Magical Girl with Demonic Time Magic-Chapter 128: Perfection Is Nothing but Despair

"...Hmmm...hmmmmm...hmmm...uhumm..." I hum to myself as I gently stroke the brush, spreading the blood across the canvas. My beautiful work of art is almost complete, needing only my signature.

"This is magnificent..." I push my wheelchair back to view the perfect painting. It is magnificently detailed—a beautiful lake surrounded by a pine forest with a log cabin in the distance.

However, the sky in the painting is overcast, threatening to rain, while in the lower part of the canvas, beneath the earth, dozens of skeletons are positioned as if trying to climb up to the surface.

"It represents perfectly... the inability to reach the top... I like it..." I look at the dozens of corpses of magical girls scattered on the floor. Their blood and organs were used for this painting.

And now, only my signature is missing. I look at Lenore, collapsed on the floor. She isn’t dead yet, but she’s in a coma from overusing her power, and her heartbeat is growing slower and slower.

She remains alive through pure willpower alone because she wants to die only once I’ve finished the painting, which gives me this amusing sense of gratitude and interest.

Sex with her was fun, although I didn’t feel much, since the sensation in the lower half of my body is greatly diminished. I can feel my intimate parts, but it’s about ten times less than a normal girl.

"Thanks for waiting, Lenore. It’s better to write my signature with fresh blood. If you had died, I’d be stuck with blood that’s less... adequate," I say, picking up a knife and taking her hand.

I carefully make a cut and begin draining the blood into a clean basin. I leave her hand resting there as I take my brush and start cleaning it of the other blood.

"Hmmm, I think I’m close to dying. The restlessness seems worse... lamentably, you won’t be conscious to defend me... not that I wanted you to, but I believe you failed me, didn’t you?" I converse with her, smiling, as I dip the brush into the bowl.

Then I go to the canvas and begin making my signature with Lenore’s blood. I draw a beautiful clock, using the clock’s hands as if I were drawing a compass rose, turning the clock into a lovely compass that is my signature for this piece.

"It’s... magnificent..." Tears stream down my face as I behold my final work. The different shades of red created a piece like no other, and the material itself is the rarest in the world.

"Five living magical girls are all that remain now... that idiot in another country... Setsuna... Ayane... myself... and finally you, Lenore... But soon we will die, so only three magical girls will remain in the world..." I say in a neutral tone.

"Strangely, Septarion didn’t show up... A pity, I think he’d be quite angry to realize I’ve killed all the magical girls he worked so hard to create... Besides, the world will become quite chaotic with no one to hunt monsters..." I look down and see that Lenore has died.

"...It seems you are happy, Lenore... Was being immortalized in my final work enough for you?..." I speak to the dead body while admiring my last creation.

"Thank you for your help, Lenore... You are the only one who would understand my desires, see the horrible things I do, and still accept being a part of it... If you had managed to save me in the past... perhaps things would be different..." I look at the painting, feeling a sense of existential emptiness.

"...I... truly despise perfection..." To me, perfection is just despair. I never wanted to paint the perfect work, because the perfect work means the final work. So, no matter how much I yearned for the perfect piece, I never truly wanted to create it.

Yet now I have created it. What makes this art perfect isn’t the drawing itself—after all, skilled artists could copy the image. What makes it perfect is the hidden symbolism stemming from the form of the canvas, the material of the canvas, and the feeling poured into the canvas.

"This painting that represents emptiness... makes me want to slit my throat..." That is the sensation I feel looking at this beautiful painting. I have just created the painting that represents the end of everything.

Paintings convey emotions, often abstractly representing terrible things. Depending on the work and its hidden meaning, it can drive observers to madness.

"This is the third work I know of that has the capacity to make someone kill themselves... I have reached... the level every artist wants to achieve, but also fears achieving..." The painting that depicts death is literally "perfect."

Because the end of a work is the end of a life, so the painting that makes someone kill themselves is the ultimate work and the pinnacle of an artist’s power to shape the world through painting. There are paintings that make people cry.

There are paintings that cause confusion, that cause hatred, that cause joy. In the end, all of them fail at one thing.

Leaving the imaginary. In the end, all normal paintings merely affect feelings, while the perfect painting affects those who see it. This is the painting of death, a painting that leads its viewers to suicide.

"A human seeing this painting would kill themselves instantly..." I am unaffected only because I am the artist of the painting and because I am a magical girl. And even though I’m not fully affected, it still influences me because it gives me the desire to die.

"I’d say... that after seeing this painting, I would kill myself in four days... Should I consider myself lucky that someone will kill me before then?" As I say this to the void, I hear a sound. I look back and see Setsuna.

This puts a sweet smile on my face as I look at her. Setsuna walks towards me, stepping on the numerous bodies as blood splashes. She stops beside me and observes the painting I made.

"You know, Ophelia... I always knew there was something wrong with you..." Setsuna speaks coldly while staring at my painting.

"So, Setsuna, you are the one who will kill me... What a pleasant... surprise." I like this. Who would have thought the girl capable of exciting me would be the one to kill me... It’s a sweet and tragic fate.

"Setsuna, what do you think of my final painting?" I ask, feeling that I could provoke her more if I had hurt Ayane, now that I know she’s the one who will kill me.

"It’s ugly..." She calls the pinnacle of art ugly.

"Ugly? I see... What do you see in it?" I ask, curious.

"I see myself in it." She gives me the answer I expected.

"I see... I truly understand, Setsuna... It seems you have overcome death... or perhaps you never valued life to begin with," I say with a smile, looking at her.

"..." She looks at me coldly.

"May I know why you came to kill me?" I am genuinely interested in this answer.

"...I saw Ayane betraying me with you. I decided to eliminate the... competition," she says with an icy tone.

"...Competition? Ah, what a pity... I never thought of Ayane in that way... but it’s fine. I am ready to die... because I have finally attained true despair..."

"Just like everyone I’ve ever killed was filled with despair, I now experience that sensation myself," I say philosophically.

"Ophelia... you are disgustingly similar to a demon," she says, speaking of demons.

"Hahahaha... How intriguing..." She points her gun at my head.

"May I... have one last request? I would like a kiss... a kiss from the one who served as the inspiration for the painting that represents perfection, emptiness, despair, and finally... death itself." I made this painting using Setsuna as its basis.

"..."

"No." She denies me while looking into my eyes.

"Hmmm... It seems I won’t have that wish fulfilled... Thank you for finally allowing me to see perfection and death in the way I always hoped to see it..." I thank her for this as she pulls the trigger.

I feel the bullet from the gun entering my head. The world seems to slow down, and I feel no panic or fear, only a comforting sensation that I have concluded my duty in this world.

"Th-Thank you..." I give one last thanks before everything begins to fade for me. Out of the corner of my eye, I see Lenore’s corpse and smile at her, who helped me so much; without her, this would not have been possible either.