Snow White's Return Chronicle
Cranberry had instinctively started to run away the moment she turned her back, her pride as the arrogant Selection Gate examiner shattered into pieces long ago.
In the past, she had triumphed over several other powerful mages who could simultaneously handle multiple magics. But the red disaster before her eyes was on an entirely different level.
More than anything else, what drove her mad was the unfair fate that had doomed her.
Even... my precious one had come back to life. I could never forgive that.
Within Cranberry's heart, a scream mixed with jealousy and hatred erupted.
She had lost the only friend who had understood her—because she was weak—Miya Octave.
(Why did your precious one come back to life? Why did mine die so thoroughly?! Why only you...!)
The cowardly yet heart-wrenching voice sliced sharply through Snow White's mind.
But Snow White remained unmoved.
In front of Cranberry, memories of her childhood flashed by like a stroboscope.
◇Forest Musician Cranberry 『Kurano Ichigo (Age 9)』
It was an early morning at age nine, third grade.
One sheet of paper she had accidentally found under a parked car changed her destiny.
【Tonight at 11:30】All girls who wish to become magical girls, gather at the school athletic field.
“Hey, Ichigo-chan. What are you going to do?”
Momo asked.
At the time, I was a coward and a crybaby, a pathetic kid who was constantly bullied even in school.
Instead of answering, I stared blankly at the chick box in the corner of the vendor stall.
The uncle, perhaps feeling sorry for me, handed me a cute little red chick.
But that tiny red life never saw the next day and grew cold.
“Chicks from the festival probably don’t live long anyway.”
A careless remark from a senior boy made me stop crying.
The grief instantly turned into cold hatred.
An indescribable loathing toward that boy.
It was the first spark that had awakened within me.
Her best friend, Momo Sonomiya, took me by the hand and comforted me with all her heart.
We used an ice cream stick as a grave marker and planted beautiful flowers nearby.
And sang a soft song to mourn the chick’s soul.
That night, before heading to the athletic field, Miya Octave asked again.
“What are you going to do? You’re going, right?”
I answered in a low voice, hiding my embarrassment.
“...Just in case it’s not real, I think it’s better to watch the situation from a distance.”
“It’s definitely real, Ichigo-chan.”
“If it is, that’s a problem in its own way. It’s scary...”
Momo held my hand tightly and smiled brightly.
“It’ll be okay. No matter what happens, I’ll protect Ichigo-chan.”
Following Momo’s hand, we arrived at the school courtyard, where roughly half of the half-female girls had already gathered.
And in front of them stood one sister dressed like a magical girl, with a bored expression, fiddling with a machine.
The sister, who had been yawning, swept us with her gaze and flicked a switch on the machine.
『Hello, everyone who wants to become magical girls! You all came together well today!』
Half of the life forms hovering in the air were white and half were black-and-white marshmallow-like creatures, scattering dazzling golden powder.
Once the blinding light subsided, the world’s scenery had already changed.
And beyond that unfamiliar landscape, a pure white magical girl I had long admired was running straight toward me.
“You... are Ichigo?”
That voice belonged to Sonomiya Momo.
My only friend, the magical girl Miya Octave.
Cranberry’s pupils, watching the red magical girl before her—Snow White—narrowed and trembled.
That child had been the same at first too.
Snow White before becoming a magical girl was nothing but a cowardly crybaby.
An existence too weak to do anything without help, buried in an ideal of becoming a perfect magical girl and shedding only tears.
That kind of person was now clutching my ankle.
It was the same as the Kurano Ichigo who had only cried helplessly in front of the chick’s death in the past.
“...It feels like looking into a disgusting old mirror.”
Twenty years had passed since then.
But to Cranberry, the memory of that day remained as vivid and bitter as fresh blood spilled yesterday.
Suddenly, the site of that brutal Selection Exam overlapped beyond the red rain streaks.
Fav’s voice, filling the peaceful athletic field with screams.
『The summoned demon has gone berserk as a test for the Selection Exam ability test!』
The homunculus called a ‘demon’ was a monster that had broken free from the test’s control.
It was not a trial for survival but a one-sided slaughter.
Magical girl candidates and even the examiners were mercilessly torn apart.
In the hell where corpses lay scattered everywhere, the giant homunculus’s fist came crashing down toward Ichigo.
“No, Ichigo!”
Momo, who had wrapped me in her arms, was flung into the air.
Her figure, being hit mercilessly and flying away, was etched into my retinas in slow motion.
The victim kept falling without stopping.
Followed by Fav’s apathetic declaration.
『Master also deceased.』
At that moment, something inside Ichigo snapped.
It was less grief than a fierce rage at the ‘weakness’ of this world that could not protect her and her precious ones.
Under the excruciating pain that made her head swell, she pulled her magic beyond its limit.
She silenced every sound of the forest and carved through the homunculus with nothing but the vibration of destruction.
Before Momo’s cold corpse, the girl was reborn.
『Amazing! I’m so bored with these boring tests! Pong! Want to become my partner, Fav? From now on, let’s live more stimulatingly together!』
With a mad grin, she laughed bitterly at the lunatic mascot’s proposal.
After that day, ‘weakness’ in her world was a sin.
『Weak magical girls are unnecessary. The ones who cling to the heels of strong magical girls must be culled.』
As long as I could fight a stronger one.
As long as I could kill a true strong opponent who would make me tremble.
Selection Exams had become not a duty for her but the only amusement and a twisted funeral rite for the dead Momo.
“...That’s why I hate you so much, Snow White!!!!”
Cranberry spat blood and muttered.
The Snow White before her was wearing the eyes of the ‘weak past’ she had loathed and excised so deeply.
But how that weakness had become a destructive power that overpowered her, Cranberry could not understand.
No, she didn’t want to understand.
“Killing the strong is fun. But...”
Cranberry squeezed out the last of her strength and stood up.
Her whole body was collapsing, but only her eyes gleamed with killing intent, just like twenty years ago when she faced the homunculus.
“Weak magical girls must die. You and your past self too!”
From her entire body, a final sonic wave burst forth.
It was not beautiful music but a dissonant scream that destroyed everything and tore even herself apart.
Through the rain, Snow White’s calm voice rang out.
It was a cruel truth that shattered the ‘fortress of strength’ Cranberry had solidly built over twenty years.
“Sinomiya-san told me what happened after that. Miya Octave didn’t die back then.”
“...!”
Cranberry’s pupils shook violently.
Snow White continued calmly.
“She went with Telmi-dol to find you. But she fell into a trap due to the Magical Kingdom’s HR division’s scheme. The three of them combined their powers to bring down the homunculus again. But... you had already changed by then.”
Snow White’s gaze lingered on Cranberry’s torn clothes.
“Your Selection Exam that brutally made the candidates kill each other. Telmi-dol, enraged by your madness, used a ‘sound-blocking item’ to try to kill you. But Miya Octave, who didn’t want you to die, hugged you and took the blow instead. And you killed Telmi-dol right there.”
A silence fell.
Cranberry’s lips twisted, and a grotesque smile spread.
“...You know the details quite well. I suppose I should call it the investigative prowess of the Magical Kingdom’s eccentric mage, Gaku Sinomiya.”
“No. The part where I thought Miya Octave saved you was my guess.”
Snow White declared, lowering her whip.
“Sinomiya-san ordered that you be arrested instead of killed. So... I’m not going to kill you.”
“...How arrogant.”
Cranberry burst into a bloody laugh.
“You’re not going to kill me? Are you pitying me? Or is that miserable life of Miya Octave’s you’re protecting!”
A sinister vibration rose once more from her entire body.
The truth that she had kept her life alive by someone else’s sacrifice was, to Cranberry, more humiliating than any defeat.
She prepared to charge toward the red sailor magical girl again to prevent her ‘logic of the strong’ from collapsing.
But she could not confront her at all.
An overwhelming difference.
All sound stopped.
The strongest Selection Gate examiner, Cranberry, finally dropped to her knees on the ground.
The only one left was a single woman, wounded and breathing hard.
Snow White withdrew her whip.
And from behind the red-stained sailor uniform sleeves, she extended a hand just as quietly as it had been in the past.
A hand filled not with hatred or vengeance, but with judgment and salvation.
“...”
Cranberry stared blankly at that hand.
Twenty years ago, Momo’s hand that had held hers on the athletic field overlapped in her vision.
She reached out with her trembling hand and intertwined her fingers with Snow White’s.
It looked like the final chord marking the end of the long Selection Exam.
But... the miracle ended there.
Crash—!
Suddenly, accompanied by a destructive noise that tore through the quiet forest, a huge hole appeared right in the center of Cranberry’s chest.
“...Ah?”
Black blood gushed from between Cranberry’s lips.
Her fingers, which had been trying to grab Snow White’s hand, lost all strength.
Snow White and La Pucelle’s eyes filled with shock.
Behind Cranberry’s back, a massive scythe appeared, slicing through space.
The merciless blade was piercing her heart.
“Ahaha, I finally got you.”
From above, the gaze of a magical girl with sky-blue hair glistening in the rain was cold as she twisted the scythe with a mad smile.
“The ones that need to die should die at the right time, right?”
Cranberry could not even scream.
Life slowly drained from her pupils.
Leaving behind the phantom of her friend lost twenty years ago, the Forest Musician Cranberry met such a futile yet cruel end.
Immediately after, a huge hole opened on the ground and swallowed Cranberry whole.
The hand that had been reaching for her fell limply into the void.
Only the sound of rain covered her trail.