Chapter 3. Possibility? (3)
"..."
For a long moment after the executive and the combatant vanished simultaneously, Blossom and Iris could do nothing but blink.
"...Huh?" It was Iris who finally managed to murmur, belatedly.
It had been an unmistakable blunder. Flinging a combatant away was no great loss. Studying the circuits was important work, true, but whether the Company had installed some kind of safeguard or not, the moment the magical girls recovered a device it broke down on its own. Magic was clearly involved, and Iris had surmised it must be some mechanism of that sort.
Samples could be secured in every battle, and so long as the damaged portions didn't overlap, the research could inch forward all the same — no great problem there. But the executive... this had been the first opportunity to make an arrest.
"A warp point?" Blossom asked, walking out of the room. The magic lingering on the wand in her hand had thinned since moments before.
Blossom made no great show of expression toward Iris. Just, as always, the look of someone who understood everything.
"I-if only I hadn't... lunged like that, so suddenly..."
Right. A face had popped up right in front of hers without warning, and startled, she had warped it away on the spot.
A genuinely malicious attack, that — the executive's ugly face had been aimed dead-center at Iris's own and thrown.
In hindsight, it had been the whole gambit. Anti-personnel warp point technology had yet to be perfected. At the very least, Noir Corporation was assessed to possess no such technology — had they, they would simply have issued it to their executives, and today's fiasco would never have happened in the first place.
The combatant had known that, and read the situation fast. Whether it had been a desperate gamble or a genuinely calculated move, no one could say — but with the outcome as it was, arguing over coincidence now was pointless.
Light washed over Blossom's body. Back in her everyday clothes, she turned to look at the generator.
"It's fine. At least we protected the generator."
And the face that turned back wore a smile.
"Even if we do arrest an executive, we'd only have to let them go before long anyway. And the information we can pull out of them is limited to begin with."
Right now, on Earth — in South Korea, no less — the only Galaxy Federation force officially in operation was the magical girls. And those magical girls would 'subdue,' but they would not 'torture.' Just as the many nations of Earth declared we would never do anything so inhumane as torture while quietly extracting information behind closed doors through threats and worse, the Federation might well do the same — but for now, at least, they seemed to have no intention of making their 'magical girls' do such things.
So a captured executive need only keep quiet and stall for time. However much the Federation delegated its public face to the magical girls, however much governments acknowledged the extraterritoriality of Federation personnel, the law could not be outright ignored.
"I'll help you write the incident report. You did well. Things could have turned dangerous if even one thing had gone wrong."
"Dangerous...?"
Blossom meant it as consolation, but that tone seemed to drive a deep wound into Iris's pride.
It hadn't even been a battle against an executive — she had been beaten by a mere combatant. Not outmatched in the fight itself, but outplayed in strategy.
Her. Iris. And by the very attack style she was most confident in, no less.
But having nothing to say in her own defense was equally true, and so Iris simply clenched her fist.
What would Delphinium say, if she saw this — she who had yet to arrive?
And watching Iris like that, Blossom felt, keenly and once more, the importance of 'cooperation and strategy.' Next time, perhaps, she would make the time for a proper talk.
Meanwhile. Blossom, who had been staring until the very end at the spot where the combatant had stood, turned her head to Iris.
"Jua."
"...When I'm in this outfit, please call me Iris. ...Why?"
Thinking it a small mercy that Iris still had the presence of mind to answer, Blossom asked:
"That combatant — have you run into them before? From what I overheard earlier, it sounded like it."
"I have. Every single time we cross paths, they spout the most grating nonsense and slip away. A thoroughly detestable one."
"Were they wearing that same outfit last time?"
"No, the outfit was different this time. Apparently they got promoted, or something."
"Then how did you recognize them?"
"Pardon?"
"Your method for recognizing them despite the changed outfit. I'd like to know a little of it myself. If I remember it, I could pick them out next time."
Under Blossom's steady gaze, Iris's face flushed hot.
"Th-that is, it's... things like remembering where the scratches on the helmet are."
"Didn't you just say the outfit was different?"
At that artlessly innocent question, Iris's face burned redder still.
"B-but they were still wearing the same helmet! Sentimental attachment, probably! And, um, the body too!"
"The body too?"
"I-it's nothing!"
In the end, Iris never finished explaining that particular method of recognition. And Blossom, for her part, seemed to be nodding along in earnest, committing every word to memory — enough to make Iris want to tear her hair out.
Only after shivering in the cold for the better part of thirty minutes did the car come to collect Executive Walter.
A large sedan — and no ordinary vehicle. As if it feared catching a bullet or two, every steel plate was, even at a glance, absurdly thick, and the tires stood far larger and taller than any standard car's.
When the rear door of the car that had stopped before them was opened, the man seated deep inside spoke.
"What a remarkably pathetic face you have."
"What was that, you bastard?!"
The first words out of James, who had come out to meet him, were a sneer — and naturally, Walter exploded. He had already been in a foul mood ever since being rescued by a combatant not long before, and James's remark, delivered from the comfort of a luxury sedan, set his blood boiling.
"Do you have any idea how much I suffered in there?! Did you even pass along the intel properly? Because the story doesn't match up!"
"I believed handing over the interior blueprints would be sufficient?"
Walter had no reply to that.
James looked him over as though he were pathetic. The mohawk had been crushed sideways into a shape that was avant-garde in an entirely different sense. His clothes were split and torn all over — hm. No real change there, then. He did dress like a rag every day as it was.
"I maintained from the very beginning that it was premature. It was you, was it not, who insisted we attack before construction was even complete? What more, precisely, do you claim I should have done?"
"......"
"More to the point — where, exactly, have all the combatants I lent you gone? Do tell me you haven't lost every last one of them. The number being captured alive was already climbing, and circuit prices with it. I will be drafting a report to deduct the entirety of this incident's losses from the PR department's budget. Those were the agreed terms, so I assume you have no objections?"
"...Tch."
Clicking his tongue, Walter climbed into the car.
"Now you understand a little of my hardship, I trust? Why our company refuses to subcontract its field work, and maintains dedicated 'contract teams' instead."
Walter said nothing.
"In any case."
Answer or no, James pressed on with what he had to say. He tapped at the tablet in his hand and pulled up a video.
The footage was headcam recording from someone.
"Why, you—!"
And at what the headcam captured, Walter flared up all over again.
In the video, Walter was trussed up tight in glowing cord — and the headcam's owner was sprinting along with him dangling from one hand. Then, with a full swing, they hurled him forward.
Naturally, Walter took the video for a deliberate provocation and raged — but James's face was quite serious.
"What is your assessment of this combatant?"
"Huh?"
Walter watched the footage again. The combatant had cut Walter loose, traded a few light words with him, and then simply run off. An extremely light gait. The very picture of an employee heading home for the day.
Which, in fact, was exactly what it had been — an employee leaving work. Only the outfit hadn't been a suit.
"...Hm."
At James's question, Walter folded his arms and mulled it over for a moment.
"One of the ones on the new circuits? Even so, they fight well enough."
"You noticed it too, then?"
"Why? Thinking of promoting them?"
"Yes. I am considering it."
Walter's expression turned odd.
"Why do you ask?"
"No reason. Nothing important."
Walter said, eyeing James:
"Someone you'd praise — now I wonder what sort of person... No. Forget it. I don't want to know. They must be some colossal weirdo."
"Is that so? I consider them a promising new talent who will one day lead our team."
"Huh. Why? Planning to make them an executive?"
"With further cultivation, who can say. I would say the possibility is there."
"...You're serious? An executive seat — for an Earthling?"
"I am a meritocrat. A pragmatist as well. With that sort of discriminatory gaze, one cannot hope to turn a proper profit on this Earth."
"...But promoting them straight to executive would raise eyebrows."
"I would ask that you not take me for an idiot such as yourself. Naturally their results would have to improve far beyond that first. There are also points that remain uncertain. Only once those are definitively resolved could they be raised to executive. For now, it is merely a first step. We remain a long way from the outcome I desire."
As he said it, James's eyes glittered.
The expression of a beast salivating over a delectable meal.
Walter edged a step toward the door, putting distance between them.
At a glance, the man's features seemed perfectly respectable — but Walter knew his character was rotten to the core. That he cooed in honeyed honorifics here, yet the moment a fight broke out he would hurl every vulgar slur at the combatants while shoving them in front of himself as shields.
And that he took pleasure in tormenting people psychologically, too.
He couldn't know exactly what manner of person that combatant was — but Walter found himself feeling a flicker of sympathy all the same.
This battle never made the news.
By sheer scale it was probably the largest fight I had ever taken part in — the problem was that it had happened at a location the Galaxy Federation treated as classified. Naturally, nothing reached the press. Less a matter of reporting restrictions than, I suspected, measures taken from the very start to ensure the story itself never leaked.
Noir Corporation, for its part, seemed in no hurry to broadcast the battle either. Both sides kept the power plant's existence secret. Even if the emotions being harvested could stay hidden, the notion of moving humanity itself to generate power was not the kind of thing easily concealed.
"......"
"What?"
"Did something good happen?"
I had stumbled in late the night before, slept like the dead until mid-afternoon, and was now rolling around on my blanket without so much as sitting up — and that was when Jihye asked.
"Good news?"
"It was a guy, wasn't it?"
Instead of answering my counter-question, Jihye cut straight to the point.
"Coming home in the middle of the night and being this chipper the next day? There's no explanation for that except a boyfriend."
...A reasonably sound deduction. Also wrong.
There had certainly been no shortage of men, true.
"Nothing. Days like this just happen. Today's a day with absolutely nothing in it."
The real reason I was in a good mood was simple.
At long last, I had landed a blow on a magical girl.
Not that I had actually connected with a clean hit — my fist never reached Iris in the end. But I had turned Iris's own attack against her and walked out with the executive. And that expression Iris wore in the final moment was more than enough to savor.
"......"
And the instant I thought that, a small pang of guilt followed.
Iris is annoying. If you asked me whether I honestly liked her, "hard to say" would probably be the best answer I could manage.
I already knew her character's story from reading the webtoon, and I knew the environment that made that hunger for recognition inevitable. Reading the comic, I had honestly thought her a little pitiable. There had even been moments I found her cute.
Before I came to this world and started getting blasted by those beams, that is.
No matter how pretty the person swinging at you, keep taking hits and eventually you want to land just one of your own. This time, for the first time, I had managed it — even if only indirectly.
It was possibility, too. Whether I could actually win, who knew — but the possibility that I could genuinely stand against a magical girl.
Reason enough to be in a good mood.
And then—
Blossom.
"......"
"Oh, wow. Your mood just tanked."
Jihye murmured it, watching my face, and I flapped a hand at her and rolled over onto my side.
Hayun is a good kid. She looks out for friendless me, and like last time, when things turned dangerous, she was the first to step forward and shield everyone.
That's why she's a magical girl. That's why she's the protagonist. Strong as strong gets.
So utterly flawless that simply looking at her is dazzling.
Then again, even someone like her feels things. She's hurt when people show their dislike, and sometimes crushed by the weight of everyone's expectations.
But even so, whenever I look at her, I end up feeling one particular emotion.
Envy.
The envy of knowing that no matter how hard I try, I will never become her.
However hard I study, I can't match her scores, let alone beat them. Hayun's grades sit at the very top of the school year, even though she seems to study less than I do.
No amount of effort would ever put me ahead of Hayun. She's the kind of girl who picks up a piece of trash about to be stepped on and carries it to a bin. I can't even bring myself to go looking for such trash.
Everyone loves Hayun; with me it's the reverse. When Hayun says something, it's confident and admirable. When I say it, I'm 'showing off.'
The more Hayun stood beside me, the more a strange flicker of 'envy' passed through the eyes of the kids looking my way. When I was the one who envied.
I know that thinking like this only makes me miserable — but I can't simply not think it.
I like Hayun. She's a genuinely good friend, and I want to keep knowing her. In ten years or so, I'd like us to be having drinks together.
And yet, even so, I want to beat her. Even knowing I never can. By any means necessary.
Maybe, when they made me the offer, the reason I accepted was some twisted thought like that, too.
"...Haha."
At this rate, I'm no different from Iris at all.
When I rolled over the other way with a hollow little laugh, Jihye looked at me with a face of pure seriousness and said:
"Jieun, do you want to see a psychiatrist? If you're too worried to go alone, I'll come with you."
I swatted away the hand she had planted on my forehead and pulled a face, and Jihye snorted a laugh.
Then she got up and asked:
"Want some music?"
"Sure. Put something on."
The CD Jihye queued up was the soundtrack to some space-swashbuckler movie.
Soundtrack in name only — it wasn't original film score, more a compilation of twentieth-century hits.
But then, a hit is a hit for a reason, isn't it?
The music spilling out was so infectiously upbeat that my mood loosened a little.
Honestly, that girl reads people scarily well.
Watching Jihye settle into my chair and mimic the exact posture I take when listening to music, I snorted a laugh.
Winter break had felt long and short all at once.
Back in my working days, I used to dream of a solid month off; now that I was a student again, the vacation felt far too short. Then again, what holiday anywhere is ever long enough? Blink, and it's over.
Call it a mercy: with nothing to amuse me but my smartphone and the salvaged CD player, I rarely had reason to stay up late.
The battles, too. The magical girls seemed to have gone into reorganization after the base raid, their activity dropping off sharply — and the Company, for its part, was scheming something, barely moving at all.
My fixed monthly sum still flowed to the orphanage, but weren't the other combatants starting to sweat? Last I knew, they were day laborers.
Either way, no battles was welcome news for me. It meant no reason to be wandering the streets late at night.
Thanks to that, by the time the break ended, I was in the best condition I had been in for ages.
I exchanged my usual goodbye with Jihye and strolled to the bus stop.
Hayun was already there.
The two of us both headed to school a little early, so only a handful of people besides us were waiting for the bus. Hayun could easily have ridden to school by car, of course.
"Morning~"
I had half worried she might be pushing herself after the last battle, but the moment she spotted me, Hayun broke into a radiant smile and waved.
A smile that healed your heart just to look at. Who could see that smile and not love her?
The only ones who wouldn't would be people whose hearts were as crooked as mine. Not that I hate her.
I gave Hayun a small wave in return.
When I came over and stood beside her, Hayun spoke up, a trace of disappointment in her voice.
"We barely saw each other this break."
"...Yeah."
A short silence followed my terse reply. It wasn't awkward. Our conversations had always been like this.
"I heard a new bakery opened in the neighborhood. Want to check it out?"
Hayun tried again.
"Why not? We get out early today anyway."
When I answered without hesitation, Hayun nodded, beaming.
She still... doesn't know, apparently. Well, of course she couldn't have — I'd been in my combatant gear.
I let out a small breath.
The cold still lingered, and white breath slipped from my lips.
Hayun edged a little closer beside me.
Our arms brushed, just barely.
I hadn't thought any warmth could pass through something so slight. Apparently, I was wrong.
Until the bus came, I felt just the smallest bit warmer.