MASTER SIDE #3
“Sooo, how’d it go?”
“Oh, it was just awful, pon. Everyone was crying and screaming. They tried to kill Fal, pon. Could have been turned to giblets and mincemeat if Fal hadn’t been a hologram, pon.”
“I see, I see.” The girl’s cheeks relaxed into a slight smile. Putting her left index finger to the frame of her glasses, she adjusted their position. “Still, they’ve somewhat accepted it, right? I think they must have known things might turn out like this, but they participated in the game anyway. No one refused; no one dragged their heels. They were just sucked into the game and accepted it.” She seemed ready to make a long-winded speech, but Fal cut her off with a cough. The girl blinked twice, then looked at Fal. “What?”
“Fal has a suggestion, pon.”
“Well? Go on.”
“It’s not too late yet, don’t you think, pon?”
“Not too late for what?”
“If you turn yourself in without a struggle, maybe the Magical Kingdom will reduce your penalty, pon?”
“I doubt that.”
“If you turn yourself in, at least they won’t execute you, pon.”
“My life isn’t important. What is important is for a magical girl to live like one.” The conversation paused there. Neither Fal nor the girl spoke for a moment.
“Fal has an idea, pon.”
“What kind of idea?” The girl twirled her bangs around her fingertip. Her hair, while mostly short, had a bit of a cowlick, and she seemed particularly sensitive about how it stuck up.
“You can say Fal threatened or tricked you, pon. Or that you didn’t realize Fal was acting crazy until it was too late, pon. Just blame it on Fal, pon.”
“And then?”
“You turn us in, declaring that Fal was the criminal. Tell the Magical Kingdom that your sidekick decided to round up a bunch of magical girls and make them fight to the death, pon.”
“Hey…” The girl turned a half circle in her revolving chair to face Fal. The momentum caused her glasses to slip down, so she once again stuck out her left middle finger to readjust them. “Do you see me as some little weakling who’s trembling in fear of all she’s done, a girl who simply feels she can’t go back? Do I come off that boring to you? If your impression of me is that I’m the kind of person who would be glad to hear ‘I’ll take all the blame, so you go beg forgiveness’…that’s worse than disgusting. The looowest of the low.”
“You could still—”
“You shut your mouth.” The girl let go of her bangs, then immediately spun back to her original position. “Don’t you throw cold water on my moral code, sidekick. Only real magical girls should be doing what we do. What’s so wrong with that? Nothing. If you’re gonna tell me that the unworthy can be magical girls, too, then the system, the tests, the Magical Kingdom, and everything else are to blame for that. And in particular, the one with the most blame to shoulder is her. So perhaps the second-most would be the children, right?”
The girl smiled at Fal. “I will follow my master’s teachings. That’s the right way to be a magical girl.”
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