The Third Light - 2
The first light of the Glass Star is connected to dreams.
The dreams that girls seek out and discover for themselves.
The second light of the Glass Star is connected to fate.
The fate that, through others, draws one's dream forward.
And the third light of the Glass Star is connected to the world.
The world that proclaims dominion and accepts others into it.
When the Second Red Broadcast passed and four magical girls proclaimed their domains to the world, the only realm most magical girls could reach was the Domain of War.
In a situation where monsters were descending and magical girls were at each other's throats, the four domains erected by transcendent beings were, at their core, both the final consideration and the final malice of the three evil gods pulling the strings from the shadows.
War left only the strong in its domain.
Revelation left only the faithful in its domain.
Plague left only the sick in its domain.
And Death left only souls in its domain.
That was why the Domain of War had appeared, without warning, in the very land where the strongest — the magical girls — had gathered and were fighting.
I'd deliberately planned things so I'd never have to face her, always steering clear of any path that might lead to her.
The moment I crossed blades with the one described as the strongest, the benefit of being an innate three-star might as well have evaporated into nothing.
The TV news was abuzz with talk of the age of magical girls that would begin alongside the chairman's inauguration of the [Beginning] Alliance Council.
In the original story, the true age of magical girls begins in a situation where they hold the power of life and death over ordinary people.
Clatter.
"Ah?!"
"Hm?"
Master, who had been adjusting the coffee grinders for each different bean, glanced over at me as I washed the dishes as if nothing had happened. Then he turned his eyes back to the grinder and muttered.
"If you're not feeling well, go home."
"...It's not that day, you know."
"Who said anything about that?"
"Asking if I've caught a cold, if I ate something bad, bringing me medicine — and then awkwardly changing the subject. Pretty obvious what you actually meant, isn't it?"
"Well, you chasing the tail of my words like that makes it pretty clear you knew exactly what I meant."
Master let out a low chuckle for a moment, then waved a hand, signaling me to take a break.
I sat down on a bench in the shade behind the cafe and gazed out at the scenery of Yokohama's harbor.
Whoosh. Whoosh.
Beyond the blue horizon, white ships came and went, drawing the boundary between sea and sky.
The beach under a cloudless sky was so clear and pristine — so unlike the state of my heart — that it somehow made the weight inside me feel even heavier.
It was into my ears, busy with tangled thoughts even as I stared at the clear sky, that Sato Hana's voice drifted.
"Hii~kari~chan~"
Tip-toe, tip-toe.
Sato Hana, her side tail swaying, checked whether any of the bad old men who usually smoked out here were around, then crept closer with quiet little steps.
In Hana's heart, Master seemed to occupy an awkward position — rude enough to tease her, yet oddly uncomfortable whenever they actually crossed paths.
Though after two years of watching her come and go from the cafe, you'd think they'd have warmed up to each other by now.
"Hi, Hana-chan."
"Hehe, were you looking at the ocean? I always do that too when my room feels stuffy."
Up we go!
Hana clambered playfully onto my lap.
The naturally high body temperature of a small child was a little much in the August heat, but I hid it and hugged her tightly.
If I showed even the slightest hint of reluctance, this sweet, sensitive girl might carry the hurt with her.
"When are you thinking of starting school, Hana-chan?"
"Hmm~ well, you see~ Mom and Dad said I've been out of school for so long that by age I should've started back at fifth grade already."
"Does starting in a higher grade scare you?"
"No way! I learned everything at the hospital! All the way up to sixth grade!"
"Wow, you're so smart, Hana-chan."
"Ehehe!"
Hana turned around at my words, beaming, and went on.
"So they said that instead of me squeezing into an elementary school where the kids already know each other, maybe I should enroll in middle school and make brand-new friends instead."
"I see. That makes a lot of sense."
Come to think of it, rather than Hana squeezing into a class of kids who'd spent five years rubbing shoulders together, starting fresh with a whole class of equally bewildered first-year middle schoolers might be the kinder option.
"You're clever and kind, Hana-chan, so you'll make friends in no time."
"Hehe, but my very first bestest friend is Hikari-chan!"
"Thank you, Hana-chan."
"And I'm looking forward to going to middle school in two years!"
"......"
Two years.
Would this world still be whole by then?
Would I get to see Hana in a school uniform?
"Hana-chan."
"Yeah?"
"Do you still want to help lots of people as a magical girl?"
"Yep!"
"I see."
"I see~"
I hugged Hana close again as she echoed my words. Whether or not she understood what was in my heart, she leaned into me and giggled.
You know what?
I want to see it too.
Hana helping people, wearing a school uniform, walking to school with her friends.
In that moment, I understood.
"Ah..."
So this is what I truly want.
My answer had already been decided all along.
I will save this world.
It didn't demand some grand, sweeping resolve, as I had imagined. It had begun from a very small wish.
The enormous choice that might change everything from here on was decided not in some moment of destiny, but over a casual, ordinary conversation on a bench behind a cafe on a sweltering summer day.
Or maybe I simply hadn't been able to see my own true feelings through all the tangled thoughts.
From the day I decided to help Haruko until the day I finished what happened in Kabukicho, one final resolution had sat unresolved in a corner of my heart. Now, at last, I set it in stone.
"Superintendent Yamashita! Are you listening?!"
"Yes, listening intently. And if you could stop asking, Miss Ishikawa, that would be great. That's the twenty-first time."
"Miss?! I am the Magical Girl of Order, Ishikawa Tsugumi, Team Leader of the Magical Girl Countermeasures Team under the Metropolitan Police Department, thank you very much!"
"Yes, Team Leader. That's the thirty-third time you've said that, too."
Sniff sniff.
Ablaze with determination, her thick eyebrows twitching, the girl in a magical girl outfit modeled on a detective's windbreaker and police uniform coaxed her listless subordinate along as they entered the hall.
Yamashita felt a wave of self-loathing at his own position — a grown man reduced to being ordered around by a girl who looked like she belonged in high school.
How on earth did I end up babysitting the Superintendent-General's granddaughter?
Back during the Kabukicho incident, Yamashita had taken leave and was sitting at home drowning himself in booze, scrolling through real estate listing sites and agonizing over whether a transfer to Saga or Gunma would be the easier posting, when the phone rang.
"Yamashita! Is it true that you coordinated with a magical girl to save civilians?!"
"Pardon...?"
The remnants of an elite cop still lived somewhere in Yamashita's soul. With nimble fingers he powered on his PC and checked the news.
Articles about what had happened in Kabukicho.
And there, in the footage — an unnamed hero ushering civilians to safety.
"Protecting the safety of the people is the police's sacred duty!"
A line straight out of a hot-blooded cop drama — delivered by a man who looked exactly like him.
The hot-blooded cop had given no name or rank, and vanished into the shadows the moment the all-clear was declared.
His own face.
A police officer who refused to give his rank.
He had no idea what any of it meant, but it had to beat the middle of nowhere in Gunma or Saga.
No risk, high return.
This is my chance.
Ever since graduating from Tokyo University's law faculty, Yamashita had been a man who never let an opportunity slip.
"Of course, sir! Protecting the safety of the people is the police's sacred duty, is it not?! The moment I heard civilians were in danger, I ran straight to the scene!"
"Splendid! We need someone in the MPD with experience coordinating alongside magical girls — and here you are, exactly what we needed!"
"Hahaha!"
"You are hereby appointed Deputy Team Leader of the Magical Girl Countermeasures Team!"
"Hahaha! Thank you, sir!"
And now, in the present:
"Superintendent Yamashita! Where's that fighting spirit you showed when you evacuated those civilians?!"
"My apologies."
"Superintendent Yamashita! Why is the Security Corps training falling so far behind schedule?!"
"My apologies."
"Superintendent Yamashita! Where did the pudding from the office fridge go?!"
"Wasn't me."
"There's no one else in the office right now except you and me — training isn't finished yet — so is that a lie?!"
"My apologies."
The Metropolitan Police Department had hastily thrown together a slapdash branch with barely two members on the roster.
Yamashita had become its sole henchman. And as a member of a government-certified magical girl organization, he now found himself attending the inauguration ceremony of the Magical Girl Alliance Council.
Murmur, murmur.
The assembly hall they entered with listless steps consisted of a central table ringed with enough seats for several dozen, and a public gallery that could hold hundreds of observers.
Every variety of humanity wove between the seats, searching for their assigned places.
This is basically a full-blown national diet.
By the time most people had settled in, the central table was already occupied by famous magical girls who'd appeared on broadcasts, and others selected as representatives of corporations or public organizations.
Some were faces famous enough to recognize on sight, while others — apparently dredged up from who-knows-where — sat in their seats with dazed, bewildered expressions.
What kind of 'self-governing body' is this supposed to be?
Behind each of those girls stood a single adult, endlessly exchanging opinions over radios and phones.
Every so often, they leaned in to whisper instructions to the girls, or walked them one by one through the items written in their notepads.
So the magical girls are just puppets, is that it.
Tsugumi made her way to the seat bearing her name on the central table and sat down.
Yamashita stood quietly behind her chair.
Unlike the adults around them, he was the one being pushed around by that girl — and he had to admit, there was something darkly funny about it.
Team Leader, Magical Girl Countermeasures Team, Metropolitan Police Department / Representative of the Security Corps
What in the world is any of this supposed to be.
Through Yamashita's eyes, even this inauguration ceremony looked like nothing more than a game of political dress-up — a crowd of adults watching through their screens, each clutching a paper doll of their own.
Thud.
Thud.
Thud.
Once every seat had been filled by a magical girl — save one — Fujimoto Sumire, in her capacity as interim chair, rapped her gavel to signal the start.
All except the 'secretaries' standing one by one behind the magical girls filed into the public gallery and took their seats.
"We will now begin"
"the inaugural ceremony of the Magical Girl Alliance Council, and the investiture of its Chairperson."
Sumire's eyes never left that one empty seat.
Would she truly come?
Would she sit in that seat as the representative of all magical girls?
Would she stand together with Fujimoto at the dawn of a new age?
Sumire hoped — with all the small, trembling sincerity in her — that her righteous friend would remain forever nothing more than a dream from a single night.
Because dreams could not be seized by the methods of Fujimoto.
Or then again... if it were her, perhaps she might show us an entirely new way forward...