His vision was pitch black.
He seemed to hear the sound of flowing water beside his ears.
Bell could feel that it was not the soothing murmur of a stream, but the cold current of a river filled with grief and pain.
Where was he?
What happened to Juggernaut?
Bell's thoughts felt as heavy as lead, making it difficult to think clearly.
He could not open his eyes, and his senses were strangely dull.
No matter how hard Bell tried, his body would not move.
The water seemed to wash over him, giving him the illusion that time itself was flowing past.
In his haze, Bell's arm seemed to grasp something. Then memories suddenly rose in his mind like a curtain being lifted.
Splash.
Light entered his vision. Before Bell could make out his surroundings, the scenery before him shifted at incredible speed.
Ahead of him was a group of girls.
Everything was moving far too quickly, and the distance was too great. It created an unsettling, absurd feeling, and Bell could not make out the girls' faces at all.
"?!"
The sound of flesh being cut rang out.
Bell saw a girl sliced to pieces.
Blood sprayed.
The scene flickered at an unimaginable speed. In the blink of an eye, three girls had been reduced to mangled corpses.
"Aaaaaaaaaah!!!"
Screams followed.
An elf girl seemed to charge forward, swinging a wooden sword, but his vision swept past in an instant, and the owner of the wooden sword collapsed to the ground.
Claws entered his vision again.
"You idiot!"
An anxious curse rang out, and one girl's arm flew through the air.
Blood scattered, but the memory was nowhere near its end.
The girls began chanting Magic.
No.
Stop, hurry!
Bell wanted to warn them, but those strong, furious chants never stopped.
In the next instant, a strange sound rang out, and the girls in the distance were swallowed by flames.
His vision shook, and the slaughter began again.
Screams rang without end.
The claws tore apart Amazonesses and human girls first. After that came the many people scattering in every direction.
Men with vicious expressions shoved one another, each trying to make someone else take his place beneath the claws. But the severed limbs and blood flying through the air followed right behind them like a feast of death.
Wails and roars mixed together, dyeing everything in sight with endless blood.
Soon, the surroundings fell silent.
The girls appeared in his vision again.
Unlike before, there were only four of them this time.
"In the sky of a now distant forest..."
A sorrowful song rang out.
Along with the trembling voice came the girls' final resolve.
Boom.
The Pallum girl detonated a bomb just as the claws tore into her.
Amid the explosion, his vision tilted slightly to the right. What followed was the afterimage of an incredibly swift blade.
The human girl was torn to pieces by the claws on the left.
Only then did his vision slow down.
At last, Bell could clearly see the scene before him.
"Agaris Alvesynth (Scarlet Pimpernel)!"
The human girl with a red side ponytail gripped her longsword tightly and spoke the name of her Magic.
Flames wrapped around her body, and in an instant, the distance between them vanished.
The claws pierced the girl's body. At the same time, her longsword fell.
Bell could tell that the human girl had done it on purpose.
"Arvelia!!!"
The girl's roar sounded close enough to touch, and red flames bloomed like flowers.
His vision was dyed crimson.
Even while swallowed by the roar, the two girls' screams and final words were painfully clear.
"Aaaaaaaaaaaaaah?! Luminous Wind!!"
The song stopped.
"Ryuu..."
The light orbs roared, and his vision jumped at high speed once more, pulling him away from the center of the tragedy.
The torrent of memories came to an abrupt halt.
In the end, only the red-haired girl's heartbreaking whisper lingered in the tide of memories.
There was no doubt about it. This was the scene of Astraea Familia's destruction.
Every girl's death had been horrifying.
When despair descended, the girls chose to sacrifice themselves and create a single chance for Ryuu to survive.
I really did something awful to Ryuu...
What must that elf girl have felt when she fired that light-bullet Magic?
It must have made her relive the wounds of her past.
He had to do something.
Bell's thoughts churned. He did not know why he could see Juggernaut's memories, but sorrow spread through his heart.
He had known for some time that the girls of Astraea Familia had each upheld their own justice. But after seeing it with his own eyes, Bell was still deeply moved by the sacrifices of the red-haired girl and the others.
Those girls had given their lives for their friends, yet they had met the same end as that hideous group of villains.
And Ryuu had been tormented all this time by her own revenge?
In Bell's eyes, even cutting those villains to pieces would be too merciful.
The boy's thoughts raced, but his body still had almost no feeling.
Just then, a somewhat familiar voice sounded in the distance.
"Ah, I found a strange boy! Hm-hm, he looks like he needs help!"
The red-haired girl's voice was full of energy.
"We can't cross that river, so all we can do is watch from over here. Wait, why do you look so eager to try?"
"Lyra, that boy has appeared in the river for the second time, you know? Do you know what that means? He needs justice to lend him a hand!"
The red-haired girl seemed to be rubbing her hands together.
"No, no! We can't get over there, and if we draw the monsters over, we'll definitely be in trouble!"
The girl called Lyra complained.
"Lyra is right. This is certainly a rare sight, but we should go back. Captain, if we stay here any longer, everyone will worry."
A new voice appeared, gentle and light, carrying the air of a [Yamato Nadeshiko] from the Far East.
"Hmm... all right, let's go back together!"
The red-haired girl seemed to consider it for a moment, then turned to leave.
"But that aside, the white-haired boy's face is probably Ryuu's type, isn't it?"
"No, no, Captain. That useless Elf might be shameless in private, but she absolutely doesn't have the courage to do anything in that direction."
"Kaguya, I think that's a bit too harsh. Ryuu might have grown up, you know."
"So you're saying Ryuu might bring a man here one day?! Now I'm even more motivated!"
The girls' voices gradually faded into the distance.
In a daze, Bell suddenly opened his eyes.
But before he could see his surroundings or follow the girls' traces, a white mist swallowed everything.
The thick fog slowly dispersed.
When his vision cleared, the familiar little cottage built beside the sea of flowers appeared before Bell once again.