"Just for the sake of victory, use this card on him," Shu said solemnly to Kiana.
The confidence in Shu's eyes spread to Kiana through his gaze. Her fingers gently flicked the card "Become a Magical Girl!", feeling the power contained within it. Her eyes also became firm and confident.
"Okay!" Kiana drew the card and held it high above her head, as if she were holding up a scorching sun, a torch symbolizing freedom.
It would plant the seed of the end here!
"Become a magical girl, and sign a contract with me!" Kiana shouted. In the terrified gazes of Rosalia and Lilia, she slammed the card in her hand on—
Shu's face.
"Shu!"
Shu: "...?"
Shu showed the same terrified gaze as the Vodka Girls, and looked at the confident Kiana with a puzzled expression.
"Why?" This question, which had been brewing for a full three hours, finally popped out of Shu's mouth.
"Beep—" A piercing whistle came from the side. In Siegfried's hand, a red button was buzzing shrilly.
Shu "slapped" his eyes shut again. The confidence and courage that had just overflowed instantly vanished.
One of the reasons he hadn't asked questions was that in the game of "Creation Mountain," you couldn't ask "why."
That's why this game was like playing wherever you dreamed. A world without "why" was "existence is reasonable," wasn't it?
Since the vast majority of the people present were minors, the wine that was originally used for punishment was changed to lemonade.
Shu took the lemonade that Siegfried handed him and drank it all in one go. While his expression was twisted and ferocious, he didn't forget to continue questioning Kiana with his eyes.
Kiana finally understood the question in Shu's eyes this time. She scratched her head and pointed embarrassedly at a sentence that was almost drowned in the long explanation on the card: [After signing the contract, the two parties of the contract are not allowed to attack each other, otherwise the contract will be terminated on the spot.]
"Now it's just us and Rosalia and the others on the field. If I sign a contract with them, I won't be able to attack them," Kiana scratched her head and explained in a low voice. "And... this contract... what if they don't agree?"
"Oh right! We can still disagree!" A hint of surprise appeared on Rosalia's face, but she was immediately hit on the head by Lilia.
"Idiot Rosalia, now Kiana is going to sign a contract with Shu," Lilia sighed, her face full of "we're finished."
"Then... then what if Shu doesn't agree?" Rosalia understood, but she still covered her head and stubbornly said.
"How could Shu not agree? You really are an idiot, Rosalia," Lilia shook her head. Their final means was only one step away from being broken. She couldn't think of any reason for Shu to refuse Kiana's contract.
He refused.
He firmly disagreed with becoming a magical girl!
Even in a game... well, he wasn't that much of a sore loser. He could still accept becoming a magical girl verbally.
But...
"Shu, with your soul as the price, what is your wish?" Kiana had already pulled Shu up from the ground. The two of them stood face to face, with Kiana speaking first.
Shu looked at Kiana's transformation pose, which was probably from some tokusatsu show, and felt his pupils quaking.
When Kiana was explaining the rules to him just now, he had already carefully read all the rules on the card and firmly memorized them in his mind.
Unlike before, at this moment, he was extremely clear about what he should do and what effect his actions would have. He knew all of this.
But—
He refused.
Because Kiana only needed to strike a pose and say a few lines, but he needed to give a passionate speech that everyone could hear!
So—
He refused!
It was absolutely impossible for him to say such shameful, abstract, strange, abnormal... in short, it was impossible for him to do this under the gaze of so many people...
Kiana: Stare—
He was...
Everyone: Stare—
Shu: "..."
"I... I want to... end this chaotic world... I want to... I want to end everything before the end comes..." Shu closed his eyes in pain and trembled, and said the first half of the lines with a trembling voice.
Kiana's eyes sharpened. When she said her lines, it was as if her whole body was exerting force. It was so full of emotion.
"But! If this prayer is realized, it won't just be at the level of time interference! It's a rebellion against causality itself!" Kiana shouted excitedly, her hand tightly clenched into a fist on her chest.
"Are you really—planning to become a 'god'?!"
This shout burst out with all of Kiana's reluctance and unwillingness, like a twilight bell from a silent history. It was not loud, but it leisurely passed on to every moment of the future.
The half-minute of silence was like the passage of time. Shu looked at Kiana, and his tense expression suddenly turned into a trace of relief.
He sighed lightly. When he spoke, it was with a firmness that echoed Kiana's.
"God or whatever... it doesn't matter," Shu turned his head and looked at the Creation Mountain in front of him. His plain tone could not hear any hesitation, nor any fluctuation.
"Until today, everyone who has fought here, everyone who has believed in hope, I don't want them to cry. I hope they will keep smiling until the end.
"And the rules that obstruct this—" Shu's hand slowly raised, and he and Kiana reached out to each other.
He said sternly—
"I will destroy them, and rewrite them! This is my prayer, my wish—come, realize it!"
At this moment, a large bow made of flower branches appeared in Kiana's hand. She raised her hand to nock an arrow, drew the bow to a full moon, turned around, and aimed it at the Vodka Girls.
"Your prayers..." Her eyes seemed to be shining with the light called "Hope," and she was weaving this light into an unbreakable oath—
"I will never let it end in despair! So..."
After that, Shu didn't remember what Kiana said. He didn't care why he was the one who signed the contract to become a "magical girl," but it was Kiana who ended up fighting.
The moment Kiana shot that arrow and Rosalia and Lilia's "Future City" collapsed, Shu's mind was full of: it's finally over.
Let this farce end here... he was tired...
"Now—" Siegfried cleared his throat and stood up solemnly. "I announce that the last person remaining in this 'Creation Mountain' is—"
"—Shu!"
Shu: ?
Kiana gave Shu a burnt-out smile, then slowly turned over her "dead" character card because she had borne all the cause and effect, indicating her exit.
At the same time, Siegfried raised his hand and tugged at his tie, then pulled out an identity card that Shu had never seen before.
"Alright, it's time to end this farce."
Siegfried sat down cross-legged, his eyes full of fighting spirit.
Shu: ???