小嫂子的味道

"You say that you can\'t handle all the demon beasts, right? So that\'s the problem. But in my plan, I never intended for you to fight them. The only thing we have to accomplish here is to get our parents safely out of there. That is your and my main objective," she said as she circled around Zero. 

"And how am I supposed to do that without fighting the beasts?" Zero asked. 

"Don\'t twist my words here. I never said you won\'t have to fight the beasts, it\'s just that when you will fight them, you will be by yourself," she clarified. 

Zero stared at her, in hopes that she will explain what she meant. And she understood that. 

"When I will send you back in time, on the morning of the academy festival, the first thing you have to do is go to Ryfin\'s room," she said. 

"Ryfin?"

"Yeah. I don\'t know where but you\'ll find a book there that contains the instructions to cast a certain magic circle. Take that book with yourself and escape without getting noticed by Ryfin."

"And what book may this be?" Zero questioned. 

"It\'s a teleportation magic circle," she said. "I don\'t think I need to say what you will use it for. Get that book and come to your parents as fast as you can and then use it to teleport them to the safe location before the calamity arrives."

"I see. But the way you put it I guess I can\'t use that circle to teleport myself, right?" Zero mentioned. 

"Yeah, you\'re right about that. Not entirely though. Technically you can use that circle to teleport yourself but you don\'t have enough mana to activate it more than one time— or you will die from mana exhaustion. So I\'ll suggest you use it only to transport your parents."

"Hmmm, but can\'t Req use it instead of me?" Zero asked. 

"No, you can\'t. We would have been super lucky if that were possible," she replied. 

"He— or she, I guess, is right. I can\'t use the new spells that have been created in this world, nor can I access any of those magic circles. The only way to use magic for me is through the Requiem sword," Req explained. 

"So that won\'t work huh…"Zero mumbled. 

"It\'s the same for me. Apparently, once you become a spiritual being you have to use your own magic, you can\'t interact with the spells or magic circles that already exist in the world or are newly created. It\'s a…condition sort of," Zero of the future said. 

"But you shouldn\'t worry about it too much. Once your parents are safe you can fight without any care, and you will be able to focus just on fighting than back when you were also protecting them. So I guess it will work out. You will be alone, so you can also just sneak your way out."

"That\'s true but, I still don\'t feel all good about this," Zero mentioned. "Will this really work? The time travel I mean?" 

"Yes it will, the proof is standing right in front of you," she said as she stopped before him. She spread her arms wide on both sides and passed him a slight smile. 

As Zero watched the smile on her face, he noticed that her eyes twitched for a moment. And there as she stood with her arms wide open and carrying a smile on her face, she coughed and a trail of blood dripped down her lips. 

"Now, we better get this done quickly. Seems like time\'s running out," she said and walked behind Zero. From there she passed him and stopped before Req. 

She put her arms on Req\'s shoulder and leaned in from the back. 

"I know you want to save just him, but you will fail every time unless you save his parents. I think you have just seen what happens if his parents die," she whispered in Req\'s ears. 

Req was shocked to hear this, but then she remembered who she was talking to and in what state he was. Thus she took a breath and said, "I will."

Zero of the future moved away from her and came back in front of Zero. 

"Let\'s get started, shall we," she said. "Firstly, Req. Switch with Requiem; I can\'t transport two people."

Req did as she instructed. She stretched out her hand toward Zero and he held it, and she transformed back into the Requiem Sword. 

"You know what you have to do, right?" she asked, looking at Zero. 

"Yeah," he replied. 

"Good. Now—"

"Wait!" Zero said, stopping her midway. "If I go back in time and change things, then you will disappear from existence, right?" 

"Yes, you are right. I will," she replied. 

"But… why. Isn\'t that wrong? I mean, technically to save my future I am destroying your present," he reasoned. 

"Haha, that\'s funny. Since when did you start caring about others, and about what\'s right or wrong," she laughed, only a little bit though. 

Zero didn\'t reply. It was more like he couldn\'t find the words to say. 

"Anyway, I have an answer to that. You are not destroying my present, because it is already destroyed— I destroyed it. And you are erasing me from existence since I am going to die anyway," she said. 

"There you go, now don\'t waste much time. We can\'t have all this go to ruins, can we?" saying that she moved close to him. 

Zero had a lot of things he wanted to say, but for some reason, all that left his mouth was silence. Perhaps it was because he had so many things to say, so many questions to ask, and so many queries to solve, that he couldn\'t say anything. 

She stopped when she was just a step away from Zero, and looked into his eyes. 

"Bye-bye, my past self," she said; and for the first time, there was a hint of emotions in her voice. "I hope you do things differently and don\'t turn out like me."

With that, she put both her arms on Zero\'s chest and pushed him back. 

He hadn\'t expected it to go like this, thus he was startled a bit and stretched out his right hand to grab something and stop himself from falling. 

But soon after, before his hand could reach anywhere, everything that was before his eyes shattered into pieces— as if the world he was seeing until now was a reflection in a mirror and now that mirror had been broken. 

The pieces of reality slowly moved away from him as he fell backward. In one of those pieces, he saw the reflection of his future self. She was there, looking at him and smiling while she waved goodbye to him. 

Soon that image disappeared too as all of the pieces vanished into nothingness. Everything around him turned black, and he kept falling down where there didn\'t seem to be an end. 

Then after a few seconds, his consciousness gave away, and he didn\'t remember anything that happened after that.