The girl named Homura Akemi appeared cold and distant, but perhaps she was surprisingly easy to get along with?
As long as the conversation involved Madoka Kaname, she would listen with exceptional seriousness.
By telling Homura various amusing stories about Madoka’s past experiences in class, Makoto rapidly narrowed the distance between them.
Before they knew it, the atmosphere between the two had become considerably more relaxed.
During their conversation, Homura put forward certain conditions of her own.
For example, she intended to continue monitoring Makoto’s every movement, since he was an anomaly in the current timeline.
Makoto didn’t particularly object to this arrangement and readily accepted it.
In exchange for cooperating with Homura’s surveillance, he managed to obtain some information from her.
Homura Akemi was a magical girl capable of traveling through time.
This was currently her sixth attempt at rewinding time to return to this particular point.
The reason she was in such a state of extreme vigilance was that she had discovered something terrible.
Kyubey, the benefactor and companion who had fought alongside her all this time, had actually been deceiving her from the very beginning.
If that deception wasn’t stopped, it would inevitably lead to an unprecedented tragedy.
Her hostility toward Makoto stemmed from her suspicion that his presence, which shouldn’t have existed in this timeline, had been arranged by Kyubey.
That was the information Makoto managed to coax out of Homura during their brief conversation.
As for anything more detailed about her circumstances, Makoto could clearly sense that she was subconsciously reluctant to reveal it to him.
Perhaps she believed that telling him too much would put him in danger?
Whatever the reason, Makoto didn’t force her to answer.
After all, there was an enormous difference between their respective combat capabilities.
“Speaking logically, if you rewind time and return to a past that’s different from the one you remember, wouldn’t that suggest your ability isn’t actually time travel?”
Makoto continued:
“Could it be something more like traveling between parallel worlds?”
“To put it simply, you might be jumping from a parallel world where time flows faster into another parallel world where time flows more slowly. Since they’re two separate worlds, then…”
As their conversation progressed, Makoto naturally began discussing the nature of Homura’s ability.
However, before he could finish his explanation—
The hand Homura had placed on Makoto’s shoulder suddenly tightened.
A sharp pain spread through his shoulder.
Makoto looked up and saw Homura staring at him with a completely blank expression.
At that moment, every muscle in the girl’s body seemed to have gone rigid.
Although he knew it was a rather strange comparison, Makoto couldn’t help feeling that Homura was even more inclined to get rid of him now than when she had been pointing a gun at his head.
Makoto Tsukimi: “…”
Makoto Tsukimi: “Homura?”
Homura Akemi: “It’s nothing.”
Apparently realizing that she had lost her composure, Homura slowly withdrew her hand from his shoulder.
And the moment her hand left him, the scenery around them changed.
By the time Makoto could react again, the gray-and-white world had already regained its colors.
Time resumed its normal flow.
Turning his head, Makoto saw Homura Akemi sitting at her desk, attentively listening to the lesson being explained at the blackboard.
A gentle breeze drifted in from outside, lifting the curtains.
The warm afternoon wind stirred the students’ hair throughout the classroom.
“Next, we’ll be covering the past tense and personal pronouns…”
At the front of the classroom, Ms.
Saotome continued her lecture as usual.
Everything appeared perfectly normal.
It was as though nothing had happened.
The entire incident felt almost like a hallucination.
Strictly speaking, Makoto had every reason to suspect that everything he had just experienced was another illusion woven by his Sensory Manipulation ability.
But—
Muttering to himself, Makoto felt more certain than ever before that what had happened was real.
In fact, he was even more confident in the reality of that experience than he was in anything currently visible around him.
His ability couldn’t actually stop time in the real world.
But time had unquestionably stopped just now.
What clearer evidence could there possibly be?
“So this is what it feels like to know with absolute certainty that something is real. It’s actually pretty nice.”
A smile unconsciously appeared on Makoto’s face.
Completely disregarding the fact that class was still in session, he turned his head toward Homura Akemi.
He could clearly see that the moment his gaze landed on her, the girl’s expression visibly stiffened.
Makoto had no way of knowing whether that reaction was something his subconscious had imagined or whether it had actually happened.
But there was no need to worry about such things, was there?
After all—
“If supernatural powers really exist, then there’s definitely a way to cure this condition that the doctors said was untreatable.”
According to his medical diagnosis, his condition was caused by abnormalities in the connections between neurons in his brain.
In an ordinary world, resolving such a problem would naturally be extremely difficult.
But in a world where supernatural powers existed?
Surely something like that would be a trivial matter.
“If I can find a way to perfectly control all five of my senses, then my plan to create a fantasy world that belongs entirely to me can finally get underway.”
“And perhaps I could even take things a step further.”
“I wonder if magical girls have any abilities that allow them to share their senses with other people. If they do, maybe I could invite them to experience it together. I could treat it as compensation for helping me out.”
Makoto didn’t believe anyone could resist the opportunity to experience a perfectly customized fantasy world of their own.
After all, everyone who was alive had regrets.
And seeking to make up for those regrets through fantasy was an instinct deeply rooted in human nature.