29. Magical Girl Magical - Isis
29. Magical Girl Magical - Isis
The recruitment of the new magical girl Isis as an ally was a success.
When introducing a sub-protagonist, people often feel resistance if the narrative isn't built properly, but fortunately, Isis's story seemed to resonate fairly well with the audience.
"From now on, the Isis faction occupies this territory! Mari faction, get lost!"
"What did you say? A rootless newcomer dares covet the original heroine's place?"
The problem was that it resonated a bit too well.
While it was good news that the character Isis was well-received by people, it was a problem that she was too well-received.
I understood it, though.
The appeal of Isis lay in the sharp contrast between her cold exterior and softer side.
Fundamentally distant from sociability, but someone with plenty of inner turmoil who nonetheless communicates well with her close friends.
She was what you'd call a cool-but-soft type.
Naturally, since it was a type of charm this world had never seen before, everyone was bound to fall for it head over heels.
That said, it wasn't as if Mari's charm was lacking.
Mari was a universally admired, energetic, sociable, and yet deeply thoughtful all-around beauty, after all.
If Isis drew people in with a mysterious allure, Mari was an energetic girl whose very presence was healing.
Energetic VS Cool
This wasn't a matter of who was right; it was a difference in taste that had been utterly irreconcilable since my previous life.
Because of this, an untimely debate was being held in front of our club room.
<The 17th Debate: We will now convene to debate which of Mari and Isis is the true protagonist.>
Oh, for fuck's sake. Why the hell are you holding it in front of someone else's club room?
The guys from the Political Science Department's debate club had gone so far as to move a podium and desk here and were moderating the whole thing.
Of course, thanks to that debate club, the momentum of the bastards who constantly protested demanding the next episode had been broken, but that was no comfort at all.
"Look! At Isis's costume! A previously tightly-wrapped outfit was opened up so refreshingly upon awakening her magical girl powers, was it not! This shows that she actually wishes to display honesty to others! In contrast, what of Mari! Mari's outfit, excluding the top, has no exposure at all! This means Mari is hiding something from people, and to claim that aspect of her charm is honesty is a fallacy!"
"Objection! How dare you use clothing to deduce her heart! And even if that were the case, that does not signify any dilution of Mari's charm! Honesty is not about revealing everything, but about facing the other party with sincerity without uttering falsehoods! Even if she hides her heart, in our civilized society we call that politeness, sir!"
"Ridiculous! Isis is the true protagonist!"
"Preposterous! The original is Mari!"
Should I be happy that they wrapped up their bullshit in mania?
Thanks to them, our club's reputation was also being whittled away in real time.
Amidst all this, a new faction occasionally reared its head.
"Hee hee. Nyaaaaa~ lol"
"Why not just enjoy both-"
Crunch
Wow. So when people gather, you can fold a person's spine in half even without magic.
The ruling and opposition parties did not tolerate the emergence of a third party.
While the two-way battle continued, a faction I had thought dead was quietly protesting in the corner.
"I believe there exists a secret organization. And this is a list of studios that release only one episode a week!"
The undead conspiracy theorist was back again.
However, even all of these combined could not compare to the terror the final faction inflicted upon me.
"Director Allen. This is a small token of sincerity from our club."
"...What exactly is it that you want?"
"Well... you see, we would be grateful if you could increase the screen time of Lirpin and Cled a little."
"..."
"Ah, and it's not me, but some of our club members are willing to provide more sponsorship if you were to put clothes on them or make them giant..."
"I'm not taking it."
"You can forget the last part so please just the screen time-!"
"...I was already planning a breather episode for children featuring only the mascots, so let's leave it here."
Let me be clear, I absolutely did not surrender to money.
The attendants brought by the suspicious club president looked so desperate that I instinctively knew things would become unmanageable if I didn't negotiate here.
And so I had no choice but to surrender to the pressure of a club that had a suspiciously high amount of sponsorship relative to its membership.
*
Despite some dizzying chaos, Magical Mari was smooth sailing.
The audience reaction was good, and the story ahead was solid.
Everything was going smoothly.
"Boss, I heard the person appearing this time is from a magic tower?"
"Yeah. You probably know him. He wants to change the prejudice that wrestlers—especially beastkin wrestlers—can't use magic well."
Wrestlers avoided magic because of the demands of their profession, but plenty of them were perfectly capable of using it.
The hard part was using magic within wrestling rules. The idea that wrestlers were magically vulnerable was simply a misconception.
"Why? Do you need another entrance sequence?"
"Yes. But please make it a bit weaker than Scapul's this time."
"Hmm. I think it'll take some time."
Ironically, holding back to control the intensity was harder than devising an entrance at full power.
Unlike with Scapul, I wrestled with the script for an hour.
At last, the first draft was completed.
"How about this much?"
"You call this pulling your punches?"
"I did pull them, though?"
"It's way too incredible."
"Ugh. I can't pull my punches any more than this."
"Boss. When it's just the two of us, saying lines like that sounds really weird."
"Ah, shit, now that you say it I get it too."
In the end, Nicol and I adjusted the next monster's entrance scene and toned it down somewhat.
I felt sorry for the wrestler, but the character had to be somewhat weaker than Scapul for the sake of the story.
We grabbed the completed script and immediately prepared for filming.
Alright. Time to make new history.
"...I'm asking just in case, but we won't get arrested for copyright infringement, right?"
"What copyright? Aren't we the first in this world to do it?"
"No, I mean. Knowing those bastards, I feel like they'd sue across dimensions."
"Nah, no way.... Just in case, let's add a bit more adaptation."
===========================
After Isis joined them, Ceres's daily life changed significantly.
First, she now had a friend named Aisis.
(Ah, for reference, Aisis is Isis's name in her civilian state.)
For the Optepe Family, who were quite the bigwigs in educational circles, transferring Aisis into Hetairo Academy in the form of a transfer student was no difficult task.
Aisis moved in next door to Ceres, and as they commuted to school together every day, they quickly became close.
After a few months, Ceres concluded that Aisis was a deeply problematic girl.
Life skills, financial sense, sociability: zero.
Having been raised in luxury and lived in the underworld, she knew almost nothing outside it.
Moreover, because all her knowledge was skewed toward that world, every word out of her mouth sounded alarming.
- Hmph... combining cement and an oak barrel would only cost about ten silver coins, so why endure bullying from those guys?
- Aisis! You mustn't say things like that!
On top of that, she couldn't even study.
- I accepted reality back then. Once I realized I was bad at studying, I gave up.
She declared it brazenly, without a hint of shame.
In her hand was a report card with a score of 30.
The weasel puffing its chest out proudly beside her was a bonus.
"...I thought you said you'd overcome reality?"
"Urk."
Aisis was dragged off by Ceres and made to study by force.
They said good looks carried a person halfway through life, and Aisis's mysterious beauty drew plenty of popularity among the students.
But did they know?
That the cool prince they admired was hopeless on the inside?
Anyway, Aisis was slowly but steadily drawing closer to her dream of becoming an ordinary girl.
The next major change in Ceres's daily life came when she met the previous owner of her Heart Gem.
"Hehe. Pleased to make your acquaintance."
Astonishingly, the Eternium Being Research Institute was very, very friendly toward Ceres.
They were so friendly that, as soon as they met her, they showed her all the institute's confidential data and decided to relocate to Hetairo Island to support her.
They acted that way because the power the Heart Gem had displayed upon meeting Ceres appeared to be the key to infinite energy.
After seeing the Heart Gem resonate with Ceres's will, draw out mana, and transform her into a magical girl, the institute wanted to study her by any means possible.
In exchange for creating equipment for the magical girls, the institute received permission to extract data from that equipment.
- ...What is this function?
- It's a multipurpose gauntlet! Knife, fork, spoon, corkscrew, and more! It has about thirty-eight built-in functions!
- ...
Sometimes they made useless things, but still, thanks to their support, the magical girls' combat power greatly increased.
Thus they spent ordinary days of mostly clear skies and occasional monster attacks—until a new enemy appeared.
"Good morning, young ladies."
His appearance was sudden.
A gentleman in a white suit and a white smiling mask suddenly appeared beside them as they walked to school.
At the obviously suspicious sight, Ceres and Aisis raised their guard.
The gentleman seemed disappointed by their wariness and opened his palm.
"It saddens me to see you so wary."
"Who are you?"
"Ah, I am late introducing myself. I am merely a humble magician."
He took out a card from his pocket.
After he rubbed the card a few times, the image changed from a joker to the eight of clubs.
During that time, no mana was felt.
Perhaps his simple performance impressed them, because their wariness eased considerably.
Taking that as his cue, the gentleman began his performance...
But that didn't happen.
Because they were in the middle of commuting to school.
"Sorry! We're in a hurry!"
"Not at all, young ladies. Rather, I am sorry for holding you up."
The gentleman let them go without a fuss.
After that encounter with the mysterious gentleman, they began running into him often.
Once on the way to school and once on the way home.
He performed twice a day and showed the same tricks not only to them, but to all the students.
At some point, the students began calling him the Tall Gentleman.
Then one day, during class, someone pointed at the window.
"Huh? It's the Tall Gentleman."
With those words, everyone looked out the window.
Outside the window, Tall Gentleman was waving at them.
Since he usually showed them curious magic tricks, they wanted to wave back and assume this was another performance. The problem was that they were currently inside the meditation room.
Right.
That place had no windows.
"Aisis!"
"I know! Cled, get ready!"
Heh
Although he wore a smiling mask, it somehow seemed as if he smiled.
He removed the hat he usually carried and tapped it with his cane, sending flowers bursting out like fireworks.
The flowers filled the window, then fell away.
When they looked outside again, the meditation room stood in the middle of a flower garden.
Amid everyone's silence, the gentleman spread both arms and cried out.
"Welcome to the Land of Pleasure!"
"..."
"Ahem"
Cold.
A dagger flew into my heart.
"No, that's not it!"
The gentleman pointed at the narrator.
"I'll do it again, so watch carefully."
The gentleman, hovering awkwardly in midair, cleared his throat and spread both arms again.
"Welcome to the Land of Pleasure!!!"
At last, a sprightly melody followed.
Looking closely, the flowers at his feet were playing tiny trumpets.
Keeping time with the tune, the gentleman danced merrily with a cane he'd produced from nowhere.
Then he pointed the cane at a professor. The professor's clothes changed at once, and he began playing the saxophone.
"Put a little more swing into it!"
Ba-ba-dum~!
The flowers sang along to his song, and countless dazzling lights shone upon him.
In the midst of it all, the gentleman swayed his body and sang.
"Come to the Land of Pleasure!"
"Where the joyful festival is held!"
"A dream garden where all you wish for can come true!"
When he pulled on his cane, it became a string with flags dangling from it.
He gave the string a sharp shake and laid it out in the air, whereupon it became countless light bulbs filling the ceiling of the meditation room.
"Tell me your wish!"
"Here, we grant everything!"
He snatched the carpet the students were sitting on. Then the students all spun around and rose into the sky. Meanwhile, the gentleman shook the carpet once and placed it in the air, and it became a tablecloth. Then he stopped the students floating in the sky and seated them in front of the table.
"A sumptuous feast! Name the food you want! We will serve everything!"
When he rang a bell, black-suited gentlemen identical to him opened doors from thin air and presented menus at the table.
But before the students could order, the waiters chorused as if that was their business.
"You won't find such a paradise anywhere!"
In an instant, the location was the middle of a ballroom.
In the center of it all, the gentleman danced, and a spotlight shone on him.
"You want a passionate romance? Here, nothing is impossible!"
As soon as those words ended, masked gentlemen and ladies in black appeared behind the students.
When the students hesitantly reached out their hands to those who invited them to dance, they led the students and performed an artistic dance.
And the stage rushed toward the highlight.
Firecrackers bursting from every direction.
When they came to their senses, the ballroom they were in was on the deck of a ship.
The black figures ceased dancing and threw the students into the sea.
The students, unable to even resist, watched the bottom of the sea.
Strangely, they could breathe even under the sea.
"Adventure? Good! Shall I show you the ocean floor?"
This time, the sea flipped over and they fell from the sky.
"Or I could show you a sky island!"
The students fell onto a pile of treasure filling a sky island.
"Money! I don't know if you'll need it here, but if you want it, I must provide!"
Leaving the students collapsed on the treasure pile behind him, he tapped his feet in a lively rhythm, dancing a tap dance.
"You ask what my goal is?"
"Who am I?"
"Good heavens! To ask that only now!"
"If you're curious, it's human nature to answer!"
"Igzo, the legendary adventurer who's been everywhere!"
"Gno, the mischievous musician and mysterious poet!"
"Nois, the natural-born dancer!"
"I have many names, but here I shall introduce myself as—"
"Greetings! I am the Twilight Councilor in charge of pleasure—"
"Ignos!"
Ta-da!
Firecrackers burst behind his back.
The students were entranced and applauding him before they knew it.
"Mari. What are you doing, meow?"
"Isis. Snap out of it, squeak."
"Ah."
And the magical girls too.
