It approaches me.

No, I'm the one approaching it. My body is swung around like a broken toy by the mass behind me, I don't resist, I just go with the flow.

I turn around, taking my eyes away from the beast, I can hear it be taken apart and yet-

"It's not okay, you know that?" the second head asks.

"Even if you do, it won't change unless you do something about it," the fourth head says- wait, fourth?

"Tell me, what was more important to her? What was it?" the 12th head asks. Every time a head is cut by the unseen force behind me, two more grow to replace it. My power is pretty handy, I don't have to do anything, just let it tear it to pieces and not think about it too hard.

"You know what she wanted then? Are you afraid that nothing will be left when you finally take a step back?" the 325th head asks. The snakelike heads are flooding the room, I'm not afraid of the beast though, I'm afraid of something else. The heads aren't trying to get a hold of me, they are trying to grab what's behind me, the thing inside me.

"What! Did! She! Want!" All the heads extend and coil around it. It forces it in front of me, random body parts slapped together haphazardly, and in the middle, I can see her eye.

Ha.

I walk toward it, or maybe she walks towards me. I want to see you again, I really do, I'd do anything for that. But I think I get it now, or maybe I always knew it.

You wanted me to be happy more than you wanted me to remember you. But I don't, I want this memory of you more than my own happiness. Are those two things truly incompatible? Do I really have to choose? Or can I do this forever until I find a compromise in infinity?

Is it so much to ask for a clear answer, one that will feel right? You can't answer me anymore, I know it's not you, just how I remembered you. But I know you'd be angry at me if you saw me right now, so I must be doing something wrong. But I don't want to stop, it feels like it's too late to stop.

What was the word for this again? Sunken cost fallacy, when you've invested so much into something you feel like stopping now would be a waste. A waste of what? Of time? Can you really waste something you have an infinite amount of? What was my excuse again? What did I do all this for again? There was a reason, wasn't it? There must have been. Please tell me there was a reason, that I exist for something, that all I've done until now served some kind of purpose.

I keep digging into my memory, but there's nothing there that justifies it, it doesn't even make sense from a selfish point of view. I wish I was an idiot, because it'd be the perfect excuse, but the truth is a lot worse.

The truth is that I hate you.

I hate that you made me feel something at all.

I hate that you made me hope for something more.

I hate that you showed me what it felt like to be alive.

I hate that you left, even if it wasn't your fault at all.

I wish you just ignored me back then, then maybe I would've kept on doing nothing, then maybe I would've had a valid excuse for being the way I am now.

...wasn't there someone that felt the same way? I wonder if they hate me too. I wonder if they hate me for making them hope for something more.

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I can feel something grab my legs, the heads surround me, I can't see her eye anymore, but I can feel her eye in my head, her image clearer than it ever was. The heads are biting and tearing into my skin, but even then-

Dénouement

All the heads explode in a shower of black gore, I can hear a bloodcurdling scream despite the fact there are no heads to scream with, more heads try to grow, but they explode all the same, over and over. The blood spilling from the beast starts to fill the room until the dark liquid reach my knees.

"That's enough, back in you go!" Enouement puts her hand in the blood and takes something resembling a beating heart out of the black pool, then throws it inside the cage that held the beast. After a couple snaps of her hands, the blood and chunks of meat in the room all rush towards the heart as if they were attracted by a black hole, after a moment, the cage closes itself and the dark organic matter forms itself back into the three-headed lizard that it originally was. The beast no longer moves or speaks, it simply observes us again from the inside of the cage.

Enouement apparently transformed into her magical girl form when I wasn't looking, it's a dark blue dress with a bunch of dirt stains on it, I don't know if those stains were left by the beast or if that's just part of her costume. She knocks on a small white dome, and the dome retracts to reveal the man inside.

"So, Jack. What do we have here?" she asks.

"We have willful ignorance, fear and...I want to say nostalgia? This one isn't as strong," Jack answers, tapping on an electronic tablet.

"What about her power?"

"Automatic, doesn't look like she has much control over it. It works better when she looks away, source is...I want to say trauma based?"

She shrugs. "Trauma based can be good. Goal based emotions are more unstable, at least trauma's predictable." She turns back to me. "How do you feel? The first test tends to mess people up, but it's the best way we have of judging a magical girl's potential."

I don't entirely process what she's saying, I have this weird feeling in my chest, like I'm forgetting something important, something I really should be doing, a name, it's someone important to me. Enouement snaps her finger in front of my face a couple of times before I finally decide to answer her, "What!?" I snap back.

"How are you feeling?"

"Like I almost figured something out, but it was taken away at the last moment." I stare at her, furrowing my eyebrows.

"And if we left that thing alive a little longer, it would've killed you. It was already starting to take a few bites out of you while you were busy staring at...whatever you were staring at." She sighs. "Listen, those things?" She points at the cage behind us, the beast is still staring. "They can read the source of your attributed emotion perfectly, this means they will try to help you if it can weaken your power. But they don't feel anything, nor do they care about you, it's just another hunting tactic to them."

"I know that. But even then-"

"Good. See, the stigma against negative emotions isn't just because 'bad emotions must mean bad people', it's because they are the most likely to empathize with the enemy." She kicks the cage, it doesn't budge. "It's really hard to want to kill something that is trying to fix what's wrong with you, on the other hand if your emotion is positive, then they are just assholes to you, so it's easier to hate them."

I nod noncommittally. I just want some time to myself at this point, I forgot why I was even here, why did I want to become a magical girl again? Because it'd be fun? I think there was something else...

"Anyway," Enouement says, "after that it's just going to be a few more tests, nothing like what you just experienced, don't worry." She hands me a flip phone. "This phone is only for magical girl related communication, this is how we'll call you for odd jobs. It should only be unlockable by your mana signature, isn't that right, Jack?"

Jack nods. "Yup, it's all set up."

Seeing the phone in my hand, I suddenly remember what I wanted to do. I make a quick note so that I don't forget later, I won't do it right now but...

NOTE: 'CALL_LATER'

COORDINATE: -1056S / -12L / 50N

MESSAGE: Apology? Communication? Maybe start with a 'Hey' and see where it goes. Once it starts, I won't be able to go back.

One day, I'll finally be able to forgive you.