Free-for-All in Kabukicho - 2

If the [Machine Gun] Magical Girl as depicted in the original story had to be defined in a single word, that word would be fanatic.

Fujimoto Sumire had taken command of the magical girls in place of Fujimoto Eiji, who was already dead by that point in the novel. And [Machine Gun] had been written as a character utterly, dangerously enraptured by her.

She was a girl bloomed onto the path of struggle through the Glass Stars harvested from unawakened one-star magical girls by the Union. Swearing loyalty to Sumire, she had thrown herself into slaughtering the magical girls of Flag right up until the very moment she died on the page.

As if fleeing from something.

As if a clown performing a play.

"Leader! Glory to you!"

"Thank you, Leader! Watch over us, please!"

"This power you gave us — we'll spend it in your name!"

"Machine Gun is... love!!"

It was nothing but shallow, skin-deep devotion — a madwoman's impression performed by someone desperate to play the part.

In the end, she died screaming for Sumire to look at her, to look at her just once, until her final breath.

＊

Shuuuuung—

"Yeehaw!!"

"H-Hana! With you!!"

Sato Hana came streaking across the rooftops, wreathed head to toe in a blinding radiance.

Dozens of meters of trailing light stretched out behind her, and the whole of it looked for all the world like a yellow meteor tearing across the sky.

I was chasing on the overwhelming output of a born three-star magical girl, spamming Blink in one-second intervals — and I still couldn't catch anything but her back.

It's exactly like that thing I used to imagine on the subway — someone chasing the train by leaping from rooftop to rooftop outside the window.

A silly daydream, surfacing out of nowhere. That was how incredible her performance was.

Every now and then the gap between buildings stretched past ten meters, and Hana simply sailed across the air anyway, her tail of light unbroken. Her mobility was flatly exceeding what Blink could manage, and that shook me more than anything.

Even with a Bloom, how is a born one-star putting out this much power?

Considering that born one-star magical girls who hadn't bloomed gasped themselves empty after casting Basic Magic a handful of times, this was nothing short of miraculous.

Whoosh— whoosh— whoosh—

She hopped from rooftop to rooftop like stepping-stones across a stream. And directly in the path of the yellow meteor screaming through the air, a high-rise loomed up.

"Hana! Pull back!!"

"Ahaha! It's fine!!"

She ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠flashed me the brightest grin and gunned it even faster. As her speed climbed, the air whipping past her shoulders rose to a threatening howl.

Shuuuuung——

The tower was close enough now that no turn, however sharp, could dodge it. I desperately moved to shield Hana with Psychokinesis — and then the astonishing sight that unfolded forced me to stop.

Fyushooong!

Dododododo——

Hana kicked lightly off the building across from the high-rise, her speed dropping not one whit through the hard reversal. She hurled herself at the tower's face and ran straight up the sheer vertical wall like it was a gentle slope.

A girl running for the sky.

If I forced myself to follow that, I'd blow half the surrounding buildings apart with Psychokinesis. Better not.

I meekly banked back onto my original route, staring all the while in open disbelief.

Th-this is just... incredible...

Nothing about this performance was believable as a born one-star.

Sato Hana is special.

The original story had never described a born one-star this powerful. It did occasionally show girls overpowering peers of the same rank through mana absorbed via Blooms and battles — but outright overwhelming output from the start, on par with girls a rank above? Among two-stars, only the likes of Fujimoto Sumire or Ichika had ever shown that.

"Hey! Leader! Sato! What am I supposed to do if you two ditch me back here?!"

Ichika, who had fallen a step behind, finally caught up, hollering in a wounded voice. Her output was weaker than mine — I was simply brute-forcing the chase — and outside of combat her Blink handling was clumsier than mine, so she'd been trailing for the better part of half an hour.

"Honestly!"

Pop.

"What a pain!"

Pop.

"This whole situation!"

Flickering into existence in bursts of light, Ichika vented a running stream of grievances.

"Couldn't agree more, Ichika."

"Hikari! Smoke up ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠ahead!"

"Looks like we're almost there."

"Now THIS is how you make an entrance!"

Hana, who had long since raced ahead, eased her speed and drifted back toward us. Straight line from Yokohama to Shinjuku — to Kabukicho. We had sprinted dozens of kilometers to finally reach the point where the district came into view.

"Good thing we skipped the train, huh."

"Heh, less of a mess than I figured. And we're not even late."

"Uuu, bad people doing bad things!"

Ichika clicked her tongue at the scene below while Hana cupped both hands into a megaphone shape and went booo — booo—.

The three of us stood in a row atop a rooftop. Traces of destruction and columns of smoke rising in the distance. And in that distance, our eyes could just barely pick out two things: fluorescent vermilion dots threading back and forth through the streets of Kabukicho like needles through cloth, and the unmistakable silhouette of a mecha marching proudly down the boulevard plaza.

Of course — we're dead center in the city. The police are already here.

Officers dispatched ahead of us had apparently tried to hold the line and failed. Barricades lay scattered in disarray across the middle of Kabukicho, their containment a lost cause, and the armed units couldn't push in easily through the panicking crowds and chaos.

"So what's the call, Leader?"

"We stop them."

"Alright!"

What was visible down there was a mecha robot and a motorcycle. The absence of Machine Gun herself bothered me.

First priority was halting the rampage of those two magical girls, then pulling the civilians caught up in it to safety.

Pa-at!

Colorless starlight. Emerald starlight. Two lights sparkled into being around us, and as they washed past, Ichika and I both transformed into our bloomed magical girl forms. Then I drew back the illusion veil I'd been keeping over our little party since earlier.

Our true figures, revealed once more. Against groups claiming to serve the [Beginning] Magical Girl, showing our faces would draw all the right eyes.

To keep anyone else from getting hurt, I need this whole district under my control.

Gripping my signature weapon — my staff — I leapt from the rooftop toward the streets of Kabukicho.

The very first thing I had ever practiced, in order to survive the [War] Magical Girl.

Large-scale illusion barrier magic.

Ching!

Above my head, a colossal square prism ten meters across materialized in a blaze of prismatic color. It rose skyward and shot off, streaking to the exact center of the sky above Kabukicho.

A cross-shaped fracture split its face, and the prism divided — four segments above, four below — into eight pieces that scattered on the wind.

Pat! Pat! Pat!

Eight prisms slotted rapidly into place at points across Kabukicho, and each one blazed with rainbow light, linking beam to beam with its neighbors. Connected, they glittered like a constellation of five brilliant colors — and the vast domain of starlight they traced expanded from points to lines, from lines to a plane.

"Whoa, what the heck is that?!"

"What is that? What are they trying to do?"

"Today has gone completely off the rails!"

The moment the barrier took shape, my consciousness spread outward with it, and ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠I could hear people crying out in alarm as the barrier etched itself into the world around them.

This place was my domain now — stitched directly to the landscape of my mind. Whatever I pictured in my heart became the illusion. And the illusion carried a warning: get out.

Over and over, I drove the warning into every citizen's mind, ringing there in my own voice.

"Wh-what on earth...?"

"What are we supposed to do?"

"Is this... actually real?"

Doubt. Hesitation. The rampaging girls had claimed to belong to a group founded by the [Beginning] Magical Girl herself — so nobody could bring themselves to trust the message. The perpetrators insisted they were [Beginning]'s subordinates, and now, of all times, the leader [Beginning] was telling everyone to run? It made no sense to them.

At this rate, it'll be too late.

Snkt!

I unfolded a new illusion.

A familiar face — one I'd seen before, a police officer.

"This is the police! Please follow the instructions of the [Beginning] Magical Girl!"

"They haven't begun rampaging in earnest yet! Evacuate in an orderly fashion!"

"It's dangerous if everyone bolts at once! Orderly! Single file!"

"Your safety is guaranteed by the police!"

"We will assist all citizens in evacuating safely!"

"Please escort the elderly and children first!"

"Just like your earthquake evacuation drills — follow them now!"

The face and voice of a officer named Yamashita, the man who had shadowed the investigation from the Metropolitan Police. I summoned him to mind and triggered the illusion — and in an instant, dozens of hot-blooded Officer Yamashitas in slightly mismatched uniforms popped up all across Kabukicho and began shepherding civilians to safety.

"Th-the police! Then we'd better listen!"

"Just think of it as an earthquake drill."

"Big sis, everyone from our shop got out safe!"

"Oi, flatfoot. Good work. Come by the shop sometime, yeah?"

Tap tap.

Here and there along the streets, yakuza who handled the neighborhood's peacekeeping slipped business cards to the Yamashitas (counterfeit) and withdrew, offering their thanks. The fake Yamashitas met that gratitude with righteous fire in their eyes.

"Protecting civilians is the sworn duty of the police!"

An utterly surreal situation — a rampage by magical girls. The frozen, shell-shocked citizens took the familiar voice of public authority and began reframing the whole crisis as one more earthquake drill.

Familiarity. Relief. The people quickened ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠their pace and began streaming out of Kabukicho toward the main roads, their bodies moving on autopilot the moment the scene overlapped with a picture they knew by heart.

Good.

From inside my domain, I puppeted the hot-blooded Officer Yamashitas with one strand of consciousness while unfurling a fresh barrier spell around the mecha, which was still lumbering about oh-so-slowly.

Shwoop!

An illusion veil two hundred meters in diameter. A black hemispherical barrier closed around the ivory mecha, cutting off every scrap of outside light.

[Nyohoho—uwaaah?! What is this?! Super Cool Mecha No. 1!! I shall deploy night-vision goggles!]

But if she restores her sight with night vision, sealing her in darkness means nothing.

"Damn it! Ichika! Take the robot — don't let it leave the barrier!"

"Got it! Leader!"

Tang!

Ichika dove off the building and plummeted toward the mecha trapped inside the veil, leaving a green afterimage as she streaked down.

Bwaaaaang—

The motorcycle's exhaust is getting closer.

A light was approaching from far off. The fluorescent vermilion bike that had hurled itself away the moment its partner saw the mecha snagged in my barrier was now racing back at full throttle. Even for Ichika, holding down the robot while she suppressed it would demand cover.

"Hana!"

"Yeah! Hikari!"

"Can you intercept the bike and bleed off its speed? I'm going to pin it down like the robot."

"Hmmm, how do I make it stop, though?"

"Try clamping down hard on the rear wheel, like a vise, with your yellow light."

"Aha! Like this?"

KWA-JIK.

Hana cheerfully crushed the bundle of steel plates beside her into paper with her yellow Psychokinesis, beaming the whole while.

"......"

For a moment I had no words, thanks to the extravagant performance she kept putting on.

"Yeah... maybe a little gentler than that."

"Okay! Magical Girl Sato Hana, deploying!"

"Be careful out there. I'll be watching the whole time — I'll back you up."

"Yeah! Don't worry, Hikari!"

A yellow meteor launched itself skyward with a laugh.

Shuuuuung—

And so Hana tore off toward the motorcycle like a shooting star. A formation straight out of a jousting tournament — two points of starlight closing on each other in a dead-straight line.

Still, sending Hana off alone makes me nervous...

I peeled my consciousness apart, splitting off two clones and sending them chasing after her. Then, keeping watch over the evacuating civilians, I set my remaining clones to monitoring every variable of this situation — cutting off as many of them as I could before they could ever come to pass.