Encounter
The Western Wastewater Treatment Plant was the lowest point of the city, the place where every stench in town came to pool.
Once the enemies' stronghold, it was now operating at full capacity again. Steam rose from the settling tanks, and the thick, acrid haze set off wave after wave of dry heaves.
I had arrived first and taken a seat atop a water tank with a commanding view of the grounds, ready to greet the ones who were coming.
In the past, I had written out for my younger self what was to come — though in truth, I hadn't told him everything.
Tonight, every worker at this facility would vanish.
Naturally, we had no idea at the time. It was something we learned only afterward, in the course of putting the kaijin down and cleaning up the mess.
Because the facility was one everyone avoided, the homeless and ex-convicts had been employed for its maintenance — and that was why tallying their roster, no, simply counting how many of them there had been, took months.
"Ugh. God. This is gonna reek so bad my nose is gonna rot off."
"Screw that. Take this and be grateful. You think it's easy finding a free meal anywhere that doesn't come with a catch?"
I know now where they all went. They were used as material for the kaijin.
"Tonight I'm gonna absolutely wreck Hina, I swear."
"What? This punk? Wasn't she the one who blacked your eye? Just give me that money instead."
Ha. Tch. Maybe I should just leave them to become material.
"Hina looked totally pissed off yesterday, by the way."
"That's because you sent her a wall of texts, dumbass."
Ah. I think that was from me screwing up my words during the trip's aftereffects. For the record, kaijin and cadres are not the same thing.
"What? This bastard? I meant it. Do you know how much money I poured into her?"
"You complete moron. You got scammed, you idiot. Absolute clown of a human being."
And here's how they're different.
"What the hell is that? Is that Hina?"
"Huh? Huh? It's Hina."
A magical girl who has become a witch is called a cadre.
"You rotten little shits. Let's all die together!"
"W-wait, hold on!"
"Hina! Just hear us out!"
The crystal at the heart of her wand shattered, and a black aura wrapped around her.
"Spell, Darkness Power Overwhelming!!"
What we call a kaijin is the grotesque lifeform born from a cadre's magic.
Beyond the fence, I watched four furtive shadows slip over it.
Han Yuha led the way, her left arm still locked in its cast, her saber gripped in the only hand that was whole.
Why did you come out here with that arm?
For an instant, the sight of my senior so obviously uncomfortable nearly made my throat tighten.
"Senior. I told you to hide behind me."
Paeng Hayeon, scanning her surroundings with her barrier raised, hurried ahead and planted herself in front of the older girl.
"Heal charge complete. I'm not getting caught out like last time."
Yeon Ari tucked back the tail that had fluttered out from under the hem of her battle dress.
"I'm here this time, so don't you worry."
And then there was Jeong Sea, transformed, scanning the operational zone through chrome goggles that masked her eyes and nose.
Everyone had gathered in one place.
How long had it been since I'd seen us all together like this…?
"All clear."
Having finished her tactical scan, Sea shared the battlefield data with the team.
"Enemy numbers, positions, even the estimated time of manifestation…."
Han Yuha murmured, as if she couldn't quite believe it.
"Senior, shall we confirm the weak points listed here as well?"
Hayeon, whose plan had been approved, lowered her barrier.
Magical Taunt.
The starlight in her eyes flared red. Sparks kicked off from the corners of her eyes and raced down through her whole body. Armed in crackling red lightning, Hayeon charged straight ahead.
.
.
.
"Unni, your circuit recovery isn't done yet, is it?"
"Hayeon does all the heavy lifting, so this much is fine."
Where the runaway freight train had plowed through, all that remained were things trembling on their feet, resigned to a painless end.
Thwip—
For those of us following the vanguard, our role was merely simple cleanup. And just like that, the kaijin were wiped out in the blink of an eye.
"Hayeon. Good work out there."
The exhausted tank collapsed into the dealer's arms. Thumbs-up, Hayeon shifted her gaze toward the healer.
"That one stings."
A syringe, materialized above Yeon Ari's shoulder, pierced the fragile tank's skin.
"Raise your hand if it hurts."
Both of Paeng Hayeon's hands were immobilized, wrapped tight in Yeon Ari's tails. Haah. Dizzy from a single injection, Hayeon stared blankly, her attention bought and paid for by the swaying tip of a tail.
-This is severe syringe addiction, well beyond what any treatment would require.
-Hmph! Ridiculous. If what I'm doing isn't treatment, then what is it?!
If you will — the root of Hayeon's taunt skill, born back when she first got a taste of Yeon Ari's milk injections.
One, two, three, four. Yet Hyun Seorin — the me of this timeline, the one who had delivered the intelligence — was nowhere to be seen.
The reason was obvious. The one who brought the information was that kid.
If the informant were to appear on-site and be endangered, a crack would open in the operation — and the fallout might cost someone their life.
If she was the Yuha senior I knew, of course she would have judged it that way.
Granted, from where Hyun Seorin stood, guarding the house, the situation might have been rather galling. After all, he was the one who'd gone and gathered the information, yet not only was his reasoning left unexplained — he wasn't even allowed to join the operation.
Still, well… if it were me, I'd get over it just fine.
"…Huh?"
Sea tapped the edge of her goggles with a finger.
"What's wrong? Not this again."
"EEP! Same symptoms as last time!"
Jeong Sea yanked her goggles off at Ari's alarmed cry. During the previous operation, when jamming had erupted without warning in the abandoned station, the first to go down had been Jeong Sea.
"Ugh. I never wanted to feel that again."
Even with her power sealed, this was still better than blacking out.
"But, Unni. Something is definitely here."
Han Yuha raised her saber. And then—
CRACK—!
She batted away a sharp projectile.
"Aww~ what a waste."
A rich, girl-ish voice floated over from the direction of the throw.
Parting the black-tinged fog as she walked out came a magical girl. No — something that had been a magical girl.
Beneath hair dyed ash-grey, her costume trimmed in black, a wand whose shattered core crystals spun in mutual attraction hung parallel in her back-turned hand.
"And here I thought I'd filled today's quota already."
The cadre who had introduced herself as Hina still wore a human shape, this being before her rampage stage.
"You girls are no pushovers, huh?"
Hina reached out and coiled her grip around the space around her opponents.
"But tell me… why do you all look at your seniors like THAT?"
Magical girls bore a duty: to put down the senpai who fell first.
"Look at HER and call her senpai? Where exactly am I supposed to be looking?"
"You, goggles girl. That is a reeeally rude way to talk? I'll have to give you some proper disciplinary training."
I had run myself ragged trying to change this rotten state of affairs — and the way I'd done it was sending countless magical girls to their deaths by my own hand. Only now did I understand: it had been a structural problem, one that couldn't be fixed no matter how badly I wanted to.
"Anyway, you… you're giving me the creeps. You planning to glare at me from up there all day?"
Hina's gaze lifted upward. To me, sitting atop the water tank tower with my legs crossed.
Only then did the four of them turn their eyes toward me. Watching their baffled reactions, Hina covered her mouth with both hands.
"What. What. They didn't know?"
Hina's face lit up with genuine delight.
"And you call yourselves magical girls after that? Why do more and more of these bargain-bin recruits keep showing up? Truly… the end times, the end times."
Hina, playing the dashing senpai for all it was worth, abruptly let her expression harden.
"But why aren't you talking?"
"……"
"Is what I'm saying not good enough for you? You got something to say or not?"
"……"
"Fine, let's see it then. You — you rotten bitch?"
Drumming and fife-ing her own one-woman parade,
"Hey. You. Get down here and kneel. Get down right now and spread 'em!"
she finally threw her tantrum. Geez, that mouth of hers.
"Formation R."
Han Yuha issued the order in clipped tones. Her instinct for reading a battlefield that shifted from second to second with animal sharpness was beyond compare.
Her teammates, steeped in tension, nodded.
"Hayeon-senpai, Hayeon-senpai. Come on, wake up."
Hayeon's cheeks, lashed left-right-left-right by the tails, had flushed crimson.
"Mmmh… huh?"
"Hayeon-senpai. The order's up. Formation R."
"For real?"
The four magical girls took their ready stances.
Above or below — Hina saw no reason to deliberate. She raised her arm toward both points at once.
"Spell, Darkness—"
"Deploy."
.
.
.
Softly.
I stepped up behind her.
"Huh?"
All Hina could manage was a single word and eyes rolling back in her head.
Magical Sucking.
.
.
.
"…She ate a cadre."
Between breaths backed up to the top of her throat, Jeong Sea's voice slipped out.
"That was… a purge."
Han Yuha, having pulled off her desperate escape, analyzed what had unfolded between the two of them.
"We were being used."
The instant Sea grasped what her senior was getting at, she muttered to herself, of course—
"It was to flush out and eliminate a mole inside our ranks."
At those words, Yeon Ari flinched, seized by worry.
"Oh no… our poor oppa…."
After a moment lost in thought, Yeon Ari spoke to Han Yuha.
"Um… Senior? If it's not too much to ask… what if we didn't tell Seorin-oppa about this? Just in case… it would only…."
It was like her to worry: how heartbroken would he be, learning that the informant whose information he'd brought had died for it?
"Right. That kid still needs time to stabilize."
Han Yuha readily agreed.
"But, Unni."
"Mm. Go on."
"Didn't the Highest-Ranking Executive clearly say Magical back there?"
A question sharpened by Jeong Sea's keen observation.
"No. You must have misheard. The ones consumed by Dark Spells were those worthless senpai, after all."
"That's… true, I suppose."
Yuha's logic was so airtight that Sea could only grieve it.