Keeping in Check (3)
"So what?"
My one remark froze the atmosphere solid. Even the homeroom teacher standing behind her had gone pale.
Having spat it out, I did feel a rush of satisfaction — but underneath it lingered the sense that I'd made a mistake. Reacting like this would only get me suspected as the perpetrator.
But that didn't mean I wanted to get Jigupa in trouble, either. I'm not interested in debating whether his method was right or wrong. It's just... he waded in for my sake, after all.
Hmm, is that reason a little too sappy to admit? Besides, he works at the same company. If he quits, we're down one pair of hands, and I'm the one who ends up suffering for it. Yeah. Let's go with that reason.
Anyway. That was that.
The mood had turned to ice, and I knew I'd slipped up — but that didn't mean I was about to look away from that woman.
I refuse to lose. No matter how often I'm thrown into situations where losing is the only option, my personality never changes. Even when I lose, I want to land at least one hit on the way down.
"You... you...!"
The woman, as if something had seized at the back of her neck, raised a hand and clutched at it.
"Ma'am!"
The homeroom teacher lunged to catch her from behind — and failed.
CRASH!
The two of them went down in truly cartoonish fashion. The woman must have trusted the teacher to catch her cleanly, because she simply toppled backward — and the teacher didn't have remotely the strength for it.
Watching the pair tumble across the floor, the kids' faces went a little hollow.
……
At least this much wasn't my fault. She'd knocked herself over, done in by her own indignation.
For the record, the kid filming from the back of the room was still filming. At this point, the video probably needed a new title. The woman had fallen in such a comical way that even if she was billed purely as the victim, she was bound to be turned into a caricature. The people tearing her apart online wouldn't much care about the reasons anyway.
I sat back down at my desk and rummaged through it to get ready for class. The atmosphere was excruciatingly awkward, but hey — not my problem.
"You... you...!"
As the woman scrambled up from the floor and shrieked at me, the homeroom teacher threw herself at her and clung on for dear life. Having fallen once already, the teacher apparently had no intention of repeating the performance.
"You! I am not letting this go!"
In the end, the teacher soothed and pleaded until she could escort the woman out of the classroom. Even on the way out, the woman kept bellowing at the top of her lungs. Judging by the look the teacher gave me on her way out, I'd be summoned at least once during break.
I let out a small sigh.
"Jieun."
Hayun spoke up while I was getting ready for class.
"What is it?"
"...It's nothing you need to worry about."
I refuse to lose. But I don't want to sacrifice Jigupa, either. And on top of that, I didn't want to make Hayun worry.
Was I being too greedy?
Even after hearing me out, Hayun's face was still full of worry.
"You really don't have to worry so much."
I put a little more force into my voice.
"There's a way to fix this."
There wasn't, actually.
……
Hayun pressed her lips together and just kept looking at me, until finally I looked away.
Sure enough, I got called out during break. The teacher chewed me out thoroughly, but I kept my mouth firmly shut and said nothing. The bully's mother beside me looked like her blood pressure was one spike away from a stroke, but I stayed silent the whole time. Half of me genuinely hoped she'd collapse from a stroke — she never did, right to the very end.
Shame. If this woman had gone down, that delinquent bitch camped out in her hospital bed would have bolted upright on the spot.
"...You think keeping your mouth shut like that is going to make this go away?"
That was the teacher's take, too.
It probably wouldn't go away. I did intend to look for a way to fix things. Honestly, I had no plan whatsoever, but still.
In the end, the teacher simply let me go.
At the very least, this wouldn't come to a head today. It would blow up in a few days — or maybe as soon as tomorrow. I never expected things to snowball this far.
When I returned to the classroom, Hayun was, sure enough, watching me with a worried expression. I didn't say anything.
Still, nothing else happened before classes ended. The teacher wore an expression that said she wanted nothing more to do with me, and the woman was gone — home, presumably. I turned over what she might be preparing, but no good answer came, and in the end I was left carrying a vague, queasy feeling — unable to properly brush it off, unable to properly worry about it, awkward and ambiguous in every possible way.
It would stay like this until the whole thing was over, I figured. The irritation was already welling up.
"Jieun."
"Yeah?"
"Is everything really okay?"
"Yeah."
I'd given nothing but an answer, yet at some point I was looking straight at Hayun.
Huh? Oh — Hayun had grabbed my shoulder and turned me toward her. I'd figured that brawling with magical girls had built up my own share of strength, but Hayun, an actual magical girl, was apparently on another level entirely. Every time her body pressed against mine, nothing about her felt hard or firm — where on earth was she hiding those muscles?
"...Really?"
Hayun looked me dead in the eye. Looking into those straight, shining eyes, I couldn't bring myself to lie. And she knew it — that was exactly why she did this. Just as I knew Hayun well after all our years together, Hayun knew me just as well.
I looked away.
"Jieun."
"...I want to handle this myself."
……
At my words, Hayun let out a soft breath.
"...Is there really nothing I can do to help?"
If Hayun stepped in, everything would probably wrap up neatly. The woman probably wanted something from her. It likely wouldn't even be all that illegal — something like getting connected to a Galaxy Federation official through her husband, most likely. And then Hayun could simply get friendly with that delinquent girl, and the whole thing would resolve itself, nice and tidy.
And yet, the very idea of Hayun doing any of that rubbed me the wrong way. Jealousy, pride, and... my own selfishness. My bizarre fastidiousness — the refusal to watch Hayun get tangled up with strange girls like that — was what kept twisting the situation into a worse and worse knot.
I know that. I know it, and my heart still refuses to do what I tell it.
"Later."
In the end, unable to hold up under Hayun's gaze, I said it.
"Later — if it really looks hopeless, I'll tell you then."
Even after that, Hayun kept watching me for a long while. Then, slowly, she took her hand off my shoulder. I lifted my eyes a little and looked at her.
Her expression was complicated. But the clearest emotion in it was disappointment. Whether that disappointment was in me, in what we were to each other, or simply in the situation itself — I couldn't tell.
"Okay."
Just as I had finally said it to her, Hayun finally said it to me.
"In exchange — if it truly gets to be too much, you have to tell me."
Saying that, Hayun held out her pinky. I stared at it for a moment, then hooked my own finger around it.
We'd linked pinkies and made promises countless times since we were little. Even as teenagers, Hayun still did this sometimes when she made a promise with me. And I had always kept every promise made this way. And I could never quite bring myself to refuse one, either.
That's the frightening thing about being close to someone.
"If it really gets to be too much, I'll tell you."
But I had a feeling this promise would be the first one I ever broke.
On the way home after parting with Hayun, I got a summons text from the company. Part of me was relieved the text had only come now; part of me was annoyed it had come at all. Relief won out, though — at least it meant I hadn't been fired.
Besides, when your head is a mess, sometimes it's better to have something to throw yourself into. It was the middle of the night, sure, but maybe after moving my body hard, my thoughts would settle a little.
I hurried to the orphanage as fast as I could, grabbed my combat suit, slipped back out while nobody was looking, caught a bus, and headed for the company. Put on the combat suit, chant the slogan, board the van. Then off toward some undisclosed operation zone.
But I still remember the incident itself.
"Today's combat zone is here."
So said the cadre, James.
"Yes, at a glance it looks like a house. It is, in fact, a house."
James addressed the bewildered combatants. The place where we had gathered was near where I lived.
No — "near" was underselling it. It was across the street, and even then you had to climb quite a way up the hill. But it was unquestionably within walking distance. It felt faintly absurd. All that riding out, only to ride back to somewhere this close to home. Out of worry about leaks, they never told you the combat zone in advance — but moments like this made me want to grumble a little.
"However, somewhat illegal activities are taking place in that mansion. We have obtained intelligence that one of the key figures of the Galaxy Federation is hiding in that mansion's facilities."
James paced along the front of our assembled line as he spoke.
"That is why we have rented this house."
The mansion directly in front of our target. Even so, sitting parked in front of a house while openly discussing all this felt more than a little dicey. The wall was dauntingly high, too — it didn't look like somewhere we could simply slip inside. The place we'd pulled the van into had a wall slightly taller than the target's own.
"We infiltrate by zip line. Even so, do not inflict unnecessary harm on anyone who appears to be a civilian. They won't dare think of reporting us to the government, but if there are casualties when the police arrive, things become a much bigger problem."
……
No one answered. The word police had visibly rattled everyone.
"There is no need to worry so much. It is truly a worst-case scenario. Our company has contingencies for everything."
Noir Corporation had openly aligned itself with the government. And the government, for its part, was willing to turn a blind eye to a certain amount of illegality — so long as it served to check the Galaxy Federation.
...The Federation, flaunting its extraterritorial rights without a shred of shame. And the company, using that as a pretext to claim similar privileges for itself. Honestly, both sides were villainous enough to turn my stomach.
"Our mission is to find evidence, inside the facility beneath that mansion, that this Federation figure is there. Yes — a single smartphone photo would suffice. Ideally we would bring the person out with us, which would be even better, though I don't expect much. Still, we must come back with the intel from inside. There are normally four people living in the house."
James lowered his voice with due seriousness as he explained.
"A middle-aged couple, a teenage daughter, and a housekeeper. The daughter is hospitalized and not at home, and the husband is swamped with work and will not return tonight, according to our intelligence. The housekeeper and the wife will both be asleep at this hour, so the mission should not be too difficult. Ah, and for reference: the daughter's bedroom is on the second floor, while the couple's bedroom is on the first. The housekeeper's room as well. The remaining rooms are all empty or used for storage."
...A hospitalized daughter?
Something about that felt off.
James glanced back at us, allowed himself a faint smile, and pulled his mask on.
"Then—"
He produced a small device from his breast pocket and pressed a button.
Thwip. Thwip. Thwip.
With a distinctly anticlimactic sound, the launchers near the wall fired. For all the underwhelming noise, the projectiles flew true and hard, sailing over the opposite wall and burying themselves deep in the ground beyond.
"—Let's move out."
The first to move was the Squad Leader. He shot me a sidelong glance — apparently he had some competitive streak going where I was concerned. Right behind him came Jigupa, who had been standing beside me the whole time.
Three zip lines had been rigged in all. With roughly twenty combatants including me, getting everyone across would take some hustle. I let out a small sigh and took my turn on the line behind those three.
Beep-beep-beep. Circuit status: seventy percent. More than enough to hang from a zip line with both hands and hold my own weight.
Honestly, the zip line itself was pretty fun. The part where I rolled across the dirt afterward was not. A zip line built for recreation naturally leaves you room to land properly — but this one had been thrown together as a makeshift rig, anchored straight into the ground. It was too dark to judge the distance, too.
Even so, I didn't just faceplant. Using a breakfall of my own devising, I popped back upright, and it looked more or less natural.
"Good. Everyone move quietly."
We all hunched low and advanced slowly. There appeared to be no guards here — then again, even the grandest houses didn't seem to post guards at their entrances.
This time, the Squad Leader didn't dump door-opening duty on me. Befitting a big, expensive house, the windows were enormous. It looked just like a house from a movie I'd seen long ago — you know, the one with the people secretly living underground.
Apparently deciding that smashing the front door outright was too risky, the Squad Leader used his blade to cut a neat circle through the glass door. With practiced ease he caught the pane so it wouldn't topple and shatter, laid it carefully down outside, then rolled in a smoke grenade that spewed out fine particles.
"Haah."
And there it was: a dense lattice of red lasers across the glass. Not exactly your average home security.
Say what you would about a company like this — its intel was reliable. Just how much did they hate the Galaxy Federation, to come at this so viciously?
There were lasers, sure, but honestly they weren't much of a threat. The company didn't care about its combatants' lives or safety, but right up until the moment an operation succeeded, the support was decent enough.
The Squad Leader picked up something else that looked like a grenade. He pulled the pin and rolled it inside; with another anticlimactic thwip, more smoke-like vapor billowed out. A few seconds later, the red lasers went dark. No idea what the principle was. An EMP? Eh — as long as it worked, who cared.
We moved fast and slipped inside. Apart from the secret facility supposedly beneath the house, this was just a family home — there wouldn't be anything serious rigged in the actual living areas. Tripping a security system on your way to the bathroom at night would be a bit much, no?
The Squad Leader, evidently thinking the same, gave a light hand signal, and we spread out quickly.
Small fry for an evil organization we may have been, but we'd fought alongside these squadmates time and again. Coordination like this came naturally. If anything, we might have the magical girls beat on that front. The problem was how pathetically we dropped the instant a fight actually started.
The Squad Leader, apparently claiming the first floor for himself, looked at me and pointed upstairs.
That bastard.
A facility in the basement would naturally have its entrance on the first floor, for convenience's sake — and the device to open it would be up there too, obviously. That made the first floor more dangerous, but even something adjacent to success would reflect nicely on a performance review.
Well, fine. I'd earned credit last time; I'd let him have this one. My goal was simply not to get fired.
With Jigupa and the others behind me, I took the lead. The second floor was supposed to hold only the daughter's bedroom. In that case, we could relax a little — the daughter was hospitalized, so the second floor would be empty.
Muffle our footsteps, take it slow, sweep the rooms. Thinking that, I went up to the second floor, turned to Jigupa and the rest, and pointed out the doors one by one.
A straight hallway, two rooms on each side. There was nowhere in particular to hide, but nothing that posed a serious problem, either. The hallway wasn't as wide as I'd imagined — with only a single window at the far end, it wasn't exactly open. Still, recalling the view from outside, the rooms' windows were generously sized.
This floor would probably amount to nothing anyway, so we'd each take a room, sweep it quickly, and head back down.
That was what I was thinking when it happened.
Creeeak. A door opened.
Those of us mid-motion — opening doors to step into our rooms — all flinched and froze.
Out shuffled a girl about my age, groggy and mumbling. Rubbing one eye and yawning hugely, she looked thoroughly rumpled. There had been nowhere to hide in that hallway, so naturally, the first thing she saw upon stepping out was a combatant opening the door of the room across from hers — black helmet on his head, black spandex suit on his body.
"Huh?"
The instant she made that sound, I lunged at her, clamping a hand over her mouth just as the scream was about to burst out. Her eyes went wide. Her hands and feet were free, yet she didn't seem to think to resist. Probably the first time she'd ever been in a situation like this.
Yeah.
It would be her first.
……
Because the girl I had pinned down was the daughter of that woman who had come storming in to see me today.
Wait — why is she here?
I frowned.
"Mmph! Mmph!"
Perhaps only now grasping the situation, the girl began to struggle. When she reached up with both hands for my helmet, I hastily jerked my head back. The other combatants rushed over and seized her arms and legs. Carefully, we flipped her over, bound her thumbs and wrists with the multipurpose cable ties we always carried, and taped her mouth shut.
……
Somehow... I felt like we'd become actual villains.
Having tied her up, we all just looked at one another. Now what?
When I looked around for guidance, my squadmates did nothing but shrug or shake their heads.
……
Well... we'd have to take her downstairs, wouldn't we? Leaving her up here alone and having her escape would be a problem.
I heaved a deep sigh. And then I remembered the Squad Leader — the one who had sent me up to this floor.
He didn't know and do that on purpose... right?