Chrysanthemums for the Departed

Colt held something in his hand…

A black metal collar?

Slam!

“Ah! What are you doing?!!!”

I only felt a whoosh of air by my ear, yet I couldn’t even discern Colt’s movements. To someone like me, a ‘pseudo’ ordinary person, Colt’s speed was comparable to that of light.

Indeed, for an average person, what significant difference existed between a bullet hurtling towards them and a beam of light?

I felt my neck constrict, tightly bound by something.

It felt like steel, yet as I focused on the sensation…

Hiss! Hiss!

Something sharply pierced the skin around my neck. Then, in the very next instant, an indescribable dizziness washed over me, and all the pain receded like a fading tide.

The strange metallic sensation vanished instantly. My slender neck now felt as if nothing at all was there.

“Hey…”

Though I desperately wanted to question the true purpose of this half-ghost before me, the fellow seemed utterly deaf to my words.

Then, Xingtian clapped me on the shoulder.

“Little girl, time will tell you everything.”

“I… shall take my leave!”

“Wait! Don’t give up on curi—”

“Urgh!”

And so… Xingtian died.

****

A half-corpse, still dripping with blood, remained on the ground.

Suppressing the urge to complain about the male corpse, I directly grabbed his leg—which was easily seven or eight times thicker than my wrist—and dragged him into the small grove behind Mikazuki Elementary School.

Upon reaching the gardening teacher’s prep room in the woods, I rummaged for some shovels used by the school staff for planting flowers and grass. With one, I dug a space large enough for a person, then slowly began to bury him.

Time flew by.

The sun rose on the side of the world, for me, casting a pale, white halo.

Within the forest’s green expanse, a girl with a sweet smile diligently worked the soil, wielding a small shovel roughly the size of a broom.

Golden daisies now bloomed there.

“Ah… Chrysanthemums blooming truly bring sorrow for partings…”

“Yet this young lady… Pfft… this lord had no intention of parting ways with a creature like you!”

This spot, however, where these daisies now flourished, had once been a barren pit.

To help Uncle Xingtian’s soul ascend to heaven sooner, I decided to plant chrysanthemums here, hoping to purify his spirit.

In reality, however, I simply didn’t want the corpse to be discovered by the elementary school teachers.

‘Could you imagine? During an elementary school gardening class, several adorable children, their faces alight with anticipation for a bright future and the thriving plants beneath their hands, suddenly unearthing half of something… unpleasant while digging?’

‘Do you have any idea how much psychological trauma that would inflict upon these ‘flowers of the nation’?!’

“Huff… huff huff.”

After catching my breath, I gazed at the vibrant, flourishing daisies before me and quietly bowed to Uncle Colt, who now slept beneath the earth. After all, the existence of ability users was to ensure this rational world continued, allowing people to keep writing new chapters in history.

“Well… Farewell, Uncle Colt!”

I bowed again.

“Don’t worry, you won’t be lonely…”

“When Double Ninth arrives, I’ll return to plant more chrysanthemums.”

I waved my hand towards the flat ground. Perhaps only I knew that today, there was one less superpower user in this world… right?

Splash, splash, splash…

Gurgle, gurgle…

Though I yearned for sleep, the persistent, sticky sensation on my hands remained utterly repulsive.

“I’ll wash it!”

Despite my slender, fair hands, so translucent that veins were faintly visible, I still felt that clinging stickiness—a viscous residue that no amount of scrubbing could remove.

It was the heavy weight of a human life.

It was a turbidity that even the clearest waters could not wash away.

However, my fair, delicate face revealed no solemn mourning for a lost life; instead, it was etched with a profound sense of disgust.

“Argh! So troublesome! How do I get rid of this mental mysophobia?!”

—’So that’s what you were worried about!’

After meticulously purifying my arms dozens of times with soap and the remaining half-bottle of strawberry-scented hand soap, I finally stumbled back to my bedroom, drowsy and spent.

Snore…

Before I even collapsed onto my bed, I began to snore, seemingly mid-air.

With the immense power of my mental mysophobia finally appeased, not even a divine miracle could disturb my peaceful slumber!

“…Snore… I had only planned for an hour, but it took so long… Still…”

“…To acquire a… rather impressive-sounding Conceptual Armament without any effort… I’m already… snore… content.”

Releasing all my worries, even my faintly aching brain succumbed to absolute slumber under the veil of deep, dark consciousness.

A song was weeping.

Like an endless spiral, my consciousness was swept away by ethereal dreams.