In Theresa's mansion.
Everyone had just witnessed Sirin's transformation, and a mix of emotions churned inside them.
From the beginning of Teriri's story, to Sirin ultimately resolving the endless nightmare cycle of the Magical Girl, this journey had been one of growth.
That proud, stubborn girl had continued to evolve and change herself.
She had paid a heavy price—breaking free from the greenhouse-like cage that had imprisoned her—by smashing her head until it bled.
Perhaps this was the price of growing up.
But it was also a testament to the power of a young girl.
"I never thought the Herrscher of Void would actually turn out to be a good person," Kiana said with surprise.
She had finally learned to distinguish between the different "selves" within her:
Sirin, the proud and prickly one;
The Herrscher of Void, who could only taunt and provoke but never say anything helpful;
And finally, her true self—gentle and understanding.
By seeing them this way, she was able to safely remove the Spirit Spring crown from herself.
Honestly, their personalities were fairly easy to tell apart.
Even her second sister back home wasn't as sharp as that.
"Sirin did a great job," Theresa said with a smile, happily sipping half a bottle of bitter melon juice.
"Thank goodness it was a happy ending, and everyone's safe.
Magical Girl and tragedy—those two things really don't mix well."
Now that the tension of the story had passed, Theresa was fully relaxed.
Seeing Sirin out of danger and reunited with the senior magical girls brought a faint, motherly smile to her face.
After all, she was supposed to be their Auntie.
"That was a really good story," Seele said, her gentle smile spreading across her small face as she watched the happy ending.
It was so heartwarming to see everyone reunited again.
[ ??? Really now? You didn't even bother introducing Seele to everyone. Hmph!]
"But that final move from Seele," Bronya chimed in, "really reminded me of a certain reckless troublemaker. You know... that one with the giant hammer."
She pouted slightly but looked at Seele with teasing eyes, making her giggle.
"Yeah... it really was similar," Seele agreed, tears of laughter threatening to spill from the corners of her eyes.
Surely she didn't actually copy that move from Rita, did she?
"Sigh...
That unexpected line was actually a great tactic," Delta said, covering her face with one hand, half amused, half exasperated.
"But even so, we can't just let the simpletons get away with it. Someone's gotta keep them in check."
Still, it was clear she got over it quickly.
"Not a single moment to rest! We've just finished Sirin's story, and now it's time for the next act—the adorable Luna!"
Luo Mo announced with a serious expression, but his tone was brimming with excitement.
After all that emotional chaos—time for round two!
"Come on, Human! Let's get moving!"
Luna clapped gleefully, smiling brightly at him, her eyes sparkling.
Stare~
Silent glare.
Kongming just stared at Luo Mo without saying a word—expressionless, her look cold and serious like Bronya at her deadpan best. Her stare loudly declared: "Not. Amused."
"Uhh... So, what about the invincible, ultra-adorable 'Luna' Princess?"
Luo Mo tried to save face.
"Aah, as long as you keep me in your heart, I'm happy," she replied softly, fanning herself with a smile.
With the Magical Girl's story having come to a perfect end, the team faced the next challenge: disbanding.
After all, they had only come together by coincidence.
----
Now, Sirin still needed to stay in this world to handle some related matters.
From her hesitant expression, it seemed like she wanted to stay longer—perhaps to continue helping the captain and the team.
As for Delta and Kasumi, their goal had always been simple: to retrieve that strange, time-displaced item.
Now that the Magical Girl had been saved, they had achieved their mission.
As the time to part drew near, Kasumi informed the captain of the two clues she had discovered during her solo investigation:
1. The person she had been tracking—Luna—had only one target: Theresa. No one else.
2. She no longer needed to consume blood to sustain her life.
But as for the source of that second fact—she didn't say.
And just like that, only the captain and a few others remained in the group.
Coincidentally, when they had been searching for Bronie, they discovered something strange near Luna's world boundary.
It almost felt like a trap—
as if someone had deliberately thrown out a clue when they were no longer looking for one.
---
The captain was still pondering over Kasumi's clues.
If Luna no longer needed blood to survive...
Then why was she trying to establish a connection with another version of Theresa?
Was it like with Kallen—trying to maintain someone else's life?
No...
That other Theresa should be able to live independently...
Or maybe...
The truth was pointing him toward the one conclusion he least wanted to accept—
and it made cold sweat pour from his entire body.
So… was the blood-sucking merely a method to bind the other Theresas to her—as hostages?
Or… was it something even more cruel?
What did she want with so many versions of Theresa?
He didn't want to keep thinking about it.
The girl in his memories—who once only wanted to see the world outside—seemed to have become something far beyond what he could understand after so much time.
Suddenly, a wave of dizziness hit him.
Irene's image blurred in front of his eyes, and his consciousness was swallowed by a thick, stagnant fog.
He could see nothing clearly—
until a dense, blood-red mist flooded the path ahead.
....
In the distance, green vines drooped down. He chose to sidestep them.
One image after another surfaced in his mind—he accepted each one.
They were scenes from the life of that girl who had once made a promise.
She had gone through so many stories, walked such a long path.
Passing by a little shop, she thought: "What if I opened a store like this with the captain? What a joyful life that would be."
Passing by a school, she wondered: "What if I had gotten to experience the happy days of school life too? How noisy and full of memories it would be."
Passing by an amusement park, she remembered the gentle person from her memories—
and hesitated.
At that time… the promise…
She had promised to keep waiting.
But now—
she no longer wanted to see that person.
If meeting again meant a final goodbye,
then she would rather never meet again.
Even her sister eventually betrayed her,
no longer helping her complete everything.
As they grew further and further apart,
she once again became a lonely soul moving forward alone.
On her birthday, as she made a wish,
she closed her eyes and whispered:
"Disappear, 'Theresa'."
Her long eyelashes fluttered—
then she blew out the candle.
Only a pair of red eyes remained in the darkness, blinking as tears welled and fell silently.
His consciousness faded, becoming almost impossible to push forward.
He could only move his limbs stiffly, following the broken sound of sobbing as he trudged through the crimson fog that consumed everything before him.
Until—
He woke up.
And found himself… back here.
That summer night.
That unfinished promise.
That alley where the streetlamp and moonlight wove together.
The moonlight was still bright—
just like it was back then.
He knew… she was definitely waiting for him.
The line between dream and reality had completely disappeared.
What once seemed like an endless passage of time…
felt like nothing more than the blink of an eye.
Nothing had changed.
He had returned to the moment before it all began—
as if nothing had ever happened.
Everything could still be changed.
His frostbitten fingers felt numb.
But his heart burned as it pounded fiercely.
Each step forward came with the sting of a thousand needles, sharp and unrelenting.
He stared unwaveringly at the mouth of the alley.
The glow of the streetlamp formed a perfect ring of light.
He just had to go through.
Just walk through—
and he would see her: the one collapsed on the ground, gasping in pain.
That was the scene engraved into his soul through countless loops of reincarnation.
A moment he would never forget for as long as he lived.
The next turn.
Just around the next corner!
This time—
he would save her!
"Hmph~, as expected… you haven't forgotten our promise."
Under the red full moon, a girl like a crimson rose sat on the edge of a rooftop.
Her soft white hair fluttered gently in the night breeze.
One hand rested over her heart, as if she were setting down an old burden.
The smile on her face was the same as that night
so familiar it hurt.
Her voice, as soft and sweet as candy, gently drifted from her lips:
"But… I'm sorry. I don't think I can keep our promise."
The captain never saw that gasping figure he was expecting.
What he saw was the one who had been waiting for him beneath the crimson moon.
Such a beautiful scene…
And yet—
it broke his heart.
----
In the Golden Courtyard
"I told you—magical girls never meet with a tragic ending or a death flag. They always overcome their misfortunes!"
Elysia puffed up proudly like a victorious little peacock, striking a triumphant pose.
"But the problem is," Mobius responded with an exasperated sigh, hands open, "I never said the ending would be bad either. I also said it wouldn't be tragic. And look—see? That consciousness really didn't intend to harm anyone. It was helping Sirin."
"…Ah, oh well. I'm used to you never agreeing with me anyway," Elysia smiled lightly after a pause, deciding to let it go.
She wasn't the type to argue just for the sake of being right. If she was mistaken, she'd admit it.
"Well then, what do you think about that part we just saw?"
Elysia asked thoughtfully.
"To be honest, I still don't understand what exactly that scene was trying to say."
"It was expressing," Mobius replied calmly, "that Luna, she wished to go against the promise."
"Hnngh~ Hmmm ♪"
Elysia frowned slightly—she knew something felt off.
"How could that be?" She mused.
"A promise upheld after such a long and difficult wait… that should've been the most romantic moment."
"Even if she said those words under the moonlight… she must've had her reasons, ones too painful to put into words. After all, she waited for so long~♪"
"It's because she cared," Mobius sighed.
"That's exactly why she couldn't face him."
Her snake-like, icy-cold eyes looked more complicated than usual.
Though she always confronted the world with absolute rationality from the worst possible angle—
that didn't mean she liked the world for being that way.
"If someone gives up something that important to them," she said without hesitation, "it can only be because something even more important came up."
"To the girl beneath the moon," Mobius continued, "the promise may have been romantic—but the cost was someone's life."
It was like when Mobius gave up her utopia and entrusted everything to Klein.
Even if she didn't fully understand the logic behind it—
the implication alone was more than enough.
Elysia couldn't bring herself to believe it.
She didn't want to believe it.
How could two people in love…
being together…
lead to death?
That was just too cruel.
She would rather believe any other explanation—
anything but that cold, unromantic reason.
"…Sigh~"
The pink-haired girl let out a soft, helpless sigh.
Yes, of course…
For someone who cared so deeply about that promise—
what other kind of reason could there possibly be for her to break it?
"…It's just a shame," Mobius added, "that this isn't the real captain's conscious self we're seeing. It's only a projection—so he can't change the fixed past."
"But clearly," she continued,
"he realized there's something wrong with the changes that happened under the moonlight.
That's why he desperately wants to go back into the past…
to bring her back himself."
"To finally reach that fated corner,"
Elysia murmured, "
only to realize—
it wasn't the version of her he remembered…"
Her voice carried a faint melancholy.
That was just how she was—
Elysia loved the emotional highs and lows of deeply devoted people.
She was moved by their burning passion—
the joy from romantic promises, and the heartbreak from cruel goodbyes.
She loved humans for their complexity—
their chaotic, ever-changing emotions.
But it was that intense, unwavering part of them
that resonated with her the most, again and again, always striking a chord.
It was beautiful—
that shining brilliance.
....
Meanwhile, in the main hall where Luo Mo was present, the situation was much simpler.
After receiving the clues, everyone began trying to interpret what his experience truly meant.
And when they saw what the captain went through—
the dreams, the moonlight, the scenes that unfolded from someone else's perspective—
and all those small, pure wishes quietly revealed from deep inside the girl's heart—
some of them couldn't help but tear up.
Especially when the final birthday wish was spoken aloud—
Theresa's already misty eyes turned completely blank.
And from her lips came a stunned, involuntary response: "Eh?!"
Her small face was filled with disbelief,
and above her head, it was as if question marks had physically appeared.
Why would the birthday wish be—
"I wish Theresa would disappear"?
Was she really… that unwelcome to Luna?
The principal was furious—furious on her own behalf.
Because in that moment, she realized what the narrative implied:
If "Theresa disappears,"
then she herself would also disappear—
because she was Theresa too.
What kind of birthday wish was that?
To wish for your own disappearance?
She didn't dare think about it any further.
But pity and sorrow had already drowned her heart.
She cast a quiet, vulnerable glance at Luo Mo.
That man…
Was deeply, truly in love.
Did he realize that?
He wrote the script himself.
So how could he not understand?
Or maybe…
He did.
And that's why her heart was now in complete turmoil.
-----
Captain's consciousness slowly sank into a space of chaos—there was no light around, but he seemed to hear something, a faint voice urging him.
"Quickly… haha… go…"
"Quickly… leave… from here…"
A dark red dress fluttered faintly on the body of a pale-haired young girl. She seemed to be injured and couldn't lift her head.
That was a past he could never forget—a beginning point of a story.
"Even though I still want to personally taste the flavor of an ice cream sundae, to touch the puppet Homu's face with my own hands…"
"But this is fine. I'm already very satisfied."
In his memory, she smiled as she looked toward the brightly lit city.
She clearly said she was satisfied. She clearly smiled. But her face was still filled with regret.
"Dance with me… just here, in this place."
In that moonlit space, the young girl reached out her hand.
It was a memory of past loneliness, a regretful possibility in all the observations and evaluations.
"A vampire doesn't believe in gods, nor in fate. But for you to appear before me like this… it must be the greatest miracle I've ever witnessed."
"So no matter how far apart we are… we will meet again."
"I will keep waiting for you, no matter how long I have to wait… Vampires are very long-lived, after all. What we're best at is endless waiting…"
Back then, she had solemnly made that promise—to someone she had barely just met.
So he would go see her, to fulfill a promise made long ago.
As long as he remembers again and again, he will never forget that girl.
As long as he keeps walking in her direction, they will meet again one day—
Maybe… just maybe…
"Don't… don't come here…"
"Human, don't come here… this is fine… this is enough… please… don't…"
The girl from the promise seemed to be enduring great pain. She raised her small face, which was contorted with pain, yet still tried to force a smile. But this time… she rejected his approach.
He stood frozen on the spot. Even though at this moment his limbs were stiff and every step felt like walking on blades, he still slowly and determinedly walked forward.
He reached out, wanting to touch her, wanting to say something—
But at that moment, the stream of consciousness suddenly cut off.
When he opened his eyes again, he saw Irene's worried face in front of him.
Why?
Why didn't she want him to come closer?
And this pain… why was it getting more and more intense?
His head felt as heavy as lead, and he gave up on thinking. He turned his gaze to the warship outside the window.
The air outside was bright but strangely familiar. He had returned—to the world where they once met Luna.
This time… it was reality.