The one in most pain of all was Yurika herself. Since she prioritized on reducing the strain on everyone, she was draining spiritual energy from herself as well. Since Sanae had such a massive amount of spiritual energy, it was questionable if any long-term side effects could be avoided even with the six of them. Yurika couldn't exclude herself and increase the strain on the others. That's why she had to endure the pain while controlling her third spell.
Yurika's third spell gathered and merged the spiritual energy gathered from the second spell. Spiritual energy had different wavelengths depending on the individual. And if that wavelength wasn't matched to Sanae's own, it would be of no use to her. So for her third spell, Yurika had to match and adjust the wavelengths of six different people at the same time.
The difficulty level of the spell itself was lower than the second spell, but she had to make minute adjustments on six different wavelengths while having her own spiritual energy drained. So in effect, this was the most difficult spell of them all.
“Yurika Fight! Yu...rika... fi...ght!”
Yurika cheered for herself while she did her best to focus on controlling her spell. If her focus wavered for even a moment, the wavelengths of the spiritual energy would be distorted and would disperse without being of any use to Sanae.
“You can do it Yurika... You're our only hope right now...”
Koutarou was irritated that all he could do was pray.
Koutarou had thought of helping Yurika with Signaltin, but he couldn't control it's magical power as well as Alaia could. That's why he had no confidence that he would be of any help for this part that required detailed actions.
He could completely leave it up to the sword like he had when dealing with Kii's nightmare or when healing Maki's injury, but he didn't know if that would succeed. Since Sanae's life was on the line, he would leave the forcible solution as a last resort.
So as a result, there was nothing Koutarou could do right now. All he could do that Yurika would succeed so that he didn't have to rely on the sword's power.
“I, will definitely, save, Sanae-chan”
Yurika desperately focused her mind to maintain her magic as she was assaulted by the pain.
10 seconds, 20 seconds, 30 seconds.
It was usually the kind of time that would pass in an instant as everyone laughed together. But now, that time just wasn't passing. This was the first time in Yurika's life that two minutes had felt this long.
“I will, become an, amazing, magical girl, like, Nana-san!”
But Yurika didn't back down. Despite the intense pain, she continued supporting her spell through an iron will.
One year ago, this task would most likely have been impossible for Yurika. Having separated from Nana, Yurika had spent her days escaping from assassins from Darkness Navy. Regardless of her potential when it came to magic, Yurika's personality was unsuited for fights and other kinds of dangers.
However, Yurika had grown immensely in the year since she had come to room 106. She met with Koutarou and the other invading girls and repeatedly fought with them. And that everyday life had trained Yurika.
More importantly, Yurika was no longer alone.
She wanted to graduate from Kitsushouharukaze high school together with Koutarou. She wanted to see the finale of her favorite magical girl anime together with Sanae. She wanted to recover the corpses of Yurika, Yurika A and Yurika B that Theia had left behind in a cave in one of her games. She hadn't tasted all of Kiriha's cooking. She was still in the middle of reading the manga that she had borrowed from Shizuka. And she wanted to do something to help Harumi with her love.
“I am, the magical girl, of love, and courage!!”
She had a lot of things she wanted to do with the people she loved. So even if she was in a situation she hated, she would still do her best. During this year, she had learned love and hope, and obtained the courage to not run away when things got hard.
“Yurika... you...”
While Sanae looked at Yurika, she greatly changed her opinion of her. That was surely true of everyone in the room. Nobody had expected Yurika to work this hard, with just one exception. Only Koutarou believed that Yurika could do it.
“That's right... you can do it... You're someone who pulls things through!”
There was less than a minute left of the two minutes. Yurika was having a hard time breathing, but Koutarou was convinced that she could do it. In fact, she probably could have.
But that was when something unexpected happened.
A swerving and crashing sound rang out.
A traffic accident had occurred near Corona House. A car had been unable to fully turn around a corner and crashed into a wall, and fortunately nobody had been injured.
“...Ah!?”
But because of that accident, Yurika's concentration was disturbed.