27. Magical Girl Magical - Isis
27. Magical Girl Magical - Isis
Swish-swish!
Pow-pow!
Corner of the set.
Against the backdrop of Ceres's fists slicing through the air and the vicious sound of a sandbag getting pummeled, one girl shrieked bloody murder.
"No! I can't do it! How am I supposed to wear this?!"
"What's wrong with the outfit?"
"What's wrong?! You can look at this and still say that?!"
The outfit the girl in the neatly pressed school uniform pointed to was, by any standard, far from modest.
The pure-white top had no sleeves whatsoever, leaving the armpits completely exposed, and the back was missing fabric entirely.
Instead, a neck collar took the place of sleeves to secure the top, leaving the wearer's collarbones and the sides of her breasts exposed.
And what of the bottoms?
Though it was a matching pure-white miniskirt that rose above the knee, the material was the sort that fluttered at the faintest breeze.
And finally, black knee-highs.
It was the absolute peak of shamelessness—the kind of outfit best described as a virginity-killing dress.
"For the Disciplinary Committee, which upholds public morals, to wear something like this—this is an insult!"
"You sure are picky. The original plan was a garter belt, but I swapped it for knee-highs and built-in shorts and toned down the side slits because I was worried about censorship. What's your problem?"
"Would you be fine with this if you were me?!"
"Then you shouldn't have screwed up."
Allen flapped the contract in front of the girl's face as she shouted at him.
"Kylie. When someone screws up, they face the consequences."
"Even so, why am I the only one getting this treatment?! They don't have to wear stuff like this!"
The other Disciplinary Committee members standing where she pointed averted their eyes.
But their situation was better.
At first glance, the combatant uniforms looked like skintight bodysuits, but since they wore armor on top, at least there was no humiliation involved.
In fact, standing beside Kylie made the others feel relieved rather than embarrassed.
Being singled out like that, she had every right to feel it was unfair.
Still, Allen had his own retort.
"A ringleader and their followers don't get the same treatment."
After all, she had instigated the entire Disciplinary Committee incident.
Of course, intellectually, she understood that fact.
But even so, not wanting to do it was beyond her control.
"I won't! I can't!"
Crack.
Allen loosened his fist.
"Eeek! What are you going to do?"
"If you keep this up, want to go to the Room of Truth?"
Allen believed in equality between the sexes and was a true humanitarian willing to piledrive a woman when necessary.
If she persisted in her work slowdown, he fully intended to give her a massage in a well-soundproofed room.
(For reference, the “massage” was a form of manual spinal manipulation.)
After Allen's desperate persuasion, the now-pale Kylie had no choice but to put on the outfit.
And with that, the rival magical girl was complete.
===================
After the battle with Scapul, Mari returned to the daily routine of defeating monsters.
Except, maybe because an executive had come and gone, the monsters had become far stronger than before.
As if the previous monsters had been nothing but scouts, they cornered Mari with new patterns.
Each time, she somehow overcame the trial, growing stronger in real time.
A few months later.
In terms of the series, the unexpected development occurred about four episodes later.
She had flown to the scene after receiving the usual report of a monster sighting, and what she saw was two groups of monsters clashing against each other.
To be precise, calling one side a monster group felt a little ambiguous.
Clang!
Because a girl in a brilliant dress, just like Mari, stood at the head of one group of monsters and was confronting the other group.
The difference from Mari, however, was that no skin was visible through her dress, even her face was covered by a mask, and she held a dagger in each hand.
She looked unmistakably like a ninja, or an assassin.
Moreover, the monsters following the girl were also somewhat strange.
Their bodies weren't completely transformed like the monsters' were—they looked like they were wearing some kind of reinforced suit, yet the black skintight suit underneath made them look, to any observer, like monsters.
"A magical girl? Monsters? Lirpin, there was another magical girl besides me?"
"I'm not sure, meow! But if there's another Heart Gem that escaped from a research lab with a will like I did, and someone picked it up like you did, it's not entirely impossible, meow!"
"Then, is that person on our side?"
"Who knows, meow. But they could be a councilor of the Twilight Council, so be careful, meow."
Mari nodded and cautiously approached the magical girl (provisional).
The girl seemed to have noticed Mari too, as their eyes met.
But the opposing side, regardless, did not stop their attacks on that magical girl.
As a bonus, attacks also flew at Mari.
"Not so fast!"
Seeing that they were pointing their blades at her, at the very least, the opposite side was not on her side.
"The hero who delivers love and justice! Magical Mari—here!"
Her entrance line seemed to have changed again, but magical girls often changed those, so let's move on.
"Introductions can wait! I'm jumping in!"
The potential magical girl also nodded and assisted Mari.
Though meeting for the first time, the two coordinated like old friends as they defeated the monsters.
Like a painting. Like a duet.
Dagger and bare fists intertwined and swept across the battlefield.
After a short while, once every monster had been cleared out, the potential magical girl offered Mari a handshake.
"Thank you. Are you Magical Mari?"
"Yeah, I am! Are you a magical girl too?"
"A magical girl, huh..."
Pfft
The girl lowered her mask and revealed her bare face.
There was a very small scar under her chin, but even taking that into account, the first thought that crossed Mari's mind upon seeing her face was pretty.
The sight of the cool beauty with the striking blue ponytail and cynical smile held a charm that could make even another woman's heart flutter.
"Sorry, but I'm not your ally."
She pulled a seal out of her bosom.
It was a seal Mari was familiar with.
The Twilight Council
The moment she saw it, Mari immediately went on guard against her.
Seeing that, her counterpart smiled bitterly and tucked the seal back into her bosom.
"Why in the world are you showing me that?"
"We did fight together. I can't just shut my mouth and attack the second it's over, can I?"
She put her mask back on.
"Mari!"
"I know!"
At Lirpin's warning, Mari entered a battle stance.
Likewise, the monsters behind the girl also went on guard against Mari.
While a hair-trigger tension hung between the two of them, the girl alone stood there without a trace of nervousness.
"What are you all doing?"
"Excuse me?"
"Let's go back."
"My lady, but if we obtain that Heart Gem, those old men will finally acknowledge you—!"
"Delta."
"Yep!"
"Let's just go back. I'm not in the mood today."
With that, the hulking combatant called Delta offered no further complaint.
The other combatants also prepared to withdraw at her command.
"Oh, right. I haven't introduced myself. I'm Isis. For what it's worth, I hold the seat of 'Compliance.' I'll leave for today, but the next time we meet, we'll be enemies."
"Wait! I can't just let you go—!"
Before Mari could finish, the jewel embedded in Isis's daggers flashed.
A blindingly bright light blanketed the street and then vanished, and with it, Isis and her monsters were nowhere to be found.
Mari could only stare at the spot where Isis had been with a complicated expression.
*
Even afterward, Mari clashed with Isis at every turn.
Each time, Isis found some reason or other to avoid outright hostility and let it pass.
In their delicate relationship—friendlier than enemies but too hostile to call friendship—the two were about to undergo a major change.
"Please, help our lady!"
"Uh... um..."
Suddenly, Isis's subordinates appeared before her.
They begged Mari to help Isis.
Deciding to at least hear them out, she listened to their story. Isis's situation within the Council was incredibly precarious.
First, it was true that Isis was a councilor of the Twilight Council.
The problem was that the bonds between members were not rock-solid; they were loose, barely more than acquaintances.
The Twilight Council was not simply an organization that manipulated the world from the shadows.
They were beings who explored the conditions that would make humanity better, each bearing the goal of improving humanity according to the creed of their seat.
The holders of each seat passed it down through generations by methods suited to their beliefs: family inheritance, schools, contests for succession, and more.
And the seat Isis held was 'Compliance.'
This seat, held by the heads of the Optepe family for generations, carried the belief that humanity could develop by adapting to reality.
They themselves claimed to be villains who crushed people's dreams and forced them to comply with reality, but once you actually heard the details, even Ceres couldn't help but tilt her head in confusion.
- Crushing the dream of a boy with poor grades who dreamed of an impossible academy admission, and getting him hired at a trading company suited to his aptitude.
- Teaching the farmer's son who dreamed of being a hero about reality, and showing him how to live as a hunter.
- Buying the patent rights from an inventor overflowing with ideas but lacking money, and binding him to the family.
The Optepe family established scholarship foundations and educational institutions in the belief that humanity would advance by adapting to reality. For villains, they were far too...
kind.
The problem was that, just as the specific beliefs of each seat differed, the bonds between members were thinner than a single thread.
And so, they were all eying the Optepe family's Heart Gem like hawks, even if only to gain more power.
Yet the reason they hadn't attacked the Optepe family until now was because there was another seat with a similar ideology.
"It was precisely thanks to the existence of the <Obedience> seat."
One of Isis's subordinates wet his throat with tea and continued speaking.
The seat of Obedience was a research group whose creed was, 'Pride doesn't put food on the table, so even if we must serve under someone, let us pursue practical benefit.'
Its name was <Eternium Being>.
It was a gathering of nerds whose ultimate goal was to someday create infinite energy.
Naturally, they meshed perfectly with the neighboring Compliance seat, and the two were practically no different from a single group.
With that, the other seats could not attack the Optepe family.
One might be manageable, but taking on both at once was a significant burden even for them.
What shattered that unstable equilibrium was the incident of the Heart Gem escaping from the Eternium Being research institute.
"..."
Hearing those words, Ceres and Lirpin averted their eyes.
Seeing her unable to sit still, one of Isis's subordinates gave a wry smile.
"You do not need to apologize. The councilors are at fault; Mari and Lirpin have done nothing wrong."
"Even so..."
"The family head already grumbled that returning from council meetings was awfully unpleasant anyway. The family head's stance is that, since things have come to this, we might as well turn our backs on them cleanly."
And so the Optepe family became prey for the other seats.
Just as Magical Mari was being chased, they began to chase Isis, the one chosen by the Heart Gem of Compliance.
Adrift across the entire world, they attempted somehow to protect the Heart Gem, but Isis was slowly reaching her limit.
The people around her, watching her with growing unease, had no choice but to make a major decision.
"Please, take our young lady's Heart Gem."
In a way, this was a cruel request for Mari.
She was already being targeted by monsters, and now they were asking her to shoulder Isis's share of the burden as well.
But Mari's answer held no hesitation.
"Okay. I'll accept your request."
She was the one who had already readily accepted Lirpin, a spirit of unknown identity, as a friend.
Isis, with whom she had faced life-and-death situations again and again, was practically a friend.
Twilight Council emblem, not very important