Mahou Shoujo Ikusei Keikaku - Volume 7 - Chapter 5.5

INTERLUDE

“Goodness. It’s quite the mess in here.”

“My apologies. Quite a lot has happened.”

There were two futons laid out. Ripple was lying on one of them while the other was unoccupied. Various bandages and medicines were scattered about, and the tabletop was covered in papers. It was no wonder the old woman was calling this messy. That said, it was no lie that a lot had happened.

“She’s still fast asleep, eh?”

“Yes, she did a big job for me.”

“What happened to the girl who was sleeping over there?”

“Looks to be that she, too, has a job to do.”

“My, she’s quite the hard worker.”

“Indeed.”

Smiling toothlessly, the old woman took the pot and went off down the stairs. Frederica sipped her cold tea. Even if it was cold, when it was good, it was good. But the flavor wouldn’t soothe her loneliness. The only flavor that would do that always came with warmth. Cold tea chilled her lonely heart even more—not only in a physical way.

Frederica hadn’t been able to stop her. Her hair had been the exact thing Frederica loved, and its loss would have been so frustrating, that Frederica had thoughtlessly interfered. She had no regrets about doing that. It would have been such a great loss for that to go. Not for Frederica herself—it would have been a loss to the world for that hair to go. That shine, that gloss, that scent, that sparkle simply vanishing from the world would have been blasphemy. She couldn’t allow that.

But Frederica had decided to return her to the place she had begged to go back to, where she would certainly die. She was severely wounded, and Frederica’s help had narrowly kept her from death, but she had refused to be the only one to be saved.

Frederica doubted she would be able to come back alive. In other words, she had essentially lost that hair. As a thanks for saving her, the girl had spared some of those strands for Frederica, but that didn’t make it okay.

But Frederica had been unable to refuse.

As much as Frederica loved magical-girl hair, she loved magical girls themselves. She loved that which she never stopped desiring, the righteous magical girl.

In that moment, when she had, trembling, requested she wanted to return to that dangerous place in order to save her friends, she had been exactly that: the ideal magical girl. Frederica had no right to stop one of those—not Frederica, and not anyone.

It would be boorish to interfere now. If she was a righteous magical girl, then she would bring about the results that such magical girls did. Whether she lived or died, or even if she failed to save her friends, this wasn’t something for Frederica to interfere in. That would not be beautiful.

Frederica sipped her cold tea. Along with the loneliness of being torn away from that beautiful hair, she also felt the satisfaction of having sent off a righteous magical girl. Ripple breathed softly as she slumbered.