Mahou Shoujo Ikusei Keikaku - Volume 14 - Chapter 7

CHAPTER 7

NUTRIENTS, NUTRIENTS, NUTRIENTS, NUTRIENTS, NUTRIENTS INSUFFICIENT

  Clantail

Though the map drawn on the tapestry was quite simplified compared to reality, Clantail was able to get a rough grasp of the island overall. Checking the branches above one by one, she passed between trees, and after a minute of running, she came out to a little path along a hill. From here, she would head for the forested area.

She didn’t hesitate. She didn’t have the time for that. Following the tapestry, she chose to run through the places with the thickest greenery, looking for grayfruit on the way, but she didn’t find any. Figuring they might be growing someplace that couldn’t be seen from below, she raced into the trees but didn’t find any there, either. Shepherdspie had said they were dotted all over the island and that they weren’t rare.

Was she looking for them the wrong way? The clock wouldn’t stop for her. It ignored Clantail’s impatience, slowly and steadily edging along. No matter how far she kept going and going through the forest, she didn’t find the fruit she was looking for. She came to a stop. If she was going to change her methods, she needed to do so sooner rather than later. She also expanded her search to include Pastel Mary.

Clantail checked the tapestry again and raced into the forest. After coming out to a rocky area covered in dark-orange stones, she looked at the tapestry once more to make sure she hadn’t gone in the wrong direction.

Arriving at the base of a large and particularly tall rock that towered in the center of the rocky area, Clantail canceled the leopard and transformed her lower body into a different creature.

The coloring of its wings was terribly plain, just a pale and spotted brown—Clantail’s main body actually had far more decoration. At a glance, the slim, fragile legs and the large wings that scattered dust looked like those of a butterfly, but the width of its torso and thickness of its fur proved it was not that. She was not the beautiful butterfly beloved by many but an insect some would scowl to see—a moth. Since the insect was scaled up to match Clantail’s size, her torso was as thick as a small oil drum and her wingspan greater than ten feet. The sight alone might make someone who hated moths faint.

Clantail fluttered her wings and came up to land on the tip of the pointed rock to rest her legs there. She hadn’t transformed to leap into the air and observe from above. Flying creatures all maintain a fine balance to stay airborne. Changing the head to Clantail’s torso in flight hampered speed, strength, and stability, and it would distract her focus, too.

Her goal was not flight. Clantail perked up her ears. She could hear. The mages and magical girls were all clustered together at the main building. There was a splash in the pond. Those things on four legs chewing grass had to be sheep. There were other things moving, too. Clantail leaped up and flapped her wings. She was not fast or strong; it was absolutely the most she could do to just keep her balance.

There was a type of moth with an extremely wide range of hearing. It could hear at least as well as a bat or a dolphin, and it would pick up sound waves that humans couldn’t perceive. Conveniently for Clantail, unlike bats and dolphins, moths sensed sound through an organ on their torso, not their head—a feature that Clantail, who could transform the lower half of her body into different animals, found the hardest to come by.

Once, Clantail had been unable to find “someone who hid herself.” All the animals with the best senses, across the board, had those organs on their head—eyes, nose, ears, tongue, etc.—making Clantail unable to copy their sharp senses. And so what Clantail had wanted to protect, what had been dear to her, had slipped from her grasp—because she’d been unable to find that someone who hid herself.

Thinking about what had happened that day made her feel like her whole body was burning, going up in flame. Despite all her struggle, she’d failed to keep hold. No matter how awful it was or how much it hurt, she could never allow herself to forget that.

Clantail—Nene Ono—had researched animals because it was fun and because she enjoyed it, and she had learned all sorts of things about them. But after that incident, she’d changed the way she thought about it and how she did it. She wasn’t really interested in insects; she would research them as well in order to gain what she needed.

Knowledge alone wasn’t enough for her to transform. So that winter, she’d gone to an insectarium that was three prefectures over. There had been a nasty disease or something going around, so a lot of the insects had died and about half of the facilities had been closed, but she’d still been able to see a number of types of insects in person.

Clantail never wanted to let someone she should protect slip from her grasp again. The warmth of her body cooling in the water, her breathing and the bubbles getting smaller, and eventually disappearing—never again. No way.

With the “ears” at the bases of her wings, she focused on the sounds around her.

She was capable of emitting sound and using its echoes to detect the shape and location of objects. But there was a lot of cover in the forest to begin with, and it seemed as difficult as she’d imagined to try to search for the grayfruit, since they would be hidden by branches and leaves.

Clantail scowled. There was too much auditory information. The rustling of the leaves, the buzzing of insects, the cries of an owl, the wind and water—listening like this, it was surprisingly loud. Even eliminating all that background noise, she could hear animal sounds in more than just a few places. When she’d heard there were supposed to be wild animals on this island, she’d been looking forward to maybe being able to observe some rare creatures, but no animals had shown themselves since she’d come. But even if she’d never seen them, they apparently were there on the island. Footsteps that were not sheep’s hooves, the crunch of biting into a tree, lapping at water—there were quite a few animal sounds like these.

They said that Cranberry, Musician of the Forest, had heard sounds with greater precision than the eye could see. Clantail didn’t have magic specialized to sound like Cranberry, so she wasn’t very skilled at listening. But she had to try.

Leaping from rock to rock, she went back into the forest, flying at low altitude. The densely growing foliage in the forest made it more difficult to pick up sounds there than the rocky area, requiring more delicate attention and analysis of the information.

She flew extremely slowly with her eyes locked on the scenery, attentive to all the incoming information. She must not forget about the killer who was supposed to be on this island. There were things she would have to do if she discovered something that looked like them, but right now, the grayfruit was more important—of course for Ragi, but for Clantail as well, and all the other mages and magical girls would absolutely need the grayfruit in order to face the unknown enemy. Weaving between trees, Clantail flew over a thicket and passed along an animal trail to come to the crest of a hill. This reconfirmed that the tapestry wasn’t useless as a map, but she still couldn’t find any grayfruit or Pastel Mary.

She flapped her wings a bit to slow down at the border between the forest and the wetland. She was changing direction to aim for a different green area when, suddenly, her field of view was covered in darkness. The smell of the trees, the earth, the leaves, and the nighttime dew, plus every single sound instantly became distant. Her moth half disappeared, and of course her wings went along with it. Clantail plunged to the ground headfirst, covering her upper body with both arms as she rolled along until she hit a tree back first, bending it and coming to a stop. She gasped in pain and rolled over to lie faceup. Her arms felt completely weak. When she tried to move them, a piercing pain ran through them. Maybe they were broken.

It took her a few seconds to realize her transformation had been undone.

Even just trying to get up hurt. Resisting the pain, she sat up, got onto her knees, and tried to stand, but her arms hurt, and a moan slipped out. She couldn’t see anything. It was pitch-black. The taste of blood was spreading inside her mouth, and it hurt when she ran her tongue along her cheek. It must have gotten cut.

Her right arm hurt even more. Her left one was a little numb, but she could move it now. She ran her left hand over her face and head. It wasn’t wet, and there were no lumps or swelling, and it didn’t hurt where she touched. And her glasses were gone.

Though it was hidden behind the leaves and branches of the tall trees, the light of the moon and stars did reach her. Her eyes gradually adjusted, but that couldn’t miraculously help her see without her glasses.

Nene looked around. She’d been fully occupied only a moment ago just managing all the information, but now she was standing in a world where she could hardly see or hear. She wasn’t even sure where she was. She didn’t know what lay beyond the darkness. She squeezed her scarf and clenched her teeth to keep from screaming. If her transformation had come undone because the effects of the grayfruit had worn off, that meant disaster at the main building, too. She had to get back somehow and meet up with the others.

A tree branch shook, and a bird flapped its wings to vanish into the sky. Nene clenched her scarf even harder and let out a ragged breath with her shoulders heaving. She couldn’t properly gather her thoughts. The only thought spreading in her mind was that she had to get back.

Cautious and wary, she slowly crouched down and placed her left hand on the ground. She needed her glasses. She had to find them. The tapestry was also gone. It would be best to look for that, too.

Dropping to her knees and slowly groping with her hands, she searched the area. Every time her fingers touched something, she jerked her hand away, then slowly reached out to touch it again, and then once she realized it was a rock, tree branch, or something else that wasn’t her glasses, she resumed her task.

She couldn’t find them. It never ended. Her throat produced a low groan. She smacked her hand over her mouth, and this time she moaned from the pain in her right arm. She had to find her glasses, and she needed the tapestry, too. Slowly running her hands over the ground, she searched. She heard the drip, drip of droplets falling onto the earth. She didn’t even know anymore whether it was her tears, sweat, or snot—rather than wiping and wiping at it, searching came first.

A sound came from the thicket behind her. Nene shuddered and rose up to one knee, then rotated around 180 degrees. The sound of swallowing spit came from herself. The buzzing of insects stopped. The sound of rustling leaves came three times, with pauses between, telling Nene that it wasn’t her imagination.

Sliding her fingers along the ground, Nene gradually backed up. From kneeling, she went into a crouch, then readied to run.

She heard a loud noise—like something exploding in the distance. Startled, she turned toward it, then immediately retreated again into the underbrush.

She couldn’t hear the sounds of the thicket anymore; her thunderous heartbeat drowned out everything else. She’d stopped breathing a long time ago. Sweat dripped through her eyebrows and caught in her eyelashes, but she didn’t even try to wipe it away. She avoided making any noise as best as she could as she backed away from that place. All thoughts of her glasses or the tapestry were gone.

One step, another, then one more—she heard rustling leaves and a snapping twig, and then something leaped out from the thicket. Nene swallowed her spit again. Its cries, smell, and silhouette were like those of a dog, but it was far bigger than what she’d imagined. It was as big as a calf, though her vision was blurry, so that was all she could determine. Nene tried to slowly back away, then stopped when something hard hit her heel. There was a tree behind her. She couldn’t back up any farther.

Even without her glasses, she could smell the animal and hear its growl. Her shriek and its howl sounded at the same time.

The beast jumped; Nene instantly crouched and leaped straight to the side. The beast slammed into the tree she’d been right in front of, crying out in a way that didn’t sound like a normal animal at all. Already exhausted beyond her limit, Nene was chilled to the very depths of her heart by that sound.

She was going to die. It was going to devour her.

She didn’t have the time to think about what you’re supposed to do when you’re attacked by a dog, or where a dog’s weak point is, or anything like that. It was the most she could do to just move her body. She snapped dried branches underfoot as she pulled herself up through a gap between two trees, and then the beast was thrusting its face between the trees to try to leap on her, showering her with its drool. Her hands reflexively reached out to the ground. Running a palm along it, she grabbed a full fist of earth and flung it against the snout that was trying to snap its fangs together.

Its next cry was very understandable. They flailed around, breaking branches and scattering leaves of the underbrush, and Nene was practically flung away to roll over the weeds.

She came to a stop when she hit something hard on her left shoulder. With a moan, she reached up with her right arm, which made her moan again. Despite her groans, she propped herself against a tree to get to her feet.

The odor of the beast rose in the air, cutting through the smell of the earth she’d flung at it. It was angry that it had been obstructed, angry that it had been hit with something nasty, and maybe it was even hungry. All of that was about to hit Nene. She could hear it sliding over the weeds. Though she couldn’t see it readying to leap, she could sense it coming.

Nene stood up, turned away from the beast, and grabbed a tree with both hands. The tree bark was rough, and it felt like the sharp bits would pierce her skin. But since it wasn’t slippery and smooth, maybe she could climb it.

She was good at tree climbing. Her small frame actually made climbing easier. She’d scaled trees that stretched high above, which surprised even her. Whenever she’d thought, I want to see a cicada buzzing up close, or, There’s a big cavity there—I wonder if there’s a bird’s nest inside, or, Maybe a squirrel or wild mouse lives there, she’d grabbed its branches and set her feet on its protrusions to satisfy her curiosity.

The beast howled behind her. Nene tensed her core muscles.

The last time she’d climbed a tree had been in elementary school. She hadn’t grown much since then, but it had still been a while since she’d last done it. And her vision was terrifyingly bad, too. Would she be able to grab the branches? Her whole body hurt from hitting things and falling. Her right arm in particular hurt just from moving it.

She yelled out loud from the pit of her stomach. The beast’s howling faded, and Nene set one foot on the tree and leaped up. She reached out an arm to grope for something sticking out and grabbed a branch.

Her foot slipped, but she somehow maintained hold, pitching forward, since the footing she’d thought was there was gone, got control again, and kept going. Getting a grip with her fingers, she pulled her body up with both arms. She felt the sound and vibration of an impact, and her fingers started to slip, but she fought it and held tight. Her right leg wouldn’t move. The beast was biting her shoe. Nene kicked it away and slid out of her sneaker, and the beast fell backward, tossing up dirt. Her arms hurt, but she ignored it. Bringing up both legs along with her arms, Nene put her socked toe against the tree to raise her whole body.

Her hand touched a branch. It was a thick one—even thicker than Nene’s arm. Her arms and legs and head were all screaming that they were at their limit. This was the end of it. Bracing all her limbs, she pushed her body up over the branch. Then she sat on the branch and hugged the tree trunk with both arms. Her chest hurt. Even panting this hard, her heart continued to leap wildly and wouldn’t settle down.

An even louder howl and the grating sound of claws scraping resonated terrifically through the tree. Nene clenched her teeth. Repeating three times in her head that no way was she going to die here, she clamped down on the fear that was trying to force its way out.

  Touta Magaoka

Touta hadn’t wanted to get separated from Marguerite, but Rareko had pulled Yol, who’d been holding Touta’s hand, so they’d all wound up running away together. Rareko ran around all over the forest, finding one grayfruit on the way, while Touta clung to Yol, frantically trying not to get dropped. In the end, they came to the coast, and Rareko searched for someplace inconspicuous. She punched and kicked at the cliff to dig out a cave, and the three of them went inside and huddled together.

Touta didn’t really get what was going on, but he was terrified. He couldn’t even complain to Rareko, “How could you run and leave everyone else behind?” He’d wanted to run, too. He just didn’t want to be separated from Marguerite—staying behind with her back there would have been far more reassuring than getting separated from her.

But then that would mean getting separated from Yol. She seemed like she would feel more hopeless than Touta, so he didn’t want to leave her for other reasons. He hadn’t had the time to say anything as they’d been fleeing, but after ten or twenty minutes of being still in a fifteen-foot-wide cave, he calmed a little. He regained enough presence of mind to talk.

Touta said, let’s go back. He said it would be better to be with everyone else.

Rareko said it was too dangerous. She said they had no idea what that scary thing would do, and it would be best to stay here to protect the miss…to protect the both of them.

Before Yol could say anything, a man appeared. It was sudden.

When he popped his head in to peek at the entrance, Touta heard Rareko gulp.

But it wasn’t like Touta could get himself to say anything. He would have liked to hug Yol close protectively, but more accurately, he was startled—he freaked, rather, and clung to her automatically.

Well, of course he would be surprised. Both he and Rareko were. They were surprised enough that until Yol cried, “Uncle!” they didn’t even realize that it was Navi.

The smiling face that raised a hand with a “Yo” looked not only quite tired but also dirty—but it was indeed Navi. His clothes were Navi and his physique was also Navi, so you’d think they’d know at a glance it was Navi, but right that moment, he was soaked with bright red blood from the top of his head down to his neck. His collar was a mess, surely because it had absorbed the blood. Of course that would freak out Rareko, and it would freak out Touta, too.

“What happened?!” Yol cried.

“Ah, getting away was a bit of a struggle,” Navi replied.

“Your head!”

“Come on, I was balding to begin with.”

“I don’t mean that!”

Following Yol’s gaze, Navi smacked a hand against his forehead and looked at his palm. He scowled at his red palm, then wiped his face with his sleeve. “Stuff was flying around and hitting me all over the place. I figure some chunks hit me. Well, I got this far fine, so I’m sure it’s no big deal.”

“No, it is a big deal,” Yol shot back, and Touta and Rareko both nodded.

They sat Navi down in the middle of the cave, and Rareko wiped him with a towel as she looked at his wounds. Navi snorted and said, “Nothing but hassle.” Maybe he was talking about his own situation, or maybe he was talking about people worrying about him when he was okay. When Touta thought about the time he’d been told to stay at home when there was an important Battlers tournament, just because of a little fever, he could understand that “nothing but hassle” feeling. But what Navi had been suffering was more than a little fever.

“D’you know where the others went?” Navi asked them.

“No…we all became separated…,” Yol answered. “And we haven’t seen them since.”

“’Bout the same on my end. I’m having Clarissa look, though.”

“Isn’t that dangerous?”

“If what’s out there is something her fast legs can’t outrun, then all of us are really outta luck. Well, I’ll just do what I can for now.” He smacked a bulge in his sleeve, then when he tilted it toward the ground, something rolled out. It was grayfruit. There were one, two, three, four of them.

“So many!” Yol cried. “We could only find one, and that took so much effort.” The one grayfruit they had found had already been split by Yol and Rareko and eaten.

“No need to hold back, kids. I already secured some for me and Clarissa before sharing.” Navi held up the sleeve on the other side and showed them. That one was also bulging. It had to have grayfruit tucked in it.

Touta let out a breath of relief. He didn’t need them, but he knew they’d really be in trouble if Yol collapsed or if Rareko couldn’t transform. Touta would have liked to find some himself, if he could, but getting them from someone else still helped, and he was grateful. He stood up and bowed his head at an angle that would look sharp. “Thank you very much.” It was simply proper manners to thank someone with a bow when they helped you out.

Yol and Rareko bowed after him, and Navi scratched his head shyly. “Hey now, like I just said, I’m only sharing a bit.” Navi smiled, then happened to look down and catch that Yol and Touta were holding hands. He narrowed his eyes, then smirked and smacked Touta on the shoulder, making Touta cough.

“What is it, Uncle?” Yol asked.

“Naw, nothing. We’ve all got to work together to tackle this.”

Touta thought there was a teasing twinkle in his eye. Times like these, Touta normally might have let go of her hand automatically. But this time, he squeezed harder instead, making Yol yelp, and he apologized, relaxing his grip.

Navi’s smiling grew even more clearly gleeful than before, and his eyeballs rolled into his head as he looked up. “Aren’t you done yet, Rareko?”

“It seems the bleeding has stopped.”

“Despite how my blood’s always rushing to my head, eh? Well, get it done.”

“Yes, as quickly as possible.”

Of course there was no doctor’s bag and no first aid kit, either. They didn’t even have a toy first aid set. Still, Rareko wiped off the blood with a towel and such, making Navi’s head even more sparkling than when Touta had first met him. Reflecting the light of the moon and stars, it sparkled like a second moon.

“Well then, guess I’ll get going.” Navi slapped a thigh and stood up with a hup.

“Going…? Wherever to?” Yol asked.

“C’mon, we won’t get anywhere if we don’t meet up with the others. I’ll hide if things get dangerous, so no worries there. Well, since I got polished this shiny, maybe I’ll give up on hiding, though.” He laughed like he was amused. He looked much more at ease compared to when he’d first come. Maybe talking had relaxed him a bit. If that was the case, maybe Touta had been a bit useful, too.

“Listen, don’t leave this spot. Just settle down right here. It looks like there’s someone up to nasty stuff.” Then with a flutter of one hand, Navi disappeared into the darkness.

Looking at him go, Touta thought, Adults really are reliable. Touta had considered him as like the misters who sold chicks, goldfish, or slider turtles at street stalls at night, but maybe people like that who seemed bad would be reliable when things got tough.

In the books you could borrow from the library, there were lots of stories featuring the exploits of children who could put adults to shame, but right now, it didn’t seem like Touta could accomplish anything that would put the adults to shame. It was frustrating, but the reason Touta couldn’t accomplish great feats was because he was Touta.

If Marguerite was there, would she say something thoughtful to console him? Touta figured she wouldn’t be able to say anything thoughtful and would just put a hand on his head or something, then kind of regretted that thought. It was rude for him to imagine such a thing.

“Will he be all right…?” Yol wondered. “No, I do think he will be all right…but Uncle doesn’t value his own safety or things of that nature very much.”

“Really?” Touta asked.

“He’ll write it off saying it will all be an amusing story afterward, so it’s fine.”

“Do you know him well? Is he your actual uncle?”

“No, my family will occasionally make requests of him. They say what those requests are is grown-up talk, so they won’t tell me what it is, though.”

“Hmm…” He didn’t really understand why he’d gone and asked that. But now that he had, he agonized over it. Agh, why’d I have to open my mouth? Now he had to smooth things over. Nervously licking his lips, Touta said, “People like that…um, who don’t consider their own safety much, you know…”

“Yes?”

“My aunt says that just means they’ll only be exuberant and generous so long as they’re successful.”

Touta remembered about himself. When Navi had pulled out a bunch of fruit, Touta hadn’t been happy about it. He’d felt more frustrated at first, like he could shout out, “Damn it!” He thought it was probably like that. Touta had felt that way even though it was obviously best for there to be lots of fruit for Yol and Rareko. He’d found himself thinking, I wish I’d been the one to bring in lots of grayfruit to make Yol happy. He’d felt frustrated that Yol had been cheered by that chat with Navi, too—even though it should have made him happy that Yol was feeling better.

He was sure that wasn’t good. That was exactly why Touta had blabbered on with a bunch of irrelevant stuff in an attempt to cover himself and to keep it from being noticed that he was trying to cover himself. He was so scared, his whole body was shuddering, and he knew there was no helping that he was scared, but that still didn’t stop it from being frustrating. He wanted to look good in front of Yol, and he wanted Marguerite to praise him—even though crazy things were happening, and he was scared. Touta even thought himself—he was hopeless.

“Your aunt talks about difficult things,” Yol said.

“She said unfortunately, some people will keep on succeeding their whole lives, right until the end.”

Yol sighed. “I’ll pray that’s what happens.”

Beside them, Rareko kept nodding.

  Ragi Zwe Nento

It was as if a haze lay over everything. But it wasn’t painful. His loose grasp on his senses brought him peace rather than suffering. Rather than living life clearly conscious and tortured by pain, it was better to be in a cottony peace and slide into an easy death. The reason and knowledge he’d relied on his whole life put up the white flag against violent pain.

Suddenly, Ragi realized. He was not at peace right now. His mind wouldn’t stop coming up with distractions one after another. How was Clantail doing? What were the other mages and magical girls doing? Had they found a way to get out?

The pain that had kept racking his body, making him collapse, was gone now. When he opened his eyes a crack, his whole field of vision twisted and wavered, gradually forming a clear image, and the outline of his thoughts sharpened with it. He coughed a few times, and it stung the back of his throat, but it improved the airflow somewhat. There was a sweet taste in his mouth. A fruity sweetness filled it from his nostrils to his throat. It tasted and smelled like grayfruit. It really was too sweet for Ragi’s taste.

He drew in a whole lungful of the sickly sweet air and sent oxygen to his brain.

Ragi sat up. His back hurt. His rear, too. The cloth laid over his body was probably his own cloak. Underneath him was rock. It was hard. Being laid down in a place like this, no wonder his back and bottom hurt.

He focused his eyes and looked around, but all he could tell was he seemed to be in a small space that was all stone—something like a cave. He couldn’t see in the dark, after all. Wind blew in from one side, while air on the other side was still, which had to mean there was one entrance. He carefully felt around, but his right hand immediately reached a wall. It was rough and angular. Rock. The back of his left hand knocked into something, and he yanked it back. Timidly reaching out again to touch the object there, he felt wood that was far smoother than the rock and grabbed it. It was his usual staff.

Ragi heaved a great sigh.

He ran a hand where his head must have been lying when he was asleep and touched a lump of cloth smooshed into a ball. He picked it up and pulled it open and found it was his hat. This isn’t to be used as a pillow, he thought as he patted off the dirt and put it on his head. It felt like it was certainly crushed and a disgrace, but as a rare fortune in this situation, it was too dark to see it. But before any of that, anyone who saw Ragi now would notice—

“Oh! You’re up!” He heard a voice from the windy side. That high-pitched voice particular to magical girls reverberated within the cave, irritating Ragi more than necessary. Her brazen stride with absolutely no care at all for others doubled his irritation. “That’s great, Grampy.”

That nickname irritated Ragi beyond the point of no return. But still, he didn’t complain out loud. Currently, Ragi was not unconscious or close to it. He wouldn’t even consider choosing an easy death over a life full of pain. In fact, he was irritated at himself for having thought that a moment ago. He was fully conscious, and from the lingering taste and smell in his mouth, it was clear that he’d been intaking grayfruit. Since Ragi had been unconscious and there was no way he would have found any himself, someone must have saved him. The odds were that savior was the girl before him now.

He should thank her, but he was too irritated to do it. Times like these, Ragi’s mouth, his tongue, his throat would not move to say thank you. Against his own desire to offer thanks first, but in a sense following it, he did not bow his head in thanks but rather demanded imperiously, “…Where am I?”

“Hmm?”

“Where is everyone else? Why am I in a place like this?”

“Oh, I see. You don’t know what happened, huh.” The magical girl Clarissa Toothedge, who had ears that were pointed like a wildcat, clapped her hands. Ragi narrowed his eyes and looked at her. They weren’t completely in the dark. There was light coming in from the moon and the stars outside. Clarissa was hunched over, but the tips of her ears were still touching the ceiling of the cave. If Ragi had thoughtlessly tried to stand up, he might have hit his head.

“Someone scary came to attack, and everyone ran off on their own,” Clarissa explained.

“Someone scary?”

“I think it’s the same as what got Maiya.”

Ragi’s head hurt. He didn’t remember exactly when he’d fallen unconscious, either. Riding the hazy waves of his thoughts, he saw something. When he’d heard someone scream, had that been a dream, or had that been reality?

“What’s going on…? What’s going on?” Ragi muttered.

“Like I said, we just got all split up.”

“Any dead?”

“Maybe. I don’t really know.”

“Atrocious…” He was even feeling like he was the one person thrown in from a different timeline. “What about Clantail?”

“Was she the girl who is a horse or a leopard or whatever on the bottom?”

“That’s her. Where is she?”

“She left everyone before we were attacked.”

“She did? Clantail went off on her own?”

“She couldn’t stand waiting while you were in such bad shape, so she went off to go pick some grayfruit. That was a little before we got attacked by the scary person.”

“Why would she have to do that? We had a store of the grayfruit.”

“Pastel Mary took ’em and ran.”

It was all a miserable mess. There wasn’t a shred of discipline. Magical girls were chaos. They couldn’t be bound by rules or laws.

Ragi clenched his right hand, which was placed down on the bare rock. The sand on the stone gathered from his fingertips to his palm and made an annoying scraping noise. Every single little thing was so irritating.

His bad mood must have showed. “You don’t have to get so mad,” Clarissa said lightly, and that made Ragi even angrier.

“How could I not be angry?!”

“Well, true. That’s fair enough. But it’s times like these when you’ve really gotta be positive.”

“Positive? Ridiculous, telling me to be positive in this situation.”

“Instead of getting mad and complaining, it’s better to get done the things you can do, one by one, right?”

Sometimes, even if you were saying something reasonable, the tone would hurt the message. And more than that, most of all, the sole fact that she was a magical girl who had been brought here by Navi Ru hurt it enough that you could basically call it ruined. Ragi’s mouth twisted inside his beard. Yes, Clarissa was employed by Navi Ru.

“Hey,” Ragi barked.

“What is it?”

“Where is your employer? Aren’t you saving the wrong person?”

“It was the bald mister’s orders that I save you, you know.”

“What do you mean?”

“It doesn’t mean anything. You were in bad shape. He told me, ‘I can manage myself somehow, so if anything happens, you can leave me and save that old fart.’ Whoops, sorry, the venerable Master Ragi.”

Ragi’s lips twisted even further. Being indebted to Navi was a regretful disgrace—a humiliation.

As Ragi was wordlessly making his stick rattle, Clarissa nimbly circled around behind him, put her hands on his shoulders, and gently massaged them. “I heard that you guys don’t get along, but like. There’s no point in getting into a spat now. Both you and he are in the Osk Faction, after all. So I think that’s all the more reason you need to get along.”

It didn’t matter how much time had passed; Ragi would never be able to forget what Navi Ru had done. When the faction had split into two camps, he had infiltrated one camp to leak information to the enemy side. He had learned their dirt and, through threats and bribery, broken the opposition. Ragi knew himself that Navi Ru hadn’t done that of his own accord. Someone else had given the order, and Navi Ru was merely the one to execute that order. But someone who is beaten down without hardly being able to resist is never going to see it coldly and rationally, like, “He was just following orders.” Mages who were ignorant of the ways of the world and only knew life in the ivory tower couldn’t put up a fight against Navi Ru’s wiles, and after fully capitalizing on his aptitude, he’d seemed satisfied with the results he’d won. He had gained a suitable position from it—which brought them to right now.

Ragi somehow relaxed his clenching jaw and managed to ask, “…What is he after?”

“Pardon?”

“I know full well he’s not the type to help anyone out of the goodness of his heart.”

After a moment’s pause, Clarissa clapped her hands and laughed. She had been like this before, too—her laugh was breezy and cheery, not at all what you’d expect from someone who was stuck in a place she could die, cut off from the outside world. Magical girls’ personalities were all detached from the real world like this to a greater or lesser extent, which was just one more thing that irritated Ragi.

“Come on, now, don’t be so mad.” Clarissa laughed for a while, then waved one hand at the sullenly silent Ragi. “You’re not wrong. Yeah, he’s after something.”

“…You’re honest.”

“Ah, you’re still suspicious. But it’s nothing that complicated. That mister has a high opinion of you, Grampy. Your skill as a mage.”

“…Oh?” Ragi had the sense that Clarissa smiled.

“He’s thinking he’ll make use of you sometime, once he’s become important. He’s putting you in his debt now for when that happens. Even if it puts his own life in danger.”

Ragi was about to yell back, “Like hell I’m going to let that bastard use me for anything!” but Clarissa raised a palm in front of him. Ragi held his tongue.

“I think that sort of relationship is fine.” She was still in a good mood.

Ragi did not share her sentiments at all. “What relationship?”

“You guys wouldn’t even be able to get along if you wanted to, so you should just think about it like using each other. It’s way healthier than being at each other’s throats, and it’d be useful to the Osk Faction, too.”

Ragi could tell she was puffing up her chest. She seemed proud. She had to be thinking she was brandishing the correct argument. She didn’t even realize how irritating that was to Ragi—or she was doing that on purpose. Her attitude and casual manner of speaking didn’t seem to come from a genuinely shallow character, but rather that she was deliberately trying to make herself seem so.

“’Kay then. Stay put. You were real sick to begin with, so if you move, you’ll run out of energy right away. I’ll leave some fruit here, though.” Clarissa rolled something over. Bending his back, Ragi turned it over with the end of his staff, and when he picked it up, a sweet smell wavered at the end of his nose.

Clarissa’s footsteps moved one step away, two, and then Ragi struck the wall with his staff. “Wait. Where are you going?”

“We’ve gotta find the others. I’m gonna go look and see if that dangerous person is there or not, too.”

“We’re not done talking yet.”

“And I’ll look for Clantail, too, as much as I can.”

“Hey!” Ragi yelled, his words reverberating against the stone walls to bounce back to him. There was nobody to hear them.

He smacked words of anger along with his staff at the wall, and the impact made his hand go numb, and he dropped his staff, and then he clenched a fist and was about to strike the stone wall but stopped right before he could. Thankful that he still had enough good sense to stop, Ragi inhaled a large breath and scooped up his staff, and then when he heard the skitter of something moving behind him, he turned his whole body around.

Seeing a centipede about as long as his biceps move from under one rock to another, he let out a really large sigh this time. Absolutely everything about this was miserable.

  John Shepherdspie

Upon regaining consciousness, the first thing Shepherdspie saw was the starry sky through the canopy of trees. The sight of the surrounding scenery and the wavering light just about drew a sigh from him. This had to be the kind of beauty that would inspire poetic sentiments. If he’d had a pen and paper at hand, maybe he would have wrung out a line. Shepherdspie let out an ohhh and heard murmuring around him.

He was gently lowered down. Someone had been carrying him on their back.

Some girls were looking down on him. Their beautiful faces formed a circle around his field of view with the moonlight filtering through the branches in the background forming an evocative scene—if you just cut out that part, you might think you were in heaven or something despite their similarly grim expressions.

The back of Shepherdspie’s head hurt, his stomach rumbled, and his back felt cold and gross. “Where am I…?” he moaned.

“There was an emergency, and we left the main building,” Marguerite said simply.

“Do you think you can move?” Mana asked with concern.

7753 spoke next. “Um…are you okay?”

“Mei wants fruit,” Tepsekemei said.

Just from asking one thing, he got answers back from four different people. Not only had Shepherdspie just awoken, one incident happening after another had exhausted him mentally, and he no longer had enough mental space to carefully consider and digest the answers from four different people. The one he should address was probably Mana. He had a bit of a cold impression from Marguerite—rather, that she was a bit scary and hard to approach. Tepsekemei was kind of incomprehensible to him, and 7753 didn’t quite seem like someone you could count on.

Shepherdspie pushed himself up and wiped his forehead with a handkerchief. “Why did you leave the main building?”

“It was attacked,” Mana answered.

“Huh? What? Huh? It was attacked? By who?”

“The one who killed Maiya and destroyed the gates, most likely.”

“Hold on; hold on just one moment… Huh…? I can’t believe it. Give me a moment.” Shepherdspie looked from one girl to the next, but they were all equally serious. It seemed this was no lie or joke. Then he realized something was amiss. There were not enough people here by far. Ragi, Navi, Agri, Yol, and Touta were missing, and aside from Marguerite, not a single one of the magical girls those people had brought were there, either. “Huh…? No way. It can’t be… The others…”

“No, they ran away.” Mana corrected his assumption. “They’re scattered all over the island, but we don’t know where they are.”

“Oh, I see. That’s good… Well, it’s not good that we don’t know where they are, but it is good that they’re safe… Is it good?”

“…Well, better than getting injured or being dead.”

“Ohhh, yeah. Of course.”

Through asking for additional information and explanation, gradually, Shepherdspie got a grasp on the situation. They had been attacked by the bad guy who had gotten Maiya, and Shepherdspie had passed out. Those who weren’t with them had all run off in different directions, and those who remained had carried the unconscious Shepherdspie while searching for grayfruit. Shepherdspie was initially thankful for his fortune, thinking it was a good thing he hadn’t died, but his feelings turned somber when he remembered this wasn’t really good fortune but more of a silver lining. But whatever they were going to do, first, they had to find some grayfruit.

Shepherdspie stared at the sky. It wasn’t a good spot to look from, with tree branches and clouds hiding the starry sky from him. Were Pastel Mary and Dreamy Chelsea safe?

Had Mary been taken away by someone, or had she run away with the grayfruit? With things like this, the latter would be better. If she had run off with the fruit, then this was Mary, so she would surely have done it out of feeling helpless and scared, getting into a panic that had led her to the deed. She’d probably fallen a few times while carrying the fruit, too. Shepherdspie would have wanted her to say something to him before running away if possible, but he really couldn’t be confident that Mary saw him as an employer she could count on. All Shepherdspie could do was pray that Chelsea had found her, at least.

Now that Shepherdspie was awake, he immediately came to share their problems.

Miss Marguerite had thought that it would be better to get some grayfruit first, instead of staying any longer in the half-destroyed main building, and Mana had agreed. Some fruit had been discovered on the way back from hearing the voice of Maiya’s corpse, so they’d headed to gather that handful of grayfruit that still remained unharvested. They’d been hesitating about moving the unconscious Shepherdspie too thoughtlessly, but they had figured leaving him there would be even more dangerous. Unfortunately, their search had been fruitless. The grayfruit that should have still been on the tree had all been plucked away by someone else.

Now Mana and the others were in trouble. They didn’t know anywhere else to find it. Nearly all of it around the main building had already been harvested. Shepherdspie had come to right when they were really stuck as to what to do, which brought them to the present.

“Um…do you know someplace where there might be a lot of grayfruit growing?” 7753 asked timidly.

“Well…if I knew that, I would have said so when we were at the main building,” Shepherdspie replied.

“Of course…sorry.”

Even if he did know some things about the island, it was just slightly more than the other heirs. His knowledge couldn’t be compared with that of the original owner of the island, his uncle Sataborn. Ragi had to know more about the island’s systems, while Rareko would know more about the gates. The one thing Shepherdspie had confidence about was the kitchen, and that kind of knowledge wasn’t going to be useful right now.

“But…” Shepherdspie trailed off.

“But?” 7753 echoed.

“I did take a casual look around the island, more or less. I think I did see some grayfruit then.”

“Oh?”

“I don’t remember it very well at all.”

“Ahhh, yes. Sorry,” 7753 said.

“But,” Mana followed up, “even a vague memory is still a memory.”

“Well, I suppose,” Shepherdspie said.

“That’s got to be more reliable than what we have, which is nothing.”

There is the saying that a drowning person will even cling at straws. That felt apt to this situation, but Shepherdspie wouldn’t say so out loud. He folded his arms, drew back his jaw, and groaned, making his mustache swish. “Hmm… My memories are extremely vague, you know. Well, um, we can go and give it a shot, but wouldn’t it be bad if it winds up being a waste of time?”

“Let’s just give it a shot, even if we think it’s unlikely,” Mana said. “We have no other options.”

Shepherdspie nodded and got to his feet. They had to get some grayfruit, or they really would be out of options. As Mana said, even if they thought it was unlikely, going was better than not trying at all.

“Then let’s go.” Shepherdspie chanted and waved his hands but then whacked his fingers on a tree in the process and groaned, interrupting his chant. Clearing his throat quietly, this time he checked there was nothing around before chanting and tracing a magic square and ancient language with his fingers. After storing up the power, he touched his right index finger between his eyes. It wasn’t like he was doing much. It was a spell to energize the mind. It would help him remember a little.

His mind cleared. Or it felt like it did.

“This way…probably,” Shepherdspie said.

Originally, the memory had been dim and vague, as if he was being pulled hesitantly in multiple directions, but that was still better than nothing.

For the first time in a long while, Shepherdspie was putting his full effort into something other than cooking. He summoned up memories he normally wouldn’t even recall, like the time he’d rented some guard demons to look around the island, twitching in anxiety all the while, or when he’d tried to read his uncle’s old records, only to give up after a few pages on island flora.

“Oh, I’m glad you were with us, Mr. Shepherdspie,” 7753 said. Her words added even greater pressure. He felt his stomach lurch.

Following his dim memory of I think it was this way; this should be it, he moved his feet forward. The magical girls’ expressions were tense and alert.

Then Tepsekemei spun in the air, stuck her nose to the sky, and sniffed. “This smell.” She came out in front of Shepherdspie, taking the lead instead of him.

Any mage would know that magical girls had sharp senses. He’d also heard that the first one to have gathered grayfruit and eaten one had been Tepsekemei. Shepherdspie mentally clenched a fist, thinking, This sounds pretty hopeful.

But Shepherdspie’s hopes were quickly dashed.

“You’re sure this is it?” he asked.

“Yes,” Tepsekemei replied.

“Ah…it looks like these were just picked. You can see the signs,” Mana said.

“There’s a shred of fruit left over here,” Marguerite added.

“They took everything,” Shepherdspie groaned.

They had to go through the absolute disgrace of gathering the scraps and licking the remaining juices off the places where the fruit had been plucked, but they did replenish themselves minimally, and Shepherdspie set off in the lead again.

After going awhile, Tepsekemei spun in the air, stuck her nose to the sky, and sniffed. “This smell.”

Privately, Shepherdspie was thankful for this rare fortune. It was already fairly lucky to have found something once based off his vague memories, and now they’d discovered grayfruit twice in a short span that night. This had to be partly because Tepsekemei had a good nose, but it was still lucky.

When they rushed into the spot in high spirits, they found—yet again, everything had been thoroughly plucked from the tree and taken away.

“Again…?” Mana groaned.

“The manner of harvesting seems rougher than the last time,” Marguerite commented.

“Oh, one dropped here…,” 7753 said. “Hey, Mei! We’re sharing those! Don’t just eat without asking!”

Why was something like this happening? How had it come to this? Shepherdspie didn’t know. He looked up at the sky and hoped the buzzing of insects hid the sound of his sigh.

  7753

Upon striking out a third time, the group of five had a discussion.

“Just what is going on here?” Shepherdspie wondered.

“The cut on this fruit is exactly the same as the one before,” Mana pointed out.

“Someone is gathering grayfruit?”

“Um…,” 7753 cut in. “Maybe the enemy who attacked us before is doing it.”

“Well, whatever they are, if they’re a magical being, they’ll need it, yes,” Shepherdspie agreed.

“Mei is tired.”

“It’s also plausible that someone aside from the enemy is doing this,” Marguerite pointed out.

“Everyone does need grayfruit, after all,” Mana agreed.

“So then isn’t that another reason we should find the others?” Shepherdspie suggested.

“If it’s someone we can meet up with, then indeed.”

“Stop constantly making implicative statements, Marguerite,” Mana shot at her.

“The odds are not so low that they will reject joining us.”

“I know that.”

“Oh yes, that’s right, you know, um, the cuts are fresher than the last time. So then doesn’t that mean we’re getting closer? If we hurry a little, we might be able to catch up. Mr. Shepherdspie, do you know if any places near here have grayfruit?” 7753 asked.

“I told you, I don’t remember that well.”

“Yes, well, but… I’m sorry, please lead the way.”

With Shepherdspie in the lead, the group set out. After a while, Mei spun in the air, sniffed, and muttered, “There are lots of smells,” this time like she was pleased, but without any expression on her face.

“Ohhh, lots of smells might mean a lot growing,” Shepherdspie said.

“It looks like we can be hopeful,” 7753 said.

Tepsekemei went ahead again, and the group moved along. When Shepherdspie smacked a mosquito that chased him through the underbrush to squish it, Mana scolded him for making unnecessary noise, while Tepsekemei continued swiftly onward as if she didn’t even hear the quarrel behind her, then came to a sharp stop.

The sudden stop made 7753 boot Mana in the bottom, and she wound up having to apologize again.

Marguerite slipped smoothly in front of Tepsekemei. “So it was you.”

The glaring colors of her costume were highly visible, even in the dim forest. The magical girl who Miss Marguerite had called out to was dropping grayfruit into the plastic bag in her right hand. She sluggishly turned around to look at Marguerite. Her eyes were unfocused, as if she was gazing somewhere else.

Something was strange. 7753 was about to bring her hand to her goggles when Dreamy Chelsea gave her a sharp glare, and 7753 jerked her hand away again.

Shepherdspie tried stepping forward. Marguerite blocked him, but he just called out anyway, “Chelsea! So this was where you were!”

“Chelsea is…,” Chelsea began.

“Hmm?”

“Chelsea is a wonderful magical girl. That’s what Chelsea thought.”

“Uh, what are you talking about?”

Marguerite held Shepherdspie back with her left hand as she placed her right hand on the hilt of her rapier, and 7753 swallowed her spit.

Chelsea continued in a faltering manner, as if she wasn’t even looking at what Marguerite was doing. “But that was wrong… Chelsea had to learn about real magical girls… Chelsea didn’t know love.”

“Chelsea, what’s wrong?” Shepherdspie pressed. “Did something happen?”

“Chelsea is a different person from yesterday. Now Chelsea knows love.”

“I’m not going to understand unless you talk to me properly.”

“Chelsea actually never wanted to be alone. Chelsea wanted to be together forever. But there’s no helping it. None of the others can keep up with Chelsea, so it’d be faster for her to go out on her own.”

“The others?” Shepherdspie continued, probing for what had happened.

“You can do it, Chelsea. Don’t give in, Chelsea. Even if you’re alone, our hearts will always be together.”

“What happened to Mary? You don’t know?”

Chelsea’s big eyes opened even wider, and her expression contorted. 7753 took one step back, covering Mana behind her.

“Hey, don’t you dare! You people have to call May-May ‘Pastel Mary’!”

Shepherdspie staggered at Chelsea’s sharp rebuke—Mana tried to catch him but couldn’t take his weight, and 7753 circled behind her to support the both of them. Caught between the two of them, Mana groaned painfully.

“Tepsekemei, keep an eye around us.” Marguerite took another step forward. She had drawn her rapier, the blade reflecting the moonlight.

Dreamy Chelsea lifted her heels and floated up into the air just like that. She stopped a foot above the ground, ignoring gravity to hover there.

It was magic. 7753 wouldn’t know what kind just from that. Chelsea had reacted to Pastel Mary’s name—was Pastel Mary controlling Chelsea? What was she after? Were the “others” who Chelsea talked about backing her up?

7753 quietly reached out to her goggles. There was a lot of information she had to know. As she brought them from her hat to her eyes, they were violently flicked away.

The goggles rolled away from her, and then something shining zipped out to knock them farther.

7753 followed the goggles with her eyes, then immediately returned her attention to Chelsea, eyes locking on her. Chelsea was making a little heart shape with her hands. The way she had moved looked like nothing other than using her magic—Marguerite tossed up fallen leaves as she lowered her stance, muttering to 7753, “Don’t move.”

7753 looked into the thicket, where her goggles had been flung, and back to Chelsea again. At this point, there was nothing for it but to leave things to Marguerite.

What…is this…?

Chelsea actually moved with sharp agility. But there was pointless stuff mixed into it, too. It didn’t make sense. Figuring she had to have activated her magic, 7753 stayed on guard, but nothing happened.

The two magical girls faced off wordlessly.

Chelsea let her heart shape come apart and slowly spread her opened palms. Sticking up her index and middle fingers, she balled the rest of her fingers. With a full-faced smile on, she made peace signs on both hands.

A gust of wind blew through, toying with the two magical girls. But both remained in the same stance, not even twitching. Chelsea kept her double peace thrust out at Marguerite, while Marguerite stared back at her. 7753 was having a hard time keeping up with the action.

The first one to move next was Chelsea, again. From the double peace, she opened her right hand, her left flowing over her face to pose in a sideways peace sign. Marguerite shifted her center of gravity slightly to the left.

The wind blew harder, stirring the blades of grass. The peacock feather that decorated Marguerite’s hat swayed over and over, like a toy on a spring. Chelsea was smiling beatifically like a magical girl in an anime. It was as if that same face had never been twisted in anger.

7753 couldn’t interfere. Shepherdspie twitched, and 7753 felt his motion through Mana.

7753 had seen countless magical girls, including tons of them who were good at fighting.

But she had never seen a stance like this.

A span of time as slow and unclear as mud went by. 7753 didn’t dare breathe. Chelsea was frozen in the sideways-peace pose. Marguerite was still not moving, either. Both of them still, never relaxing their tension, while all that time passed. 7753 realized. The plastic bag Chelsea carried was stuffed full. It had to be full of grayfruit. On the other hand, Marguerite had only licked some juices and sucked on some skins. If time kept passing like this, Marguerite’s transformation was bound to be undone first.

It was a bad idea to just wait. And if 7753 realized that, then Marguerite also had to have realized—but she didn’t initiate, staying patiently at the ready. Despite thinking, I have to do something, 7753 couldn’t move. Her impatience gradually spread until it even became difficult for her to stay still; her throat felt choked, and her chest ached—when suddenly, an electronic sound rang out. 7753’s heart jumped, and she just about fell, but she somehow caught herself.

She didn’t realize it was an alarm on a magical phone until she heard Chelsea say, “Oh! That’s my date!”

Still with her sideways peace up, Chelsea slid backward in the air until she disappeared into the trees. When Tepsekemei started flying after her, Marguerite called out, “It’s fine! Don’t follow her,” then blew out a breath and put a hand on the brim of her hat. Her sword was back in her sheath without 7753 even noticing her put it back.

“…She’s strong,” Marguerite seemed to mutter in spite of herself.

Mana scowled. “You couldn’t beat her?”

“If she were someone I could beat easily, I would have cleaned things up quickly on the spot. That’s probably…” Marguerite’s eyes looked to where Chelsea had disappeared. “That’s not any fighting style I know of. She’s also replenished plenty of nutrients from grayfruit, too. She’s probably been a magical girl longer than me, and her physical abilities are superior. Even with Tepsekemei’s support, I might have wound up guarding two mages and a magical girl in the battle. I’m repeating myself here, but if she were someone I could beat easily, I wouldn’t have let her get away. We should be satisfied that we even secured a few grayfruit.”

“Could you beat her not easily, though?”

“If I were allowed to kill her, at least.” Marguerite glanced at Shepherdspie, who shook his head in a fluster. “No, I can’t have you killing her. Actually, you know, she seemed odd. What was that?”

“It seems she’s being controlled.”

“Controlled…by who?”

“The way she became worked up when she heard Pastel Mary’s name would make Pastel Mary the most suspicious…but right now, I can’t say for sure.” Marguerite narrowed her eyes, her eyelashes falling slightly.

7753 heaved out a big breath before something suddenly occurred to her. She turned to the thicket. Not having her goggles was practically like she was missing half her body, and she felt anxious like she’d lost even more than that. 7753 crouched down and shoved her upper body into the thicket, spreading the foliage with both hands. She couldn’t quite find them. While getting caught on branches, she moved through the underbrush until she found the band part caught on a root and pulled it up.

The torn band was all that remained. The actual goggles were gone.