Chapter 2: Private Life (5)
Never mind that my heart had shriveled to the size of a walnut—the situation was getting more serious by the minute.
By my standards, anyway.
With Hayun clinging to my side, only one thought surfaced in my head.
...Did that reporter know about me?
Noir Corporation wasn't in the habit of briefing me on anything. The other combatants didn't get much either, for that matter. We basically gave off the impression of bottom-rung day laborers.
But what about a reporter?
If he was a criminal wanted by the Galaxy Federation, then maybe he was kept just as in the dark. No—he had to be.
Only if Hayun and I were framed well would we be able to work out where he was shooting from, so we rearranged our positions accordingly.
Jihye and Iris walked up front. With the two of them subtly screening us, it would be hard to catch the angle of Hayun with her 'boyfriend.'
Besides, Iris was a magical girl whose face was fairly well known. His goal was shots of a girl on a date with her boyfriend, wasn't it?
Anyone could see we looked like friends out for a stroll, so naturally he'd rule out any angle that caught Iris.
Behind us, or off to the side. Telephoto was an option, so he'd probably tail us from a distance and shoot.
My money was on behind us. From the side, my face—the one that wasn't even bothering to hide the fact that I was a girl—would end up in frame, plain as day.
Iris walked ahead, eyes glued to her smartphone, apparently checking whether the article had updated.
Hayun pressed in a little closer. Close enough that the hair at the side of her head was resting against my shoulder.
“……”
Astonishingly, Hayun didn't seem to object to the position at all.
Did she walk like this with other friends too?
I rummaged through my memory, but it didn't seem like it. Last time, when we'd run into each other while I was out with Jigupa, she hadn't.
It wasn't that I had romantic feelings for Hayun. She was pretty and kind, and I knew perfectly well she was the sort of girl anyone would fall for—but she was my childhood friend.
And our ages were quite far apart, too. So I didn't let myself think that way. Not at all.
But even so, my heart wasn't entirely unmoved.
Put plainly, when a pretty girl clings to your side, almost no man's heart stays still—unless he happens to be gay.
So what was this, then?
I didn't think I'd ever seen Hayun look this happy.
No—come to think of it, in the webtoon she was written as the affectionate type, so maybe that side of her was simply starting to show—
—Ah. Of course.
Maybe she was acting right now. The stalker had to photograph us first for us to have any idea where he was.
I understood it well enough to myself—and just then, Iris, who'd been walking in front, stopped dead.
“...Found him.”
“Huh? Wait, Jua—”
Whether Hayun had sensed something or not, the moment she reached out a hand toward Iris—
Iris already had a gun in her grip.
...Huh?
Oh—of course, it wasn't the long rifle she usually shot me with. She hadn't even transformed yet; lugging something like that around would have been far too conspicuous.
And this street was crowded. If she transformed and a fight broke out, the odds of a serious incident were high.
So what she held wasn't a rifle but a pistol—and not some bulky police-issue thing either, but one small enough to fit in her palm.
Thwip.
Iris threaded her hand between me and Hayun and squeezed the trigger.
“Squawk!?”
The instant the shot rang out, that bizarre cry came from somewhere a short distance behind us.
“Jua!”
Hayun shouted at Iris.
Was she angry? Judging by the crease between her brows, that was probably as close to a glare as Hayun got.
“...There's no need to worry. I have his face memorized properly.”
More to the point—how do you aim by firing that carelessly?
Then again, even in our usual fights she seemed to just point the muzzle in a general direction rather than truly take aim. Maybe magic bullets came with some kind of guidance system? At a glance they looked like nothing so much as lasers.
“Excuse me?”
The voice came from behind us.
Following it, I turned to find a couple approaching a man sprawled on the pavement.
A passerby had suddenly collapsed, and they seemed to be trying to help—
Whap!
The man batted away the hands reaching out to him and scrambled up off the ground.
And then his eyes met mine.
“...Ah.”
Ordinarily I'd never have caught it, but maybe because I knew what to look for now—
the man's right eye glinted, for no reason at all. Like sunlight flashing off a lens, though he wore no glasses.
He must have realized how things stood, because he spun around and started to run.
And at the sight of him fleeing, Hayun's expression changed.
The arm hooked through mine had come undone long before. That vaguely satisfied look had been wiped away entirely, and in its place rose the expression I saw every single time I fought.
It was different from Iris, whose face carried a faint anticipation of battle.
Blossom always wore a 'resolute' expression. Hayun seemed like someone who didn't know how to be angry—but even so, that stiff, hardened face at least counted as 'serious.'
Hayun ran.
“Eek!?”
“I'm sorry!”
Hayun called out her apologies as she chased the man shoving his way through the crowd.
“...This won't be easy.”
Iris said.
Transforming was a delicate call. Too many people around—and above all, this wasn't a real combat situation. The Galaxy Federation managed its image, too. Overreacting would invite criticism from every direction.
People could prattle all they liked about magical girls being above the law, but 'public opinion' was the one thing you couldn't ignore.
“Hmm.”
Not transforming didn't mean she couldn't fly, but Iris seemed to be weighing a different approach; she tilted her head back and studied the buildings.
“Very well. I'll go by way of the rooftops, then.”
And then, without so much as a word to us, Iris simply broke into a sprint for the nearest building.
“……”
Jihye and I, left standing there like a pair of abandoned props, stared blankly at each other for a moment.
Then we scrambled after the two of them.
Honestly, by this point someone should have recognized Hayun.
Out in disguise and keeping quiet, she'd be hard to spot—but barreling through a crowd like this? Of course people noticed.
Then again, nobody seemed inclined to apprehend a magical girl who was busy chasing someone.
Running flat out, I stole a glance up at the buildings to the side.
Hop.
Almost every eye in the crowd was locked on the fleeing reporter-slash-stalker and Hayun, so nobody seemed to notice Iris bounding from rooftop to rooftop. She was obviously not clearing those gaps on leg power alone—magic or something of the sort, presumably.
The stalker must have had his legs augmented too, because his sprint was terrifyingly fast. Hayun, not tiring in the slightest, pounded after him for all she was worth.
“Ah—wait, wait.”
I was in full stride when a hand suddenly shot up in front of me. Jihye, who had been running a few steps ahead.
“What?”
“Hah—hold on... this is way too much.”
Jihye wheezed.
“The one running away is an alien, and the one chasing him is a magical girl. Do you honestly think it makes sense for ordinary people like us to tag along?”
Well... fair point?
I was winded too, though not as badly as her.
Then again, I was a reasonably professional brawler who fought with a circuit running. Next to a genuine cadre I'd fall well short, but compared to an ordinary civilian? Well.
“……”
After a moment's deliberation, I let out a breath.
Then I pulled out my smartphone and called Hayun.
Brrring... The tone had sounded about twice when—
“Jieun?”
Hayun picked up.
“Hayun. Think you can catch him easily?”
“Ah, that is...”
The hesitation said no.
To be fair, this was a stalker vile enough to be wanted on a galactic scale. If he were easy to catch, that would be the stranger outcome.
And neither of the two chasing him had transformed.
“Jieun!?”
When I abruptly broke into a run, Jihye yelped in surprise and hurried after me.
Throttling my pace to something Jihye could keep up with, I spoke into the phone.
“Hayun, can you loop around and herd him toward us? Are you able to reach Iris?”
“Uh, yeah. I can reach her, but...”
“Good. Then the two of you running him down should be plenty. As for the spot—”
Racking my memory for the streets we'd passed on the way here, I relayed to Hayun where they needed to drive him.
...This was habit. Success or failure, combatants were supposed to disperse and scatter the moment an operation ended. It wasn't as if we'd be arrested and thrown in prison, but our identities could be exposed if we lingered. Besides, a secured escape route had other uses—you didn't have to be running away to make use of one.
The same applied here. Walking those streets earlier, I'd mapped the layout out of pure habit. I couldn't account for every detail, but the roads of a shopping district always found their way back to the main strip somehow.
As long as he could be funneled around and spat back out—
Listening to Jieun's calm voice, Hayun paused to think.
Was this what Jieun was like?
Her personality... had always been quiet and composed. She talked a little more around Hayun, but never to the point of being chatty.
If the seat beside her was empty, Jieun would simply come sit down without a word and wait, patiently, until Hayun felt like talking. That was the friend Hayun knew.
And that was exactly why being next to Jieun felt the most comfortable of all.
Her parents were people who expected a great deal of Hayun. Good people—but the heavier the expectations, the more their everyday conversation circled back to her future.
Her friends... they were all good people too, but they were usually the ones to approach her first. Sometimes, oddly, they'd descend as a group and take turns talking to her one by one, and it left her feeling overwhelmed.
It wasn't that she disliked any of them, but...
“Okay, got it. Then I'll swing around and drive him toward you.”
Hayun answered evenly. She tapped the wireless earpiece in her ear to end the call, then immediately pressed her pager to connect to Iris.
“Blossom?”
A hint of surprise colored Iris's voice as she picked up.
“Jua. Can you help me herd that man a little?”
“Oh, now that's a good idea.”
Thwip.
Buried under a wash of noise that would barely register to anyone else's ears—thock—a magic bullet struck the ground beside the right foot of the kaijin running ahead.
The magic bullet left no mark. But the offworld criminal evidently felt its power at once, because he twisted mid-stride and started scrambling in the direction the shot hadn't come from.
“Where shall we drive him?”
“That roadside strip from before. Jieun must have some kind of plan.”
“...Your friend, you mean?”
Iris sounded distinctly unconvinced.
Which was fair. Magical girls had only been active in Korea for a short time, after all.
Two years. Long if you called it long, short if you called it short. And magical girl work wasn't constant, either. Unless an incident broke out and the Galaxy Federation paged her to deploy, or she went out hunting for trouble to handle preemptively, Hayun was simply a high school student.
In military-service terms it was longer than a full tour of duty—but this was nothing like that.
Iris considered herself a professional. Hayun judged that the reality fell short.
Magical girls squabbled among themselves at the drop of a hat, and even in combat they picked off targets individually far more often than they coordinated. They had never lost, and Blossom—who worked hardest at staying on friendly terms with everyone—usually got her requests honored, but—
well, Hayun suspected that if a far stronger enemy ever appeared, the ones getting overwhelmed would be them.
“It's fine. Jieun's a smart girl.”
Her grades sat near the very top of the school—so high that the kids around her got jealous over it. On raw ranking she trailed a little behind Iris or Hayun, but keeping scores like that without a single cram school said everything about how sharp she was.
And she had a good eye for streets and directions, too.
“Are you handing command to a civilian right now?”
“I'm not handing over command. I'm taking her advice.”
...More than anything, Hayun simply couldn't believe Jieun's advice would lead her anywhere bad.
Even when other kids came around wanting something from her, Jieun would sit quietly at her side, watching her with eyes that seemed to be patiently working out what Hayun herself might want—without saying a word.
And then, at the moment it was needed, she gave exactly the help that was needed.
Yes—to be honest, Hayun trusted Jieun's word more than Iris's.
...Whether that was a good thing or not, she couldn't quite say.
“Well, fine. There's no immediate danger, I suppose. He doesn't appear to be armed.”
“Right.”
Hayun nodded at Iris's answer.
And pushed her pace a little faster.
Not as fast as her transformed state, but the gap between her and the kaijin was narrowing all the same.
All right. We'd steered him back toward the main road—but that still left the question of how I was supposed to know which alley he'd come bursting out of.
...Honestly, it wasn't that hard.
The awkward truth was that this world's social media had developed to an absurd degree.
And the human field of view was wider than you'd think. Something passing directly over your head you might miss—but catch sight of something zipping back and forth in the far distance, and your eyes chase after it whether you mean to or not.
This world had plenty of purple hair and pink hair.
That didn't make either color invisible, though.
Blend into a crowd of similarly colored heads and maybe—but a girl bounding across the rooftops with a purple ponytail? She stuck out like a flare.
Seriously, what was that girl thinking, prancing around on top of buildings? If she was going to do that, she might as well have transformed.
...Well, thanks to that, I had a rough fix on Hayun's position.
“Uh... um... ah, over there—I think it's over there!”
I agreed with Jihye, but there was no time to say so out loud.
I ran with my eyes on my smartphone.
Those names were climbing the social media trending ranks.
Clips people had filmed were flooding up by the dozen—including ones featuring a conspicuous pink mane and a purple ponytail.
And Iris was even firing on the kaijin.
...Some teamwork. Then again, it had been like this in the original webtoon, too.
Anyway, thanks to all that, we reached a promising spot first and set up to wait. Thank goodness I'd wandered those alleys earlier. I couldn't have memorized every last one of them, but I'd held onto the landmarks and positions that mattered.
A dozen overlapping alleys looked hopelessly tangled, but memorize the shape of a few main roads and you could roughly infer which streets ran into which.
Even sticking to the narrow back lanes wouldn't matter much.
However twistily they wound, those alleys all spilled onto the main road eventually if you ran them to the end—the people living there needed to reach the shops to get by, after all.
And then there was this.
For all its clownishness, Noir Corporation was dead serious about countering magical girls. We were thorns in its eye.
The smartphone I carried was an ordinary one, but it had the Noir Corporation employee app installed.
At a glance it looked like nothing more than a navigation app; in truth it was a service built on Noir Corporation's geostationary satellites.
A tracking system keyed to the specific energy waves emitted by a magical girl's circuit and nothing else.
It wasn't exactly illegal. It measured 'energy'; it didn't track 'people.'
That was why I'd been able to speak so confidently to Hayun, in a situation where catching him should have taken a miracle of coincidence and luck. A crowd that could barely be bothered to explain anything in advance, yet lovingly outfitted every last function you might need—they went beyond strange into outright comedy.
Then again, this was probably built for some other purpose and released as a bonus. In that sense, maybe it really was no different from an ordinary navigation app.
But I swear on my life, I never use this feature normally. Really. It came bundled with the employee package, that's all. Why on earth would I go to the trouble of tracking someone I can just see at school?
...Saying it like that somehow makes me sound even more like a stalker.
“Ah, there!”
Jihye pointed up at the buildings.
There.
Far in the distance, a purple head of hair bounced between rooftops. Nearly as long as Blossom's, it was visible even from that far off.
I raised the frying pan I'd bought on the way here—five thousand won, money well spent.
Then I took up position beside the alley mouth and waited.
Waited for the footsteps to draw close—
CLANG!
—and swung the pan full force into the alien's face.
“Urk!”
The kaijin took the frying pan square in the face and toppled over backward.
Crack!
The sound of the back of his head striking the pavement rang out.
...Was that too much?
“……”
Besides—one thing had led to another, and I'd thrown myself into the chase with real gusto, but hold on. Weren't we technically on the same payroll?
Well, if the stalking charges were real, the photos he'd taken were probably vile enough to make him a genuinely rotten piece of work, but still...
Was I going to be okay?
I was belatedly trembling with fear when something heavy suddenly latched onto my body.
“Hayun!?”
For one heartbeat, I thought she'd seen through me and pounced to slap the cuffs on.
But that wasn't it.
“Jieun, that was amazing! How did you do it?”
“……”
'I used the app that can track you'—needless to say, I could never bring myself to say that.
Thank goodness, at least, that magical girls had no idea what kind of energy our side's 'circuit' ran on. If they had, I'd have been tracked down by them long ago.
Off in the distance, Iris dropped lightly down from a building.
She didn't seem to be bothering with concealment anymore.
Her gaze settled on me, faintly puzzled.
...Did I overdo it?
I wondered, shivering a little.
...For a civilian, her instincts are remarkably good?
Iris stared hard at Blossom's 'friend' and thought.
Some image or other kept hovering on the edge of overlapping with her.
Ah, right.
Now that she thought of it, among the combatants she saw regularly, there was one whose chest stuck out exactly like that.
And of all things, in a skintight 'combatant' uniform—the one who stood out whether anyone meant to look or not.
Iris had picked her out, but one couldn't exactly admit to identifying someone by her chest, so she'd blamed the helmet. Even so, that one was a strange creature—unlike the other combatants, she had real fight in her.
Always flubbing her footing at the critical moment—
“...Hah.”
What was she doing, musing over a civilian?
Iris let out a small breath and turned her eyes toward the fallen stalker.