Cinderella Panic
Once upon a time, in a faraway land, there lived a beautiful girl.
She had strong features, flowing long hair, and eyes that shone with wit. She had grown up in a great mansion, with kindhearted parents who saw to it that she wanted for nothing. But then one day, her dear mother passed away from illness. Despite her great spirit, Kaname-chan—er, the girl, I mean—was brokenhearted.
To put an end to his daughter’s sorrow, her father sought a new wife. The girl would later tell a friend that it was all a terrible misunderstanding... and indeed, the stepmother was a cruel and vicious woman. Vain, petty, and avaricious, with three young girls of her own, each more blackhearted than the last.
Why, you might ask, did he choose such a woman for his new wife? Sadly, the widower was so blinded by his loneliness that he could see little else. The girl’s new mother and stepsisters resented her beauty, and treated her terribly when her father wasn’t looking. They filled the mansion’s bathrooms with cruel graffiti about her and mocked the precious clock she’d been gifted by her mother just before her death.
But, as all people know, it never rains but it pours—for soon afterwards, her father also passed away from an unexpected illness. The cruel stepmother saw this as a perfect opportunity to throw out all of the girl’s possessions and beautiful dresses before casting her into the attic.
The story had reached its culmination. What could the girl do if not laugh? She spent her days in torment, denied proper meals or education. She was put to work on the house’s hardest and dirtiest jobs, until she ended up covered in cinders. Eventually, she came to be called Cinderella.
That is the origin of the name “Cinderella,” you see. Isn’t that nice to know?
Such was the pitiful state in which Cinderella spent her days.
●
“Cin... de... rel... la!” Stepmother Mizuki shouted, giving Cinderella’s bottom a hard kick. As a result, Cinderella—who had previously been wiping the floors with a rag—was forced to kiss the cold floor.
She looked up, spitting out the dust on her lips. “Ow... What are you doing?!”
“Oh, shut up! This is my house, and if I see a butt I don’t like, I kick it! And I certainly don’t like your butt, Cinderella! Take that! And that!” Stepmother Mizuki yelled, stamping on her again and again.
Poor Cinderella could do nothing but curl up like a pill bug and endure. “Y-You...”
“Oh, what fun! Come, girls! Come here and torment Cinderella with me!”
“Yeees, mother!” Mizuki’s three daughters—Manami, Madoka, and Shoko—took out pins of various sizes which they stabbed into Cinderella.
“Take that!”
“And that!”
“Hi-yah!”
Stab! Stab! Stab! It was domestic abuse that bordered on torture, which was now a familiar scene in Cinderella’s household.
“All right, enough!” Stepmother Mizuki finally said.
When the dust finally cleared, Cinderella could be seen in a heap on the floor. “D-Damn you...” said Cinderella, glaring up at Mizuki.
But the woman looked down at her, undaunted. “Hah! It serves you right, Cinderella,” she said, taunting her stepdaughter. “Learn your lesson from this and never talk back to me again. Is that understood?”
Cinderella remained defiant, but she kept quiet in hope of avoiding further punishment.
“Now, finish wiping the floors already,” Mizuki ordered. “When that’s done, you can clean the bathroom. I want it clean enough to eat off of it. In fact, I’ll be making you lick the toilet to prove that it’s clean!”
“Ugh. No way...” Cinderella groaned. This was truly beyond the pale, even for her typically cruel stepmother.
“Be quiet. And just be grateful you don’t have to cook tonight!”
“Huh? Why?” Cinderella asked in surprise. Preparing dinner was part of her usual nightly routine.
“Don’t you know, Cinderella?” asked the eldest daughter, Manami.
“There’s to be a ball at the castle tonight!” declared the second daughter, Madoka.
“The prince has invited all the eligible maidens, to take one for a bride,” said the youngest daughter, Shoko.
“Wh-What the—”
“—Precisely,” said Mizuki, cutting her off. “We’ll be attending the ball, so you can stay here and dine on leftover sardines and cold rice. If we’re struck by a generous spirit, perhaps we’ll bring takeout from the castle for you. Oho ho ho.”
“Um... I’d sure like to come too...”
“You may not!” her new family chorused.
“Yeah, thought so...” said Cinderella, who remained despondent beneath the callous gazes of the four bullies around her.
Of course, these were their roles in the story, but they were perhaps relishing them a bit too much?
“Now, girls, to action!” Mizuki ordered her daughters. “We’ll deck ourselves out and steal the prince’s heart! Then the kingdom will be ours! We can control the entire government from the shadows, and get that sweet bribe money from contractors and bankers!”
“Yes, ma’am!” the three girls responded enthusiastically, and then skipped away with their mother.
“Now, you stay here and watch the house,” Stepmother Mizuki told Cinderella as she and her daughters, all of whom were dressed to the nines, boarded a luxurious carriage. “After you’ve washed the windows and cleaned the hall, you’re to go right to bed. Is that understood?”
“Fine...” Cinderella responded gloomily.
“And don’t even think about sneaking into the ball after we’re gone! You have neither an invitation nor a dress, after all. Oho ho ho!” said Mizuki, laughing as nastily as she could. “A dingy little girl like you could never sneak her way inside. The castle is locked down tight, guarded by elite counter-terror special forces.”
“What kind of castle is this again?”
“Silence. Now, take us away!” Mizuki ordered. Then the coachman cracked his whip, and the carriage sped away from the house, kicking up dust behind it.
“They’re gone,” said Cinderella, who felt a weight lift off her shoulders. The departure of her tormentors spelled a moment of reprieve for the girl.
And so, Cinderella finished up her work and returned to her dingy attic room. Sitting there on her old, creaky bed, she stared through her window at the castle in the distance and sighed longingly. The castle was lit up as brightly as Tokyo Disneyland in the dark. Tonight, in that castle, the handsome prince would be choosing a bride. Delicious food and groovy music... It sounded like such a joyous occasion.
“Hmph... I’m not jealous. Not one bit,” Cinderella pouted. “Let those gold-diggers do what they like. They make me sick.” Now she was just being defensive, you see. “It’s not... It’s not like I belong there. This attic is where I belong. It’s my fate. Besides, the path they follow is one stained in blood. The raging winds suit me far better.”
She kept at her strange, nonsensical ramblings until she finally began to pity herself enough to cry. “Ah... Mother and Father up in heaven,” she sobbed. “Why did you have to die? Leaving me to pay your debts... It’s far too cruel.”
But then a voice came to Cinderella in the depths of her sorrow. “Why don’t you stop crying already?” The voice was gruff and male.
Cinderella turned and saw a young magician standing before her. He had a sullen expression and a tight frown, wore a pointed hat and urban camouflage robes. In the place of a wand, he carried a Panzerfaust, a single-use anti-tank rocket. This appeared to be his attempt at a fantasy outfit.
“Who are you?” Cinderella asked.
“I’m the wizard, Sergeant Sagara Sousuke. I was dispatched here by the politically unaligned top-secret magician’s society, Mithril. My ID number is B-3128. My call sign is Uruz-7.”
“Uh-huh.”
The magician Sergeant Sagara scanned keenly around her attic room. “I have been tasked with providing multilateral support to those in need. If you wish to attend the ball, I’ll enable you to do so, Chidori.”
“Um, I’m Cinderella...”
“I have heard you use that name as well,” said the wizard, effectively brushing off her correction.
“S-Still... am I supposed to believe you’re really a wizard?”
“Can’t you?”
“Not really. You don’t really have the aura of a wizard, for one thing,” Cinderella pointed out. “You look a little more like a cheap knockoff.”
Cinderella was certainly right about that. This man had none of the air of mystery that was typically expected from people in his line of work. Instead, he was wreathed in the faint aroma of gunpowder and smoke. “And yet,” he declared, “I am the genuine article.”
“Well, words aren’t gonna convince me,” she said. “I think I’ll need proof. Cast a spell or something.”
“A spell, eh? All right,” the wizard spoke boldly, then withdrew a small spoon from his robe. “Bippidy boppity boo,” he said, reciting the magic words.
The spoon abruptly bent. And that was it.
“...Is that it?” Cinderella asked suspiciously.
“There’s more.” The wizard pulled out a small fork, but Cinderella just waved her hand in disgust.
“Enough.”
“I also have the ability to levitate from a sitting position,” he told her solemnly.
“Why is it all huckster stuff?” Cinderella scoffed. “If you wanna show me some magic, at least whip out a fireball or something...”
“What in the world are you talking about?”
“Oh, forget it.” Realizing that talking was a waste of time, Cinderella decided to change the subject. She let out a sigh and splayed herself out on her bed. “So? You said you’d take me to the ball, right?”
“Affirmative.”
“I appreciate the sentiment, but... how exactly? I don’t have a dress, an invitation, or a carriage,” she said bitterly, looking down at her dingy clothing.
“Not an issue. First, prepare for me the following...” The wizard retrieved a notebook from the folds of his robe and began listing things off. “One pumpkin, four house mice, one lizard...”
“Right...”
“One assault rifle, one shotgun...”
“Uh?”
“Two dozen anti-personnel hand grenades, 160 rounds of 5.56mm bullets, three cases of C4, six Claymore mines...”
“What in the world?” she asked the wizard.
He looked back over his notepad, then became abashed. “My mistake. That was my personal shopping list. I only need the pumpkin, the mice, and the lizard.”
“Uh-huh...” Cinderella was starting to have serious doubts about whether she could really trust this guy.
Cinderella searched all around the mansion until she found what she’d been asked for. She set a cage containing the mice and lizard, as well as the pumpkin, before the front door. “Got ’em all,” she told the wizard. “What now?”
“All right. Stand right where you are,” he instructed, “close to the pumpkin and the animals.” As the wizard spoke, he strode away from Cinderella. He held up the anti-tank rocket he was using in place of a wand, adjusting the firing lever and the sight.
“What are you going to do?” she asked.
“I’m going to cast a spell. My wand may look like an ordinary Panzerfaust, but it’s actually a magical rocket. Instead of regular blasting powder, it’s loaded with magical blasting powder that utilizes the latest in magical technology,” he boasted. “It has a simple interface, as well. I simply peer through the magical scope and pull the magical trigger.”
I guess you can get away with anything as long as you call it “magical,” Cinderella observed.
Sergeant Sagara the wizard walked some distance away before he knelt down and readied his anti-tank rocket.
Meanwhile, Cinderella began to panic as she found herself in the lethal weapon’s sight. “Hey!” she exclaimed. “What are you about to do?!”
“Remain still! This is one-use-only, so I only get one shot at it.” He was telling her that failure was not an option. The wizard was serious. He peered through the scope and adjusted his positioning to get Cinderella, as well as the pumpkin and cage nearby, in view.
“A-Are you trying to kill me?! If you fire that thing—”
“Enough talk. Fire!” And with that, the wizard did so.
The anti-tank rocket warhead streaked straight for Cinderella, and the poor girl could do nothing but scream. She, the pumpkin, the mice, and the lizard were consumed in crimson flames.
“Direct hit!” With his robe flapping from the force of the explosion, the wizard released the empty rocket tube. The mannerism itself was perhaps his only display of dignity so far.
Now, reader, do you think Cinderella died a spectacular death?
Ah, but of course she didn’t. When the smoke and fire cleared, there simply stood a beautiful girl in a magnificent dress. It was Cinderella, transformed by the rocket’s magic, and coughing rather severely. So, too, did the pumpkin transform into a carriage, the mice into horses, and the lizard into a coachman.
Cinderella looked down at herself in shock. “Is this... me?” She was now wearing a stunning white dress with glass slippers, a dazzling necklace, and a diamond tiara. Her sleek black hair was arranged perfectly to match. She had always been pleasing to the eye, but in the right clothes she became truly, strikingly beautiful.
The wizard stood before the girl, arrogantly puffing out his chest. “You see? That is the power of my cutting-edge magical technology.”
Cinderella slumped a little. “Couldn’t you at least say ‘You’re beautiful’ or ‘It looks great on you,’ you war-obsessed downer?”
“What was that?”
“Nothing,” she sighed. “Anyway, I admit it’s pretty good, and now I can go to the ball. Thanks!”
“No need to thank me. It was all in the service of my mission. And... take this.” The wizard handed her a scroll of parchment.
“What is this?”
“An invitation to the ball. I forged it.”
“Uh-huh...”
“Go now, Cinderella. I don’t know what enjoyment there is to be had at a ball, but I hope you dance until you’re satisfied.”
“Could you try to find less irritating phrases?” Cinderella grumbled as she got on board her carriage.
The wizard called out to her as she went, “The spell will expire when the clock strikes 0000 hours. If you do not complete your objective and withdraw before then, your identity will be exposed and you’ll be arrested by the castle’s GIGN.”
“Okay, but... what’s a GIGN?”
“French special forces. Elites,” the wizard clarified.
“Wait, since when were we in France?”
“Don’t think about it too hard,” he advised her.
Cinderella said nothing, but stared at him in great disapproval as the pumpkin carriage carried her away.
Girls in lavish dresses had gathered in the castle’s grand ballroom. Some had earnestly come to try to win the prince, while others had come to window-shop. Others still were selling boxed lunches and drinks, while others were running betting pools, et cetera.
The music of the kingdom’s greatest symphony orchestra resounded through the cheerfully lit hall. Despite the setting being a ball filled with girls, the song was Beethoven’s “Destiny,” a far too dark and oppressive choice for any dancing to be done.
“Um, Father. Could you put on another song already?” asked Prince Kyoko, star of the ball. Despite being a prince, she was actually a charming young girl with coke-bottle glasses and braids. (Please disregard the incoherence of this sentence.)
“Hmm. I happen to like it... Is it a problem?” asked King Hayashimizu. He had an intelligent air about him, accented by his slicked-back hair and wire frame glasses.
“But the purpose of this ball is to choose my wife, isn’t it?” Prince Kyoko pointed out. “I don’t think I want to marry anyone who can dance well to stuffy music like this...”
“I suppose. But either way, it’s your bride. You should choose whomever you like best.”
“Well, that was the plan...” Prince Kyoko started to agree.
“Good. But you can’t just choose anyone,” said King Hayashimizu, nudging his glasses higher on the bridge of his nose. “I don’t want your bride having any extreme ideologies. Pacifists and communists will be expelled immediately—this is a monarchy, after all. No religious fundamentalists either, or spendthrifts or gold-diggers. And while they would preferably have gone through higher education, let there be no economists.”
“Uh-huh...” said Prince Kyoko, who only understood about half of the words coming out of the king’s mouth.
“At any rate, the most important aspect in our future queen is that she do no harm to our kingdom,” King Hayashimizu concluded. “Thus, her social graces are largely irrelevant.”
“But then why hold a ball?” asked the prince.
“It does feel contradictory, but this has been our custom for eight generations, and it’s part of the royal family’s duty to respect tradition, within reason.” King Hayashimizu’s logical mindset was well known throughout the neighboring kingdoms, and Prince Kyoko decided it wasn’t worth it to argue any further.
“With all that said... Prince Kyoko,” asked the king, “have you found anyone that catches your eye?”
“Hmm, well...” Many girls had come to pay their regards to Prince Kyoko since the ball began, but none had really caused her heart to race. “Not yet,” she admitted. “Though they’re all very pretty.”
“I see. What about those three sisters from earlier? They seemed energetic enough.”
“Definitely not,” Prince Kyoko opined, “though they might make good friends.” They were talking about the daughters of a widow named Mizuki who had come by earlier. They’d quickly begun fighting over Prince Kyoko, and were taken away by the castle guard.
It was then that a quiet stir of gossip began among those in attendance.
“She’s beautiful!”
“What noble house does she belong to?”
“She’s a Hepburn-class beauty...”
The whispering crowds slowly parted, allowing a girl to pass through them and up to Prince Kyoko. It was Cinderella, transformed by the magic of Sergeant Sagara.
“Ah...” Prince Kyoko gasped.
The girl wore a silk dress of pure white. Her hair was long, sleek, and black. She had big, clear eyes. Her skin was smooth and unblemished. She was truly the epitome of grace and beauty.
“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Your Highness.” Cinderella bowed her head and curtsied graciously.
Prince Kyoko was enchanted. “Kana-chan... you’re beautiful.” she whispered achingly, and a flush came to her cheeks. It was as if she might take the girl in her arms right then and there.
Cinderella was at first stunned by this reaction, and hesitated, but then coughed and regained her good sense. “Ah, ahem. Your Highness, would you do me the honor of this dance?”
The dreamy-eyed Prince Kyoko nodded firmly. “Yes... Let’s dance, Kana-chan.”
“Oh, um. I’m not Kana-chan, okay?”
“Yes... of course you’re not, Kana-chan...” It appeared that Prince Kyoko was already hopelessly head-over-heels for Cinderella.
At last, the music in the ballroom reached a stopping point, and the orchestra launched into a proper waltz. The prince and Cinderella danced to it, reducing everyone around them to admiring spectators. Cinderella was taller than the prince, and one would be hard-pressed to claim that the prince was leading, but they were both terribly happy nevertheless.
Meanwhile, the king issued a quiet command to his nearby chief of intelligence. “Investigate the girl’s background and family. And don’t forget to tail her.” He was the master of both castle and kingdom, after all.
The music in the ballroom continued on and on. After the waltz came tango, jazz, rock, reggae, and then hip-hop. Even the king of soul, James Brown, came out at the end, wishing them a gleeful “Get-up-pah!”
Cinderella and the prince danced to a variety of genres. She was so enjoying the moment that she completely lost track of time, and the midnight bell began to ring just as they were engaged in a lively twist.
“Ah!” Cinderella went pale. She’d just remembered the wizard Sergeant Sagara’s words: the spell will expire when the clock strikes 0000 hours... She was truly at a loss. If she remained here any longer, the spell would break before everyone’s eyes, and she would be humiliated and arrested by the castle guards.
Prince Kyoko peered curiously at Cinderella as she stopped. “What’s wrong?”
“I... I’m sorry! I just remembered something I have to do,” she said hastily. “I’ve got to feed my cat.”
It was unusual for a noblewoman to attend to such errands. “Eh?” asked Prince Kyoko.
“It’s been fun, Your Highness, but goodbye now!” Before Prince Kyoko could stop her, Cinderella whipped around and fled the ballroom, dashing down the long hallway and arriving at the stairs.
“Wait!” The prince ran after her, but our Cinderella wasn’t such a fool as to wait on command.
“Oh, goddammit. It’s so hard to run in these things...” said Cinderella, swearing under her breath and kicking off the precious glass slippers. Then she took off running again, moving so quickly that she lost the prince, who was still in pursuit.
“Guards! Someone! Stop her!” the prince cried, and the castle guards moved to stand in front of Cinderella. There was no way that Cinderella, a combat amateur, could stand a chance against such professionals.
“Urgh... this is gonna be tough...” Cinderella took a deep breath, and...
Blam! Blam! A sudden roar sounded out, and the guards collapsed. “Eh?” The shocked Cinderella saw the wizard, Sergeant Sagara, standing in front of her. He was still in his pointed hat and urban camouflage robes, carrying a shotgun in one hand.
“Can you run?” he asked her.
“Um... yeah.”
“Follow me, then,” he told her, and took off running, with Cinderella on his heels.
“Wh-What are you doing here?” she asked breathlessly.
“Aftercare,” he said shortly. “It was extremely difficult to infiltrate the castle without a fake invitation.”
“What’s that weapon?”
“A magical Remington M870. I’ve loaded it with rubber slugs.”
Cinderella just looked at him silently once more. But as the two hurried for the castle gate, even more guards appeared. Blam! Blam! With almost terrifying accuracy, the wizard hit the guards with magical stun rounds, forcing them into unconscious heaps.
“I-Incredible...”
“This way,” the wizard urged her. They ran through the castle garden to the place where the pumpkin carriage was waiting. He called out, “Get in! Hurry,” while still firing at the advancing guards.
Cinderella swiftly boarded the carriage. “I’m in!” she called back.
“Now, move out!” the wizard yelled to the coachman, who cracked his whip. The pumpkin carriage’s wheels began turning swiftly, and the wizard managed to jump on board just in the nick of time. But the castle gate was already closed, and there was no way for the carriage to leave.
“Dammit, there’s nowhere to go!” Cinderella cursed, but the wizard pulled a hand grenade out from under his robe and removed the pin. “Is that a magical hand grenade?” she asked skeptically.
“No, this is a holy hand grenade,” he told her piously. “Legend says it was once used by King Arthur.”
Cinderella said nothing once more.
And with that, the wizard threw the grenade. There was a massive explosion that blew the castle gate apart.
“Break through!” the wizard ordered. At his words, the pumpkin carriage plowed through the smoke and fragments, bearing them at last outside the castle walls. One second later, the chiming of the midnight bell came to its end. The carriage began to turn back into a pumpkin, the horses into mice, and the coachman into a lizard.
“Eek!” Cinderella was thrown out into empty air as her carriage abruptly vanished. The magician twisted dexterously in midair to catch her, then hit the ground a moment later. The two of them rolled end-over-end into the river that ran along the road. There was a huge splash, and then the river fell quiet.
The pursuing guards passed them right by as a result.
Saved by the wizard, Cinderella crawled up onto shore, coughing. “That was a close call,” she said. She was soaked from head to toe, and her beautiful dress had turned back to dingy rags. “Ahh...” she sighed, looking down at the terrible state she was in. “And the prince and I were getting along so well... I guess it’s back to my life of suffering.”
“Would you prefer if there were a ball every night?” the wizard asked.
“It’s not about that, really...”
“Holding such an occasion nightly would collapse the kingdom’s economy,” he pointed out.
“Look, I think I was pretty close to marrying the prince, okay? And if I’d succeeded, I could’ve escaped my rotten life. Maybe people are better off without dreams...”
The wizard Sergeant Sagara just stared at the despondent Cinderella.
“Wh-What?” she asked.
“Cinderella, that is a defeatist attitude,” the wizard said with his usual sullen expression.
“What?”
“You can’t always rely on reinforcements to turn around a disadvantageous battlefield situation. Read the terrain and the weather, learn the enemy’s strengths and weaknesses, endure when you have to, and make the best choices you can to survive. A soldier who gives up on these things has no future,” he lectured.
Cinderella was stunned. It appeared to be the first common-sense thing the wizard had said since they met.
“Nothing would change if you lived in that castle,” he continued. “You will still find enemies anywhere you go. Would you have to rely on your prince every time one manifested?”
“W-Well...” Cinderella didn’t know how to respond.
The wizard stood up. “Use your head. Work it out. Even without magic, I believe you can do it.”
“W-Wait—”
“Farewell.” The wizard turned to leave.
Cinderella cried after him. “Mr. Wizard!”
“Yes?” he asked, but didn’t stop.
“Where are you going?”
“Into the west. My next mission awaits.” And with that unceremonious reply, the wizard disappeared into the darkness.
“...And there he goes.” Cinderella, now alone, carefully reflected on his words.
It’s true that I’ve been relying way too much on the idea of someone else solving my problems, she thought. And when I really think about it, there’s no way I could be with a prince. Instead of chasing impossible dreams, I should figure out what I want to do with my life. Men tend to be pretty unreliable when you need them... My late father kinda proved that, didn’t he?
Cinderella found her thoughts heading in a more pragmatic direction. And after all, that mansion belonged to my parents! Why am I letting those total strangers order me around? Even if that is the law, I don’t have to go along with it. Right? I’ve been so stupid... The barefoot Cinderella embraced her growing anger as she began the long walk back to her home.
Prince Kyoko was dearly fond of Cinderella and wished to take her for her wife. But she didn’t know the girl’s address, surname, or telephone number—in fact, the only clue the girl had left behind was her glass slippers. Prince Kyoko’s father, King Hayashimizu, seemed to know more, but he refused to tell his heir, hoping to see what she could find on her own.
Prince Kyoko gave the following order to her retainers: “Try the shoe on all the girls in the kingdom, and find the one it fits! Create 128 perfect copies, and search in 128 teams!” The prince was so serious that she was behaving with logic unbecoming of a fairy tale.
Later that same day, the retainers set out into the kingdom with replicas of the shoe. One such retainer, Lord Kazama, ended up at Cinderella’s house, which was close to the castle. He knocked on the mansion’s door with the slipper in hand, and Stepmother Mizuki opened it.
“Yes?” The woman looked exhausted and faintly disoriented. Finding it strange, the retainer asked to come in. “Ah, certainly...” she replied.
The retainer entered the grand mansion. The parlor was empty, with no furniture or decorations anywhere, and the other rooms seemed to be in a similar state. The mansion’s three daughters were squatting in a corner, still in their ball dresses, despondent.
“Um, may I ask...?”
“Cinderella did this,” the stepmother said, holding back her seething anger. “We spent a night in the castle dungeon, and when we returned the house was in this state! She sold our mansion’s treasures in the city and took off with the money! That rotten little brat even took our underwear and sold it off to a used clothing shop! Who does that?!” the stepmother cried, her anger irrepressible.
“Ahh... that’s quite a story,” the lord agreed tactfully.
“I went to the police and they just told me to give up on it! They called me a tax cheat! You’re not going to pull that on me too, are you?!” As the stepmother laid into him, Lord Kazama tried to soothe her anger.
“A-Anyway, I brought these shoes,” he said. “Would you like to try them on?”
The stepmother and daughters looked at each other in exhaustion. “I suppose... we might as well.”
Needless to say, the shoes didn’t fit anyone.
Sergeant Sagara walked alone down the empty road. As a mere NCO, he lacked truly useful spells such as teleportation, and had no choice but to walk along silently to his next post.
Around the time the sun was setting in the west, a simple, but sturdy-looking carriage came up from behind him and stopped at his side.
“Hmm?” The wizard looked up at the girl sitting in the coachman’s seat, and was surprised to find he recognized her.
“Hello there, Mr. Wizard,” Cinderella said. She was well fortified in new traveling clothes and sturdy leather boots.
“What’s going on here?” he wondered aloud.
“I’m doing what you said,” she told him, “using my head to work something out. And I’ve gotta say, I’m feeling weirdly optimistic about the whole thing.”
“I see.” He folded his arms and nodded approvingly. “That’s a good way to be.”
At that, she smiled brightly. “So, what are you up to?”
“Like I said, I’m going into the west.”
“What a coincidence, I’m heading west too. Wanna ride?”
He thought a minute before giving her his answer. “I believe I will.”
“Good boy,” Cinderella said approvingly. “Okay, let’s go.” As he sat down beside her on the coachman’s platform, she started it off again. The carriage began to clatter off into the setting sun with both of them aboard.
“By the way,” Sergeant Sagara said. “What do I call you?”
“That’s a good question. I guess ‘Cinderella’ doesn’t exactly fit anymore... Of course, no need to rush into any decisions.”
“Really?”
“Really. I’ve got all the time in the world, after all.” With that, she smiled, her face beautifully illuminated by the setting sun.
●
Prince Kyoko was disheartened to learn that there were no maidens in the kingdom who fit the glass slippers. But the king gave her all kinds of schoolwork and practical work to distract her, and she cheered up again in time. In addition, the realization that she couldn’t have everything she wanted eventually helped her to become a wise and benevolent ruler.
And they all lived happily ever after.
〈Cinderella Panic — The End〉
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