The Screams of Nabukashi
◇ Top Speed (Tsubame Murota)
In an ordinary family home, the savory sizzle of bacon frying in a pan filled the kitchen. While Tsubame Murota, apron tied around her waist, prepared breakfast, her husband Soichi wandered over to the table, shirt and tie thrown on in a half-hearted rush.
“Morning.”
“Morning.”
“Running late again today?”
Soichi asked as he unfolded the newspaper. Tsubame answered without looking up from the stove.
“They’re dragging me into extra office work and random errands. Looks like I’ll be pretty late.”
“Sudden by-election and all~ Being a civil servant’s no joke, huh~”
Soichi took a sip of coffee and sighed.
“Just like I said—they’re working me to the bone with that ‘whatever happens, happens’ attitude.”
Tsubame playfully snatched the newspaper from his hands. Arms folded, she looked at him with a warm smile.
“Come on, no more grumbling. Let’s both give it our best today.”
“Yeah, yeah.”
Soichi grinned sheepishly and headed for the front door.
“Alright, I’m off.”
“Take care.”
Tsubame saw him to the entrance, then burst out laughing when she spotted the lunchbox he’d left behind.
“Honestly, what am I going to do with you.”
She hopped on her bicycle, chased after Soichi who had already gone a good distance, and held out the lunchbox.
“Hey… this.”
“Tsubame!”
“You forgot your lunch?”
“How’d you even catch up?”
“Oh, this and that—I managed somehow~”
“Hey, hey. Be careful, okay? Think a little more about your own body…”
Just as Soichi started to lecture her, Tsubame leaned in, pressed a quick kiss to his lips, and stepped back.
“A little magic to give you energy! …Or something like that.”
“I should be able to come home early tomorrow.”
“Really~?”
“So what do you want for dinner?”
Soichi thought it over for a long moment before answering.
“Curry sounds good, maybe?”
Tsubame gave him a playful salute.
“Understood! Now get going carefully.”
She waved affectionately at her husband’s retreating back. Then she found a quiet, empty spot, transformed into the magical girl Top Speed, and soared into the sky, muttering to herself.
“Guess I can do the grocery shopping this evening…”
◇ Ripple
By the time the sky had turned the deep red of sunset, Top Speed finally managed to meet up with Ripple. Top Speed spoke first.
“I hate places like that fountain from last time!”
“I already apologized~ Besides, your assigned district, Kitayado, is way too peaceful.”
“You say peace is the best, and then you go and—”
“How about we kill some time around here? It’s still early for our meeting with Calamity Mary.”
“Tch!”
“So stop making that face already~ Hey, Ripple-san~”
“Shut up!”
Near the place they had arranged to meet Calamity Mary, Top Speed asked Ripple a question.
“Ever heard of the biker gang ‘Empress’?”
“Not at all.”
“Hah…! They used Kitayado as their base and raised a hell of a lot of trouble. Heh, surprised?”
“……Haven’t you told me that story before?”
“No, this is the first time…”
Ripple felt a strange sense of unease and pressed further, though she couldn’t pin down what was wrong. Then a line she herself had once spoken suddenly surfaced, and she asked,
“Didn’t I ever say something like, ‘You’re so lacking in surprises that it actually surprised me’?”
“……No, never. And that’s exactly what I thought. These days I’m living an extremely ordinary life.”
Top Speed continued,
“It’s almost time for the meeting.”
“Can I ask? How did you manage to go back to a normal life?”
“Back in elementary school there was a girl my age and her older brother who was seven years older. That guy was a total pain. ‘Don’t drag my little sister around until late,’ ‘Don’t buy her junk food’—he treated me like some little brat trying to snatch his sister away! Ah, but I guess I have that guy to thank for the life I have now.”
“……You’re pregnant, right? And you married that older brother too… That’s what I’m guessing, at least.”
Top Speed’s face flushed bright red.
“Are you a mind reader or something? How did you know…??!”
◇ City N, Nabukashi
Before the sniper round arrived with a sharp bang, Ripple’s body moved on pure reflex and shoved Top Speed aside.
“Calamity Mary?”
“Where is she?”
Bullets began pouring down at high speed.
“She meant to kill me from the start…!”
Top Speed and Ripple broke into a run, dodging the rain of gunfire.
“Looks like she’s shooting from pretty far away. Let’s just hide in the shadows of the buildings and get out of here.”
“If someone picks a fight, you take it.”
“You idiot! This isn’t a fight! Just shut up and follow me.”
“Ugh… nngh.”
Ripple clutched her head. A dull pain throbbed somewhere inside, but the two of them scrambled onto the magic broom.
“If we fly with the meter off, she won’t be able to track us!”
“Meter?”
“It’s just a figure of speech! We’re going.”
Ripple felt a powerful sense of déjà vu, as if she had lived through the exact same moment before, yet she still could not grasp what it meant. Top Speed rocketed forward at top speed.
Calamity Mary leapt from rooftop to rooftop, locking onto the flying targets—Top Speed and Ripple—through her scope and squeezing the trigger.
Then the absolute worst possible thing happened. Calamity Mary put a bullet through a car tire and blew the vehicle apart.
The road erupted into flames in an instant. One explosion set off the next in a chain of deafening blasts.
“What the hell!!?”
Calamity Mary next opened fire on human hearts. Civilians collapsed one after another, and the situation spiraled completely out of control. She muttered to herself,
“Humans are so fragile they’re no fun as humans. Cars are about the right level… no, better than cars.”
Flames shot up in the direction of the highway. Three magical girls sprinted that way; even from Ogatsuji the fire on the expressway was clearly visible.
“What do we do? We should go help…”
Swim Swim said,
“We’re leaving the rescue to the other magical girls. That’s why we pointed Calamity Mary at them in the first place.”
“You planned this? ……Even so…”
“We’re going to ambush the magical girls who come to help. Hurry and get ready.”
Perhaps because Yunael was dead, Minael’s expression was pitch-black as she spoke.
“Yeah…… Let’s kill every last one of them.”
Tama looked around at the others, eyes darting nervously.
◇ The Forest and Another Irregular
“Huh? Master’s not going-pong?”
Deep in the woods, the Musician of the Forest Cranberry sat playing a grand piano.
“What should I do?”
“I think it’d definitely be fun if you went-pong.”
“More importantly, is it true that Winterprison was killed? Who killed her?”
Calamity Mary muttered under her breath.
What’s even more fun than cars… is killing magical girls with my own two hands.
Two boys watching the chaos from the forest finally spoke.
“What the hell is this? You told me to wait until it got this bad, hyung! This isn’t just a few people getting hurt. Civilians are dying helplessly left and right.”
“That’s enough. You don’t have to say another word. I’ve got so much justification now it feels like my head’s going to explode. This garbage Magical Kingdom…”
Gaku Shinomiya’s brow furrowed. He spoke quietly.
“It’s decided. Whether pressure comes down from above or not, we crush Calamity Mary and Fav. I’ve got things to prepare, so I’m going to start rescuing people first. The place is the Priestess Hotel.”
“……Are you going to be okay?”
Gaku Shinomiya was not a magical girl; he was a mage. He had once said that a mage’s body was weaker than a human’s and died easily.
◇ Gaku Shinomiya
Yet even within the Magical Kingdom, Gaku Shinomiya’s existence was an irregular among irregulars.
The Japanese-style name alone already marked him as alien, and his very being stood outside every regulation.
His magical potential was overwhelming.
An unprecedented genius who graduated from the Magical Kingdom Academy in a mere six months.
Ordinary people whispered among themselves,
“That thing… is a monster that has left the category of human.”
He was the sole possessor, even in the Magical Kingdom, of a unique spell formula.
A form of magic that no mage other than magical girls could ever handle.
Spell Formula — Doryeongjeongdo
⟨ Path of Guiding Spirits ⟩
A ritual that guides the dead onto the proper path.
In exchange, Gaku Shinomiya’s physical abilities rise dramatically in proportion to the number of the dead.
Moreover, if the deceased was a mage or a magical girl, he can perfectly reproduce their magic or even possess their physical capabilities within his own body.
This spell formula is a forbidden art that Gaku Shinomiya has used only once.
Even the name Doryeongjeongdo was bestowed by the Magical Kingdom itself.
Because of its potential as a weapon of war, even the people of the Magical Kingdom dare not treat him lightly.
The sole exception is Mana of the Audit Division.
Yet the formula is not omnipotent.
No matter how greatly his power is amplified, the upper limit he can reach remains the ceiling of a magical girl’s existence.
He cannot surpass it.
Gaku Shinomiya quietly lifted his head.
“…Alright.”
A faint smile touched the corner of his mouth.
“Then…”
“Shall we cut loose a little?”