But for Erald Sparrow, this remains one of the most reluctant mories to revisit in her entire life.
The lancholy brought about by An Ya's departure and the piercing sensation during countless trivial occurrences in her later life differ; if there is one word to describe the Garden Defense Battle in Erald Sparrow's mory, it would be:
——Disgusting.
A war whose core function was to end all wars might be the greatest significance and glory for the people of the Magic Kingdom, but for Erald Sparrow, it is not. The horrific scenes on the battlefield, the mourning and screams of comrades, the roars of the Remnant Beasts, and the burning sll still trying to penetrate her mind are not from a place of glory; to those who experienced it firsthand, it is rely hell.
The martyrs commorated in the cetery before her did not all have the consciousness of sacrifice during their lifetis. Many of these Magical Girls were just naive young girls who might have been discussing their life's future with friends and family one day, only to have their Heart's Gem shattered the next. Besides a broken gem and a corpse, they left nothing behind in this world that they wished to.
To be fair, Erald Sparrow didn't really know many of these Magical Girls personally, so while so of the commorated nas made her feel sad, more of them served as a reminder to her. These reminders tell her not to forget; so things should not be abandoned just because they are too painful to rember.
She indeed should co to take a look here.
Erald Sparrow thought so.
She shook her head a couple of tis, trying to expel those nagging thoughts, and took a deep breath. Carrying a bag of air cakes, she started to walk towards the entrance of the morial Cetery. Yet, as she approached, she noticed that soone was already standing at the gate.
This person appeared to be a visitor intending to pay homage but seed to be in a quandary.
——"No, without identification, you can't enter. This is the morial Cetery, it's not a place where rules can be bent!"
The gatekeeper said rcilessly to the visitor: "No matter how much you plead, it's useless, I don't have the authority. You understand, right?"
"Please," the visitor rely bowed deeply.
"I've told you, no! Telling this is useless!" the gatekeeper replied impatiently.
"Please," the visitor bowed deeper.
"No!"
It seed that the refusal was because the visitor did not carry any identification.
She was a girl in a black school uniform with a long-sleeved knit sweater over it. As she was facing away from Erald Sparrow, her features were unclear, but a single ponytail could be seen bouncing at the back of her head as she bowed.
Erald Sparrow waited behind her for a while. Seeing that the girl was unwilling to leave and kept pleading with the gatekeeper who showed no intention of letting her in, instead becoming more and more impatient, Erald Sparrow decided to intervene: "Excuse for a mont, I have a question, are you a Magical Girl?"
This question was directed at the black-haired girl in front.
This black-haired girl's intent to enter the cetery to pay respects was very strong, suggesting she was either a family mber of a martyr or a comrade of a Magical Girl. Among these two possibilities, the latter was more likely: after all, a martyr's family would have visited many tis and would surely know to bring identification.
Once Erald Sparrow spoke, the girl in front paused imdiately.
She froze in place for a couple of seconds maintaining her previous posture before slowly straightening up and turning around, looking at Erald Sparrow with a very astonished expression.
"What's the matter?" Erald Sparrow asked sowhat helplessly: "If you are a Magical Girl, do you have a Validation Card? If you show him the Validation Card, it should also prove your identity, right?"
She was already addressing the gatekeeper with the latter part.
"It's possible, but are you sure this young girl is a Magical Girl?"
Hearing Erald Sparrow's question, the gatekeeper snorted, then looked at the black-haired girl with so annoyance: "I think she's just a local kid who ca here to tease , these damn kids always like to play pranks."
"… I have it."
The girl whispered.
"What?" The gatekeeper glared at her.
"I have it, the Validation Card." The girl said earnestly.
"You have it? Then what were you doing just now? Playing ?" The guard beca even angrier after hearing this.
"...I didn't rember."
The girl said this and reached into the inner pocket of her knitted coat to rummage around. After a while, she slowly took out a dusty badge and handed it to the guard.
Although the guard looked very annoyed, he still took the dusty badge, carefully read the text on it, then emitted Magic Power to sense it, and gave the badge back to the girl.
"Alright, it's real, you can go through," he said, sowhat gloomily.
"...Thank you."
The girl imdiately bowed her head and scurried through a side door.
With that girl no longer blocking the entrance, Erald Sparrow also easily walked through the main gate. The identification provided by Erald was fake but perfectly impersonated the real thing, so naturally, the guard at the cetery gate couldn't detect anything.
However, shortly after Erald Sparrow entered the cetery, she noticed that the girl she saw earlier was inexplicably standing beside a statue, waiting. At this mont, she was staring at Erald Sparrow with wide eyes, obviously wanting to say sothing.
"Captain, long ti no see."
And as Erald Sparrow approached, the words that ca out of her mouth were indeed shocking.
Was she calling herself "Captain"? What did that an?
It took Erald Sparrow a good while to realize what the girl ant by "Captain": twenty years ago, to be exact, twenty-one years ago, she had indeed been the captain of a small team in the Luennolay City Defense Army.
But imdiately after, she beca more confused because her team didn't have many people. Apart from those who had sacrificed themselves, she rembered all of the remaining teammates. However, while this girl looked sowhat familiar, she didn't match any faces in her mory.
Short stature, black hair, skinny; these features were not particularly common. There indeed was a Magical Girl with such features in her team, Nina Kregios, but she didn't look like the girl standing before her at all.
"May I ask who you are?" So, she could only use this sowhat hurtful question in return.
And indeed, this question seed to hurt because her interlocutor's face visibly paled upon hearing Erald Sparrow's words, her already frail body trembling, looking like a gust of wind might blow her over.
"I, I … it's ." She extended her hands, pointing at her own face, voice trembling, "Captain, it's ."
"No, I know you ant that you are one of my old teammates..."
Erald Sparrow suddenly understood why the previous guard had been so irritable, and sowhat helplessly said, "But so many years have passed, and it's hard for to recognize soone just by their face, sorry, could you tell your code na?"
The girl was stunned for a mont.
Not long after, as if suddenly recalling sothing, she reached for her face and then violently pulled upwards.
Schluck.
Along with this sound, her face, or rather, a layer of skin-like mask, was ripped off by her.
"I'm sorry, I forgot… I was wearing a mask."
She said apologetically while lowering her head, and at the sa mont pulled out the validation card she had previously shown to the guard, handing it over to Erald Sparrow.
However, since she removed her mask, Erald Sparrow actually didn't need to look at that dusty badge anymore to know who was standing in front of her.
Erald Sparrow felt relieved, because, as it turned out, it wasn't that her mory had deteriorated. Rather, even with the mask on earlier, she had already sifted through the correct answer in her mind.
Standing in front of her was indeed a teammate from her squad 21 years ago, Nina Kregios.
Just as engraved on that dusty validation card:
——[Code 13251, Mo He]
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