21. Magical Girl Magical Mari - Appearance!
21. Magical Girl Magical Mari - Appearance!
The Twilight Council.
It was a mysterious evil organization that continued to threaten the academy.
When Lirpin told her the name, Mari was taken aback.
But the truth she soon learned was even more bewildering.
The Twilight Council was a secret society formed by the ten lineages that first discovered the Heart Gems.
Mana that passed through these Heart Gems possessed properties different from ordinary mana and even had the power to neutralize mana itself.
Using that power, they had ruled from behind the scenes and altered history countless times.
And they never doubted that they would rule the world as its masters forever.
But the one fact they had failed to realize was that while the Heart Gems had no will, they did possess consciousness.
That was what threw their plans into chaos.
That day, a councilor who possessed Lirpin's Heart Gem had been researching its power.
His experiment accidentally awakened a will within Lirpin, and she wrung out every last drop of her power to escape the laboratory.
And of all places, she ended up falling into Hetairo Academy—more precisely, right in front of Ceres.
This was also why monsters began appearing at Hetairo Academy.
The Twilight Council had come as far as the academy in pursuit of the Heart Gems, the very source of their power.
They had decided they would rather turn the entire academy upside down than let a Heart Gem fall into someone else's hands.
Their confidence was not without grounds.
Ordinary mana could not leave so much as a scratch on the monsters whose bodies had been modified with the Heart Gems' special mana.
But this time, too, they had miscalculated.
They had not predicted that someone who obtained a Heart Gem would use that very power to defeat their monsters.
Of course, they had an excuse.
Even now, thousands of years after they began researching the Heart Gems, they still could not fully draw out their power, so there was no way someone who had picked one up only a few months ago could defeat a monster.
Unfortunately for them, however, the existence of Lirpin—the very consciousness of the Heart Gem—shattered that expectation.
Magical Mari had caught up to the councilors' techniques in barely a few months.
Mari gazed at the jewel clutched in her hand.
The Heart Gem of Will.
Learning that the power she had believed would protect the academy was itself the cause of the broken peace left her conflicted.
Of course, returning Lirpin to the councilor at this point was not an option.
Lirpin was already her friend, and even if she did return her, the Council would try to wipe them all out.
What she agonized over was whether to reveal the truth to everyone.
As she suffered this inner turmoil between honesty and friendship, the Heart Gem vibrated.
She took the call on the Heart Gem instead of her crystal.
"Yes, this is Magical Mari. What's the matter, Manager?"
As monsters began to appear, the academy faced an unprecedented threat.
The academy administration devised countermeasures of its own, but ultimately acknowledged that it had no power to stop the monsters.
So they requested Magical Mari's cooperation.
Mari readily accepted the academy's request, and the administration immediately promised to establish a Monster Countermeasure Department under the Student Council and give her its full support.
So Mari had a student who served as her dedicated manager.
However, the voice coming through the Heart Gem this time was not the manager's.
"Mari, it's an emergency!"
"President?"
It was the supreme authority figure of Hetairo Academy.
Sensing something serious in her urgent voice, Ceres sprang up from her bed.
"What happened? Could it be a monster?"
"Yes! A monster has appeared! But that monster... the statue of the first headmaster..."
"The statue?"
"Just a moment... Huh? They say it just surrendered?"
A question mark floated above Mari's head.
*
Just moments ago, a monster had appeared.
But that monster had smashed the statue of the first headmaster and then surrendered to the Disciplinary Committee.
Mari fell into confusion over the monster's bizarre behavior, its intent unreadable.
"Lirpin. What's that monster's objective? Do you have any guesses?"
"I have no idea at all, meow. Besides, the councilor family that possessed me always kept me confined in a laboratory, meow."
"Hmm... Then I have no choice but to meet him."
- [Shine! Will! Shining Willingness!]
"Magical Mari—here!"
After making sure not to forget her entrance line even in a room where nobody was watching, she flew straight to the prison.
The student council president, having arrived first, was waiting for her at the detention center.
"You're here, Mari."
"Where's the monster?"
"He's in the very back."
She descended into the prison with the Disciplinary Committee members the president had brought.
Hetairo Academy's prison, as though it didn't give a damn about human rights, was located underground where not a single ray of sunlight reached.
One might question whether such a human-rights-violating facility could exist on campus—but let us not forget.
Hetairo Academy was constantly exposed to the threat of terrorism.
The prison was not for students, but a place for the scumbag terrorists brazen enough to target students.
And this monster had been shoved into the deepest depths of the underground.
"Did the monster say anything before I arrived?"
"The monster has given no information except its name. We have no grasp at all of where it came from or why it's here."
"Could you at least tell me its name?"
"Yes. The monster introduced itself as 'Scapul.'"
"An unusual name."
Soon the group arrived at the room where Scapul was held.
Beyond the iron bars, a giant man covered in muscle awaited them.
His feet, his hands, his face. Even up to the top of his head.
It was no exaggeration to say his entire body was plastered with scars.
"On the outside, he looks like an ordinary human..."
The monsters that had appeared so far had arms and legs and heads on top, but their grotesque appearances did not belong to any race, making them impossible to fit within the category of human.
Like a winged gorilla, or a horse beastman with tentacles for hair.
Their appearances evoked the word "monster" for anyone who saw them.
But the appearance of the man called Scapul was that of an ordinary human.
Huge for a human, certainly, but his appearance was unmistakably human.
"And aren't you wielding that power with the appearance of an ordinary human yourself—"
Heh heh.
Scapul, who had overheard Mari's muttering, let out a low laugh.
His low, drawn-out voice echoed like sound from a cave, making his ordinary human appearance all the more unsettling.
The moment Scapul opened his mouth—when until being thrown in prison he had spoken not a word except his name—the Disciplinary Committee members all took up combat stances.
But the giant beyond the iron bars was utterly composed even with crossbows and blades aimed at him.
Clank, clank.
The giant, hands bound, rose from his seat and approached the bars, dragging his shackles.
Even seated, he had looked enormous. Standing, the students barely reached his stomach.
Though they knew he was bound in chains that sealed his mana, his overwhelming bulk made the Disciplinary Committee members step back slightly.
With the iron bars as thick as a person's forearm between them, Mari and Scapul faced each other.
"Eeek!"
Lirpin, scared stiff and hiding behind Mari, was a bonus.
With a grotesque smile, the giant looked down at Mari.
"Magical Mari... I've wanted to meet you. I was curious what you looked like after defeating the Council's vanguard, but you're much smaller than I expected."
"Disappointed?"
"Not at all... If anything, I'm intrigued. How can so much power come from such a small body...?"
"It's all the power of will and love."
"Hah! Yes—will! Human will holds such power. A mother who saves her child from a fire, soldiers who break through a battlefield to rescue a comrade... Miracles are always born from human will. Mari, you too obtained your miracle through that will! Magnificent."
She sensed that Scapul's speech had become fractionally faster than before.
Just as their state of alert was reaching its peak.
Sweating cold, Mari asked Scapul.
"Then it's my turn to ask. Why did you smash the statue and surrender? What is your objective?"
As if he had been waiting for the question, the man answered with a beaming smile.
"My objective, you ask-k. To become even greater-r."
"What?"
"Where do you think human greatness comes from, magical girl?"
"..."
"If you will not answer, I shall. Human greatness lies in overcoming adversity and growing. When people grow by overcoming hardship, they become greater still. Adversity that does not kill a person only makes them stronger, does it not?"
Content far too hopeful to have come from the mouth of a monster.
Scapul's voice began to grow higher and faster, as if he were intoxicated by his own words.
"My coming here was no different. For the sake of adversity, I smashed the stone statue without the help of mana. I walked into this prison to realize the preciousness of freedom. And—"
"Disciplinary Committee!!"
Scapul's handcuffs began to crack with a scream.
At the president's command, sensing something terribly wrong, the Disciplinary Committee fired their crossbows all at once.
Scapul took every bolt without the slightest fear.
As if even those wounds would become adversity through which he would grow.
And true to his confidence, his muscles prevented the bolts from reaching his organs.
"Impossible! His mana should be sealed!"
"Guardian, he's coming!"
"I know, Lirpin!"
"I came to find you—to learn what defeat is! Magical Mari!"
Crash!!!!
In an instant, Scapul shattered his cuffs and shackles to pieces and launched himself at the iron bars.
His fist tore through the iron bars as if they were paper and landed a ferocious uppercut squarely on Mari.
Swift beyond what his bulk suggested, the attack gave Mari no time to even react.
By the time she regained her senses, she had been launched through the ceiling and all the way to the surface.
From the hole she had shot up through, Scapul's roar echoed like thunder all the way to the surface.
"I am Scapul!! The one who holds the seat of 'Adversity' in the Twilight Council—your trial!!!"