Don't You Die

Kabe came into view.

Not collapsed and spent like before. She was crouched in the grass the way a wolf ought to sit — planted, real, alive.

I hadn't even had the strength to walk. Dusick and Sohee had been holding me up on either side just to drag me this far. But the instant I saw her sitting there, strength came roaring back into me as if it had never left.

Power flooded my legs. Completely independent of my will, I started running.

"Kabe...!"

My throat closed up. I could barely get her name out.

"Kabe... my daughter...!"

At the sound of my voice, Kabe turned her head and looked at me. The dull, vacant glaze in those eyes flickered back to life, and she gathered her trembling legs, trying with everything she had to stand. The world in front of me began to blur.

The daughter I had come so close to losing.

"Kabe...!"

Close enough now to reach out and touch her, I threw my arms around her as if I might collapse.

Damp, sodden fur. Legs hanging limp and useless.

"Mom..."

Something rough and wet, but warm, kept licking my cheek. Kabe's tongue, of course.

"Mom, are you okay?"

Even now, her first thought was to worry about her mother. My precious, beloved daughter.

"Mom's okay... Kabe, are you okay?"

"I'm okay too, Mom."

"If Kabe's okay, then Mom's okay..."

My throat was too tight to keep talking. The image of Kabe suffering in that underwater prison was still burned behind my eyes. The thought that I was a half-rate excuse for a mother who couldn't even use magic — that I had put my own daughter through all of that — felt like something inside my chest was tearing itself apart.

"Mom's okay... as long as Kabe's okay, Mom's fine with anything..."

I kept murmuring that I was okay, nuzzling my face frantically against hers, and wept without end.

"Alright. That's a wrap on the broadcast. The fight's over, after all."

I lifted the camcorder hanging from my sash and peered into it, smiling faintly.

"Well, everyone. Enjoy the show?"

Not that anyone was going to answer.

"Anyway, I think we'll end the stream he— wait, what?"

The camcorder was off. When it was connected to the broadcast, a red light was supposed to be blinking — but there was no red light at all. ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠I gave it a shake, and water dripped out.

"Oh, for crying out loud. When did this thing even die?"

"I'll take a look at it once we ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠get home."

"Yeah, thanks."

Must have gotten wrecked when I got drenched earlier. Or maybe it had broken somewhere else along the way. I had no idea.

"Eh. It's already broken. Nothing we can do about it."

"Um, Boss."

At Dusick's voice, I looked up from the camcorder.

"Sorry to bother you when you're busy, but... I don't think you've noticed."

Dusick pointed at my right hand with an awkward expression. I followed her finger — and found a white glove on that hand that I did not remember putting on. From the rivets set into the back of the glove, dark mana was billowing out, just like my left.

Holy crap.

What the hell is this?

Wondering if the one on my left had simply migrated over, I lifted that hand — but nothing had changed. Dark mana was pouring from both. Left and right alike.

"Boss, by any chance... are you hearing a voice in your head or anything?"

"A voice?"

"Indeed. Magical girls and Mains share the same foundation, so when one grows stronger, a voice ought to inform them of how they have grown stronger, and what abilities they have gained."

A voice, huh. I couldn't hear a thing.

Huh?

Huhh?

Right arm — that would mean my right arm. And an inscription had appeared on my palm.

I pulled the glove off my right hand and looked. Sure enough, something was carved there. A magic-circle pattern drawn in red lines, and engraved dead-center in that pattern... was that a mouth? Lips parted wide, a row of teeth bared between them.

No matter how I looked at it, that was a mouth.

"Unni, what is this?"

"Uh, well."

"Might I try touching it?"

Sohee, standing beside me along with Dusick, asked as she peered at my palm. I didn't see why not, exactly — but it was a pattern I had never seen before, and I had no idea what it was. I hesitated, unsure whether it was safe to let anyone touch it in that state. In that brief pause, Sohee reached out and laid her own palm over mine.

"Unni..."

Something strange happened all at once. A flush bloomed across Sohee's pale face, and her legs gave out — she crumpled to the ground as if collapsing. Even so, she kept a tight grip on my hand. And I felt the mana I had expended being replenished in full, flooding in through my right palm.

"H-haah... nngh... ah, u-unni..."

Leaning into me as if melting into my arms, Sohee's face burned scarlet. She kept murmuring unni, unni, unable to stay on her feet.

"Sohee, snap out of it. What's gotten into you?"

I pulled my hand free and patted her cheek. Only then did she seem to come back to herself, shaking her head vigorously. But she still looked dazed, staring up at me with her face flushed.

"U-unni."

"Yeah."

"That formula... I believe it absorbs the mana of whoever it seizes. The moment I took your hand, the mana within me began draining away in great chunks... and I could not pull free of my own will."

"Oh?"

Mana absorption with the right hand. Mana discharge with the left. Then...

I clasped my left and right hands together, dark mana still rising from both. What would happen if I absorbed and discharged at the same time?

The result: absolutely nothing.

How anticlimactic.

Then Sohee grabbed my wrist.

"Unni, that may be so, but."

"Hm?"

"A little... a little more..."

"Yeah."

"A little more of me..."

"...Huh?"

"Would you take a little more of my mana...?"

"Uh. Uhh? What?"

What is with this girl now?

"Alright. Everyone here?"

Stepping in front of the kids looking like an absolute wreck was pretty embarrassing — but it was also proof that I had fought alongside them. I climbed onto the platform just as I had at the start, and looked over the Mains assembled before me.

Two of them had been extinguished.

Two Mains from my own unit, wiped out by Aquamarine's attack. The fact that it had happened to my unit of all units sat poorly with me. Worse still, one of the ones who were gone was the kid who had come to me for allowance money to go to the PC bang. That made it sting even more.

It ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠couldn't be helped. There were always casualties in a fight. From here on out, I just had to do better.

"How was it, my children?"

"It was great!"

These days I didn't even need to specify what I was asking about. The kids understood me just fine. We had been together long enough for that, it seemed.

"Bespredel."

I pressed the ring on my left hand, and Bespredel materialized, wrapping itself snugly around my grip.

"One-handed gun."

The rifle shifted into a pistol. I raised that ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠pistol high.

"Children. Do you see what this is?"

"A magic gun!"

"That's right. I, your mother, put a ventilation hole through the forehead of Aquamarine — vice president of the Magical Girl Association — with this very gun today."

"You made sure the air flows nicely, Mother?"

"That's right, I did. You — come to my room tomorrow. I'll give you some allowance."

"Thank you, Mother!"

"Now then."

Enough joking around. I looked over the Mains once more. Fifteen of them, plus Dusick, plus Sohee. And Kabe, glued to my leg.

"Today, for the first time in ten years, we have seized victory. What's more, we forced the vice president of the Magical Girl Association into retreat. The humans may not know it, but this entire area around Pangyo Station is now a territory of evil — and it will only make us stronger."

"Yes!"

"I promise you this."

"Until the day you start saying this is only natural — until that day comes."

"I will keep giving you the taste of this victory."

"So."

Just because they were pseudo-living beings didn't mean they had no fear of death. And just because they returned to mana and came back again didn't mean the one who returned was the same person who had fought beside me here. A Main who had fought at my side disappearing — that was a sad thing. Even if I didn't even know their name.

Until the day my power grew stronger. Until our power grew stronger. Until the magical girls could no longer ignore us.

No — until the day the magical girls feared us. Until that day, I would keep winning.

"Kabe, blow on it first. You'll burn the roof of your mouth."

I sliced the seonji — the dark, rich blood curd — into small pieces and set them on Kabe's spoon. She had looked completely drained ever since the fight, so I had deliberately picked a seonji-gukbap place for the after-party, the kind of shop that served hearty ox-blood and rice soup.

I had her sitting on my lap, cutting the blood curd and feeding it to her, when she looked up and asked,

"Mom, aren't you eating?"

"Mom'll eat too. Kabe first."

There was a bowl of soup in front of me as well, but the kid came first. After everything I had put her through. Just thinking about Kabe crouched in that grass still felt like something inside me was coming apart.

"Mother... no, noona. Let me pour you a drink."

Ah.

I really could not turn this down.

"Kabe, want to go to unni?"

"Mhm."

Dusick, reading the room perfectly, came to take her. Kabe glanced up at me once, then transferred to Dusick's lap without a word.

Sohee held out a glass, and as I took it, soju filled it with a pleasant glug-glug-glug. I lifted the glass, and through the clear liquor I could see my own palm. I had dropped my transformation, and at some point the inscription had vanished too.

Ahhh. That's the stuff.

A few Mains came and went. Glasses passed back and forth more times than I could count. Side dishes on the table, and the drinks just kept going down.

"Unni, would you pour me one as well?"

"Of course. Gotta pour one for Sohee too. You worked hard today. That scythe work was something else."

It really had been. If I hadn't ducked when she yelled Bow your head!, that scythe might have been buried in the side of my skull.

"How could I ever do such a thing to you, unni? Even if you had not ducked, I would have thrown it so as not to harm you."

Is that so.

I should ask her later about that stamina-recovery thing, too.

"Ask whenever you wish. I shall tell you everything, without the slightest concealment."

But I had only been thinking that, and Sohee had been answering me point by point this whole time. Were my thoughts that obvious?

"Oh my — thoughts? Are you not speaking them aloud at this very moment? Unni, surely you haven't..."

Huh?

"Have you perhaps had too much to drink?"

Huhhh?