Mahou Shoujo Ikusei Keikaku - Volume 15 - Chapter 25

CHAPTER 25

ENDING

  Mana

Perhaps it was the season, but she couldn’t escape the strong sunlight, no matter where she went on the island. Especially here in this room, renovated from a storage shed on the estate. It had been chosen because it was well lit, so the sun would come in during the day.

The line of light coming in from the window lit the man’s face from diagonally above. The man squinted in the brightness, but didn’t hold a hand up to shade his gaze, nor did he draw the curtains or complain to the person in charge of this room, Mana, the smile staying on his face under the light.

A peaceful disposition could be seen in the little smile lines around his eyes, his softly hanging eyebrows, and his narrowed eyes. He wore the smile of someone who would not kill an insect, and his mage robes looked well tailored and well loved, used to a pleasant degree.

The peaceful impression given off by all these things was ruined by the mark of the Lab, which she glimpsed under the casually rolled-up sleeve of his robe.

The fact that he worked for the Lab of the Osk Faction and that he wasn’t trying to hide his affiliation made it clear that he was not a mage who looked like a good person, but a villainous mage who could act like a good person.

“The incident…no, the accident? It’s been a week since then.” With a demeanor meant to look reserved, the man made his request for the third time that day. “Too much time has passed already. How about it? Couldn’t you manage something?”

Mana’s answer was the same as the previous two times. “In my position, I cannot bend the rules.”

When a villain chose to flaunt rather than hide his villainy, that was to his advantage.

If you lived an honest life, you would fear the outrageous. And villains are outrageous. That’s why the more honest you are, the more you fear villains. And the more a villain is feared, the easier that makes their job.

So the world is made convenient for villains. Much is made of stories emphasizing kindness and consideration because everyone knows the world is set up for villains to benefit. That’s why you cheer and applaud for values opposing villainy—so Mana thought. Though she would call herself still green, the more she was faced with reality, the more she was forced to believe that was the case.

The word didn’t only refer to villains who lurked in the darkness. The villains among villains, the nastiest kind, publicly sat in high positions where they could devote themselves to illegality with no one to crack down on them. With mastery over power and violence, they would slip through the net of the law and occasionally change the law itself. They thought that they could move a mere employee of the Inspection Department with a simple “please.”

“As I said, I was hoping you might be able to do it regardless.”

The man was smiling the whole time. No matter how nice he was and how much he smiled, knowing that he worked for the Lab made his smile seem empty. He’d probably noticed her feelings but wasn’t concerned about them, keeping the smile on like a formality. Maybe it was a habit of his to smile at times like this. Normally, there would be no need to be so friendly with Mana.

And there was no reason for Mana to smile back at him, either. She thought she must be wearing quite the displeased expression as she glared at the person across the table. “No matter how many times you ask, the answer will always be the same. I can’t bend the rules.”

“There is no need for you to do anything special for us. All I would ask is that you pretend that you never saw us. And if you could just provide an attendant…”

“We have someone who is unable to leave this island. Our investigations into that and other matters have yet to be concluded.”

“But this island was originally Osk Faction land. So isn’t it strange for our activities to be restricted here? It seems questionable to be unable to act freely in your own house.”

“An incident has occurred on this island. Without doing a proper investigation, we cannot repay its owner. You don’t need to ponder it to understand that.”

“As I’ve said, if you use your field judgment to make it like you never saw it, just doing a quick confirmation and nothing more, then we’ll leave.”

He had to be aware that he was asking something outrageous, but she could also see he had the confidence to be able to push it through. No matter how unreasonable he was being, his friendly attitude never changed, and the three magical girls who stood behind him just focused their emotionless gazes on Mana.

The three magical girls stood in the shadow of the man lit by the sun. No matter if Mana spoke harshly or glared at them, they stood there without moving at all. Neither did they complain about the cramped dustiness of this modified storage room, the heat of the sunlight, or how long the conversation was going on.

The magical girls were like the card soldiers from that story. Wearing the costumes of the ace of spades, ace of clubs, and ace of diamonds, they looked like triplets. They held the sinister-looking weapons of a spear, a club, and an unholstered stun gun, respectively, ready to wield them mercilessly at any time against any subject at the order from their owner.

Basically, this was extortion backed by violence from magical girls. If Mana were to tremble in fear and obey, then good, while conversely, if she got angry and tried to grab him by the collar, then he could bring out prearranged excuses like “I had to do it in order to protect myself,” or “The magical girl judged it was dangerous and suddenly took action,” and after eliminating Mana, he would leisurely accomplish his goal.

They underestimated the Inspection Department. Because she’d wanted to be an investigator of the Inspection Department for as long as she could remember, nothing could make Mana angrier than this. Before, she would have reflexively laid a hand on them, even knowing what they were scheming.

When Hana had been around, Mana hadn’t had to think about the hard stuff. The presence of Hana Gekokujou, the top ace of the Inspection Department, the magical-girl investigator who would go one-on-one with Archfiend Cram School graduates, made it so hardly anyone had tried to intimidate her, and even when they did yell, Hana had gently mediated or, if their behavior warranted it, immediately beaten them down.

With Hana gone, Mana could no longer take advantage of that. But it wasn’t like she had to do this alone. If Mana stood up without thinking, Hana would lay a gentle hand on her right shoulder. Nobody could see her—Mana herself couldn’t see her—but she could feel Hana’s hand there, keeping her in check.

And right now, there was a hand laid on her left shoulder as well. She had worked as an instructor for the Inspection Department for many years, sending off many excellent investigators, and even after leaving her position due to a student’s misconduct, she had never stopped protecting the weak. On this very island, she had never taken a step back against a strong foe, continuing to fight with a burning spirit right up to the verge of death. Mana hadn’t directly seen Miss Marguerite fighting, but she could understand plenty just from what she’d heard.

Even standing before a mage who would try to carry out any form of evil for the sake of his goal, the palms of Mana’s two predecessors helped her heart regain calm. And that calm would lead to preparation and counterstrategy.

Mana placed her right hand on the table. It was a careless gesture. If you weren’t paying attention, you might overlook it. But this was a signal.

“Is the one you dropped the golden ax?”

Behind Mana, from a space where there had been no presence at all, could be heard a voice. The three magical girls immediately went on guard, and the man’s narrowed eyes widened, face twisting as he looked up at the source of that voice.

“Or is it the silver ax?”

Nobody had noticed. Even Mana hadn’t picked up on her presence. The questions were followed by the sound of metal sliding against metal. She’d probably rubbed together her axes.

The Ace of Spades’ eyes never left that spot behind Mana as she brought her mouth to the man’s ear. She whispered a few words, and the man’s expression soured before their eyes. Then he put a hand to his mouth with an intentional-sounding cough like he was trying to hide his darkened expression as he said things like “pardon me,” “sudden business,” and “another time,” briskly standing from his seat to bow and then leave.

The eyes of the three magical girls never left that spot behind Mana until the end, following the mage with an air of tension about them, and after the door was closed, Mana blew out a phew.

From behind, she could hear a bigger sigh. “Agh, I thought I would be killed, geez.”

“Come on, you’d be killed?” Mana shot back.

Mana drew the chair she’d been sitting on to the right and turned toward the voice. A magical girl with long golden hair, a white toga, and a large ax in each of her hands shrugged her shoulders in an exaggerated manner.

Mana sighed even more deeply than before and stuck up the index finger of her right hand to point at the magical girl. “What was that about dropping axes? I told you to come if you saw the sign, but I don’t recall ordering you to ask that strange question.”

“Well, the words just came out on their own. I can’t stop myself from doing it.” She bowed her head apologetically. Her expression and gestures were all humanlike, and though she appeared to be just like the magical girl Francisca Francesca who’d gone on a wild rampage on the island, she gave a completely different impression. Well, of course, what was inside was different. “But I’ve been useful, right? Those people were bad guys, right? Geez, when they saw me, I got so startled. It seems like they got completely chased off, right?”

“If you have the time to chat, then work. Master Ragi never has enough help.”

“Oh, yes. Pardon me.” The magical girl like a goddess bowed her head slightly, and then, turning around, she clasped the doorknob.

Mana started to open her mouth, and after a slight hesitation, she expressed her gratitude. “Thank you. You’ve been a help.” When the goddess turned around with an expression of surprise, Mana waved to her with a “Get going already,” and a full ten seconds after she heard the sound of the door closing, she blew a big breath out her nose and leaned back into her chair. The wooden chair didn’t seem that sturdy, and it creaked under her weight, and then, as if copying it, the wooden floorboards also made a nasty sound.

They said a veteran inspector could smell a criminal. Mana hadn’t reached that point yet, and she didn’t think she’d ever get there her whole life long. That was why she thought with her head.

She thought back on the things Navi Ru had done. He must have used the magic carpet somewhere. He had done something. He’d probably hidden something. Had Navi Ru collapsing and moaning on that island been him pretending to be another victim to accomplish his goal? Or had the mages’ poor condition due to the grayfruit been an accident he hadn’t predicted?

Francisca Francesca and the grayfruit had both come from the island. This land was owned by the Lab, so it wouldn’t be strange for someone from the Lab to know something about them.

Now that she thought about it, hadn’t he nursed her because he’d wanted to keep her in sight? Had she gotten that shock to the head she’d felt right before passing out because she didn’t have enough magic power? Hadn’t Navi Ru been right behind her then? The more she thought about it, the more suspicious it got, and she couldn’t help but get the feeling that he was working in tandem with the Lab, which had been far too quick to move after the incident.

He would come again, anyway. Before then, she had to find what she could find.

  Pastel Mary

Mana had said thank you. She’d definitely said it. That was very rare. Even if she wasn’t as bad as Ragi, Mana was stubborn, headstrong, always in a bad mood, and endlessly angry. She was basically a small and cute Ragi. She’d never expressed gratitude before, no matter what Mary did.

With the forest on her left, circling the crumbled wall of the main building clockwise, Pastel Mary rubbed her chin. True enough, maybe she had done something to be thanked for. There had been three strong-looking magical girls with that mage who was probably bad. As soon as Pastel Mary had called out to those four in total, they’d panicked and made a commotion and run out. Just remembering it made her lips pull into a smirk.

That time, 7753, the sheep, Pastel Mary, and the goddess had all tumbled together into the disc of power, and then Mary had lost consciousness. But Mary’s being hadn’t been destroyed. Though it had taken time and effort, the old man Ragi, who had created that disc of power, had salvaged her from it. Though she’d unfortunately merged with the goddess, it still seemed she’d been pretty lucky. Thinking about 7753, who’d fallen in with her, made her heart hurt.

Though it wasn’t as if Mary had always been able to look at this so coolly. She’d gotten the body of a killer, of all things, and on top of that, it was extremely creepy how she would unconsciously ask whether people had picked up an ax. It wouldn’t be at all strange to even have her mind taken over at some point, and it wasn’t like this didn’t feel bad.

But there were lots of people who couldn’t even feel bad anymore. Shepherdspie must have wanted to cook more, and he must have wanted to eat more and more cooking.

Pastel Mary was unlucky. But comparatively speaking, she was happy, and thinking of it that way, she came to see things she hadn’t been able to before.

She walked with two axes in one hand, sticking her dominant hand into her pocket to pull out her sketchbook. There were sketches of Ragi, Yol, Tepsekemei, Mana, Chelsea, Touta, and Nephilia, drawn with a softness of touch that increased with each page. Her drawing rehabilitation was proceeding decently enough.

She wasn’t making any progress with her magic, though, and that process remained stuck. When she tried to make sheep, they would become strangely shaped, or get into a strange frenzy and attack Mary. But then if she tried to put her mind to transforming the axes, they would just wobble while wafting a stimulating stench, and it never worked.

Putting away her sketchbook, she took an ax in each hand once more. Just waving her arms as she walked tossed up wind and shook the leaves on the surrounding trees. These axes were so heavy that it would have been the most she could do to lift them before, but now she carried them lightly, with about as much strain as holding a pencil or a pastel.

The goddess’s face was reflected on the dew that had accumulated in the indent of a tree leaf. The foliage shook in the wind, making the dew drop down, and the reflected face was scattered and disappeared.

Though she was beautiful, her facial features were kind of, like, a lot. Her features were too defined overall, and her nose was too prominent. Her costume didn’t have enough of a soft and fluffy feeling and was not to Mary’s taste. Her hands wouldn’t quite get accustomed to pastels, and she would often crush them.

But it wasn’t all bad. Her legs were fast and strong. “Bad guys” would be startled just to see her, like just now, and they would skitter off without opposing her. No one had ever been afraid of her in her whole life, even after she became a magical girl. There wasn’t really anything good about being feared, and it would be much nicer to get along. But she couldn’t deny that seeing bad guys trembling in fear over her presence brought up a refreshing feeling in her heart. Right now Mary was so powerful that evil would fear her. Maybe, if she wanted, she could do as much as Chelsea did.

Mary came to a stop and, bending her elbow and wrist, posed and lifted one leg.

“Leave it…to Pastel Mary.”

It wasn’t like she’d looked in a mirror, but it seemed to really fit right. She wouldn’t just be protected by Chelsea—she could stand, jump, and leap at her side.

Satisfied, she relaxed from her pose, and when she was about to walk again, she sensed a presence and turned around. This sixth sense for when people were there was another thing she hadn’t had with Pastel Mary’s body.

A magical girl was standing there, hiding behind a tree. It was one of the playing-card magical girls Mary had thought had followed her master back, the Ace of Diamonds. She was looking at Mary with a blank face.

Had she just seen her make that pose and say that catchphrase? No, no matter if she had, Mary shouldn’t panic. Getting embarrassed would make her even more embarrassed.

Making it seem like she wasn’t bothered at all, Mary cleared her throat once before asking the girl, “Is the one you dropped the golden ax?”

The simple question “What do you need?” was replaced by that creepy one. The Ace of Diamonds did not flinch at that inscrutable remark, still expressionless as she came out from behind the tree and stepped up to Mary, holding out something. Characters Mary had never seen before were lined up on a rectangular piece of paper about the size to sit on one’s palm.

The Ace of Diamonds bobbed her head in a bow, and then, without having shown any emotion the whole time, she ran off. Mary watched her back grow distant for a while, and then, after she was out of sight, her eyes dropped to the little piece of paper she’d been handed. She didn’t know what was written on it, but she could kinda guess. It was probably a business card. It had to have some method of contact on it.

She stuck the business card into the sketchbook she’d pulled out with one hand and dropped the whole thing into her cleavage.

Mary hummed a tune while walking, keenly feeling that her mood was on an upturn. As for what this card meant, someone was probably trying to solicit Mary. She’d often sought work as a freelance magical girl and a minor artist, but it was rare for work to come to her.

An important mage like Ragi was researching Pastel Mary, so she would surely be able to go back to normal. So one way to be positive in the meantime would be to try to accomplish great things while she was borrowing this body for the moment. First she would show Ragi the business card and get him to tell her what was written on it. Then it might not be so bad to see whether she could be a magical girl who could stand at Chelsea’s side rather than just getting protected.

  Ragi Zwe Nento

When Pastel Mary brought him, of all things, a business card from the Lab’s client relations, he scolded her severely. From a week’s worth of careful treatment, he’d completely recovered from the wounds he’d gotten from Francesca. Now nothing of his injury remained. Feeling grateful that his throat didn’t hurt, Ragi was able to yell as much as he wanted.

After seeing Mary-on-the-inside-Francesca-on-the-outside let her eyebrows and shoulders droop as far as they would go, he ordered her, “Go outside and help Tepsekemei” and chased her out.

Ragi sat down in a poorly cushioned chair, snorting at how uncomfortable it was as he stuck his elbow on the writing desk, supported his chin with the back of his hand, and snorted again.

Over many years, anger had been Ragi’s driving force. Indignation, fury, and chagrin had been an energy source for him, supporting the old mage after he retired from service. These days, everything the Magical Kingdom and the Osk Faction did irritated him.

But he took a step back to think. Was it really fair to call the anger he’d just vented at Pastel Mary justified? Pastel Mary had just taken that business card without really understanding it, and there was no reason to get angry at her without even any consideration. If she were thoughtlessly causing problems at the drop of a hat, he could understand scolding her for that. He often thought that magical girl must be living on her spinal reflexes. But in this case, she’d just taken out the business card and asked Ragi what was on it. You couldn’t say she’d pulled something bad.

With swift self-analysis, he decided he was just taking his anger out on her. It was a very simplistic analysis, not really enough to even call that. This was ridiculously easy to understand.

Something unpleasant had happened, and he had vented his irritation at Pastel Mary. For her it had been quite the disaster, but since this magical girl was a flub dressed in clothes and walking around, if she would take this as a lesson and act a little less thoughtlessly, then that was enough. And if he also raised her pay or added an item to the dinner menu for her, that should work instead of an apology.

That was fine for Pastel Mary. The issue was with Ragi. The words “something unpleasant” made Ragi feel morose. He was disgusted with himself for being sentimental enough to find this unpleasant.

Right now, Clantail was not on this island.

There were many things Ragi was obliged to do, such as 7753’s search and rescue, the division and reconstitution of Pastel Mary, and the organization of the inheritance, and there were also a mountain of things he wanted to do that were not obligatory. Mana had sought technical help from him, and Ragi had requested from her the support of the Inspection Department.

Clantail had been hired by Ragi. Her original contract, to attend him for the inheritance, had functionally been canceled, but Ragi wanted to keep her on. He didn’t have enough hands for anything. Even if she didn’t have magical knowledge or technique, just the fact that she was a magical girl worthy of trust made Ragi need her presence badly enough to feel desperate for it. Clantail was not only worthy of trust, she was also a highly capable fighter, and the most important thing was that she was quiet and not annoying.

But Clantail had rejected Ragi’s request. He remembered every single word of that exchange. The memory of her looking out the window alone in Sataborn’s living room echoed through his mind.

“Why was it, back then…when the magical girls were caught in Keek’s game, you didn’t show Snow White the documents?” she’d asked him.

Because he could not let documents from the Management Department get out without going through the proper procedures.

“If Keek had been defeated a little earlier, just a little earlier, then some lives might have been saved.”

Neither Ragi nor Snow White was the one to make that decision. If you bent rules and principles and prioritized your emotions over the law, order would fall apart, all would turn to chaos, and the world would be destroyed.

“If lives are lost, they’ll never come back. There were two magical girls who died protecting me. In that game, and on this island as well…” When she talked about Love Me Ren-Ren, Clantail’s face contorted like she was in pain. Her fists were clenched, hands trembling, teeth clenched like she was holding something back. Ren-Ren had made deep inroads into the softest parts of her heart, and even just being there was hurting her and making her bleed.

Even witnessing her pain would not change what Ragi should say. The law must be valued over everything. Even if it was a bad law, that was no reason not to obey it. Or at the very least, back then—when facing Snow White, that’s what Ragi had thought.

No matter what legitimacy Ragi’s words had, to Clantail, they must have been nothing more than sophistry. That’s what emotion was. It wasn’t about right or not right.

As one of those people who’d been dragged into the fracas that had happened on this island recently, Ragi thought that if there had been someone, somewhere off the island, who had said, “I can’t interfere because of the rules,” and had just let things happen, then even if that was legally correct, he would have felt angry about it. He wouldn’t have been able to help but think, If you had bent in your conviction and reached out, lives might have been saved.

Clantail had shaken off Mana’s and Pastel Mary’s attempts to stop her and had left the island. Ragi had not stopped her. He couldn’t feel like he had the right to stop her.

The sound of knocking on the door cut Ragi’s train of thought for a moment, and he prompted the visitor to come in. Even after Ragi called out, the door did not open. Smoke blew in through the crack under it, which was about half a pinkie finger joint wide, then formed a person.

“Pukin fell and knocked over a pot.”

“Again…?”

“Pukin” was what Tepsekemei called Pastel Mary. The way she played the fool, even if he asked her where that came from, he doubted he would get an answer that would satisfy him, so he hadn’t questioned her as to why.

“There’s only bread for lunch,” Tepsekemei said. “Mei is hungry.”

“Then have Pastel Mary go shopping.”

“Congee with sweet potatoes…”

“Go buy whatever you like, congee or taro stem soup or whatnot.”

“What will happen to you, geezer?”

Tepsekemei called Ragi “geezer.” Unlike that example with Pastel Mary, this was definitely rude, so he’d asked her why. She’d told him, “Mei has to call you by your name so Mei won’t forget it,” which was difficult for Ragi to comprehend, but it was clear to him that probing into this would just be a hassle, and he also thought it would be faster to tell her owner Mana about it than to scold Tepsekemei, and he let her be.

“You need not worry about my meals,” Ragi told her.

“Also.”

“What?”

“There’s a guest.”

“Tell me this before concerns about food. Who is it?”

“It’s that guy.”

Ragi knew who Tepsekemei meant. Ragi replied, “I see,” and took off his hand and placed it on his desk. He got sort of bothered by its position and shifted it over by the spellbook sitting on his desk, folded his fingers, and muttered, “Bring him in.”

Tepsekemei disappeared under the door the same way she’d come in, and in her place a mage came into the room—properly, by opening the door.

“Aw, it’s been a long time. It’s great to see you looking healthy.”

His greasy smile was no different from before. It was Navi Ru.

  Navi Ru

Navi didn’t want to keep coming back here, but it was the nature of employment to be forced to go to even the ends of the earth if there was some reason for it. Navi put on as friendly a smile as possible, wiped from his forehead to the top of his head with a handkerchief, and grabbed the round chair that had been next to the bed and placed it in front of Ragi to plop himself down. If he waited until he was offered a seat in this room, he’d never be able to sit. There was nothing for it but to secure a chair himself.

Making it look a little bit deliberate, he wiped his handkerchief over his head a second time and turned his eyes resentfully to the window. “It’s getting damn muggy out there. That old man Sataborn should’ve adjusted this place to make it a bit easier to spend time here. This sort of seething heat has to be tough for an old man in convalescence.”

“Who are you calling a convalescent?” Ragi snapped.

“You were hurt pretty bad, weren’t you?”

Navi had helped to treat Ragi’s injury. At the time, it had really seemed like no time to be helping with a healing spell, but it had been useful in putting the old man in his debt. Even if it wasn’t enough to say he owed him his life, if it kept him from getting booted at the door, then great.

The sunlight was just getting stronger as they headed into the afternoon, while by contrast the inside of this room was strangely dark and damp. When Sataborn had been there, he’d probably never opened the curtains, so it was somewhat better compared to then, but Navi thought it wouldn’t kill him to open the windows, at least. But it seemed Ragi had no intention of freshening up the room, as the locks on the window were shut, the air was stuffy, and dust hung in the sunbeams. Everything about this place was gloomy, taciturn old mage included.

“What do you want?” Ragi demanded.

“Just checking up on you.”

“There’s no reason for you to check up on me.”

“You’ve been working in here all this time, haven’t you? It seems your guests who’ve come to the Management Department are having some trouble. They say they can’t have important talks, since the boss isn’t there, no matter when they visit.”

“None of the guests are anyone decent, anyhow.”

“You’re going to keep staying here until you salvage 7753? You’ve got such a sense of duty. These days, you know, the ones to succeed are those who don’t care how much you exploit magical girls.”

Even while talking, Navi never stopped observing.

As far as Navi knew, Ragi was always angry. He wasn’t in a good mood right now, either, but he looked less angry and more wilted. Normally he was more youthful—or, to put it another way, immature—but now he was just like an old man.

The words “like an old man” made Navi think, I see, the corners of his lips twisting. The wrinkles on Ragi’s face were deep, his beard was long, and his hair was white without a single speck of color. He was the picture of an old mage, and Navi hadn’t hesitated to call him an old man before, but he hadn’t thought of him as just the old man he appeared. This realization was funny, in an indescribable way.

“Well, I didn’t come today just to check up on you,” Navi said.

Maybe it wasn’t a bad thing that Ragi was unusually lacking in energy. In his current sad state, maybe he’d at least listen to talk that he’d immediately reject if he were feeling hale and vigorous, with lots of energy. If Ragi would just hear him out, then after that, Navi’s skills would do the work.

Ragi was even more important now than before he’d come to the island. Since the gear that had been stuck in Francesca had been absorbed by the force field, in order to acquire it, he absolutely needed Ragi’s cooperation, as he was responsible for the salvage work.

“My boss thinks a lot of you,” said Navi.

“Nonsense.”

“Your accomplishments on this island have been quite impressive. Even if we’d taken some casters who work for us now, just how many out there woulda done as great a job as you? I don’t think any would.”

“Flattery from you will make my ears rot.”

“It’s not flattery, so you don’t need to worry about your ears rotting. So then couldn’t you meet up just once? C’mon, just one meeting doesn’t mean anything’s gonna happen right there and then. Just sit down together. It’s enough for you two to have an exchange of opinions as specialists. Look, since the boss is a fan of yours.”

“Nonsense.”

“Don’t write it off with that one word. I think you’ll get along. Maybe you hate the Lab, but it’s not a monolith. Any department anywhere is gonna have its own factions. Well, I do get your feeling that this stuff is all nonsense. But I think you can get along with my boss. Since the boss has been against the incarnation system.”

Ragi leaned forward slightly, eyes moving to glare at him. Underneath his full white eyebrows, his sharply shining eyes captured Navi. If Navi had had a weaker heart, that flash in Ragi’s eyes would have made him want to run away, but Navi was privately cheering in joy. He might have caught him.

“You don’t think well of the incarnations, either, right?” he continued. “Like even with the incident that happened on this island, it’s fair to say it was caused by the hubris of trying to make vessels for very important people like the Three Sages. My boss thinks the same way.”

“What do you think?”

“Me? My opinion doesn’t matter. If my boss says white, then a crow is white,” Navi lied smoothly.

Navi was not apathetic about the incarnation. His boss’s negative stance toward the incarnation was the reason Navi had gotten his current post and was doing dirty work.

Navi would risk his life as much as he had to in order to win points. That was also the reason he’d tried to sneak into Yol’s house. Falsifying the will to include himself and Yol as heirs, making it a rule to have two attending magical girls, inviting Maiya to get eliminated and Rareko to repair the gear, and arranging it so Francesca could operate and cause confusion on the island had all had one goal in common. That was for Navi to gain power and a position.

If a mage who didn’t approve of the incarnations gained status, then they would try to affect the system itself. And if Navi could get in a position to insert a remark or two, then he could keep them from just disposing of the base. Just like with Pastel Mary here on this island, who was going around wearing Francesca’s skin, he would give the order to try to separate the material from the base. He would turn his sister, Clarissa’s mother, back to normal, and then finally he would be able to apologize to the departed Clarissa.

Clarissa’s death was the one matter of regret that he would be unable to fix. Because of the grayfruit, the weakening of the mages, and Francesca’s abilities that hadn’t been in the manual—all Sataborn’s excessive fiddling—Navi’s plan had not been able to handle everything perfectly.

That old man had been trouble in a different sense from Ragi; he was a hopeless eccentric. It felt bleak just to think about him not dying in an accident.

Ragi blew a breath out his nose, beard swaying. He must have been bothered by something, as he didn’t try to look away from Navi, just staring at him without a single blink. It wasn’t as if this overwhelmed Navi, but he couldn’t say it felt comfortable.

Navi held his smile and tilted his head. “Is something wrong?”

“Tell me what you really think.”

“What I really think? Hey, I’m an open book.”

The bigger the lie, the more smoothly it came out of his mouth. What he was really thinking would never leave his mouth. Speaking badly of someone he shouldn’t or making pathetic complaints wouldn’t benefit Navi in any way—so he should just keep what he really thought in his head. Clarissa had been his sole accomplice, the one person he could share his true feelings with, and she was gone. Now he was the only one to listen to such thoughts.

Even if he were to throw himself on Ragi’s mercy, saying, “It’s to save my sister, she’s been used as material for an incarnation, please save her,” what point would there be in that? Navi had long since stepped over the line where he would be forgiven with a sob story. Whatever his reasons were, a villain was a villain, so he should engage in his villainy proudly.

Navi looked at Ragi once more. He really did look different from usual. Normally, Ragi would never try to ask what Navi was really thinking. He didn’t have that much interest in him.

Ragi’s beard swelled again and went back to normal. There was unspoken dissatisfaction in his sigh. “So you won’t tell me.”

“I’m telling you I always say what I think.”

If he said what he really thought, then nothing but complaints would come from his mouth. He couldn’t let Ragi hear that.

Clarissa was gone. She had lost her life, never again to feel her mother’s embrace. Navi had fucked things up, and you could call it putting the cart before the horse to kill his niece for his sister’s sake, but you couldn’t take back what was done. He decided there was nothing for it but to move forward, grovel to his sister once she was back to normal, and apologize to her about Clarissa. There was no going back.

Navi did not speak his feelings, instead putting on a smile like he wasn’t thinking anything, and Ragi looked back at him with dark eyes. The old man and the middle-aged man gazed into each other’s eyes like a boy and girl at puberty. Ragi was the first one to look away.

Ragi sighed like he was wringing air out of his lungs, muttered the few words of a spell, and made a sign with his fingers. In the space where there had been nothing between Navi and Ragi floated a palm-sized black circle, which slowly rotated to the right as it grew larger, reaching one-third of Navi’s height, where it stopped.

Instantly, a tea set appeared: an antique teacup with steam rising from the black tea within, a matching saucer, and a snack bowl holding cookies.

Ragi indicated the set with his upturned right palm and pointed his dark eyes at Navi once more. “If you insist on not speaking your thoughts, then that’s fine.”

“I am telling you what I think, okay? So then I can have some of this?”

Ragi closed his eyes and nodded. Gesturing with a palm at the tea set, he spat out “Please eat” in a way that clashed with the politeness of his words. Ragi looked stricken, and the words that came out of his mouth sounded like a declaration of surrender. Maybe this actually was a declaration of surrender.

A declaration of surrender was just what Navi wanted. But he couldn’t have Ragi going old on him yet. There were still a lot of things he had to have Ragi do for him. While mentally putting together plans to somehow console him later, Navi took the teacup in his hand with a “Thanks” and squinted with one eye.

Picking up the saucer, he brought the cup to his face. There was a little blade affixed to the inside of the handle, less than half a pinkie nail in size, and it was stabbing into Navi’s hand. Despite having been hurt by its blade, he wasn’t bleeding. This blade—it was a piece of an arrowhead.

Navi placed the teacup on the saucer and looked at Ragi. Ragi’s expression went beyond dark to completely melancholy. His voice was heavy, as if it were oozing from the bottom of the earth.

“Using illegal means against the illegal disturbs order. That’s what I’ve always believed. I still believe that. But the law cannot bind you. You’ll avoid any legitimate methods. You won’t let anyone catch you. If there is something that can get ahold of you, it’s the unlawful…but you will dodge ordinary unlawfulness, after all.”

Ragi’s words just went in one ear and out the other. He didn’t understand what they meant. The workings of his mind wouldn’t turn to them.

“You held me in contempt, but at the same time you also trusted me—that no matter what you did, I would not dirty my hands with illegal activity. You trusted how I’ve always observed the law and gotten angry at the unlawful, and believed no matter how angry I am, I would not step outside the law. You were invited into this room without a guard and picked up a cup I offered. Without even being aware of it, you were thinking, Ragi Zwe Nento would not break the law, so I’m not in danger.”

Navi scratched his arm. It was shaking. He couldn’t be here. He shouldn’t be. He tensed his knees to get ready to stand.

“I gave instructions to Tepsekemei beforehand,” Ragi said, “telling her to make contact with Nephilia as soon as you came. She’ll be here soon.”

Hearing Nephilia’s name, Navi breathed a sigh of relief. If Nephilia would come, if he could meet Nephilia, who was his one and only family, there was no hurry to get up. He relaxed his knees and leaned back into the chair.

“If Nephilia were the one to approach you with this scheme, you wouldn’t have let your guard down. You wouldn’t trust someone who would make a contract with you. She’s different from a stubborn and old-fashioned old man who has been obstinately rejecting you.”

At this point, he was just listening to Ragi’s voice. He didn’t try to follow the meaning in his head. His whole mind was dyed the singular color of Nephilia, and that seemed obvious to him.

“You have lost. But this is no victory for me. The law should be protected, no matter what. My feelings on that matter still have not changed. Saying that lives that would have been lost might be saved is a poor form of self-aggrandizing pretense.”

Saying just that, Ragi let out a long breath. It was as if even his soul fell out with it.

  Nephilia

On the right side of the path, tall trees and plants grew dense and luxurious, while on the left side, little new leaves budded from the junctions of the trees that had survived the fire. The fire that Ren-Ren had started had burned up to right around this line. Look up, and you could see the top of the main building beyond the trees. It would have been dangerous if the fire had come a little farther.

Nephilia giggled and spun the scythe she carried in her right hand, swiping away the vines that dangled from a tree branch with the back of the blade. The vines, which had been hanging so that if she kept walking, they might hit her head, were tossed upward onto the branch, and Nephilia walked under them.

From using her magic on Clarissa’s nail, Nephilia had managed to get a general grasp of what Navi Ru had been doing, but it was still difficult for her to interfere directly. As she was wondering what to do, the two candidates who came up were Mana and Ragi Zwe Nento.

If she were trying to simply carry out justice, then she should talk to Mana, who worked for the Inspection Department, but Navi seemed to be wary of Mana. So Ragi was the better choice. Nephilia came to the conclusion that the old mage was perfect for the job of catching Navi.

Ragi had abhorred unlawful conduct his whole life, and even when his allies had been cut through by bribery and intimidation, even when he was driven to a do-nothing position, the old mage had stubbornly turned his back to illegal acts—therefore, even a villain like Navi would wind up unconsciously trusting him.

Nephilia told Ragi what she’d experienced on the island and her hypothesis about Navi, and she replayed Clarissa’s words using her nail for him. When she got the answer she wanted, Nephilia pumped a fist in her heart with an All right! She didn’t have to ask why such a foolishly honest and spotlessly upright old mage had had a change of heart at this point. Obviously, the information Nephilia had given Clantail during the turmoil—that the incident had taken so long to resolve because the Management Department chief had not swiftly offered information on Keek—was involved.

A single old man would see a friend he could trust as a rare and valued item. Losing that would make his faith waver.

The old man was not nasty, awful, or bad, and there was nothing praiseworthy about using him. Nephilia didn’t want to do it. But if Navi Ru was going to pull something, then she had to hit him from a direction he wouldn’t expect.

“Hope…Agri…satisfied…little…revenge…”

Nephilia put a hand in her pocket, reaching for the feathers there to rub them. When she’d first started this, it hadn’t gone really well, but now she could smoothly connect one word to the next to make a conversation. The trick was to drop the volume of the voice for the parts she didn’t need.

“No / matter / whose / sake / it’s / for, / I / think / it’s / best / not / to / do / bad / things.” Ren-Ren’s voice came out of Nephilia’s mouth.

“If it’s to…beat…bad guys…,” Nephilia replied.

“It / seems / like / you’re / pushing / yourself, / Nephy.”

When she was in a really good mood, she would chat more with Ren-Ren. Clantail had transferred her the money, as promised. If she used Navi combined with that money, she should surely be able to do some interesting things.

“I’m…all right…”

Ren-Ren fluttered her wings, bobbing up and down as she flapped. Though her face was the picture of concern, lately she had been constantly trying to curtail Nephilia’s risky behavior. Thinking maybe the way she flew was a little wrong, Nephilia made the feathers move in a more relaxed manner.

“There / should / be / a / better / way.”

“This is…the best way…for the family.”

When Nephilia brought up family, Ren-Ren closed her mouth apologetically. It was an unfair move to pull, but Nephilia had always been unfair, so she would apologize in her heart to gain forgiveness.

Ren-Ren’s bobbing up and down spread to shifting from side to side, and Ren-Ren circled Nephilia in the shape of a V. She folded her arms and legs and seemed to be thinking about what to do about this.

Nephilia was aware that Ren-Ren was dead. So was she was hallucinating Ren-Ren worrying? She couldn’t say that for sure.

After the incident, her feelings toward Ren-Ren had grown stronger with the passage of time, and she’d searched her body and found a little wound that looked as if she’d been pricked by an arrowhead. She wasn’t sure when it had happened, or whether it had happened accidentally or deliberately, but she’d spent that whole day smirking to herself, making the mage from the legal office whom she’d met with that day over a contract think she was quite creepy.

Did she still keep a degree of control over her heart because Ren-Ren was already dead, because Nephilia had an aptitude for it, or because Ren-Ren hadn’t been using her magic seriously? Whichever it was, Ren-Ren was still the favorable type of nasty, so just having her at her side let Nephilia laugh ksh-shh. And besides, they were family no matter what, so it was far better to have her there than not.

  Dreamy Chelsea

Chie had expected nothing other than a firm scolding from her mother, Fuchiko. But despite Chie’s having predicted even the details of her carping, like “It’s because you did magical-girl work without listening to what Mom says that these bad things happened to you,” her mother didn’t make any accusations and just cried.

The story of Chie’s life was sponging off her mom while continuing as a magical girl, but even she got hit in the heart by those tears. She started to cry, too, and, remembering what had happened on the island, she cried even harder, and mother and daughter made the bed at the hospital quite damp together.

But still, her mother was her mother, in the end. Though she did cry, it wasn’t like she’d become a meek person, and by the next day, she was already nonchalant about it, and nagged Chie as expected: “It’s because you did magical-girl work without listening to what Mom says that these bad things happened to you,” followed by “I’ll stop you if you try anything similar again, even if I have to punch you to do it.”

Normally her father would mediate and say something like, “Now, now, calm down,” or “I’m sure Chie has her own ideas about things,” but now he just smiled with a sad expression and wouldn’t butt in, and even Chie felt remorseful, thinking, I guess I did something that bad, and after leaving the hospital, she didn’t consider I’ll work as a magical girl! like before.

If you put it into the words “earning money as a magical girl,” then it was no more than that, but having actually experienced it for herself, she knew there could be nothing more brutal. Of course, it couldn’t be that tough every single time, but if you could assume half or a third of that bloodshed, then it would be impossible for Chie to make a living as a magical girl.

Even Chie’s mother, whom she saw as very talented, kept being a magical girl as a hobby and had become a housewife—couldn’t you say that proved how harsh the work was? With hazy thoughts about how not everything in life could go well, the day Chie was released from the hospital, she sat in her designated seat at home on the veranda and gazed at the garden without doing anything.

Chie had given up on being a career magical girl. But if you asked if that equaled giving up on being a magical girl, she would cutely tilt her head, and then there would be Dreamy Chelsea, puffing up her cheeks even more cutely and saying, “I don’t think so.”

For starters, if magical girls were water, then money was oil. Thinking about them together made things weird. Wanting to continue as a magical girl and wanting to make money should be thought of as separate things. Chie Yumeno was just the pretransformation human, and her scheming to make Dreamy Chelsea into a tool for making money would be lacking in due respect. That would be obviously deserving of punishment.

In a corner of the garden was the persimmon tree that she had planted as a seed when she was five years old, branches extending like long arms. The fruit was sweet and juicy. There were also wooden stakes, piles of rocks reminiscent of cairns, and a stone lantern upside down in the earth. Every single item here was a page in Dreamy Chelsea’s history. A lot of her “training” she’d been dragged into, but she’d also really enjoyed some things as games, and there were one or two things she thought she might have even taken to the level of a sport.

Chie groaned under her breath. It was because she’d noticed herself thinking that maybe she could make money from putting those “sports” out in the world. This was wickedness.

If labor didn’t suit a magical girl, then was it good or bad to try to gain an income without working? Even if it was fine now, her mother wouldn’t stay silent forever. She would start saying again to get a job, earn some money, get out of the house, get married.

If she had to get a job, in the end, would it be best for her to work as a magical girl? She had the feeling that her thoughts were going in circles. When she thought about what had happened on the island, she didn’t want to work as a magical girl.

Chelsea totally hadn’t had enough cuteness. Even though there had been lots of sad things, painful things, tough things, awful things, she hadn’t been able to accept it all. Lives she’d had to protect had been lost, and even just remembering made her feel like her body would be torn up.

Becoming a career magical girl would mean feeling the same thing, and in the course of doing that over and over, she would probably even lose her own life. Chie covered her face with her hands. She didn’t want that.

She spread her fingers. The persimmon tree peeked into view between them.

No.

Even if Chelsea didn’t become a career magical girl, it wasn’t like the sad, painful, tough, and awful would go away. She just wouldn’t see those things anymore because she wouldn’t be there. In fact, wouldn’t there be a future, then, where the people who could have been saved had Chelsea been there were not saved?

Just remembering the incident that had occurred on that island made her feel so terrified she couldn’t stand it. She never wanted something like that to happen to her again. But did Dreamy Chelsea think that? Thinking that since it was sad, painful, tough, and awful, she wanted to look away, no matter what happened off where she wasn’t looking, it didn’t matter since she wasn’t looking—that wasn’t Dreamy Chelsea.

Even if Chelsea felt regret, she wouldn’t run away. Those feelings of I should have done this, I should have done that she would have made use of the next time to do great in the sequel. That was way more Chelsea than sneaking around and sniffling and crying to herself in bed.

Chie brought her hands away from her face and crossed her hands. She moved just her arms to make a pose, and in a tiny whisper so that nobody could hear, she muttered, “Leave it to Dreamy Chelsea.”

Smacking her knees, she stood up and yelled to the kitchen, “Hey, Mom. There was ground beef in the fridge, right?” This small wooden house was thirty years old—yell a little loud and it would go all the way to the other end.

Her mother poked her head out of the beaded half curtain to the kitchen. She looked suspicious. “There’s some stuff I froze. What do you want to do with ground beef?”

“Do you have celery, carrots, potatoes, onions, and tomatoes?”

“Like I said, for what?”

“Cooking. I was thinking I’d bring it as a gift to a friend.”

“Huh. This is a rare turn of events… You’re going to cook yourself?”

“That’d be kinda hard, so help me out. I think I can find out how if I search for it. It’s a delicious pie called shepherd’s pie.”

  Touta Magaoka

The 126th Card Shop Hinapiya Magical Battlers Open Tournament was total chaos. The Battlers open class had been made to go out of control readily to begin with, with the laxest restrictions of all the different regulations, and cards that were forbidden under other regulations could be used at a limit of one. But the regulations weren’t the reason that the tournament had gone out of control.

The tournament was usually all the same faces, but this time, an unknown powerhouse duelist stormed in. Really she did just apply normally to participate and then showed up, but to the regular participants, who were totally used to tournaments being as peaceful as lukewarm water, it was like she’d stormed in.

The regulars at the tournament at Hinapiya were only guys, from youngsters with single-digit ages to senior players in their forties, and she was a rarely seen female participant. And it wasn’t simply that her sex was female.

She had fluffy sausage curls spun in spirals, a one-piece dress decorated with golden embroidery and gems, an aristocratic and elegant bearing, and a charmingly handsome face, fluent Japanese with even a mastery of the game slang despite looking like she was from some unknown country, a wham-bam combo deck packed with expensive cards that cost thousands of dollars, and masterful skills, as she followed the combo route called “solitaire” without a single error in judgment.

This girl who was just like a character out of anime or manga easily beat down the regulars.

When it seemed like she would go on to win the tournament, standing in her way to face her at the finals was the elementary school dueler Touta Magaoka. Though from game one he let “solitaire” happen initially, starting from their second game, he threw in all the meta cards from the sideboard, investing everything to prevent a combo, and overcame it. In the third game, his aggressive sideboarding caused the girl to change her deck type from combo to control, and, amazingly, Touta returned the cards he’d pulled from the side to abandon his resistance to combos, winning a victory by a monster offensive with an emphasis on maintaining the battle line.

They say all participants offered a thunderous round of applause at his skill in foretelling even the deck type change made by his opponent.

And then, after the tournament was over, Touta and the girl—Yol—had hamburgers at a nearby fast-food restaurant. Yol was paying. It felt pathetic to say so, but Touta’s wallet couldn’t even spare the money to pay for himself.

“I was surprised when you said you wanted to join the tournament,” said Touta.

“I’ve been wanting to participate in public tournaments for some time. The date just happened to come at a good time, so it was a good opportunity, right?”

The latter half of Touta’s memories from the island were incredibly vague. He’d been very badly hurt, and he’d heard that his eyes had been in a particularly bad state. He hadn’t been able to see at all for a few days, and his eyelids hadn’t opened. His aunt, Yol, Ragi, and Mana had brought in mages who kept trying many treatments, and finally he was able to see.

When he was finally able to see his aunt again, she was thin and relieved to the core as she took Touta’s hand and told him, “I’m sorry.” Touta, on the other hand, felt like he was the one who’d done something bad, but he figured he hadn’t had any other choice at the time. Besides, Touta wasn’t the only reason his aunt had grown thin. Even if a child couldn’t really understand what it was like to have an old friend pass away, it had to be tough for an adult. Touta hadn’t known Marguerite as long as his aunt had, and even he’d cried on finding out, cried like he was wringing all the fluids out of his body.

It had been a month since the Touta medical team had dispersed, but even after that, Yol had come to visit him once a week. She would give him medication and examine him, and play some games with him while she was at it. But she’d never once participated in a tournament before.

“They didn’t get angry at you?” Touta asked her.

“This is actually my chance. Since they haven’t decided on new attending magical girls for me…” Yol hesitated, and Touta automatically hung his head.

“Ohhh, I see… Maiya and Rareko…”

Maiya and Rareko had lost their lives in the incident that had occurred on the island. Of course there was no way he could forget. And Marguerite, too—Touta’s gloomy thoughts were cut off by the tap of Yol’s cup being placed on the table, and Touta lifted his chin to look back at her. Her expression was back to the way it had been before. Strong, and bright, and cute.

“Besides, there are things I wanted to speak with you about as well.”

“You wanted to talk about something?”

“I talked about how I don’t have the aptitude to become a magical girl, didn’t I?”

“You said they did a test or something for it, right? And there were 7753’s goggles.”

“Yes, yes. And you don’t have the aptitude, either, right?”

“Yeah…”

Maybe it had been a joke, and maybe she’d just been saying it, but Miss Marguerite had called Touta her student. At the end of the end, when Touta had burned up the little courage and energy he had to leap on the goddess, Marguerite had gathered attention to herself by yelling out loud. Knowing what Touta had been trying to do, she had helped him out.

That was the last time he’d heard Marguerite’s voice while she was alive. She would never be able to tell him whether she’d actually recognized him as her student, if he’d managed to live up to that title or not.

He’d met a lot of magical girls on that island. There had been scary magical girls. There had been strange magical girls. There had been cool magical girls. And all of them had been strong. Touta thought that he’d like to become a magical girl, too, but you couldn’t become one if you didn’t have the talent.

“Don’t you want to become a magical girl?” Yol asked him.

“Yeah, I do. Of course I do.” He didn’t say, A magical girl like Miss Marguerite.

Yol drew back her chin, saying, “I’d like to become one, too,” then leaned out over the table. “So listen.” Her voice got one or two levels quieter. Touta brought his face close to hear. “I found out there’s a secret way to become a magical girl, even if you don’t have the potential.”

“Really?!”

“Shhh… Keep your voice down. I told you, it’s a secret.”

“Oh yeah…sorry. But really?”

“It’s called an artificial magical girl. They’re apparently canvassing for them now… Hey, do you want to try it together?”

There was no room for hesitation. Touta nodded enthusiastically.

  7753

7753 read through the letter from Mana once, read it again, and sighed. It said that for reasons relating to an incarnation of one of the Three Sages occupying ruins or something, she would be busy for the time being and wouldn’t be able to come to the island. Circumstances aside, this was sad and trying news for 7753 right now. It was too miserable to not be able to go anywhere and to have no one to talk to. To be more precise, maybe she did have enough people to talk to, with Tepsekemei, Ragi, and Pastel Mary, but Tepsekemei wasn’t suited to conversation, Pastel Mary’s current appearance had wounded 7753’s heart too deeply, and Ragi was always in a bad mood. Without Mana around, there was nobody on this island she would enjoy chatting with.

No, she reconsidered. If she thought about when things had been at their worst, then this was just losing one person to talk to. A few weeks earlier, 7753 had been smack in the middle of real isolation.

7753 had awoken from a very long sleep to find she couldn’t move or use her voice. She could neither see nor hear, and it had taken her quite a while until she understood her situation. After some confusion and verification, she realized she’d become a single, incredibly large tree with roots that penetrated every corner of the island. It seemed like it had to be another dream, but quite unfortunately, it was not a dream, but reality.

It was a single tree on a little hill, just a swelling of earth in the center of the island, right at the edge of the fire. If it had been positioned slightly lower, it might have been burned up. From there, it was connected to the other trees through the roots. In other words, all combined it was one tree, but the ends of the roots were outside of her consciousness, and the farther away you got, the darker it was. Generally, she could only perceive herself and her surroundings, and she couldn’t move or talk. Her bark was hard, her leaves were thick, she grew fruit full of juices, and she was just there. Even if she didn’t have ears, she could feel the wind and the sound of leaves rustling, and even without eyes, she could actually perceive what was there, and even its motion. But when it came to moving herself, it wouldn’t go like before, and she couldn’t do it no matter how she tried.

After a desperate body blow to the goddess, 7753 and Pastel Mary had tumbled into that disc of power. She’d lost consciousness after that. Waking up to find yourself a tree was just too much. 7753 had been the one to connect the gathering of power to the tree roots, under Ragi’s instruction. Even if she had a vague idea as to why something like this had happened, this was still clearly way too cruel. If this was divine punishment, wasn’t there some better way?

Her hard struggle continued for some time. She had an idea of the area around the tree, but since she couldn’t see or hear, that idea was ultimately vague. She just tried everything, seeing if she couldn’t extend her senses somehow, or call out and move, and even when she couldn’t do it, she didn’t give up right away. She kept changing how she did it and how she thought about it as she went through repeated trial and error. Of course 7753 had no experience turning into a plant, to say nothing of knowing what a magic plant could do and what it could not. She would take anything, so there was nothing for it but to just try.

As she was testing out things, willing to take anything, she came to gradually spread out what she might call the net of her senses. As she did that, she came to grasp the situation on the island bit by bit. She was relieved to find that Mana and Tepsekemei were safe, but she had no way to communicate her own will.

7753 carried out further trial and error. Though it was great she’d managed to sense the presences of Mana, Tepsekemei, and Ragi, there was no point if she stopped there. They were probably doing something to try to save her. If she could at least tell them where she was, that would dramatically change the situation, and maybe they could save her right away.

She tried lots of things, wondering if she could somehow regain the physical senses she’d had as a magical girl, but it just didn’t work out. Her roots wouldn’t move, her leaves wouldn’t move, and her branches wouldn’t move. When she gave up, thinking this wasn’t going to go anywhere, she realized one thing. She had managed to bear fruit.

It seemed really difficult to make them realize her presence via fruit, but she had no other options. 7753 focused on just the fruit of the tree where her consciousness was trapped, making them grow. She wasn’t doing it because she wanted to attract small animals and insects. Her target was something else.

On the fourth night after 7753 had begun her fruit concentration operation, a vague floating shape approached her through the sky. In her heart, 7753 cried out in joy. She had already considered that the glutton Tepsekemei would come for the grayfruit.

The issue now was how to communicate her own presence. But Tepsekemei just furrowed her brow suspiciously and gazed at the 7753 tree. She didn’t even touch a finger to the grayfruit before flying off somewhere. When she came back after some time, she brought the two mages.

Ragi’s face was solemn, Mana’s was happy, and Tepsekemei’s was inscrutable. Those other two aside from Mana wore the same expressions as always, and 7753 was relieved they were all safe, and confirming her own humanlike feelings of relief made her relieved again.

“It’s here,” said Tepsekemei.

“Indeed, there is a reaction,” said Ragi. “This is it. It seems Tepsekemei was right.”

“To think she’s stuck inside a tree… That would have been dangerous, if Mei hadn’t noticed,” said Mana.

“Mei did good?”

“Yes, good, good, you’re amazing. How could you tell, Mei?”

“Smell and atmosphere.”

“It doesn’t matter how,” said Ragi. “Let’s just begin the task.”

They knocked on bark, dug up roots, and cast spells, until at the end they peeled off the bark by force to expose what was inside. When they showed 7753 herself in the mirror, she was shocked. She looked like a plant and human combined and split in two, like a dryad out of the stories, half-buried in the tree. She’d been stuck with her face inside the tree, her upper body and face just barely poking out. Her goggles were carefully hanging from her neck.

“The parts sticking out are one thing, but inside has fused with the tree,” said Ragi. “We can’t rip you out by force. You’ll be like this for the time being.”

7753 was disappointed, but the plant 7753 in the mirror had no expression—she didn’t even move.

A few days after that, Ragi tried a number of spells, enabling her somehow to speak.

“Just what on earth happened?” 7753 asked.

The story they told her was not a happy one. Hearing of Marguerite’s death had made 7753 despair. Clarissa, Rareko, Agri, and Ren-Ren had all been killed by the goddess.

But there was also some good news. Though Ragi and Touta had been in danger, Mana had rushed to them with medicine and first aid, and with Navi helping to treat them, their lives had been saved. Mana said Clantail and Dreamy Chelsea had also survived somehow.

Ragi explained to her that 7753 was no longer 7753, but it seemed that she was still more or less 7753. He said being shoved into the disc of power had caused various things to get mixed up, and 7753’s self had gone through the roots to become one with the tree that bore grayfruit—or rather, she’d functionally taken it over.

Her concerns over whether she was actually 7753 started treading into philosophical territory, but all the mages, including Mana and Ragi, were just glad that she was safe, and they didn’t seem to think that her state was a misfortune that couldn’t be undone. Although she wasn’t totally convinced, she did think vaguely that if all the mages were thinking that, then maybe that was how it was.

Apparently, Pastel Mary had fused with the goddess magical girl, and now she had the body of a killer, and she’d started asking against her will about the whereabouts of axes. So 7753 decided to be positive about things—she figured that her own state was preferable to that.

Tepsekemei, Mana, Ragi, and Pastel Mary stayed on the island, taking care of 7753 while searching for a way to turn her back to normal. She couldn’t waste their consideration. While she still felt fuzzy about it, she decided to do her best to live, and started looking for what she could do.

Even if she couldn’t move, it wasn’t like she couldn’t do anything. In a sense, she was a being like the essence of magic. Magic made the impossible possible. In other words, right now 7753 was a crystallization of the impossible.

The speed of her thoughts increased, and she came to be able to sense the state of all the trees on the island around her, and every day she continued to evolve as a magic tree.

“I’m done now, Tepsekemei.”

Tepsekemei folded up the letter that had been open in front of 7753’s face and tucked it into her pocket. 7753 gazed at the letter until the moment the cute puppies bordering the stationery disappeared into Mei’s pocket, and after it went out of sight, she breathed another sigh.

“Why are you sighing so much?”

“Ohhh, sorry. It’s not good to sigh in front of people, is it?”

“The letter is not the only event today.”

“Oh, really?”

“There are guests.”

“Guests? For me?”

“A scary magical girl and one more, a loud one, are here.”

Tepsekemei went to go call the “guests,” and when she came back, she had brought two magical girls. One was someone 7753 didn’t know. Her expression was hard, and you could see she was tense. Her motif was that of a wolf, and she had a rifle over her shoulder, but it looked like a toy, not a real gun.

And there was one other. 7753 was acquainted with her, but they weren’t close. In fact, what 7753 had been scared of was her persona and her reputation. She was scared right this moment, wondering why on earth she had come. But not seeing her would be scary for other reasons, so there was no choice but to see her.

“It’s been a long time. I’ve come here today with business with you, 7753.”

“Ah! Oh, yes.”

“This is Uluru.”

“…Nice to meet you.”

“Nice to meet you, Uluru. My name is 7753. Also…well, yeah. I’m glad you’ve come. I’m sorry I’m like this, but…I’m glad I could see you, Snow White.”