Mahou Shoujo Ikusei Keikaku - Volume 11 - Chapter 8

CHAPTER 8

HIT THEM WITH ALL WE’VE GOT

  CQ Angel Hamuel

The confusion was spreading. Hamuel doled out rapid-fire orders through her communicator, saying not to look at the car navigation screens, to destroy the screens, to restrain those Shufflin IIs whose minds had been stolen, et cetera. Atop her palanquin, Lethe closed one eye, the other pointed toward the trucks.

They knew experiments had shown Puk Puck’s magic power was effective even through video, and Hamuel had personally seen a video of her and been charmed. But this was far too intense. For the soldiers to be charmed and start becoming violent for Puk Puck’s sake just from seeing a video was too powerful.

As the chaos caused by the video of Puk Puck playing on the truck screens was accelerating, the magical-girl mercenary unit headed by Pfle dashed out. Of course, Hamuel had ordered no such thing. This was unauthorized. Pfle wasn’t the type to rush ahead out of desire for credit, and neither could Hamuel imagine her unable to control subordinates who had acted on their own. So then did she see this as her opportunity to sweep in at once to attack? If so, she wouldn’t be thinking they could get past Puk Puck on their own. She was essentially saying to them, “Come follow us.” It was like she was playing general of the army.

Hamuel couldn’t decide what to do. But as she hesitated, the situation was shifting like sand. This wasn’t the time to be indecisive. She knew that, but she still couldn’t make up her mind.

She was glaring with the microphone of her communicator still in hand when it was quickly snatched from her. Lethe had taken it over. “All troops, follow after the mercenary forces. Don’t look at Puk Puck. Eyes on the ground or the sky, and charge.”

Hamuel thought that was a dangerous decision, but she also thought it was the only option. The group of Shufflin IIs started running with Lethe’s palanquin in tow and Hamuel bringing up the rear.

“Is that quite all right?” Hamuel asked Lethe.

“If Puk Puck’s making her move now, she must have some kind of plan. We’ll have the mercenaries hold her in check. Use that opportunity to sneak one or two units into the ruins. If you put an ace of spades among them, then we’ve won, eh.”

“Yes’m… Hmm?”

The mercenary unit, which was stirring up dust as it raced onward, swerved to the right. It was running in the opposite direction, away from the ruins where Puk Puck was, its path circling the basin. That meant the Shufflin IIs, running behind them, were pushed to the front of the forces to stand in the direct line of fire.

Pfle had done nothing more than create an impetus for them, and then, as soon as she saw they’d fallen for it, she’d foisted the toughest job on them.

Lethe snapped her fan in two and tossed it out the side of her palanquin. “That HR scum. Once this is over, I’ll have her strung up at the inquiry.” Then she nimbly leaped down to the ground, and the next moment, she’d come out to the head of the Shufflin IIs herself. Lethe had intended as much. The Shufflin IIs wouldn’t be able to keep Puk Puck in check. They’d be charmed just by approaching, and decreasing their forces while bolstering enemy numbers would only benefit the Puk Faction. Lethe was the only one who could occupy Puk Puck.

“I’ll buy some time. Meanwhile, send the Shufflin IIs in,” came Lethe’s instructions. Her voice sounded close to Hamuel even though she was far away. Hamuel gripped her mic and gave all the Shufflin IIs their orders.

The entrance to the ruins was approaching. And Puk Puck, too. Hamuel had been averting her gaze to avoid looking at Puk Puck directly, so she’d been slow to notice, but other magical girls were pouring out from the ruins as well. They were carrying some kind of equipment—screens. They powered on the screens, and gradually, the images on them became clear. A charming singing voice played, and, hearing it, Hamuel shielded her eyes.

“Don’t look at the screens! They’re playing videos of Puk Puck!”

  Puk Puck

Puk Puck decided not to move from the entrance. If she moved around too much, someone would take that opportunity to get into the ruins. The entrance was thirteen feet tall and ten feet wide, so as long as she was here, nobody could get inside without her noticing.

But there were still a lot of magical girls trying to go right past her to get in, and that made Puk Puck sad. The card soldiers stared at their feet so Puk Puck would be out of their field of vision as they ran for the ruins. Puk Puck came straight up to a nearby card soldier, and right before they collided, smacked the playing card’s cheeks with both hands. The card twitched and looked ahead. Her eyes met with Puk Puck’s and, in a blink, she became a friend.

“Please, Miss Card Soldier. Stop everyone who’s trying to get into the ruins.”

With her spear in her right hand, the card soldier faced those who had been her friends until just this moment in order to grant Puk Puck’s wish. Puk Puck was somewhat satisfied that she’d managed to get another friend, but there were so many playing cards. Snow White had said, “If you try to make every single one a friend, then they’ll get past you.” It was really too bad, but she would leave the card soldiers to her high-resolution dance video. Just how many would make it to the ruins, looking at the ground the whole way? Even if they did make it, Puk’s strong friends were inside, and farther in was the Magical-Girl Hunter, Snow White.

Puk Puck noticed something flying, out of the corner of her eye. She looked toward it to see an angel holding a communicator flying low enough that she just about touched the ground. Snow White had said that CQ Angel Hamuel’s job was to give orders to the card soldiers. She’d also said she was an important target.

Even if she was flying in the sky, if you smashed her wings, then she’d fall. Picking up a rock from the ground, Puk Puck raised it, but right when she was about to throw, she was stopped by a call.

“What are you doing, with the enemy general in front of you, eh?”

She threw the rock she’d been about to toss at Hamuel at the owner of the voice. The rock, which would have cracked earth and shattered mountains if it connected, weakly fell to the ground with a plunk before it reached its target.

For a bedaubed aristocrat of the era of the House of Plantagenet to wear a Japanese black-lacquered sheath was an incredible mismatch in style. She drew Puk Puck’s eye, but for more than her eccentricity. The magical girl before her—if she was calling herself the general, she had to be Lethe. Lethe’s face was turned to Puk Puck, and she wasn’t averting her eyes. She was listening to Puk’s voice, not plugging her ears. But despite that, she did not become a friend, keeping her wits about her as she stood there.

From the great circular space around them, mixed in with the screams and yells, Puk Puck could hear the singing from her video that everyone praised as “cute” and “pretty.” The one on now was an old popular song, and before that had been a nursery rhyme.

Lethe was right in front of Puk Puck, and she wasn’t yielding to her. Curiosity bubbled up inside Puk Puck. Her heart was going pitter-patter. Lethe was there, and it looked like if she reached out just a little bit, they could touch. Puk Puck went for it and took one step, but Lethe was still too far away. Puk Puck took a second, a third step forward, but she still didn’t reach. When she turned back with sudden realization, one card soldier had gone into the entrance to the ruins.

She’d been lured away. Flustered, Puk Puck tried to return to the entrance, but this time, no matter how she kept going and going, not only did she not arrive at the entrance, she couldn’t even get close, and no matter how she reached out, she couldn’t make it.

This was Lethe’s magic. Puk Puck turned back to face her again. Lethe looked at Puk Puck wandering about in confusion, smiling with just her lips as she drew her sword from its black sheath.

“Ame-no-Ohabari.”

The moment she drew that blade, the air grew tense and sharp. Puk Puck let out a breathy “Ohh.” Lethe was holding a black-lacquered sheath in her left hand, while her right held a mysterious blade that was somewhere between a katana and a saber, but Puk Puck thought she looked beautiful. She thought, Oh, I want to be friends with her.

Of course, Puk Puck had the duty to do her best, for everyone’s sake. She wasn’t just staring in awe. She could sense the flows in the air, the flows of magic power, were being unnaturally twisted. Puk Puck’s singing voice, coming from behind Lethe, faded out at parts, becoming quieter, then disappeared. It disappeared in an odd way, as if it were being pulled farther and farther away.

Lethe approached with flowing movements, and Puk Puck backed up. Lethe’s long skirt hid the movements of her legs. Though Puk Puck wouldn’t normally pay attention to something like that, right now, her mind was on the way Lethe’s legs moved. And that was delightful, too.

Puk Puck spread her arms and smiled. “Big sis, come be friends with Puk!”

Lethe’s reply was a slice. She struck downward from above, adding another attack scraping up from the ground, then twisted around to drive in with her sheath. Puk Puck carefully avoided each and every move. Matching Lethe’s flowing motions, smooth as butter, with the kind of consideration you’d show to your partner at a high-society dance, she dodged and blocked the attacks, smiling, and said to Lethe, “Hey, be friends with Puk! You’re sure to have fun!”

Skirt fluttering, a kick flew out. Puk Puck raised her right arm to block it, then tried to rotate around the axis of Lethe’s leg, but her hand grabbed nothing and cut through air. “Huh?”

Something was strange, after all. Something unusual was going on. She blocked, stopped, and evaded a succession of three attacks from Lethe, then kicked a rock at her feet to try to hit Lethe with it, but it lost momentum and fell to the ground before it could connect. The rocks she’d thrown or kicked failed to make it, and when she tried to touch her, her hand didn’t reach, either. She could have sworn Lethe was right there, but it was as if she were somewhere far away.

The sword in Lethe’s grasp bent like it was soft, and the single blade came to look like two, three. No—the tip of the sword really was dividing into two, then three. The three blades undulated nimbly as if inviting her as they struck. Puk Puck restrained the impulse to touch them and waited. She watched carefully, then blocked them.

She sandwiched the first blade between her thumb and forefinger, the second between her middle and ring finger, and the third between her ring finger and pinkie. Lethe tried to push the blade, tried to pull it, releasing tension and then yanking firmly again, but Puk Puck held it tight and wouldn’t let go. She brought her face close to the blade. Though she was already touching it, her desire to touch it grew even more. If she had been a normal magical girl, these blades would definitely have already plunged into her body.

Puk Puck sniffed. It didn’t have much of a smell. This seemed like it was far away, too. That was why Lethe wouldn’t become Puk Puck’s friend.

“Hey, become friends with Puk. Stop fighting, and let’s play together. There’s lots of other friends, too. Puk’s sure we can all get along.”

Lethe let go of the hilt, allowing Puk Puck to take the sword, and leaped back. “Ame-no-Habakiri.” She reached out to somewhere far away and brought another sword to her. It was shaped way different from the one before. It had a single thick blade in the middle that branched into more blades.

“Ame-no-Nuboko.” And one more, a third—this time, a spear made an appearance. The blade was half as long as the handle, making for the sort of poor balance that looked quite nice to Puk Puck’s eyes. She could sense the gushing magical energy itself collected in both weapons, hardened at high density and made into those shapes. Even just still and at the ready, they made humming sounds. They were surely great weapons, famous ones. These had definitely been kept in the Osk Faction’s treasure houses or someplace like them.

With the sword in her right hand and the spear in her left, Lethe stood in a sideways stance. There was blood dripping from the corner of her mouth, but she didn’t make to wipe it off. She was focused only on Puk Puck.

Puk Puck looked at the sword left in her hands. The blades looked as flimsy as thin sheets of paper, and it was too much trouble to hold on to it, so she tossed it behind her.

The spear thrust toward her, so Puk Puck dodged, and the sword swung at her, so she avoided that, too, but right before she did, it came real close. It sliced over her shin, and though she wasn’t cut, the cold sensation of the blade was gross, and it made a cut in her special socks, the ones with ribbons sprinkled over white fabric. Puk Puck was sad.

Lethe’s face, which had remained impassive all this time, twisted.

“What’s wrong, Lethy? Are you relieved ’cause Puk wasn’t hurt? The truth is that you don’t want to hurt Puk, right? That’s what it is, right?”

Lethe was a powerful magical girl. The precision of her thrusts, the speed of her swings, her vigor, technique, reflexes, agility, muscle strength, every single element was far above the standard. The strength of her magic to draw weapons from far away to her hands was also top-notch. She had confidence, and that was precisely why she was going up against Puk Puck on her own. She wielded these weapons believing that with her physical strength and these keen enchanted blades, she couldn’t fail to cut Puk Puck—but despite that, she had failed to do so. It wasn’t that Puk Puck had used magic. It wasn’t that Lethe’s skills were lacking. It was simply that that was what a Sage incarnation was. Strong, fast, and complicated—utterly so, and more than any other.

Lethe would never be a match for Puk Puck.

“Hey, Lethy.” Puk Puck came forward, and Lethe retreated.

Blood continued to flow from the corner of Lethe’s mouth. Forget attacks—Puk Puck wouldn’t even let Lethe touch her. That realization had to be the reason Lethe was biting the inside of her cheek or her tongue. The cracks that had opened up inside her were out of control and spreading.

Puk Puck was sad. Lethe’s heart was trying to make friends with Puk Puck, but she thought she shouldn’t, and was forcing herself to fight it. That wouldn’t make anyone happy. Puk Puck wasn’t happy, and Lethe wasn’t happy, either. So she thought, Then let’s use magic on the cracks in Lethe’s heart.

“It’s really, really fun to get along. You won’t have anyone being mean to you or getting mad at you. So, um, um. Be Puk’s friend, and let’s get along. We can play tag and hide-and-seek, and lots of other games, too. And there’s tasty candies. And, and, there’s juice, and you can drink as much coffee and tea as you like.”

Puk Puck took one more step forward.

  Lethe

Compared to when she’d experienced it before, Lethe felt that Puk Puck’s magic had strengthened dramatically. More than ten years ago, Lethe had been dragged into a conference with Puk Puck, and in the end, she’d wound up as Puk Puck’s playmate, playing tag and hide-and-seek and other games. She’d been made to enjoy herself from the bottom of her heart. That evening, those fun memories had turned to humiliation. She hadn’t even realized she’d been being deceived by Puk Puck, charmed by magic, playing and having fun like an idiot, and upon parting, she’d felt sorrow like being torn to pieces.

Puk Puck’s magic was far more powerful now than it had been then. Those they’d lost when their hearts had been stolen away by her magic went well beyond feeling positive toward her, reaching the level of worship or blind obedience. For Puk Puck’s sake, they would abandon their positions, throw away their lives, do anything. This hadn’t happened before. She hadn’t been serious at all during their conferences.

Using her magic, Lethe maintained a constant distance, minimizing the effects of Puk Puck’s magic. But she still couldn’t completely nullify it, and Puk Puck’s magic was gradually encroaching on her from the outside, like a kind of venom.

The blades she’d brought out from the treasure houses had all had unparalleled strengthening spells cast on them, and they were sharp enough that even a scratch from them would turn a combat-use homunculus into a black stain. And that wasn’t all—they also had the nasty added effect of directly gouging out the soul of whomever they cut. But Puk Puck had resisted that with the tough constitution of a Sage incarnation alone. And because Lethe had carelessly gotten too close in an attempt to wound her enemy, she’d wound up getting hit with Puk Puck’s magic, and her brain was doing everything it could to resist the urge to switch sides.

Lethe was an incredibly powerful magical girl. Even in the Archfiend Cram School, packed though it had been with strong fighters, not even once had she thought of herself as lesser. But there was a gap between her and the magical girl in front of her that she could never close. In athleticism, technique, magic, mental fortitude, quality—she was in another dimension in every respect. That fact made Lethe feel stress, and the stress helped the poison of Puk Puck’s magic ooze into her, making Puk Puck look even more brilliant and charming.

To use her magic to slip past her to go into the ruins? Impossible. If Lethe got anywhere near Puk Puck, it would be over.

To use her magic on Puk Puck and fire her up high into the sky? Impossible. If she made Puk Puck her target, she would definitely be charmed. The most she could do was cast magic on the area around Puk Puck.

She’d never imagined she would last long against Puk Puck in the first place. She’d thought that if the time came, she could flee. If worst came to worst and she was charmed by Puk Puck, it would still be possible for her to return to the Osk Faction through an exchange of prisoners. But all those options had been eliminated when they’d found out about Puk Puck’s plan. If she activated the device, everything would come to ruin.

What Lethe had to do now was buy time, every second she could. Time for anyone, be it Hamuel or that scummy Pfle or the Shufflin IIs, to reach the device. And it was clear how she could buy the most time. If she eliminated Puk Puck, that would buy the longest and greatest amount.

Lethe bit through the inside of her cheek. Pain and the taste of iron sharpened her mind.

She thrust out her spear, and Puk dodged; she swept out her sword, and Puk avoided it. Lethe couldn’t be careless and get too close. Puk Puck would understand that, too. Maintaining distance from her opponent, she stood in a sideways stance and brought her right leg one step forward. Stomping hard enough to crack the rock beneath her, she sent power into different parts of her body—right arm, back, shoulders, knees, and calves—then looked up at the sky and raised her spear. She did not point her blade at Puk Puck, but below her. Flinging the spear, at the same time she placed a wide distance between herself and the weapon, making it move up above the clouds. In this isolated world, there was no inner or outer space. The spear flew on, forever and ever.

Puk Puck was giving Lethe a curious look. She must not have understood what Lethe was doing. Praying that she would not figure it out, Lethe raised the sword in both hands and thrust forward. She swept the blade across, then back in the other direction, attacking repeatedly with the unshakable intent to land the killing blow. She went far and then came closer, her dress dirtied by the blood dripping from her mouth. Not yet.

She plunged her sword forward, then forward again. Puk Puck was leaping backward, and the timing, the location, all of it perfectly matched everything Lethe had been aiming for. It was just for an instant, but Puk Puck’s feet left the ground. Puk Puck didn’t have the power to fly. In other words, she couldn’t move freely in the air.

Lethe shrank the distance between the spear far in the high sky and the earth. She made minute adjustments to each side of the weapon as well, bringing it into position to pierce Puk Puck. The force of this attack was nothing like her earlier stroke, made when she’d been ready to back away to avoid getting hit by the enemy’s magic. Gravity pulled the spear down from high in the sky to plummet downward, accelerating with fierce momentum. And it would connect with Puk Puck. With her feet off the ground, it would be impossible for her to avoid the strike.

Yes, it unfortunately would connect.

Lethe reflexively shrank the distance between herself and Puk Puck, knocking her aside, and the spear fell from the heavens to pierce Lethe’s body instead. Blood scattered, spilling from her mouth, and Lethe fell on her side on the ground. Her impulsive move to protect Puk Puck brought her despair, but also joy. Puk Puck was looking down on Lethe with sadness. Lethe tried to say that she wanted her to smile more, but instead of words, blood overflowed from her mouth.

Puk Puck raced away from Lethe. Lying in a puddle of blood, Lethe stroked her own chest with trembling hands, clenching at the air. The joy gradually dissipated, and anger and hatred took their place. At the very last moment, Puk Puck’s magic had caught her, and she’d taken that final strike on herself, falling in a way she could not deny was foolish. And now she was about to die. She felt nothing but endless regret for having protected Puk Puck, for having been made to protect her, mortification whirling in her heart as gradually her life seeped away. Any magical girl with lesser vitality would have already died. But a slight superiority in vitality wouldn’t help her survive this, and she couldn’t gallantly appear to save her subordinates from trouble, either. He consciousness grew dim, sounds fading, vision twisting up. In her distorted field of view, a blue shadow approached and touched her cheek. Something rolled out of her, and her hate and regret disappeared just like that. Freed from her negative emotions, she smiled peacefully and passed.

  CQ Angel Hamuel

They had to attack now, or all their efforts would have been for nothing. The best outcome would be Lethe beating Puk Puck, but if that could be so easily accomplished, Lethe would have headed out at the start. Worst case, Lethe would be charmed by Puk Puck and join the enemy side. Hamuel had to finish things somehow before then.

Hamuel flew at a low altitude to avoid being targeted from the ground, observing the enemy’s movements.

She had so many orders to give. She brought the microphone of her communicator to her lips. “Don’t look at the video on the screens,” “Consider it acceptable to sacrifice ten for just one to get into the ruins,” “Run as fast as you can,” “Don’t stop even if your allies are in trouble”—all orders she was weary of giving, but she had to say them nevertheless. It was no longer possible to keep casualties to a minimum when settling matters. It wasn’t that she hadn’t at all expected Puk Puck to join the fight herself. It was just that this meant heavy losses, so Hamuel would rather she hadn’t.

The battlefield was now a miserable sight to behold.

There were sets of large screens and speakers as far as the eye could see. Hamuel jerked her gaze away. She could imagine what was playing on the screens when she saw Shufflin IIs nailed to them with intoxicated expressions.

The Puk Faction’s forces were doing more than just installing screens and speakers. They were also mercilessly attacking the very clearly defenseless Shufflin IIs who were plugging their ears and looking at the ground, racing as fast as they could. The enemy mowed them down with assault guns, fired destructive lasers at them, tripped them to knock them down, or kneed them in their guts as they passed by. And the moment the Shufflin IIs tried to strike back, the enemy hid behind the large screens, and when the Shufflin IIs looked over, they were captured by the sight of Puk Puck and froze.

There were very few exceptions to this, like with the aces of spades, who took the hits unflinchingly as they charged on ahead, knocking down the screens and the enemy magical girls in their way to enter the ruins. But these were exceptions of about one in a dozen troops at most, and Hamuel didn’t know if there would be results commensurate with the losses.

Even as her voice was becoming hoarse, Hamuel yelled into her mic. “The device should be in the deepest part of the ruins! You must not destroy it! Just make them stop the ceremony without destroying it!”

But even as she said that, a bitterness remained on her tongue. Why did she have to sacrifice people who were alive now for the sake of carefully protecting a piece of junk some dead person had left behind? They should have taken the device apart or buried it along with the ruins to begin with, before the Puk Faction had done anything. It was their failure to do that that had resulted in this mess. But nevertheless, Hamuel couldn’t go against her orders, and, despite her bitterness, she struggled on.

“If we can stop the enemy’s plans, even if everyone here winds up controlled, it’s our victory!”

Doing a half rotation in the air to avoid a head-size rock that flew at her, Hamuel kicked down a screen while she was at it. She rose in the air by half her height, and from there she crossed the battlefield at low altitude as if crawling along the ground, flipping upside down along the way to scoop up a fallen magical phone. A black-and-white mascot hologram was projected from it. When it was out here in the middle of a battlefield like this, even Hamuel, who couldn’t really be called sharp-sighted, could find something that stood out that much.

“Can’t you do something about this?!” Hamuel demanded.

“Do something?! Like what, pon?!” Fal yelled back.

“You’re a cyber fairy, aren’t you? Can’t you jack the lines to replace that with a Shufflin II dance video?”

“I can’t, pon!”

“What do you mean you can’t?! Aren’t you the cyber fairy that serves the Magical-Girl Hunter?!”

“Then get me my master, pon! There’s no way I could do that without authorization from her, pon! When you say that, do you understand what sort of things happen when an individual cyber fairy is given that kind of authorization, pon?!”

“No more than a mascot in the end! Useless!”

“Osk garbage! Don’t assume you can just pull anything you like, pon!”

Hamuel restrained the urge to turn off the phone’s power.

Even while they were cursing at each other, Hamuel always kept a sharp eye out around her and did aerial acrobatics. In the first place, Hamuel’s job was to stand behind a commander and say things like, “Wouldn’t it be best to do it like this?” while offering every support to her leader. She couldn’t really be said to be good at dodging and ducking projectiles on the front lines. The number of enemies in the clearing was increasing, since those who had just been allies were becoming foes. She couldn’t keep running around like this forever, either. She wasn’t strong enough to break through by force as the aces of spades had done.

Still facing front, in a more rational and restrained tone than her emotional one before, she said to Fal, “Your body isn’t all you can display in your hologram, right? You sometimes put up scenery in the background.”

“I can capture images for use, pon.”

“I see. Are they highly accurate?”

“It’s image capture, so it’s no different from the real thing, pon.”

“So then I would like to make a request.”

“What, pon?”

Hamuel gradually slowed and descended, hitting the rock slope of the basin wall with her shoulder to minimize damage. But of course that didn’t mean no damage at all, and it hurt rather more than somewhat, but she managed to suck it up and kept a tight grip on the magical phone in her right hand.

When she hit the rock face, she scattered fragments of boulder before sliding downward. She held herself as she rolled, and when she stood up with a groan, she found herself right in front of a large screen. Raising herself, still hunched over, she brought her face around to point motionlessly at the screen.

“Hooray for Lady Puk! All for Lady Puk!”

Even in the chaos, it was easy to find those who were not yet devoted to Puk Puck. Those who kept their eyes closed, those who ran while unnaturally facing downward, those who were not overflowing with happiness—the ones devoted to Puk Puck attacked those types and tried to show them the video of their mistress. Swiftly understanding this, Hamuel had Fal create a hologram, and by having the mascot deploy it to cover her real face with an expression overflowing with joy, she fooled the Puk Faction.

Right now, Hamuel was like a character in a zombie movie who pretended to be a zombie to hide among the zombies, moaning “Ahhh” and “Ughhh” as she planned her escape. Despite having deflected immediate danger, this was not a fundamental solution. Even though she’d managed to pull the wool over their eyes, what was there to do now?

All Hamuel could do was pray for a useful moment and pretend to be a zombie and attack Shufflin IIs. She prayed for the safety of those who had gone into the ruins, and for their successful interruption of the ceremony. That reminded her that she hadn’t seen Pfle or her subordinates, or Mana and Uluru. Had they managed to get into the ruins before Hamuel had come onto the battlefield, or had they come to a fruitless end? Hamuel prayed for their safety and success, too, just in case.

  Uluru

When the Puk Faction girls came from the basin to attack the truck area, Uluru told them, “Uluru was undercover in the Osk Faction on Lady Puk’s orders, but now it’s okay for me to come back. Lady Puk said to guide me into the ruins.” Nobody in their right mind would believe a lie like that, but the enemy didn’t seem to hear it at all. Uluru threw herself to the ground to avoid their attacks, then leaped and jumped to avoid their pursuing strikes.

They’d known Uluru had been kicked out of the Puk Faction, so of course they would have taken measures to deal with her magic. If you could protect yourself with just a set of earplugs, there was no way they wouldn’t do it. Uluru cursed her magic’s weakness, but still, she couldn’t run away now.

Mana was close by, but Uluru couldn’t count on her. She wasn’t a magical girl—she was a mage. While watching Pfle go, heading the charge of magical girls, Mana had stuck a syringe into her own neck. However it worked, what Uluru had been told was that the drug improved her reflexes and movement. But it still couldn’t enable her to fight with magical girls. All she could manage was to use the added strength from the drug to desperately avoid enemy attacks. Hiding under trucks and slipping into cracks, Mana was just barely avoiding the blackjacks and batons the enemies wielded.

Uluru yelled, “Uluru’s good friends with Lady Puk! Traitors to Lady Puk are attacking Uluru!” Her voice wouldn’t reach those who had earplugs in. But those who didn’t have them would hear her voice. Those who had only just been charmed by Puk Puck would hear her.

Card soldiers who’d been running toward the ruins turned around to come back, using their clubs to strike from behind and knock down magical girls who’d been raising their batons.

“Uluru’s good friends with Lady Puk! Traitors to Lady Puk are attacking Uluru!” Uluru repeated. The card soldiers had gotten all shuffled up, with no distinction among spades, clubs, hearts, and diamonds, and had become a group under her control to attack her enemies. When the magical girls who’d been attacked from behind tried to turn around, this time Uluru kicked them down from the other side. Caught between attacks from front and back, the magical girls got kicked and punched and hit the ground on their faces. The card soldiers raised their spears against the fallen and still girls, but Uluru cried, “Lady Puk also said to just leave them!” So the card soldiers lowered their readied weapons without complaint, limiting themselves to kicking their defeated foes away.

Uluru looked at Mana, Mana looked back at Uluru, and Uluru nodded.

“This is an order from Lady Puk! We’re going back to the ruins, so guard us!” Uluru cried.

Having been charmed by Puk Puck already, the card soldiers couldn’t get any more charmed. Their feet didn’t stop, whether they saw her face on the screens or heard her singing. Uluru grabbed Mana’s hand, and Mana squeezed back firmly. With the card soldiers circling them, magical girl and mage headed over the trucks to race through the basin.

On the edge of the wide-open area, at a speed so fast even Uluru couldn’t see them, two somethings collided and came apart, mixed up together in a cloud of dust. They were too fast, and Uluru hadn’t been able to see them properly, but she could tell one of them was Puk Puck.

She’d only ever thought of working for Lady Puk’s sake, living for Lady Puk’s sake, dying for Lady Puk’s sake. Now her feelings for Puk Puck had faded to a shocking degree. Or maybe it was more accurate to say that nothing from Puk Puck reached Uluru. Instead of thoughts like, for Lady Puk’s sake, if I just have Lady Puk, memories of the past captured her and wouldn’t let go: that time at the amusement park when Puk Puck had bought ice cream for everyone there, even other people’s kids, and she’d wiped the mess of ice cream from Sachiko’s face and cleaned her up; playing tag and hide-and-seek; sports days; that time she’d thrown a tantrum, saying that there had to be sweet bean flavor for the bread-eating contest or she didn’t want to do it—everywhere in her memories, there was Puk Puck.

Uluru squeezed her eyes shut and opened them again. Telling herself to keep her eyes up front, she just ran. When she squeezed Mana’s hand, Mana squeezed it back. When she squeezed it hard, Mana squeezed hard back. Uluru squeezed particularly hard, and when a squeeze equally strong came back to her, she yelled, “Everyone who tries to attack us are all traitors!”

A three of hearts was enveloped in flame, a six of clubs was bitten by invisible fangs, an eight of clubs grappled with another club as they tumbled to the ground. An ace of spades skewered a magical girl who tried to block their path and tossed her away. And that was someone Uluru knew, too. She’d been Uluru’s elder at the Puk Puck estate, and she’d always been so bossy about everything, and Uluru had constantly been mad at her, but she also knew she was the one who’d secretly made rice balls for her during night watch.

That magical girl was thrown up high and flung toward the rear. Uluru kept on clenching her teeth. She absolutely couldn’t lose sight of what she was trying to do right now. She squeezed Mana’s hand hard, and hers was squeezed hard back.

  Shadow Gale

One thing went well, and then that led rapidly to the next and the next, and the thing after that went well, too. Things began to flow smoothly, and Shadow Gale had the feeling everything was helping them along.

Once they’d solved the password, that was it. It seemed the device deemed whoever solved the password an ally. As if to say, “Since you’re an ally, I can offer you my body,” it had released its magic barrier, and the work had moved along without a hitch.

After the talismans, the armor, the password, and the barrier, finally, she could make changes to what was inside. From here on out, Shadow Gale would be the main one doing the work. A magical girl who used metal-carving magic remade Shadow Gale’s wrench into a modification tool specifically for use on this device.

When she opened it, it was all parts she’d never seen before, but that wasn’t much of a problem for her. Shadow Gale had never been good with machines before, so she’d often wondered why she’d been granted magic like this. She’d pessimistically wondered if the reason had been so she could modify a certain tyrant’s wheelchair—but that wasn’t it. Shadow Gale had been granted this magic in order to modify this device for Puk Puck’s sake, for the sake of a good world, for the sake of the Magical Kingdom, and for the sake of all magical girls. She was proud, grateful, and glad. As she pinched and rotated with her new modification tool, each and every one of these tasks felt dazzling and bright.

Puk Puck danced on the digital screens, while Puk Puck’s adorable singing voice played on an endless loop from the speakers. It was the best working environment in the world. The tense atmosphere was long gone, and now no one was arguing, no one was clicking their tongues, and no one was looking grumpy. They were all, without exception, having fun, basking in the joy of being able to serve the greatest leader, Puk Puck, as they were united under the common cause of bringing this device to completion. The weight on their shoulders was, in other words, equivalent to the world itself. Normally, like back when she had been whiling away her life without a goal, she would have been crushed under the weight of it. But now things were different. Puk Puck was on the screen. Shadow Gale felt like she was watching over her. She felt a sense of duty, that she didn’t want to make Puk Puck sad.

They were starting to see the end of this. It was almost there, so close, in one more hour, or thirty minutes, or maybe in less than five minutes, it could be done—then the singing stopped. Everyone looked toward the screens. Puk Puck was still there, doing her adorable dance. Puk Puck never getting discouraged, even when dancing among rubble, was kind of symbolic.

The screens were running. But the speakers were silent.

Everyone knew they had to focus on the device. But it was a fact that Puk Puck’s singing coming from the speakers had been soothing them and helping them concentrate. Most of all, they doubted they could stand an environment without her singing. This thing they had never before assumed would be there had now become vital to them.

Everyone started standing up to look at the speakers, but before they could get up, there was a muffled crackling from the speakers, and then the voice of a magical girl followed. “The magical girls of the Osk Faction have invaded. Please be cautious.”

The voice said only that, and then Puk Puck’s singing was streaming from the speakers again. Although this calmed the girls’ hearts, the unsettling message that had just played made them exchange knowing looks. No one needed to explain what the intruders were here to do. They were here to interfere with the ceremony.

One magical girl rose to her feet. “Let’s do our best! Guys! We’re not going to let them get in our way!”

The others also stood one after another. “Let’s put an end to this world where magical girls fight each other!”

“For the new world! For Lady Puk!”

Shadow Gale stood up, too. “For Lady Puk!”

“Yeah, for Lady Puk!”

They’d quarreled before. They’d been jealous of each other, too. But now their feelings were one. For Lady Puk. For Lady Puk.

With no particular one initiating it, the magical girls made a circle, stacking their right hands on top of each other. “Let’s do our best!” one cried, and with a cheer in reply, they all returned to their tasks once more.