Chapter 14

After the attack from the celestial horror, Bubblegirl desperately tried to turn back for Olivia, but we held her back. We tried to make her understand firmly but gently that she was no longer alive. To get as far away from the enemy as possible, we urged her to keep moving. My words may have been harsher than necessary.

“If you don’t pull yourself together, Olivia died for nothing!”

With difficulty, we managed to convince her to flee. On the way, we ran into the little girl’s mother, who hugged her child tightly. Both thanked us. Emma then told them to run as far away as they could. They did so. But we only went as far as the neighboring district. Crowds of people were rushing toward the outer borders of Bliss City to escape the city on the brink of destruction.

Snowincess gazed at Kali Yuga floating high above. The hopelessness was clear in her voice.

“What do we do now? He’s too strong…”

Bubblegirl stood with her head down, not moving at all. In this desperate situation, with her hair covering her eyes, she looked gloomier than ever. I felt ashamed, but I was just as lost. I rarely showed too much emotion, but now I slammed my fist into the nearby wall in frustration.

“Damn it! Is this how it ends?! There’s nothing we can do?!”

Snowincess didn’t hide her despair either.

“I don’t want the city to be destroyed! I don’t want to lose you! I only just got Reina back, and I want to spend so many happy days with Kaori too! And with my friends at school! One day I want to fix my relationship with my dad and my little brother! I can’t accept what’s happening…!”

Bubblegirl clenched her jaw, then forced herself to speak.

“Then don’t accept it.”

We turned toward her as she raised her head and repeated that we didn’t have to accept our situation. With calm confidence, she stated that we hadn’t given up against the Deviclockster in the open-air hall either, and we still won. We would find a way now too. I reminded her that the two cases weren’t the same. This time the power gap was much greater. She simply asked us whether our fear was greater — or the bond between us. She admitted that ever since she was born, she had hated this city. Everyone treated her like air. But after she met us, something changed. Light seeped into her dark world. The first kind light was Reina, and later the second was Emma. She knew she would never have other friends besides us, because her situation was unique. But she didn’t mind. As long as she could live happy moments with us, nothing else mattered. Warmth filled Snowincess’s heart. She suddenly seemed braver.

“If Bubblegirl wants to fight, then so do I! I have to appreciate the happy moments I got thanks to you!”

I felt the same.

“You two are among the few people I can truly relax around as an introvert. In the old timeline, Emma brought color to my gray life, and here, together with Kaori, you both did the same. I realized I was clinging too desperately to places from the past — I was a prisoner of nostalgia. But places are just places. What matters are the people around me who love me, and whom I love in return. That’s why I won’t back down!”

Smiling, I reached out my hand to them, and after a brief pause, Snowincess took it first, then Bubblegirl joined happily after seeing our encouraging looks. Feeling each other’s touch filled us with a calm, fiery sense of unity. I would describe it as the flame of our friendship, burning stronger than ever.

Then, to our shock, the bracelets Kaori had made for us appeared on our wrists — the ones we wore only in our civilian forms. But the real surprise came next. The jewelry began glowing and changing shape. Soon we found ourselves wearing wide golden bracelets.

Snowincess examined hers curiously, like a relic from another world.

“What are these…?”

I realized these new tools weren’t a coincidence.

“Our feelings must have resonated with Kaori’s gifts. I don’t know how yet, but maybe we can use these against Kali Yuga!”

Bubblegirl’s cheeks turned reddish.

“Did I really make something this special?”

I explained that the bracelets were special not in a supernatural sense, but because they symbolized our friendship. Our love for each other must have altered these symbolic items. The girls agreed that my theory likely made sense. So the only thing left was to face our enemy with our new weapons. Not that we had a choice. Our city was falling apart.

Yuga continued gliding over the city, destroying everything with the green lasers from his eyes and with his energy tendrils. Meanwhile, spatial cracks endlessly formed around him, leaking dark ethereal matter — just like before.

When we arrived, I shouted angrily.

“Yuga!”

All of his eyes turned toward us, then narrowed. It must have been because of the bracelets. We hadn’t thought through what we were going to do, but it didn’t matter. Our instincts guided us. Somehow we knew we were about to do something incredible.

Our bracelets glowed like lanterns, responding to our inner emotions. Then we chanted in unison.

“Power of the Soul Keys, help us! Celestial Mode, activate!”

Our bracelets turned into blinding yellow liquid light that poured over our bodies, as if we were experiencing the tangible form of light. We ignited like sparklers, forming our new golden seraph uniforms, with our hair and eyes glowing the same color. After the transformation, we boldly struck a group pose.

We looked over ourselves and each other. We were completely amazed — especially Bubblegirl, who cheered.

“These… are really us?? This is amazing!”

Snowincess clenched her fist, saying she felt full of fresh energy. I felt the same, but described it more as an overwhelming sense of invincibility. We looked angrily at Kali Yuga, who targeted us with his tendrils. What we didn’t expect was that when we dodged, we rose into the air. Bubblegirl shouted excitedly that we were flying. Maneuvering between the lasers and tendrils, we closed in on the gigantic celestial terror. Snowincess summoned a much larger ice hammer than usual, which glowed yellow. She struck Yuga with an impressive blow from above. But it didn’t end there. Two large golden boomerangs flew at him, knocking him back. Before he could react, several huge bubbles burst against him in zigzag patterns. The explosions were powerful, and the bursting bubbles created many smaller ones, which clung to him and produced countless tiny blasts. The enraged creature let out a deafening trumpet-like roar. He attacked even more aggressively with his beams and tendrils, and we had to avoid the dark ethereal fluid as well, since Yuga was now ripping open space constantly around us. A laser struck Kaori, sending her falling, which made us look away briefly. That moment was enough for our enemy. A tendril hit both me and Snowincess, sending us crashing down after our friend. I reacted just in time from the ground. I summoned a half-transparent golden crescent shield as large as a truck. The attacks were successfully blocked.

Snowincess thanked me for saving them, but I was more pessimistic.

“It’s not over yet!”

Yuga charged the large central eye on his chest, but something felt off. After fully charging, he didn’t fire right away like he did with Olivia. Instead, it seemed as though he was adjusting his energy. The green glow changed to indigo, and then an indigo beam fired. The energy stream hit my shield with more pressure than I had ever felt in my life. I groaned in pain as my friends shouted in worry.

“Nightmist!”

The force pushed me down to one knee, but I struggled to hold the shield. Parts of it began to dent, and blood trickled from my nose from the strain.

“I can’t…! I can’t hold it!”

My teammates placed their hands on my shoulders, smiling. Surprised, I glanced back as Bubblegirl encouraged me.

“Don’t forget — we fight together!”

A golden aura formed around them, and I felt their energy flowing into me through their arms. Snowincess confirmed it.

“Our strength is yours too!”

Peacefully closing my eyes, I felt myself filling with energy. The pressure lessened, and I declared that the power of our friendship could break through anything. The dents in my shield vanished. The light of my weapon intensified as it slowly absorbed the indigo beam. Kali Yuga eventually exhausted himself, and the beam stopped. At that moment, I realized we had won.

“Okay. My turn!”

On the surface of my charged shield, I summoned a meteor-like sphere of yellow energy and launched it forward. The massive comet slammed into Yuga with a huge explosion. His trumpet-like scream sounded more pained than ever. The girls cheered victoriously. Bubblegirl even praised me.

“Yes! You did it!”

I rejected that.

“No… We did it together!”

Then we sensed something being born within us — something far beyond our current capabilities. We understood that a new group technique was forming. After our eyes met, we soared high above Kali Yuga. Our bodies glowed beautifully as we spread far apart from each other, extending our arms. Then, in perfect harmony, we spoke like a prayer.

“Mirror of our souls, brighter than the sun itself — illuminate the world!”

We were each about a hundred meters apart when a large yellow triangular light formed between us. Kali Yuga had just recovered from my earlier attack when he realized what was coming. But it was too late. We activated our technique.

“Descend, Timeless Galaxy!”

In the center of the triangle, a golden galaxy appeared, generating winds that ravaged the city as it descended. When it hit Kali Yuga, it pushed the screaming creature downward, then transformed into a bright golden heart that sealed him inside. His form gradually dissolved. In the next moments, we lost our celestial forms and fell back onto the streets as ordinary seraphs. Exhausted and drained. Our golden bracelets were gone, and we wouldn’t have had the energy to summon them again anyway. But it didn’t matter — we believed we had won. We were wrong. A streak of green energy shot down from above, making our stomachs twist. We soon saw the blond boy who had first introduced himself as Kali Yuga. He was in terrible condition. Covered in scrapes, he held his paralyzed left arm with his right hand. He could barely stand. And we couldn’t do anything — we couldn’t even move. Our new form must have completely drained our magic.

Snowincess couldn’t believe Yuga had survived. He gave an unusual explanation. Before completely dying, he managed to teleport part of himself away. But he didn’t have enough strength left to maintain his original form.

A green aura surrounded him as he threatened us.

“I could still finish you off…”

Along with fear, a sense of futility tore at us.

“…But I won’t.”

I wasn’t sure I heard him right.

“What…?”

“What don’t you understand? I said I won’t hurt you. I promised that if you pushed me back, you could live. But that’s not the only reason.”

We stared, stunned. Bubblegirl asked why he changed his mind. Yuga explained willingly. He said he could see into the hearts of all people, and noticed that in our city, people weren’t trampling over each other while fleeing. Instead, they supported each other. If someone fell, they helped them up. They even evacuated the disabled somehow. According to him, the worlds he had destroyed before were nothing like this. Selfishness had been far more common. He sensed darkness in people now too, but considered that natural. What mattered was what they did with it. Maybe the Magistras’ timeline modification hadn’t been meaningless. But even that wasn’t the main reason he stopped destroying the world. After all, he could have stopped even in his completed form.

We all perked up with curiosity, and a faint smile appeared on Yuga’s face.

“When you entered those golden forms with your unusual bracelets, all I felt was pure light. Only those with great love in their hearts can create such clean magic. That kind of magic is light magic. The strongest of all. Since the beginning of time, only a few have been able to use it. So I decided it would be wrong to erase a world where such good people exist.”

But Snowincess became angry.

“You’ve already caused so much destruction! So many people died today because of you! Nothing will bring them back!”

Yuga sighed and looked at the cracks in the sky, still leaking ethereal matter. He admitted that the world, in its current form, was finished. A world with space damaged in so many places could not be saved — at least not in some ways.

His final words made me feel skeptical.

“Sounds to me like we’re doomed either way…”

Kali Yuga then shared his plan. If he rewrote the timeline himself, he could reset the damage. Since he had decided to give humanity a chance, he would take responsibility for the destruction he caused. He promised that everyone who died today, as well as everyone from the previous timeline, would get another chance at life. But he warned that if humanity strayed from the right path again, then perhaps centuries later, nature would produce another mechanism like him to erase human wickedness.

This made me ask another question that had been forming in my mind.

“Why won’t it be you who comes back? Weren’t you the one who erased all the previous worlds?”

Kali Yuga laughed awkwardly in shame.

“That’s right. But during our battle, I suffered injuries that will kill me anyway.”

Even though I knew we’d done what was right from our perspective, guilt rose inside us — he noticed it, but said it was unnecessary. Both sides had simply done what they thought was right.

Meanwhile, the sky continued to tear apart. The black devouring substance was flowing like rivers down some streets, toppling buildings whose foundations it had consumed.

Yuga warned that time was almost up, but he wanted to speak to me alone. Hesitant, but willing, I followed him when he pulled me aside.

We were all back in our human forms when I was left alone with him. He had something to tell me about Kaori, but he began with my past. He knew that in the previous timeline, just like in this one, my parents were well-known businesspeople. Many envied me for coming from a wealthy family. Because of this, during elementary school — aside from Emma — I had no friends, since she attended a different school. I was often bullied. I became closed off, unwilling to trust anyone. Yuga said there was something my memories had not returned about my past self, because it had been a deep trauma. My parents had hired a young university girl to tutor me. They were usually away on business trips and couldn’t study with me themselves. The girl was very kind, but at first, I was unfriendly toward her. Yet she joked often and handled everything playfully. Her teaching methods were colorful. Eventually, I befriended her. I grew very fond of her. One day, I told her I hated people because the kids at school bullied me. She looked saddened and asked me not to be too angry. Too much hate would only consume me. She encouraged me to help others whenever I could — even the classmates who were making my life difficult. But I got mad. I snapped that she was saying nonsense. She didn’t argue, didn’t criticize — she simply accepted my anger quietly. I didn’t want to be mad at her for long, because deep down I understood she meant well. I wanted to apologize, but I never got the chance. She was in an accident. According to the reports, she pushed a young boy out of the road as he chased after his ball, and the negligent driver hit her instead. As soon as I heard, I ran to the hospital where she had been taken. But I was too late. She died from her injuries before I arrived. I collapsed on the floor of the hospital reception, crying uncontrollably. The nurses said she had left a letter for me. In it, she asked me to help others, the way she had helped me. She wrote that I should live a life full of empathy instead of hatred — not only for others, but for myself too. Along with grief, I felt immense shame. Since I couldn’t apologize, the least I could do was honor her wish. It wasn’t easy, but I began treating others differently at school. I started with small things. If a classmate didn’t have an eraser, I hesitated but lent them mine. When someone forgot their textbook, I pushed my desk closer so we could read together. Eventually I helped in many situations. When a student fell, I was the first to think of taking them to the nurse’s office. I tutored another during breaks before a grammar test. The list could go on. At first, people didn’t appreciate what I did, but over time, they softened. The bullying faded. After a few weeks, no one picked on me, and some even became my friends. I realized my tutor had been right all along — kindness fixed many things. That’s why I decided at the start of high school that I wanted to help wherever I could, while keeping order. So I joined the disciplinary committee. Yuga said that the university girl was never born in this present timeline, so I never formed meaningful connections with classmates in elementary school. But my subconscious remembered, so in high school, I still felt compelled to do something for others. That’s why I ended up in the committee again.

Hearing this story, my memories of the university girl returned. My heart tightened. But something still confused me.

“Why are you telling me all this now? And what does it have to do with Kaori?”

Yuga turned his back to me for a moment, watching the collapsing city, then faced me again.

“You deserve to hear the truth at least once. You already know that Kaori is a byproduct of the altered timeline. But her personality was not shaped by chance. Since you were at the center of the timeline shift incident, your inner emotions influenced the formation of Kaori. You missed that university friend deeply in your past life. Because some part of you desperately wanted to meet her again, your desires affected Kaori. She inherited the traits you saw in your former friend — playful, empathetic, someone who tries to see the best in everyone.”

What Yuga said was difficult to digest, though I knew every word was true. It explained why I felt drawn to Kaori from the very beginning. Looking at her, my eyes filled with tears, but I quickly wiped them so the girls wouldn’t see.

Yuga then praised me. He said I remained introverted because emotional wounds don’t just disappear. But Kaori, Emma, and my high school friends helped me open up to the positive things in life. I had learned to see from another angle. He hoped this would stay true in the future I would receive.

Finally, rejoining the girls, Yuga somberly told us that time was up. He had to begin the intervention soon. We said our painful goodbyes. We all had to accept that changes were coming again, and we would be separated. But I tried to stay strong. Looking at our bracelets, which had so recently become golden tools, hopeful thoughts stirred in me.

Smiling, I raised my arm with the bracelet.

“If the bond within us wills it, we’ll meet again!”

Following my optimism, the girls did the same. Kaori’s cheerful voice rang in our ears one last time.

“Yeah! That’s a promise!”

Emma thanked us softly.

“This has been an extraordinary journey. Thank you for everything.”

I looked into Emma’s eyes, then Kaori’s.

“No. I thank you.”

Yuga sighed. As he strengthened the green aura around him with his remaining power, he muttered quietly. He claimed he never acted based on emotion — but now he wasn’t sure if that was still true.

Holding one another’s hands, the girls and I waited to see what would happen. Blinding green light burst from the boy’s body, completely overwhelming our vision. I feared the approaching unknown, but a part of my soul whispered that everything would be all right.