Even for a Different Ending
La Pucelle
It was right after Calamity Mary had unleashed her indiscriminate highway terrorism and Snow White had been sent ahead. Two magical girls struck from the empty rear, aiming for the opening.
"You're attacking us when we ought to be helping each other?"
Minael floated in midair, her voice dripping with scorn. A moment later she transformed into an axe and came screaming toward them at terrifying speed.
La Pucelle drew his greatsword at once and caught the blow. A crushing impact jolted up through his wrists.
"…Minael."
Hardgore Alice charged straight at her. La Pucelle's mind flashed to the contents of the Regression Notes Snow White had written.
According to those pages, they would hear the voice of the cowardly magical girl Tama. There was no way to detect her while she hid beneath her cloak of invisibility — but there was a way to draw her out.
The notes recorded that among Swim Swim's group, Tama had hesitated aloud: "Is it really all right not to save people?"
"…There's one more of you over there, isn't there?"
"Sorry — you caught me!"
Tama's flustered voice burst from empty air. Minael immediately shed her axe form and flew into a rage.
"What do you mean, you got caught?! You useless idiot! Moron! Piece of trash!"
As Alice pressed the attack and drove Minael back, Minael shouted desperately toward Tama.
"Hand it over to me!"
The instant she tried to snatch Tama's invisibility cloak and flee, La Pucelle seized the opening, sweeping his greatsword across their escape route and cutting them off. At the same time, he snatched at Tama as she tried to slip underground and vanish from the fight.
"…"
"Did they get away?"
Alice asked. La Pucelle shook his head. He had lost Tama — but the enemy's coordination had fallen apart.
"I'll go after Snow White for now."
Alice started to run, then hesitated. Screams were rising from every direction along the burning highway.
"Help me… please, somebody help me!"
Panicked, Alice turned toward the cries for rescue. The scene was catastrophic. The flames showed no sign of dying down, and smoke choked the air.
He was worried about Koyuki — but La Pucelle could not go to her.
And even if he tried to help, he would only be a burden.
Right now, saving civilians came first.
Hours may have passed. From within the flames, Swim Swim appeared, a short sword in hand. La Pucelle tightened his grip on his greatsword and held his guard.
"Attacking us when magical girls are supposed to help each other — that's despicable!"
Swim Swim's magic was matter phasing. Against an opponent who could simply let attacks pass through her, a greatsword was useless.
All he could do was read the trajectory of her strikes and block them. The sharp crack of steel on steel rang out again and again.
"And you still call yourselves magical girls?!"
Swim Swim gave no answer — only murderous, relentless attacks. Every movement was meant to kill him. She caught his greatsword deftly on her short blade and slid backward.
Ting!
In an instant she had opened the distance. Her voice dropped low with command.
"Minael, cancel it. We're running. Snow White might be coming."
The short sword in Swim Swim's hand suddenly transformed into the shape of a magical girl — Minael, whose power let her become inanimate objects.
"Okay!"
"…Swim Swim…!"
"We've achieved our objective."
Swim Swim located the still-hidden Tama and left the scene without a shred of hesitation.
Their speed was terrifying. Damn it — he'd lost them in a single breath.
A short while later, Hardgore Alice emerged at a slow walk, cradling a gloomy-looking rabbit doll against her chest. She hadn't been carrying it during the fight.
"That doll?"
"It's something precious, so…"
Alice nodded.
He asked nothing more. Instead of pursuing the fleeing enemies, they kept up the rescue work until Snow White returned.
When she finally came back, Snow White's face was twisted in raw anguish.
"…I need to get to the hospital. How did the rescue go?"
"We got everyone who was still alive."
But the dead could not be saved. Using this hellscape as cover to murder their own comrades — Swim Swim's group was beyond forgiveness. That was not something a human being did.
"Thank you, La Pucelle."
A deep darkness clung to Snow White's expression.
Snow White
She dreamed a nightmare of Fav's holographic projection chattering away without end.
"Trying to observe something even when you know it's beyond you — that's a bad habit of magical girls-pong. If La Pucelle and Hardgore Alice had properly kept that in mind, they wouldn't have died like dogs. And Top Speed, singing about how badly she wanted to live, only to die like an idiot…"
She hurled Fav's master terminal away.
A dream…?
Should she call it a dream, or a flashback? Fragments of the past rose like restless ghosts.
At the same time, Fav's ugly inner voice scraped across her brain.
(The weapon Swim Swim was using… a Magical Kingdom weapon!)
"O-oh no-pong! Fav never once treated Top Speed like a fool-pong. Fav respects every magical girl-pong!"
It came again. The terror beneath that hypocritical voice.
(That's dangerous… extremely dangerous…!)
"I-it might have looked like Fav was being mean to the magical girls, but that was all on Cranberry's orders-pong."
(I have to talk my way out of this somehow…!)
"Ripple, think carefully-pong. Fav even told you how to beat Swim Swim…"
Ripple raised her weapon.
"Wait-pong, Ripple! Just listen for a second…"
In that moment, she had thrown every ounce of her strength into a shout aimed at Ripple.
"Don't listen to a word that thing says!"
"Aaaah, wait-pong, Ripple…!"
Ripple's weapon shattered the Magical Phone, and Fav's form crumbled away in wretched pieces.
The sickening nightmare passed, and she opened her eyes. Dawn had already come and gone.
A tall steel tower near Kubegahama. In the original timeline, this was the place where Snow White had been left alone with Ripple after La Pucelle's departure — a place to chew on solitude.
Ripple had survived. But she herself had put Ripple in danger. She had nearly gotten Ripple killed again, and because of her, innocent civilians had been put at risk.
Guilt snared her ankles and dragged until she could barely take a step — and by then, someone was already standing atop the tower.
It seemed La Pucelle hadn't been able to sleep either.
"So you were here too, Sou-chan."
"Koyuki?"
The promise they had made — to use each other's real names only when they were alone. La Pucelle looked at Snow White with eyes full of worry.
"I just… couldn't sleep."
"Same here."
La Pucelle took a step closer and asked carefully,
"Koyuki, you've looked awful for a while now. Is it… because of Shinomiya-san after all?"
Snow White pressed her lips shut instead of answering. Their savior lay on a hospital bed as if the earth itself had swallowed him, and those left behind were barely breathing atop the fragments of the "miracle" he had left behind.
She had believed she had changed so much of tragedy's course — and still, the self-loathing of having hurt someone closed around her throat.
When La Pucelle reached out a hand, Snow White flinched back on instinct. Fear flooded through her.
Because she knew the future, she had tried to use even the people she cherished. What if Sou-chan condemned her for it — what if he had come to hate her?
"…Hey, Koyuki. The fact that I'm alive is thanks to you."
Gaku Shinomiya had told her once before. Even if the butterfly effect brought tragedy, that path was never a complete dead end.
Even if you were driven to the brink, you kept going, believing there was still a chance to break the situation open.
"Why… why won't you blame me? You knew everything, Sou-chan! I left people to die! That's something a magical girl must never do! I'm not a magical girl anymore! I don't even have the right!"
"No. I… I think Snow White is this city's true magical girl."
La Pucelle reached out again and gently drew Snow White close. He brushed away the tears sliding down her cheeks and smiled brightly.
"It's all right. You tried not to give up, right to the end. So Koyuki — you can become one. A real magical girl. So please… don't cry."
"…Why. I don't have any right to that. And if even you say so, Sou-chan, then I… what am I supposed to…"
"They used to call you Snow White, the Magical Girl Hunter, didn't they? The nickname for someone who finds wicked magical girls and brings them to justice. I think even that name is proof that you are a magical girl."
Gaku's words from the hospital room circled her ears once more.
Even if your choices were the worst ones possible — there are people you saved.
He must have known. How desperately Snow White had thrashed and fought to keep these people alive.
"Honestly, I'm terrified… You, Sou-chan, and Hardgore Alice, and Ripple — you're all so precious to me. That's why I can't stand the thought of letting any of you die. But because of me, Ripple…"
La Pucelle quietly pulled Snow White into his arms when she could no longer speak.
Knowing that what she needed now was warmth more than any words, he simply patted her back with a gentle hand.
When the long stretch of sobbing finally began to ease, La Pucelle whispered,
"Feeling a little calmer now, Snow White?"