Chapter 15. A Difference in Direction (6)

That was how, once the meeting was done, our course was set: we would keep doing what we had been doing.

The Company's image had already taken a heavy blow. It wasn't as if all of this hadn't happened in the middle of crowded Yeouido, after all. This was a world that had weathered any number of Kaijin incidents already, and it had adapted to such crises in its own way. When a Kaijin appeared, the surrounding area was sealed off and civilians were evacuated. The same held true when the Company's combatants clashed with the Federation's magical girls.

And these weren't merely contingency plans drawn up on paper. By this world's standards, they had already been through 'live combat' many times over.

But no matter how thorough the preparations, there were always limits. A plain residential district was fine. A commercial district, no problem either. People leaving their homes empty for a few hours hardly brought the economy to a grinding halt. Likewise, a self-employed shop owner losing a few hours of trade was a loss that could be borne, weighed against human lives.

A company grinding to a stop, however, was a serious blow. Small business or conglomerate alike — when so many enterprises were tangled up with one another, the damage only compounded. There were compensation schemes in place, and the Federation paid out its share as well, but compensation had never been a cure-all.

In the end, in places that were truly packed with people — where skyscrapers dozens of stories tall stood shoulder to shoulder — 'evacuation' could only ever be limited. No Kaijin had ever appeared that could bring an entire building down.

Strictly speaking, there had been exactly one criminal with special abilities who came close.

For now, they would clear out anywhere a phone camera might get a shot as thoroughly as possible, but if Kaijin simply took to the air, the story changed from that point on.

At the very least, this was the first time a Kaijin had flown the way magical girls do. And as far as I could remember, it was the first time buildings had been blasted apart this badly, too.

In footage shot from far away and zoomed in, we had been captured in crisp detail. There were limits to how many mouths the police could shut, and through the people who had already come to think well of us, one story after another was quietly spreading, ear to ear.

'The Company has been experimenting on Earthlings.'

'Maybe the Federation has been doing the same thing.'

'The magical girls fled from them.'

Wrong, and yet somehow not. Standing at the very center of those rumors, I felt a little bewildered. Well, accurate or not, the gossip had ended up redounding to our benefit, and that was a good thing.

How much of that was genuine, I couldn't say, but for now those were the words the government had put out. The Kaijin in the footage had worn the silhouette of an Earthling, another enormous explosion had torn through the laboratory, and in the public eye I had become 'the white magical girl.'

Back when I had been billowing that ominous energy, they could still insist I was a terrorist, a villain. But having seen me armed in a color the exact opposite of that — cooperating with the police, no less — they couldn't quite bring themselves to keep saying it. Color aside, the police cooperating with a terrorist? Did that even make sense?

That was the announcement the Galactic Federation's Civilian Representative Office ended up making. Magical girls and heroes in other countries had been in an uproar, after all. Publicly, nothing had yet come to light about whether the Company and the Federation had joined hands. But we fought using circuits, and what had hung on the chests of the 'Earthling Kaijin' — identified for the very first time this incident — had also been circuits. They couldn't let that pass without saying something. Because the heroes and magical girls of every other country were Earthlings, same as us.

Both sides putting out announcements like that was probably a message meant for our ears, too: cooperate with us, and at the very least, the Company can be brought to heel.

Except—

"There's no apology in any of it. Not one apology."

I muttered that to myself and took a big bite out of my freshly warmed hot bar.

That's right. That was why, even now, I had no intention of working with either of them.

In more ways than one, I'm the sort of person who makes things difficult for the people around me. If you've wronged me, then say so to me. Even without meeting ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠face to face, there's plenty you could do, isn't there? Is it really so hard to state that I'm not a terrorist? One sentence, and I would never have had to flee that place last time.

Fortunately, the girls here seemed to sympathize, so I managed to hold back from grumbling any further than that.

...Anyway.

For all those reasons, what we had to do right now hadn't changed. Harassing the current Chairman by any means necessary. Making it known that this, precisely, was our only goal. Our ultimate objective was still the Complex, ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠and confirming what was truly happening inside it.

But at the same time, we had gained an additional goal for the 'other thing' we meant to do: becoming the 'fourth power.'

We still had nothing impressive in the way of equipment or facilities. This place was undoubtedly someone's property — merely abandoned, left unused — and all we were doing was retrofitting it to suit ourselves. There was no running water, so we hauled what we needed from a stream nearby, and as for electricity, we hadn't tapped any wiring; we were simply running devices off batteries. Batteries that were charged, in turn, by the energy our circuits produced.

If we wanted even a facade, the place had to look the part. With so few personnel, the only way to seem convincing in the eyes of others was to have equipment and facilities that could actually be seen.

And we had decided to tear those materials straight out of the Company.

"If we rip the circuits out of Kaijin bodies and put those to use, we can make this place look pretty legitimate."

That was Cherry.

"Completely redoing the building's interior and exterior is probably beyond us. That's construction work. But we can build cleaning tools and air conditioning. And screens that double as status boards, too."

"Screens need parts that actually make a screen, though."

"Substitute projectors. We have hologram technology as well, so we might as well put it to use."

Cherry fielded my objection with breezy confidence.

"Sure, I could build a projector with what we have now, but it'd be a little lacking as a 'status board.' Those usually need to be a hundred inches at minimum, you know?"

After all, Cherry had already brought over a device loaded with map data for South Korea. It seemed she had no intention of making this place merely convincing on the surface — what she wanted was a base that could genuinely function as one.

It wasn't my place to complain. If they intended to make it comfortable on their own, I would simply fall in line.

"...Pinpointing the current Chairman's location probably won't be all that difficult."

And James, who had been wearing a reluctant expression, had ultimately gone along with our plans as well. Maybe he had simply concluded that, outnumbered as he was, opposition was pointless — but either way, he was helping us draw the plans up.

"The government has announced it will proceed with an audit. Which means that, eventually, they intend to summon the current Chairman for questioning."

"They could always flee the planet."

"Hard to say. I doubt someone who couldn't even definitively kill the Former Chairman would attempt such a thing. That one has no ability, but pride in abundance — and a very keen interest in immediate profit, as well. They know better than anyone that if they vacate that seat, the true Chairman will appear and sit down in it."

James wore a somewhat sulky expression as he spoke.

"If anything, they would sooner invade this country outright. That would be the worst of the worst options, of course."

"...Then what happens?"

"At first, the Company's side may well appear to have the advantage. You have no way of knowing how many of those Earthling Kaijin they have at their disposal, do you?"

"And then?"

"You all will no doubt come bursting out. And by that point, the Federation will be unable to sit still, either. Their true objective is the energy of this planet's people, of course — but for the time being, they must at least profess justice. You know full well that the Federation is not a perfectly unified body."

"And if part of it sides with the Company?"

"Why, as we speak, the Federation's most brilliant circuit expert — incensed at the disposition planned for you — has defected all the way to this side."

"..."

To that, I had no comeback.

Not everyone in the Federation was perfectly just. But at the very least, they kept to a 'line' that the current Chairman of Noir Corporation did not. For one thing, the Federation, too, was serving in the role of a government.

"Earth was recognized as a planet inhabited by intelligent life from the moment of first contact. If they overturned that now, every other planet would begin to think that their own standing could be overturned at any time. I hate to put it this way, but one of the first planets to worry about that would be our own Squeak Planet."

Among aliens, there were those shaped like hamsters, and those shaped like bears or dogs. There were even rock-like beings that fell entirely outside the realm of ordinary life. Their remains were... how should I put it, technically 'useful,' but apparently there were those who, out of simple decency, chose not to make use of them.

But even with such examples, the worry couldn't be entirely dispelled. After all, right here on Earth alone, there had been people who refused to treat fellow Earthlings as 'people.' No — such people have existed in every age, East and West alike, so it would be more accurate to say they exist 'even now.'

"Well, all the same, you mustn't let your guard down."

As if he had read my mind, James said this with a shrug of his shoulders.

"Just remember this much: Noir Corporation can only stand as a company because it stands here, on Earth."

To that, too, I could only nod.

"...Oh, right. And one more thing."

"You have another question?"

"This circuit."

I showed James the circuit on my wrist. A faint white light still trickled from it — a far cry from when it had been running on despair.

"What exactly happened to this thing? The structure's different now, isn't it?"

"Naturally, the structure is different. If a circuit could be turned around so easily, the Federation and Noir Corporation would never have wasted all those years studying each other's designs."

"...Then what is this?"

"As I said before, I suspect a harmony of magic."

"You need a working circuit to use magic in the first place. You're telling me magic changed the direction of a circuit that wasn't even running?"

"...Perhaps your hope influenced another magical girl's circuit."

"My hope."

"Yes. You are already familiar with resonance, are you not? Blossom, brimming over with hope, and your own hope became entangled — and together, they may well have worked some magic beyond my understanding."

"That's not a common occurrence, is it?"

"Common or otherwise, I have certainly never seen it. The circuit itself was something devised here, after all. Ordinarily, one takes an object that holds mana and draws the mana out of it. And in the first place, anyone who isn't an Earthling can use magic directly."

"..."

"...However."

Seeing me tilt my head, James spoke up. His tone was more cautious than usual.

"There is one hypothesis we formulated... that is to say, one the Former Chairman established."

"And this hypothesis?"

"Why despair and hope, of all emotions? In truth, any single emotion on its own can turn a circuit, however feebly. But to produce 'meaningful energy,' what was needed were the emotions born of those complex situations — despair and hope."

James fell silent for a while, as if debating whether he ought to say the next part aloud, then slowly picked the thread back up.

"And so we arrived at this hypothesis: that despair and hope are merely a difference in direction."

"...A difference in direction."

"Yes. If it is the intensity of an emotion that drives the circuit, then the situations required to produce the most intense emotions may differ only in direction — their essence may be much the same."

Despair is an emotion that falls without end. And yet the circuit craves 'endless despair.' If a person feeling despair simply gave up on everything and refused to feel any more of it, the circuit would stop turning. Only by feeling despair and yet never, ever giving up — only by enduring — could the circuit be put to meaningful use. The way I had.

Hope was the same, only in reverse. Only those who could keep moving, leaning on that single slender thread of light descending from somewhere far away, could drive the circuit.

Perhaps the fact that everyone in this country who could drive a circuit was a magical 'girl' — and the fact that every one of them had grown up in reasonably comfortable circumstances — were more than a little correlated.

"...Hah."

Hearing that left me strangely hollow, and my shoulders sagged. Which meant... if James was right, I had possessed the talent from the very beginning.

I had no way of knowing what manner of being had thrown me into this world. But it hadn't simply abandoned me here. Had it given me strength, in its own way? Something like talent? Or had it cast me in here because I had talent? I couldn't say. I had never actually met the being, never once exchanged a word with it.

But one thing was certain. ...Even with that talent, I had never believed in myself. I had done nothing but envy Hayun blindly — and then swung the other way and thought only of beating her.

"So that's how it was."

I said it, letting out a long breath. James didn't see fit to respond.

Last time I had slept outside the tent, but the tent was still, nominally, my room. It was getting too warm now to sleep under a winter-grade sleeping bag, and I was slowly beginning to clear the plastic sheeting out of the room.

Honestly, I could have just gone outside to sleep. But whether I did or not, Hayun would end up sleeping pressed against my side all the same. And I couldn't bear to let the others see us like that. So in the end, I chose to hide inside the tent — and Hayun simply kept following me. I couldn't very well refuse at this point, either. Turning her away now would only send that misunderstanding swelling beyond all control.

"..."

"What's on your mind?"

Hayun always lay facing me with such effortless naturalness, and so I always lay with my back turned to her. Lying face to face was obviously not something I could manage. With Jihye it had happened often enough, but she was practically my sister, after all. And even with Jihye, two people lying face to face in a space this cramped would have felt a little... much.

But if I lay staring at the ceiling instead, Hayun would rest her cheek on my shoulder with the same effortless ease. I wondered if the position wasn't uncomfortable, but she showed no intention whatsoever of giving it up. And her resting her cheek on my shoulder also meant her face ended up hovering, just barely, above a certain part of me that stuck out quite unnecessarily. To be precise, it put Hayun in a position where she was looking down at it.

What's more, pressed flush against my side, her arm around my waist was still a given — she even went so far as to rest her leg across my thigh. I knew it wasn't intentional. If I lay down straight, the already-cramped tent only got narrower, and she had no choice but to close the distance just to secure a spot. Once she fell asleep and her body started drifting this way and that, that sort of position became inevitable. ...Though for some reason it had felt much the same outside the tent, too. Anyway.

And so, I always lay with my back toward Hayun. And Hayun would, just as naturally, hold me from behind. Her arm would curl around my stomach, and I would feel the soft warmth of her body settle against my back. Sometimes her forehead would touch me; sometimes her cheek. And sometimes, it felt unbearably comforting. So long as I didn't look at her face, the flustered feeling seemed to fade. Apparently that was how it worked.

"Jieun."

"...Yeah?"

"What's on your mind?"

When I gave no answer, Hayun asked again, softly. I had nothing to say. How I had jealously resented her of my own accord. How I had possessed, from the very start, the ability to stand where she stood — and instead of using it, had raged and flailed and dragged everything to this. How was I supposed to say any of that to Hayun?

Someday, James might let it slip. Some part of me suspected Hayun wouldn't be too devastated to hear it... but who knew? That was only my guess. Just as I had lived until now as the 'black magical girl' and a 'combatant,' perhaps this, too, was nothing but a fantasy I had spun to justify myself, alone.

So I didn't want to tell her. Not yet. No — if I had my way, I never wanted to tell her at all. This was what came of understanding ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠and accepting ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠everything all by myself.

"...If something's weighing on you, tell me."

In the end, Hayun took a step back.

"Whatever you're struggling with, I'll struggle over it too — so that we can solve it together."

Hayun's kindness was always dazzling. And I was the one who had answered that kindness with groundless jealousy, careening off in some twisted direction. ...A difference in direction, was it? Perhaps the direction I had first taken had simply been the wrong one. Even if I had found the right one now, could I turn back? It was absurd of me to say such a thing, after everything I had thought back then... but hadn't I come too far to return? Hadn't Hayun, too, been swept up in that crooked heart of mine? No — of course she had. She had been swept up in it. Which meant the duty of setting things right again was mine as well.

"..."

Eyes shut, struggling to fall asleep, I clenched my fist tight.