Chapter 10. What I Can Do (1)
With the broadcast over, I stood there in silence for a while. The tips of my fingers trembled a little. I heaved out a rough breath, shoulders rising and falling.
"That was an excellent speech," James said.
"With this, public opinion should shift at least a little. Plenty of Earthlings never trusted their governments or their police to begin with. No—every nation spread across this galaxy is the same. Blind, one-hundred-percent devotion to power is something only idiots do."
Coming from a man who, by that same measure of "power," sat fairly high up himself, it struck me as a slightly odd thing to say...
Then again, James was a businessman, not a lawmaker or a minister. In this country, no matter how deep a businessman's pockets ran, he still bowed his head before a member of the National Assembly—so perhaps his perch wasn't as high as I'd imagined. It was only because I happened to be planted at the very bottom of that ladder that James had looked so toweringly above me.
"The broadcast went out properly, right?"
"It did. I have every confidence in my own skills."
"...Then why couldn't you stop the man they call the current Chairman?"
"Because he was a man who had never once set foot on an actual site. He must have believed himself clever. But there are thoughts that only occur to someone standing on-site, and he could never have had them. He'd have been sitting in a position where all he had to do was tell the people beneath him to 'do it.'"
And me—I had frightened everyone in this building into fleeing.
How had they all managed to get away so cleanly?
A few coincidences had probably stacked up. I hadn't wanted to kill anyone, so I'd started by driving off the crowd gathered in the first-floor shopping mall. Some of the staff must have come down ahead of them, shepherding those people to safety. Besides, one of this company's other buildings had already gone up in an explosion—because of "me"—and it had claimed victims. I was even the one invading this place now, so even without knowing the full story, plenty of people must have assumed something similar could happen here. Whether or not the government looked the other way, the Federation and the Company alike had to mind public opinion at least a little. They would have run evacuation drills, even if only for show.
And James had counted on those drills long before I did.
"He must have thought it was enough. He had this many troops hidden away here, after all. These are kaijin who could only move because you came, aren't they?"
As if he wanted to savor my reaction, James made a point of emphasizing that they had moved because of me. My energy had set the circuits turning. The restraints that had locked the kaijin's bodies down hard became, the moment my power touched them, armor that fed that very strength back—simply letting the monsters loose. Somehow I'd dragged the plan across the finish line, but I had come within a hair of being captured with nothing to show for it.
"Those who think only with their heads never understand the variables of the field," James went on. "They assume the world will roll exactly as their clever minds predicted, and they devise 'tidy' little methods for handling this variable or that—but well. Variables, by their nature, don't tend to pop up only in the flavors we like."
I stared at James. He was wearing an immensely satisfied expression.
Come to think of it, James had been a cadre senior enough to hold a post in this very headquarters building, yet he had always come out to the field and commanded the combatants in person. I'd assumed he only showed up because he was blind to everything but his golf. Apparently that hadn't been it. Then again, his underlings were nothing but hired hands paid in money—left unsupervised, who knew whether they'd actually do the job. If even one thinking human had remained in this building, the plan would have been far harder.
If, say, someone had smashed the broadcast room.
"Well, the work is wrapped up now," James said. "All that remains is our escape—"
His gaze slid to somewhere behind me.
"—but before that, is there someone you'd like to have a word with? They don't appear to have any intention of attacking, at least. A few minutes, we might be able to spare."
"..."
That's right. I had been deliberately not looking back.
Hayun was standing behind me. The monitor showed my face, but not hers—she happened to be positioned just far enough back, directly behind me.
Hayun had helped me. So had the other magical girls who'd followed her here.
Why?
I still couldn't quite make sense of it. Through a magical girl's eyes, I had to be a terrorist who absolutely had to be caught.
No, wait. The magical girls had been there on-site. It would have been easy for them to deduce that this wasn't something I had done.
Which left only one explanation: they had moved for the Federation's sake. They'd never actively protested to anyone on my behalf, never once moved for my sake before—so why was today different?
Not knowing that was what made it frightening to turn around and face Hayun.
What would I think, seeing her face? What expression would Hayun wear, looking at me?
I... wasn't ready to accept everything yet. Even if Hayun suddenly treated me warmly here—even though that was what I wanted too—
—at the same time, I didn't want to accept it just like that.
I wanted to stay angry a little longer. I wanted to rampage. I wanted to hate the people who hated me with everything I had. It was a despairing situation, but ironically, raging through it had set me free. When I swung the hammer, I didn't have to think about a single thing.
Hayun was waiting. She didn't call my name to hurry me along, but she didn't turn away in disappointment either—she simply went on hoping I would look her way.
Should I just run, like this? The way I always had?
But I knew I couldn't.
I looked at James. The corners of his mouth were curling upward. He was smiling. At me—me, agonizing so gravely over that utterly trivial option called "turning around." Wasn't this a fellow who enjoyed watching me get irritated and miserable? A sadist, for all he was a hamster.
That expression annoyed me enough that I turned around on the spot.
Hayun was there.
The other magical girls were nowhere in sight. They probably hadn't left yet. They were simply giving the two of us time to talk—or, more precisely, giving us time because "that was what Hayun wanted."
"..."
I closed my eyes and drew a deep breath. Then I opened them.
Hayun was right in front of me.
She was a mess. I thought she might even be worse off than me. Torn in places, battered, bleeding—and still, Hayun stood her ground. Standing, and looking at me.
What was I supposed to say?
Should I say thank you? The reason I'd been able to stay here at all through all my emotional blunders, the reason I'd achieved my goal, was Hayun and the magical girls' help. Even if they'd stayed by my side the whole time, could I really have brought down that many kaijin alone? Could I have pleaded my innocence on the broadcast and hurled out my warning?
No. I probably couldn't have. Whether I made it to the orphanage or not, it likely would have ended in failure. It succeeded because Hayun and her comrades had come here—because they'd helped me without even asking what I was trying to do.
And yet, even so, I couldn't bring myself to say thank you. The words stuck in my throat as if lodged there.
Instead—
"...Why?"
That was the question that came out. Not out of embarrassment, not because the awkwardness of the situation wrung out words I didn't mean—it wasn't anything like that. I genuinely didn't know.
"Why did you help me?"
At my question, Hayun's expression crumbled a little.
"I'm your enemy, you know."
That was the truth. The reason the magical girls had come here was probably to arrest me. Otherwise there'd have been no reason to come at all. These girls hadn't known kaijin were hidden on this top floor.
"You belong to the Galaxy Federation. So... you shouldn't be helping with something like this, should you?"
My warning hadn't been aimed solely at this company's chairman. The people who had driven me into this corner—whether the government or the Federation bastards. I couldn't punish every last one of them, but I'd wanted to slam the ones at the top into the ground at least once apiece. And magical girls were children who existed to keep exactly that kind of thing from happening.
"Why? Why did you go this far?"
"..."
Hayun's gaze dropped.
That wasn't what I wanted. I wanted her to say it properly. I'd been jealous—jealous of Hayun, who was supported by the people under any circumstances, in the name of standing on justice's side. Jealous, too, that she wielded not something drab and dreary like despair, but a splendid power that suited hope, the protagonist's color, so perfectly. I'd thought, more than once, how much better it would have been to be born as Hayun instead of this parentless nobody. And so, I'd wanted to beat her. Not that I'd wanted to hurt her.
So I wanted her to say it properly, without hedging. Because it was something I couldn't do. Or rather—if Hayun said it first—
That everything would be all right. That from now on, she would move for my sake. That we should smash the Galaxy Federation and every last thing like it, together. That she would help me take my revenge.
I wished she would say that.
Hayun said nothing.
"..."
And at the same time, I hoped she wouldn't. I wanted her to stay on the far side from me. I wanted a reason to keep treating her as my enemy. Because then we could face each other as opponents. Because I wanted to beat her, even just once.
It was a selfish thought. Neither one thing nor the other—exactly the kind of thought the usual me would have. A child's petulance, bound to kick against whichever choice was made.
But Hayun chose neither.
Hayun, who had been standing with her head silently bowed, held something out to me. It was a pager. The same one I'd seen last time, when Hayun and I caught that alien stalker together.
"Oh ho."
James, who had been watching the two of us, made the sound with evident interest.
"Why?"
Hayun couldn't easily find the answer to that.
The reason was simple. It was simply because the person in question was Jieun.
Did that mean she wouldn't have done the same for anyone else? If the person on this top floor had been someone other than Jieun—if that someone had been in exactly the same situation—would Hayun really have refused to help?
No. She would have helped. Without a doubt. But at the same time, she might have tried to talk them out of it. Moving like this gains you nothing. All that waits at the end is your own destruction. Let me help you instead. I'll stay beside you to the very end and see that the best possible outcome comes of it—so come with me.
...Those were words she could never say to Jieun.
Of course they were. Those were words you could offer only because you didn't know that person's heart. Words possible only because you had never seen that person's circumstances through to the end, never empathized all the way down into their depths.
To Hayun, Jieun was not that kind of person.
What foods Jieun liked. What they did when they met out on a day off. What she usually ordered at a café, what kind of streets she liked to walk. The face she made when she was pleased. The way she laughed. The little habit she had when she fought back tears over a sad movie.
Walking beside Hayun, Jieun never bothered to take her hand or loop an arm through hers. And yet Jieun felt closer than the girls who did those things so casually, so naturally. It was because being with her was that much easier. Because Hayun knew—knew that even without holding hands, even without linked arms, Jieun didn't mind walking beside her. Knew that Jieun found being with Hayun pleasant—
And so every logical argument—the law, right and wrong, justice and its absence—shattered to pieces in front of that single reason.
No matter if someone wore Jieun's exact face, carried her exact past and her exact reasons, Hayun could never have said to that identical person what she said to Jieun. She wouldn't have known any of it. She would never have felt that dull ache in her chest every time Jieun crossed her mind.
That was why she couldn't bring herself to say it. Because Jieun's expression was begging her not to.
...Self-destruction, was it?
Jieun's life had already been smashed to pieces—so thoroughly that even once everything was over, there was no telling whether it could ever be put back. Hayun felt that truth to the bone. Had Jieun been a stranger, she would never have understood why she'd vanished partway through. What was left to destroy in something already destroyed? All Jieun could do was keep walking toward the end.
It felt as though the moment she opened her mouth, the tears would come flooding out. Because she knew that the one who had broken her dearest, most precious friend's life was Hayun herself. Because she knew that "I didn't know" could never buy forgiveness for all of it.
"..."
Jieun was kind. Even now she was choking down her fury to ask Hayun: everything you did to me until now—what was all of that? Why are you like this only now?
She wanted to apologize. But would that be allowed? Wouldn't it look like she was trying to settle all that agonizing time with a single "I'm sorry"? Hayun couldn't even guess how Jieun had lived through it. Where she'd hidden herself, what and how she'd eaten, how she'd slept, how she'd washed. Every possibility she imagined was the worst one. There was no way Jieun had been staying comfortably in a nice home, wanting for nothing.
...No way she'd been living the way Hayun had. No school. No visits from the people who were as good as family.
Could she really apologize while knowing none of it?
In the end, the only choice Hayun had been able to make was this half-measure.
Hayun thrust out her hand. It was the pager—the one she carried everywhere. When the magical girls were in danger, or when the Federation had work for them, that pager carried the word back and forth.
Only after her hand was already extended did she remember how foolish the gesture was. The pager carried location data. Naturally—it existed so they could summon one another. Wasn't handing this to Jieun practically the same as putting her under surveillance?
But.
"Oh ho."
That was how 'James' reacted.
"We'll be taking that with us."
Hearing James say that, I turned to stare at him as if he'd lost his mind. It's a pager. Obviously it can be used to track my location, no?
"Once it's stored in sub-space, tracking becomes impossible," James said. "And even if it were possible, it wouldn't point them to wherever you happen to be, at any rate."
That was... not exactly wrong. Honestly, I had no idea what this "sub-space" actually was. Maybe it wasn't a pocket dimension at all—maybe he just stashed my things roughly somewhere out in this wide universe. Then again, opening it had never once left me flash-fried by cosmic radiation, so it couldn't be all that hazardous in there.
"And as for the tracker—I can remove it. While I'm at it, I'll arrange things so the pager itself still receives calls. Reroute it through enough networks, and no one will be able to follow it straight to you."
What a jack-of-all-trades this guy was. Then again, every piece of equipment I'd ever used had been built by him.
"..."
I turned back to Hayun. Her head was still bowed low, the pager still held out toward me. I reached out, took it, and held it up. Nothing special about it—just a plastic button. I turned it over in my fingers for a moment, then raised my eyes to Hayun again.
I should say thank you. The words caught in my throat and wouldn't come.
"So..."
Instead, thinking with a slightly cooled head, I said the next thing.
"What are you going to do now?"
It was probably the question Hayun wanted to ask me, too. Honestly, even if she'd asked it first, I'd have had nothing to say. I really did have no plan anymore. I'd thought this might be where everything ended—that was why I'd gone so far as to say a proper goodbye to Pangpang on my way out. Maybe I'd thrown the question out first because I was scared of standing there, fidgeting, unable to answer.
"I..."
Hayun opened her mouth.
This was the Hayun who sometimes let a drained expression slip in front of me, too—when people ignored her as if on purpose, when she caught the attention of someone who didn't really care, when every gaze in the room swung her way. But that Hayun belonged to everyday life. The Hayun in the magical girl outfit always glittered. However brutal the fight she'd just come out of, she smiled at the people and stood unbowed.
I'd only ever seen that face of hers on a TV screen. We'd clashed in battle plenty of times, but I was always too busy losing and running to look properly. Watching that, I'd always burned with jealousy. So I hadn't liked her. But I'd never said so. I didn't like this feeling either. It was a feeling that did exactly as it pleased, and nothing else.
...What I hated most, as always, was that nothing ever went the way I wanted.
Saying that, Hayun lifted her head. And at last, she looked me full in the face.
"..."
Bright eyes. Not smiling, but holding me with strength. Those were the eyes of the Hayun I'd always met on the battlefield.
"...Okay."
That was my answer. I took a step back.
I heard the whine of drones rising. Evidently they'd been readied in advance while we talked. Should I say goodbye? Should I tell her we'd meet again? After turning it over, I decided to let one last long look at Hayun stand in their place.
"...Are you okay?"
As Hayun stood staring blankly at the spot where Jieun had vanished, the voice came from behind her. It was Rose.
"...Yes."
Rose had hesitated when Hayun asked her to help Jieun—but in the end, she'd come, and she'd helped. And not only Rose. The others, too. All of them.
"There's going to be a storm of criticism over this."
"...I'm sorry."
"It's not you who should be sorry."
Rose answered, fell quiet for a moment, then spoke again.
"If we'd said something from the very beginning, none of this would ever have happened."
Not one person standing there could bring herself to deny it.