A Distorted Course of Events, and the Mage of the Audit Division
Even after that, Snow White's exploits continued at an almost unnatural pace. And yet, in the news articles Koyuki Himekawa checked, a magical girl she had never once seen before kept appearing.
On the bus, her classmate Sumire spoke up as Koyuki scrolled through a compilation site.
"Come to think of it, another sighting went up recently. Want to hear it?"
"A new magical girl?"
Yoshiko looked thoroughly uninterested.
"Sumi, this again? My ears are going to grow calluses…"
If a new magical girl were appearing, it should have been Hardgore Alice. But things were different now. Something was off-kilter.
"Apparently she's a magical girl who's looking for something. Her presence feels like a reaper's, though, so everyone says she's terrifying…"
"…And?"
"Golden and blue heterochromia. But the sighting reports are way too sparse… Weirdly enough, she shows up in the forest a lot. Want to go check it out sometime?"
Yoshiko sighed.
"Sumi, seriously… You probably just mistook a wild animal. Plenty of cats have heterochromia."
"Yo-chan, you have no sense of wonder… Remember the last test of courage? You said the same thing and then actually saw a ghost. Going to do that again?"
"Koyuki, say something and stop her!"
After a moment's thought, Koyuki opened her mouth.
"…Maybe we should go."
"Ehhh!? All of a sudden?"
Strange. This sequence of events had never happened. A magical girl she had never seen. And the boy who had picked up the key. Neither of them had existed in the future she knew.
The boy's surname bothered her, too. He had clearly used the name Fuwa. Among the magical girls Koyuki knew, only one person bore that surname: Akane Fuwa. And the boy's name was Kurei Fuwa.
Did I really regress? Or did only my soul descend here, as a Snow White from some other world?
The question flickered through her mind.
"…I can't stay out late into the evening."
Yoshiko said it with a sour look.
"Just until before sunset, then. That okay, Koyuki?"
At Sumire's words, Yoshiko let out a deep sigh.
"Haa… So it's going to be like this again? I don't even want to go. Urban legends are all fake anyway…"
Koyuki murmured quietly.
"…Are they, though?"
It was around the time the sun had begun to dye the sky in sunset colors.
"Sumi… is this really the forest? It literally says No Entry right on the sign… You're not actually planning to go in, are you…?"
Yoshiko looked frightened.
This was the forest where that magical girl was said to appear. But Koyuki wasn't particularly worried. Once she transformed into the magical girl Snow White, leaping three times higher than any human could jump would be effortless.
"Shall we go in?"
"Koyuki… come on… We said we'd head back before sunset… Wouldn't it be better to just turn around…?"
Yoshiko stared at Sumire with a look of pure exhaustion.
Then—
"She's gone… For real… Did the grim reaper drag her off…?"
"There's no way! Sumi—"
"We should call the poli—"
Just then, an email arrived on Koyuki's phone.
"…Let's go back. The sun's about to set."
Koyuki Himekawa remained in the forest, transformed as Snow White. She wanted to return to her friends' side—but right now, she could not leave this place.
Then—
"Well, well. They do say the culprit always returns to the scene of the crime… Looks like that one was true."
A man's voice. A mage with red eyes, his face half-hidden under a hoodie. Snow White turned toward the direction the voice had come from.
"…Welcome, magical girl. Or should I call you Snow White?"
"Either way—now that you've come this far, why not stay and talk a while?"
Someone she had never seen before. Neither his voice nor his appearance existed anywhere in her memories of the future.
"…What are you planning? What happened to my friends?"
"Ohh… For a murderer, you seem rather fond of your friends."
…Murderer? Why would he say that?
But the Snow White of now could not hear the "voices of people's hearts."
"Well, don't worry about your friends."
The man in the hoodie set a single sheet of paper on his palm.
"You're the one in a tighter spot, aren't you? If your friends realize you've vanished, won't they find that strange?"
"…What are you getting at?"
"What's wrong? Are you going to send the email, or aren't you? I don't care whether the police show up, or my boss does."
Snow White fixed him with a hard stare.
"Ah—my bad."
The man gave a light shrug of his shoulders.
"I know who you are, but I haven't introduced myself. My name is Gaku Shinomiya."
A name she was hearing for the first time. And this man had already decided she was a "murderer."
"Don't make such a scary face. What's one mage from the Magical Kingdom supposed to do against a magical girl, anyway? …Right?"
Even so, Gaku Shinomiya made no move to talk further until she sent the email.
"Why are you calling me a murderer?"
"…Judging by that expression, you've killed someone before, haven't you. Looks like about one person, give or take."
How does he know?
No—at this point in time, she hadn't killed anyone yet. The past was another matter, but the Snow White of now had not taken a single life.
"…What is it you want from me?"
"You."
In that instant, Gaku Shinomiya drew out the objects he had been holding. One was a sword composed entirely of light. The other was a strange, cube-shaped object of unknown nature.
"…What is that?"
"Still playing dumb?"
Gaku's expression hardened.
"You open a killing game and then pretend you know nothing?"
"I… am not."
Snow White swallowed. Then she surveyed her surroundings—the distance she could flee, the terrain, the direction of his gaze. She calculated everything.
Gaku continued.
"Half a year ago, there was a magical girl called Tell Me Doll. This is an item that magical girl received from a magical girl of the Personnel Division."
He casually lifted the sword of light he was holding.
"But there's something strange. All the data left behind by the recording magic had been completely altered. The Magical Kingdom ruled it an accidental death. However—"
He paused for a moment.
"—this sword, which that magical girl should have been carrying, was found in this forest. And her body, with the head severed, was discovered twenty kilometers away on the outskirts of the city."
Silence. Snow White quietly opened her mouth.
"…And so you conclude that I was responsible for that incident?"
"No."
Gaku shook his head.
"It's simply that you're the only magical girl who entered this forest. Whether you're the culprit or not, I still don't know. But I have no choice but to be suspicious."
He took a step closer.
"And… there was an even more interesting article. On the same day, more than ten bodies were discovered. Investigation results showed they were all girls who had been magical girls."
"…That's the first I've heard of it."
Snow White answered that way. But whether those words were true or not, no one could know.
"…So that's how you're playing it?"
Gaku Shinomiya gave a small laugh.
"I'm not particularly confident, but fine. In that case, by force—"
In that instant—clang!
The sound of metal striking something cut Gaku's words short. From behind him, a magical girl had smashed the handle of a scythe into his head.
"Ow ow ow ow—! What the hell are you doing!"
Gaku clutched his head and spun around.
"I told you to use words! What are you so pissed about?!"
The magical girl answered in an irritated voice.
"I hate all of it. Making me end up like this, and openly suspecting people for no reason."
"That was your choice, wasn't it? You said it was beyond your control."
"Beyond my control, my ass—it was coercion!"
Koyuki recognized that figure at once. The magical girl who had existed only in sighting reports. A sky-blue ponytail. Heterochromatic eyes of gold and sky blue. Clothing that evoked a reaper. A chain ornament wrapped around the neck, ending in a trident-shaped decoration and a lock. An irregular.
"At the very least, it's not that magical girl."
The magical girl tossed the words out casually. Snow White carefully opened her mouth.
"…Um, you are—"
"Ah."
The sky-blue magical girl tilted her head.
"This is the first time you've seen me like this, isn't it."
She spoke as if it were nothing and released her transformation. The light faded, and left standing there was a boy with a familiar face. Kurei Fuwa.
"Thank you, for back then."
Kurei gave a light bow of his head.
"And, Shinomiya-nii. This person isn't the culprit. Please fix that habit of suspecting people out of nowhere."
It was nothing like the timid figure she had first met. His speech, his demeanor—he felt like an entirely different person. She didn't know what had happened, but he, too, was a magical girl.
"Can we please talk this out… instead of answering with violence…"
Gaku grumbled, rubbing his head.
"For what it's worth, I did hold back."
Kurei answered without concern. Gaku sighed and asked,
"More importantly—do you have any proof that magical girl isn't the culprit?"
"Of course I do."
Kurei pulled out his phone and opened the compilation site. It was packed with meticulously organized records of Snow White's activities.
"This magical girl has been around for less than a year. And if you look at these records, it's obvious Snow White can't be the culprit. In other words, she has nothing to do with an incident from several years ago."
"…Yeah, that checks out."
Gaku nodded.
"Sorry. I tend to be a bit too suspicious. And sorry for suddenly cornering you."
"No…"
Snow White answered softly.
"It's true that I acted in a way that invited suspicion."
Now she understood. She had not "regressed" into the past. She had simply fallen into a similar world, and was repeating the same current of events. Could this even be called regression? If so, she was nothing more than a being who had drifted into a parallel world.
Everything was fake.