Mahou Shoujo Ikusei Keikaku - Volume 14 - Chapter 8

CHAPTER 8

GODDESS

  Dreamy Chelsea

Dreamy Chelsea stood on tiptoe atop her stars as they flew at high speed. Since she’d been playing on the stars every day since she was little, she would never lose her balance, not only when shifting her body weight or changing her stance but even when doing the kind of trick riding that would put an acrobat to shame. She bent her knees and leaned forward like she was doing a ski jump as she kicked up the stars’ speed a notch. Mowing down grasses and breaking branches, she sped through the forest, not even glancing at the scenery blurring past her. The only thing Chelsea was looking at was Pastel Mary’s smiling face in her heart.

When she thought about Pastel Mary, she felt exhilarated. No matter how much stress weighed on her, as long as Pastel Mary was there, she would blow it all away. Someone who would comfort her just by thinking of her existed in real life. Chelsea had been blessed by the song of praise made up of the wonders of love—how precious it was to fall for another. She was experiencing it for real. This had never happened before in her thirty-four years of life.

Through elementary school, middle school, high school, and university, Chelsea had never once lost her heart to an infatuation. When Chie was in preschool, her childhood friend had spoken enthusiastically about how he would absolutely marry her. He’d apparently forgotten all that big talk by middle school and had shamelessly dated another girl. Romantic feelings were ultimately quick to change, and compared to Chelsea’s passion for magical girls, it was fragile and fleeting. That incident had deepened Chelsea’s convictions, making her believe she should prioritize being a magical girl over anything else.

Sleeping or waking, she thought about magical girls, simulating her own grand activities in her mind as she aimed to be her ideal magical girl. Romance was superfluous to that end. All through her days as a student, Chie had remained determined that even if someone confessed to her I like you or I love you or whatever, she would refuse no matter what. She’d gotten no confessions in the end but had put her wholehearted efforts into magical-girl activities, and Chelsea herself had never imagined she would fall in love at this point in life.

There was the second half of season two of Rikkabell, the Kotarou episode of Hiyoko-chan, and then Miko-chan, which had the will-they-or-won’t-they between her and her childhood friend as the main theme; Mysterious Ran-Ran had made the pretty-boy transfer student a regular character to prop up the show, and there were various other magical-girl anime with romance plots, but Chelsea had never enjoyed them. They had only ever made her say to herself, “You girls are far more attractive than a boring childhood friend or a pretty boy.” But in meeting Pastel Mary, she finally understood how they felt. She was just as good as any of the magical girls of anime Chelsea had always known and admired, even the heroines she loved most—in fact, in some ways, Pastel Mary was superior. She was just that attractive. Language couldn’t convey how attractive she was. There was no point in trying. Pastel Mary couldn’t be compared to anything else, and she couldn’t be expressed in words in any other way but “Pastel Mary.” Pastel Mary was very herself, and that was precisely what made her so attractive.

Soon, she would be able to see Pastel Mary. Even if she had been the one to ask it of her, it was so painful to work while apart from her. The magical girl with the rapier, Miss Marguerite, had made Chelsea anxious with her intense pressure and stressed her out. That was not a good magical girl. She was of the same type as Chelsea’s mother—she would use violence to shut you up in the end or imply decreasing your allowance to silence your opinion—basically she was the type who was good at resolving things with methods other than discussion. For a magical girl, that would make her the “nasty rival” character at most. It wouldn’t be fair to Pastel Mary to compare that girl to her. Yes, Pastel Mary was the one proper magical girl on this whole island. That was why Chelsea was helping her with her goal. She was originally supposed to have been taking orders from Shepherdspie, her employer, but he’d probably forgive her if she apologized after the fact. He was kind of soft that way.

Chelsea tensed her right hand, squeezed it tightly, then looked down at it. Unfortunately, the band part of the goggles with the cute heart-shaped meters must have torn off, but it was still a totally unique treasure, even with that flaw. Mana, Marguerite, and 7753 had centered their activity on these goggles. Ren-Ren, Agri, and Nephilia had been talking about them, too. It had seemed like they’d been wary of them. Everyone either valued the goggles or were afraid of them.

Chelsea had heard about what kind of magic power these goggles had. You could see various things by looking through them. In other words, she could find out how Pastel Mary felt about her.

Pastel Mary had to like her back. Since coming to the island, their relationship had been the longest and deepest. The time the floor had caved in and the time the wall had come down and the sheep had gone out of control, the two of them had worked together to overcome the crisis. It wouldn’t be surprising to get the so-called suspension bridge effect from such dangerous things happening. Plus, Pastel Mary had seen her naked. That was a vital event if you were the heroine of a rom-com. In other words, to Mary, Chelsea was the heroine, and there was no doubting her affection.

Yes, there was no doubting it, but her anxiety continued. Pastel Mary would sometimes talk with other people. Even if Chelsea knew they were only talking about work and it meant nothing, she couldn’t stop worrying. She knew she was thinking too hard, but Pastel Mary was just too attractive. There was no way other people wouldn’t fall for her, too, and if they did, since Pastel Mary was easily pressured, if by some mistake, she was to be moved by their affections… Chelsea didn’t want a love triangle like that. As long as Pastel Mary was Pastel Mary, the deep suspicion that lurked in Chelsea’s heart would surely never disappear. But—but!—if she had these goggles, then Chelsea could make objectively sure if the feelings were mutual and find any nasty rivals for Pastel Mary’s affections. She could be completely and entirely at ease.

“Ah…” A moan slipped out of her. She couldn’t take it. She wanted to see Pastel Mary’s face. Whenever she thought about Pastel Mary, everything was dyed in Pastel Mary colors. Chelsea had shot the goggles from 7753’s hands to keep her from using them back there. She hadn’t been thinking about stealing them for herself. But when she’d had her peace sign up, she’d caught the goggles lying in the bushes out the corner of her eye, and she’d realized, If I use these… And so she’d immediately shot off a star to catch them for herself.

Stars sparkled around Chelsea. They whizzed lightly through the sky as if reflecting her excitement, sparkling under the reflected light of the moon as she flew around.

“Ahhh…” Imagining Pastel Mary being happy, another moan leaked out.

Opening her mouth wide while in motion made some drops of night dew catch in her mouth, and she choked on it, but she didn’t let that get to her, and she just swallowed. The lukewarm air, the moisture like she was swimming around in mist, the smell of the earth and the strong grassy scent—it was all blessing Chelsea and Pastel Mary’s future. This was the vibe you got when a magical-girl anime was going straight for a happy ending. Once the mood got worked up like this, then a magical girl would always be victorious, no matter what trials were in store.

Pastel Mary was all that occupied her heart. The frightening magical girl, the grayfruit, everything, the past and present and future, all of it just became Pastel Mary, and Chelsea was so happy about it, she did three somersaults atop her flying stars.

  Ragi Zwe Nento

The further Ragi fell deeper into thought, the more worked up he couldn’t help becoming. It wasn’t uncommon for him to get angry while racking his brain. The reasons for it had changed since he’d been assigned to the Magical Girl Management Department, but the more he got lost in his thoughts, the angrier he became. But even if this wasn’t unusual for him, he couldn’t easily ignore it.

Things he had to think about and things he had to get angry about rose in his mind one after another, despite how unbearably cold his bottom felt in the cave and how awful the stuffy air was.

It was irritating that the other mages and the magical girls had all run off in different directions. What point was there in running off on a small island like this? Ragi wasn’t about to tell them to face the enemy and die. It was better to live for tomorrow than die a pointless death. Nonetheless, everyone running off on their own was keeping them from working together, and just staying alive wasn’t going to point them to seeing another day. He recalled Clarissa had mentioned that she was searching for the others, but if she was capable of that much, then she could also conceal herself from the eyes of any ruffians as she went to handle matters. What Clarissa and Navi were doing was entirely inconsistent and haphazard. It didn’t seem like they were aiming to resolve the fundamental concern.

Ragi was thinking. Yes, he was managing to think. Since coming to this island, he’d been feeling about as terrible as a sick, bedridden patient. It had reduced his cognition and had often made him feel unsteady. But the grayfruit Navi had shoved at him had gained him the mental bandwidth for thought for the first time in a long while.

Why had the gates been destroyed? If it was to lock them in, then why was it necessary to lock them in? To kill all of them? Ragi could think of no reason to kill all the relatives of Sataborn. Additionally, this was too thorough to be the whims of a madman.

There was no need to go along with what that person wanted. They had destroyed the gates, so that meant they didn’t want the heirs leaving. That was all Ragi had to understand.

He stood up. He took a bite of a grayfruit and stuck the rest in his sleeve. The grayfruit were more useful than he’d imagined. Sataborn had made a rather fine item. It really was a shame he’d lost his life before he could announce his results. Ragi would escape this island with the grayfruit, and showing off this new type that Sataborn had made would ease the regrets of the dead a little.

No, wait. This wasn’t a new type.

Ragi’s lips twisted inside his long white beard. Pulling a grayfruit out from his sleeve, he dropped it into his palm and gazed at it. The fruit rolled over like it was turning its back on him, and he stopped it with the wrinkly pads of his fingers. This was no new type. It had just been bred from an existing one. Ragi stared down at it. The grayfruit, of course, lay there with no reaction. It wasn’t going to change from him squinting at it.

Ragi knew about the original grayfruit—the type Sataborn had bred this from. It was a common fruit that was used as a nutritional tonic. It was so ubiquitous, he hadn’t even considered it.

When the grayfruit this was based on happened to cross a corner of his mind, Ragi tried to push the thought aside—this wasn’t what he should be thinking about right now—but something bothered him, and his mind paused there. Back when he’d been a researcher, he’d called these mental moments a flash of insight, and no few theories or formulas had come out of them.

Despite his ongoing irritation, Ragi thought back on each and every thing he could come up with regarding the fruit these were based on.

The original grayfruit hadn’t had such dramatic effects. It would extract a very minute amount of magical power from the earth and air over a long time and accumulate it. And they didn’t grow en masse like the grayfruit of this island, either. Cultivating multiple trees on a small plot of land would cause them to rob magical power from each other, and they would stop bearing fruit. It was fair to say the fruit cultivated on this island were revolutionary in every way.

No…I see, so this is…

His sudden flash of insight was taking form. The grayfruit wobbled in Ragi’s hand. All the listed facts were pointing to one answer. Should this fruit be called a panacea? No, he couldn’t praise it without reserve at all.

I see… I see, I see, I see… I’ve got it…!

Ragi glared sharply at the fruit, but it was silent and would not speak. No matter how irritating it was, he had to rely on it right now, and that fact just made him all the more irritated.

Ragi dropped the grayfruit back into his sleeve. Putting his hat firmly on his head, he thrust the end of his staff in the earth and slowly headed toward the light. Before leaving the cave, he used a few drops of blood from his fingertip and a condensed chant to cast spells for seeing in the dark and invisibility, making sure to blend in with his surroundings. With a spell for brushing aside branches, he lopped off the vines that had been strung up over the entrance—that had to be Clarissa’s camouflage. As he waved aside the sliced vines hanging from above, he scowled a little at the animal bite marks on the bark as he finally emerged from the cave.

Though it was called an invisibility spell, it was a simplistic version that was abbreviated from the original formula. So naturally, it didn’t hide him completely. He would have to move slowly and quietly, from shadow to shadow. It wasn’t like he didn’t have any aces up his sleeve if it became necessary, but he didn’t want to use them actively.

First, to rally forces. They’d all run off in different directions because they’d been too panicked to consider the safety of others. In other words, they were even divided mentally. That had been unavoidable, with Ragi unconscious and no other mage to act as their leader. It’s an old man’s job to guide the young, Ragi encouraged himself as he slowly stepped out. Going over a root that rose from the earth and avoiding slippery-looking wet leaves, Ragi was calming his heart while walking along when he felt a clap on his shoulder.

“That’s no good, Grampy. I told you it’s dangerous to go outside.”

He turned around to find Clarissa right there. She was smiling, but it really looked more troubled than pleased. Suddenly, Ragi’s arms felt odd. Without even realizing it, his wrists had been tied with rope. He lost his balance and just about fell but then realized his legs wouldn’t move. His legs were also tightly bound.

“What in the blazes are you doing?!” Ragi bellowed.

“It’s a bad idea to yell.”

“What in the—? You devil, how dare—”

“But like, I mean, if you’re gonna try to leave like this, then tying you up is my only option. It seems you’re going to wander about even if you say you won’t, so you leave me no choice. It’s too dangerous.” Not listening to Ragi in the slightest, Clarissa went back to the cave he’d gone through all that trouble to leave, and now he’d even lost his freedom to move. She tossed him back in, and he voiced loud protests, rebukes, and curses, but the single remark, “If you’re too loud, bad guys’ll find you,” kept him from any more of that, and he was left unable to do anything but be indignant.

Clarissa left with entirely soundless footsteps. Ragi didn’t try to force his way out of the ropes. This material wasn’t going to tear from an old mage’s struggles. There was no need to move around right now. Ragi’s role was not moving his body. And honestly, raging in vain wasn’t his part, either. Ragi’s job was intellectual labor.

Ragi considered. Clarissa, as well as her employer, Navi, didn’t think of Ragi as an asset. Did they just see him as an object for protection? But if that was the case, they were going too far. He knew Navi had no love or respect for the old. If he was planning to use Ragi down the line, like Clarissa said, there had to be a somewhat better way to do that. Navi Ru was a villain who only cared about utility, but that was just what made this feel off.

Ragi didn’t bother trying to tell Clarissa his conjectures about the grayfruit. He couldn’t say that none of his distrust for Navi Ru came from personal grudge, but that wasn’t all of it. Even if 7753’s goggles had told them Navi was not the culprit behind the destruction of the gates or Maiya’s murder, you couldn’t be sure he wasn’t involved with the grayfruit, and besides, at this point, Ragi didn’t know how much he should trust 7753 or the goggles themselves. And when it came to Navi Ru, it was right to suspect everything about him. Clarissa, too, of course.

It would be easy to destroy the gates from the inside, but whoever did so would also be trapped on the island. The magical girls on the island had had their transformations undone, and the mages were weakened. If the culprit was neither a mage nor a magical girl, that was something else, but then there would be no way for someone to sneak onto this island—Ragi muttered a curse and cut off that thought. He doubted he was going to come to any conclusions from thinking on and on now. Making efforts to leave the island came first.

I could make a new gate.

If the properties of the grayfruit were as Ragi surmised, then making a disposable gate wouldn’t be entirely impossible. But he wouldn’t be able to do it alone. He would need cooperation from another mage. And if the one who had killed Maiya, the one who had destroyed the gates, tried to get in the way, then he would also need magical girls to guard them.

Ironic.

There was nobody he could trust, but he needed people to work with.

That reminded him that in Sataborn’s will, there had been the strange condition that they needed to be accompanied by magical girls. At this point, it really did seem like they would need magical girls, but it couldn’t be that such a situation had been foreseen, could it? Ragi wanted to reject that idea, to say that could never be so, but he had no logical reasoning for such an argument.

If it were Sataborn…

Ragi knitted his brow. He didn’t have enough memories of Sataborn to be able to imagine anything about him. Ragi had heard many rumors about his behavior and character. He’d been famous. And he hadn’t been famous only for being an excellent researcher but also for being an eccentric.

But those were ultimately just rumors. Ragi couldn’t unquestioningly accept stories he’d just heard about the man through the grapevine. But still, if even one-tenth of the stories about him were true, he had been quite the eccentric.

The wrinkles in his brow deepened. He had no proper memories of the man. It was like having seen Sataborn standing there, or sitting on the corner at a public hearing, or seeing the man apparently forced to come to a buffet party and in quite the sour mood—Ragi only remembered having seen him.

When Ragi had been younger, the two of them had exchanged some words at academic gatherings, but Sataborn had never talked much in such situations and had left right away. Once, Sataborn had come to ask the opinion of a mage who Ragi had studied under, but that had basically just been Sataborn passing him by. It was nothing you could call a memory.

The one thing Ragi could barely remember had been another buffet party. It was supposed to have been a get-together for the announcement of a new barrier formula, but it had been nothing but mages working themselves up through whispered political machinations, and Ragi had been quite furious. Angry, he’d drunk wine, and angry, he’d reached out to some boiled lobster, when another hand had grabbed the same lobster at the same time.

He’d looked at the other person automatically. It was the deeply wrinkled face of an old man. Sataborn. He was also looking at the lobster with irritation. The two old men at the party venue who weren’t trying to hide their foul moods looked at each other and then, for some reason, smiled wryly at about the same moment, and Ragi drew his hand away from the lobster and indicated it with his palm, saying, “Go ahead.” Sataborn said, “Thanks,” and took the lobster.

The wrinkles in Ragi’s brow became deeper than ever before. It couldn’t be that Sataborn had invited him to this inheritance meeting in order to repay the debt of having ceded the boiled lobster to him? Impossible. But if he was as eccentric as they said, Ragi felt like anything was possible.

Wondering about an eccentric would get you caught in circles. All you had to know was that he was an eccentric. Ragi smacked himself in the forehead.

Regardless: First, he had to get out of this cave.

His current problem was that Clarissa was ready to use force on him to suddenly tie him up. That was beyond unacceptable. And then when Ragi had slipped out of the cave, she’d immediately approached him to capture him.

It was difficult to imagine that she was keeping watch nearby. Clarissa and Navi didn’t have that much time on their hands. Had she caught Ragi leaving via magic? That seemed plausible.

Ragi had basically come to a conclusion. He could see what had to be done, too. He felt reluctant, but there was nothing for it but to do it. With his legs still tied, he stood and raised his wrists up to the ceiling. He rubbed the back of a hand against the rock to make it bleed, then used that as a catalyst to chant a rope escape. The rope came off his wrists and fell to the ground. He rubbed his ankles together, and that rope slid down, too, and he hooked his toes on the rope to kick it aside. He stretched his neck to the right, then to the left, and circled his shoulders.

“Now, then.” He pulled out a grayfruit and swallowed it, hardly chewing it at all. Chanting a magic-detection spell, he confirmed there was magic on the vines hanging over the entrance. This had to be how Clarissa had sensed him leaving before. Ragi recast the invisibility spell, then crawled on the ground to get outside without touching the vines. Looking all around, he made sure Clarissa wasn’t there and then slowly, but faster than before, walked off.

  Pastel Mary

Ren-Ren was close enough that Pastel Mary could just about touch her, if she reached out a hand. Her serious expression as she discussed something with Agri and Nephilia was so dignified and beautiful, it was enough to draw a sigh just from watching her. But more than the physical distance, Pastel Mary felt the distance of their hearts. Though it was only one tall boulder between them, plus some of the shards of the rock Chelsea had broken when she’d been going wild, it felt like she was so far away.

There is the saying, a sort of romantic theory, that the more barriers there are to love, the brighter it will burn. Pastel Mary thought surely only someone watching in amusement from a third-party perspective could say that. Whether it be Romeo and Juliet or Ozaki’s The Golden Demon, you could enjoy it as entertainment because you were an onlooker with no stake in the situation. Someone right in the middle of a romantic disaster would never think, More obstacles really do make a romance more fun.

Pastel Mary was dealing with a number of obstacles right now, and they were not in the least enjoyable. And Dreamy Chelsea, who kept coming up with any excuse to glue herself to her, was at the top of the list.

She wasn’t a bad person. She had no ill will, either. She would just, without malice, cause problems. That sort of thing had happened many times since she’d come to this island.

Ren-Ren had told Pastel Mary that the time might come when they could use Dreamy Chelsea’s combat abilities. Now was the “time to hold firm,” and even if they would never need Dreamy Chelsea’s abilities, it would be good to have them. Most of all, if Ren-Ren undid her magic now, Chelsea was sure to become hostile toward them, and they wanted to avoid that. Ren-Ren, along with Agri and Nephilia, was trying to solve the problems on this island. When Ren-Ren had told her what she planned to do, Pastel Mary had decided to cooperate, and she had done a bunch of things on Ren-Ren’s request. She had created sheep and had carried grayfruit. If they turned Chelsea against them, that would all be in vain. Ren-Ren’s request would come to nothing. If they failed here, then they wouldn’t resolve what had to be resolved.

There had been that much of a kerfuffle just to capture Chelsea. Trying the same thing again might not work. Chelsea would learn and be warier, too. So then it would be best to have her as an ally so that she wouldn’t do the same thing again. And Pastel Mary’s efforts were important for keeping Chelsea.

Ren-Ren had gently put her hand over Mary’s clenched fist and said, “I understand that you love me. I love you, too… You understand, don’t you? Chelsea is crazy about you. She’ll do anything you say. If you can do a good job controlling her, then she will be very useful.”

The cold of Ren-Ren’s hand seemed to seep into Pastel Mary’s flushed skin. Feeling like she was rising to heaven as she listened to Ren-Ren speak, Mary figured out what her job was. She would act like she was interested in Chelsea and give her orders. That was the role Mary had to fulfill. She couldn’t let it be found out that she and Ren-Ren were in love. In other words, while Chelsea was looking, Mary had to keep her contact with Ren-Ren to a minimum.

Even though Ren-Ren was right there, Mary couldn’t approach her. It was painful. But that was the more bearable pain, compared to betraying the expectations of her beloved Ren-Ren. Mary kept her head from turning to look at Ren-Ren, kept her legs from trying to walk to Ren-Ren, at least sending her sheep to Ren-Ren, sidling up to Ren-Ren when Chelsea wasn’t around, drawing close to whisper of love. Was this what you called a love triangle? It was completely different from what she’d seen in TV dramas and movies.

It wasn’t just the love triangle stuff that was different.

It didn’t matter that Nephilia snickered crudely or that Agri would look at her like she felt sorry for her. To Mary right now, even the tall, rugged boulders of their provisional base that lacked any romance was like a romantic getaway where lovers could enjoy a fleeting tryst.

Love Me Ren-Ren had the motif of an angel and a devil. She was enchanting like a devil and also pure like an angel. The sheep Pastel Mary created were often given as offerings to the gods that devils and angels served. Pastel Mary was the sacrificial lamb to be offered to Ren-Ren.

Ah, so many feelings…

All the times she’d fallen in love before now seemed less vivid. A lover whose passions would burn out was no lover at all. A child might call anything love or romance, but that was a misunderstanding or in their heads. True love was colored by choking passion. Once before, when Mary had heard the heroine of a TV drama make an exaggerated speech about her love, she’d thought, “Oh, that sounds kind of silly.” But that had been no exaggeration. True love was so big, no matter how much you said, it wasn’t enough. Mary had finally learned that.

She wanted to touch Ren-Ren’s horns, stroke her wings, touch the hexagram on her forehead, to grab hold of her and enjoy a stroll in the sky together, and as thanks, Mary would arrange a bed of sheep for her, and enveloped by the fluffy bed, the two of them would entangle their fingers as they—

Right as the wings of Pastel Mary’s imagination were about to fly off into eternity, Chelsea came back and pulled her thoughts to reality.

Reluctantly, Mary was forced to accompany Chelsea.

Mary restrained her heart from its desire to run to Ren-Ren right this minute, suppressing her affections with the thought that doing such a thing would make Ren-Ren hate her. That would hurt as bitterly as being unable to breathe right. She wouldn’t be able to take it. She had to meet Ren-Ren’s expectations.

Mary faced Chelsea with great care, but Chelsea looked down, fidgeting as she dug at the ground with her toes, then turned away. “I’m gonna go look around over there.” Then, without saying what she was going to do, she briskly left.

What luck! Mary cried with joy in her heart. She was about to immediately go to Ren-Ren, then stopped.

A sheep held her sleeve in its mouth and was tugging her.

“Huh? What? I want to go to Ren-Ren now, though,” Mary told it.

The sheep shook its head and pointed its snout in the direction Chelsea had gone.

“You’re telling me that Chelsea is acting strange?”

The sheep nodded.

“Hmm…I wonder.”

Pastel Mary was a carefree magical girl with her head in the clouds. Her sheep were cowardly and cautious creatures by comparison. They were far more sensitive to changes in the situation than the easily distracted Mary. She took a moment to reflect on what Chelsea had acted like before. Now that she thought of it, she really had been acting strangely.

Chelsea would find every excuse to chase after Mary and follow her around. She wouldn’t have let an opportunity for that go so she could voluntarily do rounds. Ever since she and Mary had been hired by Shepherdspie, she’d been slacking off or snacking all the time, constantly giving in to her urges. Had she ever once acted like the kind of hard worker who would volunteer to go patrol?

If she had some other goal…what would it be? Hmm…like playing games, romantically speaking?

It was just a random idea, but that might actually be what it was.

Temporarily hiding herself to get Mary’s attention, to make her realize how valuable Chelsea was as a magical girl. It was a concerningly shallow ploy, but thinking about it now, Chelsea had never once not been thoughtless since they’d first met.

And whenever Chelsea did something thoughtless, it always caused disaster. You wound up with a fire, or a cave-in, or a wall coming down—Mary scrabbled at her upper arms. Mary was also guilty of causing trouble for their employer, Shepherdspie, but she was doing better than Chelsea. Mary’s blunders were mild enough that she’d be forgiven if she apologized. That was why she’d decided she would apologize after. What she was doing now would help Shepherdspie, too, in the end. Chelsea’s deeds were beyond reproach.

If Chelsea caused some outrageous situation here, it would cause trouble for Ren-Ren, too.

With a look at Ren-Ren talking with Agri and Nephilia, Pastel Mary smothered her reluctance to part and peeled her gaze away again to turn to the forest, where Chelsea had gone out of sight. The thick, waist-deep underbrush at the edge of the forest was rustling, even though there was no wind.

Mary ordered her sheep to stay on the spot as she took cautious step after cautious step on tiptoe to keep from making any noise as she approached. She could hear a sound like fiddling with a mechanical object. She looked down at the underbrush. Chelsea was lying on her stomach there, fiddling with something.

“…Chelsea?”

Chelsea made a sound like she’d gotten a mochi stuck in the back of her throat and just about dropped the thing in her hands, juggling it a few times. That object was something Mary had seen before, too.

“Chelsea, those goggles,” Mary said.

Chelsea pushed herself up and gave Mary a smile that seemed pasted-on. The goggles in her right hand were those that magical girl named something like 5 or 7 or 8 or something had been wearing.

“Why do you have those?” Mary asked.

“Oh, it’s not, um…,” Chelsea stammered. “Oh yeah, these are, you know. They’re a present. I stole them from the enemy for you.”

“Um…I don’t really get it, but thanks.” Pastel Mary offered the bare minimum of gratitude as she accepted the goggles.

Seeing Chelsea look so happy was irritating for some reason. She wanted Chelsea to put herself in her shoes, having to pretend she was glad even though she wasn’t.

Pastel Mary’s heart was already far away from Chelsea and headed toward Ren-Ren. As for the magic goggles—she didn’t know how she would use them, but maybe a mage like Agri could look into them. And if they would be useful, that was sure to please Ren-Ren, and she would acknowledge Mary’s efforts.

She feigned surprise. “Huh? Did something move on the other side of that rock?”

“Huh? Really? I’ll go look.” Chelsea flew off.

Mary took that opportunity to beckon a sheep to her, and still facing Chelsea, she reached behind her back to hand the goggles to the sheep. There was no need to tell them who to hand the goggles to. Every single one of Mary’s sheep adored Ren-Ren. They would understand, even if she didn’t tell them who to give the goggles to.

In the moment Chelsea was away, Mary pretended to stretch as she watched Ren-Ren, who was on the other side of the rocks. Ren-Ren picked up the goggles, looking serious as she discussed with Nephilia and Agri. She didn’t have only an adorable smile. Her serious expressions were dignified and cool, too. Pastel Mary fell in love with Ren-Ren all over again as she filled up her Ren-Ren meter to satisfy herself.

“Looks like there was nothing there.”

Suddenly being spoken to, Mary jerked around to see Chelsea staring at her. It was close enough that she could practically feel her breath. Too close. And she’d come back too fast. Mary had planned for Chelsea to take a bit more time coming back, while Mary would move away from Ren-Ren, but that was already off track.

“Ah, I think it might have moved behind that rock this time!” Pastel Mary exclaimed.

“I’ll go look!” Chelsea chirped back.

Pastel Mary let out a sigh of relief, and when she looked over at Ren-Ren again, she was holding the goggles as she discussed something. She’d managed to get them over to Ren-Ren for the moment. Now, to just—

“There was nothing there after all,” Chelsea told her.

“So fast!” Pastel Mary cried.

“Fast? What is?”

“Oh, sorry, it’s nothing.”

Dreamy Chelsea’s intuition was so sharp, she could avoid attacks while hardly looking. Even if Chelsea wasn’t fully conscious of it, Mary couldn’t let her guard down. Mary broke her attention away from Ren-Ren and pretended like she couldn’t hear bits of her attractive voice to face Chelsea again.

But Chelsea’s gaze was over Mary’s shoulder—at Ren-Ren. Mary leaned against Chelsea, trying to block her from doing that, but Chelsea ignored that, pushing her aside as she cried out, “Ahhh! It’s those! Why do you have them?! I gave that as a present to May-May!”

Mary got up and clung to Chelsea’s arm.

Chelsea made a frightening cry like a moan or a howl as she swung her arms and Mary clinging to her along with them, stomping on the ground over and over, too, and kicking away rocks, which shattered and rained down like shrapnel that destroyed other rocks around or snapped off trees. Some of the rock bullets went far over the tops of the tallest trees, flying away into the distant sky and out of sight before they even began descending from their arc.

“No! You have the wrong idea!” Ren-Ren cried as she thrust both hands in front of her. The goggles were dangling from the pinkie of her right hand. “I was just holding on to these for a bit!”

Chelsea paused in her destruction, panting hard as she stared at Ren-Ren. Still hanging off Chelsea’s arm, Mary looked back and forth between the two magical girls. If Chelsea was going to commit further violence, then it would be Mary’s job to stop her.

Ren-Ren glanced over, and seeing Agri down on the ground watching how things would go, and then Nephilia, standing in front of Agri with her scythe at the ready, she let out a relieved-sounding sigh and continued. “Since…I am a magical girl who uses magic tools…I’m just a little more informed about them than others. Pastel Mary asked me to look into these goggles, so she let me have them for a moment just to check them…that’s all.”

Using the full name of “Pastel Mary” made them come off more distant. Mary understood that Ren-Ren was doing that deliberately, but it still prickled her heart painfully.

Chelsea snorted scornfully. “Then you should’ve said so to begin with.”

“I’m sorry,” Ren-Ren apologized. “That was misleading, wasn’t it? I will take care in the future.”

“So is it done? Um, your check or whatever.”

“Yes, I’m basically done. It seems that it will be difficult for anyone aside from their owner, 7753, to use them properly. Unfortunately…” Ren-Ren held the goggles up over her head politely and then bowed her head to approach Pastel Mary like a servant as she handed them over. Being close for the moment she handed them over made Pastel Mary’s heart flutter for a second, but Ren-Ren immediately backed away, leaving her disappointed.

Splinters of wood and dust still hung around them as Chelsea smiled. She sat Pastel Mary down on the destroyed rocks, then she sat down beside her as she began babbling on about magical girls and about herself.

Pastel Mary looked toward Ren-Ren. She wished she could join Agri and Nephilia’s whispered conversation, but she couldn’t leave Chelsea, and so despite feeling dejected, she listened to her talk.

  Touta Magaoka

There was the crack of trees and branches breaking, the slam of something being blasted away, and then a sharp whoosh of air and a shuddering that made him wonder if there had been an explosion. Maybe there really had been an explosion. It was dim in the cave with just the glow of the moon, but Touta could tell Rareko was growing even paler.

“These are…rocks! Rocks are being fired like bullets!” Rareko cried.

It didn’t end with the first. They were hit with two, three shots of the “rocks.” The whole cave rocked unsteadily, then creaked, and little stones pattered down.

Rareko rose to a crouch and looked outside. Outside was dangerous for other reasons. But it would also be dangerous to stay here. Touta understood that. The third strike of pelted rocks was the last, but there was a big crack in the wall of the cave. And it was still creaking.

Touta held Yol’s hand tight, and she squeezed it back.

Rareko was on her feet, hunched over, while Yol and Touta remained sitting, quieting their breathing as they waited patiently. Nothing happened. There wasn’t another attack, and nobody came. Five or ten minutes or even longer passed like that as they waited, but still, nothing happened. On no particular signal, they all sighed in succession.

“Is it over…?” Touta wondered.

“I wonder if Uncle and everyone else is all right,” Yol said.

“What was that to begin with…?” Rareko muttered.

There was a nasty sound. Rocks were pattering down. There was a large crack running along the ceiling, too. The crack made noise as it spread, making Touta gulp.

“Quiet…,” Yol whispered. Her face was pale, and her voice was trembling. “It seems like one wrong move will bring it down… Can you repair it, Rareko?”

“I’ll try.” With trepidation, Rareko stood and reached up to the ceiling, and when her hand was two inches away, a rock the size of an adult’s head clonked down. Rareko smacked it aside, but more kept rattling down one after another as the ceiling began caving in, and Rareko covered Touta and Yol with her body.

Touta smothered a shriek, and with Rareko covering him, he covered Yol in turn. Lying there, Yol fluttered her cape to unerringly pull out three cards from the deck equipped in it. The cards were all black with dense patterns over them, and not the Battlers cards Touta knew. Yol smack, smack, smacked the three cards down in an evenly spaced line on the ground, followed by a tunk, tunk, tunk as she suddenly produced four-inch metal pegs to pin the cards. Despite being thrown by the hands of a child, the pegs drove about halfway into the ground to nail down the cards as if she’d driven them in with a hammer. Hearing the sound of crumbling, Yol choked on rock dust and bent her fingers over and over in signs with her hands. Her movements gradually slowed, and her expression seemed pained, her breathing ragged and shoulders heaving.

Rareko was on all fours over the top of Yol and Touta to cover them. She patiently took the shower of rocks falling from above on her shoulders and the back of her head, looking like she was in pain as she rocked her body back and forth. A grayfruit fell with a plunk from her chest. “Give it…to the miss…!”

Touta’s hand immediately shot out to grab the fruit and gingerly bring it to Yol’s mouth.

Yol’s eyes widened, and she moved just her head to chomp into the fruit, finishing it in three bites. The gesture was so bold and aggressively unlike her very much refined rich-girl appearance, it seemed exaggerated. The life returned to her eyes, and she resumed her hand signs. At the end of a flowing sequence of gestures, she put her hands together and pointed them toward the cards and pegs, and the cards burst into flame like a magic trick, burning up instantly.

Touta had thought it was “like a magic trick,” but if he really thought about it, it was actual magic.

Touta realized. The sounds had stopped. Rareko pushed herself up, and the rocks that had rained down on top of her body rolled off onto the ground.

Bit by bit, the rock dust cleared. Touta’s eyes widened in shock. Lines of light were packed into the cracks and missing spots of the ceiling and walls, supporting it like spreading roots. It was like the nets they put up in areas with the risk of falling rocks or something.

“M-miss, this is reckless…,” Rareko stuttered. “It’s truly not a good idea to be so impulsive.”

“I should ask if you’re all right, Rareko,” Yol said.

“Magical girls are resilient.” Rareko gently patted off Yol’s hat and cape, then patted off her own head and shoulders, taking off her glasses to examine them from many angles. It seemed she was more worried about her glasses than herself. Seeing her do that, Touta remembered he was dirty as well, so he dusted himself off.

“That grayfruit you had me eat was the one I gave to you, wasn’t it?” Yol asked. “Wasn’t that the last one? We’ll be in trouble if you can’t transform anymore.”

“I should have a bit more time left until my transformation is undone. It will be dawn soon. Once it’s light out, let’s hurry to gather fruit before that happens. Um, ah, though I do feel it’s, um, deeply inexcusable for me to rely on your magic when I’m supposed to protect you, miss.”

“Your protecting me or not isn’t what matters.” Yol placed her right hand over Touta’s hand on her shoulder, then stuck out her left thumb and held it up as she turned her head to look back. She was smiling boldly just like the duelists in anime. “I can’t sit around being protected, can I? I have to show my best, too.”

Her eyes were red. There were tear tracks still on her cheeks. Touta clenched his teeth. Even though there was no way she could feel cheerful, she was doing her best to act that way for Touta’s and Rareko’s sakes.

All he could do right now was to lighten the mood by acting happy and bright. Even if that was all he could do, it was better to do it than not. Touta took Yol’s hand, circled in front of her, and knelt down. “Oh yeah, you were a mage, too, huh.”

“Oh yeah? Did you forget?” Yol pouted.

“Well, I’d never seen you use magic before.”

“What a mean thing to say. It was the right idea to show my best, after all.”

“Yeah, it was great. The way you pulled out those cards was cool.”

“Heh-heh,” Yol chuckled smugly. “I tucked some magic talismans in there thinking something like this might happen. It took me even longer to practice drawing them out stylishly than it took me to learn the spell.”

Touta smiled, and Yol smiled back. They were speaking as quietly as possible to keep from being heard outside, but still, they were able to laugh out of enjoyment for the first time in a long while.

“Miss,” the voice of an unfamiliar woman interrupted them. Yol and Touta both turned to the back of the cave. Where Rareko had been was a human woman in a maid outfit. She was not a magical girl but an adult woman. She was looking even worse than Rareko had been a moment ago. She was pale and sallow. The woman patted at her face, making sounds like “Ah, ah!” as if checking.

Yol pointed at her with a trembling hand. “Rareko, you…” Her voice was trembling far more than her hand. And the woman—Rareko—was trembling even more than Yol. If Yol was trembling, then Rareko was shuddering violently.

“Why…? It’s happening faster, compared to before,” Rareko said.

“What about your spare fruit, Rareko?” Yol asked.

“The one I gave to you was my last, miss…”

Yol looked toward the entrance. Picking up her staff, she made to stand up, and Touta grabbed her upper arm from behind, while Rareko grabbed her wrist from the front to stop her.

“It’s my fault that we don’t have any more,” Yol declared. “I will go find some fruit.”

“No, don’t act like that!” Touta cried. “If you hadn’t used your magic, we would have been buried alive!”

“Then what should I do…? Bring it up?”

“Bring it up?”

“From my stomach.”

“Miss!” Rareko wailed.

“Don’t—don’t do that, Yol. There’s probably no point.” Touta desperately tried to convince her, still keeping a firm grip on her arm.

Yol’s arm stopped pulling and relaxed, and Touta hesitantly released her. Yol slumped over, hands on the ground. Rareko looked somehow relieved, wiping sweat off her forehead.

Still looking at the ground, so quiet she could barely be heard, Yol muttered, “What do we do…?”

Touta waffled, looked down, then raised his chin again to put on as bright an expression as he could. “Once it’s light outside, let’s go search for fruit. Mr. Navi might come, too.”

Rareko nodded weakly, and Yol muttered, “All right.”

  John Shepherdspie

Mana was constantly in a bad mood. She was on edge just walking. Furthermore, she didn’t bother trying to hide her irritation, making even Shepherdspie, who had nothing to do with the cause of her bad mood, uncomfortable.

7753’s shoulders were slumped like she’d lost her energy. She was blaming herself, making it her fault for being completely useless because she’d lost her goggles.

But so far as Shepherdspie could see, 7753 was not the primary cause of Mana’s mood going downhill. 7753 was probably about a third of it, but Mana was angrier about Marguerite. Mana kept bringing up how she’d let Chelsea get away, assuming that Marguerite would have been able to win if they’d had a real fight. And when Marguerite took it gently, Mana got mad at her and said, “Enough excuses.” Marguerite had said, “I can fight her if I’m allowed to kill her,” but if that was the case, then they couldn’t let her fight.

Tepsekemei was busy sniffing at the head of the group, with no attention to spare to their conversation. Though it seemed like she was a magical girl of few words to begin with, so she probably wouldn’t have tried to join in even if she’d been able to.

7753 was just slumping wholeheartedly, so she wasn’t about to say anything.

This forced Shepherdspie to be the one to patch things up. When Mana tried to bring it up again, he changed the subject, making an effort to redirect her anger as much as he could. Despite being hungry to begin with—and hunger is the greatest evil of all—he was forced to make the effort. When Mana started to say, “Back there—” he cut her off by saying, “Oh yes, so…”

A quiet voice from behind prompted him, “Go ahead.” Mentally sighing in relief, with a “Pardon me,” Shepherdspie continued, “it’s been quite some time since the sun has set.”

“True,” Mana replied grumpily.

Hearing that, Marguerite followed up with, “It shouldn’t be too long before sunrise.”

Shepherdspie nodded. “Unlike magical girls, I can’t see in the dark, you see. So I’ll be very grateful for morning to come. And I’ll be able to help to search for fruit, too… For whatever my efforts are worth.”

Following right behind Marguerite and walking in her footsteps kept Shepherdspie from stumbling. But there was no way he could keep an eye out in every direction to search for grayfruit while walking.

“Thank you very much,” Marguerite replied.

Her thanks made him feel awkward, since he hadn’t been speaking all that sincerely to begin with. He had plenty of things on his mind. I’m hungry. Give us a break already. I want to go home. I want to have a good sleep. I wish it was all just a dream. I just want to die. Get me to safety. It was all fundamentally worrying about himself and nothing that he could say out loud and have heard.

“Well, hmm, it really, really, really won’t count for much, though…,” Shepherdspie said.

“So then as I was going to say,” Mana cut in, and while Shepherdspie was privately exasperated, thinking, So you’re going to say it…, he obviously wouldn’t cut her off a second time.

“First of all,” Mana continued, “assuming that we’re going to gather grayfruit, what will we do after that? I don’t think everyone will come together.”

“Hmm?”

“Chelsea is clearly not in her right mind. It seems as if she’s being controlled by someone. There’s no guarantee that others aren’t being controlled, either—and no guarantee they’re not doing the controlling. If we could have at least captured Chelsea, we could have learned some things, though.”

In the end, she’d come back to that again. It made Shepherdspie want to sigh, but he restrained it halfway up his throat. Sighing would offend Mana, and it would also make Shepherdspie unnecessarily hungry. It would bring about nothing good. If they could get back to the main building, then Shepherdspie could wield his cooking skills—there should be a little fond left—and fill their stomachs, and that would soothe Mana’s heart, too. But if he was to propose such a thing, he might be the next one getting snapped at by Mana.

“It wasn’t the sort of situation where I could—” Marguerite cut off halfway and froze. Shepherdspie noticed that her right hand was ready on her rapier, her eyes panicked as she stared ahead.

About ten steps ahead beyond the thick clumps of low brush was a pond. The smell of water wafted toward them, followed by the sounds of water—the sound of a splash on the surface, the sound of something sinking, and the sound of water falling. Since it was dark, he tried to capture it with his ears rather than his eyes, but he couldn’t tell what was going on.

Then the surface of the water broke. Shepherdspie’s eyes widened. It was a human-shaped silhouette.

From the pond? Why? Who?

The figure moved as smoothly as if there was no water resistance at all, its upper body rising from the pond.

Each of its hands held a shining object. Shepherdspie narrowed his eyes. Those objects, shining under the light of the moon, were axes, the kind a woodcutter would have.

The glow of the axes illuminated the face of the figure. It was a girl—or no, this was a goddess. Phrases like “empty-headed” or “dreamy-eyed” would be apt to describe the vacant expression on her flawlessly arranged facial features, and it wasn’t even clear whether she was focused on what was in front of her. Her all-white, plain toga was floating slightly, while her lush golden locks flowed silkily in the wind. Her hair seemed light. Despite having come out of the water, she wasn’t wet.

One ax shone gold, the other silver. The one who held them looked just like the “goddess of the spring” from the stories. When Shepherdspie was little, he’d read the fairy tale about the honest woodcutter getting a golden ax in a library of the Magical Kingdom. There had been a picture book of children’s tales and Aesop’s from various worlds, and it had depicted the beautiful goddess carrying axes as so bewitching, it had left an intense impression on him as a child. The story itself hadn’t been as impactful as the illustration. He’d just felt envious of the woodcutter for getting free stuff, rather than the lesson that honesty is a virtue.

“Is the ax you dropped the golden ax?” the goddess suddenly asked. Her voice carried through the dim forest. Her vocal quality was not only clear but transparently delicate and sweet.

The goddess raised her chin slightly, looked straight ahead at them, and said, “Or is it the silver ax?”

The look in her eyes was still vacant, like you couldn’t tell where she was looking, but it was clear who she was speaking to. His heart raced.

Shepherdspie’s eyes never left the goddess. He didn’t even blink. But the goddess’s left hand wavered slightly, and there was a sound like something being repelled. Without even time to think, Tepsekemei’s upper body disappeared.

The pond surged, burst, and sprayed out. Both the goddess’s arms wavered, and an instant later, Tepsekemei’s lower body disappeared as well. Then Marguerite vanished, and the ground cracked open, and multiple trees broke off at the same time. Everything happened at once. Shepherdspie just stood there, unable to say anything, unable to even collapse or sink to the ground.

Something was repelled. The silver ax turned blue, and the gold ax went red. With a sound like electrical discharge, they were flowing. Another sound rang out. Something fluttered from right to left, and a whole bunch of trees were mowed down all at once. Dead leaves became shreds, and a whirlwind whipped up earth and sand as it gouged deeply into the ground. A spray of water rained down. As destroyed trees fell from above, everything was moving slowly for some reason. The goddess blocked a rapier with her left ax as she swung her right ax upward. 7753’s shriek and Mana’s yell grew distant.

Shepherdspie spread both arms wide. He hadn’t moved because he was trying to do something about the situation. Half a beat later, he was frightened by his own actions, but it also strangely made sense. The goddess had that same vacant expression as she tilted her head and swung down her ax.

  Love Me Ren-Ren

The balance being maintained between Chelsea and Mary was even more delicate than Ren-Ren had thought. Agri had casually asked her for “another one or two, if possible,” but any more people, and it would all go out of Ren-Ren’s control. It wasn’t that she might not be able to control them anymore; it was a certainty that she would have no control over them. Chelsea’s behavior was sudden and idiosyncratic, for better or worse, and she’d been unpredictable to begin with. And on top of that, she was endowed with incredible violence. Even with the strength of all the magical girls present, they wouldn’t be able to restrain Chelsea if she actually lost it.

“Well, what can you do,” said Agri. “I did want a bit more numbers, but if we don’t have them, that just means we do what we have to do without them.”

“I’m sorry,” said Ren-Ren.

“It’s fine; you don’t have to apologize. It’s not like it’s your fault. Chelsea on her own is actually worth two or three people, right? She even got…” Agri held the goggles up to face height and smirked. “…these things for us.”

“They’re not in a big fuss over it, are they?”

“If they are making a fuss, that’s not such a bad thing, in a way.”

Ren-Ren could imagine 7753, who’d had her goggles stolen, as well as the mage and magical girl who were with her, but all she could do was apologize in her heart.

“Well, you know. You don’t have to look so grim about it.” Agri kindly smacked her in the back, and Ren-Ren looked at her. Agri had seemed like she was enjoying herself quite a few times since coming to this island, but she’d never been smiling with as much amusement as she was now. About a step and a half behind Agri, Nephilia was snickering, even more amused. Ren-Ren was the only one grim, as Agri put it.

“But…it’s a crime,” Ren-Ren protested.

“This is business, okay. It’s to get rich.”

“But this is— Hold on a minute.” Catching something moving in the corner of her vision, Ren-Ren nocked an arrow on her bow and stepped in front of Agri. A white piece of paper flew out from the deep darkness of the forest at the speed of a child casually walking. Maybe it wasn’t quite flying. It was more accurate to say it wafted along unnaturally.

Standing in front of Agri, Ren-Ren gently pushed it aside, but Agri plucked the paper in her hands.

“That’s dangerous,” Ren-Ren warned. “It could be poisoned, or it could explode.”

“No, it’s just a letter.” Agri opened up the piece of paper that had been folded in four and, reading the contents, smiled with just the edges of her lips. “It’s an invitation. I’m going to go out for a bit. I’m counting on you to watch things.”

Agri strode right off, and Ren-Ren panicked and looked behind them. Mary seemed concerned about them, but Chelsea wasn’t bothered at all as she continued talking on. Ren-Ren gave Mary a restraining look to keep her from coming, while to Nephilia she said, “Please handle things here,” before following after Agri without waiting for Nephilia to nod back.

“Where are you going?” Ren-Ren asked.

“You’re coming, too?” Agri said. “The letter said it wanted me to come alone, though.”

“Alone? No, that’s too dangerous.”

“I don’t think it’ll be an issue… Well, but…I guess maybe it’d be best to have you know about things, too. I doubt it’s what he wants, but that’ll probably make things easier for me.” Agri nodded a bunch like that made sense to her, then headed off in the direction the letter had come from.

Ren-Ren continued to try to get her to stop many times, saying, “It’s too dangerous,” and “Let’s talk first,” but Agri did nothing but laugh and wouldn’t listen or stop.

Walking through the dark forest, when Agri stumbled over a thick root that bulged up from the ground, Ren-Ren came to her side to support her. “Whoops, thanks.”

“It’s nothing, but more importantly—”

“It’s fine, it’s fine. Well, maybe I’m not very fine at walking in the dark, but it looks like we don’t have to walk anymore anyway.”

There was the crunch of stepping on earth from deeper in the forest, followed by the sound of kicking plants and someone cursing. Then a mage Ren-Ren also recognized—Navi Ru—plodded into view. Perhaps because the direction he’d come from had no path, thorny leaves were stuck on the hood of his robe.

He looked the same as always, and he didn’t seem very tired. He moved briskly, and he actually seemed filled with energy. Only the greasy sweat and thick five-o’clock shadow on his face, plus the marks of dried blood, expressed the passage of time. Agri and Navi stood blocking either side of a narrow animal trail as they faced each other.

“You sent this letter, right?” Agri asked him.

“Yeah, I did.” Navi gave Ren-Ren a look that would be difficult to call friendly, and Agri waved a hand to cut that off.

“Don’t worry about Ren-Ren. She’s basically like my other half.”

“I’m sure that’s how you see it.”

“It’ll make discussion harder if you won’t accept her.”

This time, his expression turned more clearly bitter. The way he crossed his arms and looked down on Agri, he looked like nothing other than a member of a criminal organization, and he was probably used to using his looks to pressure others.

But it didn’t work on Agri at all, and she ignored Navi’s look with that same amused smile. “It’s fine, it’s fine. It’s nothing to worry about, ’kay.”

Navi was the first one to look away. He muttered, “Oh well,” under his breath as if to himself, then pulled a rolled-up cloth from his sleeve and flapped it open. Spread out, the cloth held floating about twenty inches over the ground, and Navi sat down on one side. It was a carpet, three feet wide and eight feet long. “Fine. Then it’s talk time.”

“I expected you to come faster. It causes trouble for me when you’re not being very cooperative.”

“You were waiting for me to come to you?”

“I knew there were things you wanted to talk about. There’s no way you wouldn’t come. Partly because you don’t want us pulling anything to stir up trouble, and also because you want us to work with you, if possible.”

“Huh, sounds like you’ve been thinking about this a lot. You’re right; I did want to see you. You’re pulling a little too much for me to let it slide.”

“It was about at the point where I couldn’t wait anymore; I thought maybe you couldn’t find us. I was just thinking we’d do you the favor of going to you.”

“Is that right? Well, have a seat.” Navi patted the space beside him, and Agri nimbly hopped on. Ren-Ren never let go of her bow, watching the two mages in front of her. Though Agri couldn’t have had the opportunity to groom her hair or skin, she looked about unchanged from the morning before.

“It looks like you’ve been gathering grayfruit,” Navi said.

“We have,” Agri acknowledged.

“And you made Mary your lackey?”

“Chelsea, too.”

“Could you tell me why you’re recklessly trying to make things worse?”

Agri pouted like that wasn’t her intention, shrugging at him. “Make things worse? I’m offended. I’m trying to help you out. I said I’d make sure we’d keep each other’s secrets and whatnot to keep problematic things from getting exposed to the wrong people. Isn’t that right? We brought Nephy in when we first met to make a contract that says just that. That contract is binding on both sides. You get that, too, don’t you?”

“Yeah, I do.”

“And it’s not just about you and me. It counts for all your underlings as well as my friends. So then Ren-Ren and Nephy won’t get hit or kicked by any of yours.”

Navi touched the fingertips of his right index finger and thumb and stroked them along his jaw to pinch his beard and pluck a hair. It looked painful, but the man himself didn’t seem to feel it, his attention on something else. He was staring at a tree with a look he hadn’t had before, like his gaze was somewhere far away. “What’re you trying to pull here, lady? Let’s not do anything too outrageous. There’s an old buddy of mine here on this island, as well as new friends.”

“Well. I don’t want to be reckless, either. You feel the same way, don’t you, Ren-Ren?”

Having the discussion suddenly turned to her, Ren-Ren hurriedly nodded back. Her gesture was sudden but sincere. She didn’t want Agri being reckless.

Agri smiled back like Nephilia and nodded. “I was thinking I’d give up some grayfruit to anyone who says they just have to have them. They’re valuable items on this island, and there’s not enough, so there’ll be a lot of people like that, right? Of course, I’ll receive a thank-you, too. I can make contracts, so even if they can’t pay here on this island, I can just get it once we get out.”

“Money?”

“Look, you’re making that face.”

Navi patted at his own face. The dried blood stuck on his forehead came off and sprinkled down. “What face?”

“A face that says, ‘You’re taking all those risks for something as petty as money?’” Just for an instant, the smile was peeled off Agri’s face. She wore an expression like she was staring at something she couldn’t get, and despite knowing she’d never get it, she couldn’t leave. Envy, jealousy, bitterness, and frustration were all mixed together, and sprinkled on top was the determination that she was going to have it, no matter what.

“Are you in debt or something?” Navi asked her.

“No. I’m going to be rich.” She said it like a child, with clear determination.

The hand over Navi’s forehead closed, and he massaged away the wrinkles in his brow before shaking his head. “What you’re after isn’t even that great. Even if a slave saves up money bit by bit to buy the right of citizenship, they’ll never become a real citizen. They’re just a freed slave. All the citizens’ll be whispering, ‘I hear that person was originally a slave.’ They won’t even think about it as malicious backbiting. They’re just talking about how someone who’s different from them is different. That’s how they think.”

“So?”

“I’m saying that even if you scraped together the money to get in with the rich, you’ll be the only one who thinks you’re one of them. You think you’ll enjoy having them talk behind your back, like, ‘She’s some upstart broad with no class, the daughter of a mistress’? I can’t stand that sorta thing. Isn’t it way more tasteful to be acknowledged through some clear accomplishment?” Navi gestured animatedly as he spoke. From how he talked, of course he wasn’t sincerely concerned about Agri, but it seemed like he wanted her to change her mind, at the very least. After he was done saying his bit, Navi examined Agri’s expression.

She was smiling. “I’ll think about whether I’ll enjoy it or not after I’ve done it.”

Even Ren-Ren thought the ksh-shh snicker meant Nephilia was going too far, but it did suit her.

“You’re too much to deal with,” Navi muttered, and his expression spoke louder than his words. “Doing business when a murderer is walking around, you’re out of your mind.”

“A murderer?” Agri replied. “Come on—that’s not what’s going on. The one to kill Maiya was your magical girl, wasn’t it?”