Mahou Shoujo Ikusei Keikaku - Volume 11 - Chapter 9

CHAPTER 9

THE MAGICAL-GIRL HUNTER

  Pfle

It had all taken shape just about perfectly. Having Lethe fight Puk Puck had created a path into the ruins while simultaneously stealing the role of command from Lethe. No one else could give the order to assassinate Shadow Gale. So long as Lethe was pinned to the spot, the order would not be sent out. Now what remained was to reach the depths of the ruins where the sanctum of the device lay before the Osk Faction did and stop Shadow Gale in a way other than by killing her. Since they’d discovered Puk Puck’s goal, and it was very apparent that the Osk Faction would do whatever it took to stop her, this was best.

But though things had gone perfectly, Pfle wasn’t so optimistic to think this guaranteed things would work out. Thus far had been the result of effort and luck, and further effort and luck would be required from here on out.

Pfle raced in her wheelchair. It carved into the right wall of the basin as she ran over the ground, making it past the area that was dense with screens, destroying the TVs with the killer laser that fired from her wheelchair. Passing the screens as they exploded and went up in flames, the mercenary magical girls raced after her.

Lethe drew Puk Puck away from the ruins entrance. The two of them looked blurry and distant, and Pfle couldn’t see them clearly. Now they could do it.

Magical girls carrying portable screens were pouring out from inside the ruins. Checking the images on the screens through squinted eyes, Pfle couldn’t gain any information beyond the fact that the screens were playing something, but she could easily figure out what it was. Already, Shufflins who had seen it were stopping and staring. At this rate, it was only a matter of time before they were pointing their spears at their allies.

Puk Puck closed her eyes. She set her wheelchair operation to auto. When stray bullets flew at her, the return fire device would manage them somehow. To get to one’s goal just by curling up in a chair was a rare magic indeed.

Mamori had said her “magic to use a magical wheelchair to race at intense speeds” was too simple and didn’t suit her character. Being Mamori, she also failed to realize that its simplicity was precisely what made it so user-friendly. And besides, with Mamori’s magic, she could power her wheelchair up.

For all her endless complaints, grumbling, and whining, Mamori had modified the wheelchair bit by bit every single day, and though she herself would never acknowledge it, it was apparent that she eventually became even more attached to the wheelchair than Pfle. Even without Pfle saying anything, Mamori came to suggest new modification plans, combining both ease of use and combat capacity in powering up the wheelchair far past its original functionality.

Mamori’s magic had been reaching new levels through powering up Pfle’s wheelchair, and now it would be used in a form that was completely against Mamori’s own will.

The sensation was enough to tell her that the wheelchair had fired the killer lasers again. Rattling and swaying over the unpaved ground, she pulled wild stunts, stopping, spinning around, backing up, crossing over something, then accelerating. Despite all the reckless motion, its rider was never thrown off. That was just the sort of magic Pfle had.

The killer lasers fired again. The high heat scorched Pfle’s cheeks and singed the ends of her hair, and a nasty smell hit her nostrils. Then a cold wind flowed from the same direction, and a spoonful’s worth of fluffy-soft powder snow stroked her right eyelid. Catching up alongside her wheelchair was Deluge, come to back her up. Dark Cutie was probably following, too. They were both capable.

And the wheelchair was just as capable. Repeatedly going from an inertia drift to a sudden brake like a living creature, then going to sudden acceleration, it climbed up the cliff, then raced down. The most damage she took was from a blade that skimmed her hair. Pfle loudly yelled instructions at the mercenaries. “Ignore everything else! Just get as many as possible into the ruins!”

After that came out of her mouth, she had the thought: That was not an instruction.

It was an instruction that wasn’t really an instruction, but the magical girls didn’t complain. From behind, footsteps passed the wheelchair and headed into the ruins. The way they just did the job without a word made Pfle feel she could rely on them as she clung to the arms of her wheelchair.

  Snow White

The enemy had broken through the Puk Faction’s defensive line, and they were invading the ruins one after another. That meant that Puk Puck was not holding all the enemies back. Snow White desperately restrained her desire to immediately rush to her mistress’s side. Staying at her post and giving her all would be for Puk Puck’s sake. That would make Puk Puck the happiest.

Snow White’s job had been to arrange the trio of Armor Arlie, Blade Brenda, and Cannon Catherine to support Puk Puck, give them appropriate instructions, and deploy them, but that arrangement had already fallen apart. Puk Puck had entered one-on-one combat, and no others could approach them. So Snow White judged that she and the three black-armored magical girls should act independently.

A hundred feet from the entrance, where the corridor split into a three-way intersection, she went to fight back.

An ace of spades pounded and stabbed Armor Arlie, but she didn’t fall even then, snapping back at her enemy. The ace mercilessly thrust her spear into spots were Arlie had taken damage and pieces of her armor had broken off, but Arlie still would not fall—in fact, something like a black mucus came out from the places where she was damaged to plug up the wounds, becoming even stronger and thicker armor to defend her.

If Arlie could manage the ace alone, that would make the rest a little easier.

Blade Brenda sliced the spears the enemies threw into eight pieces, while Cannon Catherine fired her magical cannon at the enemies, who were all clustered together in the restricted corridor. Her black magic cannonballs blasted back a whole cluster of Shufflins, and they bounced off the ceiling and walls of the narrow hallway.

Cutting through the billowing clouds of dust, an ace of spades leaped out. It was a different unit from the one Arlie had taken on. Multiple aces had made it into the ruins. One of Snow White’s cheeks twisted up. If there were a lot of those, this would get tough.

The ace lunged forward so fast you could hardly see it, ripping through the humid air to thrust her spear. Brenda blocked it with her sword, but the ace forced her to the ground together with her blade, then stepped on her twice. The ace passed under the aim of Catherine’s cannon and thrust her spear up—Snow White came in to defend Catherine, blocking the spear with her own weapon, but the shock it rattled up her arms was enough to make them numb, and she just about dropped her blade.

Getting to her feet, Brenda sliced at the ace from behind, but the ace grabbed her black blade with her bare hand and knocked Brenda back with a roundhouse kick. Snow White took advantage of that opening to lunge in with her weapon, but the ace of spades spun around, knocking Snow White’s weapon aside with a swing of her spear, and when Snow White lost her balance, the ace arced her spear upward—but then stopped. Snow White’s right hand was up in front of her face. And in her hand was the new magical phone she’d just been supplied with, Puk Puck dancing there on the screen.

When she handed the magical phone to the ace of spades, she obediently accepted it, leaning forward enthusiastically with devouring eyes as she became nailed to the screen. If she watched it for thirty seconds, she’d become one of Puk Puck’s friends and attack her former allies for them.

Out of the corner of her eye, Snow White saw Catherine pull Brenda to her feet. She ran her gaze over toward the entrance. The sounds were loud and getting closer. And the hearts’ voices were not just of the Puk Faction—many enemy magical girls’ voices were joining them, too. Puk Puck wasn’t keeping the entrance blocked. There were more and more new foes. Their own side was gathering the mercenaries who’d been scattered within the ruins to fight back, but non-Shufflin magical girls were coming up on the enemy side as well, and they were fighting with Puk Puck’s forces.

Should she head out to back them up now? Or should she fight off the enemies that had leaked in? Snow White focused on what she could hear. She inclined her ears to the voices of the hearts that sounded from all over the ruins—and then her eyes flared open, and she ran off. Brenda and Catherine followed in silence, without asking questions.

The interior of the ruins consisted of a complex labyrinth, but Snow White had made sure to memorize the full layout. She raced through the corridors, taking the shortest possible route to the ruins’ depths.

In front of the sanctum where the device was placed, there was a small guardroom for the magical girls on watch to gather in. Seeing Snow White rush in, they seemed to realize that something bad was happening. Of the ten magical girls, five stood and followed her when she kicked open the door of the sanctum.

Inside were the magical girls working on the device. They looked at the intruders with surprise. Snow White ran straight in without pausing, body-slammed the magical girl with a black hime cut who was on the computer, and sent her flying. Ignoring her cry as she rolled away, Snow White raised her weapon to block the attack that rose from the ground.

“The enemy is here! Attack!” Snow White commanded.

The other magical girls had earplugs, but telling them with her expression and actions would be enough. Snow White leaped back, and a light beam, an iron ball, and a black cannonball all fired at once, shattering open the floor. A magical girl who was black all over was exposed from under the earth, and when she panicked and tried to dive down, a black cannonball hit her, and she was blasted away in a small explosion, bouncing off the wall to fall on the floor, where she spasmed facedown.

Snow White exhaled a deep breath. If she hadn’t heard that voice from underground, that one would have gotten through. She couldn’t hear any more voices. That was the end of it.

The ruins were made of carved stones put together. A magical girl whose ability was to be able to get into any crack had sneaked into the deepest area, but they had managed to finish her off before she’d done any damage.

The rear guard dragged away the black-armored magical girl, and Snow White looked around. In the clouds of dust, she instructed all the pale-faced and frightened-looking girls, “Don’t stop moving, keep working, please,” then said to one of them, the nurse in black, “Shadow Gale. How are things progressing?”

“Um…wh-what was that just now?” Shadow Gale replied.

“The enemy. It seems it was a magical girl who could sneak into the gaps between the rocks. So how is everything going?”

“R-right. It’s going well. I’m not particularly stuck anywhere.”

So then they still didn’t need to have her use the contract. As long as Puk Puck was occupied, there would be things Snow White had to make the decision on. It was a heavy responsibility, but a worthwhile one. The solid sense of working for Puk Puck’s sake gave her courage and motivation.

“Then we’ll be counting on you,” Snow White told her. “As I just said, please don’t stop working.”

Snow White thought. The enemy had sent an assassin directly into the sanctum. So there was absolutely no guarantee this place was safe. If the enemy used magic to make themselves invisible, magic to melt into the air, magic for teleportation, anything like that, then suitable measures would be required to protect the device.

Snow White turned back to the magical girls in the guardroom. “The enemy is currently invading from the entrance. Everyone, please head that way to fight them off. We’ll stay here. If I hear the voices of their hearts, then even if an invisible enemy invades here, I can deal with them.”

Since Puk Puck had told the guards to “make sure to follow what Snowy Sis says,” even the old-timers would listen to orders from an intolerable newbie. With Catherine, Brenda, and Snow White taking their places, the magical girls of the guardroom ran off to the front lines.

Snow White put her hand into the bag that hung from her waist and pulled out the magical girls inside: a Shufflin jack, queen, and king of spades that she’d had Puk Puck befriend for this particular situation.

  Pfle

At a glance, Pfle could tell the ten magical girls who came running out from deeper in the caves were veterans. She recognized a number of faces among the group, some of whom she would rather have hired to work for her, if possible. And based on how fast the others were running, they were also different from those magical girls who had only just gotten a taste of battle. But the mercenary magical girls Pfle had personally selected for hire were no ordinary magical girls, either—and the forces collided head-on.

Swords and magic wands clashed, and sparks flew. The swing of a great scythe ripped through matter and space together, and everyone jumped aside, but now there was a big slice open in the hallway. The girl who took a step toward it fell into a little hole and was sucked in. Another magical girl scribbled off some characters in the hallway with a pen, which manifested to fly at the enemies. Purple gas was fired off, and those caught in it fell to the ground. The others dispersed to avoid it, and that was the instant the hallway opened up. Deluge and Dark Cutie clung to either side of the wheelchair, and Pfle raced past at full speed.

The enemy sliced, kicked, and fired light beams at the wheelchair as it came rushing by, but the mercenaries protected the wheelchair with shields, mirrors, and their own bodies. When the floor was made into a muddy quagmire in an attempt to sink the wheelchair, Deluge instantly froze the mud, and they ran over it, the curved matter accelerating them on their path to the safety zone. From the shadows, Deluge deployed the Demon Wings, having them guard the party from the jagged-edged light rays that were fired at their backs. The Demon Wings that were hit by the light rays spewed smoke and shrank. Deluge ordered the Demon Wings to block any attacks coming from behind them, and finally the wheelchair burst away from the enemies that surrounded them.

Pfle drifted over the ground, then turned a corner to find six more magical girls waiting ahead. They didn’t seem as strong as the earlier ten, but they outnumbered Pfle’s forces. Deluge met the enemy’s bullets of light with ice arrows, and Dark Cutie brought her hands together.

A hound made from shadow crawled around through the narrow corridor. Due to the nature of the phenomenon that was shadow, Dark Cutie’s magic couldn’t form anything three-dimensional, and it could only move over surfaces. But they were inside these ruins, in an endless corridor of floor, walls, and ceiling. Her shadows had more freedom of movement here than they did on the street. Walls cracked, the flooring flew apart, and the ceiling broke open. Being a villain, Dark Cutie was not concerned with the idea that she must not damage valuable ruins.

The magical girls did not go unscathed, either. Skin cracked, blood flew, and flesh broke open, but they never lost their will to fight, backing up farther down the corridor to escape from the range of Dark Cutie’s shadows. Then Deluge loosed her arrows of ice, and in response, a shield of flame appeared in the air to block the arrows. That was the enemy’s magic.

The arrows of ice evaporated in an instant, vanishing in a spray of steam, and the ice arrows that followed were also blocked by the shield of fire. A total of ten ice arrows sublimating into steam left the vapor hanging all around them, and the whole hallway became humid like a sauna. It whited out the field of view, keeping them from seeing ahead by even a foot.

That was when the ray of light shot out. It was a beam from Pfle’s wheelchair. With a spotlight coming from behind, a giant shadow was projected over the steam. Normally, Dark Cutie’s magic could project a shadow only over flat surfaces. But by dropping a shadow over mist, she made it even bigger, and she could also make it “stand up.” A giant sword pierced the shield of flame, and a thorny whip struck the magical girls who had taken refuge beyond it.

But the magical girls still did not flee. They raised their weapons and shields, and those who lacked either used their arms as shields, and they pumped themselves up with battle cries as they charged ahead, slipping past the whip to attack Dark Cutie, but the hallway floor had been frozen by Deluge’s magic. Their feet slid out from underneath them and they tumbled to the ground, the whip striking them while they were down. By the time the sound of screams and cries had faded, the mist had finally cleared, and the pitiful bodies of the magical girls lay fallen in heaps.

Deluge narrowed her eyes. Pfle was aware that her attempts not to feel stress were in fact causing stress for her. But though Pfle was aware of this, what she needed right now was not a way to reduce Deluge’s stress. That was something Deluge could think about all she liked once she had settled her own problems herself. She could do that somewhere far away that Pfle didn’t know about.

The din of metallic clashing, screams, and yells was coming from quite a bit behind them. They’d come this far dropping allies to move forward, just like a rocket purging its parts to fly. Pfle was ignoring everything except for speed—hardly a praiseworthy tactic. But speed was what she needed right now. If Puk Puck came back into the ruins, that would cause an upheaval in the balance of forces. And then if the Osk Faction arrived at the device before Pfle, Shadow Gale would be in danger. Pfle would abandon everything else to reach the device’s location faster than anyone else.

But the enemy was still full of energy and its morale was high, and attempting to push forward quickly would up the damage they took. The mercenaries and the Shufflins were indeed doing their best. But Pfle had no idea how long they would hold. Her initial instructions had kept allied losses to a minimum. But there would be more now. No matter how strong the aces of spades were, if they were up against other brainwashed aces of spades, they would not go unscathed. What’s more, since their side was handicapped by having to look away from the TV screens, it was restricted in how it could fight.

There had been no kinds of tricks or traps thus far. Instead, there were stuffed bears on the floors and lace curtains on the walls. That fruity, floral scent was probably perfume. Pfle charged forward without even considering possible traps. She trusted that the enemy would not lay traps on a path where allies—even Puk Puck—were bound to be walking.

The trio hurried onward. The stone corridor was wide enough that three magical girls could run abreast, but when you added in the personal effects the Puk Faction had laid down and the presence of the wheelchair, that wasn’t possible anymore. Pfle took the lead, destroying screens with her automatic-fire killer lasers, and Deluge and Dark Cutie followed. The sounds of the wheelchair’s motor and footsteps rang out on the floor. The path occasionally branched off, but, making mental comparisons with the map of the ruins that Hamuel had shown her, Pfle choose the shortest possible route to the sanctum.

The corridors went on for what seemed like an eternity.

Unfamiliar symbols and patterns were scrawled tightly over every section of the walls, ceiling, and floor of these corridors of carved rock, emitting a faint white light and probably magical power, too.

They passed by more large TVs that seemed to have been placed at regular intervals by the invaders, the screens illuminating the dim hallways like streetlamps shining on country roads. The farther they went, the more screens there were, and the wheelchair fired off volleys of shots as it pressed on ahead.

Firing its lasers continuously slowed it down. Deluge shot ice arrows to destroy two nearby speakers.

“Deluge,” said Pfle, “you’ll burn out quickly, so no more than that. You’d be sorely mistaken to think that ingesting that drug will deal with it.”

Deluge was visibly displeased, mouth twisting as she brought her eyebrows together to look back at Pfle. Her expression was saying, “So then what do I do?”

Pfle went right at a cross intersection, then left at a T intersection, then straight ahead after that, and they ran into some more of Puk’s girls. They’d dug a trench-like hole and were inside it, with a barricade made of junk erected in front. The muzzles of multiple automatic weapons were pointed at Pfle’s party. Dark Cutie’s hands moved so fast, her arms looked like many limbs, and she dug into the ground with a drill and shovel made of shadow, instantly boring through it. With chunks of rock as their shield, Deluge and Dark Cutie—and Pfle and her wheelchair, when they grabbed her collar and dragged her in—dropped into the hole Dark Cutie had just dug out. A heartbeat later, the bullets from the automatic weapons swept over them, and Pfle ducked her head down inside the hole. The gunfire ate into the rock, and fragments rained down into the hole.

From their side flew the killer lasers of Pfle’s wheelchair and Deluge’s ice arrows, while the enemy let loose a shower of bullets. As both sides were firing projectile weapons at each other, Dark Cutie bent her fingers, wrists, and elbows at angles that made you doubt she had joints, combining them to make a tiger shadow puppet. The tiger crawled along the ground, passing under the chaos of bullets and arrows to disappear past the barricade. Screams rose behind the barricade, from inside the trench the gunfire stopped, and the barricade came down. Deluge, Dark Cutie, and Pfle leaped out of their trench to rush out again.

Crossing over the trench, the trio kept going, and just when they were about to turn right at a cross intersection, Pfle turned back. Dark Cutie and Deluge were already in combat stances. Pleasant-sounding footsteps echoed down the corridor as a white figure appeared, smoothly evading the fox Dark Cutie sent to her to lunge in with her naginata-like weapon. Dark Cutie sliced back with a shadow katana, and Snow White jumped off the wall to dodge, striking aside the ice arrow Deluge shot at her at the same time. Two sets of armor followed Snow White, one carrying a sword and the other carrying a cannon—Blade Brenda and Cannon Catherine, to boot.

This seemed to be a tougher spot for the Puks than the Osks, since the latter had stationed guards here. Pfle disengaged the automatic steering on her wheelchair and charged toward the Magical-Girl Hunter, Snow White.

  Mana

Mana and Uluru managed to get into the ruins fine, with eight card soldiers along with them. Uluru insisted they push ahead, so Mana ran after her, she just ran and kept running on some more, but as she did, the effects of the drug were fading, and she fell farther and farther behind Uluru, who was heedlessly racing onward. And since the card soldiers were running at Uluru’s pace, they paid no attention to whatever happened to Mana.

She had to call Uluru to a stop here, or she’d get left behind. Grabbing her magical phone while running, she threw it ahead of her, and it smacked Uluru square in the back of the head.

Uluru stopped and turned back, clearly very angry. “What was that for?!”

“You’re going too fast. My drug is wearing off.”

“Are you dumb? We have to hurry!”

“Who are you calling dumb? Don’t assume I’m like you magical girls.”

“Then Uluru will slow down for you. Let’s get going.”

“First, there’s something I want to ask.”

“What? Make it snappy.”

“Should we be here? I get the feeling this isn’t where the device is, though.” Picking up the magical phone she’d just thrown, Mana brought up the map of the ruins, which she’d saved beforehand. She remembered they’d gone right at the first three-way intersection, and then at the cross intersection after that they’d gone left. That meant that now, they were going the opposite direction to where the device was.

“Hey, we’ve totally messed this up,” said Mana.

“Messed up what, exactly?” Uluru replied.

“Don’t give me that crap. We’re going in a completely different direction from where the device is supposed to be. We came here to interrupt the ceremony, so what’s the point of going somewhere the device isn’t?”

“It’s okay.”

“Not a single thing about this is okay.”

“If Uluru says it’s okay, then it’s okay. Uluru’s the big sister of Premium Sachiko, the magical girl of luck. And also the big sister of Sorami Nakano, who knows whatever’s inside something closed. So there’s no way a path Uluru chose could be wrong, and obviously Uluru would know what’s inside a maze.”

Mana could just decide that everything Uluru said was crazy and bring her to the device, even if it meant dragging her by the ear. Mana didn’t do that, though. She looked at Uluru’s notes about the maze in silence.

It made Mana remember how she’d been herself, looking up to Hana Gekokujou, who was working as an inspector, and saying to their father, “I’m gonna become a cool inspector like her!” He’d been so glad. She knew this wasn’t the time to be letting sentimentality guide her, but she just couldn’t bring herself to stop Uluru.

“Besides, look around,” said Uluru.

Mana surveyed the area. There were screens and speakers interspersed throughout, and each and every one was decorated with rings made from origami paper. Her eyes began sliding to the images on the screens, but she hurriedly averted them. “It’s not like this is any different from anywhere else. So what about it?”

“It’s weird that it’s no different, isn’t it? If this place had nothing to do with anything, they wouldn’t have to leave screens and speakers here, right? So then isn’t all this here ’cause they don’t want us coming here?”

“What if it’s a fake-out or something?”

“There’d be no point. The Osk Faction was guarding this area. They know we have maps, so it’d be useless to put these as a trick in some random spot.”

All of it sounded quite reasonable. Mana put her hand to her chin and considered the validity of it, but Uluru interrupted her by shoving her notes at her.

“We don’t have the time to be thinking about it! Come on, let’s go, now!” Uluru scooped up Mana in her arms. Ignoring Mana’s cries of protest, she set off at a run again. The card soldiers followed after her, and before long, they came to a sort of small room. There were rows of equipment with a table in the middle, and the three magical girls sitting around it leaped to their feet.

Mana and Uluru instantly overwhelmed them. This was partly because they outnumbered the other girls, but even apart from that, the trio of magical girls were weak. Maybe they weren’t fighters.

“These girls are all good with machines,” said Uluru.

“Good with machines?” Mana asked. “So then why weren’t they deployed at the device?”

“Uluru heard just being good with machines won’t help at all with the device…and hey, this room.”

“What about this room?”

“Maybe they’re sending the sound and video from here?”

Mana looked around again. It wasn’t that mages were always bad with machines, but her specialty was pharmaceuticals. She wasn’t informed on the subject of machinery. She frankly couldn’t tell what the equipment was for just by looking, but it did sort of look like something in that vein.

“You can’t tell?” Mana asked.

“Uluru doesn’t know about that stuff.”

“Useless.”

“There you go again!”

“Oh yeah, some of the playing cards are good at that, aren’t they? Try asking them now,” Mana suggested.

Uluru clapped her hands and said something to the card soldiers. From among the unit, a few of the diamond suit timidly came forward.

  CQ Angel Hamuel

The fight in the outside area was winding down. The majority of the Shufflin IIs who’d tried to get inside had been won over by the enemy, and those who hadn’t had been defeated. The mercenary unit headed by Pfle and what had to be about 10 or 20 percent of the Shufflin IIs, judging from the whole, had gone into the ruins, but their fate was already about to turn in a cruel direction.

Of the magical girls outside, those who seemed to have the rank of unit leader were giving instructions. They were saying very nasty-sounding things, like “We’re going inside to eliminate the intruders.”

About all that was left now was the question of how to escape. But at this point, even that would be difficult. And in addition to difficult, it was pointless. Even if Hamuel did escape, what would become of her?

She had no choice but to somehow get those inside to ruin the ceremony before Puk Puck caught up to them. In a state near despair, Hamuel opened her eyes and dropped them to her magical phone. It read: They’re making a big fuss, saying to follow after Lady Puk, pon, followed by, What’s going on here, pon?

Hamuel furrowed her eyebrows. “What do you mean, ‘What’s going on here, pon?’” she whispered into the phone, taking care not to be noticed by anyone around.

A new message came on the screen: I can hear Uluru’s voice from the speakers, pon. She’s saying the magical girls under Puk Puck’s command all have to hurry away from the ruins, pon. Just what’s the meaning of this, giving an order like that now, pon?

That was when Hamuel realized the singing playing on the speakers had turned to muttering. The voice sounded scratchy, so she’d been slow to notice. And it wasn’t that the voice was muttery and scratchy, it just sounded like the signal wasn’t great. The sound quality was very bad.

Before she could hear the words clearly, Hamuel plugged her ears.

This wasn’t the time to be wondering what was happening or why. Whatever it was, Fal was being deceived. In other words, what Uluru was saying was a lie. However she’d taken over the speakers, that didn’t matter right now. Only the phenomenon before Hamuel was an issue. Despite Uluru’s going through so much to get this lie out to them, since all the enemy forces had earplugs and wouldn’t listen, her lie remained useless. The Shufflin IIs who had just become allies were trying to get away from the ruins and quarreling with the others, but if that was all they’d get out of it, then there wasn’t much point.

Hamuel turned her communicator on. Setting the target to every single person she’d met who was gathered in these ruins—magical girls presently in the clearing, all the magical girls of the Osk Faction she’d seen during the course of these battles, all the Shufflin IIs she’d brought, Mana, Pfle and her subordinates, and, finally, with a thought of Maybe, Lethe as well—she moved her communicator close to the speaker. If she could make it so that everyone could hear Uluru’s voice, maybe she could make the Puk Faction withdraw.

She inched forward bit by tiny bit so she wouldn’t be noticed, and then, right when she was just about there, someone called her to a stop.

“What’re you doing?”

It was a sweet, charming voice, one she had no way of resisting. Before she could even wonder who it was, she moved. The feeling of her heart being encroached upon made Hamuel scared. Her desire to just give in like this terrified her to her core. If she yielded now, there would be no point anymore.

She was about to fly off, but right before her feet left the ground, she felt an awful impact on her back and was knocked down. Facedown on the ground, she tilted her head to look behind her. There was a spear stabbed in her back. It was one of the spade-shaped spears the Shufflin spades used. She could see the feet of the person approaching. Those feet were so charming and pretty, they made you want to kiss them. Ready to consume every last drop of strength she had left, Hamuel brought her face close to the mic.

“Lethe has lost. The Puk Faction has gained control of the area outside the ruins.”

She spewed blood into her mic. The spear in her back stabbed hard, breaking her ribs, burrowing deep in her flesh to pierce her organs. Hamuel spat blood once more, but she still didn’t let go of her microphone. “Puk Puck is now…entering the ruins.”

She was kicked away. The magical phone rolled away. Hamuel’s vision spun, and she came to a stop on her back. She was looking up at the blue sky. She coughed up blood, and it rolled out of her mouth down to her ears. Adjusting the settings of her communicator, she made it so her voice would reach no one, and, abruptly, her consciousness faded. Though she felt like she would go mad with pain, that faded, too.

The magical girls present cheered with joy. As their chants of “Puk Puck!” echoed around, Hamuel’s blood-smeared lips relaxed slightly, and she smiled. If they thought they’d won, that was a big mistake. With that parting thought in her mind, Hamuel closed her eyes.

  Princess Deluge

The magical girl in white nimbly evaded Pfle’s charge, slicing with her naginata-like weapon as she passed by. Neither Deluge’s ice arrows nor Dark Cutie’s shadows hit their target. Pfle barely managed to smack the weapon with her left hand. By hitting it and not just blocking it, she shifted Snow White’s slice to the side and avoided a fatal wound. But her left hand was sliced in two in a ragged slash that went all the way to her wrist. Pfle didn’t make a single sound, though, racing along on her wheelchair. She must have been prepared to lose her hand when she’d first rocketed off. Even if Snow White could read minds, there was a limit to her ability to respond to such sudden movements.

Snow White tried to follow Pfle, but Deluge cut between them. Snow White’s weapon and Deluge’s trident clashed, and Snow White crouched down. That moment, Cannon Catherine pointed her cannon, but right before she fired, Snow White yelled, “Don’t!”

She couldn’t stop it now. Dark Cutie had sent a shadow rope crawling along the floor and up Catherine’s armor to wrap around the barrel of the cannon, but Catherine hadn’t noticed. The instant she fired, Dark Cutie pulled the rope, and the angle of the cannon turned ninety degrees to fire its cannonball at Blade Brenda beside her, and burst, and the two sets of black armor were blasted away in a small-scale explosion. Dark Cutie’s rope turned into a snake that slithered over the pair’s armor, tying them up together, and then the snake turned into a hard chain that kept them firmly on the spot.

In the thickly billowing white smoke, Snow White opened up the bag hanging from her waist with her left hand, while her right held her naginata, blade pointed at Deluge. She was about ten meters away. It couldn’t be called distant for either Dark Cutie or Deluge. It was within their range.

Dark Cutie muttered, “She’s coming. I’ll leave her to you, okay?”

“Shouldn’t we fight her together?”

“Unfortunately, we can’t.” Dark Cutie turned aside to avoid the spear a Shufflin thrust at her from behind. Its owner followed it, and one more after that, and then yet another, as spade Shufflins appeared. Their numbers were jack, queen, and king. They had an abnormal light in their eyes, indicating they’d abandoned the Osk Faction and were working for Puk Puck.

Deluge readied herself in a sideways stance and whispered to Dark Cutie, “Didn’t you want to fight Snow White?”

“Right now, Snow White is not a heroine.”

Deluge got the gist. “I might…kill Snow White, though,” she said.

“If that’s what happens, it’s fine.”

“You’re okay with that?”

“You’re a heroine, too.”

Deluge didn’t reply. She grabbed a pill and swallowed it. “Luxury Mode: On!”

Deluge shoved into Snow White, then swung her trident a second, a third time.

At the same time, Dark Cutie fired a shadow arrow from a shadow bow, and then she turned the arrow into a throwing rope and wrapped it around a rock, yanking the rope to pull her in a forward roll to avoid the spear coming at her. When a Shufflin stabbed a spear down toward her, she instantly bounded to her feet and lashed out with a high kick, which the remaining Shufflin raised her spear to block, but she couldn’t handle the force, and both Shufflins slammed into the wall together, making wide cracks in its patterned face.

Dark Cutie folded her right hand into a complex shape to make a shadow puppet. A Shufflin thrust her spear forward in an attempt to prevent her, and she rolled away, rushing backward. The three Shufflins raised their spears to pursue her.

Deluge paid them no mind, stopping to turn back to Snow White.

Dark Cutie and Deluge had only just met. It wasn’t as if they’d gone through tons of mock battles together, like the Pure Elements had. If they were to coordinate, it would be improvised. On the other end, the acquaintance of Snow White and the Shufflins had been similarly short. But Snow White could read the hearts of not only her enemies but her allies as well. Deluge had seen her manage to coordinate with magical girls she’d only just met with no prior discussion.

So it would be best to divide things up.

Before Deluge could thrust in, Snow White stepped back. If Deluge’s mind was being read, then she would fight in such a way that her mind being read wouldn’t pose a problem.

Deluge didn’t really feel like she’d abandoned all hesitation. She still felt hesitant. When she’d still been relying on Bluebell’s—Lapis Lazuline’s—candies, she had never wavered about anything. She’d been satisfied to put her anger and sadness into swinging her trident. No matter how suffocating and painful it was, she’d been able to keep wielding her weapon in search of a possible salvation.

She couldn’t swing her trident mindlessly anymore. She found herself thinking about the enemies in front of her. She found herself thinking about the people she’d killed with her own hands. She just couldn’t help wondering why she’d done such things, or if there had been any other way. Maybe it was better to be controlled by someone else. It was her inability to think for herself and decide for herself that had caused her to suffer, but she didn’t know what to do. She didn’t know what the right thing to do was.

Deluge’s mind was swirling, and she couldn’t think straight as she was just swept along, nor did she know where she was trying to go. She didn’t know.

Snow White was in front of her. She was strong, the one they called the Magical-Girl Hunter. Her eyes were locked on Deluge, blade pointed at her. She didn’t hesitate or waver like Deluge. That was why Princess Inferno had asked Snow White to hunt the bad magical girls.

Deluge bit her lip.

Despite that promise she’d made to Inferno, Snow White was on the bad magical girls’ side. Deluge’s own worries aside, this was something she couldn’t accept. She pictured Inferno in her mind’s eye. She’d always been cheerful, tugging them all behind her as she raced onward. Full of energy and never showing weakness, right up until her death she’d had a smile on her face. Now Deluge could understand that she’d been putting up a tough front. Not out of vanity, wanting to make herself look stronger. It had come from a desire to keep her own fear from those left behind, lest it weaken them.

Inferno had been killed. Tempest, Quake—all of them had been killed. And Prism Cherry—despite being the weakest of them all, she’d come back to save them, not taking a step back even when up against powerful magical girls. She’d been killed, too. There had been no reason that the Pure Elements had to die. “Because they were caught up in some Magical Kingdom conflict” didn’t count. And if it did, then the Magical Kingdom should just disappear.

Deluge yelled. Three stabs in a row, a downward swing, a front kick paired with ice arrows, Snow White dodged all of it. She was reading Deluge’s heart. In that case—Deluge grabbed a handful of pills and swallowed them down.

“Luxury Mode: Burst!”

A brightly burning flame came from deep within her to spread through her whole body. The goings-on of her mind, the will to think or feel, diminished, while instead, her body was insisting, “I want to move! Make me move!”

Deluge knew Snow White’s weakness. When they’d fought the Ace of Spades, its physical ability had been too much for her to keep up with, and despite being able to read its mind, she hadn’t been able to avoid its attacks. When Deluge activated Luxury Mode: Burst, her physical abilities would rival those of an ace of spades. Snow White’s movements stopped being easy and casual, and now she was using care and desperation to turn aside each and every one of Deluge’s thrusts with her weapon.

That wasn’t Snow White’s only weakness. Deluge knew she’d struggled against Dark Cutie’s shadows. Snow White was weak to enemies that attacked on autopilot and didn’t have hearts. That made sense, since they had no hearts to read. Deluge made her ice arrows rotate around herself. If she aimed them to fire, her heart would be read. Having them move automatically on simple trajectories would make things harder for Snow White.

Deluge thrust, swiped. Snow White didn’t even try to meet the trident with her own weapon, crouching, jumping off the ground and then the wall. Deluge fired arrows at the spot where she thought Snow White would land to freeze it, but Snow White kicked off the other wall to slice at Deluge instead. Deluge stepped back to avoid it, tensing her legs. Time to push forward.

When Deluge lunged forward for three continuous stabs with the ultra-power-up of Luxury Mode: Burst behind them, all Snow White could do was defend. She avoided the first strike, dodged the second, and blocked the third with her weapon, and when she tried to backstep again, she lost her balance—because her weapon wouldn’t move. Deluge had aimed for the moment when her trident and Ruler made contact, lowering the temperature of her trident’s tips. The blades were frozen, stuck to Ruler, and with the strength of Deluge’s arms bracing it, the weapon refused to be pulled back.

Deluge held the handle of her trident in both hands and yanked it backward with all her might. Snow White couldn’t fight it and released her weapon, backing away without it. She tried to pull a fire extinguisher from her bag, but Deluge had anticipated that. In the blink of an eye, she closed the distance between them and kicked away the extinguisher. With a clanging noise, the large fire extinguisher rolled away. Deluge raised the temperature of her trident’s blades and swung it to release Snow White’s weapon. It clanged, too, rolling off in the opposite direction from the extinguisher.

Snow White thrust her hand into her bag to pull something out. But whatever she was trying to get, Deluge moved faster.

She didn’t want to fight with Snow White. But she couldn’t be thinking that now. She thought of the Pure Elements. When she thought about them, she could do the impossible. She could pull off things she never would have been able to do otherwise. If she turned her mind to those girls who had died for no good reason at all, there was nothing Deluge couldn’t do. Even Dark Cutie had said it—Deluge was a heroine.

Princess Deluge swung her spear upward, while at the same time, Snow White pulled something out of her bag. Deluge was about to lunge straight at her, but she paused, just for an instant. Snow White had drawn a familiar scimitar. It was the scimitar that Inferno had wielded during their mock battles and their fights with Disrupters.

But Deluge went for it anyway. She brought her trident down, gouging into the flesh of Snow White’s shoulder as she tried to twist away, while Snow White’s thrust pierced deep into Deluge’s side. Deluge staggered, tensing her legs to keep on her feet. Snow White recovered from the blow to her shoulder and swung the scimitar, cutting deep into Deluge’s chest.

Deluge felt like she was burning up. She dropped her trident, her right hand swiping through air, and when she lost her balance and fell, Snow White sliced her again, this time through her back. Her legs tangled as she went down, and her hands clawed at the ground, but all she grabbed was liquid—her own blood. Her field of vision flipped upside down and grew darker. In the dimness, she could see Bluebell Candy. They could have let me choose what my final vision would be, she thought wryly as her consciousness plunged into darkness.