Mahou Shoujo Ikusei Keikaku - Volume 8 - Chapter 2.5

INTERLUDE

The armored magical girl rattled as she moved. There had been too much going on when Shadow Gale had been watching her fight from Patricia’s back, but either this armor was rusty, or the size was off, as it was just noisy.

The armored girl closed the door behind her. It creaked as she did. And it was heavy. At a glance, the door was pretty thick. It might be difficult for someone of Shadow Gale’s strength to destroy in one blow.

“Do you…need something?” Shadow Gale asked as she started backing up to the edge of the room. But since the shadows were there, she kept away from the four corners, going to stand a little back from the center of the room. She didn’t look great. She couldn’t deny she was scared. If this armored girl were to declare that the prisoner was now unnecessary and come swinging at her, Shadow Gale probably couldn’t even resist.

The armored magical girl rattled as she tilted her helmet. It resembled a tilt of the head, but her posture was unnatural, compared with that of a human. Shadow Gale had assumed that since she was strong and sturdy enough to exchange blows with a magical girl, of course she also had to be a magical girl, but maybe the armored being actually wasn’t. There was something inhuman about the way it moved.

The armor spread both its arms, closed its palms, opened them, and shook its arms up and down. Shadow Gale furrowed her brow. She couldn’t understand what it was trying to say.

“If there’s something you want to say, then please be clear about it.”

The armor didn’t respond; it just repeated the same motions. It seemed unable to talk. The one thing Shadow Gale could sort of get was that the armor was trying to communicate somehow by responding to Shadow Gale’s actions. That made her different from the black silhouettes that remained at the ready in the four corners of the room, kind of like the four auspicious beasts of Chinese legend, only reacting mechanically when Shadow Gale moved. Even if Shadow Gale and the armor couldn’t communicate, she could sense the armor wanted to.

“Um, well then. Do you think you could you let me out of here?”

The armor stomped on the concrete, almost as if in frustration. At the very least, it didn’t look like it was saying yes. Shadow Gale had just figured she might as well give that a shot, so she wasn’t disappointed, but she couldn’t even be sure as to whether her message had even got through.

It didn’t take much time for Shadow Gale to figure if the armor didn’t understand words, maybe she should use body language, too. Shadow Gale pointed first to the entrance, then at herself, then swung her arms to indicate running. She meant to communicate, “I want to go out the exit.”

The armor brought her right hand before her face and waved it. Ohhh, Shadow Gale thought. That was a clear rejection. If the armor was saying no, that meant that they had no intention of letting her go. That fact was not a good thing, but she was grateful that it seemed the body language was getting through. She felt as if it had been a long time since she had last communicated with someone.

Shadow Gale thought about the things she wanted to know.

What she wanted to do was get outside quickly. Once Pfle found out that Shadow Gale had been captured, she might do something reckless, and if that happened, Snow White would kill Shadow Gale. That disaster would be difficult to avoid since Pfle herself didn’t know about this. If Shadow Gale could just get out of here quickly, she wouldn’t have to evade the disaster, because it wouldn’t happen. And what she needed to that end was information.

Was Patricia safe? Where was this place? What had Shadow Gale been kidnapped for? What kind of group were these people? Did they have a grudge against Pfle? Did this have to do with Pfle’s work?

There was probably no point in even trying to engage in negotiation. If these were people who could be negotiated with, then Patricia would have seen a different fate. Even if Shadow Gale were to try to compromise with them and offer to provide information or do something for them with her magic, wouldn’t they just wind up demanding even more than what she’d conceded? She could predict them demanding something unreasonable, like Pfle’s life, or cooperating with them to destroy the Magical Kingdom.

So then there was no need to compromise. She’d deceive the enemy and use that opportunity to escape or contact the outside. They were the ones who had come to attack her. They had no right to complain about her tricking them after they’d made her their prisoner.

“I really have nothing to do here. Could I at least watch TV? I’d like to kill some time.” Shadow Gale drew a square shape with her hands, then posed like she was watching it intently, and then she had both her hands faceup toward herself. Expressing with her whole body that she wanted a TV, she repeated these actions. The armor, which had been looking up intently at Shadow Gale’s miming, clapped her hands, turned around, and left the room. The rusted door created as it closed, and watching, Shadow Gale let out a cry of joy.

If she could get a TV, then she’d have this whole thing in the bag. Shadow Gale could modify machines with her magic. She’d have to tamper with it slowly, bit by bit, so as not to be noticed by the shadows that kept watch around her. She could certainly get information from the outside but also let Pfle know about where she was and make the TV fire off fatal rays so she could escape—well, maybe that wouldn’t happen, but it would be ten steps ahead from now, where she had nothing more than her costume.

If her captors had known of Shadow Gale’s magic, they would never have given her a TV, but it seemed the armor wasn’t worried about that. So then ultimately, they were unaware of her magic, just kidnapping and confining her as an accessory to Pfle, weren’t they? Mamori Totoyama’s life had generally been like that. She never stood out or got attention as anything but an accessory to Kanoe Hitokouji.

In the past, this fact had made her feel fed up with herself. She’d felt overcome with sorrow, too. But now, her tendency to be forgotten was an asset.

After about five minutes, the armor came back. It was holding a cardboard box about twenty inches squared. Heart pounding hard, when Shadow Gale opened the box, she saw a portable-style temporary toilet.

Maybe this thing was absolutely vital for humans, but it was harder than imagined for Shadow Gale to explain through gesture that this wasn’t what she wanted right now.