Preparing for Childcare
Watching a meteor plunge toward some corner of the island, I moved at once.
The instant I grasped the situation, the first thing I did was dive into the gallery. The Possessor Gallery, after an entire year. I was afraid no one would truly still be waiting, but—
True to his earlier word, Commander 13 answered at once, as though he had been keeping a permanent watch on the gallery.
He wrote with a note of sheer disbelief.
He was right. Anyone who could predict exactly where a falling star would land would have to be an astronomer.
…Oh!
The man's memory was remarkable. Enough time had passed since his possession that he might well have forgotten, and yet he hadn't. I followed his instructions, impressed in spite of myself.
Was it an animal's sharp nose for things? I trailed the monsters as they hurried off in one direction.
What awaited me at the end was a strange sight.
The monsters had drawn a circle around a single point. Every one of them stared at the center, and there was not a shred of hostility in their eyes.
Even mindless monsters looked as though they had glimpsed something so mysterious it had stolen the sense clean out of them.
"Out of the way."
I gave the order to the ones blocking my path. Only then did they come back to themselves, edging aside while sneaking glances at me.
It was not a reaction I could have imagined when I first set foot on this island. A year of fighting them had beaten something like a chain of command into place.
I went straight to the center, and at last I stood before him.
Brown-haired and swaddled in white cloth, a baby floated in the empty air.
The moment I saw him, I couldn't hold it in, and the shout tore out of me.
"I've finally met you, Akasha!"
Akasha. In the original, the name Jade would give him, taken from the island itself.
The protagonist's very name!
Looking upon the one who would save this world again and again, I was overwhelmed.
Commander 13's message shook me out of that brief daze. I steadied myself and answered.
I answered without really thinking it through.
Akasha, the protagonist of Dragon Brave, was a Celestial who had fallen to the surface for reasons of his own.
Because of that, he could wield all sorts of wondrous powers. His identity stayed hidden through the early story, until enemies who appeared in the middle said it outright and the truth came out.
On the page, it had been a considerable twist. Standing in front of it with my own eyes, though, it would have been stranger not to think of a Celestial.
That was how sacred, how mysterious, the air around Akasha was.
Still trading thoughts with Commander 13, I reached out.
I worried he might refuse me for being a demon, but he settled into my arms with astonishing ease.
"...Heavy."
Looking down at the baby sleeping soundly against me, every feeling imaginable welled up at once. It was only an infant's weight, and yet it felt as if I were shouldering a thousand pounds.
Is this the weight of a life—and of fate?
"..."
Could this man actually see what I was going through right now? Clicking my tongue at that uncanny insight, I wrote a reply.
Commander 13, who set store by practical action above all else, went on in a cool voice.
He spoke as if he were putting me to the test.
He urged me on like a devil's whisper, but—
No.
A final boss who actually knew how to look after a baby? That would be pure comedy.
Damn it! Now what?
Deciding to raise a baby had been all well and good. I had simply never once thought about how a baby was actually raised!
It wasn't some grand wall we had struck. The moment ordinary infant care rose up in front of us, both Commander 13 and I were thrown—and then—
Right then, a handle I had never seen before appeared.
The sudden interloper flustered not only me, but Commander 13 as well.
Maybel?
…Maybel!
For an instant I was still trying to place the name—and then I jolted so hard I nearly jumped.
Magical Girl Maybel. A work famous enough that even I, with no particular interest in the genre, knew the name.
It was a typical magical-girl anime, about a girl from the magic world named Maybel who solved problems with magic—except that it was, in truth, the founding work that had played the decisive role in building those very clichés.
To my shock, Maybel—Baby Mom—answered as if it were nothing special.
I found Baby Mom's breezy answers unexpected. A magical girl who stood as an elder of the whole industry, with a personality like this—was it because she had been possessed? The Maybel I knew was supposed to be the cheerful, little-sister type...
Finding her posts uncanny, I tried addressing her.
Baby Mom explained.
She had read the posts we left behind and pieced the situation together, but by then I had already quit the gallery, so she had simply waited.
Whenever she had a spare moment she checked for new posts, and once I finally showed up, she spoke to me.
Worthy of a former magical girl, indeed. She was going out of her way to help an idiot who hadn't spared a single thought for childcare, and I was grateful.
Conditions?
My specialty was close combat, but I was still very much a demon, so I possessed magical power as well.
Knew it? I tilted my head at the cryptic remark—and then what followed left me no choice but to be stunned.
From this moment on, I'm passing down to you
⟨ Traditional Magical Girl Magic ⟩