“Damn it, damn it—what was that supposed to mean? It’s so infuriating, like sand in my eyes.”

Yun Shi hurled her phone onto the mattress, a small fire still gnawing at her ribs like a fox in a trap.

It was already nine; she’d changed into her at-home clothes and perched on her soft bed, both face and heart rippling, unable to settle like wind on a pond.

Hiss...

She must’ve tugged a wound; the sting crept like cold rain down her skin.

Without thinking, the girl hugged her knees and buried her face, her gaze turning dusk-gray like a street with its lamps gone out.

Miyuki Kiseki has become a Witch, like a name carved into stone under moonlight.

The thought kept tolling in her chest like a bell in fog; Yun Shi knew Mizuki was now part of the Underworld, a foot on night’s road.

After today that much is set like ink, but why does anger still burn like a stubborn coal under ash?

Maybe it’s jealousy—a thin, sour tide—because Miyuki Kiseki, swept into the Underworld, still held that clear spring, still kept her head.

Back then, Yun Shi had been all helplessness and fear, like a fawn in brambles with wolves at dusk.

Miyuki Kiseki is strange; a girl so ordinary looks stubborn as a mountain, refusing to bow even with death’s blade at her throat.

Why leap into hell like a fool who sees the pit and still jumps, just to save a friend like pulling one star from a storm?

She knew nothing, like a blank map in a thunderstorm.

So why does this ache bruise so easily, like a peach skin touched by frost?

Yun Shi laughed, thin as frost on glass; it looked less like a smile than a sob that wouldn’t melt.

In the end, it’s jealousy—jealous that Miyuki Kiseki could hold her line in the dark, while I slipped like a stone into a river.

In her last life, she was one face in a tide, doing plain things with plain hands under a small, warm sun.

Her heart was white as paper, content with a simple bowl of light; not rich, but happy like tea steaming in winter.

No need to fret over lairs of shadow, no need to stare at dark corners, no need to add salt to wounds in midnight rain.

Reborn, she wasn’t ordinary; she belonged to night from the start, with blood no stranger, like iron on the tongue.

And she hated it, like grit in a tooth; why this fate, why this script scrawled by a crooked pen?

She only wanted a quiet life, a candle in a small room, yet even that wish shattered like thin glass on stone.

So when she met Miyuki Kiseki, she saw a shard of her old self, like catching a reflection in a river.

She didn’t want Mizuki to rot in the dark as she had, but the facts turned their face like a wind that shifts.

I hate that girl, truly hate her, like thorns under skin—but I hate myself more, like a shadow that won’t step aside.

Why does jealousy spill now, when it never did, like dye bleeding through cloth?

It’s absurd, like a comic flipped wrong-way: a shut-in otaku crosses worlds and wakes as a girl by a trick of the moon.

If it were only that, fine, but why strip away everything, like leaves torn from a tree in a gale?

The old life was good—friends, family, people who cared—warm as a kitchen light at dusk.

Not like now, where I can’t even keep a friend, and parents would toss their own child for desire, like merchants counting coins.

I’m so done with this, like a boat scraping rock in low water.

They say isekai leads are invincible; that’s smoke and mirrors blown by a carnival wind.

The OP chosen one flips on a cheat, girls flock like swallows, and he steamrolls the world like a tank on rails.

But that means cutting every tie, snipping the red strings one by one, till your past hangs like dead vines.

If you had no ties, fine; if you did, being dragged across is tragedy, like a bridge washed out in flood.

She was the latter; in the old world, her knots wouldn’t cut, like hemp soaked in rain.

She never wished to cross, yet everything she owned burned to ash and reset to zero like a winter field.

On top of that, no family truly loved her; to them she was a tool, a cold gear in a machine.

They never held her at the hearth of their hearts; even a tiny wish went empty, like a bowl left out in snow.

Not even one simple meal together, a table with steam and laughter; in her memory, home has no smell, like a room with no fire.

The last life’s scent has faded, like incense after the altar’s cold.

So yes, Miyuki Kiseki makes her angry, like a splinter you can’t tweeze out.

By now, Yun Shi has a rough grasp of what Witch means, at least for Mizuki, like tracing a pattern under thin paper.

Mizuki’s chain of events looks random, yet it reads like fate’s handwriting, a path chalked before the rain.

It all says one thing, a single bright stroke—Miyuki Kiseki is the protagonist of this world.

In her last life, she never saw a story or anime like this; but this world feels derived, like a branch off a trunk.

Because Miyuki Kiseki’s life reads like a plot, a drumbeat; she must be a key piece in storms to come.

Yun Shi isn’t stupid; the answer comes quick, like a coin clicking into a slot.

Call her last world A, this reincarnated world C, and outside them, imagine a B world like a third moon.

In B, there’s a story about C; in C, Miyuki Kiseki is a novice Witch, but in B she’s the heroine at episode one.

In A, no anime like that exists, like a shelf with that book missing.

It’s like how one world hosts Attack on Titan and Sword Art Online, while another never heard those names, like towns on different rivers.

Naturally, reborn, Yun Shi doesn’t know what kind of world this is; the veteran trick—walk by the plot—won’t fly, like a kite in dead air.

Call it the parallel worlds theory, strands of silk running side by side under the same sun.

The world isn’t single; parallels exist, like mirrors facing mirrors into a tunnel of light.

But Yun Shi doesn’t know her role; was she in the original story, or is she a stray leaf in the stream?

Will she bend the course, or be swept along; fog presses close like wool.

I hate this, she thought, like grit under an eyelid.

She clutched the life-size body pillow she’d splurged on, searching for a small island of safety in a rough sea.

Hatsune Miku smiled from the fabric, proportions just right, a teal wave frozen mid-song.

But fretting changes nothing, like throwing pebbles at the moon.

“Born in shadow, destined to miss the sun,” she murmured, like a line stitched into a black banner.

She rolled over and hugged Miku at the headboard, eyes unfocused, as if watching a river of years run backward.

She’s fourteen, after all; her soul may be thirty, but her body’s young and honest like green bamboo.

She’s not that strong; most days she plays a boy, chasing the old warmth like a moth chasing a lamp.

She failed; no matter how she tries, she can’t return to that mind, like a bridge with a span missing.

Estrogen’s taken the wheel, a slow tide; bit by bit, her thinking bends like willow.

Maybe that’s it; maybe there’s more; either way, Yun Shi’s not very forthright now, like a cat that won’t come when called.

She wants to change, to get back her old temper, but she can’t; every time she speaks, regret nips like a fish.

Why can’t I just say what I feel, like pouring water from a clear jar?

How am I supposed to build a harem like this, a castle of hearts with no foundation?

In a sense, she can’t; she doesn’t even have the equipment, no sword to raise in the tourney.

“I want yuri—two flowers leaning in the same wind,” she blurted, a blush like dawn on snow.

Why does it feel like some pervy yuri fiend has possessed me, like a fox spirit in a paper charm?

Sigh—she let it out thin as smoke through a chink.

Truth is, all this talk is her trying to settle the storm inside, to still the water and see the moon.

She refuses to keep sinking; she lives in the dark, yes, but she remembers light like a hearth in winter.

Wanting things isn’t a sin; on orientation, she won’t retreat, a line drawn in sand.

Over her dead body will she like men; if it’s yuri, she’ll build a harem instead, a garden with same-colored blooms.

If she cross-dresses as a boy, it’ll go smoothly, like slipping through a crowd in a hood.

But will anyone actually bite, like fish to a silver lure?

Worry pricked her, a thorn under nail; what if the harem fails and a yandere brings an axe?

Better be careful, she thought, walking on eggshells over a floor of knives.

She’s no actual pervy yuri maniac; who’s that bold, to dance on coals barefoot?

After a beat, Yun Shi snuffed the bad idea like a candle, curled on her side with Miku in her arms.

Outside, the night lay still; city lights bloomed like lantern flowers, sketching paths that point toward dawn.

Some roads stayed unlit, though, keeping their dark like wells that never see stars.

Yun Shi hugged her pillow and curled tighter, weaving a cocoon of safety to hush the moth-wing panic inside.

Her eyes lost their usual cool flatness; what swam there was a girl’s soft tide and a helplessness she couldn’t hide.

When the lights died and the room sank into shadow, her gaze dimmed further, sadder, like rainclouds lowering.

Her arms tightened around the pillow; she drew in warmth like a cold bird tucking its wings.

“So dark—why won’t the light come in,” she whispered, like a leaf asking the night for morning.