Mahou Shoujo Ikusei Keikaku - Volume 11 - Chapter 10

CHAPTER 10

ALL FOR YOU

  Pfle

Contact with Cockle, the magical girl Pfle had dispatched to the device, had cut off. Pfle had thought that with her magic to get into cracks, she’d be able to go straight to the device, but it seemed she’d been captured or killed en route. With this, one of the avenues to victory Pfle had been considering had been blocked.

This eliminated the lazy option of letting Lethe defeat Puk Puck for her, blocking yet another possible avenue of victory. And then Puk Puck had gone into the ruins. Now that it had come to this, they were out of time. There were no longer any magical girls who could oppose Puk Puck.

And even Deluge and Dark Cutie, when you considered whom they were up against, would doubtless be caught in some tough battles. It would be best to abandon any delusional hopes that they might gallantly rush to save her. The most Pfle could do on that end was pray for their safety. For Fal’s sake, she would add Snow White to her prayers, too.

Now then—the rest is up to circumstance.

Pfle put her hand on the door to the sanctum. Slowly, she pushed it open.

  Yoshioka

She found a place in the sheer rock wall where the slope wasn’t as steep, and, making full use of her arms and legs, she reached the top. Pulling the binoculars from her backpack, she crawled on her stomach to look down over the basin below.

The magical girls had begun to clean up the area. It seemed they didn’t want to leave a mess around the ruins, perhaps out of respect to the First Mage, who had been Puk Puck’s teacher. Of the Shufflin IIs, the combat-specialized spades must have all been taken away by Puk Puck, as not a single one remained outside. Only the Shufflin II diamonds, clubs, and hearts, plus a handful of Puk Puck’s original subordinates left behind on watch, remained outside, dealing with what remained.

The ones left there would all be feeling sad, miserable, and awful. Despite how they all shared the desire to serve at Puk Puck’s side, some would have that wish granted, and some would not. They wouldn’t be able to accept that some got to accompany her into the ruins just because they were good fighters. Puk Puck herself was incomparably strong, so she should choose her company based on loyalty, not on strength. They couldn’t be witness to the decisive moment when the device was activated. “What emptiness, what sadness.” They were surely thinking something of that nature. Even with the eyes of an outsider, she could see their dissatisfaction plainly.

They all trudged around, picking up garbage and cleaning up the now still bodies of magical girls.

And the original subordinates who’d been abandoned here had to be feeling even more hopeless indignation than the Shufflin IIs. They’d served for way longer than the Shufflin IIs, who’d just started following Puk Puck—but despite that, the spade Shufflin IIs had stolen their places. These girls made no effort to disguise their anger as they ordered the Shufflin IIs around arrogantly, criticizing their work and kicking them down while making no move to help, gazing at the monitors that stood around to be entranced by Puk Puck.

Yoshioka sadly stroked her hair. Puk Puck loved everyone equally, and was loved equally by everyone—but among her subordinates, disparities were growing between those magical girls who were simply being worked to the bone, those who were throwing their weight around and wouldn’t work, and those who’d been chosen as the honor guard. But even those with mounting discontent in their hearts could not voice dissent with Puk Puck’s decision, and now they would just suck it up and pick up the garbage. This was modern society in a nutshell, right here.

Hearing the sound of something smashing, Yoshioka looked over to see that a screen had fallen. Rather, it had been knocked over. A magical girl in a blue outfit had her right leg raised, standing on her left beside the fallen screen. The girls left outside all looked at her, but the magical girl in blue ignored their looks and came over to the next screen to kick it down.

Yells rang out. The club Shufflin IIs raised their batons, while diamond Shufflin IIs readied their tasers and birdlime guns. Yoshioka restrained her pounding heart as she watched the situation unfold.

“She’s with the Osk Faction!” one of the girls shouted, pointing at the magical girl in question.

A heart Shufflin II leaped at her. She nimbly dodged, and something rolled out to hit the ground. It was a beautiful candy. The heart Shufflin II pushed herself up sluggishly, looking around, and tilted her head. It didn’t seem as if she was going to fight anymore.

“Watch out! She’s using some kind of magic!” someone hollered.

The Shufflin IIs surged forward, and the blue magical girl slipped between them. When she passed by a Shufflin II, she would touch their body, and each time, a shining candy dropped out. After the candies were extracted from them, the Shufflin IIs stopped on the spot, looking around in confusion.

One magical girl spread the dragonfly wings on her back to leap into the air, coming down again until she just about skimmed the ground to circle at low altitude. The girl in blue wasn’t letting the group of Shufflin IIs lay a single finger on her as she went around the battlefield. The girl with dragonfly wings stealthily circled around behind the girl in blue, and from there accelerated in a straight line. She dived to tackle the blue girl from behind, but when her arms reached out, they swiped through air. The girl in blue had squatted down on the spot to avoid her.

There’d been no sign at all that she’d noticed the sneak attack coming. She hadn’t given so much as a glance at the winged girl, but she’d avoided the attack as if there were eyes on her back.

The dragonfly-wing girl rose in the air and looked down on the ruins from above.

On the world below, the other magical girls seemed to be doing everything they could to fight back, but the blue magical girl acted as if they were nothing. Balls of light came at the girl in blue from all four sides, but none of them connected. Some threw rocks or even sloshed mud at her, but even those didn’t hit. With every move the blue magical girl made, candies dropped out, and in the blink of an eye there were more and more people out of the fight. The moment she touched people, even those of the Puk Faction who weren’t Shufflin IIs, they fell and didn’t so much as twitch.

The magical girl with the dragonfly wings watched in frustration. Yoshioka wondered what she would do if she were in that girl’s position. The girl in blue was clearly a combat master. Even with everyone ganging up on her, they couldn’t even touch her with a fingertip, never mind hurting her. Instead of continuing to fight, it would be best for the others to report this inside the ruins.

It seemed the girl with dragonfly wings had reached the same conclusion. She pulled her magical phone out of her pocket, turned it on to make a call, and brought it to her mouth, but then immediately dodged something that came hurtling in her direction.

It was a rock. A big rock, about the size of an adult’s head, had been thrown at her. While avoiding the rock, she rose even higher, bringing her magical phone to her mouth again, probably to explain what was going on below her, but as she looked down at the ground, right there, her eyes met those of the blue magical girl.

The girl she’d thought had been on the ground just a moment ago was right there in front of her, in arm’s reach.

Yoshioka had seen the whole thing. That rock hadn’t been thrown to hit the winged magical girl, it had been thrown to create footing. The girl in blue had raced up the rock face that surrounded the basin, jumping off the peak of the wall in a wide leap, then kicked off the rock she’d thrown to bound a step higher into the sky. It was an incredible physical feat—unbelievable, even for a magical girl.

The winged girl tried to escape farther up into the air, but she didn’t make it in time. The blue girl grabbed her ankle, and a candy rolled from there, and she lost her balance in midair and fell. The girl in blue held the winged girl as they fell through the air, and right before they landed, she bounced off the wall to dampen the impact, then laid the winged girl’s body down on the ground.

Yoshioka watched the exploits of the girl in blue with flushed cheeks. This was an action spectacle worth watching. There was unfortunately very little stimulation to be had from serving an incarnation of one of the Three Sages.

  Uluru

“Agh, jeez! You’re so slow! Run faster!”

“I told you not to force magical-girl standards on me!”

Surrounded by their group of Shufflin IIs, Uluru ran. Mana was slow, so Uluru was pulling her arm, but she was still too slow. Had there been any point to what Uluru had done, or hadn’t there? She had no clue if it’d had any effect at all. They were probably off from the central area, but she didn’t really understand how off they were. The one thing she did know was that if they didn’t run now, they were sure to be in trouble.

The cracked walls, the broken screens, the sooty floor, and, most of all, the fallen magical girls. The more they ran, the more marks of destruction they saw, the kind that made you want to look away. Uluru squeezed the hand in hers harder, and Mana’s hand squeezed hers back even harder. Right now, even the warmth of Mana’s hand was something to be grateful for. It supported Uluru’s weak heart as it was about ready to snap.

They ran and ran, just ran onward, stomping over the hesitation and indecisiveness in her heart—

“Snow White!”

She was there—Snow White, the one she’d been looking and looking for all this time. Uluru had been running and running, relying on their promise to get revenge together. Snow White was the one thing that stood alone inside Uluru, in the place where she’d been empty.

Snow White was raising her weapon. But it looked like she was so tired, even lifting it was the most she could do, shoulders heaving, knees trembling. The dark red dirtying her white costume might not have just been the blood of her enemies.

The one lying at her feet had to be her enemy. It was an aqua-colored magical girl with a trident. She was facedown in a puddle of blood, and Uluru couldn’t tell if she was alive or dead.

Snow White looked at Uluru and Mana. Her expression was saying, “There’s more new enemies,” and Uluru clenched her jaw. Snow White scowled, lowered her weapon, and ran away.

“Snow White! Wait! If you don’t wait, Lady Puk’ll be mad at you!”

Uluru had been told Snow White would functionally nullify Uluru’s magic. The first time Snow White had heard Uluru lying in the park, she’d been the one person to immediately recover and act normally. But Uluru remembered. That time, Snow White had thrown herself down before getting up again. She’d reacted to Uluru’s lie, and then she’d added in what she’d heard from Uluru’s mind and thought about it to take action. So then there was a point in Uluru’s lying. Even if it was just for an instant, if she could make Snow White believe it, it would slow her down that much.

Uluru’s lie froze Snow White for just an instant, and for the ace of spades running with Uluru, an instant was enough of an opportunity. She caught up to Snow White and swung her spear. Snow White blocked it, but, because she was wounded, it wasn’t easy for her at all. She barely avoided the second, then the third strike, and then the other card soldiers caught up and joined in to attack her.

Uluru yelled, “If you kill Snow White, Lady Puk’ll hate you!”

When Snow White could endure the card soldiers’ attacks no longer, Mana tossed out a magical binding rope. Though Snow White avoided it, she couldn’t avoid the body slam from the ace of spades that came after it, and then the other card soldiers piled on her as well, pushing her to the ground.

While heaving ragged breaths, Snow White looked up at Uluru. Her eyes were tinged with hatred, and Uluru didn’t want to be looked at like that, but looking away would be even worse. She glared back at Snow White and raised her fist, then lowered it without doing anything. Uluru realized she couldn’t do anything to her now.

Uluru jabbed Mana with her elbow. “Hey, what do we do?”

“This isn’t the time to be asking that!” Mana rushed up to the magical girl lying in a puddle of blood and began treating her wounds. It seemed like she was alive, more or less. Uluru felt more and more at a loss. Snow White was glaring at her, with the card soldiers continuing to hold her down, patiently waiting for Uluru’s instructions.

“Do you mind?”

Uluru turned back. There was a magical girl in blue. Maybe Uluru had seen her before, maybe not—she couldn’t really say. Uluru raised her rifle and opened her mouth to tell a lie, but the blue magical girl hurriedly put her hands up and shook her head.

“Whoa there, I’m not your enemy. Maybe I startled you by popping out all of a sudden, but that’s just how the magic works, so forgive me. Oh, though it’s not my magic.”

“What? Who the heck are you?”

“Calm down.” The girl in blue approached Snow White and stroked her cheek. Something dropped from the spot she touched and landed on the ground with a plink. It was a pretty candy that shone a rainbow of colors. Snow White’s face froze in surprise, and then a sort of moan leaked out from deep in her throat. She opened her mouth to say something, but her eyelids fell, her arms weakly dangling as her face hit the floor.

“You killed her?!” cried Uluru.

“I didn’t kill her. She’s just knocked out, okay?” the girl in blue replied.

Snow White’s transformation came undone. Lying there was not the magical girl Snow White, but a human girl in a school uniform.

Uluru hurriedly gave orders to the card soldiers. “Hey! If you hold down someone who’s not a magical girl like that, you’ll hurt her! If you do that, Lady Puk’ll hate you!”

“Yep, yep, you got it. Here goes,” the blue magical girl said in an incredibly casual manner, and then she soundlessly approached the card soldiers holding Snow White down as well, reaching out to stroke each of their cheeks with her fingers. She moved so smoothly, there was no opportunity to stop her. One candy rolled out for each soldier, and every one of them looked at the others as if they’d come to their senses.

“Well, that was the plan. Understand now?” asked the girl in blue.

“Like I said: Who the heck are you?!” Uluru snapped back.

“I’m on your side, okay? And that gets me these things.” The blue magical girl instantly created candies between her fingers. Or maybe she hadn’t created them, but revealed things that had been there to begin with, like a stage magician.

While peeling the card soldiers away from Snow White, the blue magical girl let the rainbow candies fall into her palm. “It’s a crystallization of the anger and hate right before death. Use these, and you can do some fun stuff… Well, that’s a task for me and the cards. If you guys stick around, you’ll be in danger. Since you’ve got some wounded, you should prolly take a side route out to avoid things.”

  Puk Puck

With Puk Puck in their center, the group of magical girls was rapidly making progress toward the device sanctum.

They’d already gained control of the outside area. If enemy reinforcements were coming, it’d take a little more time for them to reach the device. Puk Puck wanted to have complete control over the inside of the ruins by then as well. To that end, she was going back to the device, where the enemy was bound to be heading, to solidify the defenses. On the way, she picked up the fighting magical girls one after another, and her group got bigger and bigger. Since the group getting too big would make it hard to move around, she asked the others to clean up the ruins while her main unit of ten escorted her quickly onward. The farther they headed, the worse the signs of battle got. Plushes were scorched, paper rings were burning, and screens had burst into flame. What a horrible thing to do. Filled with sadness, Puk Puck continued onward.

When she heard a group of card soldiers were coming from up ahead, she figured she should stand in the lead. If Puk Puck stood at the head and made every single one of the enemies who came for them friends, everyone could get along without getting hurt. That was how she’d been making more friends all this time. Those who’d just been fighting were now swearing absolute allegiance to Puk Puck, too.

When she went to stand at the front with that thought in mind, she was stopped.

“Please wait,” said one of Puk’s friends. “Something’s wrong.”

“Really?”

When she looked at the card soldiers coming toward them, they were angry, and they didn’t seem like they would listen to what other people were saying. Even when Puk Puck spread her arms and said, “Be my friend!” they got mad instead and came at her in a rage. At that point, Puk Puck’s friends were forced to fight back. A chaotic battle began in the hallway. Though Puk Puck’s side totally outnumbered them, the hallway was so narrow, they couldn’t bring all their forces to bear, and the enemies had so much energy, Puk’s side couldn’t quite suppress them. A magical girl in black armor had come out in front and was blocking the attacks from the card soldiers.

The card soldiers kept repeating the process of fighting, then pulling out red candies and swallowing them. Puk Puck didn’t quite understand what they were doing, but those candies had to be the problem.

“Maybe we should take the candies away from them?” said Puk.

“The enemy’s numbers are few anyway. We’ll take them out quickly.”

It was true that Puk’s side outnumbered them, but that also meant they had to hold back their magic, or it’d quickly result in friendly fire. The enemy’s morale was frighteningly high, too. With an ace of spades at the head, their spears stabbed and clubs bashed, and Puk’s team couldn’t quite manage them.

“Maybe Puk should go up front, after all,” said Puk.

“Please wait—please wait, just a bit.”

“Hmm… Puk can’t wait, after all!” She couldn’t be so easygoing about this, thinking they could just move on ahead after suppressing the enemy. If something happened to the device, she couldn’t fulfill her goal. Puk Puck ran. She ignored the voices calling for her to stop. Jumping off the wall, she hit the opposite wall and jumped again, cracking the walls whenever she hit as she zigzagged toward over the heads of the card soldiers. She stepped on the head of the ace that was jabbing her spear upward, making it cave into her body as she jumped, crossing over the card soldiers in a single bound.

“You guys handle the rest!” And with that, Puk Puck ran off without looking back.

  Shadow Gale

At last, the device was almost done. Now there was just one part of Shadow Gale’s modification process to go. Even she didn’t know herself how much time it would take from here.

She set both owner and user to Puk Puck, and made the purpose of use the storage of magical girls. All the magical girls were delighted, hugging each other and crying out in joy. They were delighted to serve, to be able to work for Puk Puck, the greatest leader, the ultimate magical girl, the embodiment of beauty, the absolute ruler, and they wept at having fulfilled her wish, rejoicing when they imagined the words of praise they were about to receive.

But then something strange happened. From the guardroom in front of the sanctum could be heard yells and shrieks, smacking and bashing. The sounds rapidly became louder. Was the enemy there? The magical girls were tense, gulping audibly as they kept their eyes glued to the entrance.

The door opened a crack and a magical girl slid in. She closed the door with her hand behind her and smiled at them. “Hmm… So has it been completed or not?”

With dust wafting around her, she came forward on a twisted, creaking wheelchair, a bird-shaped eye patch concealing one eye. Shadow Gale knew her. She was sure she did, but since Puk Puck’s orders occupied just about all the space in her head, it took a bit of time to remember. In the meantime, the magical girl in the wheelchair was nodding along and listening attentively to everything the members of the device restoration team were saying, prompting them and making comments in a very honest and sincere-seeming manner.

Shadow Gale knew—that girl was very far from honest and sincere.

Shadow Gale cut in front of the others, taking a step forward to glare at the girl in the wheelchair. “What have you come here to do, miss? Are you here to take me back?” She figured that if so, it should be fine to hit or kick the other girl. The others also showed that they were ready to resist, each taking tools in hand and adopting fighting stances as if to say, “If you’re going to fight, then bring it.”

The magical girl in the wheelchair—Pfle—slowly looked around the area and shook her head. “Why are you getting so aggressive? Would I come here to take you back? At this point, I’m with all of you, a friend. After coming in contact with the great magical girl Lady Puk Puck, I’ve finally gained an opportunity to change. If I had let this chance pass me by, I’m sure I would have remained the sort of trash you describe as I met my end. How grateful I am! So grateful I can hardly see from the tears in my eyes.”

Shadow Gale knew sickeningly well that this was someone who used words to deceive people and couldn’t be trusted. But she also thought that if Pfle had touched Puk Puck’s greatness, maybe even she could actually change. Shadow Gale hesitated a moment.

Pfle elegantly waved her right hand. “I won’t say to trust me. Trust Lady Puk Puck. There is not a magical girl in existence who wouldn’t change after coming in contact with her—even someone twisted to the core like myself.”

The other magical girls were whispering to each other, “Well, that’s right,” and “Yeah, true.” And Shadow Gale thought she was right, too.

But—she was about to worry over it more when a gentle hand was laid on her shoulder. Pfle’s hand pat-patted her there. “We don’t have the time. Think about Lady Puk Puck. We can’t be wasting time on these things now. Have you finished the device?”

“No, I still have to do the finishing touches…,” Shadow Gale said. “I have one more process to complete before we activate it. But I don’t quite know how much time that’ll take…”

Pfle’s eyes narrowed. It was slight, but lines came together in her brow. “You’ve completed the settings as well?”

“Yes, it’s set for Lady Puk Puck’s use.”

“I heard that she…Lady Puk Puck also had Premium Sachiko’s contract. Might you know what happened to that?”

“I’m holding on to it. She told me to use it if needed.”

“Show it to me.”

“But—”

“It’s no issue if I just look, is it? You may hold it.”

Pfle’s eyes scanned rapidly over the rows of small characters on the contract, and then she nodded. “Hmm… There’s no helping it. Being up against the wall like this… Mamori, the time to use this contract is now.”

“Huh? But Lady Puk Puck said not to use it until she ordered it.”

“There’s only one more process left, so if not now, then when do you plan to use it? I’ve come here on orders from Lady Puk Puck, so there’s no issue, is there?” Pfle turned to the magical girls behind Shadow Gale, murmuring. “Ladies! You’ve done quite well! Now it’s time to prepare for the time of Lady Puck’s arrival!”

In response to Pfle’s announcement, the magical girls all yelled, “Woo!” in unison, pumping their right arms.

They all returned to their posts to get the device activated, and Shadow Gale was left alone. Most people would think it was okay to trust Pfle on this. It should have been okay, but Shadow Gale couldn’t fully trust her. Kanoe Hitokouji—Pfle—would make you want to trust her. Her words, her attitude of honesty, her earnest bearing, her delicate appearance, her kind smile, the dignity that foolish people would call charisma—at a glance, these things made it seem you could trust her, and Shadow Gale had seen so many people be deceived, robbed, defeated, and made her prey that way.

Shadow Gale looked Pfle in the eye. “Miss, you’re not lying, are you?”

“Of course I’m not. The enemy is almost upon us. We must hurry. This is a job only you can do, Mamori. There’s no point in me doing it. If we fail to make it in time, then everything is over.” Her usual ironic smirk was absent. Her expression was seriousness itself. Pfle laid her hand over Shadow Gale’s. Shadow Gale reflexively tried to yank her hand back, but Pfle held it tight and would not let go. “You must believe in me, just for today. If my calculations are correct, the enemy will be coming very shortly. If the device hasn’t been activated by then, it’s over. Everything we’ve had and everything we will have will all be made as if it had never been.”

Pfle slowly released her hand, and Shadow Gale belatedly noticed the heat in her own hand. Pfle’s eyes were locked on hers. Shadow Gale squeezed her eyes shut, clenched her teeth, and nodded firmly. She’d seen a burp-worthy amount of Pfle. If you added up all the times she’d been deceived or tricked or been had, it might go into the quintuple digits. And every time she was tricked, she swore in her heart that she’d never fall for it again, but then she fell for it anyway. She’d repeated the same thing over and over—and in the end, she still didn’t know what she should do to not be deceived anymore.

But she had gained one thing from it. When Kanoe Hitokouji was not lying, she could sometimes tell. And Pfle was sincerely afraid of the “enemy that was coming very shortly.” She was seriously thinking that if they didn’t make it in time, it would all be over.

Shadow Gale wasn’t going to trust Pfle. Shadow Gale trusted in her own life of continuous deception by Pfle. Looking back on her life brought back strong memories of just who Pfle was, and that pricked at Shadow Gale’s heart, but the image of Puk Puck dancing on the screen made her remember what she should do. Pfle’s situation was Pfle’s alone. What Shadow Gale had to do now was activate the device.

Shadow Gale put a check mark on each of the checkboxes on the contract, signing her own name at the end. Now they just had to activate the device.

  Puk Puck

Puk Puck ran her hardest. All sounds were background noise, all sights were static—right now she focused only on the safety of the device and moving her legs. She quickly got the feeling that her location and the place where she thought she was didn’t match, and she stopped. There were no friends around to lecture her and tell her, “At times like these, if you have a magical phone, you can bring up a map right away.” Puk Puck was left all alone in the vast ruins, and she felt so forlorn she just about cried, but she held back the tears.

She pulled her map out from her bag and spread it out. Her current location was indicated by a flashing spot on the magical map. As expected, she was way off from where she’d thought she was. Puk Puck followed the map, cautiously so that this time, for sure, she wouldn’t make any mistakes, but, still hurrying, she ran. She cheered herself up by thinking about how she was going to be together forever with lots of friends. But then she saw a screen that was slightly crooked and it bothered her, so she stopped to right it, and once it was good, she ran off again.

If Puk Puck ran for real, nobody could keep up, and she could catch up to anyone. Puk Puck was a speed queen: the eternal tag champion, so good she couldn’t play without a handicap. Even if she got caught on piano wire strung up at her feet or got shocked by a stun gun, you couldn’t stop Puk Puck. She ran and ran and kept running until she arrived at the sanctum where the device lay.

“Guys!”

The magical girls looked toward her all at once. Their expressions turned from anxiety to relief, and from relief to joy, and they all cheered as they gathered around Puk Puck.

“Lady Puk!”

“You were safe!”

“We heard the enemy was coming, so we hurried to get things ready!”

“What a relief! What a relief!”

“Look, please! We’ve made it so the device is ready to activate!”

When Shadow Gale yelled particularly loudly, “I made sure to sign the contract!” Puk Puck carefully stroked her head, then looked up at the device.

The device looked extremely large. It was as if it were a hundred meters tall, though there was no way it could be. It was like a four-legged beast about to leap atop them, but also like a vehicle of unclear purpose made by aliens or people from the future. Its metal of unknown origin had turned from black to red. You couldn’t tell at a glance how thick the armor was, and it gave you a sense of its power, standing above magical girls. Gone was the pitiable impression from the time when they’d given up trying to make it work and thrown it away. Its whole mass signified the greatness of changing the world.

Speechless, Puk Puck spread her arms. One magical girl whisked to her side to hand her a bag filled with magical gems and say, “We’ve left enough for activation.” The others immediately spread out so as not to touch Puk Puck’s hands, making way. It was a path of honor. She would make lots of friends and rebuild the Magical Kingdom, and everyone would say Puk Puck’s name with respect and admiration, and everyone, even those who had been enemies up till yesterday and those who would have been enemies tomorrow, would become her friends.

She slowly approached it, one step, two. Three steps, four, and her heart was fluttering. A device created by the ultimate transcendent being, the First Mage, was frightening to Puk Puck, too. But they wouldn’t get anywhere just sealing it away because they were scared. You needed the will to have courage and use it. The girls who watched from a distance didn’t know the First Mage. They hadn’t been afraid like Puk Puck or the Osk Faction—they’d touched the device and modified it, making it so it could be used. Maybe some would say they were only fearless because of their ignorance. But Puk had to acknowledge that their ignorance had brought the world a step forward. Puk Puck couldn’t be taking the back seat to her friends now. If her friends were unafraid because they didn’t know, then Puk Puck would know and conquer that fear.

Five steps, six steps, ten steps, twelve steps—Puk Puck sped up and up, and she was about to rush up to the device at a trot when her feet got tangled up and she fell forward, her hands hitting the ground. She heard a shriek from behind. Looking down, she saw her sock had slid all the way down and had tripped her up. It was the one that had been cut by Lethe. As she’d been running, the cut had slowly spread, slipping down her leg to trip her.

With a shy smile, she tried to stand. She wanted to put her friends at ease. But she staggered, then went down on her hands and dropped her bag, and the magic gems inside scattered everywhere. One of them rolled out, hitting the leg of the device with a clink. The device must have been truly delicately balanced. It wobbled and tilted.

Puk Puck looked up at the device that was about to fall toward her. She didn’t panic. She just calmly tried to stand up. But the floor where her right hand sat crumbled, and her arm sank deep into the ground. When she tried to push at the floor with her left hand to dig it out, this time her left hand sunk in, too.

Bracing both legs, she tried to pull out her arms, but she was struck in the head and pitched forward. When the device had tilted, a wrench left on top of it had slid down and hit Puk Puck right in the head.

Puk Puck understood. Someone was trying to make her dead. And she couldn’t avoid it. She looked up at the device. Its overwhelming presence was looming steadily closer and closer. If you made a device created by the First Mage into a blunt weapon, even one of the Three Sages would be crushed.

“Guys! Don’t come over here!” she yelled at the magical girls trying to run to her. If she was going to die no matter what, then at least she wanted to keep her friends from getting caught, too.

Puk Puck turned back to her friends and smiled brightly at them. “Thanks. I loved you all.”

This was not a lie, and she wasn’t putting up a strong front. Puk Puck had loved all of them. It was because of her love that she had managed to do her best and come all this way. Seeing Shadow Gale reaching out to her with a sad expression, Puk Puck waved back at her with a smile on her face.

She regretted that she would die before her goal was accomplished, and wondered in confusion how things had wound up like this, and that became Puk Puck’s final thought.

  Pfle

Pfle emerged from where she’d been hiding behind a TV screen to quietly check and see how things were going. Puk Puck’s order to stay back had stopped the magical girls from going to her. But just one had tried to rush up to Puk Puck, as if fighting against her own will. Recognizing that black nurse outfit, Pfle shot out in her wheelchair. She circled behind her and grabbed her arm, not letting her go any farther.

The spell had to have been cast particularly hard on Shadow Gale, since she was such an important figure in the ceremony—or was this an issue of her own nature? Whichever the case, Pfle couldn’t have her get caught up in the accident and ruin everything, not when things were somehow going so well.

When Pfle had arrived in this room, she’d been out of options. They’d said they were almost ready to activate the device, and all that was left was Shadow Gale’s task. Once Puk Puck arrived, it would all be over. If the Osk Faction forces came, they would try to do something about Shadow Gale, since hers was the one task left. And even if Pfle were to fight the magical girls in the sanctum, there was no guarantee she’d win—and taking Shadow Gale to flee would be utterly impossible. In other words, no matter how the cards fell, she was in check.

But she hadn’t despaired. There had been just one very thin path still left to her. Pfle read Premium Sachiko’s contract and made a gamble. If it failed, then Shadow Gale would die a miserable death.

Premium Sachiko’s magic was to offer incredible luck in exchange for using up all the rest of someone’s luck in life and inviting a misfortune that they didn’t want to happen. But it didn’t bring certain death. Death came when death was the most unwelcome thing for the one who signed the contract, but ultimately what you got was misfortune. If that person saw something as a misfortune greater than death, that would happen instead. If she was afraid of someone else’s demise more than her own, that someone else would die. Caught in the thrall of Puk Puck’s powerful magic, it had been difficult for Shadow Gale to think about anything other than Puk Puck, and so the loss of Puk Puck was a far greater disaster than her own death.

This had been a gamble on Pfle’s part. She’d read through all the fine print on Premium Sachiko’s contract, layering hypothesis upon hypothesis, with no choice but to make a gamble based on that.

And it had paid off. Now she just had to clean things up and head for the ending. Right this minute, the device was about to crush Puk Puck. Pfle looked away from it as it creaked toward Puk Puck as if in slow motion. Pfle wasn’t averting her eyes because she didn’t want to see a sweet-looking girl being cruelly crushed. It was because she didn’t want to let Puk Puck into her sight by accident and be charmed.

Shadow Gale was straining harder in an attempt to approach Puk Puck. Pfle circled her arms around her body, firmly restraining her. Shadow Gale still tried to move forward, so Pfle circled ahead of Shadow Gale and embraced her with her whole body. There was a terrible rumbling of the earth behind her. The wind swept up clouds of dust, and the magical girls screamed.

Then she felt a sharp pain in her chest. Liquid dripped to the ground. Pfle looked down at her own chest. There were scissors stuck in it. Shadow Gale twisted them in deeper, and Pfle spat out the air in her lungs.

Pfle hugged Shadow Gale even tighter. Shadow Gale still tried to push forward, leaning harder into the scissors, but then the pressure suddenly went slack. She wasn’t Shadow Gale anymore. Her transformation undone, she was Mamori Totoyama again as she lost consciousness.

Pfle looked ahead. Over Mamori’s head, her eyes met with those of the young Lazuline. She was looking at Pfle with a troubled expression. In her hand she clasped a candy that shone rainbow colors. “Oh, sorry. I didn’t quite make it in time.”

“No…that’s just how it goes,” Pfle replied. “More importantly, I want to ask something of you.”

“What’s that?”

Blood leaked from the corner of Pfle’s mouth. She forced a smile. “Could you remove any memories of me from her…from Mamori? She isn’t very strong, you know.”

“You’re okay with that?”

“It’s fine…and…I want you to…hand this to Deluge… My… Please.”

Seeing Lazuline’s hand reach toward her, Pfle closed her eyes. It felt like she could sense Mamori’s warmth and heartbeat more strongly than when her eyes had been open. She was sure she wasn’t imagining it. Dredging up what strength she had in her arms, she embraced Mamori’s body tight.

  Yoshioka

“What a mess.”

She didn’t even want to imagine what was going on in the ruins. This wasn’t the sort of place a human should just be nonchalantly stepping into. Yoshioka sighed. She looked around, wondering if there might be anything here, but it was all shattered boulders and snapped spears, nothing of interest. Seeing something reflecting the light of the sun, she thought, Oh and approached it, bending down. Picking it up from beneath the wreckage, she found it was a candy that shone a rainbow of colors. She looked at it for a few seconds, then eventually tossed it away in disinterest.

Since things had been half cleaned up, she would finish things off, at least. The magical girls who came out from the ruins once everything was over might be a little bit grateful to the Caspar Faction. Their faction wasn’t very big in the first place, and it wasn’t as if they furthered research into magic or magical girls, nor were they engaged in any secret machinations or doing any good deeds. From the viewpoint of either moralism or Machiavellianism, they had very literally done nothing. Complacent in their voting position, they just smirked over the fact that they held the deciding vote. No wonder the other factions didn’t respect them.

Yoshioka began to collect the trash, leaving aside heavy things like rubble. Circling the outer perimeter, she picked up things one by one, and at some point during her cleanup, she stopped.

“My.”

The rubble was swaying a little. She dug in with her nails and kicked the wreckage aside to reveal a magical phone underneath. It wasn’t a regular magical phone, but one for management use. When Yoshioka turned it on, a hologram popped up.

“What is going on here, pon?!” the black-and-white cyber fairy raged at her. It yelled and wailed and snapped at Yoshioka, who had nothing to do with anything and whom it had never met before, and it was too much for her to manage. She gave it a mildly confused look, but privately, she was bursting with the urge to grin. Do good things, and good things would come to you, as they said; picking up trash, a task she wasn’t normally accustomed to, had brought her a windfall.

“Now, now, please don’t be so angry,” said Yoshioka. “I’ll send you to your owner.”

“Please do, pon,” replied Fal. “By the way, can I ask you something, pon?”

“What is it?”

“Why are you in human form, pon? Isn’t it dangerous for you to not be in magical-girl form, pon?”

“I’m from the Caspar Faction, though. That’s just the policy. Well, in all honesty, I do feel it’s dangerous, but, like you, I can’t oppose the higher-ups…”

“Well, that sounds awful, pon.”

“It seems serving the powers is difficult for the both of us, hmm?” Her eyes ran down the display. There was a message. The sender was Marika Fukuroi. So this was what had made the phone vibrate.

“You got it, pon. Snow White always does whatever she wants. Her vitals…are okay. It seems like she’s alive, but honestly, she’s always so reckless. She’s no good without Fal, pon.”

“It’s a good thing your master is safe, hmm…? Then I’m turning off the power.”

Yoshioka turned off the main power. Now it couldn’t be booted up again without the master’s authorization. She pulled her own magical phone out of her pocket. She’d received no contact from the Third Lazuline. If Snow White was going to come out of there, it would take a little more time. Yoshioka transformed into a magical girl and peered into her crystal ball.

Would the inside of a smelting furnace be good, or the bottom of the ocean, or the crater of a volcano? She considered a moment, then brought up the image of a wide-shouldered man in his prime cautiously turning the knob on a thick metal door. Frederica shifted her viewpoint. If she moved her sights out the window, there was outer space, nothing but darkness aside from the twinkling of the stars. Getting the hair of a scientist who worked at the International Space Station had been a really good idea. Frederica tossed the management-use magical phone in the opposite direction from the earth. The rest was up to how far momentum would carry it. Watching the magical phone slide along through outer space, she nodded in satisfaction and disengaged the image.

She didn’t know how long the Third…or the First would be on her side. Even if they’d been forced to cooperate with her this time around, there would probably not be a next time. Frederica was well hated; she had no shortage of enemies.

It was best to eliminate those who were simply in the way when you could.