48. The Path to Becoming a Magical Girl
48. The Path to Becoming a Magical Girl
Dina became the Head of the Full Moon Trading Company.
Her influence was so great that if you asked anyone in the world if they knew her, the name Full Moon Trading Company would immediately roll off their tongue, utterly incomparable to when she was young.
Yet despite wielding that much power, she was not happy.
"Company Head. Here is the report for this cycle."
"You didn't find him this time either?"
"My apologies."
"... You may leave."
Her secretary bowed his head and departed the room.
Not a single trace of a smile could be found on her face reflected in the window.
With no one by her side to share her joy, she had forgotten how to smile at all.
Having forgotten how to smile, her fatigue in searching for her brother only grew worse with each passing day.
But the reason she did not give up lay in the words her brother had told her in their childhood.
- We’ll be together forever. No matter what you do, Dina, I’ll stay by your side.
Whenever hardship befell them as children and she cried, her brother would always say those words to her.
Even in the very moment the guards dragged him away.
And so she had never once entertained the possibility that he was dead.
Even when people around her urged her to give up, she never stopped searching for her brother.
Should that pursuit lead to the collapse of her great trading company, she was more than ready to offer up a trifling company as a sacrifice, over and over, if it meant meeting her own flesh and blood.
Yet regardless of her resolve, she was still human, and the fruitless search exhausted her.
So she decided to shift her perspective.
Acknowledging that money alone was insufficient to find her brother, she began to pursue power.
Sadly, she was not born of a bloodline that granted it, and the power money could buy had its limits.
Therefore, instead of seizing power for herself, she chose to cultivate connections with those who possessed it.
"Hello, everyone. My name is Dina. I hope we get along well."
This was why the Head of the Full Moon Trading Company, who lacked for nothing, transferred into Ceres's class.
*
To state the conclusion first, Dina's strategy failed.
Having originally planned to befriend the children of the powerful, she somehow ended up as friends with Ceres and Isis, who were far removed from power.
If you set aside the fact it started with a hair-pulling fight over a limited-edition parfait, they were the best of friends.
The three became such close best friends that she forgot she had even come to the academy for power, and even remembered how to smile again—something she had long forgotten.
By the time she belatedly recalled her objective, she was already far too close to the two of them.
Later, when summer vacation began, she agonized between friendship and power.
At first, she even resolved to cast aside friendship for the sake of power.
But perhaps reluctant to part ways like that, she invited Ceres and Isis to a private beach during the vacation, intending to use the memory as a final farewell before separating.
But the world, once again, would not leave her in peace.
Monsters that should have only appeared at Hetairo Academy manifested on her island.
Not wanting her final memory with her friends to end in such a worst-case scenario, and determined not to let her warmth be stolen away this time, she stepped in front of the two of them.
Thanks to the elixirs she had consumed as Head of the Full Moon Trading Company, she was confident she was far stronger than the two people behind her.
But a trading-company head who had merely consumed a large number of elixirs could not possibly defeat the monsters that had left even the professors helpless.
In the end, Dina was defeated, and she squeezed her eyes shut, terrified that her warmth would be stolen away this time too.
That was when the miracle appeared.
The warmth she had so longed for wrapped itself around her from behind.
"... Magical girls?"
That was right.
The two people she had tried to protect were, in truth, magical girls.
Thanks to the Heart Gem's power, Mari and Isis's identities were never revealed on the island.
However, that power merely kept people from suspecting them when they disappeared—it was not a power that allowed them to transform openly right in front of someone.
Because Dina had protected them, the two had no opportunity to transform, but once Dina was defeated, they could no longer afford to be picky, and so they revealed their identities.
"Ceres? Isis?"
"Sorry, Dina. I'll explain later!"
"... I'll deal with these wretches."
The two magical girls disposed of the monsters in an instant and returned to Dina.
Perhaps because they had been through such a dramatic situation.
Dina immediately apologized to the two of them the moment they came back.
"I'm sorry... I'm so, so sorry..."
Emotion that overflowed like a flooding stream.
Her childhood trauma played a part, but the primary cause of her surging feelings was guilt.
The moment she learned her friends were magical girls, the word connections had popped into her head.
She found herself so utterly disgusted that, after planning to say goodbye at the end of this trip, she had immediately wanted to get close again the instant she realized they were magical girls; she simply could not bear it.
"Why are you crying over something like that? We've been friends from the very beginning, haven't we?"
But Mari and Isis accepted Dina as she was.
If Dina had truly been a vile person trying to use them, she would not have felt that kind of guilt.
On the contrary, those tears proved she genuinely treasured their friendship, so they were able to accept her.
And that was how the three became friends once more.
*
The ending to this story was a happy one.
Though Dina had failed to befriend the powerful, she had gained friendship.
Ironically, this choice brought Dina closer to her goal of finding her brother.
They were not powerful themselves, but behind them stood Eternium Being and the Optepe Family.
Normally a family of useless nerd scientists and unreliable, bumbling villains, objectively speaking, they were plenty competent as organizations.
The scientists, though a few screws loose, did their work properly, and the scholarship foundation, which specialized in finding people and offering realistic advice, were specialists when it came to locating someone.
"... So, what exactly is the link between the ketchup launcher and finding someone?"
"The ketchup launcher is a device designed to spray ketchup in the ideal amount and shape onto foods that require it! If we apply this a little, we can expect an effect that singles out the person we want from the sky!"
"No, no! How on earth does that make any sense?!"
The principle was unclear, but in any case, the conclusion was that they could find Dina's brother.
And as a result of Eternium Being, the Optepe family, and the Full Moon Trading Company combining their power, a simple hot-air balloon device for locating a single person was created.
Clutching her trembling heart, Dina released the device into the sky. Higher and higher it soared.
Dina and her friends waited inside the Eternium Being laboratory for the result to appear on the crystal.
And an hour later.
[Target Not Found]
Three hours later as well.
[Target Not Found]
Five hours later still.
[Target Not Found]
The result was disappointing.
Fifteen hours passed, and just as everyone was about to give up, the <Searching> message changed.
[Target Detected! Target Detected!]
Everyone in the lab shot to their feet and began analyzing the result.
But before they could even begin a full-scale analysis,
<The final battle begins.>
"Huh?"
"Hmm. It seems it ascended too high and was destroyed, or collided with a bird or similar flying object and was destroyed."
"How could...!"
Ceres and Isis fumed at the unfortunate result.
Then, suddenly recalling there was someone who must be even more disappointed than themselves, they checked her expression.
On Dina's expressionless face, a single drop of water rolled down her cheek.
"Um... are you okay?"
"Yeah. I'm okay. I'm just... overwhelmed for a moment..."
The tears she shed were not tears of frustration.
They were closer to tears of overwhelming emotion.
She could not help it.
For the first time, a trace of her brother, which had eluded her completely until then, had finally revealed itself.
It did not matter even if it was a mere instant.
The sole fact that her brother was alive gave her hope.
Amid her friends' consolation, Dina recovered her warmth once more.
"Dina, your smile is cute!"
"Me? I'm smiling?"
She reached up and touched the corners of her own mouth.
It was slight, but the corners were unmistakably lifted.
Aha. So this was what a smile was.
She practiced her smile several times, then turned to her friends and beamed brightly.
It was a little awkward, yet a more beautiful smile than anyone else's.