Mahou Shoujo Ikusei Keikaku - Volume 18 - Chapter 8

CHAPTER 8

MAGICAL DUNGEON BUSTERS

  Sally Raven

The darkness gradually cleared. The snake of darkness that had been wrapped around Sally, protecting her, uncoiled itself. Sally first searched for Dark Cutie and, when she found her on her knees, tried to race up to her, but her feet wouldn’t move. She tried to ask Dark Cutie if she was okay, only to spew blood and spit from her mouth.

Dark Cutie stopped her. “Don’t force yourself. You’re badly wounded,” she said, her voice quiet but still audible.

Sally sank down on the spot, unable to stand, shoulders moving up and down with ragged breaths. She somehow turned her head to look around the area.

The earth had been dug up, and the buildings were all destroyed. And many Princess Lightnings were lying there. Sally had never understood until the end why there were so many Lightnings, why the Lightnings had been attacking Sally and Dark Cutie. She had always been an inscrutable magical girl, ever since the time when she had been their group leader, but not the sort of inscrutable where she would attack their group members without so much as a by-your-leave.

Sally tried to talk about Lightning, but the words wouldn’t come out.

Dark Cutie shook her head; she somehow sensed what Sally was going through. “Thank those two over there.”

Sally turned to where Dark Cutie was looking.

Sally’s crow still shone bright even with one wing and its beak missing. Staring back at Sally was a magical girl in a Cutie Panda mask that was broken in half and hanging off her face.

“No need to thank me,” she said. “I was just defending myself.”

“The enemy of my enemy is my friend, as they say.”

“Are you making fun of me…Dark Cutie?”

“You know who I am?”

“Of course I do. You’re famous.”

The masked magical girl got up. She moved her monkey-like tail slowly, and the fangs that peeked from her parted lips were just like those of a beast. Sally tried to call out to Dark Cutie to be careful, but her voice still wouldn’t come out, and she coughed.

“I’ll kill you.”

The moment the masked magical girl tried to leap on her, the wind blew. She vanished. Sally looked over to Dark Cutie, thinking to defend her, but Dark Cutie was looking up at the sky.

A magical girl in a red dress was flying in the sky astride a broom. She held the flailing masked magical girl under one arm and was saying something to her. Then she flew off like the wind, just the same as she had come.

Sally was about to say, “What on earth was that?” and then she looked toward Dark Cutie. The magical girl had disappeared, leaving behind a small bloodstain.

Sally had no real idea what was going on.

But she was glad. She had been able to fight together with Dark Cutie. She also had regrets. She’d wound up being protected in the end. And she’d gotten not only Dark Cutie but also Pshuke badly hurt—and had even been defended by an enemy who had used a Cutie Healer mask for wrongdoing.

She still felt elated. She scolded herself: Don’t give in just yet. Then she encouraged herself: You can still keep going. Her classmates might be fighting. They might be worrying, wondering what had happened to her. She had to go to them.

With determination, Sally was about to take a step forward. Her heart moved, but her feet wouldn’t. Her crow cawed.

  Halna Midi Meren

Snow White stood in the front, then Mephis, and then Tetty followed. Watching the three magical girls vanish into the darkness, Halna forgot all about her situation and indulged in sentimentality, then immediately remembered and crushed a stone with her foot.

She’d used fusion on Snow White. Fusing a magical girl and a homunculus was not difficult. The energy supply from the ruins had been cut off, but with lots of help from Calkoro and Kana, there would be no problems.

That was how Snow White was able to gain a homunculus body. With a powerful resistance to magic and greatly enhanced physical abilities, she could enter the ruins. She wouldn’t be able to return to her original body, and her lifespan would shrink considerably—but those were petty issues.

That was what Halna had wanted from the beginning. Plus, she had two fused magical girls at her command. That made it easy to tell at a glance who was in control.

Putting in the real Snow White instead of an artificial personality changed the fusion’s look, too. The spitting image of Snow White, just like with Mephis and Tetty. She could even use her magic. To the uninformed, there was no telling that Snow White’s body was a homunculus.

But the leader here was not Halna. That one thing ruined it all. She had also not been allowed to apply the mental control. It was aggravating, but she had to obey.

From the corner of her eye, she looked at the magical girl with a bloodied uniform. What an absurd getup. She didn’t want to acknowledge that this was an incarnation of one of the Three Sages. But she was forced to acknowledge it. She was sitting on the stone floor, finger to her temple as she pondered something. She was not just thinking. She said she was using her magic to gather information.

Halna had heard that Ratsumukana-honome-no-kami, the Caspar Faction’s incarnation, was skilled at information gathering. It was said of her that she had full knowledge to the ends of the earth while sitting on her castle throne, and she had even ascertained where the First Mage was now.

Halna wished to change the Magical Kingdom. She wanted to revolutionize the magical girl system. She wanted to make it so that the tragic incident of the Musician of the Forest, Cranberry, would never occur again, and she had been working to that end. It was not all pretty work. She had also done many dirty jobs that she couldn’t tell others about.

But she was still a mage working in the system. Unlike the robbers who were surging down on them now, she did not want to destroy the Magical Kingdom, and she held reverence for both the First Mage and the Three Sages. The First Mage was an actual god, and the Three Sages were their disciples, having received their direct teachings, and they were also equivalent to gods. If they had simply been outstanding pioneers or great leaders, then you could kick down as many as you liked, but that wasn’t the case with gods. Halna had never had the desire to destroy the system itself from the root.

Maybe she would’ve been better off treating what Kana said as a lie. But there was more than one reason it made sense. Halna had thought it over. She had hesitated. And because she had been unable to act right away, she had failed at getting what she wanted. Now that things were like this, there was nothing for it but to treat Kana like the incarnation of the Caspar Faction. She had to have a reverent attitude and obediently accept her demands, and so Halna was now being used at her whims.

She looked in the other direction. Calkoro was on her knees, flicking the beads of her abacus.

Calkoro’s lack of gratitude made Halna want to explode with anger. Since she couldn’t butt heads with the Caspar incarnation, all of Halna’s rage got redirected at Calkoro, who had so quickly stopped caring that Halna was her boss. As soon as someone more important showed up, Calkoro clung to them and wagged her tail. She was both a rat and a dog. There was nothing more irritating.

But Halna couldn’t vent her anger at her right now. Not only did she not want to do that while Kana was watching, right now Calkoro was necessary personnel. Regardless of what sort of revenge she might have later, in order for there to be a later, right now they had to cooperate—no matter what an aggravating person she was.

It wasn’t as if Halna would have no more chances. There was hope to turn this around. If the thieves showed up, of course there would be confusion in the entrance area. If she used magic with an area effect, for example an acidic mist or a whirlpool of flame, it would sometimes catch allies in it as well. She would skillfully adjust the range to avoid destroying the entranceway. Halna was capable of that.

  Kana

Halna cast the spell, and Calkoro assisted her. While somehow watching them, Kana had been continuing to ask questions in her head and so had managed to gain a certain amount of information.

She had managed to get a grasp on what Frederica was trying to do. She was trying to kick out the current Three Sage’s system and then fit herself into the open space.

The Sage system consumed massive magic power when invoking a soul into a new incarnation. The system had only been arranged for one person, originally speaking. Since three people had been caught up in it due to a chance accident, it had brought about an unanticipated energy shortage.

Once, Ratsumukana-honome-no-kami had learned about that fact through her magic. Speaking about this fact casually would certainly cause chaos not only for the faction but for the whole Kingdom. Ratsumu couldn’t even tell the leadership of the Caspar Faction and just kept it to herself, suffering and agonizing; as a result, she had wound up leaking it only to Pythie Frederica, her personal attendant. Having learned about the Sage system, Frederica had tried to use it for her own desires.

Ironically, if Frederica were to take over the system in place of the Three Sages, that would resolve the energy shortage issue. Of course—since the system that had originally been made for one would return to operation as anticipated.

Kana joined in on Calkoro and Halna’s task. They put up illusory walls on both sides of the entrance area, making the size of the room seem different. By doing this, they aimed for a surprise attack from within the walls.

Kana had also always been thinking that they could not let the Sage system continue. And then it was because she had been waffling around wondering what to do that things had wound up like this.

Actually destroying the system would take an incredible amount of time. Negotiation and adjustments within the factions, discussions and bargaining between the factions, with even more internal conflict than before happening again and again—it would be slower than even a meandering slug. If they did make progress with time, that would be on the better side—it was possible that they would stall and go in reverse. Actually, that was extremely likely. And then all the while, blood would be spilling endlessly. Fools who thought themselves clever schemers would clash in attempt to be the ones to benefit after the Three Sages were gone. Ordinary mages would fall into great confusion. More people would wind up dead.

Thinking about that, Frederica, who was trying to accomplish things with violence, stamping out everyone who would get in her way with speed beyond haste, was in a sense correct. While people who tried to cling to power were trying to resolve things with discussion, the Magical Kingdom was declining further.

Of course, it wasn’t as if everything was right about Frederica’s style. The greatest problem of all was the fact that, after that, Frederica herself would stand in the position of leading the Magical Kingdom. Kana knew just what sort of person Frederica was—awfully well. They could never work together.

But Kana had failed at eliminating Frederica through her own martial force. Plan B in the case that they couldn’t eliminate Frederica was to forestall her and make her goal unusable.

Frederica would not appear yet. They would prepare as much as possible. They would lay traps on the steps. This was makeshift, so they couldn’t expect dramatic effects. Even if it was unlikely that they could kill her instantly, so long as they stopped her, slowed her even slightly, that was enough for now.

The relic, which was the system itself, had been made in the image of a plant. The relic would suck up magic power, bloom a flower, and bear fruit; and when that fell, the magic power that was stored in the seed inside the fruit would burst, and it would send the souls of the Three Sages into the new incarnation candidates that were on standby in their respective hideouts. Frederica’s goal was certainly to acquire the relic fruit, and its seed. They would go into the ruins ahead of Frederica and secure the seed. If they could not do that, they would destroy the seed.

Kana put her hand to the floor. She felt vibrations. They were not from the ruins. They were smaller, and closer. They were coming even closer. The vibrations grew more intense. She took her hand off the floor. The flagstones were shaking. Halna and Calkoro stopped what they were doing. Kana restrained the two with a hand and turned in the direction the shaking approached from, facing the right wall.

Right now in the ruins, the Puk Puck flower should be blooming, and the Grim Heart fruit should be growing. It was due to their influence that the ruins were being activated.

It took a fixed amount of time for flowers to bloom and bear fruit on the relic. If they destroyed that now, then Frederica would be unable to do anything for the time being. If they could destroy the flowers as well, then that would buy them an even longer amount of time. However, if they did that, then the souls of Puk and Osk would be released from the system, and the incarnations would never be born again.

This was something Kana should be doing, fundamentally. While their relationship was not so great that she would call them “fellow Sages,” even so, they had associated for a very long time. If Puk and Osk were here now, just how would they react? Kana didn’t know. They might say, “Kill me for the sake of the Magical Kingdom,” or they might be angry and say, “That’s like being killed while you’re asleep.” Kana’s magic would not give her answers about the uncertain future or hypothetical scenarios.

The walls of the ruins entrance were both magically defended and physically sturdy. They would be undaunted whether they were directly under an earthquake or an air raid or under assault by a group of armed magical girls.

And in that wall, suddenly, there was a crack, and before they could even be surprised, it broke open and crumbled. An earsplitting sound rang through the room. Kana had heard this sound before. This was Dory’s drill. The drill that rotated at high speed gradually slowed its spinning, and its owner, Dory, looked around the room with an uneasy expression; from behind her, her sister Arlie also showed her face.

“You’re unharmed, then?” asked Kana.

Dory wailed something, and Arlie nodded. The translucent dancer-esque magical girl floating at Arlie’s side nodded as well.

“You know this girl?” Kana asked Arlie and Dory.

The pair looked at the floating magical girl. Dory shook her head and said, “Never met her.” Arlie nodded. If Arlie knew this girl, then that meant she was an ally.

Kana swiftly asked a bunch of questions in her mind and confirmed who this magical girl was.

Halna was confused; Calkoro was frightened.

“This is fortunate,” Kana told them. “We have more help. Now things might just work out, somehow.”

“Uh-huh…somehow.”

“Somehow.”

She didn’t know how many people they would need in order to fight back against Frederica. They didn’t know what Frederica might pull. At the very least, just her, Halna, and Calkoro wouldn’t have been enough.

Kana was the one who originally should have been going into the ruins. But she hadn’t been able to. Right now, she was heavily wounded, and she doubted she could do the job in the ruins properly. Even if she were to push through her injuries and go in, if she failed at her mission, it would all go to waste. So what should she do?

Snow White had heard Kana’s inner voice and made her proposal.

Kana had questioned her, to make sure of her intentions and to make sure that she was prepared for it.

And then it was over. There had been no need to let the others know of their conversation. If Halna were to hear the content of their conversation, she would have refused cooperation. Even Calkoro might have refused to help.

There was nothing for it but to apologize and thank her. Snow White was even fully aware of the danger of the technology of fusion, and with that knowledge, she had accepted the unpleasant task. Kana could offer Snow White her life a hundred times and it wouldn’t be enough, and Snow White wouldn’t even want that.

There was other work that Kana should do. She would take up position in front of the ruins, and if Frederica came, she would kill her, and if she couldn’t do that, then at least she would stake her life on slowing her down. It would be pretty tough to slow her down with the three of them, but with the addition of three more, they had better odds.

Dory wailed furiously, but no one understood what she was saying.

  Kumi-Kumi

Just how much time had passed? Even if they were to go back, the way they’d come was blocked with moss. When you stuck your hands into the moss to try to part it, sap shot out, and when Lillian got it on her face, she couldn’t open her eyes for a while. By the time she somehow opened them, the right half of her face had turned green, and after that, she spoke less, and Kumi-Kumi also stopped talking, but to follow the principal’s orders, there was nothing for it but to keep going forward, and the two of them just silently moved through the ruins.

It was a single path, going straight down a gentle slope. There was no room to stray, with the floor, ceiling, and walls all green. But she didn’t feel like she was going the right way. No matter how many steps she took, she never got used to the sensation of her feet sinking in the moss. She felt like she was going to get dragged straight in. Kumi-Kumi imagined that the moss was completely bottomless inside. You would sink forever and ever.

Walking wasn’t a struggle. She was scared of being unable to move—because then she wouldn’t be able to fulfill the principal’s orders.

Kumi-Kumi put a hand to her mouth. She couldn’t understand why this scared her so much.

Strange—until just a moment ago, she hadn’t questioned this fear at all. And now she didn’t understand why she had never questioned it. It was beyond bizarre. If anyone was in the position of giving Kumi-Kumi orders, it was the Caspar Faction higher-ups. That big shot who’d been visiting her had the right to give her orders, and ever since the attack on the school, she had been following orders to a T.

Given Kumi-Kumi’s current position, wasn’t the principal actually her enemy? Kumi-Kumi hadn’t been at all enthusiastic about the assault on the school. She’d had no intention of helping the aggressors and attacking her classmates. But she thought she wouldn’t have wanted to obey the principal, either. Why did she so blithely have to follow her orders and listen to what she was told?

What’s more, she didn’t understand what this place was. The path was very complex, covered in moss and hard to navigate. Just walking wore her down. She felt like she’d been told that this was a really dangerous place. Wouldn’t going any farther be equivalent to walking to their deaths? The brownish-green moss looked commonplace, like it could be in a graveyard or behind the school, but she couldn’t help but feel it was mysterious and frightening.

And then she remembered, Oh yeah. She thought they’d tied lifelines around themselves. If they were to pull them, they could communicate that they were in trouble. Setting aside for now how none of this made sense, she figured they should just get help, and so she pulled the yarn, but there was no resistance at all, and the broken end came back to her.

Kumi-Kumi groaned. Lillian’s yarn was magical. It shouldn’t be cut so easily, so why had it been torn off like nothing?

“…Lilli…an.”

She addressed the magical girl going ahead of her, but there was no response. Lillian was just pushing forward.

“Lillian.”

She called out firmly and grabbed her shoulder. But Lillian still didn’t stop, and Kumi-Kumi put both hands on her shoulders and turned her toward her.

She gasped. Lillian had an eternal smile like a Bodhisattva statue, her face all covered with moss. Her mouth and nose were plugged, and she shouldn’t be able to breathe, but she didn’t seem like she was suffering at all.

Kumi-Kumi automatically thrust Lillian away, and Lillian staggered, hit her head on the wall, and then began sinking down into the moss without any resistance at all. Kumi-Kumi panicked, took Lillian’s hand, and tried to pull her back, but she felt too weak. She still tried to pull her anyway, but her legs slipped, and she hit the wall together with Lillian and sank on in.

She couldn’t even yell about how stupid this was. Her whole field of vision was green. Kumi-Kumi put a hand in her pocket and clasped a tiny fragment. It had already been broken beyond recognition, but it was a remnant of the dragon object that they had planned to decorate the classroom with.

She clasped it tightly, so tightly, hard enough that it hurt. Surely, it was hopeless now, but in spite of that, she remembered the time when she had made the decoration, the time she’d spent preparing it with everyone, and clasped it tight.

  Pythie Frederica

“Is it almost time now?”

The activation was moving along. Frederica had given Old Blue, Kana, and Ripple all enough attention. She did sort of think she’d given them too much attention, but she’d done it because she liked it, so there was no reason to hold any grudges. Now there was nobody obstructing Frederica’s way to the courtyard. Thus far, some sort of event had occurred every time she tried to go over there, but it seemed that had finally come to an end. There might be a few Lightnings still alive, but they could no longer move as an organization.

Finally, there were no more difficulties. It was refreshing. But at the same time, it was also lonely. At last, the time for the party to end had come. There wasn’t much time left for fun.

Slinging a leg over the ruins of the now-useless gate, she went into the courtyard. The trees that the gardener had put their heart into pruning were now a crater, and with all the blood and bodies, there was no place left to walk. If you wanted to paint a picture of hell on earth, simply sketching out this scene would be quite appropriate.

Frederica took two steps forward, then stopped.

She sensed a presence. It seemed to be coming from the stairway to the underground that was opened up near the center of the courtyard. Was it from magical girls, or was it the ruins emitting that? She had prepared a way to open the door to the ruins, but that might be pointless. Someone else had opened the door without permission.

She felt something like a stroke up her back with a cold hand. She had a bad feeling about this. Of course something would be waiting for her at the entrance to the ruins, but this feeling wasn’t from that. Frederica touched her right middle finger to the edge of her lips. She sensed that something bad was about to happen.

She told herself not to overthink things. For now, she should just get moving.

She extended her right leg for a stretch, and next she extended her left leg. She turned her torso to the right and then to the left. She moved her shoulder blades all the way around to rotate her arms. She had been injured. But she could still move well enough. In fact, right now it might be fair to say she was at her best. When she had only just acquired her new body, she had been astonished, thinking how wonderful it was, but thinking about it now, she hadn’t been used to it yet.

Her fatal fight with Old Blue, her exchange of blows with Kana, and Ripple’s surprise attack had all been dangerous, but those situations had enabled her to move her body even faster, and with even more strength.

Frederica opened and closed her right hand a few times and nodded.

  Snow White

Kumi-Kumi’s voice faded, and blurred, and then could be heard no more. Lillian’s voice grew distant. Then the two voices came back again, like a persistent echo.

Snow White could not stop. No matter what she heard or didn’t, there was no choice but to move forward. Ripple wouldn’t stop here, she told herself, putting on as strong an act as she could to encourage herself. If Ripple really had been there, she’d probably be standing there with her head turned away. That was so like her, a smile slipped onto Snow White’s face.

“Hey… You okay?” Mephis asked. She was on Snow White’s right, propping her up and looking at her with concern.

“I’m not okay,” was Snow White’s honest answer.

Mephis looked like she was in bad shape, and Tetty was breathing hard, but even they looked worried about Snow White. She glanced down at her own hands, clenching and opening them. They were hers, under her own command.

“If you’re not okay…then do you wanna rest?” Mephis asked.

“There’s no time.”

They would take the seed. If they couldn’t do that, then they would destroy it.

What Frederica was after was the fruit created by the relic, and the seed inside it. If they destroyed the seed, Frederica could not fulfill her goal. Kana had used her magic to confirm that. It was certain.

Kana had said that, with considerable force, they could destroy it. They would crush it in Tetty’s mittens. If they could destroy the seed, then the current state of activation would settle down. The rumbling and earthquakes would stop. The roots that were growing from underground would slow down. The moss that propagated and tried to swallow up intruders would go back to being just moss, and eventually it would wilt.

Snow White couldn’t let herself be the only one left behind. With every step forward, her feet sank in the moss and moisture oozed out, and then before getting sucked in, she took the next step. Even a graveyard during the rainy season wasn’t this bad.

Her vision occasionally distorted, but it wasn’t dizziness. The moss moved like an intestinal contraction. While restraining the urge to leap into it, she focused on her legs and ears and just kept going. An irregular quivering resounded in her head, while at the same time it was clearer than it ever had been before.

She had already been unable to hear any voices from outside the ruins. She doubted they were dead, so maybe she was cut off from them. This place didn’t feel like the living world.

She had a feeling like something was trying to get inside of her, but it didn’t feel unpleasant, which she denied, thinking that couldn’t be it, and she confirmed that she was still herself.

She would hold on to herself. So long as Ripple was standing there by her side in her mind, then she still had a hold on it.

“This place where we’re going… Is it close?” Mephis asked.

“I don’t know,” Snow White replied.

“You don’t?”

“Kana told me the general distance, as a rough estimate…but the distance we’ve walked so far…is hard to grasp. My sense of time since entering the ruins is also hazy. The whole time, it’s felt like it could be far but is also close.”

“But like…these voices.”

They could hear Lillian’s voice. Kumi-Kumi’s voice followed. They could only tell that it was their voices, and they couldn’t understand what was being said. They weren’t words.

“The heck is this?” said Mephis.

“I don’t know,” Snow White told her.

“Are they safe?”

“I don’t know that, either.”

Snow White’s voice was muffled, like it wasn’t her own, but that didn’t feel strange to her. In fact, it felt natural.

The ruins were in a straight line that sloped downward. Unlike the ruins Puk Puck had occupied, they didn’t get lost. If they just moved their legs thoughtlessly and steadily and kept going forward, they could reach their goal—so she had thought. At the very least, until coming in here.

She could hear Kumi-Kumi’s voice. Lillian’s, too.

Mephis yelled something. Tetty was trying to stop Snow White. Snow White realized that her feet were moving on their own—not down the path. They were trying to go straight into the wall. She was horrified—and then relieved that her heart was still capable of horror.

  Kana

She heard footsteps from up the stairs. There was just one person coming down right now.

They had set a trap right around the end of the steps. If they would get caught there, that would make things faster. Frederica had had a long career as a magical girl, but she was no mage. She shouldn’t be able to see through a magic trap in one glance. Since it worked on contact, she also couldn’t evade it with her crystal balls.

In their earlier fight, Kana had been unaware of her tricks, had been entirely played, and had failed. But now, by having asked so many questions about Frederica, she had a grasp on Frederica’s magic that was about as good as Frederica herself. Her defense was automatic, so absolutely no projectile weapons. There would be no careless oversight on her part.

A figure came down the stairs. And then there was a yellow light as a sound rang out. That was an electrical trap activated by stepping on a floorboard. Calkoro and Halna’s chant began.

Kana leaped. As the figure stood there, she jabbed it with her elbow and was about to strike it across the jaw when she was stopped.

“Oh, that was close, that was close.”

A blackened crystal ball was lying in the corner of the staircase. Frederica herself kept from touching the ground, standing on her toes on a crystal ball.

Moving horizontally through the air, Frederica approached Kana. She stayed close to Kana, so close it was more like she was sticking to her. Kana had seen this strategy already. She had come up with a counter. Kana had slid a magically created adhesive underneath her clothing. If Frederica came as close as she had before, Kana wouldn’t let her go again. Right after she started chanting the spell to activate it, Frederica backed up horizontally in the same way she had come.

“Your ideas are quite nice, but they’re transparent.”

Intense pain ran through her right thigh, then her left.

Some of the Lightning swords that had been lying up aboveground were thrust into her right and left thighs. As she was distracted by those, a heartbeat later, a blade was thrust into her throat and blood welled up within her mouth. Her chant was forced to stop.

Frederica moved horizontally again to swoop toward her. She grabbed Kana’s shoulder and zoomed farther into the entranceway. Calkoro’s chanting stopped. She hesitated, worrying she might hit Kana as well. Halna’s chant didn’t stop, but she wouldn’t make it in time.

Kana was unable to resist and pushed on inward. She had been wounded almost to death to begin with. Halna and Calkoro had healed her with their magic but just enough so that she was barely able to jump. Repairing the flesh of an incarnation required a specialist caster and facilities.

But if she could do nothing here, then there would be no meaning in her having stayed behind. Snow White had even given up her body in volunteering for this.

Kana clenched her right fist, just like Tetty Goodgripp did with her mittens. She then grabbed Frederica’s collar. Just one more attack—if her body would move that much, it was enough. If she could swing down her fist on Frederica’s head, then it would be done.

“Not enough.”

Frederica lifted her chin. She had rows of little crystal balls wedged between the fingers of both hands. She threw them.

It was a throw from an incarnation’s body. Only Kana was able to react. She grabbed them out of the air right before they reached her face. But she was too busy to stop the attacks toward the others.

Calkoro leaped out from the illusory wall that they had made to hide and plunged into the opposite wall. The illusion vanished like smoke. While dodging the crystal balls that flew toward her, Calkoro tackled Halna, guarding her from the projectiles that were targeting her.

But the crystal balls were even faster and harder than magic bullets. They dug into Calkoro’s shoulder and fired into Halna’s throat, sending her glasses flying up to the ceiling.

“The principal has insulted magical girls. I will make very sure that she dies.”

Four more shots followed, three of which struck Halna and one of which went through Calkoro’s body to reach Halna. Underneath Calkoro, Halna’s body spasmed violently.

Frederica was cut off when the wall crumbled. This was not an illusory wall, it was a real stone wall. Dory and Arlie leaped out just according to plan, and they charged in with drill raised, but with the plan not going well, Frederica’s guard was firm, and she dodged the drill without difficulty, swinging up a knife hand.

Kana tried to step forward to stop her, but her leg wouldn’t move right, and she stumbled.

Frederica’s knife hand swung down. It struck Arlie’s helmet, warping it mercilessly. She and Dory were kicked away together to roll to the corner of the room. As the two of them rolled off at about the same time, Frederica threw crystal balls at them. When they struck, they sent Arlie’s helmet flying, and Dory cried out and fell face-first.

A wind touched Kana’s skin. An invisible something ran up, tearing through the cloud of dust as it went, approaching Frederica from the ground. Frederica picked up Dory’s drill in a very natural, mundane manner.

“It seems…I’m no longer bound by that girl Weddin’s magic.”

She pointed the spinning drill to the sky. The invisible something that had chased Frederica tried to avoid the drill, but when it made contact with the spinning point, it was flung away and scattered to bits.

“It must have decided that I am no longer Pythie Frederica. Such a shame—but now I shall accept that with gratitude.”

The scattered something was trying to gather itself together once more. It was the magical girl in the shape of a lamp genie, Tepsekemei.

Before she could take form, Frederica thrust out the drill once more, and Tepsekemei was entirely dispersed.

With blood gushing from her thighs, Kana leaped in and punched at her. But Frederica soundlessly backed up, leisurely dodging the punch Kana had been willing to die for. Kana desperately tried to pursue her, but her legs wouldn’t move, and Frederica kicked her away and sent her rolling on the ground.

Kana pulled out the knife that was stuck in her throat. The blood wouldn’t stop right away. But she should be able to burn up what life she had left to chant a spell, at least. This time for sure, she would not let her get away.

As Kana was readying herself, thinking, Now come at me, Frederica shrugged at her.

“You are my insurance in case of the worst. If the flowers or seeds are destroyed first, then I will need you.”

Moving just her feet, Frederica backed up. Ahead of her were the ruins. Kana could hear her voice coming from the darkness. Gradually, the voice receded into the distance.

“If you treat those who are wounded, then they might be saved. I leave that to you.”

The voice faded away.