The Musician's Fall
Thirty minutes earlier.
The rain poured down in sheets so fierce it seemed to slice through flesh. Blood seeping from his wounds was washed away by the downpour, yet the bleeding showed no sign of stopping. His body was a wreck, but strangely, his senses remained razor-sharp.
A chill killing intent pressed against his back. He did not need to turn to know who had come to end him.
He chose to accept his death in silence. If a life spent as an avenger was to close with another’s revenge, no ending could feel more fitting.
“If you’re going to kill me, do it now. I’m the enemy who shattered your team’s plans.”
Even emergency aid would have been pointless. His life would gutter out on its own soon enough, yet the shadow behind him refused to move.
“……Why aren’t you killing me?”
He turned his head. There stood the comrade who had remained beside Minael and Swim Swim—the magical girl in the dog costume, Tama. With her magic she could have opened holes through his entire body with a single twitch of her finger and finished him instantly. But the feeling radiating from her was not killing intent. It was a sorrow that looked ready to collapse at any moment.
“I killed your comrades. Swim Swim and Minael both died by my hand. Aren’t you angry?”
His provocation drew no answer. Instead, with trembling hands, Tama began wrapping bandages around his wounds. He could not comprehend this absurd kindness—tending an enemy’s injuries.
“……I hate you too. But, but……!”
Tama’s face was a ruin of rainwater, tears, and snot.
“I hate myself more for standing by and watching someone die without doing anything!”
Timid and hopelessly kind, yet she had thrown herself into this hellish Ogetsu-ji. Poor girl.
“I want to stop now……. I don’t want to see any more of this—having to kill someone just to survive.”
Her sobbing voice sent a dull throb through a corner of his heart. He had once asked Snow White to kill Cranberry. But the moment he faced this child, the plan inside him had begun to twist.
“Tama, I promise. If I ever face you all again…… I’ll do everything I can to let the rest of Ogetsu-ji survive—everyone except Swim Swim. I mean it.”
He smiled bitterly. Come to think of it, he had never been protagonist material. What he was about to do would betray the merciful Snow White and shatter the expectations of Ako Hatoda, who had believed in him. He was no protagonist, no main character, not even an ordinary supporting role. He was simply the villain who scrubbed the filthiest corners of this blood-soaked tale.
Snow White would have extended a hand of forgiveness even to someone as vicious as Cranberry. But he could not allow that. The price of sin had to be paid.
“Listen…… I have one request.”
“…….”
“The selection exam will end soon. To make sure it ends for good, I need your help. Will you come with me?”
Tama hesitated. Then, with a resolute expression, she nodded.
“It’s all right. It’s very simple. When I give the signal…… dig a huge hole right under her feet.”
The Forest Musician Cranberry. Your end would never be salvation.
Cranberry, fallen into the enormous pit, was no longer the ruler of the forest. She was only a pitiful sinner gasping beneath the weight of her own accumulated karma. The light-blue-haired magical girl reverted to the form of a boy, strength spent, and collapsed. Snow Blood, in the blood-red sailor suit, slowly descended into the hole.
“Cranberry……”
“……It seems you’re finally receiving the karma you’ve built up.”
The blood-soaked Cranberry smiled bitterly and continued. Her eyes were already fixed on some distant place.
“I have one request……. Could you protect a magical girl named Petchika in my place?”
Between faint breaths, her final words slipped out.
“It’s Miya Octave’s will……. Even though I’m no longer a magical girl……”
With those words that sounded like a will, the dignity that had ruled the forest vanished without a trace. Where the magic had been released, only the naked corpse of a woman in her early thirties—Ichigo Kurano—remained. It was the futile conclusion of a selection exam stained with blood for twenty years.
“……!”
At that moment the fallen Kurei Fuwa lurched upright as if seized by a fit. Staggering toward the corpse with steps that looked as though a hole had been drilled through his head, a heartrending scream tore from his throat.
“Give them back! Give Mom back……! Give my sisters back……! My little sister!”
Kurei, sanity gone, charged at the corpse to mutilate it. The enemy who had stolen every member of his family except Akane Fuwa and himself. The cruel truth Gaku Shinomiya had spoken was ripping the boy’s soul apart.
“Give them all back……!!! Cranberry!!!!”
Snow Blood seized Kurei’s arms in desperation.
“Don’t stop me!! Snow White!!”
“Kurei, please!”
“I…… I let this one off too easily. That won’t do! I have to curse her and curse her again until the very end…… Urgh, uweeeeh!”
Kurei’s scream broke into violent retching. Cranberry’s memories, usurped through the magic that had activated on its own, flooded in indirectly; the sensation of slaughtering the family he had loved ravaged his brain. Kurei howled until blood flecked his cries, then his eyes lost focus and went blank.
“……Let go. Let go of this.”
But the rough voice soon faded. The avenging spirit that had borrowed the boy’s body vanished. In its place remained only a terrified child.
“Red…… scary. It hurts…… Mom, where’s Mom? I’m scared……”
He looked at Cranberry’s corpse lying on the ground yet did not even recognize it as his enemy. He was simply terrified by the primal horror of a dead body and, like a small child, wailed and crawled across the ground trying to flee.
“Sis…… I want to go home. I want to go to Akane sis…… Hic, Mom……”
Kurei flailed his arms and turned to Snow Blood standing behind him.
“Where…… is Mom?”
As if the spring of memory had been wound backward, he had returned to a very distant childhood. It was the side effect of his brain breaking itself to reject the horrific reality and memories.
“Who are you? ……Akane sis’s friend?”
In the eyes of the boy who could no longer reason beyond a middle-school level, neither revenge nor hatred remained. Only the pure fear of a child lost in a strange forest lingered.
Snow Blood could say nothing. The end of revenge was not victory. The enemy was dead, and the avenger had lost his self. In the rain-mixed stillness of the forest, all Snow Blood could do was cover the boy’s wet eyes so he would see no more.
Using the title of corpse handler and borrowing Swim Swim’s body, he had obtained the corpse of the Forest Musician Cranberry. He had returned Koyuki Himekawa’s body to its original state.
“……I was worried you might break the promise, but it seems that worry was unnecessary. Obtaining Cranberry’s corpse is—”
Snow Blood had returned to Koyuki Himekawa’s appearance.
“As promised, I’ll take the corpse.”
Mitarai Sei, possessing Swim Swim’s body, lifted Cranberry’s corpse.
“Wait a minute.!”
“At least give us time to mourn.”
Koyuki Himekawa said.
“Do as you like.”
La Pucelle spoke from beside her.
“Let me do it too.”
Then Kano Sazanami spoke as well.
“Please, let me too.”
Koyuki Himekawa and her three companions offered their respects to the dead. They had been enemies, yet perhaps the true root of this tragedy lay within the Magical Kingdom itself.
“That was quick for a mourning. I thought you’d be shouting to revive this one…… Well, revival is impossible anyway. I used all my magic to bring you back; I can’t perform that kind of magic.”
“……Because you made a promise with Ripple, I don’t want to do anything that would break it further.”
“Heh. I wonder which version is the truth? Come to think of it, I never told you my name. Since the contract with Cranberry is over, I’ll at least give you that. Mitarai Sei—remember it. We’ll probably meet again.”
He lifted Ichigo Kurano’s corpse and disappeared.
And then Mitarai Sei spoke.
“It was pretty fun, Forest Musician Cranberry. And Fav too. Now the contract we made is terminated.”
Would Snow White be able to escape the fate of dying? Or would she survive that fate? Things were starting to get more interesting.
“Whether those kids become rebels who destroy the Magical Kingdom or people who protect it…… it should be quite entertaining either way. Whichever side they choose, I’m the villain.”
Fav deliberately cut the machine’s power, wrapping everything in silence.
(This is dangerous—very dangerous. The weapon Snow White is holding is a Magical Kingdom weapon…… that’s dangerous, quite dangerous. For now, to avoid being discovered, I have to hide. pong)
Koyuki Himekawa slowly walked toward the remains.
(Aaaah, I’ve been found out pong!…… For now I have to somehow sweet-talk my way out of this pong)
『……So, Fav was being used by the Forest Musician Cranberry. Cranberry is the bad one pong. So Fav was being used pong. It was Cranberry who made the magical girls kill each other pong』
“Do you really think I’ll believe that now?”
Snow White’s blade touched the mechanical device.
『Wait—Snow White, no, La Pucelle or Ripple, listen to the story…… please』
No one listened to Fav’s words. The precise root cause that had forced them to kill one another was this single mascot character.
Pajijijik……
The mechanical sound collapsed and broke apart. By the very weapon from the Magical Kingdom he had prepared, he himself was placed in mortal danger. It was a truly fitting end for the villain who had watched everything with indifference.