Snow White's Return Chronicle
The magical girl was hopeless.
She raised her hand toward the empty air. At that moment, the particles in the air began to tremble abnormally, and an ultrasonic cutter formed.
“It’s dangerous!”
Snow White cried out. But Krumbe had already launched a powerful shockwave straight toward Kurei’s feet.
Just as the ground exploded and dirt obscured his vision, Kurei instinctively activated the material penetration spell to slip out of the way. That was exactly what Krumbe had been waiting for.
“In your material penetration state, you’re more vulnerable to vibration or light than anyone else, you know?”
Krumbe clasped her hands together and released a massive high-frequency vibration wave.
Invisible vibration blades slashed down from every direction, enveloping Kurei.
Physical blows would have passed straight through, but the sonic attack tuned to her unique frequency hammered directly at every particle of the transparent Kurei.
KWAAAAANG!
“Kuh…!”
Black blood sprayed from Kurei’s mouth. The material penetration state was forcibly broken, and tiny blood vessels burst across his entire body as he was driven to the ground. The sound and light.
An attack made of waves was the fatal antithesis to a spell that passed through matter.
Krumbe did not miss her chance. She deflected Snow White’s attacks aimed at her with the barest movement possible, then poured every ounce of her power into Kurei alone.
“First to drop, you, the avenger.”
A condensed vibration bomb struck Kurei’s chest dead center from the tips of Krumbe’s fingers.
BOOM!
“No! Kurei!”
Snow White rushed forward, but Krumbe had already stepped back, calmly straightening her clothes.
Kurei barely held himself up by gripping his hat like a cane, yet the blood pouring from his wounds refused to stop.
(…Ah, as expected, an utterly useless opponent.)
Krumbe’s thoughts echoed in Snow White’s ears, soaked in blood and sorrow.
The battlefield flipped in an instant. The absolute dominance of the coordinated assault crumbled because of Kurei’s fatal injury.
“No…!”
Snow White rushed over. She pulled a magic item from her pouch and activated a walnut-shaped device that created soundproofing.
The forest’s rain suddenly vanished, leaving only absolute silence.
But it was already too late.
Kurei’s chest had been torn open, and the blood mixing with the rain had turned the ground black beneath him.
Snow White pressed her trembling hands against the wound, but the experience of the Audit Division told her instinctively that this was a fatal injury beyond the reach of any first aid.
Kurei, too drained of strength to speak, breathed out a mouthful of bloody breath and looked at Snow White. In that instant, his desperate heart thundered inside her mind like a storm.
(…I’m already gone. My limit is here.)
He spoke his inner voice even though his lips moved.
“Don’t give up! Please!”
(Please, Snow White. Kill that girl…)
(Kill her. The Magical Girl Hunter.)
Kurei’s final will pierced straight through Snow White’s body.
At the same time, the air inside the barrier twisted in a bizarre way. The soundproofing spell Snow White had cast was not a simple barrier.
Krumbe, who relied on sound for her magic, now fought under the disadvantageous condition of “magic unusable.”
“…?”
Krumbe’s mouth opened in shock, but no sound came out—no vibration, nothing. Her strongest weapon, the sonic magic, had been completely sealed.
Meanwhile, the magic that let Snow White hear the inner voice operated differently; even in total silence, it still worked perfectly.
Snow White slowly rose to her feet. The emotion of sadness had already dried up, leaving only cold killing intent and burning resolve in its place.
Krumbe, even in a hopeless situation where she could not hear anything, assumed a stance ready to respond with pure instinct and physical ability.
But Snow White already knew which muscles Krumbe would move first if she tried to flee without sound.
“It’s over now.”
Snow White tightened her grip on her hatchet. In this silence, she was the only one who could still use magic.
Her blood-stained clothes fluttering in the wind, Snow White became the ruler of silence and took her final step toward Krumbe.
In the silence where sound had vanished, only the dull vibration from the clashing hatchet and blade traveled up her soles.
Snow White read Krumbe’s next move and aimed only for the critical weak point, but Krumbe was no easy opponent either.
She overcame the confusion right after losing her voice at terrifying speed and read Snow White’s trajectory with nothing but sight and instinct, countering blow for blow.
(More fun than I expected, Snow White. But you think you know the secret to winning is emptying my heart, don’t you?)
From inside Krumbe, a cold resolve settled. In that moment, Krumbe’s voice that had been filling Snow White’s mind was swept away by a wave, leaving an empty void.
(She emptied her heart…?!)
Krumbe had seen through her own conviction being read from countless battles.
She let her body run purely on reflexes and instinct, stopping all thought and moving like a machine.
In the instant her foresight disappeared, a gap appeared in Snow White’s defense. Krumbe’s hand tore through the guard and ripped off Snow White’s arm. Snow White’s hatchet also pierced Krumbe’s side.
BOOM! SPLAT!
The two bodies clawed and tore at each other.
In the silent space where no one could even scream, only the smell of blood vibrated.
In the final moment, Krumbe’s strike slammed into Snow White’s abdomen, and at the same time Snow White’s kick pushed Krumbe’s chest away.
The duration of the soundproof item ended, and the suppressed rain poured down like a waterfall.
“Kuh… Haa… haa…”
Snow White dropped to her knees. Vision blurred from the fatal blows, and she no longer had the strength to move a single finger.
She was in a complete state of combat inability.
Meanwhile, Krumbe staggered but slowly rose to her feet.
Blood poured from her side, yet her eyes still burned with terrifying life.
She looked down one after another at the fallen Kurei and Snow White, who was barely breathing, and gave a cruel smile.
Krumbe brushed her wet blonde hair aside and spat coldly.
“Bath Winterfreeze and Swimswim… They really were completely useless opponents.”
Her voice was completely emotionless.
Himekawa Koyuki.
After becoming a magical girl, Snow White had spent the entire time dreaming.
A world without magical girls.
In that world, Koyuki chatted and laughed with her friends. “Magical girl? That’s just urban legend.”
She lived a normal life dating Souta.
Everything was a false world, but it was a sweet illusion.
Yet the figure before her, Snow White, gazed at Koyuki with cold eyes and murmured.
“Even so, you never gave up on dreaming.”
Maybe the time before she became a magical girl was happier. The ideal she had longed for since childhood—the dream of being a magical girl—was far too distant from the tragic reality under her feet now.
The last words of those who had vanished from the past world became chains around Snow White’s ankles.
(Koyuki is the hunter who hunts bad magical girls, right?)
(Then kill her.)
(If you’re here, the magical girl in this town won’t disappear… She wanted to say that to me.)
If she believed that all this horrible reality was just a dream and the world everyone was laughing in was the real one, her heart might feel easier.
She wanted to run away.
But at that moment, a magical girl in a cloud decoration and yellow knit costume floated in the air before her eyes.
“Snow White’s dream is… an incredibly horrible nightmare. Now is not the time to dream, Snow White. Hold on. Nemuring will always be cheering you on even in the dream world.”
“Nemuring…?!”
The moment she called the name, the apparition dissolved like mist.
She opened her eyes.
Lies or not, her body moved even in the terrifying injury where one arm had been torn off.
No, she had to move.
Snow White staggered to her feet. Beyond the numbness of pain, only one goal was burned into her mind.
She crept forward, trying not to be noticed by Krumbe.
The soundproof item had already been deactivated.
But paradoxically, in this world where sound could be heard, Snow White erased her own presence and approached Krumbe from behind.
The hunter does not scream. She simply lurks silently toward her target.
What broke the silence was not a scream or magic.
It was the desperate will of a beast.
Snow White dove perfectly into Krumbe’s blind spot.
With her remaining arm, she wrapped her neck in a merciless choke. The grip was strong enough to hear bones cracking.
“…!”
Krumbe’s eyes bulged as she struggled. Her nails raked across Snow White’s back as she swung wildly, but Snow White did not let go.
The hunter’s arms before death had already become iron shackles beyond the limits of flesh.
But in that instant, the duration of the soundproof item ended.
As the world’s sound poured in like a waterfall, Krumbe’s madness exploded. Even in the agony of being choked, she condensed all her magic into her fingertips.
Numerous ultrasonic cutters sprayed out from nearby and began to shred Snow White’s entire body.
SCHLICK, SCHLICK!
Flesh flew, clothing tore.
Intense pain like the body was being torn apart came rushing in.
Yet Snow White did not loosen her grip until the end.
When Krumbe forced her off and stepped back, a long trail of red blood stretched between them.
Beyond her blurring vision, strange figures appeared in a place they should not be.
(Why… are La Pucelle and Ripple here?)
It might be a dream. No, it had to be a dream. She did not want them to witness this horrible hell. But it was already too late.
Within fading consciousness, a scream like tearing tore through.
“KOYUKI!!!!! SNOW WHITE!!!”
A beloved voice. The knight who had protected her and the friend who had died with her until the very end.
Snow White struggled to move her lips. A final wish spilled out between the bloody breaths.
“The back… I’ll leave it to you. Ripple, La Pucelle…”
With those words, Snow White’s entire body was wrapped in light.
The forced transformation was released, and beyond it, the tender body of Himekawa Koyuki had already been torn apart beyond recognition.
Cold rain fell on the wounds, but she no longer felt any pain.
This was… the point where she could finally feel at ease.
I’m sorry, Ripple, La Pucelle, Hardgore Alice.
Still…
Because you all are alive, that alone… made me happy.
Into the deep darkness where she could not even breathe, she slowly sank, carrying an unregretful smile.