Mahou Shoujo Ikusei Keikaku - Volume 15 - Chapter 24

CHAPTER 24

LIGHT AMID CHAOS

  Ragi Zwe Nento

Right now, they were at a disadvantage.

Though Francesca had been deeply wounded, she had the life force of an incarnation. It still wasn’t enough to disable her. On the other hand, it was difficult to say that the magical girls had a wealth of forces, and Ragi and Yol’s support in physically strengthening their allies with their magic was too slight to end the fight. The grappling and struggling was an ongoing back-and-forth. Marguerite had tried some kind of plan and failed, while Francesca had succeeded, though imperfectly, at refueling, so at this rate, they would be gradually worn down.

As this was going on, suddenly brown mixed with the green in Ragi’s field of view. Some of the trees had withered up.

The sheep didn’t seem to care at all about the color of the forest as they bit at and weighed down the enemy. Their master, Pastel Mary, was too busy to look over at the change in the trees; she probably had no clue. 7753 called out something, and Nephilia went on guard for it, but she didn’t stop attacking, either.

Francesca’s head seemed to be moving about restlessly, as if she was checking around the area for something. Did she think this abnormal situation was the sign of something to come? If that was the case, she was almost right, but she still probably couldn’t fully predict what was about to happen.

It was about ten steps from Ragi and Yol to the magical girls, and five steps from that floated a translucent circular disc. It floated at the height of Ragi’s waist and was about an armful in size. It was slightly oval, and if it had been shaped a little differently, it would be like a full-length mirror or a tapestry. The disc was ten steps away from Ragi. The magical girls, the disc, and the two mages were at the three points of an isosceles triangle.

The disc was the magic force field. It was manifesting in a more distinct form. It was also larger.

The spell had been proceeding automatically, and as soon as it had completed, it sucked up power in one go until it dried up the trees. The force field had changed shape, becoming larger, denser, and thicker, taking in everything.

It was clear at a glance where it had gotten this much power from. Brown now dotted the trees that had been green just moments ago. Power had been sucked up through the roots of the trees to the force field. The mages’ and magical girls’ power that had been being robbed all this time was now being taken back by force. Now it was actually a great thing that they were locked in a shoving match, and if they could maintain this situation a little longer, Ragi could move on to the second stage.

He would take the magic power they’d originally gathered in the force field in order to make a basic gate and send it flying at the goddess to hit her with it. Even if she was a deluxe-quality Sataborn-made magical girl, she wouldn’t stand a chance.

He switched the incantation. Yol picked up on Ragi’s intentions and followed along with his chanting, both spells overlapping to aim toward completion. The wavelengths combined, and the alignment of power focused on Ragi. It was coming. And he would take it. All his senses sharpened, his exhaustion eased, his hand clasped his staff more firmly, and the flow of time became slow like mud, making his movements quicker in inverse proportion. His whole body was brimming with power.

Though Francesca did seem a bit confused, like she was wondering what was going on, she still had that smile that he was sick of by now, looking down on the sheep and magical girls with a seemingly gentle gaze as she made a fist.

Ragi sped up the pace of the chant. Yol followed immediately after.

The switched chant meant the magical girls lost their strengthening. One or two of them would get hit by Francesca before the plan was complete. But while they were being hit, he would complete the spell. He would take the great volume of power sucked up from those miserable trees that were rampant all over the island and slam it into one point. It was simple and violent, but potent. This didn’t need a long chant, a ceremony, or magical tools, and two casters were enough. Ragi’s physical strength had been bolstered by the power, shortening the time of the chant even further.

Francesca swiped one arm through the air. A shrill sound rang out, and Ragi’s eyes went wide. Something caught in his throat. His chant was cut off. Liquid dripped from his beard. Ragi held his throat. His voice wouldn’t come out. All that came out of his mouth was the sound of bubbles popping.

When he staggered and started to fall, Yol caught him. She switched to chanting healing magic. Even if he wanted to yell, “I don’t need healing! Switch to attack,” all that came from his mouth was warm fluid.

Smeared in blood, Ragi glared at Francesca. She was smiling. He felt weak. His staff, broken in the middle, slipped from his wrinkled hand and fell to the ground.

Had it been a pebble, or a fragment of some weapon? She had thrown something small at him. Ragi had reflexively raised his staff as a shield. His staff had broken, but that still hadn’t stopped the momentum of the item she’d thrown, and it had hit him in the throat. If he hadn’t been connected to the force field, then he wouldn’t even have been able to react in the first place, and he would have been killed, his head flying off his neck. He had kept his life, but it didn’t seem like he would be saved. At this rate, the spell would not be complete fast enough. Not only that, things would get even worse.

How much had she even been thinking about him? The goddess didn’t even try to look at him, as if she had already lost interest. She deemed him not part of the fight. Francesca’s smile seemed to be mocking the old mage.

The force field rippled. With the sudden loss of its creator, it couldn’t maintain stability. Its settings were still active, but that on its own was dangerous. It was holding too much power.

A dazzling light covered the whole area.

It was merely emitting excess power as light—the safety valve was operating as intended, adjusting the output to a controllable amount—but right now was the worst possible moment for that. Ragi had been getting power from the force field, so he was just slightly dazzled, but if an ordinary mage or magical girl were hit by it, it would cause a short-term visual obstruction. To those with no magical ability, it would potentially be fatal.

Touta was diagonally one or two steps behind where Ragi stood. Right now, just moving his head made Ragi wind up literally spitting blood. Even as he stayed still, blood continued to spill from him, and moment by moment, his vision was getting narrower and dimmer. So he could only judge by sound, but he couldn’t hear anything like falling, screaming, or crying. Touta was still standing. It seemed the silver lining in this situation was that Ragi hadn’t caused his death.

Yol’s chant did not stop. She had to hardly be able to see, but she was still going. But the magical girls’ lives would end before her treatment did. Ragi tried to yell and spat more blood than before. He pointed his trembling fingers at Francesca but didn’t go further.

Francesca didn’t stop moving. Perhaps because she relied less on her five senses, she was ignoring the powerful light.

The magical girls could not see how Francesca moved. They took on her attacks, unable to do anything else. Francesca’s smile became stronger, deeper. She swung up her fist, readying it to slam it down like a hammer on Pastel Mary’s completely undefended head.

The sound of a dry clap rang out. The smile remained on Francesca’s face as she looked at her repelled fist, and next she looked up at the sky. A dancer-style magical girl who flew in the sky with the sun at her back was pursing her lips to blow air, and again the sound of a clap rang out. Francesca’s hair was shredded and blood flew, and the third air bullet made a direct hit on the gear stabbing her, and her smile disappeared, and she used the arm she’d raised to cover the gear.

Tepsekemei was a size larger than before, and she had just slightly more color. Even her expression looked more imposing.

  Mana

There was a flash. Despite how far away the light was, Mana couldn’t help but squint and shade her eyes with one hand. It was so dazzling, it made her close her eyes for a while, and then she slowly opened her eyelids.

Just as before the flash, trees here and there were dried up and brown. Was there some kind of connection between these two strange events that had happened one after another, the withering and the intense light?

The light had probably come from the main building. It was certain that something had happened, but right now Mana didn’t know what that was. Thinking back on the faces of every single one of the magical girls on this island, including the killer goddess, she knew none of them had magic that could have made the trees where the grayfruit grew wither up all over the island, then emit a powerful flash at the main building.

If this wasn’t a magical girl, then it was an installation on the island or a mage. Either was possible, but the way it dried up the trees didn’t suggest an installation on the island, so it seemed 60 or 70 percent likely it was a mage. Probably Ragi.

Mana looked at Navi’s face again. The withered leaves had whittled down his fake-looking composure a bit, but he’d still had his mask on. With inexplicable phenomena occurring one after another, now that mask was falling off like the hair had fallen off his head. She could start to see what he was really after.

While his face was turned toward Mana, his body was turned the other way, his toes pointed at the main building. He held his left elbow with his right hand, his middle finger tap-tapping. The red on his cheeks was strong, and the wrinkles around his right eye were deeper than those around his left.

The direction his toes pointed indicated he had strong feelings about the main building, and the details of his gestures and expression hinted at what was going on inside. Back when Navi had been calm, he would have been able to hide all of this.

He was impatient. He was worried about the main building. He was thinking he wanted to go over there. She couldn’t tell if he was worried about Clarissa or if there was something else bothering him.

After a beat, Navi turned his whole body toward Mana. He put on a look that was composed, for an impatient man. “I thought I was gonna go blind. That was a hell of a flash. Just who—?”

Before Navi could finish, Mana raced off. She swallowed two pills, melting them under her tongue as she cast a spell to strengthen her legs. Since it wasn’t like she wanted physical abilities on the level of a magical girl, she wasn’t going to use the ampoules. She didn’t want Navi catching up, but neither did she want him falling so far behind that he couldn’t follow her.

“To the main building! Hurry!” she told him without letting him reply. Navi said something to try to stop her, but she made like she couldn’t hear it and ran.

Before, Mana had thought leaving Navi and running alone to the main building would be out of the question. It would be very bad to no longer have a watchful eye on him.

But the withering and the flash had made Navi’s mask come apart, and his attitude and reaction had given her a hint. He didn’t want to abandon Mana. It was natural to assume this wasn’t out of a simple desire to protect her—he wanted to watch her. It wasn’t just Mana—Navi was also worried about what she would do.

So he wouldn’t want to let her head to the main building on her own.

One more reason for her actions, and in a sense the biggest one, was that the odds were high that over there was an environment where mages could fight, and there was probably a mage fighting there. Even if Mana rushed over, it wasn’t a given that she’d just get pointlessly killed. The bet didn’t have bad odds.

That was why Mana ran. She used the medicine so Navi couldn’t easily catch up with her.

Hearing Navi’s footsteps as she raced down the hill, she prayed for the safety of whoever was at the main building.

If it were just Ragi, then there wouldn’t have been the sounds of continuous destruction. If it were the goddess, then she would have ended a mage in one attack. In other words, aside from a mage, there were also magical girls. Mana thought that if her magical girls were safe, then that was good, and if they were doing excellent work, then that was even better—and then she smiled wryly at having thought my magical girls so automatically.

  Tepsekemei

Tepsekemei had become like faint haze wafting around. Feeble as a dead person climbing up the spider’s thread and ephemeral like Toshishun struggling in an illusion, she had been unable to intervene in reality at all, unable to see or hear, and had been forced to just wait to store up even a tiny bit of power.

But then an opportunity came. The little pellets the enemy carried had spilled out everywhere.

Tepsekemei was drawn by the delicious smell. In a ghostlike state where you couldn’t really tell if she was in this world or not, she screwed up her strength and leaped on it. The pill that came rolling toward Tepsekemei tapped her and melted into her. The nutrients seeped into every part of her being like fruit held out to her when she was starving, and now it made sense: I see. So this is congee with sweet potato.

Even if she wasn’t completely back to normal, she had regained some of her power. She flew smoothly into the sky, and by the time she could look down below, she’d managed to get back half of her magical-girl form.

Below, friend and foe were all fighting in a confused mess. Seeing a magical girl with goggles on, Tepsekemei was glad to have finally gotten herself back. It made her happier to feel glad for someone other than herself.

Tepsekemei fired air bullets from above to help her friends. Just like that time against Pukin, she’d failed once at her special technique, getting into a wound to fill it up with air and burst it open.

Magical girls were smart, and Tepsekemei was also smart. She would not make the same mistake again. She continued to shoot air bullets tirelessly from high in the air, aiming for the enemy’s injury.

  Nephilia

Something burst. The vibrations came to her not just as sound, but also through skin. It was the goddess. Something had hit the goddess. Another burst. Something was hitting her continuously. The goddess twisted around. She didn’t like it.

She was being attacked. Nephilia couldn’t see, and she had no choice but to judge based on sound and feel. Someone was attacking the goddess and succeeding somewhat.

She started to think about what was happening and immediately turned back. Right now she should just back them up without thinking about anything. For some reason Marguerite’s hopes had failed to pan out, and the big plan to defeat the goddess had easily crumbled to pieces. But of course, that didn’t mean it was okay to give up. At the end of the day, Nephilia had to do one thing. Her very best.

First, she let go of her scythe. It was too difficult to use this close, but if she tried to back away to make it easier, she would be dead this time for sure. She grabbed the goddess’s collar with her free hand and used the arm with the crushed wrist to elbow the enemy. She slammed her elbow in once, feeling it go numb as it bounced off. Before trying a second strike, she beat her forehead against her. That bounced off, too.

She got the feeling that it hurt more to hit her now. The enemy wasn’t getting stronger—Nephilia was getting weaker. Oh yeah, the magic Ragi had been casting had come undone. The slight strengthening of her body was gone.

That made her realize—Ragi’s chanting had stopped. It was just Yol.

Something had happened to Ragi. There was another burst of sound. It was coming continuously.

Whether it was natural or man-made, if it was nonmagical light, then a magical girl would be resistant to it. It was probably fair to assume that the intense light earlier had been magic. It had seriously affected Nephilia, completely blinding her.

Was that somehow connected to how some of the trees had withered up before the flash? Had that light not been Ragi’s doing? What was Ragi up to?

Nephilia swung her head up and swung it down. She struck not with her forehead, but with her nose. She wasn’t holding back. Fireworks flew inside her eyes from the pain, and her nose gushed blood. Tears leaked out with it. Tears streaming from her eyes, she blinked two, three times, so she could blurrily see what was around her.

She didn’t know what had happened to Yol or Ragi. It wasn’t clear who was firing things from the air, but that had to be Tepsekemei. Silhouettes that looked like sheep, Pastel Mary, and 7753 were struggling. And the goddess—before Nephilia could see, she was startled by the sound that came to her ears.

Nephilia hadn’t just heard it before, she had sung it before. A sort of fear had carved it deep into her heart. It was Dreamy Chelsea’s original theme song.

The goddess was singing. Her intonation was accurate as a machine’s, and her voice was so clear, as if they weren’t surrounded by the stench of blood and organs. It was masterful singing. Nephilia was confused. She didn’t understand what this meant. Dreamy Chelsea had been singing on the verge of death. The goddess must also have heard her. But there was no reason for her to sing now.

As if to shatter Nephilia’s thoughts, the goddess’s flesh held heat.

Why?!

Nephilia was assaulted by further confusion. Was this akin to a sports team performing better when cheered for? Was she using the song like a battle cry to try to raise morale? Or was it that—she had an emotional attachment to this song, as a magical girl?

Just humming a song with no attachment or anything would not bring a magical girl’s energy welling out. For a magical girl to be cheered by a song, she had to feel enough emotion for it to generate power.

It was impossible to imagine what the goddess felt, so Nephilia just had to imagine—admiration, envy, rivalry, jealousy. Some strong feelings had passed between the two as they fought, which had led to Chelsea’s theme song becoming special to the goddess as well, making her spirits rise—Nephilia clenched her teeth and struck with her elbow, bashing with her forehead.

There was no way. That was impossible. Even if it was possible, just how much strength could she gain from that? It was a misunderstanding that everything could be resolved with feelings, an idea fans of old magical girls tended to fall for. It would take more than ten figures to count up all the magical girls who’d died believing in that idea, even just counting the ones Nephilia knew.

Even if the goddess got a little power back, it wouldn’t fully heal major wounds. The sheep bleated as if trying to drown out Chelsea’s song. Nephilia beat down with her forehead and elbow over and over, and, her vision blurry, she reached out for the gear.

The goddess raised one leg and slammed it down. The ground rocked. Nephilia’s body rose in the air, and she clung to the goddess, determined not to get shoved away. She could hear a sound like cutting through air. The wind was blowing. It was blowing toward the goddess’s face. She was sucking in air as hard as she could.

Nephilia remembered. Before the flash of light, the goddess had dropped her container of medicine and scattered the tablets inside all around. With the strength she’d recovered from the song, the goddess had stomped, using the shock to make the little tablets rise from the ground and then sucking them up with her fearsome lung capacity. But by the time Nephilia realized what the goddess had done, the goddess’s body was filled with so much heat that she sweated just from touching her.

  Pastel Mary

She had no idea what was going on. There was a powerful light and sounds she didn’t really get, and also for some reason she could hear Dreamy Chelsea’s theme song. Everything was so far from her understanding—just how incomprehensible could you get?

But Mary still had to do something, though what she could do now was limited. She firmly wrapped both arms around the goddess’s waist and, instead of locking her hands together, made the shape of a heart. She was imitating the strongest magical girl she knew.

She didn’t know just how much of an effect it would have. Maybe doing something like this would have no point for anyone but Chelsea. But even so, even if it was just feelings, if Pastel Mary could do something like Dreamy Chelsea, then surely she could also have more power than normal. She believed that.

The goddess’s body temperature went up, and the force with which she was pushing Mary away was getting stronger and stronger. But Mary still couldn’t give in. In a voice she couldn’t say was pretty, not really knowing the lyrics, she sang loudly and poorly along with the Dreamy Chelsea song someone was singing.

  Touta Magaoka

All the skin that faced outward, on his face, neck, and arms, all stung. His eyes hurt the most. They didn’t sting—they felt damp. Maybe the warm fluid that was flowing from his eyes to his chin wasn’t tears.

Even if he couldn’t see anything, even if it hurt so much he couldn’t take it, Touta’s legs didn’t stop. In his head, he replayed the scene that he couldn’t see anymore. About ten yards away, everyone was stuck in place pushing and shoving at each other. There was nothing for it but to believe that the situation was still the same and go. While taking care not to stumble over any rocks or holes, he continued to move forward at the same pace, sliding his feet slightly.

If it just hurt, that couldn’t be as bad as what Marguerite had suffered. She would do what she had to, even if it hurt. She had actually been fighting while covered in wounds. A normal kid would be forgiven for crying, “It hurts, so I can’t.” “He’s just a child, so what can you do?” they’d say. But Marguerite wouldn’t cry. And Touta, who was Marguerite’s student, was the same. That time in second grade when he’d jumped off the jungle gym and dislocated his shoulder had hurt even more than this. If it wasn’t as bad as that, he could suck it up.

He decided to avoid thinking as much as possible about what had happened and why things had gotten like this. Thinking wouldn’t get him any answers, and it wouldn’t improve things. So then he should think about what he should think about, and do what he should do. Touta didn’t have anything, he was just a child, but it had to be good for him to have something he could do, too.

Aside from the pain, not being able to see made even just walking around really tough. He felt like he would lose his balance over the littlest thing, and not just that—he sometimes almost lost his balance even though there was nothing at all. He could hear the sound of something bursting, and the earth shaking, and some kind of song, and even as events like these made him stagger, his feet never stopped, and he kept walking.

Ragi’s spell had stopped at some point, and it was just Yol. Touta was worried about Ragi, but at the very least, Yol had enough energy to cast a spell. That was a good thing.

And he could hear two of the magical girls singing. He didn’t think about why they were singing—he could just hear the sound, and so he walked toward that; that was enough.

Touta didn’t stop thinking. Thinking was very important. If he were to stop thinking, then surely his legs would fall from under him from the pain and fear. And he had to know how Marguerite had failed, or he might make the same mistake. He really didn’t want to do that.

He was starting to get a vague idea of what Marguerite had been trying to do.

Even though Nephilia had had grayfruit, Marguerite had gone with her without transforming.

The goddess had reacted differently, too. Despite having easily crushed Nephilia’s wrist and trying to finish her off, when she grabbed Marguerite’s wrist, she had tossed her away. It had looked as if she was trying to place something she didn’t understand away from her.

The goddess was really beaten up now. Marguerite’s sword and lots of other things were stabbed in her, and Touta figured the battle must have been really intense. Clantail, who had yet to return, had cornered the goddess along with Marguerite, and they had not won. But Touta thought that was strange. Marguerite was even more beaten up than the goddess, and she’d even returned to human form. But she hadn’t been killed and had been following the goddess. Why hadn’t she been killed as a human?

Yes, the key was Marguerite. The Miss Marguerite Touta knew would not charge at the enemy in desperation, knowing she would be killed. She’d face the goddess as human because she had some kind of plan.

With all this material in his head, his brain was working hard enough to boil as he forced out an answer.

Maybe the goddess magical girl couldn’t perceive humans—more accurately, humans who had completely lost all magic power. But 7753 had confirmed that Touta had no magic power to begin with. Touta should be able to do what Marguerite had been trying to do.

But another part of him inside was trying to put on the brakes.

This wasn’t the time to be testing if his idea was truly correct. If he was wrong, he would die for no reason. Even if he was right, he couldn’t see, so the chances were high that he would fail. This was completely different from just having his eyes closed. He really didn’t understand what was happening. He had to concentrate hard just to walk, and he could easily fall at any moment. Even if he did somehow reach his goal, after that was the hard part. Since he couldn’t see. He had no choice but to rely on the others, to trust that someone who was there would give him instructions in a way that wouldn’t give it away to the enemy.

In addition to that, Touta hadn’t figured out the reason Marguerite had failed. Though his legs moved forward, and the sound was approaching, and the smell of blood and sheep was getting closer and closer, he hadn’t figured out the reason for her failure. At this rate, he might meet the same fate as she, or maybe he would meet an even worse fate. But it was still better than stopping. If he stopped, then he would surely never be able to get going again.

It was very painful that his eyes couldn’t see, but maybe it was a good thing. He couldn’t help but think that maybe if he’d been able to see, he would have been too scared to walk. But maybe it was even crazier to walk even though he couldn’t see. He thought he might have lost his mind, but then switched the way he thought about it—if that was true, it was fine, he figured.

He bit, smashed, crushed, and swallowed the fear in his heart, putting on as much of a brave face as he could as he took one step at a time in the direction of the sound.

  Miss Marguerite

Marguerite had had many opportunities to guide others, ever since she was a child. Many years of homeroom teachers had said, “I can feel at ease when I leave it to you, Rokugou,” and all her classmates had said, “Kaoruko is so reliable.” She’d been in trouble for the sake of someone else more often than because of something she’d done, and that hadn’t changed even after she became a magical girl. Even without Annamarie, in the end—

Her consciousness had been fading away, but now it came back. She opened her eyes and examined those around her.

The sound of something bursting was from Tepsekemei’s air bullets. The singing voice was—the goddess’s, and also Pastel Mary’s? Were they doing it to cause confusion, or did they have some other reason?

When she saw Touta heading her way, she almost lost her mind. She remembered wandering between dream and reality and then getting hit with intense light. Perhaps her weakness had been lucky, as her eyes had been closed before the flash. For that reason, her eyes hadn’t been burned directly.

Before long, everything in her view regained clear form. Pastel Mary had her arms firmly around the waist of the goddess, 7753 was clinging to her, too, and the sheep were doing their best, despite decreased numbers. Nephilia was striking at the goddess with an expression of desperation, Ragi was pressing his bloodied throat, Yol was supporting Ragi and chanting a spell, Tepsekemei was continuously firing invisible projectiles from the air, and the goddess magical girl still would not fall, despite being covered in wounds.

And then there was Touta, whom Marguerite had been looking at right before closing her eyes. His vision had not recovered. Blood was flowing from his closed eyelids, and though he was swaying on his feet, he was clearly making his way forward. He was close to the magical girls.

Marguerite was startled, and then worried, and at the same time shocked. He had such incredible guts, it was regrettable that he was just a child. With that kind of character, if Marguerite were in service, she would have wanted to pull him into the Inspection Department. She tried to breathe out and choked on warm blood.

She started counting all the wounds on her body and quickly gave up trying to finish—and trying to move.

So what could she do? Touta was walking. There hadn’t been enough time to tell him about the goddess’s senses—had something led him to figure it out? All the magical girls aside from Tepsekemei were still blinded. No—the goddess alone had recovered. She was looking right at Tepsekemei. She had to be thinking about how she could reach her up in the air, or about eliminating the others in the way first.

Why was it that even though Marguerite was just seeing her from behind, it seemed the goddess had regained some energy? Was there anything that could have caused that? This was beyond just being energized because she’d sung. Something had happened. She had tried to take out and swallow those pill-shaped things, probably medicine, and had failed. It didn’t seem she could have gained much energy from that.

Marguerite spat up blood, and a sigh came with it.

No, that wasn’t it. There were fewer of the spilled tablets lying on the ground. She was sure there had been more on the grass and ground before. Now there were almost none.

Had she retrieved the medicine somehow? If that was the case, they had no more time. Marguerite’s gaze crawled around the ground to stop on one point. A little tablet had fallen just two-thirds of her own height away. She couldn’t reach that far casually. But it was lying there.

Touta was reaching out to the goddess. But his fingers weren’t at the right position to reach his goal.

If the reason Marguerite had failed was that the others’ attention had been on her, leading the goddess to deduce the presence of an invisible assassin, then right now, when everyone was blinded, was their chance. Touta might fulfill his goal without anyone noticing. But at this rate, he wouldn’t be able to grab the hilt of the sword. Did he even understand correctly which weapon he should use to begin with? Marguerite’s rapier or the gear would be no good. It had to be the strange sword like a butter knife, or he wouldn’t be able to pull it out and stab with the strength of a human.

Marguerite once again confirmed her own state. She was dying. She had no strength left. She had no confidence that she could speak in a properly audible voice. But if she transformed into a magical girl, that would be something else. You could even call it the special skill of a magical girl, to wring out the last of your strength at the very end.

She pushed herself off the tree she was leaning against and fell forward. The impact and pain of contacting the ground just about made her faint, but she bit her lip and bore it, crawling like a caterpillar and then extending her tongue to push against the little tablet and stick to it. She swallowed it along with saliva and blood. She couldn’t be fussing over this splitting pain now.

She felt strength. It passed from the inside of her mouth to her throat and disappeared inside her body. Its strength was mild. But right now, she was grateful enough for it she could cry.

The powerless dying woman—Kaoruko Rokugou—had transformed into the magical girl Miss Marguerite. She drew in a breath, and, while splattering blood, she yelled hard, making sure everyone there heard, “Two inches right! Three inches up!”

Everyone looked at her, including the goddess. That meant the position of the sword stabbed into her changed when she moved, but that was just what Marguerite had anticipated. Just according to Marguerite’s instructions, Touta corrected the position of the hand he was reaching out. He understood.

“Straight ahead like that! Four inches ahead!”

While giving instructions, she used all her remaining strength to balance on her knees. I will take you down, she thought, shredding her lip with her teeth in her determination to kill as she faced the goddess. The goddess had an exceptional capacity to learn. She should be able to sense Marguerite’s killing intent, having been hit with it many times before. And if her awareness was on that, then she would not notice Touta, whom she couldn’t even sense to begin with.

“And with that sword! Stab her!”

She got her voice out. She thought it was loud enough. The sheep, Pastel Mary, 7753, Nephilia, Yol, Ragi, all their attention was on her. Not a single person was paying attention to Touta as he sidled toward the goddess.

Struck as she was with Marguerite’s killing intent, the goddess’s hair stood on end. She pulled out Marguerite’s rapier, making a large volume of blood gush out of her, and, ignoring Tepsekemei’s air bullets, she threw it. It wasn’t originally a throwing weapon, but Marguerite no longer had the strength to avoid it. It hit her in the chest. Her hat fell and she bent back, nailed to the trunk of the tree she’d been leaning on. Her head dropped.

Marguerite’s eyes were almost closed, but she could sense it. Touta pulled out the sword and stabbed the goddess. As she praised him in her heart—“You did well”—Marguerite’s mouth twisted up.

She could see some things, even with her eyelids closed. Annamarie was standing next to her with an apologetic expression. Marguerite smiled, and then, figuring it wasn’t like her, she put on a more serious look.

  7753

With her eyes that could now see blurrily, she saw what happened.

First, the boy pulled out the sword. It was as if he’d appeared there suddenly. 7753 was surprised and panicked, but the goddess was beyond that.

The goddess reacted when he touched the sword, but a sheep bit her, and Pastel Mary pushed, and Nephilia clung to her left arm and 7753 to her right with all her strength, and on top of that something invisible exploded against the gear, and the goddess stopped moving for just an instant. That something invisible—that was Tepsekemei’s air bullets.

The result of all of this was that before the goddess could swing her arm, the sword was swung down. Touta moved so slowly it made 7753 impatient, but with the sword pointed at her, the goddess also moved slowly, like a frog under a snake’s glare.

The sword thrust into and was buried in the head of the goddess, which had taken attacks from the magical girls like they were nothing. Blood gushed from her eyes and nose, and the sword thrust through her eye socket all the way to come out the back of her head, and blood glugged out from her mouth, open wide, as she made a sound like a strangled chicken.

The strength left her. Her body temperature went down. The pulsing ax in her chest stopped moving, and her skin paled. Someone heaved a great sigh.

Nephilia ran toward Marguerite. Ragi was on his knees, but he pushed Yol in the back. Yol ran to the fallen Touta, helped him up, and started casting a spell.

Pastel Mary was still clinging to the goddess and wouldn’t come away. She still had her eyes closed and was singing loudly, so she didn’t understand the situation. The sheep gathered around her, grabbing the hem of her clothing in their mouths and tugging it to peel their master away.

7753 didn’t let go of the goddess. This was because the goddess’s information was coming to her through the goggles. Everyone thought it was over, but it wasn’t over yet.

That time with Pukin, she had assumed that it was over, but it actually hadn’t been over at all. If 7753 had kept her guard up until the end, maybe Funny Trick and Kuru-Kuru Hime would have lived. Many, many times she had thought she wanted to go back to that time, she wanted to go back and do things the right way until the end, she wanted to tell everyone that the villain was still alive.

She would not make the same mistake again.

“She’s still—”

Before she could yell, the goddess ran. Nobody could react. The sheep were sent flying. Pastel Mary still had her arms around her, but she’d already gone slack, and she wasn’t any more useful than a weight.

If they let her go now, there would be no point. Just how many people had been killed on this island by the goddess? It would wind up the same as the incident that had once happened in B City. Many people had died that time, too. 7753 had lived holding that regret. She’d sworn in her heart that she would never let things get like that again.

7753 was moving. Still grabbing the goddess’s arm, she was ahead of her.

From all the information pertaining to the goddess—the location of her wounds, her behavioral patterns, the skills she’d learned, the land around them, the enemy position—7753 predicted her movement. It was mainly her upper body that was wounded, but if she covered her wounds as she moved, her right leg moved slowly. And further, it would be less likely for a counter to land from that side. With a glance, 7753 figured out her weakness and the timing, and slammed her shoulder at the goddess’s left side, which was a blind spot because of Pastel Mary’s position.

The goddess lost her balance. Her wounds were too severe for her to recover easily. 7753 strained with her right leg, then her left, twisting her body. She fell together with the goddess and Pastel Mary, and ahead was the glowing energy disc. Ragi had gathered power there for the ceremony. It had exploded into a flash of light, but it was still there in the same shape.

The goddess’s right hand scrabbled through air. 7753 leaped off the ground with her right leg. All tangled up, the three magical girls hit the disc of accumulated energy.

  Ragi Zwe Nento

It was natural to assume that destroying the brain would make it cease functioning.

Pastel Mary hadn’t let go because she hadn’t been looking around her, and 7753 likely hadn’t let go because she could see Francesca’s status through her magic goggles.

It was just like a nightmare become manifest. Francesca’s head was pierced with the sword, but she was still moving. 7753’s sharp cry made Nephilia stop and turn around, but she wouldn’t be in time. Pastel Mary, who still had both arms around her waist, was swung around, and 7753 drew the goddess’s collar toward her with her right hand and slammed her shoulder into Francesca. All three of them in a tangle hit the disc and were instantly absorbed.

Nephilia reached out to the force field but stopped before touching it. She gave Ragi an entreating look that didn’t suit her, and Ragi spat blood as he waved his right hand, sending her to run to Marguerite.

Though Yol’s healing magic had helped him to recover, Ragi was still in a dangerous state. But he was still doing better than Marguerite. Even if he was seriously injured, the dregs of power that he’d gotten from that gathering of it were still lingering in his body. This wasn’t going to kill him right away.

And Marguerite was not the only one heavily injured. There was also Touta. He was looking so pitiful, you wouldn’t think he’d accomplished such distinguished service. As soon as he’d stabbed Francesca, he’d hit the ground and curled in a ball, and he was still like that.

Ragi left Marguerite to Nephilia and sent Yol to Touta. If not for this boy, they wouldn’t have been able to defeat Francesca. They’d made him shoulder a heavy responsibility he shouldn’t have had to and gotten him badly wounded. The boy’s injuries were all due to Ragi’s incompetence. He had to get him completely healed of all injury, or even seppuku wouldn’t be enough to make up for it—to say nothing of letting him die. Then a dozen knives in the gut wouldn’t be enough.

Yol took Touta in her arms and held up her right hand. Cards were stuck between each of her fingers, and with an incantation, each pattern vanished. Her choice of formulas and the speed and smoothness of her chanting all passed with flying colors.

The problem is over here.

Ragi pressed his throat and swallowed blood, and, while fighting the pain, he turned his whole body in another direction. The force field was still there, unchanged. No, it wasn’t unchanged—it was thicker and denser. Sucking in two magical girls as well as the incarnation base had made it stronger.

Sheep gathered around the disc to bleat sadly. Ragi tried to push through the sheep and stumbled on the first step, and since the staff he was trying to cling to was broken, he went down on his knees and hung his head.

He had to deal with that gathering of energy. They’d only just gone in, and Ragi had been the one to create this disc, so he might be able to scoop out the two magical girls. Just like Touta, they were both heroes. If not for them, they couldn’t have defeated Francesca. They should be rewarded. At the very least, it wasn’t okay for them to die here.

But Ragi’s feet wouldn’t quite move. He somehow got to his knees, but it was still a long road after that. And even if he got up and approached the gathering of energy, his throat had been crushed. There was a limit to what he could do with basic formulas using an abbreviated chant. But he couldn’t give up just because of his limits.

Ragi put force and anger into the outer corners of his eyes. He would do what he should do. There was nothing for it but to use up this one mage and somehow manage with that. He had lived too long to begin with. There was no need for him to live on in decay any longer.

He moved carefully this time to keep from falling, sweeping aside the sheep with his hands. Standing in front of the disc, he raised his broken staff in front of him—

“The enemy! Where is the enemy?!”

Then Mana and, a beat after her, Navi appeared from the forest.

The taut thread of his heart now suddenly relaxed. Ragi staggered, but Mana rushed forward with inhuman speed to catch him. She put a tablet in his mouth and pasted some kind of plaster on his throat. That reminded him that she’d said her specialty was pharmacy.

Mana chanted a spell, and Navi echoed her magic with a self-important look on his face. Though Ragi thought, I don’t want to get saved by someone like you, he wouldn’t say it. It wasn’t just that he couldn’t talk because his throat was crushed, but also that right now, he had to move onward no matter what sort of power he used.

“7753 and Pastel Mary have been absorbed into the gathering of power! I’m saving them! Help me!”

Spraying blood, he gave instructions.

  Nephilia

Nephilia figured she’d stood there for less than a second—since her challenge to do her best wasn’t over yet. Even if she couldn’t understand what had happened, it was enough for her to know that now the enemy was totally gone. Under Ragi’s instruction, she turned around, and, with the self-deprecating thought that she looked like she was going this way and that in confusion, just like a clown dancing, she headed for Marguerite.

The rapier, broken not far from the hilt, was thrust into Marguerite’s torso. Even intact, it wouldn’t have been suited for throwing. She was even impressed that the enemy had thrown it with such force and accuracy. The rapier penetrated Marguerite through to the trunk of the tree behind her, nailing her to it as she sat there. Nephilia drew the rapier out of the tree, but in consideration for the bleeding, she didn’t pull it out of Marguerite’s torso, and she laid her down on the spot. Taking a grayfruit from her pocket, she crushed it and dripped the juice into Marguerite’s mouth.

Marguerite’s mouth was relaxed, with no trace of the dignity that was always there whether she was transformed or not. Nephilia bit her lip and pulled out a second grayfruit, crushed it, and added more juice.

Marguerite didn’t move at all. Nephilia was about to take her wrist, then scowled. Her dominant hand was crushed. Being aware of it made it hurt more. She pretended not to notice it and took Marguerite’s wrist with her opposite hand.

There was no pulse. Nephilia’s thumb moved rapidly, rubbing her wrist.

“And with that sword! Stab her!”

She looked at Marguerite’s face with widening eyes. She wasn’t moving at all. Her voice had come out of Nephilia’s mouth just then. Her magic was activating.

“Straight ahead like that!”

Her voice was sharp and strong, and it carried well. It made the tall grasses sway and passed through the dense forest, and maybe you could hear it on the other side of the forest. As far as Nephilia knew, nobody else could call out so powerfully right on the verge of death.

“Two inches right! Three inches up!”

After that call came out of her, she invested another grayfruit.

Marguerite didn’t move at all. Nephilia ran her hand over Marguerite’s cheek. Her body heat was leaving. Nephilia already understood that she was dead. Translucent fruit juices leaked from the corner of her mouth. She wasn’t drinking it. It was just going into her mouth.

Nephilia blew out a long breath.

Just a little while ago, a certain magical girl had been completely dead and then had come back, returning from the state where Nephilia’s magic would activate. According to Nephilia’s experience and knowledge, that was the exception of exceptions. But even though she knew that had been beyond logic, she found herself thinking, Maybe. It wasn’t as if she and Marguerite had been close, Marguerite wasn’t even to her taste or preference—if they had been in the same class, Nephilia doubted they could have been friends. That was the sort of person this was, but she still found herself wishing this was some mistake, wanting her to come back.

She placed her head on Marguerite’s lap, put her hand to her cheek, and looked at Marguerite’s face once more. The lips she had felt had gone lax looked as if they were smiling.

Don’t be satisfied, you stupid magical girl. There’s still work left to do, so how can you go? She cursed quietly so only she could hear, and then she smiled, thinking that she’d finally gotten her nastiness back. Nephilia laid down Marguerite’s corpse and stood up, rubbing the eyes with the base of her wrist. Nephilia’s challenge to do her best wasn’t over yet. She turned around and ran to where everyone else was. Sticking her hand in her pocket, she rubbed Ren-Ren’s feathers, and, hearing Ren-Ren’s words coming from her own mouth, she laughed.

Ksh-shh.