Mahou Shoujo Ikusei Keikaku - Volume 7 - Chapter 2

CHAPTER 2

EVERYONE, ASSEMBLE

  Filru

Magical phone in hand, Filru was frozen. Displayed on screen was a message from an unknown sender.

It appears that someone has been creating magical girls artificially without the technology of the Magical Kingdom.

The Magical Kingdom’s upper ranks are taking this situation very seriously and will be offering a reward for even the smallest bit of information or a captured artificial magical girl.

Act now and rest assured your chances of a reward will be greater, as well as any opportunities to make connections with the higher-ups.

The best of luck to you. In addition, absolutely do not communicate the content of this message to anyone else. Should you choose to disobey, magic has been cast that will erase your and the other party’s memories.

From a friend

The exposure of magical-girl prisoners being temporarily released for the sake of doing dirty work had been taken quite seriously, and there had been aftereffects. One of those was that the institution of the magical-girl prisons themselves were reexamined. As a result, Filru, who had not even gotten her hands dirty, had lost her job.

She’d heard talk that the system itself would be changing. They weren’t just going to seal criminals away and put a lid on them but turn it into a humane system in the true meaning of the word, where the prisoners could learn and reflect. So accordingly, they said they’d be upping security, establishing a mutual surveillance system with multiple jailers, and they’d also be introducing new techniques for magic barriers to create a completely new correctional facility that would be prepared for any new situation.

But despite talk of making a new facility, it wasn’t as if the extant prison would disappear immediately. Transferring current prisoners elsewhere would take time. Or so Filru had thought, but this time, the Magical Kingdom had acted particularly quickly. In less than a month after the exposure of the incident, they’d begun transferring prisoners, the transfer had been carried out under the vigilant watch of multiple skilled practitioners, and the old prison had been closed. There was nothing like a closing ceremony, and just an easy, “Yep, now it’s over.” It was at that point Filru finally realized—she hadn’t been briefed on the location, schedule, or anything about the new correctional facility.

In a panic, she reached out to the authorities and received word that she was “currently on standby.” What the heck was standby? She tried asking for details, but the answers were all vague and full of murky expressions and terms like, “We’ll deal with it appropriately” or “We’ll make an effort.” The only thing that was clear had to do with pay during the standby period—there was none. What’s more, the fact that Filru had also been told, “We will not forbid you from seeking out new employment,” indicated that she’d not been integrated into the new system.

Filru was at a loss. She’d never been the most social type before, but since she was trying to get a new job, in order to make magical-girl connections again, she started showing up at various gatherings.

Tea parties, gaming sessions, karaoke, camping. Filru met with both peers and senior magical girls who seemed like they might have connections with the Magical Kingdom, or even younger ones, and just schmoozed. Right up to the line of being thought obnoxious—well, actually, they might all have been finding her quite obnoxious—she earnestly mingled with all sorts of people in her search for a job opportunity.

Not much came of it. No one was reaching out to a former prison employee. She understood that finding a new job in less than half a month’s time would be too much to ask for, but when she thought of what was left in her bank account, she couldn’t help but sigh. She had need of something that took priority even to frequently showing her face at meetings and making connections.

She attended a drinking party on that day, too. By the time she got home, it was already past nine o’clock at night.

She watched a DVD as she always did and then, when she was done, booted up her magical phone, figuring she’d surf the Internet, and noticed that she’d received an e-mail. It wasn’t an invitation to a meetup, and it wasn’t from a former superior or colleague. It wasn’t a message from the friends she’d recently seen, and it wasn’t the address of the Magical Kingdom, either. It was sent to her magical-girl address, so she could be certain it was from someone in the business, so maybe it would have something to do with work. Heart swelling with hope, she opened the e-mail to find it said a number of things.

Filru looked at the text, then gave it a second careful, proper reading, and then the third time, she held her hand to her chest as she read through it.

  Styler Mimi

The club organization made up of magical girls who’d been assembled by Archfiend Pam, the magical girl known for her overwhelming combat prowess and numerous dazzling military exploits, was called the Archfiend Cram School, and for better or for worse, this group was feared as one that trained in search of power.

Some members loved magical-girl fiction involving battle; some were merely bloodthirsty by nature; some may have joined out of a sense of justice, or a desire to destroy evil; others might have just always been athletic all their lives. It was for such reasons that these magical girls found purpose in battle and aimed for the heights of strength. The Archfiend Cram School drew in these enthusiasts of battle like a moth to a flame, and though it was an unofficial organization, it came to prominence as a great power.

Up until the Cranberry incident, when Archfiend Pam lost her position, it had even been said that if you were acknowledged by the Archfiend and you managed to graduate, you were guaranteed to become a salaried magical girl.

And if you were to ask people who were connected with the Archfiend Cram School who was the strongest magical girl in the school, the majority would answer with the name of the Archfiend herself. Even after her death in the line of duty, that didn’t change. There were some people of baseless confidence who would offer their own names, but they were only a minority, and that didn’t affect the percentages.

If you were to ask, “Who’s the magical girl in the Archfiend Cram School you hate most?” 70 percent would respond with the name Marika Fukuroi. Another 20 percent would say, with loathing, “Marika Fukuroi was expelled from the Archfiend Cram School, so she’s not connected to it.” In other words, 90 percent of people in the school would bring up Marika Fukuroi’s name.

It was rather impressive that full-on criminals like Cranberry, Musician of the Forest, who had forced those who aspired to be magical girls into killing matches, and her imitators, like Flame Flamey, who had also held lethal exams, would be left aside and Marika Fukuroi’s name would be brought up instead, but she was someone who deserved that sort of treatment—or so Styler Mimi thought.

There was no lack of episodes. And of those, the most recent were particularly horrible, and 90 percent of those who had been there had sighed in resignation, like, “That’s just how she is,” while the remaining 10 percent said they had their eye on her and were gunning for revenge or to punish her.

One month prior, in the banquet hall of a certain hotel in the prefecture, there was a gathering of resplendent girls in magnificently colored costumes.

At a glance, these outfits may not have seemed appropriate to such a solemn ceremony, but to magical girls, their costumes were also formal wear. They were appropriately dressed for this meeting in remembrance of Archfiend Pam, who had lived and died as a magical girl.

The proceedings were already mostly over. The VIPs briskly departed the venue, while the staff of the Department of Diplomacy left looking downright melancholy, and the majority of magical girls dispersed. Only those who had been under Archfiend Pam’s guidance in the Archfiend Cram School stayed behind to talk about their memories of the deceased.

Some hung their heads, faces pale, some bit their lips hard, some sobbed into their cups, and some were eating restlessly. Aside from all of these, there were also those who whispered to each other with severe expressions.

“Guess this is the end of the Archfiend Cram School, huh?”

“I’m gonna miss it.”

“The Department of Diplomacy’s really going to lose some influence.”

“They brought it on themselves. They basically killed her, didn’t they? If the Department of Diplomacy hadn’t forced her to do a job that would require her to curb her powers, this wouldn’t have happened.”

“I wouldn’t go so far as to say they should have made them fight in a place far from all civilization… but if it had been outside the Earth’s atmosphere, at least, her combat abilities wouldn’t have been so restricted…”

“How foolish. How truly foolish. The Archfiend should have refused.”

“That would’ve been the best, for the Department of Diplomacy, and for Archfiend Pam…”

“Now that she’s gone, the department’s day in the sun is over, too.”

“So then the next to rise will be the Inspection Department, backing the Magical-Girl Hunter?”

“But Inspection lost their ace over that affair, too. I’ve only ever had one bout with Hana Gekokujou, but she was a real master.”

“Considering it was a big enough disaster to kill the Archfiend, other department aces would never get out alive.”

“I’m hearing talk that they’re going to establish a new department for the management of the worst magical-girl criminals. Since even if you’re good at inspection, observation, investigation, and exposure, it’s not like you’re capable of engaging in war.”

“So then Magical Girl Resources? I’ve heard their current boss is pretty competent.”

With the whispers of magical girls and the sound of the rain pattering on the window behind her in her ears, Mimi vacantly stared at the table.

A square, flat board stood on the table, which was covered with flowers of every color. The board was lined with Archfiend Pam’s military exploits and finished off with, A great magical girl lies here. She had indeed been a great magical girl. She had been a boundlessly powerful magical girl. But she would never wake again.

On a trolley beside the table sat a bust of the Archfiend. Apparently, they were going to install it somewhere, along with that tablet listing all her accomplishments, but a bust of a magical girl rather looked like a toy model or a figurine and was incongruous with the particular dignity of its make.

Mimi took a drink of her oolong tea to shake off her sentimentality. Mimi had not been a student of the Archfiend Cram School. Her magic was to alter peoples’ appearances into something lovelier, and it wasn’t suited to battle, and her personality wasn’t cut out for it, either. She preferred to avoid quarrels and trouble.

When Archfiend Pam had been alive, Mimi had worked as the fashion adviser–slash–hair stylist for the school, and after the Archfiend’s death, Mimi had taken on the role of embalmer, restoring her cruelly destroyed body to its original beauty.

This would probably be her final job for the Archfiend Cram School. Now that the pillar that was the Archfiend had been broken and their backing, the Department of Diplomacy, had lost power, there was nothing to support the school anymore. After all, she’d long heard rumors that the school had been using the borrowed authority of the department to silence concerns that it was dangerous for combat-focused magical girls to all be gathered in one place. There were surely those who thought this would make a fine example to display the shift in the power balance.

Mimi would be losing a major client, but it wasn’t as if that would make it hard for her to make a living. There were plenty of magical girls who needed Styler Mimi’s magic.

Fundamentally speaking, the costumes and hairstyles of magical girls did not change. Some liked this because it was easy, but others would become bored or dispirited by the lack of variety.

Most magical girls were young women around the age when they wanted to express themselves through accessorizing.

Tell them not to place importance in variety and keep the same look, and they would reply with booing. But if you fiddled with a magical girl’s hairstyle, it was difficult to make it stick using human techniques, and if you tried to add clothing or accessories, they would fail to keep up with magical girls’ movements and would end up in tatters in a heartbeat.

That was where Styler Mimi came in.

With Mimi’s magic, she could change a magical girl’s attire as she wished, and she could even change the shape of her face using her makeup. Magical girls gathered from all over the country seeking Mimi’s abilities, leaving her donations—accepting a reward might cause problems, so they were, in name, donations—and left satisfied.

Even with the Archfiend Cram School gone, that lifestyle wouldn’t change. She had another appointment after this memorial was over, too. She had to go home to be on time for it.

As these thoughts were on her mind, there was a cry ahead of her. Mimi happened to glance over and frowned. There was a magical girl on her bottom on the floor, sobbing. All those who’d been whispering, those who’d been crying, and those who’d been hanging their heads, turned to look at one certain magical girl.

Her hair, which faded from red to green, resembled the leaves of a plant. But most striking of all was the giant sunflower blooming on top of her head. It shattered the solemn ceremony and, along with the oddly defiant smile on her lips, made a mockery of everyone present.

The flower girl, Marika Fukuroi. After she had been expelled from the Archfiend Cram School, the nickname “flower girl” had been stripped from her, so right now, she was just Marika Fukuroi. She must have been the one to kick down that sobbing magical girl. Even Mimi, who hadn’t seen what had happened, could easily figure that out.

Once the Archfiend Cram School students began to take notice, Marika slowly looked around and shouted out, “This is the only day we’ll have all these idiots in one place, right? Then since we’re all here, let’s go!”

The moment she yelled that, a nearby magical girl leaped at her. The two tangled up, falling to the floor. From Mimi’s position, they were out of view, but she heard some dramatic sounds of destruction.

Mimi immediately zoomed away, while behind her, she heard the sounds of hard things breaking, screams, yells, someone saying, “Who invited that idiot?” voices crying, “Hold her down,” and “No, kill her,” and Marika Fukuroi saying, “Come at me, you morons!” as Mimi left the banquet hall at full speed.

Afterward, Mimi did not try to find out what had happened, either. When things got like this, it was best not to get involved. Rumors on the wind muttered about the majority of the former members of the Archfiend Cram School having been banned from entering a certain hotel, but Mimi decided that she’d never heard any of it.

Styler Mimi preferred peaceful safety above all else. Adventure and danger went hand in hand. And people who were just plain dangerous were beyond out of the question. Professional relationships were one thing, but there was no need to be involved beyond that, and Marika Fukuroi in particular was not someone to get involved with, even if it was for work.

But for some reason, the magical girl who violently knocked on the door of her workplace and then kicked it open was the one who had a beautiful white lily blooming on top of her head.

“I got an interesting message. Everyone else from the Archfiend Cram School is useless, and bringing them’d be boring. But you like stuff like this, right, Mimi? Let’s go.”

“No.”

“Are you ready?”

“I said no. I have work, so I can’t go.”

“I can’t really tell you why, but apparently there’s some strong ones out there.”

“I said I’m not goi—”

Marika grabbed her by the collar and yanked her away hard, so everything after that was cut off by her screech.

  Lady Proud

The Department of Diplomacy was in a critical situation. Losing Archfiend Pam had been that serious a blow. None of the magical girls who remained could take her place.

Just as war is one method of diplomacy, the side with the military force is the one that commands diplomacy. No matter how shrewdly you might attempt to conduct yourself, if the strong make a decision that things must be this way, then the weak have no way to resist.

Losing the incredible military might that was Archfiend Pam also meant that the Department of Diplomacy couldn’t keep doing things the way they always had. It wasn’t only that they were weaker. Now, they could no longer carry out the work that was their essential purpose. This was about the purpose of the department’s existence. It was fair to say this was very much a crisis of their very survival.

Archfiend Pam’s influence within the department had been practically godlike. Some had more than respected and adored her, taking it to the level of worship. It was assumed that success was unlikely unless you were a graduate of the Archfiend Cram School, and the graduates had formed a faction that protected the interests of their own. Even after the exposure of the Cranberry affair, when Archfiend Pam had lost her standing, that faction never lost power.

The death of the Archfiend on the job had rattled the Department of Diplomacy down to its bedrock. But with this crisis, there was also opportunity waiting to be seized. Now, dissident groups might well take power to become the mainstream.

Lady Proud, a member of the Department of Diplomacy, was ambitious. She’d personally experienced the cold reception of not coming from the Archfiend Cram School, and that experience had permeated her very being. However, now that the great keystone that was Archfiend Pam had been removed, she could stand on top.

When she’d traveled to the scene of an incident as a lieutenant under Archfiend Pam, on the way back from finishing the job, one magical girl had said, “Great leader this time, huh?” She hadn’t said it like she’d wanted it to be heard. That remark had probably been a careless slip of her true thoughts.

When her eyes had caught Lady Proud’s, she’d been so flustered, putting her hand over her mouth, that Lady Proud had felt bad for her. Yes, the time before, Lady Proud had been in charge. She had thought she’d done well, but she hadn’t. At least, not to this magical girl.

Deep in her heart, Lady Proud burned with humiliation. She knew it herself better than anyone: No matter what a good job Lady Proud did, she would absolutely never match Archfiend Pam. The Archfiend’s presence alone would completely change the atmosphere of a situation. It affected both enemies and allies.

When Lady Proud was the leader, her underlings worked about as well as petty gangsters skilled at extortion.

When Archfiend Pam worked as leader, the underlings had worked with the capability of elite soldiers who had gone through intense, special training to make them superhuman in body and spirit.

Archfiend Pam was strong, just so strong, and in the Department of Diplomacy, where strength was everything, she was a god. But she’d been killed. The dead could not defeat the living. No matter how strong she had been in life, now that she was dead, nobody would fear her. And without fear, you couldn’t move people to action.

Lady Proud was repulsed at herself for feeling glad of someone’s death, but nevertheless, she wanted to make this chance count. If she didn’t act now, she’d never be able to rise to the top her whole life, and in time, the Department of Diplomacy would rot away, too.

Looking at the screen with Umbrain, she cried out in surprise. This e-mail said someone was trying to make artificial magical girls. The sender was anonymous: I’m someone who wants to see more from the Department of Diplomacy.

A more experienced individual would probably deem this sort of thing to be a mere prank. Lady Proud was no different. She snorted and deleted it, and then after fifteen minutes of vague consideration, she opened up the trash folder and retrieved the e-mail. She felt something. She couldn’t just leave it at this. Puzzling and pondering, she figured that if it was a prank, she didn’t mind being tricked by it, and so used up some vacation time to go out to S City.

According to the e-mail, there existed a new technology that could create magical girls without any help from the Magical Kingdom. Exposing this information would only garner her a modicum of credit, and in any case, this wasn’t a matter that concerned the Department of Diplomacy. It was very much out of their field.

But if she could instead keep that technology to herself, that was another matter. How useful would artificial magical girls be? Were they strong enough to fight on par with regular magical girls? Could their special abilities be chosen and assigned? Just how productive was this method? Had they been vetted for any ethical issues?

If an artificial magical girl’s performance was up to snuff, then acquiring the technology to produce them would bring the Department of Diplomacy back to its old glory. And the one in command—the one at the top—would be Lady Proud.

She quietly sniffed, searching out the scent of blood from the particles that wafted in the air. Blood was a potent smell: heavy, meaty, with a hint of salt. Her nose worked for a while, and within five minutes, she caught it.

Lady Proud wore a long cloak that evoked the membrane of bat wings, with hair decorations shaped like garlic. Her canines were unusually long and sharp, and her eyes flashed brightly in the dark. She possessed the sort of noble facial features one might expect from someone of aristocratic European stock. Put simply, she had a vampire motif.

Her sense of smell wasn’t particularly sharp when it came to detecting scents in general; blood, on the other hand, was a different story. She was so sensitive to the smell of blood that she could go toe-to-toe with anyone or anything with a heightened sense of smell—dogs, pigs, perfumers, et cetera.

Upon entering S City, Lady Proud had immediately searched for the scent of blood. If there was some kind of incident, that scent would immediately permeate the air—both human blood and magical-girl blood.

Some sort of incident should have already occurred given what that e-mail had said. There was little to be gained from running about the city at random. Worst case, she might run into the local magical girl in charge. And if that happened, Lady Proud couldn’t think of any excuses to use. Excuses had been essentially unnecessary for the Department of Diplomacy.

Upon entering the city, after walking around a little, she picked up the scent of blood that possessed abnormal odor. It wasn’t human blood. Neither did it belong to a cat or dog. It was like a magical girl’s but stank more like a beast.

And mingled with this animal scent—akin to that of a bear, a monkey, or a wild boar—was a magical aroma. It was some kind of blood like a magical girl’s, but also like a beast’s.

Is this the artificial magical girl?

She followed the smell from the roof of a video rental store to a telephone pole, then along the electrical line. It would make sense for this to be a route magical girls used to travel. If this unfamiliar scent was an artificial magical girl, did that mean she was wounded?

The smell was strong but not fresh. It had probably been less than a week but more than two days since this individual was last here.

Lady Proud followed the scent as it gradually got stronger before eventually arriving in the middle of the wilderness. This city was the second biggest in the prefecture, but compared to a real metropolis, it was more like the sticks. The mountains seemed empty of any human habitation, and there were woods and forests.

She could make a guess as to what had happened here. Trees had been mowed down, and the soil was full of gashes. This place was marked with destruction, as if a bomb had gone off. A magical girl could manage something like this.

Lady Proud had traced the scent to its strongest point, but that had been a mistake. In other words, this was the source. There had been some kind of altercation here in the wilderness, and something had bled here. Either someone had been sprayed with blood, or she’d gone into town while wounded, and those were the traces Lady Proud had scented.

She shouldn’t have come out here. This was the wrong direction. So where had the girl gone from here? At her location would probably be what Lady Proud was looking for: either the artificial magical girl or whoever had defeated her and taken her away.

Deep in thought, Lady Proud was late to notice the tugging on her sleeve.

Thinking, Oh, it is just about time for her to get bored, she turned her head, and Umbrain was giving her a puffy-cheeked pout.

“I’m bored.”

“I figured you would be.”

Umbrain was Lady Proud’s favorite. She trusted her enough to bring her out to these sorts of jobs that she couldn’t make official. But she got bored very easily.

“All I’m doing is following you as you walk around and sniff. It’s boring.”

“I’d appreciate it if you could be a little more patient.”

There was a saying: There are no cowards among the ranks of the Department of Diplomacy.

Umbrain and her yellow raincoat, big umbrella with a blue sky drawn on the inside, the candies that were always dangling off her costume, her childish appearance and manner of speech, was no exception. Lady Proud could trust Umbrain to watch her back on even the bloodiest-smelling battlefield.

This could well turn into a fight between artificial magical girls and those who targeted them. Lady Proud would not allow Umbrain to stray from her for a reason so childish as boredom.

Lady Proud stroked Umbrain’s cheek with the back of her hand. It was soft, almost as if it wanted to cling to her, and pleasantly dewy. There was no such thing as a magical girl with dirty skin, but even compared to other magical girls, Umbrain’s cheeks were particularly nice to touch.

Lady Proud would have actually liked to use her palm to touch Umbrain’s cheek, but ever since she’d heard the somewhat dubious rumors that magical girls who were too touchy would get sued for harassment, she restrained herself to using just the back of the hand. You could get a surprising amount of sensation from that alone.

Lady Proud breathed a deep sigh that filled her with energy. “I told you before, didn’t I? I’ll become the head of the Department of Diplomacy, and you’ll be my XO.”

“XO?”

“The second most important.”

Umbrain’s puffed cheeks popped flat. Lady Proud hated to see them go, but it would be trouble if Umbrain was grumpy forever. She had a job to do now.

“So I want you to hold on for just a bit. You understand, right?”

“Okay! I’ll hold on so I can be the XO!”

“Don’t worry, this won’t take long. Let’s hurry and chase them before the smell is gone.” Lady Proud slid her hand into the hood of Umbrain’s raincoat to pet her head. The act of putting her hand in her coat filled her with even more energy. Umbrain’s eyes were narrowed in a smile as Lady Proud whispered to her, “Let’s do our best together.”

  Styler Mimi

The girlish desire to be fashionable even once you were a magical girl was Styler Mimi’s bread and butter. It was magical girls handing her envelopes of cash (under the pretense that it was charity or a gift) that enabled her to make a comfortable living.

But some sought out Styler Mimi for other not-so-girlish reasons. Archfiend Pam had always argued that when a magical girl headed out to enemy territory, she had to be transformed, no matter what. Since magical girls reacted so much faster than humans, if you were to transform only once you realized you were the victim of a surprise attack from a magical girl, it would be too late—you’d get killed. Unlike in fiction, there were very few mannerly enemies who would wait until your transformation sequence was over to attack.

But some magical girls could not conceal themselves among humans—like those with big wings growing from their back, or those who emitted an aura from their whole bodies, or who were spirits and so half-transparent. There were a certain number of magical girls who had a hard time pretending to be human with clothing alone. And even those who weren’t so extreme might have very loud hair colors but weren’t able to find any dye or powder to use on themselves that would work right. These magical girls would need Styler Mimi.

With Styler Mimi’s magic, she could hide big wings, give color to half-transparent magical girls, dim the luminescence of auras, and dye hair into natural colors.

Marika Fukuroi was one of those people in need. If only a small flower were growing from her head, she could hide it with a hat, but a closer look at her hair showed how it resembled a lush plant; her hair even had leaves growing in it. Though it was comparatively short for a magical girl, covering all her hair limited her methods for disguise, and such disguises were bound to make her just stand out more.

“I really need you after all, Mimi.”

“No, you don’t.”

“Yeah, I do.”

“All you need to do is book a reservation with me beforehand and I can completely disguise you. That’s the extent of my duties, yes? A beautician is precisely that sort of person. What soldier would take her beautician along while she infiltrates enemy territory? If you want to take someone with you, please take someone stronger.” Mimi glared at Marika with the most resentment she could muster, but Marika laughed it off. It hadn’t worked.

Marika took a swig from the plastic bottle sitting in her drink holder. That moment, the bullet train swayed, and water dripped from the corners of her mouth. “I dunno why, but I can’t get a hold of Monako or Amy…”

“I wonder why. Those two are generally free, aren’t they?”

“Who knows? Guess they’re busy.”

Some people were grateful for or amused by madness and outrageous violence. If you were to ask Mimi, they enjoyed that sort of thing because they were childish individuals with underdeveloped egos, the type of people who would’ve read something like Serial Killers of the World alone in the middle school library.

The two magical girls Monako and Amy were often with Marika, one way or another. And not unwillingly, like Mimi, but gladly. When Cranberry’s evil deeds had been exposed, plenty of people had been shocked, saying, “Cranberry was doing something like that? Really?! Not Marika Fukuroi?” To hang around someone who had even such things said about her, you had to be about as crazy as she was.

“They must not want to hang out with you anymore. They’ve cleaned up.”

“Monako and Amy aren’t like that.” Marika laughed her off again. Her laughs were all loud and shrill.

It was the middle of the day on a weekday, and the two of them were in a reserved car, so there wasn’t much of a crowd. But looking around, Mimi saw an aging salaryman eyeing them suspiciously, and their eyes met. She smiled brightly and bowed her head. A magical girl could resolve most problems with a smile and a bow. The man gave her a sort of resigned look and smiled back. Mimi prayed that he thought they were sisters who had to come out to their relatives’ house for a family event or something like that.

Without even seeming to notice Mimi’s consideration, Marika laughed cheerfully. “Since it’s them, I bet they’ve got some real fun stuff going on. They were invited out somewhere, so they’re not at home now. But we’re gonna have a blast, too. They’re really missing out. So you’re lucky on that count, Mimi.”

“What about this is lucky?” Nothing about this situation fit that description.

“It’s fun, huh?”

“No, it’s not.”

“I get the feeling there’s gonna be some tough ones there.”

“I don’t want to meet any tough ones.”

“C’mon.” Marika leaned way forward, squeezing the plastic bottle to push the water out, squirting it out to hit Mimi in the face. She chose to take the hit. She didn’t consider avoiding it—since she judged that if she were to block it with her hands or turn her face away, she wouldn’t be able to avoid the front kick that would follow it.

Even as she was getting sprayed in the face, she didn’t close her eyes. Marika’s heel, which swung out down low the same time as the water came, Mimi blocked with her palm. To cushion the impact, she raised her whole body up, grabbing the backrest, and jumped over the seat in a half spin, moving to the seat behind as she slowed the kick to a halt.

“Nice, nice, you’re not rusty, after all.” Something must have amused Marika, as she was holding her stomach and laughing.

Marika Fukuroi was a loathed figure. Someone who would randomly kick you in the middle of a normal moment would obviously not be popular. Mimi bobbed her head in a bow to the aging man, whose eyes were wide in shock, and returned to her original seat. She didn’t want to sit by Marika, but she’d reserved this seat, and she didn’t want to waste it.

  Filru

Filru thought that once she arrived, things would work out somehow. That had been her experience before. In all her previous travels, there had not been even one occasion when things hadn’t just worked out somehow. She didn’t need involved preparations. Even if she did get a little lost, it wasn’t as if her goal was going to run away from her.

When she arrived in S City, it was past eleven at night. The sun had already entirely set, and there were only a smattering of lights on in the residential areas. It looked like the downtown area was still bustling. From the roof of the tallest building, she looked all around to generally get her bearings.

When you worked as a magical girl, there were rules, and from those were born theories.

Magical girls were aware of the eyes of others, since they had to avoid being seen. And since they helped people, there needed to be people to help. Even if they were doing things like fixing broken streetlamps or erasing graffiti, there had to be people living there, or there’d be no point.

Magical girls were mindful of watchers, but there had to be people around, or there would be no job. It was a pretty unique line of work, compared to a proper job. It was probably most like being a robber or a sneak thief.

So magical girls would often use high places. If there was a tall building that didn’t get traffic at night, that meant a magical girl would set foot there at some point.

Looking down around the area from the tallest building, Filru saw several buildings that looked like they might fit that description. Running along a power line, she jumped over to the roof of a super-sento, then from the sento sign to an apartment building, where she clambered up to the roof, and from there she went to the roof of a high-rise, then the roof of a business school, then a traffic light, slowly jumping to lower heights as she approached a residential area.

Racing over houses and a temple, from there, she headed for another high spot. She ran around the whole municipal area clockwise, doing a full circle before she returned to the highest building again.

She opened her right hand, then her left. If anyone else were to look, they would see nothing. But Filru’s eyes could see shining threads that sparkled in the reflected light of the stars. Each thread was connected to a finger and extended to one of the tallest buildings in the downtown area of S City and the residential areas around it.

Filru’s magic was sewing. She could sew an invisible thread to anything, be it steel, concrete, a special alloy, a human or a magical-girl body. Passing thread through her target with her needle wouldn’t damage them at all. There was no pain. So she could also do things that might at first glance seem like self-harm, like sewing threads to her own fingers.

With both hands open, she brought them close to her ear.

Filru’s threads could not be seen and were sturdy enough that even the strongest magical girls couldn’t tear them, but they were also supple and sensitive.

At the prison, not only had she used her thread to restrain prisoners, she’d also used it to create booby traps, and she’d also created something like warning devices by extending threads out over anywhere that seemed to be a likely invasion point.

Filru had gone around to all the tallest places to sew her threads there. If anything were to happen in those places, even if someone were to race by at a speed impossible for regular living things, Filru would sense that something was unusual. It was like having ten wooden clapper alarms set up. And what’s more, only Filru would be able to sense which had rung.

All right, come on, anytime.

Thirty minutes passed. Filru continued to wait patiently. At times like these, your greatest enemy was impatience. Setting traps was a waiting game. If she were to hurry to do something, she would put it all to waste.

Another hour passed. She was still plenty calm. At the prison, her main job had basically been to do nothing and be ready for possible emergencies. Her nerves weren’t so fragile that she would give up over something like this. She was used to waiting.

Three hours passed. The eastern sky was growing pale. There was nothing for today. Once it was morning, there would be other things besides magical girls coming out to the roofs. Filru ran down the building to retrieve her threads.

During the day, Filru lay around in her hotel room, watched TV, and read the book she’d brought, spending the time idly. She believed that downtime in your schedule was important. It wasn’t as if she was doing it because she liked lying around.

She had to focus mentally at night, so during the day, it was best to relax her mind, in preparation for the night. The serialized drama that came on in the afternoon just happened to be at the first episode. The story, about a love triangle between a nurse, doctor, and patient, was rather interesting.

Night came. Nothing in particular happened.

Day. She watched the drama, then went online with her magical phone and wrote her impression of the show on anonymous message boards.

Night came again. Still, nothing in particular happened.

Day. She spent it lying around. The main character, who she’d assumed was the heroine of the drama, died unexpectedly in an accident, so she was curious about how it would go the next day.

Night. Nothing in particular happened.

Day. She went to the post office to withdraw some savings. They’d depleted more than she’d thought. For her stay, she was using a business hotel she’d chosen for its price, but things weren’t looking good, at this rate. Despite having gotten this job catching artificial magical girls, it wasn’t as if she would get paid immediately. In the drama, the doctor’s wife showed up. She was played by a famous actress Filru knew. How would she get involved in the plotline?

Night. Even as she was thinking haste would spell her defeat, she couldn’t help but feel impatient. Money was a far greater restraint to magical girls than invisible thread. In the first place, she’d set up this trap under the assumption that they had to be doing normal magical-girl work, but did this mysterious “artificial magical girl” thing do normal magical-girl work? Since there was a laboratory, wouldn’t they be holed up in there, being researched? Maybe Filru was basically dangling a fishing line into a puddle with no fish.

No, it couldn’t be that there were no fish. This was a fairly large city, so you’d expect there would be a magical girl in charge of it, for starters. What would that girl think of an intruder who set up these traps without ever coming to greet her properly? It wouldn’t be strange for her to assume Filru was trying to start a fight.

In fact, it wouldn’t be strange for this to turn into a fight. If it never went further than a squabble, that would be on the better side. Worst case would be if that girl told her with a smile, “I’m going to report this to the authorities,” and worst of the worst cases, she might report Filru without even telling her.

Thoughts like these swarmed her mind one after another. Beginning to feel like she wanted to cry, Filru patiently waited atop the high-rise. Finally, she started thinking that this might be a prank, but she couldn’t back down now. She’d already spent quite a bit of money on her accommodations.

She was having too many negative thoughts, so she turned her mind to the daytime drama instead. The doctor’s wife had been portrayed as very nice, but that could be an attempt at misleading viewers.

  Prism Cherry

Through working as a team, Prism Cherry had come to have a general understanding of the range of the Pure Elements’ activities. Or rather, not their range of activities so much as the places where the Disrupters appeared.

Disrupters only appeared in places where there were no signs of people, mainly on Takatoko Mountain. Aside from there, there was Chinen Mountain, and Fukuroku Mountain—generally, they showed up on mountains. The Pure Elements would run to the wilderness where they appeared, and after destroying the Disrupters, they would return to the laboratory.

In an attempt to figure out any trends regarding Disrupters in preparation for their next sortie, Prism Cherry was noting the places and times they’d appeared in her map book, and that was when she suddenly realized: All the spots where the Disrupters appeared, as well as the location of the lab and the route they took to go to the Disrupters when setting out from the lab, were outside of Prism Cherry’s assigned region.

I get it. So that’s why I never ran into them before. This made sense to her and was also a relief. If Prism Cherry had run into a Disrupter on her own, she would have been the first to fall victim to it.

She was really glad that she wasn’t the type of magical girl that would think with pointless enthusiasm, I’ll do my best to search for people in need of help, even outside my own region!

“Whatcha lookin’ at, Cherry?” When she turned around, she saw Quake was peering at her map book.

“I’m writing down where and when the Disrupters appear. I figured maybe we’d be able to get to them faster if we could predict where they might show up next.”

“You put a lotta thought into this stuff, huh?”

“What’s up?” Inferno put down her manga and looked over at them.

“Oh, Cherry was just saying she’s been recording when and where the Disrupters appear.”

“Man, I couldn’t do something like that. Like, no way.”

“Same! The most I do is sketch some of the Disrupters.”

“Huh? Wait, you’re sketching them? Show me!”

“Uh, it’s not the sorta thing I show other people.”

“Don’t say that! Lemme see! I’ll critique ’em, come on.”

“I don’t wanna show my sketches to someone who says she’s gonna critique them!”

Prism Cherry shot the bickering pair a sidelong glance, then dropped her gaze to the map book once more. The more she looked at it, the more it seemed her own area was clearly separate. If the places where the Disrupters appeared had even swiped by her own region, Prism Cherry might not be here as she was now.

Thankful for this coincidence, she checked her smartphone. It was about time for their medicine.

“Oh yeah,” said Inferno, “are Deluge and Tempest not back yet?”

“They’re doing a retrieval,” replied Quake, “so it shouldn’t take that long. I wonder what they’re up to.”

“But anyway, though, your sketches. Come on, the sketches!”

“I told you I don’t wanna!”

  Princess Deluge

Taking down a Disrupter was not the end of it. Somewhere between a few days and a week after it had been defeated, the laboratory alarm would ring. That was the signal telling them that the Disrupter was now in the retrieval period. Disrupters had powerful vitality and regenerative ability, so you couldn’t just leave them there. But immediately after their defeat, they’d ooze into the ground, so you couldn’t take them away. You would leave them there for an appropriate amount of time, and once the Disrupter started slowly reforming again, you would retrieve it and store it in the laboratory.

Retrieved Disrupters, once they’d been specially treated, had various uses and applications, so these operations were important and would get two birds with one stone: benefit the lab, while also protecting the city.

Taking into consideration the importance of the operation as well as the element of safety, they had decided that two or more of the Pure Elements would go on retrievals. At first, they’d all gone together to do it, but since nothing had ever actually happened, these days, whichever two of them lost at a game would go.

No matter what games they played, their skills in them were about the same, so the odds of winning were somewhat fixed. Occasionally, Deluge would deliberately make a mistake and lose—while being careful to avoid being found out. If one person always lost, it would make the atmosphere within the team negative.

This time, Deluge and Tempest had lost. They weren’t keeping any precise records, but Tempest didn’t win all that often. She was just a little kid, so whether they were playing board games or video games, she was likely to lose against the others.

The retrieval had gone smoothly, as usual. Now they only needed to return to the lab.

“Hey, next time, let’s play a game I actually like.” As she started chatting, Tempest did a half turn with a twist in the air. The only one with the ability to fly, she was a master at it.

As they raced over buildings, Deluge responded, “What games do you like?”

“Shogi. It’s popular in my class right now. There was this boy who sneaked in a shogi manga once.”

“Ohhh, you can play shogi? What strategies are your favorites?”

“I’m good at trapping them all at the side of the board and then pincering them.”

“… Hmm? You mean like Hasami shogi?”

“Yeah, of course. The one where you try to take out pieces without making it fall down isn’t shogi, that’s a puzzle.”

“Oh, yeah. Yeah, maybe you’re right… Hold on a minute.”

Calling back Tempest, who was about to fly off like the wind, Deluge stopped in her tracks. She could hear something. They were on the roof of a high-rise, and it was late at night. This was a strange time and place to hear someone calling out to them.

Listening closely, she looked around the area. She had indeed heard something. It was too strangely clear to write off as just her imagination.

Tempest came back, expression curious. “What’s wrong?”

“Couldn’t you hear a voice a second ago?”

“A voice…?” Tempest pushed up her pigtails to expose her ears. “Now that you mention it…”

Tempest’s expression changed. Her face serious, she looked into the distance, and Deluge’s eyes followed. Something was moving beyond the lines of buildings. And this time, she could definitely hear the voice clearly. “I finally found you.” That was what it said. Then the sound of footsteps followed. They got closer and closer. Deluge summoned her trident, and Tempest called forth her boomerang.

Before long, the owner of that voice appeared. “Finally… I finally found you!”

Why did she look like she was about to burst into tears?

On top of her head was a cute lace headdress—not a tiara with a gem. She also had two balls of thread extending from strings in her hair, and a giant marking pin stuck there, too. Her top was laced together in the front with a leather cord, and her sleeves were made of complex woven textiles, her pale purple hair braided in an even more intricate fashion. She was a girl. And she was beautifully proportioned, both in body and face.

So… is she a magical girl?

She had no Princess Jewel. But Prism Cherry was like that, too. Maybe that wasn’t something all magical girls had. She wore cute but eccentric clothing, and she was also a beautiful girl who was running around at crazy speeds over building roofs at night, so those were clear indicators.

“Are you all on your way back to the laboratory?” she asked.

“Yeah, but who are you?”

The girl shouted in joy and struck a victory pose. The sudden yell made Deluge jerk back. Tempest shot up fifteen feet in the air, too, then slowly came down again, eyes on the girl. “Um… what?”

“Good, good, good! Now! Now things will work out, somehow! And I barely have enough for the hotel!”

Deluge shared a look with Tempest. She had no idea what this girl was talking about. And she had no idea what money for the hotel had to do with them. She was just thoughtlessly yelling out loud, making no attempt to restrain her joy, and not understanding the reason for that joy, Deluge backed up half a step.

“My, so this is where you ladies were?”

Deluge jumped backward, putting the chain-link fence to her right at her back. Someone had addressed her out of the blue. And this time she was suddenly informed of her presence with no call or sounds. Tempest pointed her weapon to the right, while Deluge pointed hers to the left. The girl with the string balls who had been celebrating was also looking at the sudden visitor with an expression of surprise.

Deluge had thought the girl was floating, like Tempest, but she wasn’t. She was enveloped in a transparent film.

She had black overalls with slitted pants, horns like a beast, black butterfly wings on her back, and a similar black butterfly decoration on her white trumpet, too. On her head was a translucent purple thing that was somewhere between headphones and a hairband. Her face was flawless, but there was something of a smirk in her expression. “If you’re talking of laboratories, that means you fine ladies are artificial magical girls—isn’t that so?”

A deep wrinkle cut in the thread-ball girl’s brow, and the overalls girl snapped her fingers. The transparent film that wrapped around her popped and vanished, and she landed atop the chain-link fence. She smiled at the thread-ball girl. “Might you be a freelancer? Oh, well, as am I. Shall we assume this to be first come, first served? Since that is the rule among freelancers.”

The thread-ball girl spoke roughly in reply. “If it’s first come, first served, then I came first!”

“It’s no good if the one who came first is yelling that loudly, you know.”

It was a third. The third magical girl had an ominous-looking costume. White chrysanthemums crowned her head, while her black traditional clothing… mourning wear, rather, was scattered with camellia flowers. And on her back grew the wings of a pitch-black bird, probably a crow, which she fluttered to hover. Her face was covered in a black veil, so her expression couldn’t be seen, but from her voice, it seemed she was enjoying herself, somehow.

Were all of these magical girls? And it didn’t seem they knew one another.

“My goodness, and now there are even more of us?” said the overalls girl.

“I think it’s rather odd to try to take all the credit for yourself when you were the one yelling loudly and gathering us all here,” said the girl in the mourning clothes.

“But I was the first one to find them!” the thread-ball girl protested.

“That’s rather like insisting that the new world wasn’t discovered by Columbus, but the sailor on watch,” said the mourning-clothes girl. “Or that the one who built Horyuji Temple was the carpenter. Like someone who talks as if these ideas are the greatest discovery of the century.”

“It’s quite peculiar to say the continent was discovered when there were indigenous people there.”

“That’s clearly not what we’re talking about!” the thread-ball girl snapped.

“Oops, failure,” said the mourning-clothes girl. “I was trying to avoid the issue.”

“You almost managed it.”

“Your dodging isn’t going to work,” said the thread-ball girl. “Because my life is hanging on this.”

“So then what will you do?” the mourning-clothes girl asked the other two. “What do you want to do?”

“One would suppose,” said the overalls girl, “that the fashion of freelancers is for the strong to seize the defeated prey. Or no—might one suppose that’s the fashion of the world, in general?”

On one corner of the building, Deluge and Tempest came close together. It wasn’t that they were shrinking away out of fear. They wanted to check with each other about what to do next.

Deluge quietly muttered, “Luxury Mode,” and with a nod, Tempest answered, “I don’t really get what’s going on, but let’s do it.”

The discussion between the girls was quickly growing more volatile. And Deluge could tell what they were after. Deluge didn’t know why, but their goal was Deluge and Tempest.

“I don’t recommend trying force,” said the mourning-clothes girl. “Because I’m strong.”

“Dear, dear.”

“My, my.”

The mourning-clothes girl raised her hands in front of her chest, while the overalls girl brought her trumpet to her mouth, and the thread-ball girl took her needle in her right hand.

As the atmosphere grew even more tense, Tempest and Deluge yelled, “Luxury Mode: On!”

The three girls had to see Deluge and Tempest as prey. Ultimately, their enemies were other hunters, while the prey were victory prizes and not even worth considering.

Tempest threw her boomerang at the overalls girl as she boldly threw herself at the mourning-clothes girl in a body blow. The head-butt to the gut knocked a smothered noise out of her, and she was thrown backward to break the window glass of a neighboring building and slam onto one of the floors there. The one in overalls flung herself down flat on the roof, and the boomerang flew over her head. But she wasn’t actually serious about trying to hit them. That was just a decoy, and the real goal was this.

Deluge dashed up to where the overalls girl lay on her stomach. She didn’t give her the time to get up. They could only use Luxury Mode for a limited time per day, and it was incredibly taxing, but it was far stronger and faster than their regular magical-girl forms.

Deluge tried to kick her jaw where she lay on the ground, but overalls girl blocked it with a bubble that came out of her trumpet. It seemed it wasn’t a trumpet, but a straw. The bubble took the attack without breaking, but it wasn’t able to absorb the full impact.

The face of the overalls girl shot up through the bubble, and Deluge hit her in the back with the end of her trident, laying her down on the roof once more. She tried to stomp on her, too, but the girl slipped away as if on a slide, and Deluge’s foot hit the roof concrete.

The line over which Deluge’s opponent had moved was covered in a spread of countless bubbles. It seemed she’d moved by sliding atop them.

Deluge could see Tempest chasing after the mourning-clothes girl, jumping out a broken window.

Feeling a slight sway of the hair on the back of her head, Deluge whipped up her right arm, pivoting on her heel to do a half turn and block thread-ball girl’s high kick. A little numbness ran through her right arm. That attack had been strong—and fast. Thread-ball girl’s reflexes were good, as were the overall girl’s. If Tempest and Deluge had been in their regular forms, they would have been forced to fight a difficult battle. It had been the right choice to immediately activate Luxury Mode.

With her trident, Deluge swept at the legs of thread-ball girl, who thrust out her right hand to do a backflip, hanging in the air. She leaped from spot to spot in the air without ever coming down onto the concrete, retreating.

More bubbles blew toward Deluge, gathering together to block her vision, but she swung her trident in a circle to swipe them away. In the instant Deluge’s vision had been blocked, both the thread-ball girl and overalls girl had vanished.

Did they get away?

Tempest returned from the broken window. Her Luxury Mode was already undone. Her expression was one of dissatisfaction. “They got away. This is boring.”

“We got away, too.”

Deluge and Tempest were superior in both strength and speed. But in situational judgment, those three may have been slightly better. They didn’t seem as if they’d only just become magical girls. If they knew they couldn’t win, they wouldn’t bother, and when they ran, they didn’t hesitate.

But still, it was really nerve-racking not to even know who they were. They’d said they were freelancers—but what sort of freelancers were they? What were artificial magical girls? And why were they after Deluge and Tempest?

It seemed it would be best to tell the others.

  Princess Inferno

When Deluge and Tempest came back late, their report frustrated Inferno. “What the hell, an exciting twist? If only I’d known that was gonna happen, I’d have gone for retrieval myself!”

“That’s pretty shameless coming from the person who wanted to do the retrieval the least out of everyone.” Tempest’s tone was indignant, but she seemed proud and excited. She was enjoying the fact that they’d been attacked by three mysterious magical girls.

Well, of course she’s excited, Inferno thought. This would promise more thrills than all the time they’d spent just taking out Disrupters and training.

Quake, however, was scowling. “What does this mean? They were after us, right?”

Deluge seemed worried, too. “Yeah. They said ‘prey.’ It seemed like they didn’t know where the lab was.”

“You two weren’t followed, were you?” Quake asked them.

“I looked down from pretty high up,” Tempest replied, “but nobody came chasing after us. I bet Inferno would think it’s more fun if we were followed anyway.”

“Whoa, is it that obvious?”

“This isn’t a joke, you guys.”

Deluge and Quake were both quite shaken, but it seemed Prism Cherry’s shock was on another level. Her face had gone blank and she was completely silent, hand over her mouth and lost in thought about something.

Inferno was amused about this herself, but she thought Prism Cherry’s concern was reasonable. Even if Deluge and Tempest had driven them away without difficulty, Prism Cherry wasn’t as powerful in combat as the two of them, and she didn’t have Luxury Mode or a weapon. If Prism Cherry had been the one to be attacked, she could well have been captured as the “prey” they had mentioned.

Everyone had to be thinking about that.

“It’s a little early, but for now, let’s call it a day.”

Nobody voiced any opposition to Quake’s decision, and so they ended their night earlier than usual. Prism Cherry had Deluge send her home, while Quake parted ways with them in front of the factory, and just in case, Inferno followed Tempest close to her house.

Inferno was prepared to hear Tempest tell her she didn’t need all that fussing, but contrary to her expectations, Tempest did not complain, and when they were about to part ways, she said, “The kids’ club is taking a trip to Mount Takatoko next month, right?”

“Oh, it’s already next month? They do it every year, but it feels like the years are getting closer together.”

“Are you coming, Aka?”

“Maybe not. It counts as just barely in the pretest period, so I doubt my mom’ll let me.”

Tempest looked down a bit. “I see. Not much you can do about it ’cause it’s before a test, huh?” she said and smiled.

  Princess Quake

Hearing that they’d been attacked by a mysterious enemy, her first reaction was worry. Anxious about if Deluge or Tempest had been physically or mentally hurt, when she’d seen Tempest boast of how the enemies hadn’t been that strong and they had driven them off easily, Quake had finally felt relieved.

Following relief, next, curiosity raised its head. The appearance of a new enemy was a turn of events that came up in all sorts of action stories, not only magical-girl anime. What sort of enemy were they, and what was their goal in opposing the Pure Elements?

Three magical girls. She was extremely curious.

Quake had asked about the general appearance of these magical girls from the others. Supplementing various parts with her imagination, she started up some sketches, and looking at them, she did some more corrections to get closer to the aesthetic. Was this actually the same as the real thing, or was it different?

Tempest had said they’d seemed professional. With the fundamental immaturity of girls, they were also professional. Curious indeed.

Quake valued her time with the group as the Pure Elements, and she was grateful for it. But her time alone in her room with her sketchbook was still valuable, too. She pulled out a sketchbook she’d started in on from the closet, and when she began drawing, her fluorescent ceiling light flickered.

Clicking her tongue, Chiko looked up at the light. One of the two fluorescent bulbs was a sooty black. The other one looked like it was on the brink of going out, flickering over and over. She had no extras. None of the stores in the neighborhood sold fluorescent bulbs at this hour.

“Princess Mode: On!”

Without hesitation, she transformed into Princess Quake. Now, even with the light out, she could see in the dark. Tucking the tail on her back underneath her floor cushion, she faced her sketchbook once more, wielding her pencil.

Deluge and Tempest facing the mysterious magical girls. Tempest whirling freely through the air. Deluge swinging her trident, sparkling frost falling from it. Her imagination was inspired.

She kept on drawing until she used up her pencil, then ran down a second pencil. She’d only filled this sketchbook halfway, but she pulled out a brand-new one and started drawing in that.

Her tongue had slipped, and she’d mentioned she’d been drawing. Inferno was stubbornly pestering her “Show me, show me!” Inferno wasn’t selfish per se, but she was the assertive type. Contrary to the very made-up and trendy impression you’d get from her regular, nontransformed appearance, she was a surprisingly reliable person with a strong sense of duty, but she also tended to not want to think too deeply. She lacked the sensitivity to show consideration in matters such as why Quake might not want to show her those sketches.

Quake acknowledged that was also an attractive trait in her but still didn’t want to show her. Or rather, she couldn’t. The sketches of Disrupters were ultimately extras, and most of her art depicted the princesses—and what’s more, there were an unusual number of self-portraits. Plus, all that was jumbled up with the sketches she’d done based on looking down at the elementary kids’ pool from the park and cute girls she’d passed by on the street, the sort of thing that wafted of criminality. If those were seen, she’d lose her authority as leader and might even be booted from the Pure Elements, too. Having acquired this raison d’être, she didn’t want to lose it.

And so Quake had to prepare a fake sketchbook to show Inferno—something that was as proper as possible, with little of her particular interest—something safe. Restraining her inner urges to run wild, her pencil slid along.

“Being a magical girl’s not gonna be an easy task,” she grumbled to herself.

  Princess Tempest

Good things came in multiples.

This new development of mysterious enemies was basically vital for magical-girl anime, and it was surely their own incredible luck that they’d been blessed with a chance to fight enemies like this right off the bat. Tempest had been a little bit scared about it, too, but when she’d actually fought them, they hadn’t been all that strong.

If they were in Luxury Mode, it was a snap, and even in their regular forms, they could fight pretty decently. No—maybe they could have even won, in their normal forms. Even if their opponents hadn’t had their guards down, Tempest and Deluge would have been sure to win anyway.

And more good things were happening. Akari wasn’t coming for the outing next month. Though she’d only said that she probably couldn’t come, her mother wasn’t going to send her daughter to help with the kids’ club when a test was close. It was well-known in the neighborhood that Akari’s mom was often grumbling about her daughter’s grades.

If Akari wasn’t coming, in other words, that meant nobody would be in Mei’s way. She could finally carry out the plan she’d been warming up for some time.

She’d had this plan in mind ever since she’d become a magical girl. It wouldn’t be an overstatement to say this had been her main goal in becoming a magical girl. It was a wonderful and original plan.

First, on the day of the kids’ club field trip, Mei would come up with some excuse to skip it. Then she would secretly transform into Princess Tempest and follow after the kids’ club. Of course, she wouldn’t forget to change her outfit. A magical-girl costume would stand out too much in a normal situation, doubly so in the middle of the wilderness.

And then, and then—pretending it was a coincidence, she’d bump into the kids’ club on Mount Takatoko and get to know Shou Minamida. Tempest’s charms would sweep him off his feet, and before long, they’d end up dating.

When Mei had thought up this completely fresh idea that nobody had ever thought of before—“transforming into a magical girl and changing her outfit to get to know her crush”—she was certain she had the world in her hands. Even if a second grader couldn’t date a middle school boy, there was nothing strange about a magical girl who was basically middle school–age becoming a girlfriend to a middle school boy. If her greatest concern, Akari, was out of the picture, Shou’s heart would belong to Mei. She couldn’t say it was the best date spot, and the children and guardians coming along would be an unnecessary extra, but still, as long as Mei placed Tempest’s cuteness up front, she should be able to outshine the negatives.

She’d done lots of things to prepare for this. Before going to bed at night, with a dictionary in hand to write in readings of kanji, she’d read up on dating advice books. She’d tried every sort of good-luck charm. She’d ordered a perfume from a maker in Tokyo that they said would make love blossom and spritzed it on. She’d prayed to gods—and to Buddhas, too.

All of it was for the fulfillment of her love. She’d watched Shou every time she was with the kids’ club. He really was interested in Akari. But Akari was dense and lacking in the sensitivity to pick up those sorts of subtleties of the heart. In a way, this was both lucky and unfortunate—even though Akari and Shou hadn’t started dating, they’d wound up stuck halfway like this.

Mei would put a stop to this halfway situation.

Parting ways with Akari when she was close to home, Tempest sneaked back into her house through her bedroom window. Before she went to sleep, she checked her schoolbag, checked that her gym clothes were packed, checked that her homework was properly done, kissed the photo of Shou she’d secretly taken, prayed to the gods, prayed to the Buddhas, and threw herself down on her bed.

On the threshold between dreams and reality, whimsical thoughts wound through her mind.

Even if things worked out well with Shou on Mount Takatoko, some mysterious enemies might attack there. If that happened, Tempest would protect Shou and fight the enemies, and then unexpectedly, she’d reveal her true identity. Then the two of them would be sharing a secret, and what’s more, that suspension bridge effect thing might stir up romantic feelings. No—it definitely would.

It was too perfect. Was it okay for things to be this perfect? Wouldn’t people be jealous or resentful of her? Dozing in her blankets, Mei smiled faintly.

  Princess Deluge

Deluge escorted Prism Cherry to safely send her home. Fortunately, the enemy didn’t intercept them.

Parting ways with Cherry at the veranda of her house, she jumped over to the roof of the neighboring home to look back and see Cherry giving her a little wave. Deluge waved back, then ran off over the roofs.

While running, she pondered. And the more she pondered, the more it all bothered her.

All the initial members of the Pure Elements had tiaras with Princess Jewels on them. Prism Cherry did not have a tiara nor a Princess Jewel. The three magical girls they had fought that night also had not been equipped with either tiaras or Princess Jewels.

There were other differences between Prism Cherry and the initial members, too. Prism Cherry didn’t take any medicine. The other four needed medicine in order to be magical girls. Cherry also didn’t have her own weapon, like a hammer or trident. And even if things like that sewing needle, Cherry’s mirror, or a straw for bubbles counted as weapons, the girl in the mourning clothes alone had been completely empty-handed.

The more Deluge thought about it, the more these other magical girls seemed different from the Pure Elements. She couldn’t help but feel like those three had been, if anything, perhaps more like Prism Cherry.

She thought it was coincidence that she’d met Prism Cherry. Deluge had been the one to speak to her first, too. After witnessing her classmate, Sakura Kagami, transform into a magical girl, Deluge had spoken to her at school. She’d figured it would surely be fun to have a magical-girl friend in her class. Just thinking about having one classmate she could be herself around, without lying or hiding anything, had gotten her excited. That had been all it was, and she hadn’t thought deeply about it.

Princess Deluge leaped from atop a roof to grab on to the wall of a tall building and ran up it. Her thoughts kept filling more and more space and wouldn’t sort themselves out.

When she and Tempest had reported that they’d been attacked by three magical girls, Inferno had seemed frustrated, wishing she’d been there for the fight, too. Quake worried if they were okay. Prism Cherry’s face had gone blank as she trembled. Inferno had asked what the enemies had been like and Quake had asked if she was sure they really had been magical girls, but Prism Cherry hadn’t said anything as she merely shuddered on the spot.

Now that she thought of it, that reaction stood out, compared to the others. They’d been attacked by enemies, but Tempest and Deluge hadn’t had any problems driving them off. Tempest had been proud of the results of the battle, boasting to Inferno. That shouldn’t have given Cherry the impression these were enemies to fear.

Prism Cherry wasn’t as strong a fighter as the rest of them. But still, she’d never been timid or fearful of enemies that meant to kill them, like the Disrupters. She faced them with courage.

Why had she been so frightened to hear about these foes’ arrival when they weren’t that strong? Did she know who these enemies were and why they’d come to attack?

One of the enemies had said something about artificial magical girls.

Clambering up the apartment building, Deluge returned to her own room. Undoing her transformation, she went back to being Nami Aoki. Her scattered thoughts, which had been about to slip through her fingers, were gradually coming together. Maybe Prism Cherry was the artificial magical girl those three had been searching for. She was an artificial magical girl—though Deluge didn’t yet understand what that was—who had escaped from her laboratory and was secretly living in the city, and enemies had come after her. They had talked like bounty hunters with their bounty in front of them, like saying that if they caught one and took her back, they’d get money and credit for it.

Why don’t I try asking Cherry in person tomorrow?

If she were to ask too directly and it ruined their relationship, whether it was true or a misunderstanding, then there would be no point. She would try tossing a question at her that was as indirect as possible but would also properly communicate what she really meant.

Based on this assumption, she considered. What did she want to do about Cherry? Did she want to protect her? Or was she thinking that for their own safety, it would be best to hand her over?

Inferno would swear to protect her, no matter what. Quake would do the same. Tempest would be no different. So then what about Deluge? If they’d be fighting enemies of the same level as the ones that night, then no problem, but couldn’t there be stronger enemies? If they found enemies like that, would they be able to safely win?

She wanted to ask the “teacher” if it was really okay to have invited Prism Cherry to join. They’d invited her without asking permission, so she wanted to make sure that was okay, and she also wanted their teacher to tell them what she knew about those three attackers. There were a lot of other things she wanted to ask, too. But the teacher hadn’t shown her face to them for a few weeks. They’d all speculated together about what had happened to her. They’d settled that discussion with “Maybe she’s just busy,” but Deluge didn’t know if that was really it. All the ideas that came to her mind were unpleasant—like maybe she wasn’t busy but there was a reason that prevented her from coming, or she was in a situation where she couldn’t come.

Facing her study desk, she held her head as she pondered. Her thoughts, which had been about to come together, were scattering once more.

  Prism Cherry

They’d finally come. She’d thought this would happen eventually. But now, they were finally here.

Those three had said they were searching for artificial magical girls. Hearing the term “artificial magical girls,” Prism Cherry could only think of one thing… or more precisely, four people. They weren’t “normal” magical girls but “special” ones. They had matching tiaras and gems, and they took medicine periodically. Their magical-girl talents had been discovered not through a selection exam, but in a laboratory.

Deluge, Inferno, Quake, Tempest. It was those four. The fact that they’d come from a laboratory fit very much with the word “artificial.” Cherry didn’t know what the problem was with being artificial, but they would be targeted, regardless. Perhaps artificial magical girls were a transgression to the Magical Kingdom, or perhaps the Magical Kingdom had nothing to do with it, and these attackers were like industry spies out to steal this technology.

Of the Pure Elements, Prism Cherry was the only one who knew about the Magical Kingdom, how magical girls were supposed to be, and legitimate magical-girl selection exams. If she were to tell them, if she were to share this information, they could make one initial step forward.

She was too scared to take that step.

Even after Deluge took her home, Prism Cherry continued to worry.

During breakfast the next morning, on the way to school, and during class, Sakura’s head was in the clouds the whole time, and she couldn’t absorb anything. Her body was habituated to her day-to-day life, so she let it move on its own as her head was elsewhere.

Should she tell the others? If she was going to talk, then how should she phrase it? Would it really be okay for her to tell them?

She came to no conclusions. She couldn’t think of a way to reveal the information while still maintaining their current relationship.

Sakura finished her cafeteria meal without ever tasting the food. For lunch hour, she decided she would go to the library to think about things, so she had turned down her friends and was leaving the classroom when someone called out to her, and she stopped. She knew who it was addressing her. While taking great care with her every action, making sure she didn’t look startled and wasn’t acting suspiciously, she turned around and smiled. “What is it, Aoki?”

“Well, it’s about yesterday.” Their eyes met. She was looking firmly at Sakura. Unable to look away, Sakura gazed back at her.

“Things might get pretty dangerous from now on,” Nami said.

“Yeah. It might be pretty dangerous.”

Nami Aoki—Princess Deluge—was, Sakura thought, a more serious type, compared to the other three. But she’d never given Sakura such a serious look before.

“Will you stay with us until the end, Prism Cherry?”

“Yeah.” Despite all her worries, she found herself answering instantly. The words came out before she could even think about it.

“Thanks. Then I’ll protect you, too.”

“I… I’ll protect all of you, too. Um, though I’m not very strong.”

Both of them extended their hands at about the same time and shook, and then Nami drew her hand back and ran off.

“Thanks! Then see you later!” Looking back at her, Nami was smiling with a really relieved expression, like a weight was off her shoulders.

When Sakura looked at herself reflected in a window, she found she had a similar smile on. She really did look relieved.

  Filru

Filru was unable to stick to her daily drama-watching schedule that day, because she had to open up some time for sudden guests. Two magical girls slipped into the room, making sure not to be seen.

“Oh, this is such an absolutely marvelous room.”

“Oh yes, quite nice.”

Though Filru doubted either of them thought anything of the sort, they both spoke in weirdly emotive tones. Perhaps when you were a freelancer, unlike working within the government bureaucracy, you’d have to give a compliment or two that didn’t sound like a compliment. And now Filru had reached a point where she had to learn to live that lifestyle, too.

“The room isn’t very big, but please, come in.”

It was a room of a business hotel, so of course it wouldn’t be furnished with enough chairs for all of them. Once the two magical girls had their coats off, the one in the mourning clothes sat down in the single chair without hesitation, while the overalls girl and Filru each sat on a corner of the bed.

“Um,” said the overalls girl, “is it permissible for us to speak about that e-mail?”

“Oh yeah,” Filru replied, “now that you mention it, we weren’t supposed to talk about it, were we?”

“I think it would be all right, given that all of us were recipients already. If you’re still concerned, then I suppose you could simply speak in a suitably ambiguous manner.” The mourning-clothes girl introduced herself as Kafuria. It seemed she went around showing up where quarrels arose and helped to resolve them, receiving only tokens of thanks in return.

“I’d thought for sure I was the only recipient, though.” The girl in the overalls was Uttakatta. Apparently, she was sort of like a mercenary, and whenever a given department had a temporary need for help, she’d be hired under a limited contract for only a fixed period.

“I’d thought so, too.” Filru had also explained a bit about her own situation, revealing everything about her job hunt. It was a little embarrassing.

The night before, after they’d all been driven off by those two artificial magical girls, scattered and fled, the three of them had returned to that building roof and introduced themselves. All three of them were losers, here. There was no point in trying to hide what they were after or hold one another back, now. They had all told one another about how they’d come to chase these artificial magical girls and had discovered that they’d all received suspicious e-mails.

“But regardless, we’ll need to work together, won’t we?” said Kafuria.

“Since those ladies did seem to be so very strong,” Uttakatta agreed.

“It would be a little reckless to fight alone, huh?” Though they’d been taken by surprise and hadn’t been trying to work together, it was still a fact that they’d been chased off in a three-on-two fight. Uttakatta’s face had been bruised, while Kafuria’s hair had been full of shattered glass fragments. And if Filru had gone on fighting, she doubted she could have won, either.

“Well, then,” said Uttakatta. “It’s best we join forces now.”

“Yeah,” Filru agreed.

“I think that would be a good idea,” said Kafuria.

They would split the credit three ways. Uttakatta and Kafuria would split the financial rewards, while Filru would receive any employment opportunity. Kafuria and Uttakatta promised they’d use their connections to help out, too. Filru couldn’t really trust them, but their explanation that if they failed to keep promises like this, clients would lose their trust was fairly convincing.

In the cramped business hotel room, the three magical girls sat knee to knee.

“Why don’t we tell one another our magic, so we can collaborate during combat?” said Filru. “Mine is to sew anything with my magic needle and thread.”

“Oh-ho, I see,” said Uttakatta. “My magic is mysterious bubbles.”

“My, you’re all being so open. Mine is to know who will die next.”

Filru thought she probably had a real grimace on her face right then.

For some reason, Uttakatta smiled. “Oh, how wonderful. Of us three, who will die when?”

“I don’t know when. I only know who will be next to die. That could be fifty years from now or three minutes. Though at the very least, I’m not the next one, which makes me feel relieved at the moment.”

“Thank you so very kindly for that information, which is not the slightest bit of a relief,” said Uttakatta, and she went hee-hee-hee while Kafuria went hoh-hoh-hoh.

Filru was the only one feeling morose. Were all freelance magical girls like this? She didn’t feel like she could keep up. A full-time position was best, after all. She had to get out of this situation as soon as possible. “Um… your magic aside, Kafuria, I would like to discuss mine and Uttakatta’s magic a little more so that we can coordinate things.”

“I’m sorry my magic isn’t very useful.”

“Oh, no, I didn’t mean it like that.”

“Thanks to these on my back…” Kafuria pointed behind her and flapped the crow wings that grew there. “I’m capable of flight, so I can be useful in that way.”

The number one goal now was to identify the location of the laboratory that had created the artificial magical girls. So Kafuria’s power of flight, which enabled her to observe the world below from the sky, would be valuable. “Yes, please tell us about that, too.”

“First, if you might confirm this from above.” Uttakatta pulled a book out from under her clothing and opened it on the bed. It was a map book, and it had a map of S City in it. Uttakatta’s index finger slid gently along the map. “The artificial magical ladies first gallivanted off thisaway. In other words, their base could be in this direction. Furthermore, the e-mail used the wording, ‘a laboratory in the city.’”

“So then the lab is in that direction but also in the city?” said Filru.

“If the facility is of the scale to be called a laboratory, wouldn’t it be fairly large?” Kafuria pointed out.

“If it’s a large underground facility with a small entrance, that would be quite troublesome indeed. Hmm.”

“For now,” Filru said, “let’s just try picking out suspicious buildings.”

“I’ve come up with a number of marks.”

“As have I,” said Uttakatta.

“So then, let’s check out as many as we can while it’s still light out,” said Filru.

“Is there any kind of coat that wouldn’t look unnatural on me, even with my veil on?”

“It seems quite unlikely,” said Uttakatta.

“And you being restricted to traditional clothes makes it even harder.”

Starting with the one closest to the door, the three of them got up and left the room.