Chapter 141 – Star (7)

It’s different from cutting or flying with a slash.
The space in front that Rapid was aware of was completely split.
This is unavoidable.

“Ah… ?!”

As I ran towards Esther, who had stabbed a fiery sword, I heard Rapid’s frightened voice.
The magic has already been activated.
Can’t be canceled

“No… !”

The body that has already kicked off the ground goes into Rapid’s magic.
With the voice of Grape, who noticed the situation belatedly, Rapid’s magic rips through the space.
The ground splits, the air splits, the light splits.
The magical power flowing from Esther splits, the fire splits, and Grape’s barrier is torn apart.

Esther’s eyes widen, and the fiery sword quickly disappears.
The tentacle tail and wings pull me in.
Esther’s magical power blocks Rapid’s magic, and in the moment of enduring, my body is pulled out of the line of fire.

A chilling sensation licks my back and my hair is cut off without a sound.
The blood that was swept up by the powerful magical power hits the head.
And immediately after that, a dark tunnel split vertically with flashes of light shining right next to me.

Now I get it.
Even if the hypnosis of not being able to attack works properly, the attack will not be canceled if I intervene.
What I gave is a command to block execution, not an emergency stop command.

“Huh… ! Heo-eok… ! Heo-eok… !”

My whole body trembles as I belatedly realize how stupid I’ve been when I see the neatly split vertical lines.
My heart, which had been hardened in surprise, held its breath quietly and then beat faster and faster.
The sound of thumping thumping fills my ears.

Running into a magical girl’s magic is tantamount to committing suicide.
You should know that hypnosis isn’t perfect, but this kind of thing is dangerous and the risk is high… My body moved on its own.
As if he had become someone else, he moved.

“Uh? Uh?!”
“Anger?! What!”
“What are you doing!”

Rapid and Grape’s panicked voices are heard, followed immediately by Esther’s angry voice.
I was startled by the loud sound, and when I came to my senses, I felt a soft and fluffy touch on my face.
I raise my trembling head, open my eyes, and the blood is flowing so fast that I can’t focus properly, so I see Esther’s face sitting on top of me with a surprised face.

Suddenly, Esther untied his arms from holding me tightly and touched my body with the hand that had erased the sword of fire.
Judging from the crunching sound coming from the side of the head that the hand touched, it seems that the back of the hair that was just cut off by magic has been shortened considerably.
The collar seems to have shortened, but there are no scratches on the body.

“You you… This… What… !”
“Omg… Omg…”

I understand that an angry Esther is demanding an answer from me about why I disturbed her… Words don’t come out well.
Just throwing one’s body is more out of breath than sprinting.

“Magic Girl… Main… Perishing… Heo-eok… Ha…”

I thought I was going to die from a magical girl.
I was about to say it without thinking, but I was so out of breath that I couldn’t finish my words and started taking deep breaths.
However… I suddenly feel a strange gaze on me, who is still breathing.

Esther is looking down at me.
While holding his hand holding his arm tightly, he has a face he has never seen before, and a look he is seeing for the first time.
It’s a strange look that looks like she’s about to cry or is surprised to realize something.

“Because of that, because of that?!”
“Uh… ?”
“Bar… Not stupid… ?! Really… You… !”

I don’t know what I’ve realized or what I’m thinking.
My left hand is throbbing, but I can’t get my thoughts through.
Emotions are so big and complicated that it feels like you can’t pass through the aisle and get blocked.

“Esther!”

Then, Grape suddenly pointed his sword in front of him and charged.
Esther immediately spread her wings and stood up while holding me, and with her sharp claws, she slashed Grape’s sword.
At the same time, Rapid reached out to me and squeezed his open hand.

“These children again… !”

My body was gently pulled by Rapid’s magic, and Grape’s sword swung continuously toward Esther.
In a situation where the position of protecting and taking away from each other seems to have changed again, Esther’s magical power boils.
Esther, who had been brushing the side of the sword with her fingernails, stopped moving with the sword in her hand, as if something had suddenly popped into her head.

“Sheesh.”
“Oh?!”

Esther pushed me toward Grape with a voice that sounded reluctant.
Grape, taken aback by the unexpected movement, embraced me with the hand holding the melted shield and hugged me.
I get a strange feeling from the soft, squeezing pressure.

“… I’m tired.”
“… Uh?”
“I’m tired, ah~ I’m tired… I want to go back.”

Esther suddenly said something absurd and spread her wings wide as she glanced at me as Grape held me.
Slowly lifting herself up, Esther raises a finger and flicks it down in the air, and suddenly the space begins to distort and split.
As if to say that going back is not a lie, he is openly opening a dimensional door.

“Like that, cheating again… !”
“It’s not cheating, so lower your sword!”

Seeing Rapid and Grape, who pretended to run away again this time and were wary of attacking from somewhere else, Esther said in annoyance.
“Don’t be suspicious,” Esther glanced at me as she put a hand and a foot through the unopened portal.
The moment our eyes met, the tail waggled gently, then stood upright and stopped.

“I’m going to stop here for today. Anyway, I think it would be my victory if I tried more here, and it was too weak to be fun.”
“What the hell this time…”
“Ah! Because you’re not doing anything! If you just leave after this, you should be grateful!”

Esther, annoyed at her moderation, forced her legs into the half-open portal.
Now I can’t move on my own.
I really have no intention of doing anything more, and it can be seen as an action meant to just go back like this.

The magic of the black fire that burned the surroundings was all gone.
Even around Esther, only a little bright red magic shimmered, and I felt that she was no longer raising her magic power.
Esther has no intention of fighting here anymore.

If they attack now, it seems that they can fatally wound Esther, but Rapid and Grape, taken aback by the sudden change of situation, just stared blankly at Esther entering the portal.
Esther sticks out her torso from the dimensional door that shatters with a crackling sound, staring at me silently.
His left hand tingles like static electricity, and Esther’s thoughts come through in a blur.

Are you worried… ?
I’m annoyed, and I’m pathetic.
But somehow he looks happy.

“Since I’m going, you guys rescue me like a magical girl. There is someone there to rescue you.”
“Suddenly why…”
“I don’t know, I want to go back. I hate fighting.”
“Esther? No way… On the negative… ?”
“Don’t be weird, Rapid, it’s already too late. If you wanted that in the first place, you should have brought me back with your special skill, right?”
“That… Oops…”

The atmosphere suddenly turned strange.
Grape and Esther are talking like friends, as if their fight a while ago was a lie.
A conversation between a magical girl who was infected and became Negative’s executive and her friend, it sounds very awkward.

As if we were friends… No, come to think of it, these three were not originally on bad terms.
Ash, Rapid, Grape, Esther, Lily… The five acted together in the early days of Negative Heist.
Not now but…

“Ah, Grape… You… The shield worked well. Why didn’t you write until now?”
“Uh, huh?”
“Huh… ? Come to think of it, didn’t you have a shield in the first place?”
“Uh, uh… But Ash doesn’t suit me…”
“… Ash?”

Grape, who answered spontaneously because of her memory of Esther as a magical girl, looked down at the shield in surprise.
Grape’s expression hardened as if he belatedly remembered that the shield he was wearing now was not his.
The shield is already burnt and tattered by Esther’s magical power.

Louie’s shield is an expensive piece of equipment made of the same special material as Grape’s sword.
Knowing this, Grape’s face turned pale.
A sigh came from Grape’s mouth as he hugged me tightly.

“… The shield doesn’t fit? Is that?”

Upon hearing Grape’s answer, Esther muttered a strange expression, then raised her head and looked towards Rapid.
Esther, who was still watching Rapid, turned his head and disappeared into his dimensional door.
The dimensional door that swallowed Esther made a crackling sound and returned to its original form as if pulling a distorted metal plate with force to open it.

I heard that the negative cadre can open the dimensional gate he moves alone in an instant… Really.
It disappeared really quickly.
Esther disappeared and I was left in the tunnel with Grape and Rapid.
Embarrassingly, the urgent situation came to an abrupt end.