CHAPTER 12

THE MAGICAL GIRL WITHIN YOU

Weddin (Time remaining: three hours, forty minutes)

“Even if it’s impossible, I just have to do it.”

7753 took Mana’s hand. “I’ll stay, too.”

“I thought I told you not to get in my way again.” Mana immediately shook her off.

“I won’t get in the way.”

“You’ll get in the way just by being here.” Mana was serious. She was entirely sincere in her intention to finish this all by herself.

Weddin’s thoughts and feelings swirled around in an endless vortex. Just a moment ago, she’d been wailing pathetically, blaming the Magical Kingdom, 7753, and Mana.

But even venting all her rage had not cleared the hesitation she still felt. And Weddin knew all of it would just come back to her. If a magical girl wasn’t something worth aspiring to, then she had to make herself the model of one—because she was a magical girl, too.

“So then… Please, let us help, at least.” The words escaped Weddin’s mouth. She was being entirely sincere, but even so, saying it out loud made her break into a cold sweat.

Mana shook her head. “You’re all newbies with almost zero experience. No matter how many of you we scrape together, you’ll just be a burden.”

“Don’t belittle me.”

“I’m not belittling you. I’m only giving you the truth.”

The town would be destroyed. The ten-odd years of her life would all disappear.

The classmates who’d helped her with school, the homeroom teacher who’d held Mine in high esteem, the kids who had called her a suck-up behind her back, the school—all of it would be gone. The old lady in the neighborhood who had given her the same compliment ever since preschool: “It’s so nice how you always say hello so cheerfully”; the kids’ park with the monkey bars where she’d once hit her head when she was little and had wailed on about it; the library with the cubicles she’d used when she wanted to be alone; her house. It would all be gone.

Knowing what should be done, what she was capable of, and running anyway, was not the act of a leader and not something the magical girls Mine had always admired would do. Even now that she was in middle school, she’d never stopped watching anime—because of the magical girls. And there were still magical girls, now—right here.

Weddin turned around.

Funny Trick’s shoulders were shaking with sobs. Kuru-Kuru Hime merely stood there, struck dumb. Weddin could give them orders. She could tell them, “Follow me! Let’s fight together! We magical girls are the only ones who can save this town!” But that was the same as telling them to die with her, wasn’t it? That was just like telling them to follow her to hell.

Death. Dying. Killing. Being killed.

Weddin lifted her head, and her eyes connected with Tepsekemei’s. Tepsekemei was the only one there who was expressionless, as she always was, arms and legs folded as she floated in the air. “Weddin.”

“Wh-what is it?”

“No orders yet?”

They were all looking at her, listening for what she would say. She pressed her hand against her chest. It hurt. She wanted to tear it out.

What should a leader do? She didn’t want to die. She was scared. She didn’t want the town to be destroyed, and she really didn’t want to lose the people and things she cared about. I’m scared. Help.

Emotions, both strong and weak, rose within her, then disappeared. She felt as if something were pressing the back of her throat. What did she have to do to be released from this pain? She opened her mouth. “First, cool your heads, please. Not physically but mentally. If we lose our calm, we won’t be able to come up with any good ideas. And then please decide for yourselves—I won’t give you any orders.” She looked at Kuru-Kuru Hime, Funny Trick, and Tepsekemei in turn. “I’ve—made up my mind. No matter how you may oppose it, Mana, I will stay here and fight.”

Funny Trick (Time remaining: three hours, thirty-two minutes)

Kayo was all alone, crying in impenetrable darkness. Nobody would save her. Nobody would call out to her. She was sad and hurting and didn’t want to do anything. If she just plugged her ears and closed her eyes and cried, it had to all pass, like a storm. That talk about the town disappearing was a lie.

She didn’t want to hear anything. She didn’t want to see anything. She’d never even wanted to be a magical girl in the first place. The others had celebrated it, and she’d just been dragged into it. She could never believe in magical girls. They shouldn’t exist. That talk about a weapon of mass destruction was a pack of lies.

As she rejected everything, held her head in her hands, and trembled, inside her, Umi Shibahara was yelling.

“How stupid are you? There’s no time to hesitate.”

Kayo grew angry at Umi’s brash remark. She argued back.

“You always say stuff like that, Umi. But things are actually horrible right now.”

“So what if it’s horrible?”

“You’re reckless!”

“There’s no such thing as reckless when you’re a magical girl—only excitement!”

“Excitement?” Honestly, this isn’t some…”

“Listen, don’t go acting like just ’cause you found a good moment to escape means that was enough, okay? Just don’t.”

“Umi…”

“Don’t you wanna beat me? If you beat someone I couldn’t, that means you beat me.”

Kayo, who had always walked behind Umi. Beating Umi.

“But…”

“No buts! Pull yourself together!” She spoke bluntly, giving Funny Trick a good kick in the rear.

When Funny Trick opened her eyes, she saw Weddin there.

Still holding her head, Funny Trick muttered, “I want to fight, too.”

She got the feeling that somewhere, someone was grumbling, “You could try to act a little more badass about it.”

Kuru-Kuru Hime (Time remaining: three hours, thirty-two minutes)

She no longer wanted to think about anything. Problems just kept bubbling up one after another, and before one was solved, the next one appeared. Her pride as a teacher or whatever was long gone. If nobody could fix things, there was no way a teacher could fix things, either.

Her father was gone. She had no one. The home she could return to would soon be destroyed. All their homes would be: the neighbor who struggled with a baby that cried so much at night; the house across the street where that husband lived, the one who’d been looking for a job since the factory where he’d worked had closed; and Nozomi’s own house, now without her father.

There would be no struggling. She would just wait until it had passed. As a teacher, she’d failed to take care of her students; as a daughter, she hadn’t been able to take care of her father; and as a magical girl, she hadn’t managed to take care of the town. She hadn’t been able to do anything. And she wouldn’t be able to do anything, either. There was no longer any point.

Did she have to do something? Kuru-Kuru Hime, not anyone else. What for? She had no family anymore. She’d lost the desire to be a teacher. And no way did she want to be a magical girl.

For some reason, she recalled her father—that time when she had gone to pick him up at the station, an umbrella in hand, she’d been able to find him so quickly in the crowd. His face wasn’t the sort that stood out, and he wore only the sort of ordinary suit you saw on any office worker, but she’d found him quickly, like, “Oh, he’s over there.” It was then that Nozomi realized she’d gotten her baby face from him. She’d giggled over this old man with a childlike face, and her father had given her a baffled look.

Nozomi never made barley tea, but the barley tea in the fridge never ran out. Whenever there wasn’t much left, her father would put a pack of it into the kettle and boil some. It wasn’t as if he’d been asked to do it. He just knew she liked it, so he’d always refilled it for her.

He was gone now. He’d been murdered, taken from her. She had averted her eyes from the absurdity of it, repeating “I’m helpless, I can’t do anything” as if chanting a mantra. Anger, like thick, oozing magma, threatened to well up from the pit of her stomach. Why did her father have to die? Why did the town have to be destroyed?

There was no longer anyone alive who would silently push her from behind. Kuru-Kuru Hime stood, with her own strength.

“I’ll do it, too. Please let me do it.”

Mana (Time remaining: three hours, thirty-two minutes)

Weddin had made her announcement, Funny Trick agreed to it, and Kuru-Kuru Hime asked to be a part of it. Tepsekemei drifted around, the look on her face saying she would of course join in.

What should Mana do? She still felt she couldn’t take regular people to do this. “…You can’t. I can’t use brand-new magical girls to fight with me.”

7753 took Mana’s hand one more time. This time, Mana didn’t shake her off. “My boss said to me… ‘You’re Magical Girl Resources staff, not a fighter, or an inspector, or an assassin. You’re not combat personnel, so come back,’ she told me. But Magical Girl Resources can fight in a Magical Girl Resources way. Please give me one hour. In one hour, I can use my goggles to uncover all of everyone’s potential.”

“Potential?”

“From the moment you become a magical girl, you have a vague understanding of what your magic is. But ultimately, that’s just a vague understanding. Normally, you learn the restrictions, limits, and applications of your magic through practice. None of the magical girls here have that experience.”

“So…”

“I’ll use my goggles to analyze their magic and make them all veteran-level.”

Mana just couldn’t shake off 7753’s hand. Weddin, Kuru-Kuru Hime, Funny Trick, and Tepsekemei were not going to back down. Mana looked away from them all and kicked the dirt at her feet. “…I have a few items left. We’ll split those.”

Smoke bombs, her staff, and various other items rolled out of her bag.

Mana raised her head and pointed at Weddin. “You negotiate with Frederica. Use your magic…your promises, to manipulate her. Even trash like her is strong in a fight. Stronger than any of us.”

Pythie Frederica (Time remaining: two hours, fifty-six minutes)

Those who refused will surely want to be your friend, too.

The suspicious voice who made a request to Frederica had told her that. Strangely, Frederica believed it. She thought it might be that person emphasizing their own usefulness. It was their own way of trying to appeal to Frederica, show her they would not only give her orders, but would also give her information.

Though the voice had been electronic, Frederica could surmise what intentions had lurked behind it. It hadn’t been trying to deceive Frederica, and neither had that been meant as a weak consolation.

Not long after Frederica fled the scene, the voice told her the results of her actions. Namely, the present situation: Pukin had won, Postarie and Toko had been killed, and Rain Pow was under Pukin’s control. This part was probably not an attempt to appeal to her but rather a reward for her cooperation. These results were within the scope of her own predictions, so she believed the voice was telling the truth.

The phone did not ring again.

Frederica waited patiently by the cell phone. She sat cross-legged in front of her plastic sheet, ignoring the passage of time, just focusing on waiting. The moment her cell phone vibrated, she took it in her hands.

It was from Kuru-Kuru Hime.

“Pythie Frederica speaking. Is this Kuru-Kuru Hime?”

“It’s Weddin.”

Oh-ho. “What might your business be?”

“Continuing our earlier conversation. You intend to cooperate, don’t you?”

“Well, well… Have the winds changed?”

“It’s no use making some bungling attempt to take advantage of this. We’ve heard news that if we fail to capture the criminal before the barrier is undone, the Department of Diplomacy will send a weapon of mass destruction into the barrier. If that happens, you won’t survive, either.”

The Department of Diplomacy? They’d use a weapon of mass destruction?

Was it possible? It was clearly ridiculous. But Frederica got no sense from Weddin’s voice that she was lying. Had there been some mistake, somewhere along the line? Were mistakes happening in the continuous tense, right that moment? Frederica had been cut off from outside information, so it was difficult for her to judge.

“I see… It seems we’re in quite the pickle, hmm? Thank you very much for sharing this valuable information with me.”

“I’m not particularly interested in thanks from you.”

“Well then, I’ll share something with you, too. Pukin and Rain Pow engaged in combat. Toko and Postarie were killed, and now it seems Rain Pow is Pukin’s puppet.”

She was met with silence on the other end. After about thirty seconds’ pause, Weddin spoke again. “How do you know that?”

“Because I happened to be present. I ran before I was discovered, though.” She was aware that was a suspicious statement to make. But Weddin would have no way to confirm her suspicions. “So there’s no reason for me to refuse your proposal to cooperate, since I’d be helpless against Rain Pow and Pukin together. If you could tell me where you all are right now, then I’ll immediately fly to you.”

“We can’t have you coming to us right away. First, you’re going to make some promises to me, please.”

“Promises?”

“We can’t trust you. And we don’t want to be stabbed in our backs once this battle is over, either. We’re returning a powerful weapon to you, so we must have you do this much for us.”

7753 (Time remaining: two hours, thirty minutes)

Pythie Frederica arrived.

Her style was star-spangled, with a star-decorated veil, a star choker, stars painted on her face, and star-patterned stockings, with her long, long hair flowing over her long skirt. When she pointed that pleasant smile at you, it made one feel almost able to blindly trust her. But if she was the sort of person rumors said her to be, 7753 wouldn’t take that smile at face value.

A volatile air wafted in together with Frederica.

7753 could tell even without looking through her goggles that this impression she had was neither vague nor unfounded. All at once, everyone—Funny Trick, who had been her prisoner; Kuru-Kuru Hime, whose father had been killed; Mana, who’d watched Hana die; Weddin, who had been mind-controlled; and Tepsekemei, who was just joining in on the bandwagon—glared at Frederica as she put her hand to the back of her head and made up an excuse: “All these things were done either by Pukin herself or on her orders… But I do regret my actions.”

Regardless of whether or not Frederica seriously regretted everything, she was now no longer a fully harmful presence to their party. Among the promises she had made to Weddin, the three most pivotal ones were “don’t do anything antagonistic toward the magical girls or mage,” “don’t lie,” and “even after the barrier is undone, don’t make the magical girls or mage the target of your magic.”

The first one was obvious; the second was so that they wouldn’t be deceived in the realm of something else Frederica hadn’t promised to them; and the third was a preventative measure, so that after this incident was resolved, they would not be spied on.

They wanted to restrict her as much as possible, and Frederica wanted to avoid as many restrictions as possible, and so they discussed.

“If I’m forced to make such promises, it will affect my lifestyle even after this incident is over.”

“And we have no desire to cooperate with someone who poses a threat to us.”

Both parties came up with points of concession and compromise. They discussed “the order of priorities in emergency situations,” “threats to one’s right to life,” “for averting present danger,” and “a firm grasp on the system of orders,” and came to an agreement. Further, separate from that, Frederica also made promises with Mana.