Mahou Shoujo Ikusei Keikaku - Volume 11 - Chapter 2

CHAPTER 2

SNOW WHITE AND THE SHEPHERD

  Mana

Mana had been opposed to the Inspection Department’s hiring someone with as violent a nickname as “Magical-Girl Hunter”—even if she was a contractor. But Mana had been overruled.

Snow White was an honorary resident of the Magical Kingdom, a position that made her a real hassle to deal with, and she had exposed a number of problem magical girls in the past. The reasonable idea “Someone without the right of arrest can’t be allowed to play cop” had been stripped of its backbone by the unreasonable idea “Well, so then we should just make her a cop.” And so Snow White had become a contracted member of the Inspection Department. Apparently Snow White herself hadn’t been interested at all, but through some wheedling, the department had somehow gotten her to agree. Since Mana had diligently studied for the job before knocking on the Inspection Department’s doors to say, “I’m going to become a great investigator,” that whole debacle had made her want to spit.

So that story was part of the reason Mana didn’t have a great opinion of Snow White. She’d only had one opportunity to work with her. Though Snow White had not turned out to be a demon of battle endlessly seeking blood as the rumors claimed, she had been unacceptably rude.

But still, Mana was an adult. Or rather, she had become an adult.

Before, she definitely would have yelled at Snow White and snapped at her for her attitude, but instead she had just made her displeasure clear, barely restraining any substantial emissions of anger. Partly this was because Snow White’s mascot had been so earnestly deferential, repeatedly saying things like, “It’s not like she’s trying to be mean,” “She’s easily misunderstood,” “She’s actually a good girl,” “Joining the Inspection Department has been her dream,” and “We respect you guys, seriously,” surprising the anger out of her.

That mascot aside, Mana had a very low opinion of Snow White as an individual. Back when they still worked together, they’d only engaged in the minimal necessary exchanges. Once the job was done, all Mana had thought was, “In the future, I’d like to avoid working with her again.”

Wishes of this sort would generally not come true.

The Inspection Department had direct passage gates at various hubs, but of course none of them took you straight to an estate belonging to an incarnation of one of the Three Sages. Even from the gate that was closest to W City, you would go to the hub in the neighboring prefecture, and from there you would get in a vehicle and take the highway to the Puk Puck estate.

Shadow Gale’s kidnapping and imprisonment, Pfle’s strange surrender, and Snow White, who could no longer be reached—with all these things happening, if Mana chose to not act out of fear of the Three Sages, then she couldn’t call herself a member of the Inspection Department anymore.

And besides, maybe this was connected to the incident that had happened in B City.

Mana had been investigating the B City incident. She was still investigating it now. She just had to know what had happened, why the people who had been killed there had to die. She even thought that she couldn’t go on with her life unless she had the answers. Whenever her mind turned back to that incident, it brought pain and distress as if her insides were boiling.

Mana’s group was supposed to have been chasing down a so-called assassin magical girl, but then, for some reason, several villainous magical girls who had escaped from prison had barged in. Two Inspection Department employees had died on the job, and the tragic incident had resulted in the deaths of many, regular people as well as local magical girls. Afterward, Mana had tried to learn more about what had happened, but it was a complex tangle of secret activities and interests of various departments, and it was functionally like there had been a gag order, making it bone-breakingly difficult to do an aboveboard investigation. And because she had hardly any know-how or connections, it had required further bone-breaking efforts for Mana to investigate under the table. With the cooperation of the veteran magical girl 7753, who was a member of Magical Girl Resources, she’d deduced some things from the information that she’d acquired, while she’d also heard that Pfle, the boss of Magical Girl Resources, had recently been investigated. Apparently, she hadn’t been found guilty, but it wasn’t as if she was necessarily found innocent. She had simply not been declared guilty.

Mana had met with Pfle just once, through 7753’s introduction. She was a whole ball of dubiousness. Mana wouldn’t be surprised by anything she got up to, and she had no clue what Pfle was doing.

And that was the person who had visited the Inspection Department, saying, “Arrest me.” Mana could see right through her and her casual intention to use the Inspection Department—but despite that, she’d also seen a glimpse of a sort of self-destructiveness in her, or perhaps desperation. She was determined to accomplish this, even if it meant abandoning her status—or even being a magical girl entirely. That was why Mana was doing this. Maybe she was being manipulated, but she’d decided that she was going to do something. And so she went to the Puk Puck estate.

“How excellent that you work so quickly.”

Pfle was currently being made to wait in the reception room of the Inspection Department. However, her constant calling through her magical phone made it feel as if she were not far at all. Mana tried to tell her that she couldn’t talk on the phone while driving, but Pfle didn’t listen, saying, “I’ll simply be speaking of my own accord, so just leave it on and have it on the passenger’s side seat.” It hadn’t been settled that she was a sort of suspect, so they had to keep treating her as a guest, even if only in form, and they couldn’t confiscate her magical phone. Mana considered having a stern word with the staff keeping watch on her, but Pfle would probably talk her way out of it somehow. In the end, smooth talkers would get ahead.

“I would like to leave the matter of the Puk Faction to the Osk Faction, but they’ve been reluctant to act of late—or I might say they haven’t been proactive. I wish Inspection could take a page from their book.”

Every time Pfle opened her mouth, Mana became more irritated, but it wasn’t as if she were the type to listen if Mana told her to shut up. And when Mana said, “There’s no reason for me to speak with you,” Pfle replied quite smoothly and reasonably, “If a member of the Inspection Department were to visit and ask to see the Sage incarnation, they would receive treatment worse than getting driven away at the gates. If you use my influence, the gates will open for you, at least, even without an appointment.”

Mana would be letting the head of another department help in Inspection work—and not just any department head, but the very person who had pretended to turn herself in, saying, “It seems I’ve committed a crime.” Plus, Mana would be leaving this visit to an incarnation of one of the Three Sages in the hands of the aforementioned suspect, and she had no intention of reporting it to her higher-ups, either.

Any one of these things on its own was enough of a scandal to put the one on this case—Mana—out of a job. But consulting her own bosses about this would just be a waste of time. It would take a full day for them to reach a conclusion at the very least, and, worst case, it would be made so that the Inspection Department was never involved in the matter at all. She wasn’t going to let that happen. She was sick of being forced to let the bad guys get away. If Hana had been there, maybe she would have tried to stop her. But when she remembered Hana, she couldn’t bear to stop. A great investigator like Hana would never have twisted or bent the straight core within herself.

Swaying in the car, worrying and agonizing with thoughts like, Is this really a good idea? and Should I have called my father, at least? and Who cares if I get punished for going too far on my own judgment? she drove. Pfle either wasn’t aware of Mana’s worries or was aware and went ahead anyway, chattering at Mana without a care in the world. Not only that, but she also acted overly friendly.

“The car navigation is telling me if we continue along the highway from here, we’ll get stuck in a long traffic jam. You should leave the highway for now and go onto the bypass.”

“How can you see my car navigation from there?”

“It’s all the same for me to check traffic information from my end, isn’t it? Oh yes, and though you should make haste, take care not to drive too fast. It’s not that I don’t trust in your driving, but it would be pointless if you were to wind up taking more time instead.”

“All right.”

“Also, wouldn’t regular people see you as a middle school girl driving a car? Would you not stand out as odd and get stopped by the police?”

“The car has a spell on it to alter perception so that magical girls can drive it.”

“Oh-ho, the Inspection Department is always so thorough. Oh, so then would they attach a transmitter or some such to the vehicle?”

“No, there’s nothing.”

“Excellent. And oh yes, what about your license? If you were stuck at a checkpoint or something and you were to take out your license, would that cause issues?”

“It’s all right. More importantly, I can’t concentrate on driving when you’re talking to me.”

“Oh, pardon me.”

She spoke with such levity that it was bound to offend, and then she wasn’t ashamed of it at all.

“And oh yes, about Puk Puck’s magic.”

The way she brought up something important like this as if she’d just remembered it now was irritating, too.

“Whoever sees her is charmed. You will come to wish most sincerely to be friends with Puk Puck, to be useful to her. This will most certainly be a barrier to this investigation, so take care how you handle her. If they tell you, ‘Lady Puk wishes to see you,’ I would avoid casually following them in.”

“How do you know what magic an incarnation of one of the Three Sages has?”

“Well, because I’m the head of Magical Girl Resources. And besides, she’s uploaded some videos of herself online, so she’s well known through that avenue. Her videos are said to be so wonderful, they steal the hearts of all who see them, which led to parties such as the Osk Faction looking into the matter. Why would she decide to publicize her own magic like that? Did she want to test her power, or was it an experiment? Or perhaps it was just for fun.”

“…So you’re saying the reason the Osk Faction has been holding back is because they know about Lady Puk Puck’s magic?”

“No, that’s not why. It’s because they lack a pretext for action. The Osk Faction is thinking, We’ll still make it in time if we wait for the Puk Faction to act before crushing them, so for now, let’s just get ready. It’s difficult to say if they’re being scrupulous about preparation or taking things too slowly. Well, we may be able to spur them into action.”

  Uluru

Uluru had wanted Snow White treated like a criminal, locked up someplace like a closet or a warehouse, but Puk Puck had not approved of that, and so Snow White was in the reception room. All the furnishings, from the long table and the credenza to the fancy chandelier and other interior lighting, were in the sort of adorable style that Puk liked, but their cheer did not suit Snow White right now. Instead, they made Uluru even more irritated.

“Snow White! That friend of yours… She killed Sachiko…!” There were so many things Uluru had meant to talk about, but when she saw Snow White’s face, they all flew away. Her anger provoked her into smacking the door. The door didn’t shut, bouncing back in the other direction, so she closed it normally, though with irritation, this time not slamming it, just closing it a bit loudly.

Turning back, Uluru looked down on Snow White, drawing her eyebrows together in suspicion. “What are you doing?”

“Nothing,” Snow White replied.

That was not the reaction Uluru had anticipated, and it was also a bit different from the Snow White Uluru knew. She was more suspicious than angry. “Nothing? It’s not nothing. That friend of yours—”

“She was just being controlled.”

Uluru bit her lip and glared at Snow White. “So that means I’m supposed to forgive her?!”

“The one who did it was Frederica. Pythie Frederica.”

“You, you…” Uluru punched the credenza with a tightly clenched fist, and the glasses inside rattled. “You! You’re the Magical-Girl Hunter, aren’t you?! You hunt bad magical girls, don’t you?! Why’re you talking like it’s someone else’s problem?!”

Snow White had been hanging her head as she listened, and by the time she slowly brought it up again, her previously expressionless face was hideously twisted.

The anger and hate oozing from her expression made Uluru reflexively bring her hand away from the credenza, and then, when she realized, she grabbed the corner of the credenza again. “Snow White, you…”

“Why are you even talking about this to me?” Snow White demanded.

“Huh?”

“Do you want something from me? Is that why you came here?”

“What are you talking about?”

“I’m sick of this.” Snow White stood.

Uluru’s right hand released the credenza, and she spread her palm to look down on it. She hadn’t been burned. She’d felt so much heat, she’d checked automatically.

“Why do you think I’ll save you? Why?!”

Uluru put a hand to her waist and opened her mouth, about to say something, but then closed her mouth without speaking and bit her lip. Even without Uluru’s saying anything, Snow White would be able to tell with painful clarity how at a loss she was.

“You…,” Uluru began, but the words wouldn’t come out. The Snow White Uluru had known was always calm. Uluru had been so fed up and irritated over that, and whenever something had happened, Sorami and even Sachiko would look toward Snow White, and Uluru had been so angry, just so hopelessly angry. But when she thought about how she was now coming to Snow White herself, she realized she’d been looking toward Snow White the whole time, too.

“What are you talking about?” Uluru demanded. “You’re cold and grouchy, but—but still, you were still kind of someone we could rely on. Sachiko and Sorami both relied on you way more than Uluru, and Uluru was so mad about that—”

“Don’t force me to be whoever you imagined me to be. I’m sick of it. Of everything.”

There was now not even a trace of that calm that had once driven Uluru so crazy. When you’re faced with something outrageous, you’ll look for somewhere to vent your anger and hate. Uluru understood that well—because she was totally the same.

Drawing Snow White toward her, with a clunk, she pressed Snow White’s forehead against her own. “You! Snow White! You’re a magical girl, aren’t you?!”

Snow White grabbed Uluru by the collar to put some distance between them, and then, after pulling away, she struck their foreheads together again with a whack. The pain and the impact were overwhelming. Uluru didn’t hit only her forehead, but her nose, too, blood spurting from it. Snow White glared at her, and she took it head-on, glaring back at her without flinching, close enough that she could feel her breath.

“You’re a good magical girl, right?!” yelled Uluru. “You beat the bad guys, right?! If you’re just lost in a rage! And you charge in there! That’s what the enemy wants! That’s making the one controlling your friend happy! You don’t want that, right?! So! So just! Show me more how a good magical girl acts, okay?!”

Snow White’s expression twisted not in anger but in shock. She could surely hear the voice of Uluru’s heart. Uluru didn’t want Snow White to be acting purely in hate and anger. So she was talking like a little kid in an attempt to win her over. A droplet of blood oozed down from her nose, and Uluru waved off Snow White’s hand, wiping her nose with her sleeve. Snow White turned to the side with a pained expression, swinging a fist into empty air. She looked up at the ceiling, then turned back to Uluru. The level of anger in her expression was even greater than before.

“Shut up!” Snow White suddenly yelled at her.

“What do you mean, ‘shut up’?!” Refusing to back down, Uluru yelled back.

“Why do people always have to talk to me like that?! I never asked anyone to call me the Magical-Girl Hunter, but people do it anyway, so you can’t tell me to take responsibility here!”

“I’m saying to keep up the front to the end, at least!”

“I was never trying to put up a front!”

“That’s not what I’m talking about!”

“I’m done with magical girls! I don’t care anymore!”

It was as if a dam had burst. There was no logic or anything in her—she was shaking her head at whatever Uluru said to shoot it down. It wasn’t as if she were plugging her ears, but nothing was going in them. But even if whatever had been pulled taut and tense inside her had now burst, Uluru didn’t want to abandon Snow White in her despair. Uluru had always meant to be standing in front of Sorami and Sachiko, protecting them from stormy seas or headwinds or whatnot, but wondering now just how useful she had been, she didn’t know. The one thing she could say was that she had confidence when it came to acting like a big sister.

“What’re you gonna do about your friend? She’s being controlled, right? Are you gonna leave her like that?”

Snow White glared at Uluru and tried to grab at her, too, but when she did, Uluru pushed her back. Normally, Snow White would have casually avoided a push from Uluru, but she wound up on her bottom on her chair with no resistance. Uluru looked down on her. For the first time since Uluru had met her, Snow White just looked like a girl.

“Are you just gonna abandon her? Your friend went off all alone, and you’re not going to do anything about that? Uluru’s not abandoning her. Uluru’s gonna chase down your friend, and Uluru’s gonna find out about the one who was controlling her. Uluru’s gonna get revenge for Sachiko. Uluru’s never gonna forgive this.”

With a start, Snow White looked back at Uluru.

Uluru continued, “Uluru’s going. What’re you gonna do? Are you gonna lie around here?”

Snow White was looking up at Uluru. Her expression seemed to prompt her to continue.

“Uluru’s gonna get you out of here and chase after your friend. Then Uluru’s gonna get revenge for Sachiko. You hate the same person as Uluru, right?” Declaring that out loud drew a definite picture of the feelings inside her. She came to a clear realization about what she was trying to do, what she’d come here wanting to do.

“Sachiko didn’t want her magic causing anyone misfortune. She was the biggest crybaby and a chicken, but she was thinking of other people. Uluru thinks Sachiko is a stupid idiot, but still, Sachiko is Uluru’s little sister. Uluru wants to do what she would have wanted.”

Snow White read minds. No matter what cheap tricks someone used to try to deceive her, no matter if they tried to babble on wildly in an attempt to confuse her, she would know everything. So you had no choice but to just say it all straight out.

“Uluru will help. So help out Uluru. We’ll sneak you out.”

The moment of silence between them wasn’t that long—going by her internal clock, about a minute passed.

Snow White raised her arms, then swung them down to hop to her feet. She let out a long breath. “If you’re sneaking me out, I think that will mean going against Puk Puck. Are you really okay doing that?”

“Lady Puk…” Uluru’s voice went hoarse. “Lady Puk… This still doesn’t change how much Uluru owes Lady Puk. But…Uluru…” Uluru grabbed the corner of the credenza with her right hand. It was as if she was clinging to it.

“You’re the one who’s pushed me to do this, aren’t you? And if I’m a magical girl, then you are, too.” Snow White gently covered Uluru’s hand, the one clasping the cabinet, with her own. She didn’t squeeze it tightly. She just left it there. But there was heat. The energy warmed Uluru’s hand, and Uluru’s hand warmed hers in turn.

Uluru closed her eyes, then slowly opened them. She was still undecided. Thinking about her sisters, her whole life until now, Puk Puck, whom she’d always served as an absolute leader, and everything else connected to that, she felt confused and lost and she wanted to run away, but she held those feelings back to consider.

“…All right. Let’s go. Uluru’s gonna get her things and the estate master key. Right now, everyone’s all crowded around certain spots, so if I pick out the right route, we should be able to get away, even taking you along.” Though her voice was hoarse, she’d come to her answer.

Snow White nodded. “If we’re going, then I want to make a request.”

“What?”

“Bring me all my things that were confiscated, too. The bag, my weapon, and magical phone…since I need Fal most of all. They’ve put them away in a locker in warehouse three. When my things were taken from me, I heard the inner voice of the one who carried them away, so if they haven’t been moved, they should still be there.”

“Warehouse three, huh? There might be people there. You stay here. Uluru’ll get them for you.”

Snow White took a step back and bowed her head deeply. “Thank you.”

Now Snow White was none other than the Snow White Uluru knew.

  Snow White

When she slowly raised her head, the door was already closed, and Uluru was gone. Listening to her footsteps and the voice of her heart grow distant, Snow White bit her lower lip. She was essentially driving on someone recently bereaved by telling her to try harder, and she was about to make things even worse for her, all for the sake of accomplishing her own goal. This was who she was now—this was Snow White now. But this was not the time to run. She was not even going to laugh at Uluru’s childlike idea of how pure, righteous, and beautiful magical girls supposedly were. Even if she wound up dying from choking on her own vomit, she would accept that she was a magical girl.

She was completely exhausted. It all felt fuzzy, she didn’t want to do anything, and she didn’t want to think anything. Just thinking about Ripple made her heart hurt like it was about to burst. But she had to do something. She realized that getting all that wind out of her lungs, yelling back and forth with Uluru, and their grabbing at each other had made her feel a little better.

There had been those who had kept the faith as magical girls, even when the situation spelled despair. Those people had remained concerned about others to the bitter end. La Pucelle, who had shown gentle consideration to Snow White, no matter what happened, even though she had to have been going through a hard time herself. Hardgore Alice, who’d said that as long as Snow White was there, magical girls would not have gone from that town. Princess Inferno, who had been thinking of her friends right up to the moment of her death, entrusting her desire to beat the bad magical girls to Snow White. Just how many times had she felt she wanted to be a magical girl who would not be ashamed to face them? It was the same now. She didn’t want to turn her back on those girls.

Biting her lip until it was about to bleed, suddenly, she went slack. A shiver ran up her spine. She could hear the voice of a heart. One that loved and was concerned about the Magical Kingdom and magical girls more than anyone.

Puk Puck.

Her footsteps and voice drew nearer. She was almost there. Snow White tensed deep in her stomach. She remembered what that magical girl of the Osk Faction had said: “You can’t look at her.” The footsteps came to a stop, and a key was stuck in the lock, and the door opened. She was there. Puk Puck smiled at Snow White. Though she wasn’t looking, for some reason, she could tell. With just that, she experienced the illusion of her body starting to melt away.

“Hello, Snowy Sis.”

Hearing her voice deepened that illusion even further.

“Puk didn’t want to lock you up in a place like this… Sorry, ’kay?”

That tilt of her head made Snow White clasp her chest. She couldn’t even speak.

“Snowy, you beat Grim Heart, right? Even Puk couldn’t beat her. That’s so amazing.”

The praise sank into her body, turning into pleasure and oozing in. It was trying to become feelings like, I’m glad to receive her praise, I want to make her happy. Snow White tore her eyes away from Puk Puck and looked at the ground.

“Puk thinks that if you are on our side, things are bound to work out. So come out for a trip with Puk. Hey, you don’t mind, right? The other girls’ll be with us, too, so it’s gonna be lots of fun. And you know Shadow Gale, she’ll be there, too, you know.”

Snow White’s chin was gradually rising. She couldn’t bear the pain of looking at the ground any longer. She knew that if she just lifted her face and looked ahead, she’d find something so beautiful she’d want to keep looking at it forever, so why did she have to keep her eyes on the boring stone floor?

“There are some girls who’re trying to get in the way of Puk using the device. Puk wishes Uluru could make the device go… Why’s she getting in the way? Using the device will make everyone happy, so Puk wants you to stop the girls who are getting in the way, Snowy.”

Snow White lifted her face and looked straight at Puk Puck. When she saw that smile, the horror in her heart settled, and she could feel herself relaxing. “Lady Puk.”

“What is it?”

“Please capture Uluru. She plans to escape here with me. I just asked her to go get my things. If we leave her be, she might cause harm.”

“Oh dear, so that’s what’s going on. But ’Luru isn’t very strong, so Puck figures it should be fine if we leave her be.”

“Please.”

“Hmm…okay. If you insist, then yeah. Puk’ll go ask everyone. Thanks for telling me, Snowy Sis.”

All at once, she was enveloped in happiness from the tips of her toes to the top of her head. She’d been useful to Puk Puck. There was no greater happiness than this. Inside her head, the order of priorities swapped around, like cards being shuffled. First, there was Puk Puck. Her goal was to activate the device. And then there was the elimination of forces that were getting in the way of that.

“Lady Puk.”

“What is it?”

“Please make me more useful.”

“Yep, that’s what Puk came for.”

Snow White was thankful to Puk Puck, and she swore in her heart that she had to repay her as much as she could. “Lady Puk.”

“Yes?”

“Where are my belongings? If I have those, I’ll be able to serve you better, Lady Puk. And Fal is a capable mascot. He’s sure to be useful to you.”

“Yep, yep. You’re very enthusiastic. Puk’s happy, too. It really was a good idea to use magic on you, too, Snowy.”

“…Thank you very much.”

“Hmm?”

“For using your magic on me.”

“Hee-hee. It’s because you’re important to Puk, Snowy Sis.”

  Uluru

Uluru’s hand was still warm and trembling after touching Snow White’s. Maybe it was because she’d been facing Snow White and her piercing gaze, but her throat was dry, and it stung. But she couldn’t run away or hide. She had separated from Puk Puck, who used to save her when things she didn’t understand happened. Sorami was gone. Sachiko was gone, too.

Uluru had said to Snow White, “You’re a magical girl, so save her.” But Uluru was even more a magical girl than Snow White was. Sachiko and Sorami had both been magical girls, too. No—they still were. If there was someone in trouble, Uluru was going to save them, no matter what.

When she came out from the dungeon, she discovered the estate in chaos. She could hear voices saying things like, “Someone’s here” and “Lady Puk’s orders.” Uluru slipped from shadow to shadow. Warehouse three wasn’t that heavily secured. There was a lock on it, but that was all. In front of the warehouse, Uluru looked around, right and left. There was nobody looking in her direction. Pulling the rifle off her back, she whacked the lock with it. With the first strike, it bent inward, with the second, it twisted, and with the third, the lock came apart. She grabbed the half-broken lock, twisted it from side to side, and tossed it on the ground. She opened the door and headed for the locker. The old locker in one corner of the room was also locked, but she destroyed that with the butt of her rifle in the same way to open it up. She picked up a familiar-looking bag, and when she peeked inside—

“What happened, pon? What’s going on, pon?”

“You be quiet a sec. Uluru’s about to go to Snow White…”

She heard footsteps coming. A lot of them. There was yelling, too; before she could think about what they meant by “Capture Uluru,” she was on her feet and running. If she tried leaving this storehouse the way she’d come in, she wasn’t going to make it. She headed for the window. Pulling a naginata-like weapon from her bag, she whacked the window lattice. The lattice flew open, sending shattered glass everywhere.

“It’s Uluru! There she is!”

She could only assume they’d found out she was trying to escape from the estate—even though nobody should have known that, aside from Snow White.

The voices and footsteps were hot on Uluru’s trail as she scrambled out the window, but the weapon in her hands caught on the sill. She let it go in a panic, and then her bag got caught on the window, spilling its contents outside the warehouse. Her panic peaking, Uluru scooped up the magical phone that was carping at her, “What are you doing, pon?” and ran. Her mind was hardly working; only her legs would obey. She felt like she had to keep running or she’d be crushed. Now she couldn’t go back to where Snow White was, either. If she kept running around inside the estate, eventually she’d be captured. Damn it. Crap, she cursed in her head, blaming Sachiko and thinking, It’s your fault!

Despite having a good-luck symbol, the four-leaf clover, as her motif, Sachiko always had such bad luck. When the three sisters had been together, generally Sachiko would make bad things happen. Then she’d bring herself to the verge of tears, and Sorami would console her, and Uluru would scold her.

It’s ’cause you’re gone, Sachiko, all the bad stuff is coming down on Uluru.

If Sachiko were here, if Sachiko were here—Uluru wiped her tears with her wrist. The smell of blood tickled her nose, and she remembered that earlier, in the dungeon, she’d wiped blood off her nose. It wasn’t Sachiko’s job to have everything bad foisted on her. The eldest of the three sisters, the one who had to protect everyone, was Uluru. Sachiko and Sorami were just supposed to help, to give her a hand.

Yeah. Give me a hand.

As the voices around got louder, she lowered her head, going from one bush to the next until she came out into the courtyard.

Sachiko, you were always so unlucky. Why were you always crying, why, when you’re supposed to be a lucky clover? So for today, at least, be a real good-luck clover. Can’t you help Uluru just a little?

Suddenly, she heard a voice. It wasn’t Sachiko’s. It wasn’t Sorami’s. It wasn’t Puk Puck’s, and it wasn’t Snow White’s, either. Uluru ran toward the voice. It wasn’t one she’d heard before. It wasn’t someone from the estate.

Searching for the source of the voice, she sped up. The front gates were slightly open. The gate guard magical girl’s back was to her. Some visitor had arrived, and she was dealing with them. It wasn’t enough of an opportunity to call an opportunity. Close to the front gates, she could see a bunch of magical girls, and if Uluru charged in, they would discover where she was. But Uluru thought that if she was going to take a gamble, then now was the time. Praying to Sachiko, Give me some luck, I just need a bit, she ran.

  Mana

Even after she finally arrived at her destination, yet another long and painful ordeal began.

“That’s why I’m saying to let me investigate,” said Mana.

“I cannot allow you in without Lady Puk’s permission.”

“So then why won’t you go to get permission?”

“Because I cannot leave this post.”

Ten minutes had passed just going back and forth like this. The magical girl who guarded the gates had this attitude like, “You should be grateful I even opened it,” and she showed no intention of listening to Mana.

“An employee of the Inspection Department called Snow White should be visiting right now. We have physical documents of that in our records, and we’ve been in contact with her.”

“Lady Puk has no knowledge of such matters.”

“Is a magical girl called Shadow Gale here—?”

“I’ve heard nothing of the sort.” The guard was addressing her from the incredibly rude position of through the slightly opened gate, showing only her face.

But despite her irritation, Mana kept talking, and though the guard clearly wanted to end the conversation, Mana persisted. She wasn’t going to let this go. “If you can’t leave your post, then call for someone else, please. You must have a magical phone or something.”

“Unfortunately, I do not.”

“That’s ridiculous.”

“You may call it ridiculous, but it’s the truth.”

Pfle’s magical phone, through which she had been amusing herself babbling on and on pointlessly, now didn’t so much as twitch. It was as if there had never been a peep from it to begin with. It seemed Pfle’s promise of putting in a word for her as the chief of Magical Girl Resources only went as far as getting the gate guard to open up for her. The guard was driving Mana nuts on one end while Pfle was irritating her on the other, and she couldn’t see any way out.

“If you insist you won’t let me past, no matter what, then please bring Snow White here,” said Mana.

“I cannot do that, either. This isn’t even an official investigation in the first place, is it? Do you have a warrant?”

“Like I said—”

She heard a yell cutting her off from behind. The magical girl whipped around to look back toward the estate. Mana also tried to look toward the estate through the gap in the gate, and when the gate guard noticed that, she blocked the way in front of her so Mana couldn’t see inside.

Mana pressed her, “What was that? What are you doing inside?”

“Whatever may be going on inside the estate, that’s no reason for you to take us to task for it. We cannot have you peeking.”

“No matter what you do, I can’t take you to task for it? That’s ridiculous! Even if she is an incarnation of one of the Three Sages, she still has to obey the laws of the Magical Kingdom, of this world—”

Before Mana could finish, the magical girl fell toward her. With two people fully coming down on her, Mana barely caught herself as she was flung back toward the street. Though even saying that she caught herself, it was so sudden, the most she could do was protect the back of her head. She hit her back hard, squeezing out a voiceless yell, and then, after rolling over the ground a second time, she somehow got up on her knees.

The gate guard was trying to get to her feet. Three magical girls had appeared from inside the gates. Each of them had weapons—one a cutely decorated wand, one a strangely shaped sword. They were glaring toward Mana’s right. When Mana glanced over, she saw a magical girl there. She held what looked like a toy rifle, and her shoulders were heaving.

“Take her into custody,” came that same voice from her magical phone.

Mana moved as if her back had been pushed at just the right moment. Thrusting her arm out in front of the girl beside her, she said as loudly as she could, “How dare you engage in such violent behavior in front of an investigator! You’re going to tell me what’s going on here!”

It was only moments before the magical girls grew agitated. The trio looked at each other and nodded, and the gate guard stepped back as if she’d inferred she should. Mana sensed an uneasy feeling hanging in the air, thick, like it clung to the skin, and retreated half a step back. The magical girls raised their weapons again and split into three directions: right, left, and front, slowly forming a triangle. Mana slid one hand into her pocket, reaching for an ampule filled with liquid medicine, but before she could grab it, the three magical girls moved.

Mana was a mage. She couldn’t hope to be as fast as a magical girl. It was all over before she could even be surprised. That was how magical-girl fights went. The wand-wielding girl was knocked down, making an arc of cracks in the road. The sword-wielding girl made a dent in the wall, and the third had her limbs trapped in ice, her ankle bitten by a shadow-puppet dog that stretched over the road, pulling her to the ground.

“It’s the enemy! Over here!” the guard yelled into the gates. Immediately after that, a magical girl with a trident kicked her. The gate guard lowered both arms to block, but she was flung back into the estate.

“What are you doing? Hurry up and fly!”

With the magical phone talking at her, Mana snapped out of it and started running, then grabbed the hand of the girl who was still standing beside her dumbly with her rifle. Mana practically yanked her arm off to pull her along and run. She opened up the door of her van, which was parked on the road, and tossed the girl inside. When she was getting into the driver’s seat, she heard the sounds of gunfire and bullet impact in continuous succession, and she turned back. A magical girl in black, covered all over by something shadowlike, was turned away from her. One after another, magical girls were running out from inside the Puk estate to wield weapons against the black winged things—homunculi—that came attacking from the sky.

Mana didn’t turn back again. She got into the van, turned on the engine, and floored the gas, accelerating like a rocket. Stray bullets skimmed the vehicle, but a van with the Inspection Department’s spells on it wasn’t going to break over something like that.

“Through an unexpected accident, we were able to obtain good results. Attacking a mage of the Inspection Department with the goal of silencing her is a most highly illegal act, a deed that shows she fears no one. Thanks to this, we now have a pretext. If we take this to the Osk Faction, they should be able to turn it into quite a nice justification for hostilities.”

An “unexpected accident”—just how much of this did she mean was accidental? No matter how you thought about it, the two magical girls and countless homunculi that had popped out from somewhere when Mana was in trouble to come save her had been hired by Pfle. Even if Pfle hadn’t anticipated that it would come to this, Mana was forced to assume she’d had her hires lurking in wait with the intention of having them engage in some violence. In other words, this happening was all according to plan. And she’d used Mana as her pawn, leading her right up to danger.

All she could hear from the back seat was rough panting. Mana was also panting, of course. Unable to complain to the magical phone or snap at Pfle with something sarcastic, she leaned against the wheel, bent forward as she stepped on the gas.