Mahou Shoujo Ikusei Keikaku - Volume 10 - Chapter 9

Alice in Hardgore Land

  Nemurin

Her long pigtails fluttered out behind her and blurred into gradated colors of wind as she passed between the clouds. No matter where in this world you searched, there was nobody who could catch up to Nemurin’s speed. Sound, lightning, Top Speed—Nemurin would leave them all in the dust. She was flying straight for her goal. She made no sound at all as she flew, but there was something lonely about that, so she said, “Zoooom!” as she rushed onward, cutting through cotton candy clouds, snacking on the cotton candy she cut through on the way to land on paved stone ground.

In that dream, they were celebrating the ascension of the queen to the throne.

“Long live Queen Ruler!”

“Queen Ruler!”

“She looked over here! Her Majesty just looked at me!”

Celebrating the birth of a new queen—beautiful, overflowing with intellect and charisma—the people sang, rejoiced, laughed, and whooped. Nemurin started to get into it, too. Scattering confetti made from cut-up origami paper all over, she bounced around more gleefully than anyone else. Nemurin’s confetti turned into pink-and-white Favs, fluorescent-green-and-white Favs, wine-red-and-white Favs, and other vividly colored Favs that flitted through the air.

“You have terrible taste in colors, pon,” said the real Fav.

“But they’re so pretty,” Nemurin replied.

“This is an infringement of portrait rights, pon.”

“There’s no such thing as portrait rights in dreams!”

“You’ve got a comeback for everything, pon.”

“Nemurin is always right, ehem. But anyway…that Ruler, she’s always doing the same stuff, in both other people’s dreams and her own, huh?”

“Having a distinct character isn’t a bad thing, pon.”

Then the super, all-purpose information-gathering devices that grew from Nemurin’s head, the Nemurin Antennae, called out repeatedly in their shrill voices that a magical girl was falling asleep, so Nemurin flew straight off in the direction the antenna gave her. The festival celebrating the ascension of Queen Ruler to the throne shrank away, and a bullet train going across a wasteland came into view. Atop the bullet train there was a tiny angel, who said happily, “The bullet train card is fast, huh?”

“Ohh, this must be Minael’s dream,” said Nemurin.

“So then is this Minael or Yunael, pon?”

“Ah, and here comes another one.”

From beyond the horizon, the slow train was coming, kicking up clouds of dust as it ran along fast enough to rival the bullet train. There was a tiny angel sitting on top of that one, too, shouting, “Go, go!”

“Fav can’t even tell anymore, pon.”

“So what’s going on? Are the two of them having the same dream?”

“They’re twin magical girls, so Fav figures that would happen, pon.”

“I see, so that’s what it is.”

The dead heat between train CEOs Minael and Yunael was heading into its final stages when Nemurin’s antennae cried out, “A magical girl is having a dream!”

“Whoa, tonight’s quite the night,” said Nemurin. She left the twins’ race behind and flew off to a new dream.

“Whose dream is it this time, pon?”

“Ooh, there’s a house over there!”

A simple traditional-style house stood all alone in a grassy field, and seen from the outside, it really stuck out. But everything there—the mom hanging laundry in the yard, the dad clipping his nails on the veranda, the grandma watching TV dramas while sipping tea in the living room, the girl doing homework in her room, and the dog napping in its doghouse—looked ordinary, but happy.

“So that girl is a magical girl’s pretransformation form…,” Nemurin mused. “Or wait, no. Um, it’s not the mom, and it’s not the dad. It can’t be that the grandma is a magical girl, either… Oh, it’s the dog.”

“The dog, pon?”

“That’s Tama, see. Is Tama a dog, pretransformation?”

“No, she’s not, pon.”

“Then it’s, like, the type of dream where you dream you’re someone else.”

Tama, as a dog, curled up in her doghouse. Her apparent happiness was a soothing sight, but since there was nothing really happening here, the dream wasn’t exciting. Nemurin yawned wide.

Fav did a turn, scattering dust. “Nemurin, can Fav ask something, pon?”

“What? If it’s Magicaloid’s dream you wanna see, I’m not gonna do it. She does nothing but dream of filling a bathtub with money and jumping into it. I’m sick of it. I wish she’d just dream of electric sheep.”

“Who cares about that, pon? Are you going to keep on jumping from dream to dream, pon?”

“Yep.”

“Like always, pon?”

“That’s right.”

“Even though it can’t earn you magical candies in real life, pon?”

“You got it.”

“So then there’s no reason for Fav to be with you any longer, pon.”

“Really?”

“Fav is very busy right now, pon. Fav can’t be with you all the time, pon.”

“That’s harsh.”

“So good-bye, pon. You can call for Fav if something happens, but it’s just a hassle for Fav if you call over some dream thing, so Fav would appreciate if you didn’t call, if possible, pon.”

“Aren’t you being rather cold to Nemurin, here?”

“You’re imagining things, pon.”

“Doesn’t feel like it, though.”

“Yeah, yeah, then good-bye, pon.” Fav vanished, and even if Nemurin shook her magical phone, nothing would come up anymore.

Nemurin tossed the magical phone over her head, where it spun a few times, then vanished. If Fav wouldn’t come, then there was no reason to be carrying it around. Ever since the magical candy competition had begun, Fav had been nothing but busy. Nemurin couldn’t complain, though; he really did seem to have his hands full.

“But you know, Nemurin doesn’t think it’s right to say there’s no meaning in what Nemurin does.” Folding her arms with an expression of utmost seriousness, she stared up at the sky. Delicious-looking cotton candy clouds floated above, and a murder of crows was pecking at them.

“Nemurin saves magical girls when they’re in trouble in their dreams. Even if there are some occasional screwups, surely Nemurin is being useful. And besides, when there are no magical girls dreaming, then Nemurin goes to beat up the bad dreams of non–magical girls. Nemurin has reformed space kaiju, given parachutes to people who were falling forever, resurrected people who got killed, resolved family troubles, brought back lovers who were about to leave their partners, gone out to places where people were in trouble because they didn’t know the language and translated for them, and given clothing to people who suddenly found themselves alone and naked in the middle of town. These are all things only Nemurin can do. How can he say there’s no point to this? A good dream is a small pleasure for people when their heart is tired, and once they’re awake, it gives them energy for the day… I’m sure that’s true, sometimes. Yeah, Nemurin is right after all.” Nemurin was convincing herself when her antennae once again piped up, “A magical girl is having a dream!”

“Business is booming today, huh?” Nemurin said gleefully, probably not using that expression quite right.

Making three half drill-spins into the air, Nemurin floated up once, then zoomed rapidly over to her goal. If she wished it, she could arrive at her destination in a flash. With an audible poof! sound effect, she landed and examined her surroundings.

She was in a forest. Flowers with faces bloomed everywhere, and each one was singing pleasantly. The insects, the little birds, and the fish jumping in the puddles all had a wealth of humanlike expressions—some of the creatures cheerful, some of them sad, some looking like they’d been mocked, some chatting, some talking to themselves repetitively, some singing songs along with the flowers, all making noise as they pleased. And since they were competing with one another to be heard, it was a real racket.

Plugging her ears, Nemurin wondered, Which magical girl would have a fantasy kind of dream like this? I was just in Ruler’s. Yunael and Minael were having a race, right? La Pucelle prefers a more hard-core type of fantasy, and Sister Nana and Winterprison’s are a little on the risqué side. Calamity Mary’s are more decadent, Snow White’s are a little quieter, and this is different from Top Speed’s vibe, too.

Nemurin pondered further. “Well, rather than thinking about whose dream it is, it’d be faster to find her, huh?”

Hearing a scream like ripping silk, Nemurin flew off.

A massive dodo bird was sitting to the side of an animal trail. Blood was scattered all around it, and the dodo’s large feet were sticky and covered with blood.

Nemurin landed beside the dodo. “That’s a lot of blood. You don’t seem okay, but are you okay?” she asked.

The dodo answered in a low, resonant voice, “No, I’m not hurt.”

“Huh, really? You’re bleeding so much, though.”

“Well…I stepped on this girl who leaped out from the side, and she bled a whole lot… I was thinking, Oh no, what have I done, but then she got right up and ran off. I’m worried about her. I think it’s bad for your health to run while bleeding that much.”

“You’re right, that could be bad, huh? Which way was she running?”

“Over that way. I called out to her, but maybe she didn’t hear.”

Had that girl been the magical girl? Nemurin ran off after her right away, but then turned back, figuring she might as well clean up. She stuck up her index finger and spun it around. The blood on the ground was absorbed into the earth, and the blood all over the dodo’s feet melted into the air and vanished.

“When thinking won’t get you anywhere, it’s best to make like you didn’t see anything.” With that advice, Nemurin flew off.

Rising to a higher altitude, heading in the direction the dodo had pointed, she found her. “There! That’s the girl!”

A girl who looked like Alice from Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, only in funeral colors, was alone, running.

“Hmm? Wait…who’s that?”

Nemurin was the boss of the chat, so she knew all the magical girls of N City. At a glance she’d know, “Oh, that’s so-and-so.” But she’d never seen this magical girl before. She was an Alice dressed in black, with an unhealthy look to her: sickly white skin and heavy dark circles under her eyes. This dream didn’t seem to be like Tama’s, where the subject was dreaming she was someone else. That meant this was the new, sixteenth magical girl Fav had mentioned before.

Nemurin floated down and came right up to the girl to see her face, but the girl was heedless, continuing to stare straight ahead as she ran.

“That’s some incredible concentration,” Nemurin remarked. “It’s like all she can see is her goal. It’s amazing, but…a little scary.”

What was this magical girl running after? Nemurin didn’t even have to ponder it. A white rabbit was dashing off ahead of her. It was a girl wearing a costume with the motif of a white rabbit, white all over with a cute bunny-ear hairband on her head—aside from the bunny ears, she looked exactly like a magical girl Nemurin knew. However, since she never turned around, she couldn’t see her face, so Nemurin couldn’t say for sure.

The magical girl in white must not have noticed the Alice in black chasing her, as she kept on running without turning around. Why was the Alice in black chasing the girl in white? Was she obligated to chase a white rabbit, being an Alice? Or was there some other reason?

“Hmm… Hmmm, what is this feeling I’m having here? This is kind of getting interesting.”

Emerging from the forest to head into the mountains, the girl in white climbed up and up, and the Alice in black ran after her. The girl in white finally arrived at the mountain’s summit, then raced down off a towering cliff. The Alice in black followed, spreading her arms and legs to dive off the top of the cliff.

“Ohh, so she can fly, too, huh?” Nemurin said. Not one to be beaten, she dived after the girls. The Alice in black headed for the ground at intense speed, and by the time Nemurin realized, “Wait, isn’t she just free-falling?” the girl landed—or rather she collided with the ground.

The result was not the slapstick-style human-shaped hole that Nemurin had predicted—the girl’s fate was a realistic one, and the shock of the impact turned her into a lump of flesh and blood. It was the height of grotesquerie. Oh crap, Nemurin thought, and put a censor mosaic over it. That made it a bit better.

The magical girl in white, whom Alice hadn’t even been able to catch, even in free fall, safely raced on down and continued running. This dream was brutal to the end.

It seemed this was the type of dream that ended when the dreamer died. It was rare for a magical girl to have that kind. It was more common for magical girls to do what they wanted in their dreams.

“The poor thing… If I’d known she would die, I would’ve stopped her.”

When Nemurin approached the pink mosaic, the meat lump underneath it trembled. In a heartbeat the lump took human form, and before Nemurin could even be surprised, it became Alice, who brushed aside the mosaic and ran off again.

“Huh? What? She’s not dying?”

Nemurin hurriedly repaired the dent in the ground and made all the stuff that had scattered about dissolve into the air before following the Alice in black.

“So it wasn’t a dream that’d end with her death, huh? That’s not a bad thing, but…what kinda dream is this, then?”

Before long, Alice spotted the back of the magical girl in white. Alice had been running so hard and still had never been able to catch up, but maybe now the girl in white was tired, too…or not. Alice still couldn’t get any closer.

“You can do it! A little farther! Just a bit more!” Nemurin called.

The Alice in black threw out her arm, and at the point when she’d be able to touch the girl in white if she just reached a little farther, she slipped and fell forward. At this speed, even a little stumble was a disaster. She rolled, breaking trees, striking boulders, and gouging the earth, until, beaten to a pulp, she lay on her side and stopped. Nemurin looked over to see that behind them was some kind of sea turtle lumbering along. That was what she’d tripped over.

The girl was now a gruesome sight. A tree branch was stabbing through her, her right elbow joint was pointing in the wrong direction, her right foot had come off at the ankle, her right eyeball was spilling out, and her jaw was split open vertically. Nemurin covered her eyes with her hands, peeking at the scene from between her fingers.

Despite the girl’s mortal wounds—actually, she looked like she was dead—the Alice in black rose up, and her torn-off foot and exposed innards were all back to normal.

“Sheesh, those are some incredible recovery powers.”

The Alice in black immediately set off at a run once more.

“Hmm, that’s some intense passion. Guess that’s just youth?”

Restoring the broken trees and smashed rocks, and erasing the splatters of blood, Nemurin flew off, too. “But it’s like…the way she keeps dying clashes with the vibe here.”

They entered a wetland crowded with giant mushrooms. The girl in white bounded between the toadstools, occasionally running into them and actually bouncing off them, but she never slowed down. She bumped a particularly large one with her shoulder, causing it to sway wildly. The magical girl in white ran on through without issue, but when the Alice in black tried to follow, the mushroom swung back from the right to the left, and the giant caterpillar smoking a hookah atop it fell down.

There was a smush sound.

Alice was completely crushed, becoming a red stain that slowly oozed onto the ground underneath the caterpillar. The caterpillar was unperturbed by the Alice in black—in fact, it wasn’t even bothered by its own fall as it breathed out a long puff of smoke. But then Alice got up, blasting away the weight atop her (in other words, the caterpillar), and it rolled head over heels. As the caterpillar tried to right itself somehow, Nemurin put it back on top of its mushroom and continued chasing after the Alice in black.

“It’s really getting exhausting, fixing things for her.”

Leaving the mushroom region, they emerged onto a maintained street. The magical girl in white ran right through the middle of a march of the Queen of Hearts with card girls attending her, driving the queen mad with rage at the insolent figure who had cut through her line, but the girl in white rapidly got far away. The Alice in black followed behind, leaping out in front of the angry queen, and under the queen’s orders, the card girls captured the Alice in black.

“Insolent girl! Off with her head!”

The poor Alice in black had her head cut off. Blood spurted out, and the sight of her decapitation was so graphic, the execution so gruesome, that the card girl who had worked as executioner started crying, but it seemed the queen was satisfied for the moment, and the march resumed. The cards and the queen left, and Alice’s abandoned body got up, picked up her head, and placed the severed parts together. With the sort of sound effect that Nemurin didn’t really want to hear, the Alice in black stuck the head to her body, then ran off again.

“It just never ends with this girl, huh?”

The Alice in black continued running after the girl in white, and the girl in white dashed so quickly Alice could never catch up, never even knowing that she was being followed.

Nemurin didn’t know the name of the Alice in black. She didn’t know why she was chasing after the girl in white, and she didn’t even know what kind of relationship she had to the girl in white to begin with. All Nemurin did know was the look the Alice had on her face. She was chasing in such desperation, unable to catch up, but chasing anyway, still running even when she became a mess of fleshy chunks.

She leaped into a game of croquet and had her head crushed by a wooden mallet, leaped into a tea party and had hot water splashed over her head, but she still didn’t give up, never becoming discouraged, chasing the back of the girl she could never reach as she ran on and on. When a large rock appeared before her, she didn’t slow her pace.

“I kinda feel bad for her. Look at all this.”

Sticking up the index and middle fingers of both hands, Nemurin touched them to her forehead. “Nemurin Beam!”

The Nemurin Beam destroyed the big boulder that blocked the way before the Alice in black, and Alice went on through without crashing into it, but a bunch of fragments of the shattered boulder flew right into her, and in the end she still wound up a mess.

Nemurin moaned. “Nemurin likes cheery dreams. This isn’t cheery. It’s not heading for a happy ending. Isn’t it boring if you can never catch up, no matter how you chase and chase?”

Nemurin grabbed on to Alice from the side. “Hey, hey,” she said.

But there was no response.

“Hey, listen.”

No response.

“That magical girl in white who’s running ahead of you, she’s real, you know? Nemurin knows that girl’s name.”

The Alice in black turned toward Nemurin. Her expression held the utmost seriousness.

“Hey, hey, Alice in black. What’s your name?” Nemurin asked.

“Hardgore Alice,” the girl finally replied.

“That’s a nice name, and kind of brutal, too. Why’re you chasing that girl?”

“Um…”

“You don’t want to say?”

“No. I wanted to thank her.”

“Thank her?”

“Because she helped me before.”

“Just thank her?”

“Well…”

“It seems to Nemurin you’re rather too desperate for it to be only about a thank-you, though… Don’t you think?”

“Well…”

“This is just between you and Nemurin, okay? Won’t tell a soul. If you tell Nemurin a little something, then Nemurin can probably help you out.”

“Well…”

“Well?”

“Well…”

“Well?”

“Because…I’m wearing black.”

“Uh-huh.”

“I thought having a white magical girl with me, white and black would be pretty together… I thought we’d suit each other.”

“Okay.” Nemurin smiled brightly and gave a thumbs-up. “I like you!”

A little confused, Alice timidly bowed her head. “Thank…you.”

“You don’t need to thank me, just run. Nemurin’ll help you out and make it so you can catch up to the girl in white.”

“Catch…up… Catch up…,” Hardgore Alice muttered over and over. Each time she repeated it, she sped up. She gradually closed the distance between herself and the magical girl in white…but there was some kind of big kerfuffle ahead.

A red chess army and a white chess army were fighting on a broad, grassy plain. The Red Queen was yelling instructions like she was ready to make herself hoarse, while the White Queen was up at the front lines, battering the red pieces. It was a scene of utter confusion: A pawn chased after a knight; a bishop kicked a rook. A cloud of dust hung over it all, and there was no decent line of sight through the battle, but the magical girl in white headed for the battlefield, heedless.

Nemurin spread her arms and yelled, “Do this somewhere eeeelse!”

There was a gust of wind, and then the gust became a whirlwind, and the whirlwind became a tornado. The giant tornado swept up all the human-size chess pieces, carrying them off to some other place. The pieces all complained, and the two queens furiously ranted about how they would sue, but Nemurin didn’t care. She sent them all flying out past the horizon, and without anything to get in her way, Hardgore Alice further closed the distance to the girl in white.

Then there was yet another kerfuffle happening ahead. A giant, long-clawed, sharp-fanged dragon was tangled up and entwined with a monster of the same size that was wildly smoking. The pair destroyed everything in sight as they engaged in a fierce battle. The clash between the two monsters gradually got closer, and the closer it got, the more apparent it was how giant they were and that anyone who got swept up in this—even if she was a magical girl—would not go unscathed. But despite that, the magical girl in white was headed straight for the monsters. Unflinching, Hardgore Alice also sped up.

Nemurin raised her index finger to the sky. “Kaiju are meant to be defeated!”

The clouds parted, and there appeared a giant alien that made the earth rumble when it landed. It kicked the dragon, punched the monster, then fired a beam upon the weakened beasts, which then popped into nothing. Satisfied at having defeated them in less than three minutes, the alien went back where it had come from.

In the smoke from the two monsters’ explosions, Hardgore Alice sped up, reaching out for the magical girl in white, but she didn’t quite make it—her straining fingers trembled, but she still couldn’t reach.

Nemurin leaped. “Nemurin Kiiiick!”

Nemurin gave Alice a flying kick in the back, making her hand shoot forward to finally reach the back of the girl in white—and then there was a poof sound, and the girl in white was surrounded by smoke. Momentum sent Alice tumbling forward, and she got all covered in mud, and by the time she got up, what she held in her hands was a stuffed animal.

“Huh? What? What does this mean?” Nemurin mused.

It was a shabby white rabbit plush. The girl in white was now gone. The moment Alice caught up, the girl had transformed into the white rabbit plush. Alice held the plush animal and squeezed it tight. She seemed far from joyful at having obtained the thing she’d been chasing—in fact, she looked lonely.

Nemurin folded her arms and tilted her head. “I wonder why this happened.” She approached Alice, whose head was hanging, and tapped her shoulder. “Hey, hey, Hardgore Alice.”

“…What?”

“You just said you wanted to be with the magical girl in white, didn’t you?”

“…Yeah.”

“But you didn’t say what for.”

“Yeah…I… The magical girl in white and I…” Still holding the stuffed animal, Alice looked up at the sky. “I want us to help people…like the time she helped me. I want to help people in trouble.”

Nemurin gave a nod, then nodded again, slower this time. “I’ve got three good things to tell you.”

“What good things?”

“The first is that in the real world, when you catch up to her, she won’t become a stuffed animal. The second is that she’s not this fast in the real world, so it’ll be a little easier to catch up to her. The third is—and this is important, so play close attention—the magical girl in white’s name is—”

  Ako Hatoda

She woke up. She’d probably been having a long dream, although she didn’t remember any of it. She was soaked in sweat as if she’d just been running as fast as she could, and she was panting. She sucked in air and blew it out, over and over, for a while, and after she’d calmed herself, she got up.

She got the feeling she had been dreaming of the magical girl in white. But she couldn’t remember. Ako sighed and picked up the rabbit plush by her pillow, hugging it to her chest.

Wait…where did I get this rabbit, again?

This rabbit plush was so ambiguous that she couldn’t even remember where it came from, but for some reason, Ako felt like she could trust it, and squeezed it even tighter.