Starlight Dream

Chapter 65

"Don't do this. It's too much!" Future Seina said, her voice distorting almost beyond intelligibility.

"No, I must," Kaguya said, her voice superior. "It's what you get for interfering with my history."

Future Seina opened her mouth to say more, but she vanished into nothing before she could complete her desperate plea.

"Oh, no! What should we do now?" Bloody sweat dripped down Seina's undead forehead in panic. They had only stopped her former mistress last time because of Arisu's help. But now the fearsome Wicked Queen was gone, dead after sacrificing herself to stop the crazed Devil Princess, Mei. There was no way the pair of them could stop a fully powered vampire queen. And that ignored whatever power Kaguya had gotten from fusing with her future self. They didn't even have Future Seina's advice to help them any more.

"Now, what should I do with you?" Kaguya said, tapping her chin. Unlike her other self, Seina sensed no warmth or familiarity reflected in the vampire queen's red orbs. They were the eyes of a stranger, cold and calculating.

Takako's nerves were taut as she prepared to defend herself. Seina stood her ground, readying her wand for action.

Her partner fidgeted, hiding behind her back. "Any ideas?"

"Well, um." Seina floundered, her mind a blank.

"I'd say you should just die already!" The vampire queen disappeared, moving so quickly that Seina's eyes lost track of her.

Then Kaguya appeared, hands extended like talons as she struck. Seina moved in slow motion as she fought to defend herself. No, she realized, it only affected her. Her friends seemed to move in a blur. Somehow, Kaguya had slowed time around Seina alone, leaving her a sitting duck. Pain exploded in her mind as a hand pierced her chest, bright crimson leaking from the wound. Seina only stared in dull-minded horror at the arm impaling right through her.

The gaping wound festered as Kaguya leaped back to avoid twin bullets to the brain, bleeding three times faster than usual. Seina realized why. Kaguya was accelerating her wound, sapping her strength as thousands of years passed in seconds. Seina collapsed, her limbs leaden as the time accelerated wound stole her strength.

"You!" Takako snarled, unleashing twin barrels at Kaguya's exposed forehead. But the vampire queen only laughed and slipped through the bullets like they were frozen statues. She laughed again as they shattered when Kaguya tapped a playful finger against them.

"Like a toddler fighting a sumo wrestler," Kaguya snickered, laughing at her joke. "You're nothing but fake magical girls, shadows compared to Arisu and Hinata. Heck, even Ono could kick your ass, and he was never even magical! What a marvelous, brave brute he'd been, a human terror like Arisu!" Kaguya continued to reminisce about the old days, ignoring Seina and Takako's floundering attempts to attack her.

"And how Arisu brought fear into Slithcar's ranks," Kaguya said, ducking under a clumsy punch that Seina shot at her. "Whenever she arrived on the scene, her enemies scattered like dandelion puffs. But here I am, getting all nostalgic, very unlike me. Starlight Dream's destruction got me thinking about the old days."

"What?" Takako recoiled, eyes wide. She trembled, her voice becoming unsteady. "Impossible. You couldn't have..."

"Starlight Dream?" Seina considered the name. "Isn't that your home, Colten?" Was that the big change Kaguya had done to destabilize the timeline?

"That maniac!" Colten said, shaking his head in disbelief. "I hated the place. It only ever caused me suffering. But it was still home and... oh, grandpa and sis..."

"No! You fool! You've unanchored the entire multiverse!" Neir said.

"It's fine. I'll make myself the center of the multiverse," Kaguya replied. "It'll be a fun project, remaking the multiverse in my own image. That was what I promised Mei all those centuries ago, a new multiverse."