Mahou Shoujo Ikusei Keikaku - Volume 7 - Chapter 5

CHAPTER 5

POKER GAME

  Grim Heart

The report that the combined unit of all the spades and clubs had been wiped out did not turn Grim Heart to anger. In fact, it made her suspicious.

Actually, seeing the group fight had given her a general grasp of their strength. There was no way they could be strong enough to manage somehow against the combined unit of spades and clubs. But for some reason, in the brief instant when her eyes had left the camera, they had all been destroyed.

“What if they set a trap?” the Joker suggested.

“That’s it.”

The spades and clubs were number one and number two when it came to battle. They were different from the diamonds, who still had yet to figure out the facility systems, and the hearts, who just trembled in fear of Grim Heart’s wrath.

But that also meant such a combination was specialized for combat only. If the enemy were to arrange a trap, they would probably walk right into it.

“Let’s change their roles.” The Joker Shufflin was the only one allowed to advise her—because Grim Heart gave her permission to do so.

Grim Heart’s magic was to restrict any intervention from others as she pleased. So long as Grim Heart did not permit it, it was impossible for others to converse with or attack her.

“It’s unlikely that we’ll grasp the facility systems quickly. Rather than diverting all the diamond Shufflins to that task, we should incorporate them into the combat team as well. Their knowledge and skills should be able to disengage any mechanical or magical traps. And let’s use the cameras, too. From the monitor in the briefing room, it’s possible to observe all the training rooms. If we watch what they do, I believe figuring out their trap should be easy enough. I’ll also add in the upper-digit hearts.”

“What use will the hearts be?”

“Decoys.”

It didn’t seem like such a poor proposal. So then she should go through with it. She wanted to punish the diamonds for wasting time on this mere barbarian facility, but that could wait until this was done. For now, she would send them to the task at hand and manage things optimally.

“As for the formation, we’ll put the stronger combatants on the briefing room side. At the very least, we’ll position the Ace of Spades over there. Reports say the enemy has a digital fairy–type mascot. If they were to break through to the briefing room with a desperate charge, there is the risk the digital fairy could overwrite the password. And in that case, they would be able to run right out the front entrance. But if we were to leave the opposite side unguarded, they could also invade the briefing room by going the long way around, so let’s position a minimal watch of one or two there. If we observe the desert, forest, and rocky areas on the monitor, I believe that should be sufficient, but we will be as careful as possible.”

“Hmm. What about the use of demons?”

“The stock has already run out.”

“They should have held a little more in reserve, those useless barbarians.”

Grim Heart scrutinized the strategy the Joker had proposed. Even just a little thought exposed multiple problems. First, the number one issue was that there were not enough Shufflins.

Grim Heart looked down at the two experimental subjects. The earth elemental had come in front of the wind elemental one. If she was stepping forward, it had to mean she wanted to be executed. Grim Heart would have preferred to leave the experiments alive if possible, but now that it came to this, there was no helping it.

The earth elemental experiment was trembling as she spoke to the wind elemental. The way she took that position in front of the wind one, it seemed as if she were trying to guard her.

“Off with her head.”

She replenished Shufflin.

  Fal

They weren’t able to carry out the decent-enough plan of taking advantage of this opportunity to rush straight to the briefing room, and the idea fizzled out.

Snow White had scouted ahead, but the moment the bulkhead of the rocky area had opened, she’d heard the voice of the Ace of Spades beyond and had been forced to temporarily retreat.

Fortunately, the enemy had not come to pursue, but they were probably fairly wary, too. They must not have anticipated that all the spade Shufflins would be blown up at once.

The Shufflins had been replenished. They disappeared without leaving bodies, and what’s more, even those units that had been tied up by Filru’s thread vanished. Fal had wondered what was going on, but once they encountered the Ace of Spades, whom they should have defeated, it became clear. Basically, it was a disaster.

The group kept a close eye on their surroundings as they moved through the forest, the hall in front of the entrance, and then the desert, then stopped in the watery area. According to the princesses, the monitor in the briefing room displayed the training rooms from the ceiling. It wasn’t like there were cameras fixed there—you could look down from any place on the ceiling. In other words, if they blocked the view from above, they wouldn’t be watched.

They used Princess Inferno’s scimitar to evaporate the water, filling the room with mist. With the room like this, they couldn’t see even a few feet in front of them, so the enemy wouldn’t be able to launch a rapid attack.

What’s more, combining Filru’s thread with the hand grenades from Stanczyka, they rigged a trap that would explode instantly if the bulkheads moved even a little.

Everyone was exhausted. Only Filru, on watch, got herself up somehow to fix her eyes on the threads in her hands, but everyone else was lying down or sitting. Even Marika Fukuroi, who only ever talked about fighting whenever her mouth was open, was soaking her legs in the flowing water and lying sprawled out.

“So why was she there?”

The she Marika spoke of was Stanczyka.

Maybe Stanczyka couldn’t talk, or maybe she didn’t want to—regardless, she made no attempt to use words, and so they were forced to expend more effort than necessary to communicate. Fortunately, since there was a magical girl present who could hear the thoughts of others—Snow White—though there was some stumbling, they were able to learn about her situation.

“Did you cause that explosion?” asked Snow White. “How?”

Stanczyka showed off a line of grenades between her fingers, then juggled the three spheres before dropping them into her sleeve. She handled such dangerous objects as if they were toys.

“Why do you have something like that?”

Stanczyka tilted her head. She didn’t try to answer. Seeing how the grenades had damaged the Shufflins, they clearly couldn’t be regular ones. They looked normal, but there was magic in them.

Wherever she was getting them from, they couldn’t have been easy to get a hold of, so there had to be some powerful patron backing her. And the more powerful the patron, the more they would want to avoid being discussed. But not like it could be hidden from Snow White anyway.

“Where were you? How did you use them?”

With gestures, body language, and Snow White’s help as well, Stanczyka somehow managed to tell them. After barely avoiding the Shufflins’ attack, she had avoided detection and managed to stay hidden. In that exploded bulkhead, she’d installed a trap that caused the pins of the grenades to pull out if someone passed through.

“So then… wouldn’t that have been dangerous for us, too?” asked Styler Mimi.

“We got saved in the end, so it’s all good, right?” Marika shot back.

“All of us could have been blown to pieces.”

“I’m saying don’t whine to the one who just saved your life.”

“You’re always like this…”

Fal prompted Snow White, and they moved a little ways away from the others. With so much mist everywhere, it was possible to have a covert discussion in the room. “Is Stanczyka not a problem, pon?”

“… Probably not.”

“Probably?”

“She’s not like Shufflin. But I think there’s something strange about her.”

“Then that’s a big problem, isn’t it, pon? It was a big problem with Shufflin, pon.”

“Like I said, she’s different from Shufflin.”

“Who’s behind Stanczyka, pon?”

“I don’t know.”

“Pon?”

“She’s working for someone, but she doesn’t know anything about who it is.”

Fal looked up at Snow White from the magical phone. Snow White’s eyes were pointed beyond the mist. It was as if she was looking at something, but also as if her eyes were on nothing at all.

“What’s that supposed to mean, pon? She doesn’t even know who she’s working for, pon?”

“At the very least, she’s trying to help us.”

“Why are you defending her so much, pon?”

“I’m not defending her. I’m just stating the facts. Stanczyka’s heart is startlingly straightforward.”

Fal puffed out a flutter of scales, and patiently watching the yellow powder fall in silence, Fal calmed his heart. “Is there really no problem, pon?”

“For now.”

  Princess Deluge

What time was it outside? Nami’s parents might have noticed that she hadn’t come home and reported it to the police.

A clock in the facility wouldn’t have been very magical girl–ish, so that was fine, but had the one who’d said the lack of windows would make them lose track of time been Tempest, or had it been Quake? It hadn’t been Deluge, and she doubted Inferno would say something like that, either.

Prism Cherry had some large mirrors, and she’d hung them on the walls of the briefing room. The mirrors on the walls took the place of windows. With Prism Cherry’s magic, the mirrors would become ocean, mountains, forest, a big city nightscape, a sky, and even outer space. When Inferno had said, if they could see whatever scenery they liked, there was no need to travel anymore, they had all laughed. Prism Cherry had laughed, too.

Prism Cherry.

What had gone wrong? What should Deluge have done? If she could turn back time and make it so she’d never met Prism Cherry, then she wouldn’t have had to die.

If Deluge had never become a magical girl, this wouldn’t have happened to her.

If she had never met Prism Cherry, if she’d never met Quake and Tempest, she never would have felt this sorrow.

The other magical girls were all hidden behind the thick mist and out of view. The mist not only hid the others, it also leeched away body heat. Since she was sitting on the ground, heat oozed out her bottom, chilling her. The cold didn’t hurt her, but that wasn’t the point. It got her down.

“Hey, Deluge.”

She looked up. Inferno tossed her a fruit, and still seated, Deluge caught it and scowled. It was sticky, with juices clinging to it.

“It works pretty well. It made me feel more lighthearted.” It was the fruit that had been created from the flower on Marika Fukuroi’s head. There were a few cuts running across its skin, and juice was oozing from them. “Though this isn’t the kind of situation where you wanna feel too lighthearted. But it’s better than being crushed by the weight of it all, right? I don’t think we could really function, otherwise.”

“Yeah…”

“Besides, though it was a little… Once I licked this, I was able to use Luxury Mode. I think it restores your magic.”

“Huh… Really?”

“Though honestly, I wasn’t expecting anything from it.”

Deluge ran her tongue along the surface of the fruit, licking off the juices. It tasted like bitterness and spice mixed, with a kick that sent a tingling numbness through her tongue. Even aside from the juices, the skin was moist before she licked it.

“Oh, sorry,” said Inferno. “I forgot to say, but I licked it, too.”

“I see. So then this is an indirect kiss, huh.”

“For real? That’s my first kiss, you know.”

“Me too.”

“Now we’ve done it.”

“Yep, we’ve done it.”

They looked at each other and, after a beat, burst out laughing. Deluge licked the fruit’s skin one more time. She sucked in a big breath, then blew out the same amount, breathed in one more time, turned the fruit around, and licked it. “You’re right, maybe it did work.”

Inferno was trying to cheer her up. Even though this had to be painful and miserable for her, and she would be dying to run away from it all, she was still showing Deluge consideration and a smile.

She’d been like this during training, too. She’d put making the others smile before her own comfort. It had always been like that. Deluge remembered thinking, I wish I could be like that, too.

Her chilled body warmed up a little. Touching her left hand to her Princess Jewel, she closed her eyes. She’d regained just a little energy, after all.

“She said not to use it too much.”

“Yeah, this should be enough.”

Deluge looked at Inferno. Inferno was looking back at her, too.

  Styler Mimi

“Why did you come underground?”

“’Cause that’s where the fighting was.”

“How stupid can you get? Fighting? You’re not suited to the underground. How are you supposed to fight without sunlight?”

“Hey, I’m fighting, aren’t I?”

“What do you mean, fighting? You’re totally whipped.”

“I’m recharging.”

No matter what Mimi said, all she got were halfhearted replies. Wasn’t a junkie supposed to feel shame over being a junkie? But Marika was not at all shy about the fact that she was addicted to fighting.

Mimi just got more and more irritated.

It wasn’t the unusual spike in humidity that had bumped up her level of discomfort. Mimi had been forced to go along with Marika many times before. Even when she said she didn’t want to, she was dragged all around. Wherever they went, Marika Fukuroi would go on a big rampage, and then Mimi would breathe a sigh of exasperation at her hopelessness, and they would go home. Wondering if they’d be able to go home this time sent a shiver running down her spine.

She’d figured out herself that this was different from the other times. They’d never been backed this far into the corner before. Until now, no one had ever died. Until now, they’d never been forced to kill. This fight was different from all the others.

But Marika Fukuroi was the same as always.

She was crazy. She was a battle demon: As long as she could fight, things were fine with her. Mimi should have known this, but only now was she regretting it.

Deluge and Inferno were approaching. One was holding Marika’s fruit. It seemed they’d come to thank her for it. They looked refreshed, somehow.

How can they have such looks on their faces? Mimi snapped in her mind. Were they not aware of the situation, here? Could they understand what was going on?

She couldn’t spew such venom at them, though. She still had enough sense left to realize that.

Mimi left Marika. She was hopelessly angry.

Snow White was deep in conversation with Fal; Stanczyka didn’t seem like someone she could talk to. So Mimi walked toward a figure that wavered beyond the mist.

Gradually, the image gained form. It was Filru.

Filru was sitting there looking utterly exhausted.

“… Are you all right?” Mimi asked, and immediately thought, What an empty condolence.

“I’m… not very all right.”

“How about we change places? I’m not injured, after all.”

“No. This is something only I can do.”

“Seems rough.” Again, after saying that, Mimi thought, What an empty condolence. She thought maybe this time she’d get yelled at for it, but Filru smiled weakly.

“It’s not bad to be needed,” Filru said, and then her shoulders twitched. Her expression turned from a weak smile to a tight, alert look. There were sounds coming from the bulkhead—the one on the briefing room side.

Wind blew in from the hallway. The mist gradually cleared, revealing the figure on the other side of the bulkhead. The instant they could see it was the Ace of Spades, Filru pulled her string and detonated five hand grenades.

Before, they’d managed with this, somehow. It should work out somehow this time, too.

Covering her ears, Mimi resisted the rumble, focusing her eyes on the billowing white smoke that blocked their vision. Surely, there had to be nothing but ruins left—a horrible corpse exploded by magic hand grenades, its whole body torn up.

But someone was standing in the smoke. Its silhouette, which looked a size larger than Shufflin, was one Shufflin holding more of them. The Ace of Spades tossed aside the total of four bodies that she’d been holding up in both arms—they were all burnt black. They looked so awful, you couldn’t even tell they had originally been Shufflins.

She’d used her allies as a shield to absorb the impact of the explosion.

Having tossed away her meat shield, the Ace reached out into thin air, grabbed something firmly, and yanked it to her with all her strength. Filru flew from Mimi’s side toward Shufflin—Snow White ran to her but didn’t make it in time.

Filru twisted around at the last second to take the spear aimed at her chest in the side, instead. From where Mimi stood, she could hear the sound of bones breaking and skin tearing, the sound of the spear sinking into her flesh. The other magical girls moved, and the Ace of Spades reached out with an open hand to Filru’s face. That was when Snow White thrust her naginata toward them.

The Ace tossed Filru away and tried to avoid Snow White’s blade, but the pole arm changed its trajectory to slice past the Ace’s hand, sending a finger flying.

From behind the Ace, more Shufflins appeared one after another, and Snow White ran backward in retreat. The Shufflins rushed back into the hallway as Stanczyka threw her hand grenades. Three or four green spheres rolled in and exploded.

Dragging Filru, Styler Mimi somehow escaped the range of the blast.

Deluge, Inferno, and Marika didn’t try to pursue. The mouth of the bulkhead slowly closed, and once again, all that filled the room was the sound of running water.

Filru moaned. Styler Mimi hurriedly lowered her to the ground.

“Are you all right?!”

She was still using those empty words.

“Ngh… Well, I’m managing.”

Stabbing deep into her own wound, Filru sewed it up with wide stitches. She was probably sewing up her internal wounds, too. She looked like she was in agony. Offered Marika’s fruit, she looked a little more at ease.

But it was still a severe wound. Mimi had even heard bones break. The stab had pierced her organs. Would sewing the wound up make it close up right away? It didn’t seem so.

“Looks like they’ve retreated for now,” Snow White, who’d had her ear to the door, reported with her head still against the bulkhead.

Stanczyka spread her arms wide for everyone.

“Does that maybe mean you’ve got no more bombs left?” Inferno asked, and Stanczyka gave an exaggerated nod.

She was out of hand grenades. Filru was deeply wounded. They weren’t the sort of wounds she could force herself to fight through. They didn’t know how worn down the enemy was, either.

“Okay, let’s go.”

Only Marika Fukuroi still maintained her cheer. “We’ve got no choice but to go on the offense to try to turn this around in one shot. You guys all get it, right? At this rate, they’ll just grind us down slowly until we’re dead.”

I’m gonna give her a beating myself, Mimi thought as she stood up and clenched a fist.

But Snow White raised a hand. “I think that’s our only option, too.”

Marika Fukuroi cackled with sincere joy as she slapped Snow White on the back.

  Shufflin

She was missing eight Shufflins in total. Considering that her total was fifty-two, that consumption was slight. She’d used seven hearts as shields in that explosion, and they’d failed to block it entirely, so she’d lost the Five of Spades, as well.

But she hadn’t only consumed some Shufflins—she’d learned something, too. Hearts of ten or higher worked well enough as shields to block explosions. The face cards of Jack and higher were all alive. With this many hearts remaining, she would have enough.

Grim Heart acted on sensibility. In order to compensate for that, the Joker acted based on calculation. She subtracted the number of Shufflins she had consumed as well as the number of enemy magical girls. She was down eight Shufflins and had delivered great damage to one enemy. The enemy’s numbers were far inferior. Even a ratio of eight to one was fine. All the ones that had been consumed were lower-ranking hearts.

“Attack them!” Grim Heart yelled. She was in a bad mood and hysterical. Shufflin wanted to avoid being close to her as much as possible. It would be best to improve her mood as much as she could.

“Understood.”

Joker gave the order to block an explosion in the same way, if there were more explosives. Those explosives were powerful weapons, but there was likely a limit to their number. If not, the enemy would have been more aggressive with them.

And while the Joker was thinking, the Shufflins were on the move, one after another. The Two of Hearts, which had gone out as a scout, returned to the briefing room. No pursuit from the enemy.

It seemed their explosives were limited, after all. The enemy saw them as a valuable resource. They wouldn’t waste them.

Giving instructions to the Two of Hearts, the Joker once again headed out to the front line. The heart Shufflins could only think simple thoughts, and they were intellectually quite limited. For that reason, she could only give them extremely basic orders.

“Just do as you’ve been instructed.”

If the enemy used explosives on her, she would use the hearts again. The face cards had excellent endurance, and they’d likely absorb even an explosion that would blow away ten spades.

If no explosive came, then first she would have the Ace of Spades raid the enemy to break their formation, while the rest of the Shufflin unit would charge in to crush them with numbers.

The concept in the production of Shufflin was “numbers.” Multiple Shufflins existed simultaneously within one. It was a given that she would be used by a super-high-level magical girl like Grim Heart, who was powerful enough to crush thousands.

Though, against barbarians, Shufflin alone could do well enough, even without a super-high-level magical girl. What would take on that role was the Ace of Spades, the Shufflins’ chief fighting power. The unit of Shufflins would enter a contest of force, while the Ace of Spades would operate independently, attacking the enemy’s flanks. That way, the enemy wouldn’t be able to keep up.

Turning the chair around, her gaze dropped to the monitor. The room was filled with mist, and she couldn’t see what was going on.

Right around when she was thinking they should attack, the Two of Hearts came back, making a fuss and saying there was something strange that kept them from getting into the room.

The Joker glanced at Grim Heart. It seemed she was not yet angry. But there were signs she was starting to get a little irritated. Any more would not be good.

“Have the diamonds investigate what it is specifically. And leave sending a messenger to the diamonds, too.”

With such unexpected incidents, it was best to not use hearts. The hearts wouldn’t work, and they would just cause confusion. The Two of Hearts ran away, and after a while, the Three of Diamonds came to her.

It seemed what blocked their way was a wall of ice. It was frozen and firm and stopped them from proceeding. The spade Shufflins were capable of destroying it, but they weren’t sure if they should.

The Joker wanted to click her tongue but restrained herself. If she were to do that now, it would only make Grim Heart angry. Keeping her irritation inside would generate better results. The reverse teacher that was Grim Heart had taught her this in an easily understood way.

A wall of ice had to be the work of the water-elemental experiment. They’d filled the pond room with water and frozen it to make a wall. If the diamonds had figured out the facility systems, they would have been able to cut off the water supply in that room and seal off the bulkheads, but they had been taking their sweet time, and things had wound up like this.

To break it, or not to break it? It seemed that she was forced to break it, but that made it seem like they wanted her to do exactly that. Which was correct? Or should she go around the opposite side to attack? But then the defenses on the briefing room side would be thinned. She’d diligently checked the monitors in the desert, forest, and rocky areas, but there was no sign of any attack from there.

Before she could come to a conclusion, the Three of Hearts came back. She reported there was a crack in the wall of ice.

The Joker heard breaking sounds from the monitor, and then there was the sound of gushing water. And not just a little bit—it was a rushing torrent. The Joker stood up.

  Princess Inferno

The wall of ice shattered, and the water that had been filling up there burst out all at once. A few heart Shufflins were caught in the flow and swept away. The Ace of Spades firmly resisted.

But they’d calculated that she would resist it. Deluge activated Luxury Mode and thrust her trident into the flow of water, freezing it together with Shufflin, who was standing there, resisting the flow.

Leaping over Shufflin’s head, she spun half around in the air to hit the ceiling, ran five steps, then kicked off again to turn on the way down and land on the hallway floor, rushing off ahead of the surging water without ever slowing down.

A Shufflin knocked away a knife thrown by Stanczyka, and Inferno used that moment to mow the Shufflin down with her scimitar. It didn’t feel good. She’d never wanted to do this again, but now it was like she’d even gotten used to it.

But now wasn’t the time to be agonizing over that. She gulped down the piece of the fruit she’d been saving under her tongue. It passed down her throat to her stomach, and from there, its heat traveled throughout her body.

Right now, things were proceeding according to plan.

First, the magical girls had all worked together to make a dam to block up the water in the training room. They’d had Deluge freeze the built-up water to harden it, blocking the bulkhead on the desert side by freezing it. And then they’d made a wall of ice in front of the bulkhead on the briefing room side and built up even more water.

The moment the bulkhead had opened, Inferno had melted the ice wall to unleash the water in the hallway, and Deluge had instantly frozen the ice to keep the Shufflins in place, while she, Styler Mimi, and Marika Fukuroi had overwhelmed them.

The Snow White, Stanczyka, and Inferno trio had not bothered fighting the Shufflins, instead rushing straight to the briefing room.

If there was someone inside the briefing room who knew the password, then Snow White would steal it and they would immediately retreat.

She’d told them that just once, in the past, she’d stolen a password by listening to her thoughts. When Inferno had said, “That’s some surprisingly nasty stuff you’ve gotten up to, Koyuki,” she’d given a little embarrassed smile.

If no one there knew the password, or if only Grim Heart, whom Snow White couldn’t read, knew the password, then Snow White and Stanczyka would buy time while Inferno brought up the log to read the current password.

The original purpose of the password was to protect from outside enemies, so it shouldn’t be that difficult to read it from the console in the briefing room.

Without ever slowing down, they turned the L-shaped corner.

There were no Shufflins on the way to the briefing room. Snow White dragged a log from her bag. In the forest area, she’d cut a fallen cedar tree to a good length. If she set it upright, it came about as high as Inferno’s chest. In other words, if you leaned it over, it was just the right size to hold down the operation panel.

Snow White pushed the operation panel, and before the bulkhead could even start moving, she leaned the cedar log on the panel. Now, even if she let go, even if they left here, the continuous pressure on the panel would keep the bulkhead from closing.

The bulkhead opened. They could see into the briefing room. Despite how Inferno had come here so many times, it felt like it had been a long time since she’d been in there. The diamond Shufflins’ eyes widened, looking over at them. Grim Heart was stuffing something into her bag. The room was filled with her lifestyle garbage scattered around: equipment that was unfamiliar to Inferno, booklets, and snack wrappers.

“Go,” Snow White whispered quietly. That meant she’d been unable to pick up the password with her magic. So from here on out, it would be Inferno’s job.

With a roar, she swung her scimitar. She was deliberately moving wildly, solely to get the enemies to move. The diamond Shufflins tumbled and ran about in confusion, and Inferno jumped over the table to stand in front of the monitor.

The one who’d been most familiar with the operation of these systems had been Prism Cherry. She’d always been saying she wanted to be as useful as she could be, given her abilities, and had constantly been referencing manuals, making the spot in front of the monitor her position. She’d gained more mastery of the systems than anyone.

But she was gone now.

Inferno buried all the emotions welling up within her.

Going on a rampage in here wasn’t going to bring Prism Cherry back. There was something else she had to do.

She turned the monitor’s observation mode off. They’d been using it just now, so that command wasn’t blocked off, of course. Turning on administrator permissions, she moved to properties and checked the logs.

She scrolled down the screen, along the lines and lines of operation history that loaded up to search for the password-related history she was looking for, and then felt heat on her back. The heat turned to pain.

Inferno spun around, flipping up her tail. She’d felt contact, and blood gushed from her back, scattering around the briefing room.

Stanczyka was being blown back, flying parallel with the ground to impact the wall, where her whole body twitched. Snow White stood in front of Grim Heart, who’d tried to chase down Stanczyka, and she slammed Ruler down on Grim Heart’s shoulder, but it had no effect at all.

Among the Shufflins running about in confusion, Grim Heart alone was standing there, calm.

They were okay, like that. They’d come there to buy time, after all.

Inferno touched her hand to her back. The wound was deep; the blood wouldn’t stop.

Someone slowly came crawling out from underneath the table—a Shufflin. It was neither a heart, nor a spade, nor a club, nor a diamond: the face of a nasty jester was drawn on her card. The great scythe she held in her hands was dripping blood. With a face just like the jester drawn on her costume, she laughed, and swung down her scythe.

Inferno tried to block it with her scimitar but couldn’t stop it entirely. She was weakening, and the scythe sliced up her arm, sending even more blood flying. Her head felt cloudy. Her eyes stopped in one corner of her spinning vision.

There was a pile of bodies. All of them were human women. One of them was familiar. When they’d first met, Inferno’s rude impression had been that she was a not-sunny university student.

Her throat had been cut and she had fallen faceup. She was covered in blood and piled up in a corner of the room like an object, like trash that was no longer of any use.

A sound like something ripping came out from deep in Inferno’s throat. Her hazy-feeling head cleared. The form of the enemy standing there came into proper focus, and her expression, that nasty smile the other Shufflins had lacked, was burned into her retinas.

—You.

Without even being conscious of what she was doing, she activated Luxury Mode. The pain in her back vanished. Unnecessary sounds disappeared; the sights around her disappeared. Inside her, the same feelings echoed. Her aversion to killing was gone. She wanted to kill. She would kill. She was going to kill her.

The scythe was about to come down. Inferno drew back her right foot—not to avoid it. It was to kill her. It was to get revenge for Quake. She would not let it end like this.

She held her scimitar in her right hand, placing her left alongside it.

She’d practiced this over and over. She’d always hated that sort of repetitive practice, ever since she’d been in track, but nevertheless, she’d done it as told.

Because she’d wanted to keep being a magical girl. She’d wanted to continue on together with the Pure Elements. Quake had even laughed at her for saying, “Let’s stay magical girls, even when we’re all old ladies.”

Now she understood for what purpose that training had been.

It was to kill her enemies.

When the scythe came down, it was particularly slow. Even the sound of it tearing through the air was drawn out like a slow-motion video. Inferno didn’t care about things like that anymore.

Inferno thrust out with her scimitar. This was the greatest attack in her short time as a magical girl. Neither a Disrupter nor Marika Fukuroi nor the Shufflin Ace would be able to avoid this thrust.

The great scythe and the scimitar crossed, then passed each other. Right when Inferno was about to pierce her enemy’s heart, Grim Heart slipped in from the side and repelled her blade.

“Fool! Don’t let your guard down!”

The slow motion ended.

She could hear the Shufflins wailing. Grim Heart was yelling, “I told you not to kill the experimental subjects!” Stanczyka was still leaning against the wall, probably unable to move. When a Shufflin made to approach her, still from that sitting position, she blew fire. Snow White scooped up Inferno and leaped out the open bulkhead, kicking down the cedar trunk that leaned there.

The bulkhead closed. Grim Heart cursed and tried to follow them. Watching this, Inferno couldn’t think straight. She felt too weak.

Stanczyka moved. She took a grenade from her sleeve and pulled out the pin. Grim Heart whipped around, and Snow White raced off without a backward glance.

A flash. Explosion. Shock. Snow White was holding her, scimitar and all. That was all Inferno could tell. More and more information was being shut away from her. The heat from the wound on her back was draining away.

“Ah…” She could still speak. But she didn’t even know how much longer she’d be able to do that. “Hey… Koyuki…”

“Don’t push yourself, Akari.”

“You’re… the Magical-Girl Hunter… right…?” That was what Marika Fukuroi had said. That Snow White hunted bad magical girls. In her arms, when Inferno raised her head, she found Snow White had fantastic eyelashes.

“So… then… Those guys…”

Prism Cherry and Quake had both been killed. Inferno had failed to read the password or get revenge. She’d been unable to do anything and was awkwardly being carried as they ran away.

She couldn’t even run herself. She wanted to run hard, with her own two legs. That was all she wanted to do, but she couldn’t even do that and was being carried. She’d failed to get revenge for Quake and Prism Cherry, and the frustration in her heart remained as Snow White just held her.

“If… you’re… the Magical-Girl… Hunter… take… those guys… down…”

Her speech, her voice, her vision were all gone. The heat from Snow White’s body against her own vanished before Inferno herself vanished, too. All that remained until the very end was her regret.

  Grim Heart

Grim Heart was beside herself with rage.

She kicked and punched the Ace of Hearts, slamming the Shufflin’s face on the desk and throwing her against the wall. Since the Shufflin was still in one piece, Grim Heart must have been unconsciously holding back. She still had some sense left.

But that self-evaluation that she still had sense left only poured oil on the fire. She wanted to break everything.

She had just barely managed to save the Joker from Stanczyka’s self-destruction attack. It really had been that close. If Grim Heart had been only a moment later, if she’d been even a second off in covering her, the Joker would have been caught in the explosion and either been injured or died.

How could it have been just barely? The mere fact that Grim Heart herself had been forced to act was a humiliation equivalent to loss. She hadn’t come here to fight these barbarians. Grim Heart was here to stand on top. There was no need to do anything—or there should not have been. There shouldn’t.

She breathed in a breath, then exhaled.

Grim Heart was furious. Some girls had wounded her pride. And she was unable to execute them for it—they were still out there. She’d had a blade thrust at her throat, and a half step closer, and she’d have been cornered—by a barbarian, the lowest of the low, the basest, the most inferior savages, these were the sort that had opposed Grim Heart.

She thrust her hand into her sack and pulled out the contents—the wind elemental experimental subject. The moment she’d known the enemy was attacking, she’d stuffed it away in the bag. Thinking that she wasn’t about to let the enemy steal it and that it would be foolish if it were to get mixed up in the battle and lost, she’d taken what she thought was the best action.

Exactly what about this was the best? All she had was anger.

“Off with her head.”

Joker paused a moment, then swung up her scythe.

The wind-experimental subject cried and wailed and pressed her forehead to the floor many times. She must have been trying to apologize. Grim Heart didn’t care about that sort of thing, now.

The girl’s head rolled along the floor and finally, after seeing the Shufflins that had been damaged by the attack just now regenerate, Grim Heart’s mind cleared. It didn’t cheer her up, but she felt a little better.

“… Was it a bad idea to have sacrificed all the experimental subjects?” asked Grim Heart.

“Lacking in Shufflins would have hindered our strategy. I believe there was no helping it.”

“Hmm. Indeed so.”

The experiment the Joker had stabbed had been snatched away by Snow White. That wound would probably be fatal. Capturing her would be impossible.

In other words, there was only one left.

What’s more, she was now out of her stock of magical girls for replenishment. If Stanczyka hadn’t pulled that foolish self-destruct move, she could have used her as stock. What a waste. But Grim Heart couldn’t be lamenting that now. She had to bring about success this time, for sure.

  Filru

When Inferno died, she left behind her scimitar. In other words, they could still create mist. But that was all. It was just that they could keep from being monitored by the enemy—it wasn’t as if they wouldn’t be attacked.

Deluge, frozen stiff, was still clinging to the body of that roughly high school–age girl. Nobody tried to speak to her. Maybe they didn’t have the energy. At the very least, Filru didn’t. It hurt even if she didn’t move. And if she moved, it was torture. Though licking Marika’s fruit made it a little better, the pain would come back right away.

Stanczyka had self-destructed, and Inferno had been killed.

Even after all the sacrifices they’d made, they’d failed to acquire the password; they had been unable to open up the entrance or get outside. Nothing had changed, and they were still stuck in the pond area. And now that they were missing Inferno and Stanczyka, they were worse off than before.

In the briefing room, Snow White had heard the Joker Shufflin’s innermost thoughts. If they killed the Joker, they could defeat the other Shufflins.

But unless it was a critical situation like it had been earlier, the Joker would not expose herself to enemies. And by hearing the Joker’s thoughts, she had learned the true nature of Grim Heart’s magic.

“Grim Heart can choose who will communicate with her.”

“So then conversation and stuff… That sort of thing?” asked Styler Mimi.

“Conversation, battle, and other forms of communication as well—all of it is only possible from her end. My magic has no effect, either. As long as she does not permit it, nothing will work on her. Explosions, strikes, slices, magic, none of it will have an effect.”

“No way… Isn’t that unfair, pon?”

“She would even have beaten Keek, facing off against her inside Keek’s virtual space,” replied Snow White.

Fal’s image blurred as if it had been hit with static. Styler Mimi’s shoulders drooped, and she looked as if she wanted to burst into tears on the spot. “But then… that means we can’t do anything, can we?”

“Grim Heart finds it shameful to fight on the front lines, so if a situation came about where she was forced to act, the Joker would be in trouble… That was what the Joker was thinking. Grim Heart will avoid doing anything herself as much as possible. But when she really has no choice, she will act. Like just now…” Snow White looked over at Deluge, who had her back facing her. Then Snow White’s gaze turned to the girl Deluge clung to, and her face turned blank. It seemed as if her lips trembled a bit, but that may have merely been Filru’s imagination. “When we attacked the briefing room, she took action.”

“If it’s shameful for her to take action… then isn’t it shameful for her to even come to a place like this, pon?”

“It seems she’s fine if she’s high and haughty as the leader of her army.”

“What a nasty lady,” said Marika. “Man, I’d love to give her a good beatdown.”

“Didn’t you just hear her talking about how we’re in trouble because we can’t do that?” said Mimi.

“We beat up plenty of the Shufflins in the hallway, though,” Marika pointed out. “So are they all coming back again, too, then?”

Snow White looked at Deluge, and at the girl she clung to, one more time. This time, her lips were not trembling. “If the Joker is intact… then… she’ll already be done replenishing.”

“Ha-ha-ha-ha! We get to fight forever!”

“Shut the hell up, flower bitch.”

“Precisely what is their goal, pon?”

“Acquiring the artificial magical girls, as well as smothering the plan and eliminating everyone who knows about it,” Snow White replied.

“Then… we’re… really cornered, aren’t we…?” Styler Mimi moaned.

“Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!”

Filru was lying in a sleeping bag that Snow White had retrieved from her sack. The voices of everyone around her talking somehow sounded distant. She felt as if she wasn’t a part of it, as if she was listening from the position of a third party. The only irritation was the pain.

Uttakatta had been stabbed with a spear. Her expression then had been burned into Filru’s retinas. Uttakatta had always seemed so detached and sarcastically polite to everyone. She’d maintained her lifestyle as a freelancer, and she’d said that as long as she made no mistakes about who to follow, she would survive. In order to beat the artificial magical girls, the two of them had arranged it so they’d work together. Now Filru was fighting together with those artificial magical girls. Never mind what had happened the day before—even the events of that afternoon seemed like the distant past.

Was Kafuria still safe? Filru got the feeling that even captured by the enemy, Kafuria would still maintain some cheer. At the very least, she wasn’t going to die first. She’d said so. Filru had found her creepy, and even now, she still did. But she also wanted her to be safe.

The pain was too much and she moaned, licking the fruit. The agony eased a bit. She closed her eyes.

She’d wanted the credit. She’d wanted to get a job again. But maybe there’d been no need for that, actually. Filru imagined working together with Uttakatta and Kafuria as a freelancer. It seemed pretty fun, in fact.

Kafuria and Uttakatta would be messing with her all the time, but she would travel all over to earn a little money here and there. That would be the kind of job where people needed you, too, in its own way.

Filru wanted someone to need her. She wanted someone to say she was necessary personnel.

“Please…”

It was not Snow White who spoke. Nor was it Styler Mimi nor Marika Fukuroi. Of course, it was not Fal, and neither was it Filru. It was Princess Deluge.

“Please, offer me up. If their goal is to take us, then offer me to them and negotiate. Tell them you’ll offer me up without resistance, as long as everyone else’s lives are spared.”