drifting out through the window.
"Because of temperament."
"Our Witch Clan commands power that surpasses nature itself — but lacks the inner character to match it."
"We have always been content to rest, content to stay as we are. Beneath the grace of immortality, we drift through our days in ease and idleness. Humans, on the other hand — beings with only a few decades to leave their mark — push themselves without cease, in every conceivable way, to advance. To scratch their ambitions into the world while they still can."
"Witches don't need a future, because we possess eternity. That is precisely why humans must take our future from us — because eternity is the only thing they will never have."
Hana's voice was perfectly still — the stillness of someone recounting history that has already been written.
"Snow came too late. Had she been born a thousand years earlier, she might have had the power to bend the outcome. But now — I only hope she can work through this. Come to terms with it. Find some way to make peace with the future that cannot be escaped."
"So you simply gave up resisting the prophecy — because of something like that?" Shin frowned.
"Perhaps."
Hana finally turned around — and Shin saw a white dandelion growing in place of her right eye.
Her face was still blurred. But he could feel a gaze, passing through the barrier of the dream, resting on him.
That gaze wasn't reading flesh. It was reading the soul, just as the white dandelion and its corresponding [Magic] suggested —
[Change the Past].
"I had begun to resign myself to watching Snow refuse, again and again, to accept the future. She has never been able to. The Clan's end is something she simply cannot make peace with."
"But this time — there is a new variable."
Hana stepped forward. Her form flickered between real and unreal — and Shin recognized her. She was the figure who had said, in life, that she had held both him and Meruru when they were infants.
"Snow's Shaya — I have been waiting for you, for quite some time."
"You are a little late. But you're still in time."
Of course.
Or rather — Shin had suspected it from the moment he'd seen the white dandelion. That flower was tied to the lore of the post-Witch Trials worldline, tied to the magic of [Changing the Past]. The Flower witch.
And if this were merely a deep layer of Snow's dream — a mirage from decades past — how could it know his name?
Even the other two blurred silhouettes had dissolved at this moment, leaving only the one calling herself "Hana" — overlapping now with the figure Shin recalled from Witch Island.
So not everything he and Meruru had lived through in their childhood was false, after all.
"Greetings, Lady Earth Witch."
Shin smiled — the smile of meeting a reliable elder.
"You've been here all along, waiting for me? You weren't just a dream-phantom of my mother's making?"
"With you here, I feel much better."
"Please tell me what I can do for my mother."
"For instance — destroying every human who attacks Witch Island in this dream?"
Hana's blurred silhouette paused slightly, as though Shin's words had caught her off guard.
"No, Shaya. That isn't it."
"I only want you to know what happened — and then return to reality and convince Snow. Convince her to let go. The grudge doesn't need to be carried any further. Your life is good right now, isn't it?"
A long pause.
"That said," Hana began again, more gravely:
"There is one thing you need to understand first. The humans who attacked Witch Island were not weak."
"And you already know that this is a dream. Even if you defeated every one of them here, it would not change what happened sixteen years ago in reality."
"The grass, the firelight, even the young Snow you've met — all of them are only illusions Snow has woven for herself."
"The people who died here have already crumbled to dust in the real world."
Shin's expression remained calm. Noncommittal.
"I know."
"But Lady Hana — you also know that I know something else now."
He turned his gaze toward the figure:
"In reality, my mother has maintained an illusory boundary over Witch Island for sixteen years."
"She buried the truth so completely that had it not been for an accident, I might still be in the dark."
"She has always believed it was her own failure that caused the Clan's end. That the witches' kindness was what doomed them all."
Shin's voice settled into something quiet and certain — carrying an edge of resolve that didn't invite argument:
"So even if it serves no purpose — I'm still going to do it. I have a feeling my mother will be glad to see it. Even in a dream."
"…So be it."
Hana was silent for a moment, then offered one last reminder:
"But there is one more thing to remember."
"This is a deep-layer dream — and more than that, it is a dream altered by my [Change the Past] magic, balanced between real and unreal."
"If you are killed here, or if your mind breaks — the damage to your soul in reality will be the same."
"And if the humans who committed these crimes still breathe in the real world — they will suffer the same fate here."
Her indistinct face leaned slightly forward, asking one last time:
"But the dead cannot be brought back — no matter how many you save within this dream."
"To take on a real risk for the sake of an illusion…"
"Are you certain?"
"Certain." Shin's answer was immediate.
"I told you — my mother will be glad to see this."
He straightened his collar, his gaze moving to the distant shore, where far-off firelight was beginning to solidify along the coastline as his words fell:
"My mother has always believed that kindness was a flaw. The Witch Clan's 劣根性 — their fatal weakness."
"So I'll show her. As long as I'm here — as long as she has a child she trusts—"
"That kindness will be the most precious, most irreplaceable luxury in this world."
"What the witches couldn't bring themselves to do — I will do."
"The lives the witches couldn't bring themselves to take — I will take."
"Lady Hana — please begin."
Shin's pupils reflected the far shore, where the dream's projection was solidifying into something real.
"Hana" let out a deep, something-like-a-sigh sound:
"As you wish."
With those words, the atmosphere of the entire island shifted from peace to something raw and sharp.
Bzzm —!
Space trembled violently.
Out over the empty sea, hundreds of enormous warships flying the cross and banner materialized from nothing.
Not illusions — but subconscious projections, dragged by force from the great web of causality by the Earth Great Witch's [Change the Past] magic.
A piercing horn cry split the sky.
"For humanity — judge the heretics!"
"Conquer this cursed isle of witches!"
Fanatical cries crossed the water and drove straight into the heart of the island.
Tens of thousands of armed human knights — every eye burning with the purest malice toward those who were not like them.
Inside the manor, the young Great Witch Snow — still sulking behind a closed door — jerked upright and threw the window open.
The scene before her was a gut-punch of déjà vu. It crashed over her too fast, and hazy deep-layer memories began to surface — she remembered. One image, then another.
"Just now… Shaya?"
"Why is Shaya in my dream — wait, that place is — !"
Wings spread from his spine — the wings of an Ultimate Being, vast as a storm-cloud, each feather a blade. Like an angel descending to earth.
Shin came to the edge of the manor's balcony. The blood-aura roiling off him blazed like a sun against the night — a living beacon in the dark.
He didn't look back. He spoke to the air, and to the Great Witch not far away:
"Please close your eyes and wait, Mother."
"My methods aren't as clean as your magic — but at the very least, I don't have to hold back."
BOOM —!
Shin's silhouette became a streak of black light — dropping like a meteor, straight into the mass of humanity.
He glanced once at the group chat as he fell. The others were still waiting for word from him and the Great Witch, lively with speculation about whatever gossip they assumed was unfolding.
There was a lot of chatter — but one line among it was not wrong:
[Many-Headed Monster]: Kill! [Great Western King Mabui.jpg]
So then? Only one thing for it — Kill!
To be continued…