Going Dark Makes You Three Times Stronger

Just as the tentacles reached toward Natsume Oto, they were instead seized by her outstretched hand.

“She broke free! How is that possible?”

The monster leader’s tone was filled with shock.

Wasn’t the Magical Girl of Wednesday already out of mana?

A surge of searing heat caused the liquid tentacles to evaporate in an instant.

“I’m going to send you straight to hell!”

Raging flames engulfed Natsume Oto’s body, their color shifting from red to pitch black, and the slime mass was swiftly burned away.

Her once-clear eyes were now filled with inky darkness, blood-red patterns surfacing on the skin of her right temple as a curved demon horn emerged.

Black flames swept outward, instantly melting the metal walls they touched into crimson molten iron, which then crumbled into ash.

“How is this possible!”

Explosions rang out one after another, and just as the monster leader let out an unwilling shriek, it was swallowed by the surging dark flames.

When the smoke and dust cleared, the massive underground base had been reduced to a charred crater.

“Hahaha! Exhilarating! Burn, explode, destroy everything!”

At the bottom of the crater, Natsume Oto laughed wildly.

She would burn even the things she once cherished—leaving nothing behind…

A silver figure surfaced in her mind.

No, I won’t do that!

With fierce resistance, Natsume Oto’s consciousness suppressed the malice and regained a brief moment of clarity.

She stared at the flickering black flames in her hand in disbelief.

“Did I do this?”

“Heh heh heh. Of course you did, Magical Girl of Wednesday…

Or perhaps I should call you something else—how about the Black Flame Witch?”

From the shadows, a curly-haired sprite appeared, its expression unusually cold.

“Uru, you’re alive!”

Seeing Uru, Natsume Oto rushed toward him in excitement.

The surrounding violent malice immediately locked onto Uru as its target.

He was burned to ash bit by bit.

“What’s going on?”

As she tried to gather Uru’s ashes, black flames extended anew from them in her hands, and Natsume Oto collapsed to the ground in despair.

Did she kill Uru?

“Only a half-witch?

No wonder you’re not fully under my control—how troublesome, ku ku.”

Another Uru appeared out of thin air, though this one stayed far away from Natsume Oto.

“Why are there so many Urus?

Is something trying to control my body?”

Just as she tried to make sense of it all, a violent pain exploded in her consciousness, forcing Natsume Oto to clutch her head.

The black flames on her body surged upward, then quickly subsided, repeating over and over.

Seeing this, Uru scratched his chin irritably with his hoof.

“According to my calculations, you’re only one step away from completely losing control.

The death of my clone did indeed become the fuse that pushed you toward witchification.

But why did the transformation get stuck?”

The sensation reminded Uru of eagerly starting a game in the past, only for the loading screen to freeze at 99%.

That remaining 1% was very likely the final connection anchoring Natsume Oto’s consciousness.

A connection?

Suddenly, Uru thought of another magical girl in Qingteng City.

“Natsume Oto, you’re still attached to Magical Girl Silver Moon, aren’t you?

Ku ku.”

The moment she heard “Silver Moon,” the black flames on Natsume Oto’s body were abruptly forced back.

“What are you trying to do!”

The words were practically squeezed out between clenched teeth.

Uru understood immediately.

“So it really is because of Silver Moon.”

In other cities, Uru had seen many magical girls interact.

But they always distrusted and guarded against one another.

Someone like Wednesday, who formed such a deep bond with Kirishima Shiro merely after a few months—

Uru had never seen that before.

And precisely because of this naïve belief in so-called love and justice, Magical Girl Wednesday possessed the greatest potential Uru had ever seen.

Ordinary magical girls didn’t have the strength to nearly wipe out an entire monster organization on their own.

If Wednesday were turned into a witch, the resulting complete contract would surely boost its performance tremendously.

“In that case, you’d surely be very interested in personally killing Magical Girl Silver Moon in battle, wouldn’t you?”

A teasing smile spread across Uru’s face.

That expression stripped away any trace of its former cute innocence, leaving only a chilling sense of eeriness.

“Bastard!”

Natsume Oto finally saw through Uru’s intentions.

The black flames in her palm rapidly condensed into several fist-sized fireballs and shot toward Uru.

But even if this Uru was destroyed, another would soon appear.

The fireballs struck the scorched ground at her feet, kicking up clouds of dust mixed with lingering sparks, forming a thick curtain of smoke.

“I wouldn’t recommend attacking me like that.

It’ll only make you suffer more, and you might accidentally complete your witch transformation.”

When the smoke was blown away by a strong gust of wind, Natsume Oto was no longer there.

“She ran away?

A wise choice.

Then I suppose I’ll go find Silver Moon next.

Ku ku.”

Surveying the massive crater, Uru silently took out a Nightmare Scale.

Before that, it would clean up this mess to avoid further complications.

What Uru never expected was that it was precisely this act of using the scale that allowed Florna to witness the entire spectacle.

The footage ended there.

【Magical girls? Witches? Killing each other?】

The overload of information left the eyeball spinning with dizzy spirals.

Was it simply too young and inexperienced, or had the world changed too fast?

Were these really the magical girls it knew, the ones who protected cities?

Beside it, Florna pondered silently.

“Uru stepping in to block the blow at the start wasn’t for protection.

It was meant to intensify Natsume Oto’s hatred and accelerate her witchification.

But it didn’t expect Silver Moon to hold such an important place in her heart, resulting only in a half-witch state.”

That was why Uru stopped pretending to be a mascot and revealed its ugly true face.

Not even trying to act anymore.

From this, it seemed that with Natsume Oto missing, Uru had gone to look for Kirishima Shiro.

Didn’t that mean that as long as she stayed by Kirishima Shiro’s side, she could catch Uru?

Just as Florna was about to go find Kirishima Shiro, the computer emitted a piercing red alert.

“Warning.

Scale holder detected to be in life-threatening danger.”

The image on the screen shifted, showing a rabbit-eared girl surrounded by a sea of black flames, her situation grim.

“Shiro has already gone to find Natsume Oto!”

Florna’s expression immediately turned anxious.

…

The Qinglan River is the main water system running through Qingteng City.

It originates deep in the western mountains, and where the river plunges from mountain to plain, it forms Qingteng City’s iconic landmark—the Qinglan Waterfall.

This ancient waterfall has witnessed the city’s founding, the rise and fall of dynasties, and the cycles of life and death.

In other words, it’s seen just about everything.

Suddenly, two bursts of light exploded violently.

The collision of blazing flames and icy brilliance shattered the mist, sending droplets of water raining down.

Jets of black fire vaporized the incoming frost magic bullets, leaving scorched marks on the rock walls.

Well then.

This clash of ice and fire—it truly had never seen before.

“Go!

I don’t want to hurt you!”

As Natsume Oto struggled for control against the malice, she desperately tried to persuade her.

Kirishima Shiro stood atop the pool at the base of the waterfall, translucent ice forming beneath her feet.

“Senior, I will definitely find a way to bring you back to normal.”

With that, she leapt into the air, raising her hand to summon three ice lances, diving upward along the waterfall’s flow.