Mahou Shoujo Ikusei Keikaku - Volume 16 - Chapter 5

CHAPTER 5

CAREFUL PREPARATIONS

  Thunder-General Adelheid

The school had a certain atmosphere at night. And then with the elegance of the old school building, too, it doubled that air. But things were a little different right now. Since the homunculus incident, Adelheid had continued to consistently patrol once a week in search of weaknesses in the security—or conversely for places where the security was tightest, although the atmosphere had since changed.

Adelheid did a wide circle of the school building clockwise, and then another circle counterclockwise. She wasn’t about to be stupid and get too close. That would leave clear proof on the security cameras. Even a magical girl couldn’t fool those. Being from the Magical Kingdom, they would have made sure that they could capture magical girls as well.

There were no homunculi. Adelheid had observed the homunculi over the course of her many night watches—their humidity in the air, their scent and sound—so she could sense their presence at least.

Adelheid had heard that since they couldn’t just keep using as is a system that had caused an incident, the Lab had retrieved everything. Most likely, the dead technician had been blamed for it all. The Lab might feel suspicious about things as well, but not only would they feel inferior enough that they wouldn’t want to speak too loudly about it, the Information Bureau was the magical-girl class’s backer. If it came to a fight, then both parties would have to get serious. So they had to sheathe their weapons.

Adelheid put her hand over the hilt of her military saber. She curved her fingers lightly.

Even within the same faction—rather, precisely because it was the same faction—the power relations in this area were terribly complex. A stopgap security camera system was installed as the new defense matrix, and it was a very fragile security system compared to the homunculi security net. And apparently, it would take more time for new homunculi to be deployed from the Lab.

That was delightful news for a sneak thief. It wasn’t simply that the security had gotten thinner—the internal squabbling within the Osk Faction also scored highly. She seemed to recall that someone from the Archfiend Cram School had once said it was easier to get in and make a theft when there were quarrels in the house.

This was all too convenient, right back to the start of things—that incident of unknown cause. It was uncanny. If Adelheid were in the position of a sneak thief, she would actually lose the urge to steal.

“What are you looking at?”

The voice that came at her back made Adelheid hesitate in her reaction. She had been aware of the other’s presence, although she hadn’t thought they would call out to her. But if she kept silent forever, it would reveal that she was unsure of how to respond. And that wasn’t very cool.

After another second’s pause, she said what she was honestly thinking. “Ah’m surprised ya’d talk to me.”

“Why? I’m allowed to talk, at least.” The speaker—Princess Lightning—trotted right up alongside Adelheid.

The fingers of Adelheid’s right hand on the hilt of her military saber twitched completely on their own. “Most people’d find it awkward.”

“Why?”

“We did have that fight here at night.”

“Oh, did that happen?”

“Ah hit ya in the head and knocked ya out.”

“I don’t recall that.”

“So ya lost yer memories from that hit?”

“I do recall that I ran into you at school at night once. But that time, I left the school completely fine, didn’t I?”

Adelheid was struck silent. Adelheid had punched Princess Lightning and sent her flying, but after being flung into the bushes, for some reason she had stood up again without a single injury and run away from the school totally fine.

“So? Am I wrong? I wasn’t injured; in other words, there was no fight. If you say that I lost in a territory fight, then I won’t show up at your evening patrols, but if that’s not what happened, then we have something else.”

Adelheid licked her lower lip with the tip of her tongue. Lightning’s voice was just as calm as when she was peacefully being a classmate at school during the day. Looking beside her, Adelheid saw Lightning giving her a thin smile.

“Sayin’ we never fought… That’s just unreasonable.”

“It’s not unreasonable. There was no fight at all—in fact, I believe you and I can become friends. Recall the time of the homunculus incident. I think we made quite a nice combination, don’t you? Sally said it was like Cutie Healer, and I was a little curious, so I went to a rental shop to borrow the Blu-rays, but there were so many of them, I didn’t know where to start.”

Feeling that if she let her keep talking, then she would just be taken in, Adelheid said a little louder, “So?” cutting off what Lightning was making seem like idle chatter. “What are ya tryin’ to say?”

Lightning’s expression went from faintly subtle to what would be perfectly described as a broad grin. The fingers of Adelheid’s right hand twitched again. It wasn’t a movement so much as a tremble in order to keep from moving.

“Even if we do wind up in conflict, I believe we can work together before we get there. We don’t seem all that incompatible. Hey, don’t you think that’s a good idea?”

“Work together…on what?”

“I want you to slow down the invasion of the magical-girl class.”

That made Adelheid turn to look at her. Her right hand firmly clasped her hilt so she could draw it at any moment.

Lightning was entirely unruffled, continuing to speak as if Adelheid hadn’t moved at all. “Even if you don’t have the ultimate power of decision-making, lots of things can change depending on how you report them, am I right? If you report that now isn’t the time, this is definitely a trap, then they will naturally be dealing with things differently.”

“…Now why would Ah do that?”

“I told you. We’re going to cooperate. Even if we ultimately decide to fight, right now, why not act to both parties’ benefit? Continuing to struggle against each other won’t benefit either of us. We’d both lose.”

Adelheid had also been suspecting that the security was too thin, this was too convenient, wasn’t this a trap? But if Lightning was telling her not to do anything yet—now that felt like the trap. She could just envision the hopeless sight: their activity being curbed through Adelheid while the camp that was moving Lightning marched into the magical-girl class to do as they pleased at their goal point with no rivals on hand.

“Even if we don’t take action, there’s no guarantee you folks won’t,” said Adelheid.

“We have different goals. If you don’t do anything, then we won’t, either. You haven’t been told that?”

Adelheid’s brow furrowed. She was aware that she had already been told some outrageous stuff, but this magical girl in front of her—one who had abandoned common sense, Princess Lightning—was talking about something even more outrageous than what Adelheid was thinking, wasn’t she?

Before Adelheid could ask anything back, Lightning bounded hard off the ground, and with a single leap, flew over the baseball backstop. “See you at school tomorrow, then,” she said before disappearing.

Adelheid didn’t move from her spot as she watched her go. Even after she was entirely gone, she couldn’t quite bring herself to move again, and by the time she got going, she was taking off her military hat, combing her hair up with her hands, and putting her hat back on. Not even knowing herself why she was doing that, she sighed deeply.

  Mephis Pheles

Running up to the roofs, leaping from telephone pole to telephone pole, with her long black hair and skirt fluttering, she raced along the iron railing on a high-rise, her magical girl body moving with energy that she didn’t feel in her heart. Before long, she arrived at the apartment complex where she lived.

She undid her transformation in the dark and stood at the entrance of the apartment complex, placing her schoolbag at her feet and clapping her cheeks with both hands. Going up the stairs, in front of her apartment, she made a fist, tensed her gut, and turned the doorknob. The door made a grating noise as it opened, and the smell of meat flowed out from within.

“I’m home.”

“Welcome back. What good timing. I just finished cooking.”

Though Mephis had taken it for granted in life that she’d get no response upon coming home, now if she called out, she got a reply. Her roommate Kana wore an apron over her uniform and held up a large steaming plate.

“Today I stir-fried some meat and vegetables,” Kana said.

“That’s the same as yesterday.”

“It’s appropriate feed for a starving wolf.”

“If you’re dying to use lines from a manga that much, choose a better situation.”

Being that Kana was straight out of prison and of unclear origins, when Mephis had been ordered to let her live with her, she’d assumed it would be a living hell. But now that things were like this, she’d come to feel like it actually wasn’t so bad. She still didn’t know who Kana was, but it seemed like she wasn’t really a bad person. Even if she had done something bad enough to be put in prison, that just meant it was bad for the Magical Kingdom, and it wasn’t necessarily that she was a villain by human standards. She typically seemed so dim-witted and not at all like a criminal, and she also had the strength of heart to risk her life to save a friend in a dangerous situation.

After gargling and washing her hands, Mephis set up her folding low table, Kana wiped the table with a cloth and set out plates and chopsticks, and the two of them sat down facing each other and put their hands together.

“Thank you for the food,” said Mephis.

“Got all my prey lined up right here…”

“I said to pick the right time for lines.”

Kana was into some manga. And she was really into it. She wanted to use lines she’d learned from manga at every opportunity, but it was difficult to say that was going well. But even if Mephis pointed out every time that she wasn’t using them right, she didn’t expect Kana would fix it.

But Mephis wasn’t honestly that annoyed. She thought it was weird to want to use manga lines in your everyday life when you were a second-year in middle school, but a little while ago, Kana hadn’t even known manga existed.

Being exposed to manga culture had left Kana so moved, she had become absorbed in reading it. Mephis could imagine that had moved her as deeply as eating your first sweets since you were born or seeing color for the first time or other similar first experiences. Most of all, it was always fun to see someone get into something that you loved.

“I hear there is a holy land known as a manga café,” Kana said.

“Yeah, I think there’s one or two in the city here, like net cafés.”

“I would like to go to one sometime.”

“It’s not free.”

“You better not be saying to put a collar on wolves like us.”

“It’s not a collar, okay. You just have to pay money. Your criminal history better not be something boring like eating and running.”

“I can’t deny the possibility.”

Looking at Kana expressionlessly chewing on her stir-fried vegetables, Mephis thought, I just don’t get her, as well as, I need to teach this girl. It was bad enough that she’d never even read manga before, so of course she had no common sense. But despite that, she had a weird tendency to take action, and she’d be doing something strange before you even knew what was going on. She had proactively involved herself with Umemizaki Junior High, leading to them joining in on the Founding Festival. Only Kana would have done that. Any of the others’ behavior would have been curtailed by their natural sense of responsibility, the thought that their actions might cause others trouble.

Kana wasn’t a bad person. In fact, she could be cute—but her erratic behavior meant Mephis couldn’t take her eyes off her. That was how Mephis saw Kana now. The best words to express it would be “younger sister.” Basically, someone you had to take care of. But if she said that out loud, Kana would take it and run with it, so Mephis kept it to herself.

“Wasn’t today supposed to be the sale date for the latest edition?” said Kana.

“It’s just that the sale date came early last week because of the long weekend. Tomorrow’s when it’s on sale.”

“That’s too bad.”

Mephis didn’t live solely on her emotions so much as other people thought she did. Sometimes she worried deeply, and she would properly reflect on things, too. It was just that she often couldn’t control her feelings.

Thinking of the words “little sister” forced her to remember an old mistake she’d made.

The more she thought about it, the more she figured she had screwed up with Tetty. Living with Kana had caused those feelings to get bigger and bigger. Even if she had thought of herself as the younger sister, so what? Tetty had her own life, and even if Mephis was the little sister, that didn’t mean that she couldn’t surpass her big sister. That just meant that the big sister was gutless for being surpassed. Tetty could be insensitive sometimes, but on the whole, Mephis was at fault. And the worst part was that she knew that but couldn’t make up with her.

As head of her Elite Guard team and leader of Group Two in the magical-girl class, she had to put her own honor first—plus, always maintaining her aggression would heighten her whole group’s morale and strengthen their feelings of solidarity. People wouldn’t follow a weak boss. She had seen plenty of examples of the timidity of the leadership causing bad things to happen.

So Mephis would always be aggressive, and she couldn’t let herself think of it as a bad thing. She’d thought she understood that, but now Mephis was forcing herself. Not over Tetty. This was about what had happened today after they’d been summoned. Kana had asked her about things she couldn’t talk about, and then she was pretending that she hadn’t asked that at all.

“That reminds me,” said Kana.

“What?”

“About that summons to the headquarters.”

“Ahh, that’s not really a big deal.”

“I see. Then fine. I just thought you had been ordered something by Yoshioka.”

“Who’s Yoshioka? I dunno them.”

The one who had summoned Mephis was not Yoshioka but a magical girl called Pythie Frederica.

Mephis had entered the magical-girl class to gather information on orders from somewhere about three levels above the Elite Guard. She couldn’t at all say she was a respectable student, and she had felt guilty about it, but she’d heard that all the students here had some kind of backer and that they were all living this lifestyle at school by the wishes of said backers, so she’d concluded that was just how it worked and did her job.

But the summons this time was completely different from the ones before. She was supposed to attack the magical-girl class for the sake of their ultimate goal: to steal a relic from the ruins underneath the school. This was nothing like sneaking in to steal it. This was direct terrorism. It would mean hurting the classmates with whom she’d been living until just a day ago, laughing and competing and sharing manga. She’d be destroying the class itself.

Mephis wasn’t in a position to consider what she should do. She had only to do what she was ordered. She understood this, but her heart was in turmoil. Even if she ate her stir-fried vegetables with a cool look that said it was nothing, even if she made comebacks to every one of Kana’s brainless remarks, it didn’t feel like her, and she couldn’t calm down at all.

“Mephis.”

“What?”

“If there’s something on your mind, I’ll listen.”

That made Mephis gulp down the meat she was in the middle of chewing and cough, taking her cup in hand to wash the food down. “Where’s this coming from? There’s nothing on my mind.”

“I would be glad to hear that…but you seem a little different from usual.”

Mephis looked back at Kana. She was expressionless as usual. Mephis couldn’t read what she was thinking.

“Whaddaya mean, I seem different? You’re being weird.”

“As a member of Group Two, I have the obligation to take care of my fellow members. I won’t overlook even subtle changes in the group leader. Yes, in other words, it wouldn’t be an overstatement to say that I’m a parental figure to Group Two.”

Mephis looked back at Kana again. Her expression hadn’t changed. She didn’t look like she was joking.

“Parental figure…? Come on, how old are you?”

“I don’t remember.”

Maybe the reason she was so stubborn about keeping transformed was because of age. Judging that it would do no good to dig into it further, Mephis scarfed down her white rice.

  Tetty Goodgripp

After school, while going through her daily routine of magical girl activities—that day was picking up trash—Tetty tried thinking back on her own behavior.

She hadn’t been able to think about anything else that day, ever since the afternoon class. It was about Snow White. She was glad that Snow White would speak with her in a friendly way, but Tetty had wound up blabbing on about what she knew, and she couldn’t help feeling like she had said too much.

Just bringing up the name of the Information Bureau would make Miss Calkoro stand up straight, and the department would obviously know lots of confidential information. And being that Snow White was a watchman of the law who hunted bad magical girls, it wouldn’t be strange for her to be investigating the Information Bureau.

She had a mild air to her, and didn’t look at all as if she were thinking scary things, which was exactly why Tetty had spoken about lots of things she knew, even telling her about her nickname of Satou—but Satou was affiliated with the Information Bureau, so was it really okay to have told her that?

She thought she hadn’t said anything that would really be a problem, but that was just Tetty’s opinion. She could imagine that she had actually leaked something important. Looking at Satou, it didn’t seem like something that would cause the mage trouble to talk about, but even so, Satou was with the Information Bureau. Tetty still didn’t know what the Information Bureau did, but she was cognizant that it was an important department. Surely that wasn’t wrong.

While dividing up steel and aluminum cans, she decided: Tomorrow, I’m going to tell Satou what happened today and apologize.

  Kumi-Kumi

There were more things in Kumi-Kumi’s room lately. It wasn’t that it was messy and she had to clean up. Living in an apartment that she was just borrowing for a while, she had been doing with only the minimum, thinking that barren was fine. But now she’d figured that was no good and had come to decorate the room with things.

Small desks, potted plants, dolls, side tables—they had all been made by Kumi-Kumi’s magic, so they were all angular in shape, but she had figured that was fine for what it was, since it made the room look cohesive.

Aside from that, now she always had drinks and snacks on hand. Before, she’d only ever needed barley tea, but she’d left that dull lifestyle behind, increasing her options. Now she could say, “Would you like coffee or black tea, or perhaps orange juice? And have some chocolates with that.”

There was one reason for all this—to deal with Frederica, who had shown up all of a sudden. She had appeared with some frequency for a time after the homunculus incident, so to keep from embarrassing herself further and so that she could do her best to play host, Kumi-Kumi had gradually remade the style of this room—rather, her whole lifestyle.

But the more hospitality Kumi-Kumi had arranged for, the less frequently Frederica had visited. Frederica had been coming by almost every day a mere week after the incident occurred, but over this past week, Kumi-Kumi hadn’t heard a word from her. She didn’t know why. Perhaps Frederica was busy. It couldn’t be because she was sick of her—though it did seem like she was a whimsical person, so Kumi-Kumi wound up thinking that wasn’t out of the question, either.

It wouldn’t be strange for anything to happen in the future. Frederica was the sort Kumi-Kumi had thought might easily be arrested or lose her position, but she’d never imagined her presence would evaporate so suddenly. It wasn’t that Kumi-Kumi liked her, but this did wind up feeling rather lonely. It felt empty that the small articles and the drinks and snacks she’d gotten had totally gone to waste, and she wondered if maybe she should invite over one of her classmates instead. Since she still didn’t know when Frederica might come, she wouldn’t let her guard down.

  Pythie Frederica

Comparing with the information Mephis and Adelheid had shared with her, Frederica found out that during the incident when the homunculi went out of control, there had been some time where Kumi-Kumi had been on her own. In defending Kumi-Kumi by the surprise attack from Bella Lace’s magic, Kana had been sacrificed—though Frederica had saved her—and Kumi-Kumi had gone searching for her classmates for help, then found them.

The time Kumi-Kumi had been wandering around until finding the others equaled time alone. It was highly likely that someone had kidnapped her, and a replacement had occurred during this interval.

So then who had done it?

That incident in the wilderness had definitely been a scene of carnage. There had been no guarantee that even competent magical girls would survive. The area had been packed with an incredible number of hostile homunculi, and one of them had been an inferior copy of a magical girl. And even if they were inferior, she’d heard that Grim Heart and the Musician of the Forest had been among them, and they said even Pukin, the source of Frederica’s worries, had been there.

If they’d managed to kidnap Kumi-Kumi in that situation, then they weren’t merely strong. They were the very individuals who had created the situation. They had been able to move freely because they’d been guaranteed not to be attacked by homunculi. In fact, if they had the homunculi help, then they could handle someone like Kumi-Kumi.

She didn’t think it was Lazuline the First. Two of her subordinates had been in the firing line, and one of them had gone to the hospital. The chances that this was a pretense weren’t zero. But Frederica thought it was unlikely.

If it wasn’t the First, then the staff of the magical-girl class? There were two mages on staff. Calkoro and Halna. Frederica had gotten the report that Calkoro had been fighting with the students. So then Halna?

She’d originally figured that it was the Osk Faction—since it was the Osk Faction that had such excellent homunculus tech, and the magical-girl class was using them. The situation was suspicious, and if they had the opportunity, even someone other than Frederica would doubt them.

Assuming that the most likely candidate for culprit who had replaced Kumi-Kumi was the magical-girl class and Halna, then next she would consider the presence of Pukin.

Regarding the sense of Pukin’s presence—she had continued to visit that place of attack several times, only to find nothing she could be sure of as this is Pukin. But it wasn’t as if she found this isn’t Pukin, either. All she could find felt lacking.

Since the odds were significant this was a trap for luring her out, she couldn’t freely visit any scene or stay there long. Frederica fundamentally kept her behavior low-key, unable to inspect things thoroughly herself, and was forced to leave things to others to a degree. However, as with the matter of Kumi-Kumi, Frederica’s personal senses were required for these sorts of delicate and subtle matters. If she hadn’t done it herself, it would have taken even more time to confirm that Lillian had changed.

Pythie Frederica saw Pukin not only as psychological trauma, but as a reliable ally, a friend she could respect, and a magical girl to be loved. Even if their association had been short, her feelings for Pukin ran the gamut. She couldn’t quite put her finger on what reminded her of Pukin, but it was there nonetheless.

As the number of attacks decreased, in the end, Frederica was unable to come to any conclusions, and naturally, the number of her inspections decreased as well. The magical-girl class had used a homunculus of Pukin—so would her top suspect there be Halna? But that didn’t feel right. So then who was it? Pukin.

“That’s not it, though,” Frederica grumbled to herself.

  Snow White

Adelheid, in the outfield, flung a pass to Mephis in the infield, who used her hair tail to pass to Kumi-Kumi in the outfield. It then went to Lillian in the infield, and from Lillian’s woven net it was tossed to Mephis like a sling before continuing to Adelheid in a flowing exchange of throws. Rappy, who was sitting in the bleachers with Snow White, muttered, “They’ve practiced quite a bit.”

Group Two, which didn’t have the ball, responded to the flowing exchange of passes by running around the small field, but gradually their formation started to fall apart. Particularly quick ones like Ranyi aside, no one else could respond to their passes.

That was when Mephis yelled, “I’m gonna throw it!”

Mephis didn’t have the ball. Everyone knew she was just saying it, and she couldn’t throw anything, but all at once, the gallery and participants and everyone’s attention was focused on her. Mephis’s magic wouldn’t allow anyone to ignore her, even if it was for a brief time.

Diko’s form had already fallen apart, and Adelheid threw the ball full power at her back—but the speedball flew through empty air. A beat later, Diko appeared in the space where the ball had passed through. She had avoided it with her magic.

“That’s cheating, Diko!” Mephis yelled, but nobody paid attention to her.

Pshuke in the outfield from Group Three, who had stolen the ball, passed into the infield, but Mephis leaped in from the side, stretching her hair tail out as much as she could to grab it. But she failed to get it, and the ball rolled on the ground. When you looked closely at Mephis’s tail, which had touched the ball, and at the ball itself, it was gleaming bright. Pshuke had covered the ball with the lubricant fired from her water gun and then passed it lightly, making Mephis drop it when she intercepted it.

“Mephis, out!”

“Shit! That’s cheating, Pshuke!”

The ball returned to Group Two and passed from Sally to Adelheid and from Adelheid to Kana. Kana did a big wind-up and threw the ball, but for such fine form, the throw was lacking much force or speed, and Lightning caught it with a smile.

“Give it a little more of a legit throw!” Adelheid cried.

“But if I threw it at full power and it connected, it would massively damage its target,” Kana pointed out.

“That’s the kind of game this is!” Lightning said.

Lightning passed to Sally, and Sally threw the ball up high enough to skim the ceiling, where her crow caught it firmly in both feet. It circled, gradually descending, to aim for the Group Two infielders running around.

“Sally, that’s cheating!”

“You keep saying that, Mephis. Can’t you think of anything else to babble on about?”

“Damn you, Lightning! Come and get me!”

Rappy shook her head and muttered, “Group Three’s pretty wild.”

Miss Ril commented softly, “We’re going next.”

Tetty responded in an even softer voice, “How about we strategize?”

Dory and Arlie both made a lot of noise together. They suggested attacking with the drill, hitting, and kicking—all their strategies were violent and didn’t seem useful.

While chiding the two of them, Snow White was listening to the voices of the heart. Despite being in the middle of a dodgeball game, none of the girls were actually immersed in it. As they threw and evaded the ball, their daily issues were popping up in their minds. Snow White listened in on those. In class, they were always human and didn’t transform, so rec time was a hard-to-come-by opportunity for them to be transformed in front of everyone without holding back anything.

Frederica had sent in Group Two to try to rob a relic from the ruins, and all of those sent in had figured out that the central courtyard was an important spot. That was because there was no place aside from that courtyard that seemed like it could be an entrance to the ruins. And the courtyard was securely cordoned off. The only people who could go in were Tetty, who used it to get to school, and the janitor, whom she didn’t quite know. Being generally in charge, the principal would most likely also be able to enter, but Snow White hadn’t heard anything about the courtyard from the voice of her heart.

Groups Two and Three were investigating the courtyard, and their problem was trying to somehow get in. Some were thinking about forcing their way in when Tetty was coming to or leaving the school, but that would be difficult. Since there was a spell cast on the seal at the entrance, it wouldn’t work like a sneak thief following a resident to get in through the auto lock.

The documents they had seized from the Puk Faction also had record of the ruins. All that they had said was “Puk Puck considered their use in her plans, then gave up on it. The power of the ruins is strong enough that it can be felt from the outside, but the ruins are also highly dangerous.”

So Snow White knew that the ruins were dangerous enough to give up on use, but she couldn’t get a read at all on what specifically would happen. The Puk Faction documents had some deficiencies—or rather, they were nothing but deficient. As long as Puk Puck understood what was in them, then nothing else had mattered. But now that she was gone, no one could answer any questions about these documents.

Based on that information, Snow White could more or less see how the school courtyard felt off. Sealed by a barrier, her magic wouldn’t reach it, either. But despite that, for some reason, you could clearly feel its presence. It even felt as if it were inviting you. It was odd.

Snow White had tried an experiment with Arlie. From each edge of the school building, with the courtyard between them, they tried to see how the magic would work. What they had found out was that when you had the courtyard between you, the magic twisted. It became hard to hear each other, as if there was an echo. When she even got a ringing in her ears, Snow White undid her transformation. It didn’t get that bad if you didn’t have the courtyard between you, so there had to be something more than the barrier.

Tetty used that route to get to school. Why would the magical-girl class have her do something like that? Snow White couldn’t hear anything about that from the voice of Halna’s heart. That was also odd.

And then there was Frederica. She knew the place was so dangerous that even Puk Puck had given up on it, and yet she was still trying to get into it. What was she trying to do, and how? Snow White couldn’t even guess purely from reading the minds of Mephis and Adelheid, whom she knew had made contact with Frederica.

“Agh, it’s over.”

“We never did decide on a strategy.”

“Let’s do our best! We’ll get through this on guts alone!”

“Fight, fight!”

“Destroy!”

A beat after the members of her group headed for their coats, Snow White stood up as well.

  Princess Deluge

Deluge wasn’t under the management of the Magical Kingdom—she was what you’d call an unlicensed magical girl. So she couldn’t use magical-girl public infrastructure like the gates for no reason. That meant that if she was going someplace far away, she either had to run there herself or ride a vehicle. And unlike regular magical girls, Deluge needed a supply of drugs in order to maintain her transformation. She couldn’t transform too much, and if something was a certain distance away, she would have to take a plane or a train.

So for Deluge, long-distance travel meant the use of time and money. Someone who was aware of her circumstances wouldn’t pick a place to meet with her that was so far away. For example, when meeting up with Snow White, she would set the time and place at Deluge’s convenience.

The café in a certain place in a prefecture that Lapis Lazuline had indicated as their meeting spot was far enough that Deluge needed to transfer through the bullet train. Rather than being angry at the other party for not showing any sort of consideration for her circumstances, she was kind of relieved. If she had been the magical girl Deluge knew, Bluebell Candy, then she would have made some attempt at consideration and then messed it up.

She swayed in the bullet train, making sure that she wouldn’t miss her stop, and then got off at the designated station. From there, she walked. She waffled a little bit before she started walking but decided to go in human form. She figured going transformed would make Lazuline think she was ready for battle, and that time Snow White had suddenly undone her transformation in the underground lab had popped into her mind, and finally, she’d figured it would seem very unexpected.

Thinking about meeting Bluebell with a surprised look on her face was a little amusing.

She walked through a business district that was 30 percent countryside and 70 percent city, and she arrived in five minutes. Seeing the store frontage, Deluge muttered, “Hmm.” It was quite different from what she’d anticipated. She’d kind of assumed that it would be a café with individual rooms suited to private talks, but the sign that had “Magical Teatime” written in a fancy font looked kind of cheap.

Calming her breath and steeling herself, she opened the door. A barista with a short mustache and a necktie turned to look at her with a lazy greeting of “Welcome.” The interior of the café was decorated with paper chains, cases filled with figures, anime posters on the walls, bookshelves lined with anime magazines—it was like an otaku shop.

“Would you like to cosplay?” the barista asked.

“Oh, no…I’m fine. Actually, someone should be waiting for me…”

“Ohhh, over here, over here!”

She looked toward the voice to find a girl with a large and colorful Afro sitting there. She was sitting opposite a girl with green pigtails, talking about something. Both of them were magical girls.

“Not over there. Over here, over here.”

Just about hidden by the Afro, a blue magical girl was waving her hand. Deluge headed over there at a trot, following Bluebell, who was saying, “I got the private room at the back.”

As for what the private room was like, it wasn’t a lot different from the main café. It was lined with little Cutie Healer plushies, with a magical girl costume on a hanger. Bluebell took a seat and said, “Right then,” and looked at Deluge. Her expression was stern.

It wasn’t that she was upset not to get the look of surprise she’d expected. She was just disgruntled to get that look after the other party had ignored her own circumstances and called her all the way out here.

That had to mean, in the end, that she was not Bluebell. Of course. Deluge was the stupid one here for being disappointed. She looked back at Lazuline without any particular feeling.

“This is one of those cosplay cafés,” Lazuline explained. “It’s one of the few businesses where magical girls can have a get-together without detransforming.”

“Hmm.”

“A lot of magical girls love this place. And since it would be a problem if they caused a quarrel and couldn’t use this café anymore, there’s a tacit understanding that if enemies meet at this café, then they can’t fight… That’s sort of, like, the local rules here.”

“So that’s why it’s convenient for a secret talk?”

“Yeah, so you did understand that it was for a secret talk? So then that’s not a very good attitude.”

“…What isn’t?”

“Getting your buddy to keep a watch on us. I told you to come alone, didn’t I? Is your plan to use force to get your way if you have to? I can’t recommend that. I came alone, just as I promised, but I’m not going to lose so easily.”

Deluge went from expressionless to confused, looking back at her. The other girl wore a similar expression as she tilted her head. Deluge tilted her head, too.

“What do you mean?” Deluge asked.

“Come on, don’t give me that. You have your buddy standing by, right?”

“No, I don’t.”

“You’re going to play dumb? Yes, you do.”

“I told you, I don’t.”

“Huh? What? You’re telling me you haven’t noticed?”

Deluge stood up and transformed. Lazuline had said it was no problem to be in magical-girl form in this café. So she would be allowed to go in and out in this outfit. With that thought, she left the private room, headed right out of the store, and listened carefully. Unlike when she was human, there were things she would notice in magical-girl form.

Two minutes later, Deluge took Catherine and Brenda, who had been hidden behind a telephone pole, to Bluebell. They said they were worried, and when they’d heard she was going to a café, they’d thought they could have something good to eat—Deluge made them apologize; Bluebell was holding her stomach and laughing.

“Oh, sorry… Don’t get the wrong idea… I don’t mean it badly…but…mff! It’s just a little too funny… What’re you guys doing…? Pff! And Deluge was in human form, so she didn’t notice she was being tailed…seriously…aha…”

It took another five minutes until she was able to talk properly.

  Ripple

Kano Sazanami was aware that she was bad at talking. Generally, she would not be the one to initiate a conversation with someone. All through elementary, middle, and high school, she had never made friends, but that hadn’t really caused her problems. It was easier and less trouble to be alone, rather than with a group.

She also rarely initiated conversation with her family. Maybe she had, back before she could remember, but she didn’t recall anything of the sort. As far back as her memory went, she had never felt a need to speak with her family, comprised of only her annoying mother and her new stepfather.

Top Speed had repeatedly come to Ripple to talk. Ripple had mainly replied in tongue clicks, and she didn’t really recall responding in words. But Top Speed had stuck with her anyway, and now that she thought of it, Ripple had used that as a good excuse to not amend her attitude. Ripple had only realized that she had been a friend after she had died.

Ripple figured that the only reason she could speak relatively normally with Snow White now was due to her regret about Top Speed. If she never said anything herself and then the other person disappeared one day, it would be too late to be thinking, I should have talked about this.

It wasn’t as if she had gotten good at talking. She figured that she’d just learned that not talking was a disadvantage. She could be wrong.

Ever since getting split up from Snow White, she’d truly had fewer opportunities to talk. So speaking to Lulu had been the first time in a long time. Being at the level where she didn’t know where to start, how she should express herself, or even how to move her mouth in the first place, Ripple had felt bewildered.

Lulu babbled on and on. She spoke about her childhood, which most likely there was no point in talking about. Her father, who had been using gems to commit a sort of fraud, had been taken away by some scary adults, and left behind; her mother, who had sold Lulu for money. Lulu had come to spend her days training with Lazuline the First, and so she didn’t trust anyone, her master included, and nobody trusted her, either, and of course she couldn’t become Lazuline, and she was forced to do work that was equivalent to picking up trash.

After getting that far, she gave Ripple an “Oh!” sort of look and quickly averted her eyes. She must have figured she’d said too much—since that “work equivalent to picking up trash” was, in other words, dealing with Ripple.

For some reason, Ripple wasn’t angry. You could say that the way she’d said everything, without trying to conceal any part of it, had proven what she said. Besides, seeing Lulu belatedly realize what she’d said but being unable to backpedal was just so incredibly amusing, Ripple had to cover her laughter with a few throat-clearings. And the fact that she was the one trying to cover that just made it funnier for some reason, and Ripple added a few more throat-clearings.

She remembered that she also wasn’t any good at listening to people. She hadn’t talked for so long, she’d even forgotten that. By the time she digested what Lulu said and tried to understand it, the discussion was already moving on. She was desperate just to keep up.

Since Lulu had overshared, now Ripple had to do the same. Lulu hadn’t hidden anything from Ripple, and Ripple didn’t like being the only one who kept things hidden. So she wound up talking about stuff she’d normally never bring up, like her family and what had happened during Cranberry’s exam, and even the time when she’d been controlled by Frederica. If Lulu was talking, then she had to talk, too.

It was like punching back and forth. She got hit, so she hit back. Lulu had talked to her, so she talked back.

A few hours later, Lulu was lying on her back, legs hanging off the bed. The only thing coming from her mouth was not words but a groan.

Ripple’s head was hanging, one hand on her forehead, sitting on her bed. She was sitting, somehow having kept herself from lying down. Her physical endurance was one thing, but her willpower was starting to run out.

She didn’t know if she’d won or not. Had she done just what Lulu wanted? That was definitely true, so maybe she had lost. But in terms of Ripple’s feelings, it felt closest to say she’d won at this game of punching back and forth.

She looked up at the ceiling. She didn’t know if such a thing had eyes or not, but her eyes met with the sprinkler.

She’d been sick of herself for a long time.

Now she clearly understood that Frederica had been trying to make her angry, ever since her brainwashing had come undone. Ripple had completely fallen for it, and she’d been making for a reckless charge at Frederica when Lazuline had stopped her.

While Ripple had some fairly complicated feelings about that, she was more or less thankful to Lazuline. If she’d abandoned herself to emotions and charged in, she would have died. That surely would have made Frederica glad.

Ripple wanted to be sure to kill her. That was how she honestly felt about Frederica now.

Back when she hadn’t been able to do anything and had been living like she was dead, she hadn’t even been able to think something like this. But even now that this was all she thought about, things were basically the same. She wasn’t dying, so she was alive. And since she was alive, there were things that she had to do. Snow White was still fighting. Pythie Frederica hurt so many people and made them suffer, just by her being alive. Ripple had been the one to give Snow White a means to fight. Ripple had also been the one to save Pythie Frederica, who would have been left to die.

If Top Speed had been there, maybe she would have said, “Calm down a minute here, partner,” and put a hand on her shoulder. But Top Speed was no longer with them. Ripple had remembered that while talking about Lulu.

There was nothing on Ripple’s shoulder. She had been living like a dead woman, so dying would also be easy. But rather than just dying, she should pick a way to die that would be at least somewhat meaningful. She would use her own life to destroy Pythie Frederica.

She had wasted time coming this far, but she had quickly gotten back her sense for battle. She would fight enemies. The stronger the enemy, the better. They were strong enemies—in other words, important to Frederica. Even if it was just pruning the branches, that was meaningful, too. She would fight, feeling all the while that she would be fine to die at this moment.

Frederica had been completely out of view before, but now, she was getting closer. At around the time when she could finally catch her back in sight, Ripple noticed a change in herself. Just being alive had hurt before, but now, things were different. Even moaning in a cheap business hotel, there was no pain.

She had understood the reason. It was 0 Lulu. She could be a little at ease because she was here.

Though Lulu was still highly suspicious, just by talking a little, Ripple’s feelings had changed in spite of herself. Like the time with Top Speed and the time with Snow White, they changed on their own.