Mahou Shoujo Ikusei Keikaku - Volume 18 - Chapter 6

CHAPTER 6

WE’RE NOT GIVING UP

  Snow White

She had been having a nightmare. She was sure it was the sort of dream that would make her cry out in her sleep, but by the time she opened her eyes, she could no longer remember it.

Snow White immediately transformed. Her body responded faster than her mind did.

She looked around herself. She had been laid out over cold stone paving. Her limbs were bound. She tried straining, but she didn’t think she could break them or undo them. When she tilted her head to look at the cord that bound her feet, it was Classical Lillian’s yarn. That couldn’t be cut so easily.

The dark, stone-paved room felt colder than its actual temperature. It felt less that it was cold and more that it was frightening, so maybe that was what was causing that chill down her spine.

Snow White was not the only one in the room. That homunculus which looked like her was holding a weapon that looked just like the one she used, standing there without doing anything. Was it a sentry?

Beside it was the one in charge of the magical-girl class, the principal Halna Midi Meren. As usual, she couldn’t hear Halna’s thoughts, but looking at her, she was able to guess what she was thinking. She was scowling, arms folded behind her back, pacing back and forth.

Hers was the side being attacked. The defense was not going that well. So she was panicking. But nevertheless, if she was still safe, then she was managing to protect things. Were the classmates whose minds were being controlled all right? She could hear Mephis’s and Tetty’s thoughts from up the stairs. It seemed they were still being controlled, but they were still alive. Of the other voices, there was nothing. Even the voices of the Lightnings, which had been so loud, could not be heard.

Snow White felt shaking below the flagstones. Looking at Halna, she didn’t seem panicked. The flagstones were shaking enough to make rattling noises. There was no way Snow White was the only one to notice. Did that mean this shaking was occurring frequently enough that Halna wouldn’t react every time?

Snow White wondered just how long she had been unconscious. She only remembered up until the point where the black Snow White had attacked her. At that point, the Lightnings had managed to enter the courtyard. So was this the courtyard? The sense of voices of the heart being cut off outside of a fixed range was like the courtyard—but had there been a place like this there?

Following Halna’s gaze, she looked deeper into the room. A large door was open. It looked like there were stairs that went downward. Just looking at it made Snow White’s head hurt, and she averted her eyes.

Calming her breathing, she lifted her head. Her gaze met Halna’s when she happened to look down at her. Halna didn’t seem interested; she immediately looked in a different direction. She must not have thought of Snow White as much of a threat, even if she did regain consciousness and transform. Normally, you couldn’t let your guard down with a magical girl, even if she was tied up.

But…

Snow White looked up at the black version of her who stood at Halna’s side. This other Snow White appeared to be zoning out, but she must have been given orders. She must have at least been told to restrain Snow White if she tried to struggle.

Snow White couldn’t make any foolish moves. It would also be a bad idea to ask Halna any questions that would make her angry. She was rather pressed right now. Snow White would not agitate her; instead, she considered what to do next.

  Old Blue

This wasn’t good timing by any stretch of the imagination. Old Blue had spent all that time on the battle for the courtyard and lost forces; she didn’t know whether she had the Ace of Spades or not, Snow White had been kidnapped, and Halna had gotten away. She was lacking in every sort of preparation for striking back against the enemy.

But it was not all bad across the board. She had originally anticipated that if Frederica was going to show up, it would be at a time that was bad for them. And most of all, Pythie Frederica had come to her.

The odds had been high that Frederica would just send in her troops and not come herself. Frederica had so many reasons right now not to make the move personally. But seeing Frederica directly right now, Old Blue understood—Frederica had been forced to come here herself.

While her form was originally based on Frederica, her physical abilities had been so enhanced that it was fair to call her another person, and her magic was something else, too. Her resistance to magic was markedly higher even than that of the Ace of Hearts, the best of the Lightning unit. She was very close to an incarnation. Using casters purchased by the Caspar Faction, they had lavishly incorporated the newest technologies to design a base.

While racing through what had once been a hallway, Old Blue turned aside a fist, a kick, and an attack from Frederica’s skirt. The hem of the spinning skirt lopped off the wall at a diagonal. Frederica put her right hand into her sleeve and pulled it out. In between each of her fingers were little spheres. Without even a pause, she threw them. Old Blue understood her goal. Each one of the spheres emitted red, purple, blue, and yellow smoke with a tiny explosion. These were beacons. She was contacting her forces.

Old Blue gave instructions to the Lightnings with hand signs. Actually, hands signs were not all she had, and more three-dimensional movements were possible if she gave other multiple, more minute signs, but that would be difficult for even Frederica to see through at a glance. Old Blue fully understood the directions Frederica gave, while she hid her own directions, earning her a point or two in the information war.

Lightning, lightning, spear-hand, elbow, going way into the inside for a palm strike, slipping away and having her slip away—they attacked and defended again and again, feet never stopping. Frederica had noticed that Old Blue was deliberately drawing them away from the courtyard. But even so, she couldn’t turn her back to them and run off to the courtyard. Neither could Old Blue. Facing off against Frederica now was her big chance. She couldn’t let this go. She would end it here. That was precisely why she moved away from the courtyard.

Lightning bolt, feint, swapping places with a Lightning, leaping off the wall, she slid in to grab an ankle, but there wasn’t enough of an opening to clench her joint, and she swapped places with a Lightning yet again.

She once again scrutinized Frederica’s combat abilities. In terms of stats, she wasn’t as fast or strong as an incarnation. But she was far more powerful than an ordinary magical girl, or Old Blue. Depending on where she struck, just a skimmed attack from her could be fatal. Simply defending out of fear would only lead to death—so Old Blue had to keep attacking. Fortunately, she was used to a tightrope walk.

As she blocked attacks and turned them aside, she gave instructions to the Lightnings. Before running into Frederica, she had managed to see the courtyard and ruins, and even the relic. At this distance, nothing would get too badly damaged.

  Halna Midi Meren

The situation was miserable. They had drawn the enemy into the courtyard with the strategy of getting them in a scissor attack between the storage shed and the provisional base inside, and as a result, they had allowed them into a place that fundamentally shouldn’t have been possible to open. Furthermore, they had even gotten into the storage shed, and Halna had somehow managed to scramble to the entrance of the ruins. Then the enemy had destroyed the root in the storage shed, and the ruins and relic had reacted abnormally.

There were some good things. The robbers must have been wary of the shaking in the ground, as they had backed out of the courtyard. Currently, the Lightnings were positioned encircling the courtyard.

The attack was at a lull. But that was ultimately no more than a temporary thing. Up against these thieves, it was best to abandon any optimistic thinking.

So this unexpected rest period was precisely the moment to act, but contact had cut off with Kumi-Kumi and Lillian, whom Halna had sent into the ruins. Halna had arranged for a degree of communication by having Lillian tie her yarn around her waist and pulling a certain number of times, but before long, all reaction had ceased, and she pulled the yarn to no resistance at all. All that came back was a yarn that had been frayed at the end.

She had created this fusion technology after an initial failure. So she could guarantee on paper, at the very least, that they could operate within the ruins. Worst case, it should take more time for fused magical girls to exhaust themselves due to the negative effects of the ruins. It was incomprehensible that they would disappear in such a short time.

Something clearly strange was going on, but Halna didn’t have the personnel or equipment to look into it. The ruins seemed to be in a different state from usual. Something was cutting off contact with the fused magical girls, who were supposed to be resistant to magic effects. But that cause was unknown. Had the intruders done something? Was it related to these strange occurrences? Or was there some other reason? Right now, all Halna could do near the dark, cramped, musky ruins entrance was bite her nails.

She snorted.

Biting my nails? Ridiculous!

Giving up at this juncture wasn’t Halna’s style.

How about deploying another party into the depths of the ruins? If a second group met disaster, then she really would be out of luck. She was stuck. The enemy had numerical superiority. Halna had retrieved all of the fused students, but it was still not enough. The remaining students were probably dead. She couldn’t count on them. She could count on the strength of the Snow White homunculus, but there was a limit to it.

Couldn’t she make use of the provisional base? But since she had been assuming a pincer attack with the storage shed, it was not good for protecting the entrance of the ruins. And Kumi-Kumi and Lillian, who could reconstruct and repair, were gone now. Mephis and Tetty were doing their best up above, but that was it.

It’s all useless. There’s no point to any of this!

Halna looked over at the Snow White homunculus at her side. It was a little wounded, but could still fight. Her time to shine was originally supposed to have been after this fight, but getting through this was inevitably the priority.

What should I do? What should I do?

As she was thinking, time passed on by. She just paced to the right and to the left with her hands behind her back, over and over. She looked up at the ceiling, wondering if she couldn’t come up with some great plan. All she found was the dark gray stone. She looked down. Stone paving. On the way, white boots entered the corner of her vision, and her eyes went there.

Her eyes met with those of the fallen Snow White—the real one, whom she had just captured.

Snow White was staring back at Halna. Snow White slid her eyes away and lowered her face.

She was completely exhausted. Halna could sense no strength.

Halna felt that, considering the situation, of course she would be. She felt sorry for her. But more than that, Halna was disappointed in her. She was too weak to be a banner for new magical girls. Weren’t magical girls supposed to shine in difficult situations?

No, that’s not right.

It wasn’t very mature to force her own selfish ideals on the girl and then be disappointed in the reality. She was still a young girl. There was no way she wouldn’t be stricken by this situation. That was what fusion was for. First, her body would be strengthened. Bolstered by her enhanced body, she would gain confidence. If that was still no good, then Halna would use her magic. By doing this, she could eliminate Snow White’s mental weakness.

Fusing Snow White to brainwash and enhance her was one of the more realistic options, but the root in the storage shed had been severed. A number of new roots had grown out, but they had to be processed with spells, or you couldn’t draw power from them. She had no supply of energy, she was the only caster, and the tools she could use were limited—nothing was lining up, and she didn’t really want to try.

In that case…

She put her hand against the wall to steady herself. The wall was shaking quite badly, but this was no earthquake. The earthquake prevention measures for the ruins were perfect. So then what was it? She looked up the stairs. While the magical girls had been fighting, there had been some minor shaking, but never anything like this.

  Pythie Frederica

Frederica directed about 80 or 90 percent of her attention to Old Blue, and 10 or 20 percent to the Lightnings. Compared to Old Blue, who used some unknown martial art, the Lightnings were not all that threatening. Their lightning bolts, thunder, or swords were unlikely to hurt Frederica now.

So when the Lightnings started moving strangely, Frederica was slow to react. This was partially because she was simultaneously reacting to a strike from Old Blue—basically, she had been clearing their way.

The Lightnings separated into groups and swung up their weapons. Behind Frederica, diagonally to the rear, ahead, over the wall—these four small groups slammed their weapons down on the ground as Old Blue slid back to the rear. Before Frederica could follow her, there was an explosion.

Frederica smothered a groan under her breath. It rattled through her flesh and bones. The explosion from all four directions struck Frederica, but her body could bear it now. Her eyes and eardrums were also fine. But still, it wasn’t as if she had gotten through it with zero damage.

Old Blue came forward, and Frederica struck back. There was no time to be on her knees.

This technique…

It was a combo attack that had appeared during the time when R&D and the Lab had been working in cooperation. Ultimate Princess Explosion. It was possible to execute by gathering multiple artificial magical girls.

The Lightnings gathered and split up once more, comprising multiple small units. They moved smoothly, like an amorphous organism. Old Blue was constantly moving her fingers—that had to be her giving them signals.

Right, left, as the rubble blasted away by the explosion was pattering down, she and Old Blue struck one another, and the Lightnings swung up their weapons.

I’m not letting that happen.

When Old Blue tried to get out of her range, Frederica pursued her. She was prepared for this to open her up a bit. If that made the Lightnings cancel their Ultimate Princess Explosion, then good, and if they didn’t, then Old Blue would be caught in it. If Old Blue wanted to make this a contest of who could take more hits, then she should just go and try.

Frederica maintained space between them. She thrust out a fist. An explosion came at the same time. It was from behind. The Lightnings in front had just swung up their weapons and didn’t swing them down. The explosion that happened behind Frederica pushed her forward, and Old Blue punched, blocked, kicked, and stopped her, and they clashed a few more times. Right before separating, Frederica took a hit on the side, and when she tried to lower her elbow, Old Blue grabbed her wrist.

This put Frederica off-balance. She immediately braced herself. Even as she took one strike, two, she never stopped thinking.

She understood the reason why Old Blue had moved away from the ruins. It was the Ultimate Princess Explosion. Since it would be a problem if she were to catch the ruins in an explosion and it went out of control, she had moved someplace new.

Was this the real ace that Old Blue had kept up her sleeve? But mysteries still remained. The Lightnings repeatedly gathered and then separated, continuously forming new groups. The scale of the second explosion had been different from the first. They were measuring the precise distance to keep Old Blue out of it when activating Ultimate Princess Explosion. Frederica seemed to recall that the power of the explosion changed depending on the number of participants in the technique. But thus far, between the groups with fewer Lightnings and the groups with more Lightnings, sometimes the ones with fewer were more powerful, and conversely, sometimes the ones with more Lightnings were more powerful.

There was another explosion. Frederica tottered. She clenched her teeth and dealt with each one of Old Blue’s continuous attacks. Her body pitched forward. Just from having her wrist grabbed, she was at Old Blue’s mercy. This was what made some unknown martial arts such a problem.

Frederica pulled out her crystal ball with her free hand. And then she pitched forward hard. She somehow kept herself from falling forward, but the crystal ball got kicked with a clunk, she let go of it, and it rolled away. She was thrown on top of it, and she thrust her arms out to leap up again. What had seemed to be just one crystal ball rolling out became twenty or thirty, which she scattered all around like shotgun shot.

  Old Blue

The crystal balls scattered out in a radial pattern. Old Blue let go of her wrist and backed away. She gave instructions to the Lightnings and had them disperse, avoiding direct hits.

Frederica thrust her fist out in front. She was moving as sharply as ever, despite having been struck quite a bit by the explosions. She dodged attacks, and Old Blue went to grab her arm, but Frederica evaded it as well. Old Blue gave a hand sign, and struck at Frederica, then blocked, sticking close and refusing to back away.

Close enough that they could touch, Old Blue observed the enemy. Her movements were sharp as ever, but it wasn’t as if she’d taken no damage. It was building up. She was tired, too. She would break the skin soon. Blood would flow.

The crystal balls she had sent shooting out were still in the air. They were maintaining their position, surrounding this fight. If Frederica meant to send them flying in again, Old Blue would strike back. There was no need to strike them down as Frederica expected. They just had to catch them in an Ultimate Princess Explosion.

The Lightnings swung their weapons. An explosion was coming. The terrain had already become like the dark side of the moon, and it would transform again. There was a constant back-and-forth between Old Blue with her defensive movements and Frederica with her physical abilities. Old Blue moved around in a flowing manner, keeping the Lightnings from getting close, but she didn’t leave them uninvolved, placing them in just the right spots to disperse them again once more. The crystal balls followed her around from a fixed distance.

Old Blue could not let herself get distracted. The original purpose of the crystal balls was not to be thrown like bullets. She only gave the crystal balls minimal attention, while investing the most meticulous caution in her coordination with the Lightnings.

The force of the Ultimate Princess Explosion increased depending on the number of participants. But the Lightnings were different. Their force was affected not just by numbers but by their suit and card number. Frederica was unaware that how powerful it would be depended on the total—you couldn’t even tell from looking in the first place which number a Lightning had been assigned.

Old Blue could give new instructions with full awareness of the Lightnings’ numbers. She could adjust the force to keep herself from being caught, to put Frederica within their range.

Numerous explosions followed in succession.

Old Blue stepped toward her opponent as rubble collapsed around them.

  Pythie Frederica

To put it mildly, she was a monster. While exchanging strikes at short range with someone who had super-magical girl physical abilities, she made full use of her magic, her directions to the Lightnings were always precise, and Frederica could see no openings. Lazuline the First. Great to have if she were on your side; as an enemy, there could be no magical girl more fearsome.

Well…

She felt like when they had been allies, Frederica had just been thinking about what she’d do if she was up against her. Her existence itself was a source of anxiety for Frederica. It was actually a relief to be fighting her as an enemy.

When Old Blue stepped in, Frederica came forward as well. Frederica mistakenly assumed that Old Blue would back up, but Old Blue hit her in the stomach. Frederica’s counterattack only skimmed Old Blue’s nemophila flower decoration, and she tried to grab Old Blue, but Old Blue slipped away. The Lightnings swung down their weapons.

Frederica continued to watch unblinkingly.

Right before the Lightnings’ impact, Old Blue slipped into a gap among the group, and then the explosion happened. A barrier protected the Lightnings whenever they launched an Ultimate Princess Explosion. Frederica had heard that this attack had been used in the homunculus incident the other day where it destroyed all the enemies without harming the attackers.

Frederica didn’t for a moment believe she could use this opportunity to slip in. Old Blue wouldn’t let her do that. Even if she ignored Old Blue and defeated one or two Lightnings, Frederica didn’t want to imagine the toll that would take. Old Blue knew that. Regardless, the Lightnings would reorganize immediately. That plan was basically pointless.

But that was in the case that she eliminated a Lightning. If a Lightning had a mysterious change of heart and become Frederica’s ally, then what? It would no longer be just about one less of them. That would ruin the tactic that currently had her at its mercy. Frederica slid her gaze slightly upward. The star decoration on the end of her hat made a pleasant noise as it spun horizontally, then came to a complete stop. Old Blue also stopped moving.

She knew where Old Blue was looking. It was the star decoration that was on the tip of her head, like a Christmas tree.

No one who looked at it would ever think of it as more than a decoration on her costume. But Old Blue understood the true nature of anything at a glance. This—the decoration made of the tip of the mind-controlling rapier—she knew in one look just what a dangerous item it was. That was the kind of magic she had.

Old Blue’s right arm trembled. The movements of her fingers became even more intense. At the same time, the ground shook. Frederica felt fine vibrations through the soles of her feet. This shaking wasn’t due to the activation. The hypocenter of the shaking was closer than that.

Most likely, someone was digging underground below them. Frederica leaped. The Lightnings swung up their weapons. Old Blue came forward. She flung the star decoration upward, timing it to the moment she drew in the crystal balls that hung around them.

Old Blue was, to put it mildly, a monster. She had incredible processing power, pulling off not just two, but three, four, five, six acts concurrently. The directions to the Lightnings, combat with Frederica, use of her magic, dealing with the crystal balls—if she bungled any one of them, she would lose her life. But despite that, she was pulling it off perfectly with a cool face—so it would look to an outside eye.

“Monster” was a metaphor, and she was in fact a human. She had limits. Just her alone was one thing—but even if she used her subordinates like her own limbs, they were not her actual limbs. This was also a metaphor.

Pukin’s rapier was an extremely dangerous item. Old Blue would notice that. And she would try to deal with it. She had to. Of course. It would send things awry if she were to use it on a Lightning. And if even one thing went awry, then it was bound to be over.

Noticing the danger, she was able to respond rapidly. Normally, this would be wonderful. But that was just what Frederica had been aiming for—to go over her capacity. Pukin’s rapier, the crystal balls, and in addition to that, someone from somewhere-or-other was very kindly announcing their presence with vibrations from the ground. Being purely vibrations from the ground, there was nothing to be seen. She would be unable to grasp its true nature, and that would increase the burden on her.

First, the meteor swarm of the crystal balls arrived, and next the Lightnings did an Ultimate Princess Explosion. Frederica did not resist, leaping from the impact of the blast, flying over a crater, and zooming from one surviving crystal ball to the next.

  Drill Dory

The intense shaking even reached them underground. It was not the shaking from below that had been ongoing since a bit ago, it was shaking from above. From the sounds, she could tell what was happening. It was continuous explosions.

Arlie put up a fuss, but Dory recognized this attack: Ultimate Princess Explosions. Multiple attacks were happening, some at the same time.

Another explosion occurred, and then another. This time, the shaking came from below, too.

Dory changed directions—even deeper, and detouring. She couldn’t have her and Arlie getting dug up by an explosion. A barrier kept the attackers safe, but anyone else nearby would just get hit. Both Arlie and Dory could use Ultimate Princess Explosion, but they’d still get hurt.

Dory’s strategy of cajoling Arlie into casually leaving had failed because they were firmly covered by the barrier, even underground. So then she changed direction and tried to get away from the battlefield, and for some reason, they passed right under an intense battle. Dory could only assume that, rather than her getting the direction she should go wrong, the intense battle had come to them.

Thinking they just had to keep going, she was digging through the sand and dirt, when right ahead, something like a plant’s root—even thicker than Dory’s torso, though—was extending upward from below. Arlie wailed. Dory got in a panic and changed direction yet again.

She just had to get away from here. This place was no good. Giving the wailing Arlie’s head a whap, Dory spun her drill and started moving forward.

  Pythie Frederica

The billowing dirt and dust slowly settled.

Everything to be seen all around was pocked with craters, and with piles of wreckage filling the view in every direction, Frederica had become a part of said wreckage, lying on her back. There was quite a lot that she would like to say to the magical girl who was looking down on her, but she couldn’t stop gasping for air, and it was difficult to even say a word.

Her whole body was covered with cuts and bruises. It should have been difficult to even wound her incarnation body, but now it was in tatters. The wounds on her neck were particularly deep, and they would have been fatal for an ordinary magical girl.

“Can you stand?”

Frederica was unable to reply, but she was able to take the hand that was offered to her. The magical girl who was looking down on her—in a classical style of a simple red dress, a yellow ribbon, and a bamboo broom in her right hand—lent her a hand, and she somehow got up. Standing in the wreckage, she somehow caught her breath.

“Goodness… I thought I was going to die.”

Old Blue had truly fought like a demon. There had been no weakness at all in the tactics she had assembled in order to fight the overwhelming strength of an incarnation. It had been too much for Frederica to dominate with pure physical abilities. The rapier star decoration had shattered before she could use it; Frederica’s confidence had also been shattered, and she had been quite badly beaten up.

She looked to the rubble to her right. The magical girl who was half-buried there—now an old woman with her face peaceful in death—had shown strength beyond Frederica’s expectations. Thinking back now, she had been quite the buffoon for having laughed to herself about feeling so sorry for her, since she couldn’t know how much stronger Frederica had become.

“I wish you’d gotten here a little sooner,” said Frederica.

“A bunch of identical twins kept getting in my way.”

While being helped by the magical girl in the red dress, Frederica stepped over the mountain of wreckage and stood there. What she saw over the mountain was a destroyed school, with nothing of worth.

“I’m going to search for the wounded and carry as many as I can before retreating,” said the girl with the broom.

“Retreat?” Frederica said. “It’s too soon for that.”

“I got a message. Inspection is pulling out all the stops. They gathered casters from over ten departments to have them undo the barrier. They’re not doing this for show—it’s for real.”

“Inspection’s work goes so quickly. How wonderful. They must have a great commanding officer. But that’s a completely different matter. I have yet to achieve my goal.”

“You’ve lost your cool.”

“Well, yes, that is indeed true.”

Frederica had defeated Old Blue, but that hadn’t been her original goal. Frederica would be fine even if the authorities showed up.

But she didn’t have the time to explain that from square one. She’d had no intention of explaining in the first place. As the employer who had lost her cool and chosen to remain alone, parting ways with Old Blue made Frederica a bit sad, but that was unavoidable. It was mere sentimentality.

“I will stay here,” said Frederica.

“Then this is where we part ways. No issues on your end, right? I earned my keep.”

The magical girl spun around the Hiyoko mask that she’d turned to the back of her head to cover her face, and then she slung a leg over her bamboo broom.

Frederica bowed low. “Thank you very much. You’ve helped me quite a lot.”

“We’ll vacate the estate. If you come back alive, then I’ll contact you.”

“Until then. Farewell.”

Just as Frederica had ultimately used up the mercenaries, once the mercenaries gave up on Frederica, they would flee right away. Those who lacked situational judgment would not live long—just like the magical girls who had died here.

Watching that red dress go as it went flying through the air, Frederica turned back to the courtyard. She leaped, leaving the wrecked area, running over the broken school building, and perked up her ears.

She’s here. I’ve been waiting for this.

Frederica kicked away the wall of the school building and destroyed it, and going three steps through the hole she’d made, she got some momentum and then dropped her elbow down to be blocked by a single right hand.

An Umemizaki Junior High uniform, mussed hair, violent accessories—she looked rather different from what Frederica knew, but she would never mistake her. It was Ratsumukana-honome-no-kami, Kana. She was expressionless. But Frederica could sense her quiet anger.

She was easier to understand than Old Blue, who had faced her with a thin smile. It was nice.

“Looks like you’ve said your good-byes,” Kana told Frederica.

“It’s been quite some time since we last met.”

The two of them traded blows, then leaped at the same time. They went up to the roof, running side by side as they continued to fight. Frederica thrust, swept her legs, concealed a shin kick using her skirt, and blocked Kana’s high kick with her left arm. Kana wrapped a chain around that arm and grabbed it. Frederica’s flesh cried out, and her bones creaked.

Neither of them could retreat, so they went back to trading blows. Frederica was hit over and over. Blood flowed from her forehead, and the right side of her vision was dyed red. But even then, she did not close her eye.

I see. So this is the difference between an incarnation and a fake.

Unlike Puk Puck, who had been created as the definitive edition of an incarnation, and Grim Heart, who had been created to surpass Puk Puck, Ratsumukana-honome-no-kami was not created to fight. Her fighting capacity was far less compared to Puk and Grim, but she was still too much for Kashiki-akarukushi-hime’s body.

And yet, Frederica was the only one who could go up against Kana. Just as the Lightnings had made a group and encircled her, but even so been unable to give her a single wound, an ordinary magical girl wouldn’t even be a contest. It was beyond an adult versus a child—it was a giant versus an ant.

Kana was not simply physically strong—she was tough in another way. It was fair to assume that she had been lurking somewhere until Old Blue and Frederica’s fight had ended, waiting. And just now she had been waiting until the mercenaries left this place. There was truth in the anger Frederica sensed, but she was calm on the inside. She had a canniness that Grim Heart and Puk Puck had lacked.

Frederica couldn’t help smiling. There had been another magical girl who had conducted herself wonderfully up against an opponent who had both cunning and overwhelming strength—Old Blue, who Frederica had just fought.

She had pushed Frederica to the edge. She had fought in a rational and systematic way, and yet it had also been magical-girl-like, in a sense. Though it felt rude to say this had been a surprise, the way she had used all the cards at her disposal—her magic, subordinates, technique, and martial arts—and come at Frederica with everything she had was the way of a protagonist. While Frederica had been going blue and red in the face and hard-pressed in that fight, now that she thought of it, maybe she had been enjoying herself. While it had been for a brief time, that rich experience had stimulated something deep in her brain, inspiration she usually didn’t use.

With her arm still in her opponent’s grasp, Frederica made it seem like she was striking the elbow with her opposite arm and slid into Kana’s range. They were touching. She could even feel her heartbeat. Warmth. And scent. Before, Frederica had also enjoyed the scent of magical girls, especially their hair. Now she was able to enjoy it with even sharper senses.

Averse to being so close, Kana tried to back up, but Frederica kept right on her as they moved around. Front, right, diagonal, she didn’t let her peel away. This distance was best.

Old Blue’s fighting style was vision based. Using her magic, she could perceive the true nature of her enemies, reading their moves and controlling the exchange by moving more than just quickly.

Unfortunately, Frederica’s eyes didn’t come with such a handy power. So then she would use all her sensory organs aside from her eyes to read her enemy. A magical girl’s feel, her smell, her sounds—it would tell Frederica about everything she loved in a far greater volume of information than before.

Forward, back, slipping away to the right to avoid Kana’s attempt to catch her in her arms, she fired three short strikes at her, evaded an elbow, then returned to her original position, right in front of Kana. Her greatest priority was maintaining this position close to her.

Frederica ran her fingers along her thigh and took a crystal ball in hand, then threw it into the air.

  Kana

The crystal ball Frederica threw at her ignored the laws of physics and stopped right there—in midair.

Is that a new body that she had made for her?

Affirmative.

Is the crystal ball a new magic? What magic is it?

Even as Kana was thinking, she kept moving. While placing the crystal ball behind her, she never let her attention slide, never letting up on her attacks on Frederica.

This kind of magic sucked things into one crystal ball and moved them toward a different one. So something would fly out of it at her, or Frederica would toss something in. It seemed like there were many ways to use it. It would be best to stay on her guard. Frederica could increase the number up to fifty, but the more she increased them, the more she would lose control. For finer control, it was five at most.

Kana struck with her right hand, and Frederica dodged her elbow, so Kana came back with her left palm-heel. She used those as distractions to try grabbing Frederica, but Frederica slid away like an eel and hit Kana in her blind spot. It was the same as before.

Even as she was attacked, she continued asking questions in her brain.

Does she think that she can make good use of the relic?

Affirmative. Reckless magical girls were overconfident in themselves. Even Kana saw Frederica as a magical girl with great powers, and now that she had swapped her body, it wouldn’t be strange for her to have even firmer confidence.

No matter how angry she got, even if she wanted to tear the enemy in front of her to pieces, when using her magic, she had to be calm and collected. Incarnations were made to be that way.

“You’ve seen plenty of magical girls who’ve let their almightiness spell their doom, haven’t you?”

She said that question out loud. Affirmative.

Frederica parried Kana’s hand and nodded. “Indeed I have. I will do my best not to make the same mistakes.”

“You’ve made the necessary preparations?”

“Of course.”

Kana couldn’t get away. She was forced into an exchange of blows close enough that it lessened the impact of her strikes, and if she tried to grab at Frederica, it was dodged with those sickening movements. It was a strange form of martial art. Frederica was breathing hard, but with no sign that she was suffering—in fact, she even looked like she was in ecstasy. Kana was uncomprehending, and she couldn’t read her intentions, and that made it creepy.

“You’re not going to listen to my attempts to persuade you, are you?” Kana asked.

“That’s right.”

Kana then asked herself: What is the goal of this form of combat?

To use all five senses to read the enemy’s movements. That answer did make sense, but even so, Frederica was too tenacious for Kana to break away from with her techniques, and using her pure strength as a shield as she struggled wildly was also not working.

“Don’t you want to hear what happened in these ruins?”

“That sounds fascinating, but I’m afraid I do not have the time right now.”

Kana stopped asking her questions out loud. If Frederica wasn’t going to talk, then she shouldn’t have this exchange with her. Any further talk would be pointless, maybe even detrimental. Kana was being slowly brainwashed, and soon, even her body would end up being controlled.

“Hmm? I can’t hear what you’re saying,” Frederica told her.

Kana continued to mutter words she didn’t intend to have heard under her breath.

Frederica gave Kana a bored look and shook her head. “I wonder if rejecting communication is a specialty of the Three Sages. I had such high hopes for someone as fun as you… What a shame. How was your life at school? I heard you were freeloading at Mephis Pheles’s house. She’s quite good at taking care of people, surprisingly.”

Kana undid the chains that had been restraining Frederica. She struck, dodged, punched, evaded, went to step on her foot—Frederica dodged as well, but Kana’s goal was elsewhere. By stomping down hard, she charged herself up. The rubble in the area flew away from the impact, and cracks radiated out along the ground.

Kana leaped. The intense explosions had left no buildings standing in the area, making only rubble, and there was no roof to get in her way, either. When moving vertically, Kana’s superior physicality would matter. But Frederica used the floating crystal balls as footholds to keep up with Kana. The two of them clashed together thirty feet up in the air.

The crystal balls followed them closely, taking up position behind Kana. But there was no sign that they would move. Staying alert, she met Frederica’s fist with her elbow, but it was turned aside.

In the corner of her vision, the courtyard passed by. Were their classmates safe? While she was worried, she asked no questions about it.

The flowers had been stomped and scattered around. The flagstones were just left there, shattered. It was a dreadful sight, but far preferable compared to that time.

She had a vision—something she couldn’t distinguish as memory or fantasy. In order to make time eternal, the First Mage had conducted a ceremony. They harnessed the power extracted from a “seed.”

And then the ceremony failed. The survivors had been the three apprentices, and Caspar had been one of them, but she had not survived out of excellence. It had been a coincidence.

The world had changed. The people there had been caught up in it. Faces twisted, bodies twisted, existences twisted, hearts dyed in fear and despair.

The apprentices, left behind, had acquired an incomplete eternity. They could ensure their own continuation by taking over new bodies. But their egos were influenced quite a lot by their bodies, and repeating the process over and over again made that influence even stronger. None of the incarnations of the Three Sages had their original personalities, and it wasn’t clear if they kept all their memories. The girl’s personality—Caspar Vim Hop Seuk’s personality—had continued to change until she became Kana and was robbed of her memories.

In midair, Kana continued to slam Frederica with back-to-back punches. She thrust out her right hand, and Frederica grabbed it, but Kana had already seen that coming.

What she had been continuing to mutter under her breath so that Frederica couldn’t hear had not been a question. It was a spell. Unlike Puk and Grim, she had restricted abilities as a magical girl, but she was made so that she could also function as a mage. In the school, all she’d been able to use that for was to tell what Halna’s magic was, but if she distanced herself from the school, there were many ways to use it.

She completed her spell, and destruction was unleashed from her fingers. This was not energy for the sake of destruction, it was the result called destruction itself. It couldn’t be seen. There was no scent or sound. Neither could it be evaded with martial skills. She unleashed it soundlessly at Frederica’s face.

But right before it could reach its target, a crystal ball materialized suddenly right in front of Frederica’s face and blocked it. Kana’s spell did not destroy the crystal ball and was sucked into it to vanish.

Kana didn’t even have the time to think, Ah. She felt an unbearable pain in her back, and that spread through her whole body. Frederica laughed soundlessly. Her right arm, her left side, her left thigh, all the parts of her body were torn up and gushed blood. Her uniform was torn from the shoulder, her chain was shredded, and released from her restraints, Frederica kicked Kana in the pit of the stomach with her toe.

She fell. The back of her hand spurted blood. Next, her right shoulder and her left calf skin tore. Frederica bounded off the crystal ball at her feet, leaping toward Kana as she fell. Another crystal ball was floating around Frederica’s shoulders.

While falling, Kana’s body was split apart. Frederica was approaching her faster than the speed she fell.

Sending up dirt and rubble, Kana collided with the ground back-first.