Chapter 8. Weapon (1)
…
What do I do now?
The thought drifted through Hayun's mind behind a blank, vacant face.
In the end, she hadn't been able to do anything. Not talk to Jieun, not even see the job through to a proper finish. The mission had failed in the worst possible form—the plan of severing ties with Noir Corporation while still maneuvering for the upper hand had come apart, miserably and completely.
She had worked hard to get everyone out while the antenna came down. Thankfully the building itself never collapsed, but that didn't mean it could stay in service. From what she'd heard, it would be unusable until a safety inspection ran its course, and in all likelihood it would need repairs on top of that. Built as solidly as it was, it would probably never come to reconstruction or demolition—but still.
“Hayun……”
Even in the middle of all that, Cherry was worried about her.
The Galaxy Federation wasn't blaming the magical girls. Even when Noir Corporation leveled accusations through official channels, even when the CCTV footage they'd unilaterally released made the news, the Federation apparently had no intention of abandoning its relationship with the magical girls yet.
Of course, neither did it seem eager to move them on to anything else right away. Last time, they had been credited with stopping a terrorist attack; this time, they had gone and let things swell up needlessly. Naturally, the public's view of magical girls had soured accordingly.
“You don't have to worry so much! It's all going to work out, I just know it.”
But Cherry didn't seem able to come up with any more logical form of comfort than that. She simply repeated her hollow reassurances. And, of course, they did nothing to comfort Hayun.
Hayun stayed slumped over the desk, staring at nothing. The only thing in her head was Jieun.
She had caught the person. She hadn't wanted to become a murderer.
But the instant her eyes met Jieun's, she had dropped. There had been other magical girls there too. They hadn't helped at the time only because they'd judged that Hayun would be fine.
She could fly the skies, after all—far faster than any ordinary person. Naturally, once she had caught someone, she ought to have been able to set them down without harm.
The reason she had fallen like that, in that moment, was—
Jieun's eyes. They had frightened her.
These were the magical girls, after all, who had spent so long "resolving" situations by ruthlessly beating Jieun and everyone who fought at her side. In that instant, what had Jieun been thinking? Had she believed Hayun had dropped her on purpose?
She didn't know. Jieun's face had worn nothing but surprise.
Jieun had leapt from that terrible height. She had saved Hayun's life—while she herself fell away from it.
Hayun still remembered the scream Jieun had let out.
...It's the worst. It truly is.
However Hayun moved, everything she did kept bending toward causing Jieun pain. Where along the way had it all gone so wrong?
Just as Hayun was raking herself over the coals hard enough to burrow straight down into the earth, with Cherry fussing helplessly beside her—
Bzzt—
The smartphone vibrating on the desk made her whole body flinch. She was lying face-down with her head turned sideways and her ear pressed against the desk, so the sound reached her far too loudly.
The buzzing kept on. She lifted her eyes to look. A call.
“Rose?” Cherry murmured.
Hayun answered at once.
“Hello?”
“Hayun.”
The voice on the other end sounded a little grave.
“Did you see the news, by any chance?”
“...The news?”
“You haven't seen it yet, then.”
There was hesitation in the voice—like someone still debating whether this should be said at all. Little gaps kept opening up in the middle of her words.
But in the end, Rose seemed to have made up her mind to tell her.
“It's... that girl. The one they're calling your friend. She was on the news.”
“Jieun?”
“Yeah.”
Rose let the silence sit for a moment before going on.
“It looks like they're trying to paint her as a terrorist again this time. The Company's being awfully proactive about it, too.”
“What?”
“The theft of the key equipment—that part is true, after all. And that Squeak-seong-in that was on her shoulder. Apparently it used to work for Noir Corporation, and they say it knows that equipment inside and out.”
“……”
Somehow Rose could tell that Hayun was one second from hanging up and searching for every scrap of related information herself, because she pressed on.
“I know that incident wasn't her doing. I saw it with my own eyes. But the thing that happened a few days ago—at least that much is true, isn't it? For all intents and purposes, a completed generator ended up in private hands.”
...The only reason any of us were even there in the first place was because we wanted that generator too.
The whole thing had happened because the Federation and the Company, faced with murky claims neither side wanted to own, had each tried to shove the ambiguity onto the other. There was no telling how much of that process was something Jieun and that Squeak-seong-in had actually engineered—but the Galaxy Federation's reason for mobilizing the magical girls had certainly never been pure.
“...Haah. Honestly, I don't know what to do either. Not in this situation......”
They could tell the world every last fact of it. But the Galaxy Federation and the Company would only deny everything—and for all anyone knew, airtight evidence was already sitting in a drawer somewhere, prepared for exactly this.
Too much time had already burned away while everyone dithered. If there had been time to sit around being confused, they should have kept moving back then instead.
Of course, that would have meant her parents' fury. The people around her would start treating Hayun like something wrong, and in the worst case, articles of one kind or another about her might come pouring out of the press.
“……”
Exactly the way it was for Jieun right now.
The instant that final thought surfaced, Hayun felt all the blood drain from her body once more. She shook, violently and silently.
Rose couldn't see any of it. And so the voice coming through the phone stayed calm.
“If anyone asks for your opinion, I think it's best you just don't answer. As for what we do from here, we'll talk it through bit by bit. It's not right that anyone should be wronged over this, but... we can't defy all of it on our own, can we? There are others, in other countries, who could take our places.”
The most important figures in the Galaxy Federation's design had always been the ones who could spin their circuits with hope as the medium and generate energy from it.
“...We'll find a way. Bit by bit.”
“...Yes, unni.”
And just like that, the call between them ended, with nothing to show for it.
A way.
What way was she even supposed to find? What could she do so that Jieun's situation resolved itself positively, so this horrible situation could simply end?
She had no idea. She knew she couldn't afford to drift along—and yet she had offered no answer at all.
And besides—
Hayun's hope was already worn dangerously thin. Thin enough that she had dropped out of the sky mid-flight last time.
The further she felt herself getting from Jieun, the further the light of that hope seemed to recede.
Jieun's disappearance alone was already changing Hayun's life far too much.
“Jieun.”
Hayun slumped over the desk once more, and thought of her.
The longer she drifted, the more time slipped by, the heavier her guilt toward Jieun grew. And yet she herself still had no idea what she was supposed to do.
This time, too, she had fumbled away every one of those countless chances through her own mistakes. She hadn't managed a single proper sentence of conversation. Jieun had even slipped away without so much as speaking to her.
Hayun thought back on why she had fallen in that crucial moment.
In that instant, there had been no magic at all to be felt from the bouquet. The bouquet that, of all things, was tied to her memories of Jieun.
Jieun had probably given it to her without thinking much of it. That much Hayun knew. It hadn't been a birthday present, or a gift for any special occasion.
Jieun had simply bought it for her because she'd caught Hayun standing quietly gazing down at the flowers. She had probably assumed Hayun would keep it in a vase for a few days at most and toss it once it wilted.
“……”
Hayun closed her eyes.
Cherry laid a hand on her arm.
But in the end, not one word of comfort made it out.
“Hey.”
“You've shortened my address down to a single syllable now, I see. What manner of response, precisely, do you expect me to give?”
“Why? All you need to know is that I'm calling you, isn't it?”
“...I have a name. Use it.”
“Your name isn't James. It's Squeaky.”
“That may be how it sounds to your ears, but we have our own pronunciation and tonal system, I'll have you know!”
For a species that claimed as much, their planet was still named plain old Squeak.
I couldn't be bothered to argue the point any further, so I simply moved the conversation along.
“So what are you planning to do with it?”
James gave me a sideways look, but evidently he had no appetite for that argument either, because he answered my question.
“Well, in truth, there is no way to make use of it at present. If we attempted to substitute it for the electrical supply here, the entire district would go dark. And every piece of equipment connected to that grid would fail in the process.”
So the original plan was to destroy it, then. But once I actually laid eyes on the thing, I'd wanted to carry it home instead.
“So until we can use it, we just sit on it?”
“That is one option, yes, but......”
James looked my way and curled the corners of his mouth upward.
It was dreadfully sinister. For a split second, that was not a hamster's face at all. It was the face of a rat.
“How would you feel about putting it to use in a somewhat different manner?”
“What manner?”
“A weapon, for instance. Magical girls do sometimes employ weapons of their own development.”
If he meant Iris, then yes, that was true.
It made a certain amount of sense, I supposed. But still—
“And what happens when somebody steals it off me?”
“A magical girl's weapon can be hidden away from the eyes of others by any number of means. I cannot speak to how the practice originated, but given that even 'developed' weapons can be stored in sub-space, so long as you keep yours hidden, there is no reason it cannot be kept safe from thieving hands.”
He was looking at me with an awful lot of expectation, but I still had nothing to say.
A magical girl's weapon was, at its root, something she treasured—transformed. Or, more precisely: something she could look at, every single time, and find hope in. Something that lifted her heart just to behold, a precious thing that helped her hold on to her dreams. Once it became a 'wand,' it vanished from sight—but it wasn't truly gone. The lore was that it became something like a lantern burning within the magical girl's heart.
Which was why, the moment she transformed, it would be in her hand before she knew it. At first she might mourn that it had disappeared, but in the end—as long as she never lost her hope, it would stay with her forever. A very romantic bit of lore, that.
I had no idea how Iris's guns managed to hide themselves, but the underlying principle probably wasn't so different. The only real difference would be how much energy you could draw out of the weapon itself.
For the record: the bouquet Hayun carried had been a gift from her parents. From back in the days when they still didn't see their daughter as a political instrument—most likely something she'd received after winning some essay contest.
One might wonder how a bouquet could last that long, but plants, if dried properly, can be kept indefinitely. As far as I knew, it had hung upside down on a wall for years on end, which was apparently why the flowers had survived nearly undamaged. Its original state was surely far worse than what it looked like now. Magic recreated the moment she'd received it, and so the bouquet in Blossom's hands was forever in full, vivid bloom.
“I don't even know how to do that part yet.”
“...We shall simply have to find out as we go.”
James said it while regarding me as though I were a hopeless case.
“Well. In any case, I shall build you a weapon. There is nowhere to hide it but this room regardless, so its form hardly signifies. Do you have a preferred shape?”
I thought for a moment about the weapons I'd actually handled.
“...I can swing a hammer.”
When I said it, recalling the work I used to do with Jigupa, James heaved a sigh and shrugged his tiny shoulders.
“How very you a weapon that is.”
I wanted to smack him one, but I was currently lying face-down on the floor.
The semi-basement room had gained one more electric heating pad. I was earning money now, after all.
Sleeping next to a woman didn't bother me in the slightest—but it did feel a little bad that Jigupa, the room's original occupant, was uncomfortable with the arrangement. Landlord... no, not the landlord, technically a tenant, but still.
“Probably best not to move around too much, you know? Until just yesterday your whole body was wrapped head to toe in bandages.”
Jigupa said it the moment he caught me trying to close my hand around James.
“...Sorry.”
“Nah, it's not like it's apology-worthy.”
Jigupa murmured it while looking down at me sprawled across the floor.
I hadn't been able to go out to work for days. My body had hurt, honestly and badly. Not that a hospital or the Treatment Center was an option for someone like me.
I'd heard that magical girls heal through the mana running through their bodies, so I'd been resting and counting on that. I was definitely recovering faster than a normal person would, but there was no doing anything about the aches in every joint and limb.
Net result: several days of pure freeloading.
It really is something to apologize for, though.
Jigupa had said he was putting me up because I'd helped him out whenever he was in trouble—but the truth was, I hadn't helped him all that often. All I'd ever really done was drink coffee with him and haul him home a few times when he was drunk.
That hardly seemed like a debt worth risking expulsion to repay.
He'd already been under suspicion of terrorism; now he'd become a terrorist beyond any argument, guilty no matter how you looked at it.
Until recently, public opinion about me had split every which way. I was a minor, and apparently my face was decently pretty, so quite a few people had been willing to believe it's probably not her fault. On top of that, there had been no shortage of people screaming unconditional 'for' or 'against' in my name purely for the pleasure of tearing each other apart.
But this incident had flipped all of it.
Whether I'd actually committed the first incident had never been conclusively settled. This one, though—there was no denying that a great deal of it had been me.
Of all places, the building had stood in the heart of Gangnam, and a giant antenna toppling down inside it was more than enough to make people feel threatened.
That was what the Company had to say about the thing that had been wrecked. Not one word about it existing to hunt magical girls—only the claim that research meant to ease the nation's communications burden had been destroyed, and that I was the reason why.
Which meant the threats against me now were beyond any comparison to before. And even so, Jigupa was still hiding me here.
Why?
Jigupa didn't answer.
“...Anyway.”
Seeing no sign of an answer no matter how long I stared at him, I shifted my target back to James.
“Didn't you say something before about shame? Don't tell me the energy I need to transform is that kind. Because I'm pretty sure I heard it was 'courage.'”
“......!”
James's ears shot straight up. His mouth fell slightly open, and the tiny flesh-colored hands froze in front of his chest.
It was the face of a mouse that had locked up solid in front of a cat.
“What's wrong?”
“Th-that is.”
James darted his eyes this way and that for a moment before finally forcing his mouth open.
“Are you saying you do not know what courage is?”
“You think I'm asking because I don't know what courage is?”
“Ho ho ho.”
James laughed the laugh of a man bluffing for his life.
“...Courage, you see, only truly comes into being when one endures some manner of disadvantage.”
“...Is that so.”
“It is an old saying, is it not? Endure your fear for three minutes, and that is courage. Precisely so. The courage to endure shame is courage, and the courage to endure the fear of death is courage as well. And that day, you showed us a truly courageous figure, did you not? To hurl yourself from that great height for the sake of a friend who had become your enemy—what could be more courageous!”
Talk about a smooth getaway.
But James's argument wasn't entirely without merit. Look too closely at the mechanics and it was completely off base—but despair and courage did share common ground.
In this world's system, despair energy came out precisely when you despaired. And, in a very subtle distinction, it did not come out when you gave up.
Human beings are, among other things, creatures who can feel relief the moment they let go of everything. People chasing their dreams stress themselves sick over their own lack of talent, while someone who has abandoned the dream entirely can end up content in the present, living easy and at peace.
Which was exactly how the Company could pull off its exquisitely convenient con: that is the power of courage.
“Fine. Whatever.”
I let out a long, slow breath.
I'll let it slide this time. It's not like refusing to would get me anything.
Apparently James had no wish to keep talking with me either, because he promptly turned and scampered off. He went to his robot body—still littered with spare circuits and components—and began fiddling with something.
Was he making that hammer I'd mentioned?
Either way, it didn't matter.
If a magical girl's weapon symbolized her dreams and her hope, then someone running on despair energy like me had no need of anything like that. All I needed was something I could grip and swing. Weren't the two of us a better match, really? An object with no meaning at all.
Silence settled over the room again.
Jigupa wasn't actually the chatterbox I'd taken him for. He'd simply talked so much whenever we met because all those days apart left a backlog of things to say.
James was absorbed in his own project now.
...Ah.
Like this, my thoughts slid right back to Hayun.
And to Jihye.
Had Hayun's injuries all healed by now? Was she resting somewhere comfortable? Not being able to reach her was suffocating.
Jihye... all I could do was hope she was doing well.
Wasn't there some way to pass along a letter, at least?
But no matter how I turned it over, right now that would be the shortest possible road to getting caught. In the end, having confirmed that I had no way to contact anyone dear to me, I quietly closed my eyes.
Besides, Jihye was one thing, but with Hayun I wouldn't even know how to write a letter. I'd written one exactly once in my life. Texts were a different story, maybe.
Even in the middle of all this, thinking about Hayun left a dull ache in the corner of my chest. The jealousy still stirred. I'd watched her drop out of the sky, and yet I didn't feel like I'd won anything at all.
So many feelings, all tangled together into something slimy and dense—I couldn't even tell whether they were good ones or bad ones.
If I'd been wearing a circuit right now, it would probably have been spinning round and round at a furious rate.
...What an ugly business, truly.
And the thing I disliked most of all was that this ugly business was, in the end, something I had chosen for myself.