Magical Girl Antithesis
Magical Girl Antithesis.
Anyway, after that, Na Hanna — still under the effects of Cheonma Hwanhok — kept nodding along to everything I said, until…
"Hanna, I need your help. Hanna… would you help your unni out?"
"…Yes."
…She even agreed to help me.
I couldn't help but stare at Na Hanna nodding with slightly widened eyes, a little awestruck.
Cheonma Hwanhok's effect is insane…
The usual Na Hanna would never have gone along with this.
"…Then let's start by watching the music video together."
"Okay."
Now she was clinging sweetly to my side, even volunteering to watch the MV with me.
I'd gained a lot from this whole ordeal.
First of all… Na Hanna, who'd been completely uncooperative until now, had finally joined my side.
And every bit of what was happening between us was being captured by the neglected camera sitting in the corner of the practice room.
This is good footage…
Two girls who couldn't understand each other at first. After a fight, one confides her trauma to the other. The other offers a solution, and in the end the two reconcile and move forward toward the same goal.
It was classic storytelling — with a little hypnosis mixed in, sure, but the public would never know that. They'd only marvel at this touching scene.
Of course… one major obstacle still remained.
If we bomb the stage, all of this is completely worthless.
If we went through all this awakening only to put on a disappointing performance, the entire narrative we'd built would mean nothing.
Which meant we needed to come up with a solid rearrangement idea right here, right now.
But…
"Mmm…"
After finishing the music video, Na Hanna scrunched up her face and hummed under her breath.
Apparently even watching the whole thing hadn't sparked any rearrangement ideas.
"Nothing good coming to mind, huh?"
"…Mmm."
Or so I thought.
"…There is one idea that's been floating around."
"…What?"
"Actually, I've had this idea ever since we first drew Magical Love☆… but it's such a high-risk, high-return concept that I never brought it up…"
"……"
This little brat had had a rearrangement idea from the very beginning and just kept her mouth shut this whole time.
I glared at her, trembling with betrayal, and Na Hanna flinched and hung her head.
"…I'm sorry."
"…It's fine. At least you're saying it now. So… what's the idea?"
"……"
At my question, Na Hanna fell silent for a moment, as if deliberating, then finally opened her mouth with difficulty.
"Unni, do you watch anime much?"
"Anime? Oh, cartoons? Well… I don't watch them much these days, but I watched a ton as a kid. I even sang a Gidimon song for my grade evaluation, remember? Huge Gidimon fan."
"…No, not classics like Gidimon."
…So Gidimon was already considered a classic.
I shook my head, feeling a twinge of bitterness.
"No, then I haven't."
"Hmm… I see. I actually love watching anime. Magical girls come up a lot as a theme. But here's the thing."
Na Hanna searched for something on her tablet PC and held it out to me.
"Magical girls aren't always just hopeful and bright stories."
"…What?"
I flinched at her words.
Magical girls weren't just hopeful and bright?
Weren't magical girls the kind of children's cartoons where a young girl secretly hides her identity and fights evil — a bit childish, sure, but a genre with a clear formula?
That was all I'd ever thought. But on the tablet Na Hanna was showing me…
"Hmm…"
There was an image of a magical girl whose entire body was a mess of wounds, her eyes completely unfocused.
"That's an extreme example. Look at these others."
Everything else she showed me shattered the magical girl image I'd always held — not the girlish pink backgrounds, but magical girls steeped in bleak black imagery and dark expressions.
Some wore eyepatches… some held whips instead of wands…
…And some even had cigarettes dangling from their lips.
Flipping through the somewhat middle-school-edgy images, I asked Na Hanna,
"…These are all magical girls? That's weird. They're nothing like the magical girls I know."
"It's what's called the magical girl antithesis. Unni, think about it. If you're living an ordinary life and suddenly become a magical girl — is that really just a good thing?"
"……"
"You have to fight monsters that are barely manageable every single day, and at the same time hide the fact that you're a magical girl from everyone around you."
"Hmm…"
"You risk your life fighting and get no reward — all that's left is a sense of duty. Your body gets hurt constantly, you see horrific things all the time, and sometimes even the friends you were close with die. And still, nobody around you even knows you're struggling. How do you think that would feel?"
"…Yeah, for sure."
…It wouldn't be purely fun.
No… it might even be agonizing.
"And if your spirit breaks from that, you can fall to the dark side — get corrupted, go dark."
"……!"
I flinched at the word "go dark."
Yu Seol's trait — Darkening — had suddenly come to mind.
"When someone's heart changes, you also get cases where the magical girl joins the evil organization instead."
As she said that, Na Hanna showed me additional images of magical girls who looked for all the world like evil organization executives.
After looking through a few more of them, I slowly asked her,
"So what you're saying is… we dig into this dark side of magical girls?"
"…Yes. To be precise…"
Na Hanna grabbed paper and a pen from the table and started writing something.
Magical Love☆
"From this…"
Scratch, scratch—
Na Hanna dragged the pen across the empty star, filling it in solid.
Magical Love★
"…to this."
"……"
Then, reading my expression carefully, she spoke with caution.
"…Originally, Magical Love☆ was a bright, hopeful song — just like traditional magical girls. We flip that on its head and make it dark."
"……"
"Of course it'll be pretty divisive… but if we pull it off well, I think the return would be just as big. What do you think?"
"……"
I stared hard at the title Magical Love★, then opened my mouth toward Na Hanna.
"…I think it's worth a shot."
The risk was definitely high.
But… I had a feeling we could pull it off.
"So you pulled an all-nighter last night?"
"Yeah. We reworked the concept, tweaked the choreography a bit… and next thing I knew, it was morning."
At the breakfast table, Park Yujeong and Lee Hyejeong asked with round eyes, and I nodded.
"…Whoa, are you okay?"
"Eh… you know my stamina. One all-nighter isn't enough to wear me out."
"No… not you, Unni…"
"…Hmm?"
With a worried look, Park Yujeong pointed — not at me, but beside me.
And next to me was…
"Uuugh… huuugh…"
…Na Hanna, thrashing around like a zombie.
As punishment for keeping her mouth shut about the idea all this time, she'd stayed up all night working with me.
…Which was why she looked like this now.
Still… we've found a way forward.
Staying up refining the idea last night had finally cast some light on a stage that had been completely stuck.
All that remained was rallying the rest of the team and practicing.
All thanks to Cheonma Hwanhok.
The only reason I'd been able to keep the uncooperative Na Hanna working with me all night was Cheonma Hwanhok.
I didn't even know it would work in everyday life.
Even as a first-tier skill, Cheonma Hwanhok seemed to have endless applications.
"Uuuugh… blub blub…"
"Ah, Unni. She's face-planting into the soybean paste soup."
"Just fish her out."
With that, I decided to focus on practice for the remaining time — and dig deeper into Cheonma Hwanhok while I was at it.
Over the four days leading up to the main performance, I threw myself into practice while researching Cheonma Hwanhok.
And I learned several things.
First: Cheonma Hwanhok's cooldown didn't refresh every twenty-four hours — it became available again the moment the calendar day changed.
For example, if I used Cheonma Hwanhok at 11:59 p.m. on April 25th, I could use it again just two minutes later, at 12:01 a.m. on April 26th.
Second: the changes brought on by Cheonma Hwanhok didn't last long-term.
Take Na Hanna, who'd been hit with it and worked with me all night…
"…Huh? What did I even do yesterday…"
…She was deeply flustered about having talked about her older sisters, pitched the rearrangement idea, and worked through the night with me.
And then she went right back to being the old Na Hanna.
On top of that, she started avoiding my eyes whenever we met, like she was embarrassed — which actually made things more annoying than before.
But… whatever. I'd already squeezed all the juice out of her.
And the third feature of Cheonma Hwanhok that I discovered:
Once I realized it worked in everyday life, I went looking for Seo Yujin the moment the cooldown was up.
If I used Cheonma Hwanhok… maybe I could snap Seo Yujin — currently hanging by a thread — back to her senses.
"Yujin."
"…Hmm? …What is it?"
The dark circles under Seo Yujin's eyes, after not seeing her for days, had turned nearly black.
Feeling a pang of pity for a girl with already poor stamina who'd clearly been pulling too many late nights, I immediately cast Cheonma Hwanhok.
And then…
Casting Cheonma Divine Art — Tier 1 Skill: Cheonma Hwanhok!
The skill failed to activate!
"……!"
…It failed.
Which brought me to the third feature of Cheonma Hwanhok.
It didn't work on everyone.
Maybe it was Seo Yujin's "Above It All" trait that made her immune…
"Why call someone over and then not say anything?"
"Ah…"
While I was still reeling from the failed cast, Seo Yujin snapped at me irritably.
I scrambled for something — anything — to say.
"…How's stage prep going these days?"
"……"
At my question, Seo Yujin's expression darkened sharply.
Something clearly wasn't going well.
"…I don't know. No matter how hard I try, it feels like I'm stuck in place… and no matter how much I practice, I just keep… Wait."
Seo Yujin trailed off with a gloomy look, then—
"But Unni, you're on the opposing team! What is this?! Did you come here to spy on us on purpose?!"
She finally remembered I was on Team 1 and blew up.
"No… that's not what I—"
"Forget it! Acting all nice just so you can stab me in the back! There's not a single person here I can trust!"
Then, just like always, she glared at me, snorted once, and stormed off.
"Aigoo…"
I hadn't called her over to make her angry — but it had completely backfired.
I just watched Seo Yujin's retreating figure as she stomped away.
There was something pitiful about the way she marched off in a huff.
More than that… they're still struggling over there.
I hadn't meant to spy, but I'd accidentally learned about Team 2's situation.
Unlike our Team 1, which had climbed out of the pit, Team 2 still seemed to be floundering.
Is Yu Seol… still doing nothing…?
If they bombed the team performance, even Yu Seol would take a hit.
No matter how sick she claimed to be, I found it hard to believe a fighter like Yu Seol would just leave her team hanging like this.
I tilted my head and headed back to the practice room.
And then…
The main performance arrived faster than expected.