Hope born of solitus

*

Reaching the train station, I passed by 3 stations uneventfully before detecting another large magic signature on the 4th station. Getting off the chair, I walked through the automatic doors that I had gotten accustomed to, and headed straight to where I sensed the magic.

7 30 am. Residential zone 42A. It was nowhere near the train station, but it wasn't located at their school either. Its presence was odd to describe, rather than a singular individual, it feels more like a large walking cloud... The magic is spread out thinly, yet it covers a massive area wider than The Remnants alternate frequency plane.

Following that logic, perhaps this was another powerful Trace capable of creating a magical territory. Isolating itself out of its own free will allows it to bypass the law governing the world, 'Event'. Since no normal human would come in contact, 'Event' is not triggered to protect the minds of people. I wouldn't know what the point of doing this was... For the Trace who gains nothing. It could only be described as a form of harassment against magical girls.

If they could cause magic to manifest while avoiding the law of 'Event', it would create widespread chaos within the human population that witnesses magic. There is no predicting what merely observing magic would do to the ordinary human mind, they might go insane or burn itself out, either way it isn't a gamble that should be taken. Simply presenting this possibility of inciting madness is why it will be described as harassment.

'Event', even if it were to occur, is limited to causing humans to be in a state of stasis. No memories begin nor end, when the 'Event' is over it's almost as if it never happened, they remain ignorant of magic. That was the way it should be, if magical girls don't abide by this law no one knows what will happen. The law manipulates reality on such a large scale, it'd be terrifying to imagine how it would react if anything goes haywire.

"Here." (Lastia)

She made her presence known, it didn't seem that strong considering its magic was spread throughout. The density was low, it didn't rule out the possibility that the enemy could gather all their strength at once, but that would go against its goal of spreading itself wide in the first place. {Feed} engulfed her body, spreading a hot warmth over her skin. Her clothes and hair begun to glow uncontrollably, forming a singular layer of light covering her body. The light shifted around before shattering into sharp fragments that faded off into the sky in wisps.

Unsettling... This zone felt oddly lifeless, simultaneously there were many signs that people resided here not long ago. Where could they go? She spread her magic out to investigate... And found nothing. What she sensed earlier and what she discovered, it was congruous. It feels like there are many people in this zone, that was natural, it was a residential zone after all. At the same time, it felt empty. Two contradictory sensations crushed her mind from both sides, it was way easier to blame [ingestion] for some unforeseen malfunction.

"What the hell 's going on..." (Lastia)

She walked deeper in, it looked like a normal street on the outside. There was nothing that seemed out of place... Except for the lack of people. It wasn't hard to image what had happened, if a Trace was capable, they would indeed pull something on this scale to harvest ordinary humans for their meagre magic. The question was how?

The buildings? That's right. The suspicious magic she sensed was ubiquitous, but it also followed a certain pattern. It obscured itself with sheer scale and quantity.

"HMRGHH!!!" (Lastia)

A blade materialises in her palm, in a single swing it grew to a length that was the same height as the building, cleaving it in two as well as damaging the buildings behind it. Black smoke began to pour out of the cracks, painting over the sky like spilled oil stains. This was a trap... No, this was its natural defence mechanism. She fell into it on her own accord, it didn't look like there were any survivors.

The buildings, they were all part of the Trace itself, it could be said that it has consume this entire zone. The only survivors were those that stuck to the perimeter. Was it deliberately hiding from the other zones, deliberately restricting itself to this zone? What about the magical girls that reside here...

It didn't take much for Lastia to guess. The 'Event' was over, the magical girls here are dead. This Trace had swallowed at least one magical girl, likely even more. It was on a level above the Remnant, no matter how many buildings she cut down, nothing would change.

"How could this happen? What an accused existence...! Utterly revolting!!" (Lastia)

The black smoke rushed towards her, expanding its sphere of influence along the way and covering every volume of free air. She turns around and starts sprinting, shifting between the houses, the apartments got shorter and shorter as she approached the border. Indecision plagued her mind, a world of anxiousness and regret hit her like a truck.

Why?

Why did such an atrocity occur? What did humans do to deserve this?

***[

"You knew what I was going to do, you couldn't leave it alone, nor could you trust yourself to carry through." (?)

"Every road lead to this outcome, maybe in another life... We could have been happy." (?)

]***

'What are these? Memories...? ' (Lastia)

Unprecedented. A troublesome occurrence in the middle of battle, fortunately they went by in an instant. Rather it wouldn't be accurate to call these memories, they were... Sentiments. A disposition towards something, injected into her mind.

'Damn it all...' (Lastia)

She had no time to dwell on these indecipherable feelings, but her heart was racing, beating loudly in protest. Surprisingly, a warm fluid fell off her cheeks. She didn't know them, any of them at all. Arin and Sariel resided in zone 2A. It didn't even border this zone. However, simply imagining it was enough to drive her passion up. What did they do to deserve this? An entire town...

A large black sword fell from the sky, splitting the road in two with a storm of debris flying into the air. The ravine it caused grew deep into the ground and stretched into the walls of nearby buildings. Lastia turned directions once more, the magic in the entire zone was acting up, it was doing everything it could to finish off the final witness.

Just imagining if this had happened to zone 2A,with naught but a name and some fragments left by her immediate predecessor to her name. To an existence like Lastia, every last medium that recorded her memories was a treasure. She didn't have to imagine her friends being put into this situation to feel horrible, she wept for the immediate victims themselves.