Mahou Shoujo Ikusei Keikaku - Volume 18 - Chapter 9

CHAPTER 9

CLASS 2-F

  Mana

She’d felt the Inspection Department was being made light of many times before. It had happened enough times that even a younger member like Mana had experienced it more than once. Veterans would have gone through it even more frequently.

There was no shortage of self-important mages who would very casually, like it was nothing at all, poke their noses into an investigation or force them to take certain people on. They never gave the slightest consideration to how that polluted the department’s independence.

No inspector wanted outsiders butting in on a case. Mana was not the only person who didn’t even want to think about investigating in cooperation with someone-or-other whom she had only just met.

But just this once, she would drop her pride as an inspector and hang-ups as an investigator and also forget what her superiors had told her.

Right now, mages were gathered around the barrier that surrounded Umemizaki Junior High. They were just like ants swarming sugar candy, waving their staffs as they hemmed and hawed, looking at the data and tilting their heads, casting spells, and arguing with each other. Even putting all the members of the Inspection Department together, you wouldn’t have this many people.

There were the Puk Faction mages that Uluru had called and then more mages who’d been called after that. Magical Girl Resources had sent the most mages of all.

Mana had invited the Management Department chief. She’d figured there was no helping it if he refused to come, but the stubborn and experienced old mage flew right over and said, “The magical girl I recommended goes there.”

The Lab and the Information Bureau had come even though they hadn’t been invited, and then once that had happened, apparently the R&D Department had also had to come, and Mana had used all of her tiny authority to accept all of them and assign them to taking down the barrier.

Mana would not be involved in the barrier takedown. Her specialty was pharmacy. Her job right now was to keep them from fighting and also from anything else that was needless.

“Over here! Over here!” Uluru was waving both hands. “Hurry, hurry!”

Mana raced toward her. Many mages had gathered, and in their center, an old woman with such deep wrinkles on her face you didn’t even know where her eyes were anymore swung her staff and chanted a spell. The view that had been hazy behind the barrier became clear, and a hole big enough for one person to get through opened up, and the mages all applauded and went, “Ohhh.” But it immediately went back to how it had been before.

The disappointment immediately switched back to bickering.

“We still haven’t elucidated the technique.”

“How about a Sataborn-style new-type dispel?”

“If we go with multiple people at once, then we might be able to get effects to the same extent.”

“That was just a moment, at most!”

“I dislike this destructive approach, as opposed to unlocking it. It’s far too barbaric. No different from brigands. Unlocking is where the real craftsmanship is. Even a fool can destroy the lock itself.”

“Who’s the fool here? You can’t even do it!”

“They want us to remove the whole barrier more skillfully, all in one go. So proceed with the analysis.”

“You’re always like this.”

Uluru clung to the old woman’s sleeve. “Do that thing you did one more time! I’ll go in quick!”

Mana peeled Uluru away and bowed to the old woman. “I would ask that of you as well, please! If you could!”

The old woman mumbled something. Even though the spell she’d chanted had been clear, when she spoke, it was so indistinct, Mana couldn’t make out what she was saying.

“Me too,” came a voice.

Mana turned around. An old man with a long white beard and a tripointed hat, the Management Department chief Ragi Zwe Nento took his hat in hand and bowed his head deeply.

“Please,” he said.

The old woman mumbled something and gave a little nod.

The chant resumed. The spell was clear, and her staff swung just as sharply as that of any young person.

  Mephis Pheles

The principal had boasted about how the black Snow White’s body was specially made. And thinking back on how the Lightnings had actually conducted themselves, Mephis believed it. The homunculus had been a head or two above anyone else in that place, or maybe even stronger than that. It was frustrating, like acknowledging her own powerlessness, but without the black Snow White, the courtyard would have fallen.

They’d said that, back then, the homunculus hadn’t used any magic to read minds like the real Snow White, and the real Snow White entering her wouldn’t make her weaker. So they had thought.

But in actuality, Snow White was the most weakened of them all. Her legs were slower than Mephis’s, and she tended to fall behind, and when she did speed up, she would suddenly try to charge into the wall.

The principal had also said—rather proudly—that she wasn’t just physically strong, she also was particularly resistant to magic. Mephis had cursed at her, saying, “So then are we mass-market products?!” But having one high-quality product should have been something to rely on. At the very least, if it were as the principal had explained, it would have been.

Kana had said with certainty that the principal was not lying. So then was Snow White unable to wield her body to its fullest, after suddenly swapping bodies? That didn’t seem to be the case. Because even after Mephis had just had her body swapped, she had been able to act normally. Though she didn’t want to remember that stuff.

Mephis supported Snow White from her right, helping her up. Tetty was supporting her from the other side, but her face was pale, too, and she was trembling as she walked. Mephis could understand that feeling painfully well. If Mephis had been doing this march on her own, she would have been trembling and pale-faced, and maybe she would have turned back without taking a single step.

“Seriously, you okay?” Mephis asked Snow White.

“Somehow.”

“Somehow? Come on.”

“These voices… My magic…is picking up strange voices…”

If it wasn’t a physical issue, but a mental one, then that was even worse.

The moss-covered path couldn’t be called a path; they were sinking to their ankles with green sap flowing, their noses were wrinkling from the grassy smell, and despite how the way was straight and impossible to stray from, they didn’t feel like they were walking the right path. And most of all, they could hear those voices. It was Kumi-Kumi’s and Lillian’s voices.

When they had entered this maze, they had planned to save Kumi-Kumi and Lillian, pick them up, and go back. Mephis had even imagined both of them being lost, Kumi-Kumi on the verge of tears and Lillian consoling her. But from walking, Mephis had quickly realized that she had been optimistic. Even knowing that it was Kumi-Kumi’s and Lillian’s voices, she couldn’t tell what they were saying. And those voices had been following them the whole time. She doubted that the two of them were still okay.

Kana had said Adelheid was dead. Kana wanted to yell at her and call her a liar, but it was seeming to Mephis herself that it was no lie. There was no reason for Kana to tell such a pointless lie, and she wasn’t the type to lie like that. Kana herself remained at the ruins entrance to fight off the enemy, despite being in tatters herself. She had said she would fight them off, but most likely she just planned to slow them down or buy time. All beaten up from her loss, her still being beat up while you added in Calkoro and the principal wasn’t going to do anything. Even Mephis understood that, so there was no way an important mage like Kana wouldn’t.

Wheezing, Mephis was just barely managing to walk. It did not seem like she could rely on Tetty or Snow White.

…Shit! “Can’t rely on them,” the hell is that?!

She should just be the one to rely on. She would help out those who didn’t seem like they could be relied on. That’s what Kana would say if she was here, while quoting a line from some manga with a knowing look. How aggravating.

“Hey, Tetty,” Mephis said.

Tetty looked at her fearfully.

Mephis met Tetty’s gaze, putting her will, anger, and reassurance in her expression—or so she meant to—and reached out a hand. “Here.”

She clasped Tetty’s mitten, and it just didn’t feel right, so she put her hand inside the mitten and clasped her hand tight. The fear faded from Tetty’s expression, and surprise surfaced. Mephis turned away from Tetty and faced forward. Even if it was a boring view all buried in green, she figured there was meaning in looking ahead.

In elementary school, the first half of it, she had held hands with Tetty on the way to and from school. She didn’t know if Tetty remembered that, but at the very least, Mephis did. Once they’d become able to turn into magical girls, the size of their hands and their strength had changed, but strangely, she felt like the warmth hadn’t.

On Mondays, her feet had always felt heavy as she walked to school. In the sense of having heavy feet, huffing and puffing along this narrow path filled with moss wasn’t all that different, perhaps.

  Kumi-Kumi

Kumi-Kumi’s self was shrinking into nothingness when Mephis, Tetty, and Snow White came inside. That led to all sorts of problems. She emphasized her existence—and yet, her mind did a one-eighty back to the start, and her intentions got her nowhere.

Meanwhile, Lillian’s self had been contaminated; it did a one-eighty back to the start, a collaborative effort—shared. That didn’t seem to be having a good effect on the three magical girls—Kumi-Kumi knew that, but she couldn’t stop. She couldn’t possibly will herself to stop.

An “intruder” was “assimilating” the “whole.” Kumi-Kumi was one “part”—she was assimilating. Same with Lillian. They couldn’t fight it.

But wanting to save the others—that was still Kumi-Kumi. Her body was nothing, her mind just a “part.” All that remained was melting together. They would melt together, but first, one of her classmates; they still wanted to—even now.

Feelings made magical girls stronger—she’d heard that before, remembered it, forgotten it. It was gone, then still remained; it was right here—Kumi-Kumi.

Kumi-Kumi was good at this. Lillian was not. When they were magical girls, Kumi-Kumi was the clumsy one, and Lillian was the clever one. Being taken in and programmed—maybe that had already happened. Now Kumi-Kumi was the one who used to be Kumi-Kumi. Lillian struggled to think.

All sorts of things—Kumi-Kumi thought they weren’t worth being conscious of. She should mix, melt, become one, but this—was different. No—not unfortunate. Yes—fortunate. But she couldn’t melt now. Not yet. Not like this. Mephis. Tetty. Snow White. Kumi-Kumi couldn’t melt yet. Together, over there—no, not like that. Contradiction—over there—no—save them.

Help the three of them.

Kumi-Kumi’s goal. That goal.

Kumi-Kumi’s voice—it went nowhere. Kumi-Kumi went nowhere. Meaning was meaning. Nowhere. Snow White was weakening. Little time. None left. There was little left.

Motivation. Mephis. Group Two. Standing firm. Tetty. Student rep. Mephis. Group leader. Stubborn.

Protect. Kumi-Kumi had desperately tried—with Group Two. Mephis was protecting. She was protecting someone. Strong. So strong. Kumi-Kumi was not strong. The green—that meant Kumi-Kumi had been protected.

Motivation. Don’t take it lightly. Group Two.

This was how Mephis held hands. Clasped Tetty’s hand. Encouraging. Tetty felt a little better. Better—just a little. Kumi-Kumi gritted her teeth. Watching Lillian, who felt better.

That made sense. True. One wasn’t enough. Two was a lot. Kumi-Kumi was one. Kumi-Kumi and Lillian were two.

Combined selves.

Even as “parts,” their strength was doubled. Combining might change their two selves, but there was no point clinging to something that was going to vanish anyway. Not being able to combine—they never considered that for even a second. Magical girls were all about making miracles.

  Tetty Goodgripp

Tetty looked up.

She felt like she had heard voices—Kumi-Kumi’s and Lillian’s voices. They had been hearing them this whole time since they had entered, but this was different. It seemed more meaningful, like she might understand it, or might not—that sort of voice.

She looked at Mephis. Their eyes met. Had she heard their voices, too?

Something fell on the moss with a splat. Panicking, Tetty looked toward the sound. While supporting Snow White from the side, she walked up to her rapidly, grabbing the thing that had fallen and was about to be buried in the moss in her mitten, and pulling it up. It was something familiar. She had seen it many times when they had been preparing for the festival, watching the whole time as it was gradually completed. The one making it had been so into it she wouldn’t notice even if you talked to her. And with the passage of time, it had taken proper form. Seeing that now was as wonderfully cheering as the time when they’d been so focused on working on it.

It was Kumi-Kumi’s dragon. She’d been swinging it around continuously while fighting the Lightnings, so most of it had to have been broken, but the broken parts had been sewn together and mended with Lillian’s yarn.

The weight of Snow White’s body suddenly grew lighter. When Tetty looked, she was standing with her own strength.

She looked up at the ceiling and muttered, “I see. I can hear it.”

“…Hear what?” asked Mephis.

“Kumi-Kumi’s and Lillian’s voices.”

“Uh, we’ve been hearing them for a while.”

“In more proper, clearer, more meaningful words.”

“Huh…so then…does that mean they’re still alive?” Tetty brought her face closer, pressing her for an answer.

Snow White managed to smile, albeit weakly. “They’re trying to help us,” she said.

  Pythie Frederica

By the entrance area, it had already been smelling aggressively of danger, but once she was inside, it was far beyond that—it really was dangerous. Even just walking through the mass of green was difficult, and even though it was just one straight path, it would not be at all strange to meet disaster in here. It seemed that the ruins or the relic had some kind of will, and it called out to her, but she couldn’t tell what it was saying. And despite not understanding, she felt like she was being swept away by it.

The calm Frederica murmured: She’d been aware that this was dangerous. In fact, she would have been disappointed if the activated ruins were safe. She would not feel anxious about the danger. If her heart had been that weak, then she never would have thought to come in the first place. She was becoming antsy because of a different sort of anxiety. And she was trying to avert her eyes from that.

The passionate Frederica smiled: Why did she have to look at trifling details at this point? Rather than thinking about petty things, she should just act. There are many moments like that in life, but right now was very much that time.

Frederica took both views into consideration.

She had designed her body with extreme caution. She had been given the stamp of approval that she had enough resistance and durability that she would be okay, but she was uneasy about going inside. But such anxiety, in fact, gave Frederica joy. That meant that there was enough power ahead to make her anxious, even with an incarnation’s body.

She was ignoring anything irrelevant for the time being—but not everything across the board. It would be a problem if something caught her off guard. She was going to maintain the flexibility that defined the magical girl Pythie Frederica.

Did the other incarnations—Grim Heart, for example—have these doubts? Would a magical girl designed to be freed from that sort of mental weakness not? Puk Puck had prided herself on her exceptional resilience, but apparently, she’d been easily crushed by the giant device the First Mage had so painstakingly constructed. So it must have been possible to penetrate magic.

It was absurd, but there were such things all over the world. If you gave up because magical girls were absurd, you couldn’t do business. She couldn’t be stumbling over some minor absurdities when she was trying to accomplish something great.

She ignored the voices, drowning them out by humming a magical-girl-anime opening medley; with her body light, stepping on the moss without sinking, she moved so fast it was like she was sliding along.

If she went on like this, then she would be able to catch up quickly—so she thought, but she came to a quick stop. Low in the corridor, some yarn was strung up right where it would catch her shin. When she brought her face close to look at it, it seemed this was some of Lillian’s yarn.

Classical Lillian?

Frederica knew all of the magical girls of the Elite Guard who she had sent into the school. Not only that, her personal preferences were involved. Lillian was a rare magical girl, with both a complex about her human form and a sense of omnipotence while transformed, held in perfect balance. Of course, her hair was beautiful. If Frederica could ask for one thing, it would be that she wanted her to be a little more careful with her treatment of her human hair.

Hmm.

It was too clumsy to call sabotage, but it had actually stopped her. It wasn’t that having this in the way was really a problem—she was just perplexed by the bizarreness of the situation, and wondered what was going on. Frederica stepped over the string, on guard for any pitfall traps or bear traps that might be ahead as she went forward, and quickly came to a stop again. There was a yarn strung up.

Hmm, hmm…interesting.

This was both interesting and troublesome at the same time.

Frederica stepped over the yarn, and after going forward a while, she saw that another yarn was strung up.

This was persistent. It was also childish. Lillian would be capable of making smarter traps, so why was there a string of traps set up that were so simple, as if they had been designed to make a child trip? She couldn’t figure out what she was after.

But times when you couldn’t read someone’s intention, it was best not to read it. Frederica had learned that from experience.

Leaping as softly as a feather, she twisted her body in midair and put both feet on the wall, running straight along it like she was sliding. Lillian’s traps were set up periodically, but of course she ignored them. Right now was the time to act rather than think.

  Snow White

She took a step. It sank in. She pulled it out. She moved forward.

The moss wriggled and squelched, and when her foot lifted, the mark she’d made immediately went back to how it had been before. If these were ruins like the labyrinth Puk Puck had occupied, maybe she would have been happy, thinking that nobody would follow her. But if Frederica came into the ruins, she would just follow along this single path. Whether there were tracks or not didn’t matter.

Snow White turned to look back, then immediately faced front again. She couldn’t hear any voices from outside the ruins. Inside the ruins, even the minds of the two right next to her, Mephis and Tetty, were hard to hear. The voices of Kumi-Kumi, Lillian, and most likely the ruins themselves were all mixed up. She was just barely able to hear them if she listened close, but the more she listened to them, the worse she felt.

But even so, there was a voice she had to listen to.

“I think…I can hear…Frederica’s voice,” said Snow White.

“So she got in?” Mephis croaked.

“Probably.”

“Are the people up there okay?”

“I can’t tell.”

If they were okay, then Frederica wouldn’t have come in. Mephis understood that, which was why she was scowling.

“This is bad,” she said.

“It is.”

“Um…is she fast?” Tetty asked, her voice quavering.

“I don’t know how far away she is…,” she whispered.

She heard Frederica’s mind. This time, it wasn’t just that she “thought” she heard it. It was Frederica. It broke off and she couldn’t hear it again, but there was no way she would mistake that.

“She’s fast,” Snow White announced.

“Oh no…,” Tetty whimpered.

“And she’s getting closer.”

If they encountered her in this narrow corridor, Snow White doubted they could win.

They were supposed to have put up defenses against Frederica at the ruins’ entrance. Kana, Calkoro, and Halna were there. But even then, they had been unable to stop her. Judging from Frederica’s speed, she hadn’t even been wounded enough to slow her down. All she could do was pray that at least those magical girls who had stayed behind were alive.

Snow White bit the very tip of her tongue. It brought her to her senses just a bit.

They had to reach their goal ahead of Frederica. But considering Frederica’s speed, she would catch up to them. Fighting back would be difficult. And moving faster than Frederica would also be difficult.

The image of the black Snow White that had been fighting against the Lightnings rose in her mind. The principal had said that Snow White should be just as strong now. She was strong, and fast. Or so she should be, but now she was dragging the others down and being a burden to Tetty and Mephis.

Snow White had always been a burden. All the magical girls she’d tried to protect had died, or had met horrible fates as bad as death. She did nothing but hesitate, and in the end couldn’t do anything. She said a lot of noble-sounding things, but she was always waiting for someone else to save her.

No!

Snow White bit her lip. The taste of blood brought her to her senses.

  0 Lulu

She was supposed to be looking for Snow White, but what she found first was a number of Princess Lightnings. The Lightnings were all in a group, so of course they were noticeable, and they were also acting strangely. The Lightnings, who should have been doing something under orders of their master, all had their heads together and seemed to be discussing something.

Lulu wasn’t able to call out to them. By the time she hesitated, they were already out of view.

“What…is that?” Miss Ril asked.

“I’m not sure” was the most Lulu could say. She really had no idea what was going on. It was laughable, but she couldn’t laugh.

She examined the information. Would Lightnings be acting on their own? Old Blue might be in a state where she couldn’t command them. She might—rather, she had to be. If she were doing all right, then the Lightnings wouldn’t be here entertaining themselves by standing around talking.

Old Blue was strong and tenacious—and, most of all, a canny magical girl. She would never take more people than she was capable of commanding. And Old Blue would also not put the sort of magical girl who would panic at the scene under her command. In other words, the lackeys standing there muttering to each other and not doing their jobs meant something was wrong.

She’s wounded, or maybe… Oh no…

This was bad. Groups of Lightnings moving about in a confusion, and Old Blue not being there, was an absolute disaster. Of course this was bad for their team, and it was also bad for Lulu as an individual. Asserting her position as “a great Lazuline candidate” had only worked because she’d been dealing with Lightnings. If Old Blue’s enemies were at the advantage, then that wouldn’t work anymore.

Or…was Master defeated?

It didn’t seem like she would die—rather, Lulu couldn’t even imagine her dying. Her fleeing though, that might be possible. After her group escaped, Old Blue would immediately block the way behind them. She would leave behind any slow subordinates who couldn’t catch up. Though Old Blue was normally someone you could count on, when the time came to make a decision, she would not bring emotions into it.

So then it made sense that the Lightnings were confused. No more commander, no more escape route, and babbling to each other saying, “What do we do, what do we do?” wouldn’t bring up any good ideas. You weren’t going to get any wonderful solutions popping up when it was all the exact same person discussing.

What should she do? Lulu waffled. But she hadn’t seen Snow White yet. That would mean breaking her promise with Ripple. Lulu groaned. With a brief curse, she clicked her tongue sharply like Ripple.

Something was strange. It was difficult to imagine that their master had lost, and her running away seemed reasonable at a glance, but it was still strange, after all. If it were simply that she had lost, or fled, then that would mean the enemy was at the advantage. If the enemy were at the advantage, then she should see some of them, but thus far, she hadn’t seen any of the masked magical girls.

Did everyone flee after figuring out that the barrier would be undone soon? Is that it? And then some of the Lightnings were left behind?

Among those abandoned Lightnings was Lulu. Worst case scenario, could she have Miss Ril defend her case? She didn’t know if there was any point in that. At the very least, Lulu had to see if Snow White was safe, or her mission would not be complete.

She felt like she’d had a job she didn’t want foisted on her. But this job she didn’t want was also a job that she had to do. She would take responsibility to the end. Lulu felt around inside her bag and pulled out a ball.

“Miss Ril. Take this.” She tossed her the reddish-brown ball.

“What is it?”

“Goldstone. It will show the path to your goal… Or, it should. Let’s use this to search for your classmates.”

Miss Ril’s expressionless face seemed to brighten a little, although maybe that was Lulu’s imagination. In the blink of an eye, Miss Ril’s whole body transformed into goldstone, and Lulu used her magic on her. This should have had some amazing results that you wouldn’t be able to get from a tiny little cheap stone.

“All right, this way.”

They ran haphazardly a ways, and at the end of it, the barrier was waiting. Ripple was lying face up on the gymnasium roof.

“Who…is that?” Miss Ril asked.

“Hey! What are you doing here?!” Lulu cried.

She approached Ripple, looked down at her, and let slip a groan. Ripple had been very badly beaten. Both legs were in weird shapes, bent at impossible angles. And there was more aside from that. She had been tortured just to the verge of death and then left there.

Enraged, wondering just who the hell had done this, and also shocked that Ripple had been this badly beaten, Lulu was also afraid that whoever had done this might still be in the area—but even as her heart was muddled by all these feelings, Lulu, as a Lazuline candidate, made the optimal move.

Lulu swiftly chose from her mental gem list what she would use. Miss Ril would react to metals and transform. It had to be something that had a meaning as a stone and also included metal or was metal itself.

“Here, Miss Ril, take this. It’s malachite,” said Lulu.

“Understood.”

It was a beautiful stone, a dark green with a striped pattern in it. It had the power to repel evil and heal. Lulu went to her knees and sat right beside Ripple. Ripple didn’t thank her—she didn’t even move. She was lethargic.

The malachite would normally heal so slowly it was no different from first aid, but with Miss Ril’s size, it displayed more dramatic results than magic medicine or a magic stone. Ripple’s body was healed at a speed that shocked even Lulu, and she breathed a sigh of relief.

That was when she realized something. Ripple’s expression was strange.

The look on her face was not that of the Ripple she knew. Even when she fought with a strong enemy or was terribly wounded, Ripple would not be frightened or run away. There was a constant anger there. She burned her heart as fuel, and the stronger her opponent was, the more aggressively she would face them. But despite that, right now Ripple was just staring vacantly at the sky. Even when Lulu showed her face, Ripple’s eyeballs only moved slightly, and there was hardly any reaction.

It was not only her body. More than that, it looked as if her spirit had been wounded.

“Hey, what’s wrong?” Lulu asked.

There was no reply.

“What’s wrong?!”

Yelling did nothing; she still got no reply.

“What are you doing, zoning out at a time like this?! You still haven’t found Snow White!”

Ripple tried to sit up, and groaned, and Lulu hastily supported her.

“Oh, feeling motivated again? And hey, who did this to you?”

“Frederica…,” Ripple muttered—to herself, not at Lulu.

“Seriously? Pythie Frederica? She’s here? Hmm, yeah… We’ve got to get her back for what she’s done.”

“No…”

“Don’t give me that! Are you still Ripple?!”

There was no response. Miss Ril, who was sparkling so hard it was comical, watched with concern, but she didn’t intervene. In a business where many people would butt their noses in not knowing the situation, Lulu was grateful for that attitude. But that meant, in other words, that Lulu had to manage things somehow on her own.

“You’re giving up because Frederica beat you to a pulp?”

“No…that’s not it.”

“So what’s the problem?”

“She… I… Snow White…”

“What?”

“I didn’t understand…”

“Understand what…?”

“…anything…about Snow White.”

“Oh…”

“It was all for nothing… But… Damn it, she—”

Lulu clenched her right fist and dropped it down on Ripple’s nose. Miss Ril hastily cut between them, and Ripple sat up while gushing blood from her nose and grabbed at Lulu’s collar.

“What was that for?!”

“You didn’t seem to care anymore, so I smacked you out of it! If you’ve got a problem with that, then just hit me! C’mon!”

The fingers grabbing her lapels gradually weakened, and Ripple’s arms dangled downward. The nose she’d punched and the blood flowing from it immediately healed. This was a funny time to be impressed by what happened after using such a big piece of malachite, but there was nothing amusing about it.

Lulu dipped her fingers into the little bag hanging at her side. What should she do next? Having healed the wounds of her body, should she heal the wounds of her heart? Would something that could recover her fighting spirit be good?

Regaining fighting spirit. Then she would be back to the usual Ripple. Wait, she thought, putting on the brakes in her mind. Shouldn’t she just take the spineless Ripple and escape from the school? She had the feeling that would make things work out peacefully.

“No!” she yelled. Ripple and Miss Ril were looking at her.

What was the point of putting on the brakes now? Lulu was here now precisely because she had destroyed her brakes. It was fine to regret that she was here, but she could make it meaningless.

Lulu brought her face within inches of Ripple’s. Ripple tried to turn to the side, but Lulu held her face in both hands and turned it toward her.

“Hey, do you know my master?” Lulu demanded.

“What?”

“You know her, don’t you?”

“…Yeah.”

“She understands me. Maybe even better than I know myself. And it’s not just me—she understands you, and her other apprentices, and the Lightnings that are lying in heaps out there. She knows you all shockingly well. That’s what her magic does. One look, and she gets it.”

Lulu averted her gaze from Ripple, drew in a breath, and looked down. Ripple was staring back at Lulu. The ninja magical girl was bewildered, but her face remained expressionless.

“So what of it?” Lulu demanded, still visibly angry.

“What are you…talking about?”

“Say she does understand people. How happy does that make someone? She only understands people so that she can make good use of them. She has no desire to make them happy. That’s why the Lightnings are all lying there. That’s why my master is using those apprentices. Here I’ve been struggling all day, and now that it looks like something bad’s happened to my master; it’s like, so what if she understands me? Just because she’s so incredibly understanding, that doesn’t make this okay. Getting all bent out of shape because a nutjob like Frederica beat you up and told you some nonsense to justify her behavior—I mean, how lame can you get? I thought you were a cooler magical girl than this, Ripple.”

Lulu dropped her fist down, thinking to sock her one in the nose again to finish it off, but she was stopped. Ripple’s face was hidden by Lulu’s arm and Ripple’s arm, and she couldn’t see her expression.

Ripple stood up. Her wounds were healed. She clenched her teeth, her eyebrows pointed downward, using all of the parts of her face to express her anger. It was an expression Lulu knew well.

Lulu got to her feet. “…Are we going?” she asked Ripple.

Still with that frightening look on her face, Ripple nodded, bowed her head, and muttered a hoarse “Thanks.”

“What’re you thanking me for?” Lulu muttered even more quietly, clearly confused.

Miss Ril nodded; for some reason, she looked the happiest of everyone.