Mahou Shoujo Ikusei Keikaku - Volume 15 - Chapter 21

CHAPTER 21

UNBENT, UNBENDING

  Nephilia

Basically trusting Chelsea when she’d said she would return it properly, Nephilia had entrusted the gear to her. She wasn’t about to push for the unreasonable with a magical girl who might do anything if she didn’t listen.

Chelsea leaped on top of the unshapely star-shaped plate that she’d just made by carving it out of concrete, and Nephilia hugged Chelsea’s waist, riding behind. It was just barely big enough for two to ride.

With two magical girls aboard, the star zoomed through the air. Nephilia was badly injured and her whole body hurt, but her excitement was even greater than her injuries.

Riding together on the star, they flew out the window of the main building toward the forest behind it, in other words to where the fight was happening.

They circled to get to where the noises were coming from, sneaking over quickly in a low-altitude flight, and as they saw what was going on from a distance, that excitement receded and pain came to the fore instead, torturing her whole body.

Nephilia doubted her eyes, but no matter how she doubted them, reality would not budge. Even though the goddess was injured, she was still moving, and Clarissa, who should have been dealing with the killer, couldn’t be seen anywhere. Ren-Ren was gone, too. Yes, Ren-Ren was gone. Looking down from the star, Nephilia clenched her right fist hard. Even trying to squeeze with all the strength she had, she hardly felt any pain.

She’d lost all her cool. She felt more pressed than even this situation called for. Chelsea told her, “I’m going over there to help Marguerite,” so Nephilia panicked and jumped off, then looked around. She crouched down as low as she could to keep the goddess from seeing her, using her arms like the front legs of an animal to move as she searched for Ren-Ren.

Ren-Ren’s arrows were thrust in all over the place, in the ground, the trees. The vivid signs of battle only gave Nephilia more bad feelings about this. How had things come to this? She asked herself if she’d gotten duped by Navi Ru, but she’d just concluded that couldn’t be. Given that, there was no reason he would send only Ren-Ren to a deadly situation.

Navi Ru was definitely trying to bring the situation under control. Nephilia didn’t doubt that the mage from the Lab was deeply involved in the incident. That was precisely why Nephilia had tried to negotiate with him. The man had also been confident about the goddess. That hadn’t been the baseless confidence of the reckless. That was the confidence of a rotten man who had survived the Osk Faction: treacherous, deeply suspicious, and surrounded by schemes.

Had something happened that even Navi Ru could not predict? If that was the case, then there was no way that Nephilia, who had even less information than he did, would be able to predict something he couldn’t.

Nephilia went from bush to bush, behind one tree to behind another, freezing and going flat on the ground each time the ground shuddered. Her heart felt like it was going to burst. Death was not far away. Pressing her heart with her right hand, she prayed that it would not stop yet, and, smothering her fear, she got moving again. The fighting was still far off, but there was no way to know when Nephilia’s location would be attacked.

Without falling to the ground shaking from fear, Nephilia made her way along, and behind a particularly tall tree, she discovered someone had been laid down. Nephilia bit her lip hard. She couldn’t even fake a smile. It was Clarissa, now in a pitiful state. Her transformation had already come undone. Her body had suffered enough damage that Nephilia didn’t feel the need to check her breathing. Even the miracle that had woken Dreamy Chelsea could do nothing about this.

There’s no mistaking it.

Something unexpected had happened. But even if Clarissa had died, what about Ren-Ren? Nephilia slowly lifted her head and turned to the epicenter of the explosions and rumbling.

If Ren-Ren was anywhere, it would be at the center of the fight. With various obstacles blocking her field of view—tall grass and shrubs, broken trees, a little mountain of earth and sand—it was difficult to see far. But heading to the center of the battle now would be nothing other than an act of suicide. Miss Marguerite was fighting with the goddess. To Nephilia’s eye, they were both so fast, she couldn’t tell what either of them was doing.

It didn’t seem like she could interfere with the fight. So, then, should she try to get some more information? She hunched over to try to touch Clarissa, but a loud noise made her look up again. It was an explosion. Something was being blasted away. A girl in a school uniform was flung up high in the sky.

The moment Nephilia saw the girl, she pushed her injured body and raced out.

She figured out where the girl would land and slid toward her like hitting a base, catching the little body in her arms, moving a few more yards from momentum before turning them both around and letting her own back strike a tree trunk.

Moaning in pain, she looked down at the girl. Her transformation had come undone, but Nephilia hadn’t forgotten that face. It was Clantail. Her eyes were closed, with an anguished expression. She was unconscious. Nephilia wondered if she should give her grayfruit to eat, and she was about to put a hand in her pocket when she reacted to a voice that carried well and looked up.

Dreamy Chelsea was floating in the air on that star-shaped plate. After making some kind of statement, she made the star at her feet fly straight at the goddess.

  Miss Marguerite

Chelsea came out of her pose, raising a palm to hold back Marguerite when she tried to stop her. Marguerite came to a reflexive halt. Chelsea’s whole body, star decoration included, shone like a star in the sky, and, a heartbeat later, there was a tremendous explosion.

Marguerite’s back broke a fallen tree, and her shoulder hit a boulder to bounce off. Tossed up in the air along with the dirt, she turned in midair to grab her hat as it made to fly away, wrapping her cape around a tree trunk to slow herself. She made a light landing with just her right toe on a branch, pulling down the brim of her hat to shield her face from the dirt that rained down as she turned back toward the area of the explosion.

Chelsea was flying through the air headfirst. Like a mass fired out of a catapult, she went a few dozen yards in a clean parabola before disappearing beyond the trees. She’d passed out, moving along with the kinetic energy and not trying to fight it. She had a satisfied smile on her face.

Marguerite stopped her feet from trying to rush after Chelsea and pointed her toes toward the explosion—seeing what was there, she found out why Chelsea had been so satisfied. She had done her job. Marguerite had still not done hers. It began now.

  Nephilia

After Chelsea made contact with the goddess, there was an incredible explosion.

Nephilia went down on the ground with the girl underneath her. Branches, earth, and stones hit her back, and, while moaning yet again, she lifted her face to find now it was Chelsea flying in an arc. Though her transformation wasn’t undone, she didn’t seem conscious. While inwardly cursing, Why is it always me? Nephilia ran out to catch Chelsea, rolling over the ground even more awkwardly before somehow slowing their momentum to stop faceup on her back.

Bearing the pain, she tried to get up, coughing, with her right arm around a tree trunk. The sensation in her palm made her right eyebrow go up, and, raising her upper body, she brought her right palm before her face. She was holding a bird wing dirtied with mud. Nephilia’s brow furrowed as she glared at the wing. It had to have been white to begin with, but now it was smeared with the dirty color of earth.

It was a large, imposing wing. The birds she had seen on this island were all small, and none had wings like this. Nephilia’s heart had been in disarray for a while, and now it made a particularly loud thump. She bit her lower lip, wetted it with spit, opened her mouth, and let out a breath. Her heartbeat didn’t seem to want to calm down.

She put her hands together and rubbed them with the wing between them.

“Don’t… Family…”

Ren-Ren’s voice, her words, came out of Nephilia’s mouth. Rubbing Ren-Ren’s wing had activated her magic.

Nephilia tightly clenched her jaw. Had she been in peak condition, she might have managed to break her teeth. But right now, she had no such strength left.

  Miss Marguerite

The goddess stood in the center of a thirty-foot-wide crater, all trees and earth blasted away. The corners of her lips curved up, and a single drop of red fluid dripped from her mouth, followed by a second and third drop, along with red bubbles that came burbling out, overflowing from even deeper within to come dribbling out of her throat and down her chest.

Just half of her ax blade remained, completely cut in two. Though what was left of the black blade writhed, its movements were sluggish, and the black color was slowly fading. The goddess leaned forward and coughed, and blood spurted from the gear stuck in her shoulder.

It was a gear. Firm and sturdy, it sliced deeply into the body of the goddess, which hadn’t been affected by the stomp of an African elephant or Marguerite’s stabs, breaking her collarbone to stick out from it now.

It was clearly a magical item, but that wasn’t all—it also had a strange presence. Even when it was seen from a distance, just that one place was in focus, while the area around it was fuzzy.

Marguerite understood now. Chelsea had accelerated the star-shaped concrete, striking the goddess with the gear buried within it. She had believed that the gear would get through the Archfiend Pam wing, the goddess’s physical strength and toughness, everything in order to pierce her, and she’d pulled it off.

Marguerite didn’t know what that gear was. But her body moved before her brain, and she ran, jumping off a branch to the ground, brandishing her rapier to cut and even the fallen tree where she landed to make it straight, propping a leg up on it and using her magic to bend it to use it as a launchpad. With the combined strength of her leg and her magic, she leaped at the goddess.

The goddess spat blood and twisted around, swinging what was left of her ax at Marguerite.

It was slow. She was swinging slower than she ever had before. Though a hit would still kill her, Marguerite could deal with this well enough. She turned sideways to avoid the strike, squatted to evade the second attack, then managed the thrust of the ax handle with a small hop. With dirt coming down around them like heavy rainfall, she glared at the enemy.

The enemy was not faking. She had definitely weakened. She was on her last legs.

The goddess reached out to the gear that impaled her so painfully, and Marguerite matched that movement to thrust inward. A desperate slice made to swipe away that thrust, which Marguerite avoided by jumping to the right, then dodging to the left, slicing fallen trees as she went. While she was moving, her toe skimmed a fallen tree that had been sliced up, and she activated her magic. The fallen tree that had been cut to be straight bent at ninety degrees for a direct hit on the back of the goddess’s head, then scattered into splinters.

It was far from being a fatal wound, but as the goddess was now, the impact was enough to make her lose her balance. Marguerite stepped on the goddess’s knee with her right foot, using that to start a run-up to her shoulder and, at the end, forcefully stomp on the gear that impaled her collarbone.

She felt the flesh through the bottom of her foot. It was still hard and strong. Her flesh held the gear in place, stopping it from going in any farther. Even though it should hurt, you couldn’t see that in the expression of the goddess—a vague smile that clashed with the situation.

On the rebound from stomping on the gear, Marguerite jumped and grabbed a branch. The goddess staggered, unable to even counterattack, and landed on her back in the thicket. There was the sound of rustling leaves as she continued to move around in the thicket without getting up.

Marguerite couldn’t let her get away. They wouldn’t get a better chance than this. This was the time to attack and keep attacking. Marguerite went from branch to branch, trying to catch what the goddess was doing from above. She wasn’t going to attack carelessly, or with the assumption that she had the upper hand. No matter how weakened the enemy was, she couldn’t let her guard down with this one.

She read her movements from various factors—the swaying of the grass, the flickers of white toga or golden hair that came up above the thicket. While moving around, the goddess put her hand into her clothes, pulled out something, and put it in her mouth. Was it grayfruit, or something else that was equivalent to it? She wasn’t even looking at Marguerite. She must be doing her best to try to confuse her, as she frequently changed which way she faced and which way she went.

Marguerite was about to take a bite of grayfruit and stopped herself—she put it back in her pocket and slid down from the tree as she was. On landing, she stomped hard on the ground with her right foot, and one of the pebbles that bounced up from the impact she placed on top of her foot and kicked at the goddess. While crawling, the goddess turned back, swinging her ax in an awkward position to smash the pebble. With the pieces of the rock scattering around, Marguerite stepped in before the ax could swing back the other way. She thrust first, and when the goddess tried to meet the attack with her left fist, Marguerite fluttered her cape and took a step back to evade.

Through that step back, she bent her legs low to stomp forward even harder. She controlled the movements of her ax by putting the goddess on guard for rapier thrusts, and, stepping in again, once she was close enough to feel her breath, she raised her right leg.

She kicked the gear like a stomp. While it wasn’t so much as a fountain, blood did shoot out as from a water gun to speckle both their faces. The goddess rose to her feet while kicking, and Marguerite immediately backed up, getting away from her to make her kick through air.

Feeling a sharp pain, Marguerite looked down at her right foot. A blade like a butter knife had pierced through her foot. It was buried deep in the earth from the handle to about halfway along the blade, sticking out of the ground with the blade part up. Marguerite had put her foot on top of the blade of that weapon, which was sticking about a foot out of the ground. Right after the pain, questions surged at her.

Marguerite was capable of bringing her foot back the moment it touched a blade, even if she was in the middle of battle. But she actually hadn’t managed to do that. The blade was just too abnormally sharp. This wasn’t normal. It was strange even for a blade coming from a magical girl. So then what was this?

She was confused for the briefest moment. She knew what weapon the enemy used. She had let go of Maiya’s staff just earlier. Aside from that, she only had her own ax, and Marguerite could have sworn she had never had this weapon. So that would mean she had used something lying in the thicket. Had she been moving through the thicket in order to use this? How had she known that this was lying here?

The slightest opening could be fatal in a battle between magical girls, to say nothing of when you were up against a creature beyond common sense like this goddess—even if she was heavily wounded. You could die three or four times.

The goddess stood up and swung her ax with part of its blade missing. Marguerite looked up at her. Eyes fixed and unmoving on the goddess, she saw something like a vague shadow quietly sneaking up behind her.

It had the form of a dancer wafting in the wind—by the time Marguerite realized it was Tepsekemei, she had approached the goddess from behind, from her blind spot. Expanding and contracting her body like smoke, she slid her hand toward the wound the gear was stuck in, but before she could reach, the goddess swung the ax blade that had just half of it left behind her. The blade became flame and blazed up red, licking all over Tepsekemei’s body, and the form of the dancer instantly vanished.

Marguerite calmed her breathing and heartbeat, fixing the enemy with cold eyes as she went into her stance. The wound in her foot emphasized its presence with heat and pain, but she ignored it. What she should be thinking of was not the negative influence of the wound. She didn’t have the time to pray for Tepsekemei’s safety, either.

  Nephilia

Nephilia looked to the center of the explosion. Marguerite had her sword at the ready, the goddess was swinging her ax up, and the dancing girl–style magical girl was sneaking up on her from behind—that was Tepsekemei. Nephilia slid out the three sections of Rareko’s extending metal staff and threw it at the goddess like a throwing spear.

She didn’t have the time to watch and see how it turned out. Nephilia flattened herself to the ground, hiding in the grass while holding Chelsea, then moved to where she had left Clantail, and from there she skittered back to the place where Clarissa’s body was, laying the two down behind the tree and lying down beside them.

Rubbing Ren-Ren’s wing had activated Nephilia’s magic. In other words, Ren-Ren was no longer alive. Nephilia should have been able to anticipate this, since Clarissa had been killed, but her heart was hammering anyway. She pressed her chest, taking ragged breaths in and out like a hen clucking as she suppressed the urge to vomit.

What she needed was not sadness or mourning—not even anger or a desire for revenge.

She consciously evened her breathing. What Nephilia needed now was calm. Calm would lead to coldheartedness. She would do all the things that needed to be done.

From Clarissa’s body, she plucked one nail from the pinkie of the right hand. She could use it as material for her magic. There wasn’t the time for her to use her magic now, but she would definitely need it in the future. She didn’t want to damage the body of a child, even just by taking a single pinkie nail. But even if this wasn’t what she wanted, it was no time to be turning away. Even if it was cruel, she would do all the things she had left to complete.

  Miss Marguerite

The goddess was about to turn back to Marguerite when from over Marguerite’s head something stick-shaped flew in, which the goddess smacked down. The three-piece sliding metal rod was struck away, bounced off tree bark, and then thrust itself into the ground. Marguerite didn’t wonder who had thrown it.

Marguerite came forward. The goddess twisted around.

Marguerite lightly rounded her left hand and pointed the back of her hand at the opponent. It would look like she was hiding her palm. She was, in fact, hiding something in her hand. Marguerite had pulled the butter knife–like sword that had pierced through her foot from bottom to top out of the ground, and was holding it, hiding it with her hand and arm.

The goddess hadn’t been focusing her gaze on any one thing but on broadly capturing the overall picture, but now that shifted slightly. She became more strongly aware of Marguerite’s upper body on the left side. Feeling that increased awareness, Marguerite spread her left palm at the enemy, letting the sword slip from her palm, and spun in a half turn to take the handle.

She still had yet to identify what this sword was. But it seemed her judgment that it was special had been correct. It was a special enough item for the goddess to be particularly aware of it.

The two magical girls stepped forward at the same time. Of course Marguerite wasn’t shaking the ground as she stepped forward, but neither was the goddess now, taking a delicate step forward like a leaf falling on a spring.

Marguerite thrust in with the sword in her left hand. The goddess went into a sideways stance for that, and the sword thrust into her shoulder. The blade sank into her flesh with just about no resistance.

It was less that it stabbed her, and more that she’d taken it in. It wasn’t anywhere near her vitals.

Even as the goddess was being stabbed, she swung her left fist up. Marguerite released the sword. That had not been her original goal. She circled around behind the enemy and thrust her rapier at the goddess’s eyeball.

The goddess followed the rapier with her eyes, then shifted her head to one side to avoid it by a slim margin. A few golden hairs were sliced off to fly away. There was no distance between the two of them. They were close enough not to use rapiers or axes, but to grapple. The goddess moved along with momentum and tried to grab Marguerite, and Marguerite abandoned her rapier to touch the goddess’s ear with the thumb of her right hand.

The sword was easy bait. It was because she figured it would be effective on the enemy that she’d decided to use it to draw particular attention to it. She’d used it as such to go all in on the thrust to the eye—which had also been bait. Avoiding that attack had put Marguerite’s right hand close to the enemy’s head.

When Marguerite’s thumb touched the enemy, she did not draw it away, using her index, middle, and ring fingers as well to grab the goddess’s ear. The goddess ignored this gesture from Marguerite and tried to grab at her—then lost her balance and staggered. Her fingers, which had started to touch the goddess’s collar, swiped through air.

In the instructional unit of the Inspection Department, a number of techniques had been passed down through generations—such as the Department’s method of walking, breathing, and tying. The technique of grabbing an enemy’s ear and controlling their movements was one of those. Marguerite, who had worked as an instructor, had of course learned it.

The enemy’s state was communicated through the ear in her fingers. Marguerite had a hold on the thickness of her flesh, the unnatural feel of her body’s make, and everything else as she read the enemy’s movements based on the minutest changes, forestalling them to make her own moves. She didn’t actually have complete control over the enemy. But she handled and subdued the enemy just as if she did.

The goddess pitched forward, stumbling as she swung about one arm, trying to thrust in an elbow and drop in a knee, trying to rip off her own ear, and Marguerite dealt with each one of those movements, gradually throwing the enemy’s center of gravity further and further off.

This alone would not be the clincher. That started now.

She captured the goddess’s ankles with her cape, twisting it, and then spun her own body, twisting her waist even farther in midair, grabbing hold of her falling rapier. Sticking close to the goddess, she landed on her right foot. Any pain she felt was numbed by adrenaline as she ducked under the goddess’s backfist and slid to avoid her elbow.

It looked as if she were just letting her body move, but it was actually calculated. The goddess was also restricting Marguerite’s movements to keep her from taking the butter-knife sword that was stuck in her left shoulder. If that was how she would play it, that was no problem. The butter knife would play the role of bait from start to finish.

When the goddess dropped a fist, Marguerite avoided it and let her pitch forward, dodging to the right. From a stance that made it look like she would fall over at any minute, the goddess lifted up a leg and tried to slam her shin into Marguerite’s stomach. Marguerite timed her evasion with that movement and dodged to the rear this time, slightly squeezing the hilt of the rapier in her left hand. Just like an assassin who circled around behind someone to bury a knife in their target’s throat, with a gentle movement she turned the blade around in her hand and thrust it into the wound where the gear was still embedded.

Her rapier was buried deeply in the wound. She could feel the goddess’s pain and shock from the ear she’d grabbed.

The goddess swiped her foot downward. She got Marguerite over her shoulder and tried to throw her, but Marguerite circled to the front and shoved at the blade. She buried the blade into her, going through the gaps of that firm flesh that was hardened like armor, avoiding the bone, which was even harder than the flesh.

Blood spilled from the goddess’s mouth. Marguerite released the rapier, making a fist to whack the hilt, and, right before coming away, she stroked the blade and activated her magic.

The sword bent inside the goddess’s body. The strength resisting her weakened. The goddess’s left hand came forward and clenched at nothing.

The end of the sword, bent at a ninety-degree angle inside her body, had hit its mark and sliced into her heart.

Blood overflowed. The goddess swayed from side to side and front to back, her chin came up, and she vomited a large volume of blood like a fountain. The blood she vomited upward dirtied her face and flowed down to her ears, and since now it was too hard to hold on, Marguerite kicked the goddess in the face and leaped backward.

Marguerite took in a deep breath and exhaled. Her whole body was crying out. The slice on her leg might have permanent effects. Her right hand, which had grabbed the goddess’s ear, was cracked in places. And aside from those wounds, she was covered all over with bruises and fractures, and it seemed her left eardrum was also broken.

Even if every part of her body was covered in wounds, she would still be able to finish off the goddess. You couldn’t let your guard down with this one until she was completely taken out. Marguerite came a step forward. The goddess swung her ax up, then down. She wasn’t swinging at Marguerite. She swung the ax down at her own body.

Marguerite opened her mouth slightly and immediately closed it. She understood unbearably well that this opponent was beyond what she could have imagined. Nothing could suppress the shock she was feeling.

The toga was already so heavily splotched with crimson that it was difficult to find any white parts. The gear, the rapier, and the sword like a butter knife were still stuck in her. Now one more thing—the ax that she had just swung down—was stuck right under the gear, about one fist’s length down. It had turned black and was moving at fixed intervals. It was pulsing.

The goddess had thrust the blade into her own body to replace the lost function of her heart. She was not only sending the blood all around her body as with a pump, this probably also stopped the bleeding, covering the internal injury. The blood on her face that she’d vomited up might also have been intended to get Marguerite’s hand off her ear.

Marguerite narrowed her eyes. She brought every cell of her body back to battle. She reflected on her failure to finish, having misjudged the enemy even at this point, and sent orders from her brain. The time needed to get into a stance to challenge her again was zero seconds, when rounded.

The goddess smiled with her face covered in blood, taking one step forward in the walking style of the Inspection Department, then switched to the shuffling feet of magical girl–style staff technique, sliding closer to Marguerite, and then at the end she spread her legs and leaped like a rhythmic gymnast.

Marguerite didn’t move from where she stood, waiting for the enemy, hands on her thighs. The moment her fingers touched the hidden weapon, the main-gauche behind her right thigh, she drew and stabbed out in a single motion. The goddess evaded by turning sideways, thrusting her right hand forward. It wasn’t so fast that Marguerite couldn’t dodge. Her fist was slower than when she’d been moving at full tilt.

Marguerite evaded, leaving only a paper-thin margin between them, and the two magical girls crossed paths with their backs touching. Marguerite tried to pull away for a moment, but her head was yanked back to remain in place. The goddess’s fingers were bent jointlessly to catch Marguerite’s ear.

Before Marguerite could understand what had happened, her ear had been grabbed. She tried to rip her own ear off by yanking her head forward, but she staggered and failed, and when she thrust out with her main-gauche, it cut weakly through air.

Marguerite’s body wobbled and swayed at the core, and the goddess stepped on her foot. Marguerite crumpled, and the goddess gave her a light knee in the gut, bending her over to spit blood—then there was a palm smack on her back, knocking her to the ground. Every single one of the gestures was light as a stroke, but the damage was so much heavier and deeper than what you’d imagine from seeing them.

The goddess released her ear. Or maybe it was just that it had been ripped off, but Marguerite couldn’t even tell that right now. Either way, she was no longer caught. Facedown on the ground, Marguerite ran her fingers along her dagger, activating her magic on multiple places on the blade at the same time, transfiguring it into a shape bent like a lightning bolt.

  Nephilia

For a while, she just focused on breathing. She was panting hard, and it wouldn’t settle down. As was obvious from places that were injured, her lungs hurt. Worst case, maybe they were even punctured.

If she tried hard not to think about Ren-Ren, then Ren-Ren came to her mind, no matter what. So she didn’t try to not think about Ren-Ren. She thought about Ren-Ren, hoping that her feelings would give her a little strength. There had even been a magical girl who had come back to life because she’d heard the voice of someone asking for help. So you could totally turn the memories of the deceased into strength.

Nephilia agonized, and as she was continuing to gasp away, the earth went on shaking, and a bursting sound hit the air. Little rocks came flying to hit her back, and a thick tree stuck in the ground not even three steps away, tossing up dust all around. Even so, Nephilia didn’t move, waiting patiently, and by the time she finally got herself up, the sounds were gone.

The back of the goddess, who was walking off into the darkness of the forest, caught her eye. From what she could see, she was horrifically wounded and staggering so much that she’d fall over with a push. But that never made Nephilia think she could win.

Nephilia stayed completely still until the goddess was gone—and that included her breath. Once she could no longer see her and her presence was gone, she finally started moving again. She moved gradually, cautiously, staying silent as she crawled to the place where the goddess had been. The first thing she noticed was the knee sticking out of the thicket, and from there, she approached the woman lying on her back. She was covered in blood, but the long T-shirt was what Miss Marguerite had been wearing pretransformation. Fallen at her side was a short sword that had been wildly transfigured into zigzags. What would you have to do to break it like that?

She was bleeding from the mouth, and her internal organs were probably damaged. Her chest was moving up and down. She was still breathing. Nephilia took a grayfruit in her hand and brought it to the woman’s mouth. But the woman brushed aside the grayfruit with her right hand. Nephilia wondered if she was so dazed, she’d mistaken Nephilia’s movement for an enemy attack, and she examined her face. But the woman was looking back at Nephilia with firm will in her eyes. That wasn’t the expression of a dazed person.

Nephilia shifted around, eyebrows coming together. “You have…to eat…”

“No, I can’t eat now.” She said it in one breath, without her voice catching.

“But…”

“The problem is my leg. One of my legs is broken, so I can’t walk. I want you to lend me your strength.”

As asked, Nephilia lent the woman her shoulder and helped her into a sitting position. Touching her body, she was certain. Her bones were broken, and she had internal injuries. She should be in enough pain to make her go crazy.

But in spite of that, Marguerite’s voice was calm, and her words were cold and quiet. So long as the adrenaline was numbing her pain, then she could afford to speak more passionately.

“I used my magic as much as possible right before I could be fatally wounded, aiming to forcibly undo my transformation by running out of power… It barely made it in time,” Marguerite explained. “So it’s true that she can’t perceive a magical girl who can’t transform anymore due to running out of power.”

“But…then at that rate…die…”

“Once the enemy can no longer perceive me, I’ll move to her blind spot and eat a grayfruit to take her by surprise… Or rather, that was my plan, but I was naive. Without my leg, I can’t even move around.”

“You need to transform…or in the end…impossible…”

“There’s…still a way. You threw that staff? I thought if the one who’d thrown it was here, they would come.”

“Stop talking…better…lungs…throat…”

“There was a strangely shaped sword thrust into her left shoulder, right? She…the goddess most likely does not like that knife. If she’d known where it was fallen, then she should have just used it as a weapon, but she used it as a trap. It was as if she wanted to avoid even using it…” Marguerite held her breath a moment. Maybe that sound from her throat was the sound of her swallowing blood. “She must have been in enough trouble that she had to use something she didn’t want to as a trap. That sword thrust into her body with no resistance at all. Even as a human, you should be able to stab her with it.”

Marguerite coughed and spat out blood dramatically, and Nephilia supported her from the side. She was going past her limit.

Marguerite didn’t even try to wipe away the blood, glaring in the direction in which the goddess had disappeared. “Lend me your shoulder. Once the goddess notices, shove me in her direction. Then I’ll lean on her body and pull out the sword in her shoulder.”

“Reckless…”

“Even if it’s reckless, I have to do it. She’s headed to the main building. We have no time. How many have died already? Everyone she’s killed has wounded her bit by bit, and it’s because of them that we have this chance now. We have to make this chance count, or all their deaths will have been meaningless.”

Hearing Marguerite’s words, Nephilia remembered something she had to ask. Before she could think that it wasn’t the time to be asking that, her mouth moved. “Ren-Ren…”

“Ren-Ren was also killed by the goddess.”

Nephilia supported Marguerite, carrying her on her shoulder. That way had to be less of a burden on her. Supporting each other, the two heavily wounded magical girls started walking off in the direction in which the goddess had left.