Chapter 5: Position (2)
I couldn't exactly call it a brazen approach, but how had the magical girls managed to infiltrate this place so easily?
From where I stood, it even looked somewhat hasty. Of all days, today was the day students from the very school that magical girl attended were here on a field trip. Given that they'd pushed in on a day like this, someone up top had probably judged that the operation could no longer be put off.
Once again, I found myself suspecting that this situation hadn't come about with the company holding the reins at all.
Conceal everything thoroughly—then deliberately let the information slip at exactly this juncture.
The magical girls' battles won the people's support. To the outside eye, they looked like champions standing up boldly to a thriving corporation—one that ran all manner of vicious, yet perfectly legal, operations—and saving ordinary folk while they were at it.
Before you even got into questions of right and wrong, there was something undeniably satisfying about watching someone brand the haves as evil and drive them from the field. All the more so given that Noir Corporation was hardly a place without its share of dirt.
Up until now, whenever civilians were caught up in a battle, the magical girls had always moved to protect them.
So why, then, had the magical girls been lured this way, of all times?
Watching a battle unfold right beside you and hearing about it through the news were two entirely different things. Company employees were already on the company's books, so no matter how viciously they cursed the magical girls or posted about how terrified they were, it would only read as shilling for Noir Corporation. But children jolted awake in the dead of night and forced to flee a battle? That was another story entirely.
Besides, those kids were at precisely the age when social media becomes second nature. There was a good chance they'd even say yes if the news came asking for an interview.
An image carefully built up only means something if it stays carefully built up. Let it take a single scratch, and—precisely because it had been so flawless until then—the blemish leaps out all the more.
What they were aiming for, I figured, was to make the public watching the Galaxy Federation think, "Figures."
Turning them into outright villains in a single incident would be impossible. But for Noir Corporation, simply dragging that pedestal down a notch was more than enough.
I had no idea what sort of research was being done here, but with the Federation showing no intention of ever exposing the researcher's work to the world, it was nothing but upside for the company.
"Everyone, keep this in mind."
I said it while staring hard at the white dot.
"If there are civilian casualties, you save those people first."
Part of that was my own thinking—but it was also a directive from the company.
For the record, I was a student myself, so the plan was for me to quietly vanish once things were winding down and slip in among the students. I'd probably catch a little grief from the teacher, but that was still by far the safest option.
The warp gate opened, and the first person through was Iris.
The design of the gun in her hands had changed.
Not the long bolt-action rifle she'd carried up until last time, but something shorter—the sort of firearm you'd call an SMG, or maybe a carbine. Then again, caliber hardly mattered when the ammunition was magic; quibbling over it was probably pointless.
Either way, it was a gun that really didn't suit a magical girl.
The next one out was—Blossom.
She was too far away for me to make out her face in detail, but her movements seemed to falter a little, and even from here, an air of sorrow seemed to hang over what little of her face I could see.
"...Hahk."
At the sight of the three who came through after her, Jigupa—standing near me, watching the outside alongside me—sucked in a breath.
Rose, Dahlia, Delphinium.
All five of them had gathered.
It had been a while since I'd seen that.
The company's orders were to hold still until as many magical girls as possible were in view, and only then move.
"Let's go."
With that, I opened the window and climbed out.
I tried to close the distance while keeping myself as hidden as I could—
"Ah."
Far off in the distance, Dahlia and Iris were looking this way.
Iris didn't raise her gun. Instead, Dahlia lifted her wand.
"Everyone, scatter!"
The instant I shouted, the combatants following me broke apart in all directions.
Some threw themselves into desperate sideways rolls; a few hurled their bodies as though tripping—and thankfully, every one of them made it clear of the blast.
I extended my arm, drew my energy blade, and swung at the mass of light hurtling toward us.
It was fortunate the attack had come from Dahlia. If it had been Delphinium's, I certainly couldn't have cut through all of it. And the combatants wouldn't have escaped so cleanly, either.
BOOM!
With a dazzling flash, the enormous mass of mana detonated. My body—didn't go flying.
The split mana carved a long scar into the ground, an inverted V spreading out from where I stood, and every pane of glass in the building behind me shattered at once.
The alarms started wailing almost immediately afterward.
Had they given up on stealth the moment they laid eyes on me? At the very least, the magical girls didn't look any more rattled by the sight of us.
A kind of resigned light—so this is how it was going to be this time, too—flashed across Blossom's face.
"...Haaah."
I let out the breath I'd been holding.
They kept swapping out my equipment, so it was hard to get a feel for the numbers.
Going by the figure alone, it was far lower than in the last battle—but the gear I was wearing this time had a larger capacity than that. In sheer total, I was undoubtedly carrying more than before.
"Let's go!"
There was no point in hiding any further.
At my shout, the combatants all rose to their feet.
Under normal circumstances, no one could have blamed one or two of them for bolting at this point. Their opponents were five magical girls, after all.
Sure, they were a pack of oversized personalities who never quite moved in step with one another—but they had years of fighting side by side behind them, and every last one of them could hold their own.
Had brawling alongside characters like these toughened their nerve?
...No.
I could feel several of the combatants looking my way.
They seemed to sense some kind of possibility.
Maybe it was because I was here, right now.
The only combatant in the entire company who had ever pulled off an operation.
Because someone like that was leading from the front.
My body responded with perfect honesty, and that weight of expectation settled faithfully into my heart of despair.
The magical girls shifted their formation.
My outfit had changed, but they all seemed to know exactly who I was.
Well, the suit was a completely different design from last time.
It had all but fallen apart at the end of the last fight, so assuming I'd been issued a new one was only natural.
The magical girl at the very front was—Blossom.
Moments ago her expression had been conflicted; now it was the look of someone who had made up her mind about something.
In her hand she held that bouquet of a wand.
Blossom, Rose, Iris.
The three of them took up positions as if to ring Delphinium and Dahlia. I think I understood why Iris's gun had changed shape.
Above Dahlia's wand, a white orb of light rose once more.
Delphinium held a thick book open in one hand, and in the other she gripped a wand shaped like an orchestra conductor's baton, sweeping it through the air.
Her lips moved in a low murmur—she seemed to be chanting something.
I pulled out a battery. Even the fully charged ones were a higher-capacity model than before.
The moment I forced energy into the battery in my left hand, it grew hot enough to blow at any second. I couldn't tell you exactly how it was built, but anyone could see it had been destabilized.
Every time a battery dumped its full output at once inside the circuit, it burned out. The circuit's job was to control that energy—and to recharge a battery that had spent its power without breaking.
Which meant that when a battery exploded, I should be able to send that power spraying in every direction.
In other words, I could manage a crude, limited imitation of Dahlia's orbs of light.
I hurled the battery with everything I had.
Blossom tightened both hands around her wand.
From the pretty bouquet, pink light surged forth—the shape of a sword. It roared with mana, yet looked sharp enough to cleave through anything.
Gripping that sword in the stance of a hero charging a dragon, Blossom cut my thrown battery down in a single stroke.
She barely moved at all. She simply swung, the way a sword saint in a fantasy novel might loose a flying blade of energy.
BOOM!
The battery split in half midair and exploded.
And even that explosion was snuffed out partway through—neutralized by the pink mana scattered in the wake of her slash.
It looked like cherry blossom petals swirling through the air on a spring day.
A hope brilliant enough to burn away all despair.
That, surely, was what it looked like to the people watching.
But the battery hadn't been spent for nothing.
The magical girls had opened up a little distance bracing for the blast—and Blossom, mid-swing, had stepped slightly forward.
The wider the physical gap between them, the better my odds of reaching the magical girls in the back.
There was no chance of beating Rose in a fistfight. If things went sideways, Iris would simply fling me into the next county.
And Blossom went without saying.
Which meant, once again, I had to neutralize the two in back first—the ones least suited to close combat. Any single combatant goes down easy, but in numbers, even magical girls struggle to keep up.
If there was a problem—
"I can't let you through," Blossom said.
—Right. The problem was that any tactic I could think of, a magical girl could think of too.
Blossom shifted her wand to one hand. Then she swung her left fist toward me.
She wasn't wearing gauntlets like Rose, and yet pink light coiled around that hand.
Taking a hit from that would hurt. Badly.
Dodge right or left, and I'd find Iris or Rose waiting. Both of them were busy with the combatants for the moment.
I wrenched my head down hard. Blossom adjusted her fist's arc midway, but she couldn't connect with me as I slid along the ground, belly-down and utterly graceless.
I would have loved to keep sliding, but the friction was a bit much for that. The distance was too far to coast, and Blossom made it a bad idea to leave the back of my head exposed for long.
A chill crawled up the back of my neck, and I rolled on the spot—just as a blade came down where I'd been. Blossom had leapt skyward and brought the sword down as she fell.
Hayun didn't weigh all that much. The same could not be said for Blossom's magic.
Crack.
Watching a blade of solid mana punch into the marble where my face had been a heartbeat before—punch it so smoothly, so effortlessly—made every hair on my body stand on end.
I pushed myself up.
I stretched the blade in my left hand as long as it would go and swung at Blossom.
CLANG!
But the strike was parried with almost insulting ease.
My circuit was running like mad. My left wrist felt warm and prickly, but there was no sign of it giving out yet.
Hayun was glaring at me. Magical girl or not, only the hairstyle and outfit had changed—her face was the same. The exact Hayun I saw every day.
And that Hayun was glaring at me, swinging a sword.
...I really am a strange one.
I was that jealous of her, wanted that badly to beat her—and yet the moment I faced her, I couldn't bring myself to attack in earnest. Because the face looking back at me belonged to a friend I'd known for years.
Did Hayun feel the same, looking at my face—
I leaned my upper body back to let Blossom's sword slip past my midsection, then dragged my left hand down and drove my blade upward from below. Blossom fell back, evading it.
At the edge of my vision, the circuit was giving off a black substance that rose like steam. It looked like that same unsettling stuff from last time.
Rat-tat-tat.
"Kgh!"
A beam came flying in from the side and slammed into me. Each individual beam was nowhere near as thick as those bolt-action rounds had been, but for some reason the pain felt nearly proportional.
Had she compressed them or something?
Watching me take the hits, Blossom's eyes widened a little. She looked like she couldn't believe it.
Don't tell me—every single shot was a warp round?
Glancing over, the combatants' numbers had indeed thinned dramatically. Facing so many at once, she was simply teleporting one of them away with each shot. Fewer bodies on the field made the fight far easier for her.
Of course, the company wasn't blind to that either—they had squad after squad held in reserve. Our original squad leader was already charging toward us from beyond the pillars.
The fact that I was still here after eating warp rounds meant this suit could stop them somehow.
The trade-off was simply the monstrous pain I felt as a result. Still no idea how it works—but fine. It's useful.
I raised a barrier.
Each time a white beam came at me, it deflected or split partway through. It looked for all the world like a hemispherical pane of thick glass had been wrapped around me.
"Just what are you—"
Blossom began, but I was already sprinting toward Iris.
Iris was glaring at me. She looked like she was gritting her teeth.
I spent one of the batteries mounted in the circuit on my left wrist.
BOOM!
The instant I planted my feet, I thrust my left arm forward and released everything. Whether the batteries had gotten a capacity boost or not, the energy that erupted toward Iris was far larger this time.
"Kyaa!"
Iris screamed.
And in the moment before she did, I caught something odd.
Iris flinched.
The Iris I knew would never have done that.
Oh. So that's it.
In the last battle, I'd headbutted her with everything I had. My head had been protected by a helmet. Hers hadn't.
I'd heard it said, somewhere or other, that a boxer famous for one-sidedly beating down his opponents can sometimes come apart after a single loss—having never been hit before, they have no defenses against the pain.
I had no idea whether that was a real phenomenon or not, but it fit Iris perfectly right now.
The instant the battery's energy discharged, with no time to even watch Iris's face, the recoil laid me out backward.
My rear and back stung a little, but I managed a passable breakfall. My head never struck hard, and that let me hold on to my senses.
Blossom, right on my heels, tried to chop down at me again—but I don't fall for the same trick twice.
I slid sideways out of the way, then grabbed her ankle the instant it touched the ground.
KRAK!
Blossom didn't miss a beat—she wrenched the sword she'd planted in the floor toward me with all her strength and sliced into my arm.
"Kgh!"
I couldn't hold back the groan. But I saw it, plain as day: the moment her sword touched my suit, it rebounded in a spray of black sparks.
I yanked Blossom's ankle with everything I had. The battery had already burned out, and I hadn't had a chance to swap in a new one, so the power I could release at once was meager—but it was enough to haul her weight.
Blossom swayed.
Riding the momentum, I seized her leg with my right hand and heaved—and managed to bring her crashing down.
THUD!
Beams came flying in and slammed into my right shoulder, my stomach, my hip, my thigh, my foot. The one that caught the tips of my toes hurt beyond words. My toenail had definitely cracked. ...I'll remember this, Iris. I'll make you feel exactly the same.
Whether it was the adrenaline surging through my head or something else entirely, I ignored the pain and clambered up onto Blossom as though scaling her body.
I pinned her waist between my thighs and locked it down tight. Her knee hammered into my back—but human joints only bend so far. On its own, that didn't hurt half as much as Iris's beams.
CLANK!
The battery ejected.
There was no gap to slot in the next one, though. Pinned beneath me she may have been, but Blossom wasn't about to lie still.
Her sword swept through the space where my face had just been.
It was a sword that couldn't cut people—but that also meant it cut everything else.
Armor or no armor, it sheared through the protection and struck the body beneath directly. However you covered or concealed yourself, when that blow landed, it was like taking an iron bar to bare skin. She was moderating her strength in her own way, leaving me in a state where I could still be treated—but dangerous was still dangerous.
Blossom tried to swing the sword back the other way, and I hastily caught it with my hand.
CLANG!
Metal rang against metal.
A searing pain shot up my right hand, but since I'd caught the sword before it could build any real force behind its arc, nothing seemed to be broken.
A vicious crackling like electricity arcing through something half-ground sizzled in my ears, and my hand burned as though it were being seared.
Clamping down on the blade with all my strength, I raised my fist.
Hayun's face came into view.
She wasn't even flustered.
She simply looked at me, her resolve set firm.
How could Hayun wear an expression like that?
Getting hit had to hurt. However hard they tried, plenty of people never gave them any credit. The Galaxy Federation did nothing but use the magical girls.
She had to know that.
However much the world advanced on the energy of their hope, she knew better than anyone that they were the only ones who suffered for it.
And yet, why did Hayun—
That thought lasted only an instant.
Hayun didn't hesitate. As always, she moved exactly as she believed.
WHAM!
My helmet rocked violently. Thankfully, it didn't crack—that mysterious black energy was dampening the impact.
There was no stopping my head from snapping around, though.
My vision lurched, and my balance went with it.
Hayun seized me by the collar and rolled us sideways.
I scrambled frantically backward. Thankfully, I didn't end up pinned underneath.
BOOM!
And the moment I did, an explosion went off right beside me.
Dahlia.
It was Dahlia who had loosed a mass of mana she'd been holding in reserve.
I was flung sideways, hit the ground, and skidded.
When I picked myself up and raised my head, most of the magical girls were looking my way.
While Blossom and I fought, a great many combatants had gone down.
Plenty still remained, and more were being fed in—but still.
Somehow, I couldn't shake the feeling that in the end, time would be on their side.
...Fine—I'll give the Hope Circuit this much: its efficiency is the real deal.
And this circuit of ours was still only at a fraction of that.