Chapter 17: A Dream of Shadows and Kinship

“Where am I?”

Mona gazed around, her senses clouded. The darkness enveloping her was thick and silent, heavy as mud, and it pressed down on her, stealing her breath.

Her mind refused to function, yet her body instinctively surged forward, fleeing into the deeper shadows. It felt as if countless sharp spider silks were relentlessly pursuing her from behind.

“Ha… ha…”

No matter how frantically she ran, even compressing the last vestiges of air in her lungs proved futile. Her throat rasped with hoarse gasps, yet she remained ensnared by the spiderweb at her back.

‘Run, no matter what. I must lead the Cadaver Beast away from the child.’

‘She cannot endure what I have endured.’

She seemed to witness a Mona identical to herself, with golden hair and a white dress. This other Mona was disheveled, clutching a small girl, frantically weaving through a temple, dodging the black mud-like spider silks that chased her.

Finally, the other Mona chose to hide the little girl in a room, gazing back at her own injured self with a look of helpless vulnerability, before venturing out alone to lure away the Spider Cadaver Beast.

‘Are these my memories?’

‘Why did I save that little girl back then? We were complete strangers.’

As if hearing Mona’s unspoken question, the trembling little girl hiding behind the door in her mind began to transform. Her hair turned white, and her features gradually morphed to resemble Mona’s.

The surrounding walls erupted in flames, a roaring inferno consuming everything. In an instant, the environment shifted, becoming a ruined courtyard.

‘This is… the orphanage where I grew up?’

Little Mona knelt on the ground, helplessly observing her surroundings. At her feet lay the dying body of the orphanage director, who reached out to Mona, their eyes filled with fearful resentment, and weakly uttered two words.

“Calamity star!”

Black mud seeped through the cracks in the stones. A Cadaver Beast, wreathed in flames, twisted into a grin as it incinerated the still-breathing director into ash before her very eyes.

Black ashes, carried by the wind, floated through the air and settled on little Mona’s stunned head.

‘Should I run?’

‘Do I deserve to run?’

‘No, not a calamity star like me.’

‘I have no right to live in this world.’

The little girl gasped for breath, her vacant eyes reflecting the distorted, eerie flames. She looked helplessly at the Cadaver Beast approaching her, seemingly resigned to death.

Just at that critical moment, a figure stepped in front of her, opening their arms and embracing Mona.

“Little Nai, from today onwards, I, your brother, will protect you for your entire life.”

‘Brother?’

‘Was it that brother who was always cold, always stern, never speaking, who treated us like strangers despite us being blood siblings?’

‘My brother always protected his sister?’

Looking at the body embracing her and the unprecedented concern on the young man’s face, the girl’s eyes, hidden by white hair, sparkled with life.

The warmth of kinship burned more fiercely than the surrounding flames, coloring Mona’s otherwise blank life, much like her hair. The word ‘brother’ became etched onto Mona’s heart.

Mona couldn’t fathom why these images suddenly flooded her mind, but she now understood why she had saved that little girl. This newfound clarity gave her the resolve to press onward through the darkness.

As if to affirm this, a glimmer of light reappeared in the darkness before her.

‘Just reach that place, just reach there!’

‘Ugh, my head is still so dizzy.’

Hazily, she saw a familiar silhouette waving at her from within the light, making Mona yearn to run towards them. She gritted her teeth, pouring all her strength into reaching the beacon of light.

‘Brother!’

This silhouette was one she would never forget; it was her brother, who had once protected her!

She seemed to recall that she had just run towards her most beloved brother in a similar fashion. While evading the Spider Cadaver Beast’s attack in the jungle, she had also seemed to recall the past, and had suddenly seen her brother’s figure.

Both of them, then and now, had flung themselves uncontrollably towards that illusory light and shadow.

No matter the time or moment, Mona longed to embrace her family, separated for ten long years.

This was her sole wish, the reason she had endured for a decade after transforming into a Magical Girl.

The light slowly dimmed, and her brother’s figure was enveloped by endless darkness, transforming from a black cocoon into a white-haired girl wearing a bat mask.

Blood Demon Princess Ira slowly raised her hand. In the vision, Moyue, who had transformed into Magical Girl: White Rose, raised their hand in sync.

The two girls smiled simultaneously.

‘Brother, I miss you so much!’

‘I long to embrace you once more!’

But then, the figure vanished, replaced by a black mud-like spider silk, lying in wait.

Whoosh!

In that instant.

Mona’s body was pierced by the spider silk. She felt her heart stop beating, and the surrounding darkness seemed to become eternal.

The subsequent spider silks seemed to materialize into countless hands, seizing her falling body, slowly encasing her entirely, and dragging her into the abyss.

‘Brother?’

Her brother’s figure seemed to recede further and further, growing more unfamiliar, more blurred.

Another woman appeared beside him, and her brother affectionately called the woman “Sister,” embracing her with a shy smile Mona had never witnessed before.

‘Brother has become someone else’s sister now. Brother is no longer Mona’s brother…’

‘Brother can no longer protect Little Nai; he will no longer embrace Little Nai.’

‘Brother… it seems he broke his promise…’

Powerless, all she could do was reach out to the two sisters before her, who were sharing a warm moment, praying to grasp that fading light. Her gray-blue pupils slowly lost their luster, and iridescent black mud seeped from her eye sockets into her eyes.

Mona’s lips curled into a desolate smile. Her distorted eyes yearned to imprint her brother, now transformed into the Blood Demon Princess, deeply into her mind.

‘Brother doesn’t belong to Little Nai anymore!’

‘Little Nai cannot lose her brother!’

‘Brother must—’

“Alright, time to wake up!”

Boom!

A clear voice rang out. Mona’s eyes snapped open, and she abruptly sat upright, gasping for breath, drenched in cold sweat.

Startled, the two parrots perched by her bed fluttered to the table, casting reproachful glances at Mona.

The familiar surroundings—the familiar ceiling, Dumpling, and Milk—told Mona she was home.

‘How did I get home?’

Mona’s head throbbed. For a moment, she couldn’t recall what had happened. She only vaguely remembered a very strange dream, but no matter how she tried to recall its content, her mind remained blank. She merely had a lingering sensation that a seed had been planted in her brain.

After about half a minute, fragmented memories resurfaced. Mona remembered that she had transformed into a Magical Girl to save a little girl and fought a Cadaver Beast, only to suffer a crushing defeat, her body pierced through.

‘Then why was I able to return home safely?’

As Mona pondered this, she turned her head and saw Ira lying beside her bed, a relieved smile gracing her lips.

‘Sister Ira?’

‘That’s right, at the last moment, I did tell Dumpling to fly to Sister Ira, to have her find Teacher Bele.’

It seemed they had made it in time. Even in her unconscious state, Mona had felt an embrace as warm as her brother’s.

‘Sister Ira is indeed the most suitable woman to be my sister-in-law! Even the warmth of her embrace is so similar to my brother’s! When my brother returns, I must make him marry Sister Ira!’

‘Sister Ira must stay by my side, always.’

Mona, gazing at Ira with the eyes one would use for a future sister-in-law, carefully climbed out of bed, trying not to disturb the sleeping Ira.

Yet, for some unknown reason, a trace of a peculiar emotion lingered in Mona’s gaze towards Ira. An emotion she herself couldn’t quite comprehend.

Any life that touches black mud, even a single drop, will be dragged into the abyss.