Anime Crossover: The Losing Heroines Have Become Witches

"Is that the monster that has been hiding in the darkness all this time...?"

Utaha froze for a long while, unsure whether to first offer a sharp critique on how dangerous it was for Asakura to charge into the night without saying a word, or to demand compensation for the mental distress of nearly wetting her pants. However, considering neither seemed appropriate, the girl finally decided to focus the conversation on the monster still struggling in his grip.

"You haven't seen them before?"

Asakura slammed the monster violently onto the ground, pinning it down with his foot before asking back.

"I told you, they've always stayed hidden in the darkness. At most, I'd occasionally see tentacle-like things reaching out from the shadows, but they retract quickly once hit by light."

The girl answered while cautiously leaning in to examine the monster pinned under Asakura's foot.

The thing looked like a wooden mannequin used by art students for human poses, yet it appeared exceptionally eerie, as if that shell mimicking a human form was merely a temporary vessel for some unknown entity.

Its entire body presented an unpleasant yellowish-brown hue, covered in ring-like patterns resembling wood grain. But if one stared for even a moment, they would realize those weren't grains at all, but layers upon layers of nested wooden rings—like the failed product of some otherworldly tree attempting to mimic the concept of a "human."

On its chest, corresponding to the position of a human heart, the hollowed-out patterns had been nearly torn open, revealing the interior.

Through the gaps, one could clearly see a crimson fruit pulsing slowly, expanding and contracting with a rhythm that did not belong to the living.

The fruit looked almost identical to the wild fruit Utaha had picked earlier to sustain her life.

She stared at the fruit, her face gradually fading to a deathly white. A faint sob escaped her throat, and the very air seemed to turn fishy and decayed; she could only try her best to suppress the rising urge to vomit.

"How can this be..."

Before Asakura could say anything, many branches suddenly sprouted from the monster's body, creeping up his ankle like octopus tentacles, seemingly trying to bind Asakura, who appeared distracted by the girl's words.

But Asakura moved first. With a sudden burst of strength in his foot, a loud crack echoed as he stepped right through the monster's fragile-looking chest, crushing the bright red heart-fruit into a pulp.

Immediately, a wail erupted from the monster's non-human face. The color of its entire body shifted to a dull, matte grayish-brown, looking like truly decayed wood, and it fell silent.

"Stepping on it doesn't feel like wood, nor does it feel like metal. It feels like something in between."

Asakura withdrew his foot from the monster's chest and rubbed it against the ground, trying to wipe off the viscous fruit juice. Naturally, he failed, and his shoe ended up covered in fallen leaves instead.

He let out a sigh as if giving up, and then a flash of pale blue flame flickered across his foot, turning the dry leaves and the sticky juice into ash.

Having finished this, Asakura looked toward the girl with satisfaction.

To his surprise, the girl's face remained bloodless. The coldness and sharp edge she had when they first met had vanished. She stood there quietly, as if even breathing had become a painful task; she looked fragile and breakable, like a piece of glassware.

"Don't worry about it so much. To survive in a hellhole like this, it's normal to eat some strange things," Asakura consoled her. "At least you didn't have to raw-eat camel fat, stinking moose testicles, or bursting longhorn beetle larvae that would make even a wilderness survival expert gag, right?"

"...It's not like that."

Utaha shook her head.

Then she suddenly looked at Asakura: "...Besides that, who exactly are you?"

"Eh, did I not introduce myself just now?" Asakura was taken aback.

"You did." The girl looked at him and slowly spat out a few words: "Strange Snake Man."

"Ahem," Asakura waved his hand. "Let's set that aside for now... I'll introduce myself properly. My name is Asakura Takuma, and I am a... magician."

"Magic..."

Utaha muttered. But thinking about how he could control swarms of snakes and beat up monsters with his bare hands (?), calling himself a magician didn't seem to be a problem.

"Yes," Asakura nodded again, giving the girl a bright smile. "I've come here specifically to save you, acting on a request from Eriri."

"Eriri... are you close with her?"

Utaha pursed her lips and asked curiously.

In her memory, that girl—who always put on the act of a refined young lady at school—hardly ever let anyone call her by her first name.

"I watched her grow up," Asakura said with a straight face.

Specifically, watched her grow 'larger,' he added in his mind.

"Watched her grow up..."

Utaha seemed to misunderstand something. She stared at Asakura's face for a long time but couldn't discern anything.

"Since he knows magic, it's probably normal to look like a high schooler even if he's quite old," the girl muttered to herself.

Then she took a deep breath. "Um... Mr. Asakura? Is it okay if I call you that?"

"No problem at all."

"Then, Mr. Asakura, could you turn around for a moment and only turn back when I tell you to?" Utaha asked.

"I suppose so..."

Asakura rubbed his chin and turned around as she requested.

After falling into this demon realm, he had kept the [Scale] mode active—which was part of why he could catch the monster so easily—so he wasn't afraid of the girl suddenly having a breakdown and giving him a kidney shot or something.

Then he heard the rustling of fabric from behind him.

"Alright."

Utaha's voice sounded as if it had regained its initial cold, haughty tone. But if one listened closely, her voice trembled slightly, clearly a sign that she was struggling to suppress her shyness. "Please turn around."

Asakura turned around and saw that the girl had removed her upper clothing—well, that wasn't quite right. To be precise, though she had taken off her top, she still covered her right breast with the garment, exposing only her fair midriff and the left side of her chest.

However, there was nothing erotic about the scene. On the contrary, Asakura frowned slightly, feeling that the problem was becoming quite serious.

The left side of the girl's chest still maintained the elegant curve of her human form, but it no longer possessed the warmth of skin. The texture seemed to have been replaced by metal, transformed into a piece of hollowed-out carvings cast from silver. The patterns were so exquisite they were almost demonic.

The light from the lamp-fruit reflected off it, casting fragmented silver glimmers that gave this eerie beauty a touch of surreal divinity.

Through those tiny gaps, one could vaguely see the interior—where the heart and flesh should have been, there was now only a soft, warm yellow light pulsing and gathering slowly.

That light seemed alive, constantly writhing and solidifying its form.

If it were before, Asakura might have thought the light was condensing into a sphere to become some kind of supernatural power core.

However, after seeing that humanoid monster, he understood.

The cluster of gentle light in the girl's chest was nothing else, but a fruit that was slowly forming.

Asakura remained silent for a moment before asking.

"Can I touch it?"

He was met with the girl's prolonged silence.

Just as Asakura thought she was going to refuse, Utaha nodded, though her expression looked unpleasant, as if she had swallowed a cockroach.

So, Asakura reached out and touched the silver structure.

Sure enough, it felt hard to the touch, very similar to the physical sensation of the monsters. If there was one difference, it was probably that a monster's body was pure, metallic coldness, while the girl's chest still retained the lingering warmth of a human.

"Do you have any tactile feedback when I touch it?" Asakura asked while stroking it as if he were appreciating some work of art.

"A little, it feels somewhat like the dull feedback you'd get through a thick layer of cloth under normal circumstances."

"When did this start happening?" Asakura asked her.

"I can't remember the exact time in this world, but if I had to say, it felt like roughly half a month ago."

Utaha tried her best to calm herself down.

"Did it just turn like this after you woke up one day?" Asakura followed up.

"No... do you remember the blue fruit I mentioned before?" Instead of answering directly, the girl asked a question in return.

"The one that causes mutations if eaten..." Asakura answered casually, then froze as if realizing something: "Wait, don't tell me..."

"Yes, I became like this because I ate it."

No wonder she knew the blue fruit was inedible.

"I see," Asakura could only say dryly.

"Besides, Mr. Asakura."

"What is it?"

"Have you touched enough yet?" Veins seemed to be throbbing on Utaha's forehead.

"Sorry, subconscious reaction."

Asakura withdrew his hand sheepishly.

"And is it just my imagination, or was Mr. Asakura's technique unexpectedly quite lewd..."

"Nothing of the sort! It was purely because I need to conduct meticulous observations on things I don't understand!"

"And the result of your observation?"

Utaha gazed at Asakura.

"Regrettably, Kasumigaoka," Asakura said honestly after a moment of contemplation, "You are no longer human."

"..."

Utaha was stunned for a moment by his words, then she spoke softly: "Mr. Asakura, can you turn around again? I want to put on my clothes."

Hearing this, Asakura obediently turned around.

Compared to undressing, the girl took much longer to dress, perhaps because she had received a significant shock.

After waiting a long while, Asakura finally turned back around. He had expected to see the girl looking distraught, but in reality, Utaha had put on her somewhat worn-out clothes neatly, showing not a hint of dishevelment.

It seemed her mental fortitude was better than Asakura had anticipated.

"How much time do I have left?" Utaha asked Asakura.

"According to my deduction, the erosion speed of this thing will get faster and faster. If it really took half a month to reach this point from the beginning, then you probably have about half a month left before you are completely transformed."

Asakura stated his deduction.

"Is that so..." Utaha's expression looked unusually calm, as if she had accepted her fate.

She looked up, her wine-red eyes meeting Asakura's: "Can I ask a favor of Mr. Asakura? Of course, I won't make you work for nothing. I will tell you the password to my bank account. After everything is over, you can take all the money inside as a reward."

"What do you want me to do?" Asakura asked curiously.

"If you really can rescue me... I will spend half a month getting along well with my parents and doing everything I want to do as much as possible, and then... before everything ends, please help me find release," Utaha said. "I saw just now that you can turn things into ash in an instant, right? In that case, you should be able to make me disappear without pain."

"Aren't you afraid?" Asakura couldn't help but admire her mindset.

"Of course I'm afraid, but when I think of those terminally ill patients lying on hospital beds who have also been told by doctors they only have half a month left—they might not even be able to get out of bed, can't play with what they want, can't eat the food they want, and can only wait for death in pain—I feel that I'm actually doing quite well. At least I still have the chance to say goodbye to family and friends without leaving regrets."

A somewhat sad smile appeared on Utaha's face as she answered clearly.

"Even if you say that..." Asakura scratched his head.

"I know, asking Mr. Asakura for something like this and making you shoulder the guilt of killing someone is far too selfish... but I really don't want my ugliest self to be exposed to others. You are the only one who can help me." The girl bowed deeply toward Asakura: "Please."

"Actually, I'd rather you keep on living," Asakura sighed. "But since you've put it that way, the atmosphere makes it feel like I can't really refuse..."

"If one could live, who wouldn't want to live?" The girl said with a bitter smile. "But what I want is to live on as a human..."

"Exactly, that's what I meant."

"?"

"?"

The two stared at each other, feeling as if there was a breakdown in communication.

"Wait a second," Utaha blinked her large eyes, her wine-red pupils full of disbelief as she confirmed: "Mr. Asakura, do you mean you have a way to let me live on as a human?"

"Didn't I say so from the beginning?" Asakura grinned. "Kasumigaoka, I'm here to save you."

Then, without a word, the girl covered her face with both hands and curled into a ball. A muffled whimper escaped through her fingers—it was impossible to tell if it was from embarrassment, chagrin, or a simple moan of wanting to find a hole to crawl into.