Chapter 131: Advent to the Past

A/N: The italized parts can be considered as the thoughts of the said character. It is partly a 1st PoV under the 3rd PoV that I usually use to write chapters.

*****

[Time Skip].

A derivative ability that Shiro made from [Time Control]. Unlike his [Time Accel] or [Time Quagmire], two simple applications on manipulating time, [Time Skip] has many factors involved in it.

First of all, it's in the domain of [Causality Control]. Instead of doing a cause to achieve the effect, [Time Skip] goes straight to the effect. Though, its backlash would be higher the farther he goes in time.

It's not like there aren't any overpowered abilities without backlashes...

Its backlash is severe, however. Similar to Kiritsugu, the time that he skipped would be placed onto the user, his body to be exact, ALL at once. The heartbeats, blood flow, energy consumption, perception, and thoughts will form a stack before stuffing it all at once to the user.

Forget about the mental fatigue that Shiro experienced, just the physical aspects is enough to wreck him.

Due to the sudden increase of heartbeats and inconsistency in his blood flow, his veins ruptured while his cells got overwhelmed, causing his internal organs a very severe damage. It is unlike Kiritsugu's backlash as he only slows down time—Shiro skipped time itself.

Fortunately, he has his own [Avalon] equivalent lest he ends up death and use up the revival effect of his "A Foreigner's Buff". The said equivalent is none other than [Phenex's Regeneration].

With the godly regenerative abilities on it, he barely managed to live; his injuries were too severe for the ability to heal him up all at once, even with his mana constantly spent. Moreover, there's still a very tiny damage to his soul due to his mana being involved to it.

The latter took the most out of [Phenex's Regeneration] that he's not yet fully healed even with Roman helping him. That's with Roman being paranoid that made him buy many restorative items.

Thanks to his help, Shiro's situation was stabilized after a day had passed.

"Mn..."

Grunting, he slowly opened his heavy eyelids.

'An unfamiliar ceiling.' He thought. 'I've long wanted to say this..!'

Thinking about the classic isekai cliche made him distracted for a while, which made him forget about his current predicament. Shiro tried moving a part of his body, but is met with pain instead.

'F*ck. My entire body is wrecked.'

It is not wrong to say that his every single cell is damaged from the action that he did yesterday. Even if they started healing themselves, his ability couldn't fully dedicate it to them and instead heal his broken soul.

'Urgh!'

Feeling a slight migraine, he finally realized what happened to it.

'Soul damage? Just like the one in the memories.'

In his memories as "Hero", there's a time that he went beyond his current capabilities, absorbing mana that far surpassed his limits to use an ultimate technique. As a result, his soul, the vessel of mana, got damaged.

Since [Armament Convergence] required 10,000 Mana, his self who acted during the time skip took in greater amounts of mana to reach 10,000. Moreover, [Time Skip] required even more mana, which is around 30,000 Mana.

Meaning, he overexerted himself by intaking more than 54 times that what he could handle... ALL AT ONCE, to add on. If not for the fact that everything came from his [Energy Box (S)] that stored mana in an independent space, the injuries would've been worse than now.

'It is almost fully healed. I should focus on this first.' He thought as he manually redirected his mana to the golden red flames inside him—it is faster than automatically injecting it with mana.

Just like a person who haven't eaten for days, the flames became stronger as it enveloped the broken part of his soul. Once his mana got depleted, he "gently" absorbed the surrounding mana, fully replenishing it in 10 seconds.

Since then, it is a rinse and repeat. In the end, it only took him 9 minutes to heal it, showcasing the monstrosity of his max-level control and [Six Eyes]. In another 10 minutes, his body is as good as new.

If Roman saw this, he would definitely yell out: "What a cheat character!"

Now that his focus is out of it, he used his [Six Eyes] to scan his surroundings.

'Wait a minute...'

His surroundings looks a tad bit familiar. The room that he's in right now has a full body mirror along with some sort of women's stuff like lip glints, lip sticks, and so on. There's quite a few stuffed toy sitting in some corners, with each having a "fox" motif. There's also a small bookshelf not far away from the bed.

Though, it is enough for Shiro to arrived at a conclusion:

"A girl's room?"

Then, everything clicked. He recalled that he used [Time Skip] to save Mami from her almost unsalvageable suicide attempt before blacking out. Since he trusted the others, he's confident enough to stop her other actions with the help of Touka, Roman, and most importantly, Madoka.

Even though they've known each other for only a week, Mami is her idol—the senpai that she aspires to be. Her own beliefs overlapped with Mami's, thus it's not that strange for them to be very close to each other.

Still, he didn't expect that this house in none other than Mami's.

"She's there..."

With his [Six Eyes], he instantly saw Mami on the floor beside the sofa. Her head is hidden between her knees while a depressing aura is present around her. The Soul Gem not far away from her turned black except for a select few spots; a sign that she's barely holding onto herself before her dark feelings devours her.

She wore a one-piece orange dress, something part of her casual wear. If it was before, it would've been a perfect match given her mature personality. Alas...

Everything is crumbling apart.

A part of his memories flashed in his mind before Shiro sighed. Then, he used [Space Jump] to appear right besides her as he sat on the sofa.

"Hey."

Startled, Mami's body shook for a moment before she went silent once more. Seeing this, Shiro sensed her horrendous mental state thanks to his max-level willpower. He sensed her scattered dark thoughts once every few seconds, making him surprised and sympathetic at the same time.

It is completely different from her strong self.

The silence between them ensued until Mami asked him the question that she withheld since that day.

"Why... did you save me?"

Her voice is dry and cracked up due to the hellish mental state that she has right now.

Shiro thought of Fenrir's memories once more—his heart got heavier as he recalled the similar situation that he faced.

Instead of directly answering her question, he replied:

"We don't have a choice." He paused for a moment before continuing, "Life is truly unfair, forcing the so-called 'fate' in one's throat even if we don't want to."

"..."

"You reminded me of my past."

Having come to a decision, Shiro casted a [Mental Link] on Mami as he said, "Don't resist it."

Mami didn't resist it as she lost all her will to live, only waiting for the answer behind her doubts before she passes on.

Once the connection is established, he pulled out a particularly strong memory from the depths of his mind. He didn't hesitate to reveal a part of himself, all for the sake of this 15 year old girl whom had inadvertently resonated with his past experience; therefore earning his sympathy at first.

When he got to know more about this strong yet weak girl, he somehow felt really bad to her.

Shiro isn't someone who would go to such lengths to help others, but Mami is something else. As a confirmation, his feelings of sympathy became even stronger as the time went by.

"What..." She mumbled as her vision changed.

In a literal sense, blood flowed like a river. Thousands of corpses were beheaded, impaled, and cut—all lied down to the ground, forming a mountain. On top of this is someone with a short stature.

He bathed on blood, staining his wolfish ears and tail dark red. His dull crimson eyes shone with strong killing intent. On both of his hands are a dagger and a sword that was acquired from one of the corpses below.

There's not a single part of him that didn't reek out of blood, thus it formed a horrifying image.

Although, this didn't scare Mami as she is more confused instead. Complex emotions shone on her now-dead orange eyes, with the corners of her eyes red.

"Welcome to my past." Shiro said.

*****

A/N: Damn, setting up Realta Nua is harder than I thought. Well, I can at least play the game now. Will be going through Saber Route first to understand her better :)

Fact #81: It has been stated by Kyuubey one time that Madoka's Witch form, [Kriemhild Gretchen], can destroy Earth in a little less than 10 days. Moreover, it was stated by it dozens of timelines away from the current timeline (the anime timeline), thus it is safe to assume that Witch Madoka can possibly destroy the entire Universe unless the Incubators act (since Madoka becomes stronger the more timeline Homura goes through). Still, even the Incubators aren't showed with much power, such as that time when Madoka became a concept that broke down their method of energy collection (For everywhere, in the past, present, and future, to have no Witches). Heck, it even said: "At this point, there's nothing that we can do. All that's left is to watch this entity called Kaname Madoka." This explains the reason why they didn't act even when their self-interests got compromised.