77. Magical Girl Civil War
77. Magical Girl Civil War
Even if the worldline changed, even if the environment and history they grew up in changed.
The stories people go crazy for never change.
Among those stories was the perennial “who would win?” game.
Even though their heads understood that comrades were precious, people still imagined at least once which of the protagonists was stronger.
And so, the civil war episode itself was not a story Nikolai and I were the first to devise in this world.
Even during the era when hero-demon-king stories were wildly popular in this world, episodes where party members fought each other were fairly common.
But the magical girl civil war delivered a fresh shock that was a little different from the existing episodes.
"You people are amazing every time I see you. How do you even come up with an episode where heroes fight each other like this?"
Leon, sprawled on the sofa in the corner of the office reading a newspaper, spoke with admiration.
In this world too, the very idea of making hero party members fight each other in hero-demon-king stories was not that rare.
The problem was that it was difficult to manufacture a reason compelling enough for heroes, united under the great cause of defeating the Demon King, to suddenly wage a life-or-death battle in the middle of their journey.
"Everyone else just uses brainwashing or corruption, but this really is refreshing."
So usually, they made comrades fight each other through brainwashing and corruption by someone roughly at the level of a Demon King Army executive.
A representative example was the first father-beheading show I ever saw.
In that play's case, they corrupted the Holy Knight for a chest-thumping battle between the Holy Knight and the Knight Commander.
The problem was that method was too cliché even in this world, and above all, it required sacrificing one character's appeal.
Using my father's play as an example, the battle itself was magnificent, but for the sake of plausibility, they had no choice but to sacrifice the Holy Knight's virtue, which was her charm.
As a result, most viewers—including fans of my father—were satisfied, but fans of the Holy Knight couldn't help feeling disappointed.
But our method did not require sacrificing any of the magical girls' appeal.
Mari and Isis held convictions born from the guilt they experienced in the early days of being magical girls, and Dina maintained the conviction that stemmed from her childhood trauma.
Amid their clashing convictions, neither side denied the other outright, and the story ultimately led them to understand one another.
This kind of battle of convictions was a type of conflict that hadn't had a long history even in the era I came from.
That was because in the past, they only ever laid down clean conclusions about who was right and wrong, without ever bothering to throw moral dilemmas into hero movies.
This kind of thing began appearing in earnest in hero movies after the battle between the Bat-Man and the Clown, when other hero films started following suit.
Naturally, even in my previous life, this kind of battle of convictions often gave people plenty to think about.
Furthermore, I framed the civil war not as a simple contest over who was stronger, but as a process through which they came to understand one another, so that no fans would...
- Thus it has been proven that Mari is the strongest!
- Don't make me laugh! You were on the back foot the whole time until Isis joined!!
- Then doesn't that mean Isis is the strongest? Since Isis overwhelmed Dina, who beat Mari.
So that no fans would be hurt......
- But Dina equipped with the Barbara system overwhelmed both of them! If not for the lack of remaining mana, that battle would have already ended in Dina's victory!
- That's the Barbara system's weakness, so your logic is already flawed the moment you exclude that. By that reasoning, Mari could spam Sky Falling Impact without worrying about mana too.
So that no fans...
- Argh! I cannot accept this! Let us settle it today! Come at me, Mari faction!
- Gladly, just as I wished! I will crush you, Dina faction.
They're dead set on opening a Fandom War in an episode I made precisely so that no one would get hurt.
I couldn't help but press my palm to my forehead at the argument resounding from outside the club room.
I had clearly put a fair amount of effort into the direction with the intention that no one would feel left out.
First, the direction began with Dina being at a much greater disadvantage if she gave Mari distance, but she used the advantage of the dense forest to slowly pressure her.
After that, I deployed Isis, an assassin who could be called the natural enemy of ranged damage dealers, to create a disadvantageous situation for Dina again.
Even down to bringing in the third party Riv to buy time while Dina transformed, and Dina losing due to energy shortage even after transforming.
Strictly speaking, the battle at that time was a victory for Mari and Isis, but I ended it ambiguously, leaving a little room so that it wouldn't lead to a conclusion that they were stronger than Dina.
And on top of that, I even made their compatibilities interlock like rock-paper-scissors while bringing out each of their individualities.
In the end, the fan clubs were out there in front of our club room.
- From this moment on, the title of strongest belongs to Mari! I will accept no other opinions!
- Don't make me laugh! You cowards who won by fighting two against one! The strongest is Dina!
- Both of you would be sliced apart by Isis's Sword of Mercy, so stop shouting!
""A duel!""
Just as the dispute among them was overheating and about to lead to a duel, I pulled a tomato from the refrigerator, opened the studio window, and shouted at them.
"Everyone! Look at this!"
When the eyes of the Mari, Isis, and Dina factions gathered on me, I raised the tomato I was holding in one hand high.
The faces of the fans who recognized this turned pale.
When I made a motion as if to throw the tomato down from the building, the fan clubs immediately dropped to their knees.
"Sorrysorrysorrysorrysorrysorrysorry"
"We won't do it again! We'll get along!"
"Our Mari has done nothing wrong! We are the sinners!"
The powder-keg atmosphere was suppressed in an instant.
The moment they saw the tomato, they recalled Dark Nikolai, panicked, and exchanged handshakes of reconciliation with the neighboring fandom right away.
Nikolai watched with a straight face and asked if this was really right. It was.
I had learned a lesson from the series of incidents so far: controlling medieval people with a tomato was far more convenient than persuading them with words one by one.
I gazed contentedly at the fandoms who had come to understand each other, just as the magical girls had in the drama, and returned to the club room.
*
Anyway, the civil war episode ended, and what was prepared immediately after was the Dina episode.
At first, I worried that the Dina faction might become excessively fervent again right after the civil war episode, but surprisingly, the Dina Knight Order was reportedly quiet.
Compared to the previous episode where her own brother's arm got blown off, being sucked into a space together with those two apparently just felt like a tasty build-up.
Since this was not my own review but something my mother—the vanguard captain of the Dina Knight Order—said, it was highly reliable.
[So Dina and Riv's story is finally unfolding, son?]
"Yes. That's the plan."
[Then just tell me this. Is it a good ending?]
"Naturally, it's a good ending."
To my mother asking such questions, I told her to check the details during the broadcast, and that she could look forward to it.
With the Dina Knight Order—the group I had worried about most—remaining quiet, all I had to do was prepare a beautiful farewell in Dina's episode...
But news I really didn't want to hear came from Nikolai.
"Boss. I hear Dina-Riv doujinshi has been circulating in the underground lately, what should we do?"
"What was bound to come has finally come."
The moment I heard those words, I recalled something a sage from my previous life once said.
- There is doujinshi of everything that exists. No exceptions. - Rule 34
Are you listening, Lord Rule 34?
Even in this insane fantasy world, your law applies without exception.
I was now genuinely curious how anyone could find sexual desire in this heartbreaking sibling story.
First, to assess the situation, I asked Nikolai for additional explanation.
"That doujinshi. It must have reached you because it's circulating on the market to a problematic degree, right?"
"Yes. From what I saw, the transactions that started in the black market have overflowed into the open market."
"Era, that damned black market."
Even when I was carrying out missions as John, my mission orders had turned up at black market auctions—anyway, nine times out of ten, whenever something strange got released to the public, the black market was the culprit.
Nikolai was restless, like a soldier who had lost a shell casing and was about to turn himself in.
He was probably afraid that the doujinshi would create a negative image for Magical Girl Mari.
Especially since, setting aside modern times, this was a medieval fantasy filled with all kinds of eccentrics and lunatics, there could be fallout in ways Nikolai wouldn't know about.
But Nikolai's worry was nothing more than needless anxiety.
"That kind of thing is no problem at all, so don't worry. People aren't stupid enough to connect that to the drama."
No matter how uncivilized the medieval era was, people weren't so empty-headed as to lump the original and doujinshi together and curse them both.
If by any slim chance someone did connect them, that would just be a person who already wanted to insult the work seizing a pretext to do so.
But even after hearing my words, Nikolai couldn't feel at ease.
"Boss. I understand rationally, but has anything ever gone the way we intended so far?"
"Tch..."
Now that he said it, I had nothing to say.
While I was deliberating whether to take safety measures just in case of the one-in-a-million scenario, a sudden curiosity came to mind.
"But separately from this, why now of all times?"
Magical Mari had been airing for a while, so why were doujinshi flooding out of the black market only now?
It felt a bit off for me to say this myself, but in Magical Mari, there were plenty of pairings one could try to weave together.
Mari-Scapul, Isis-Ignos, Dina-Legion, and so on.
Truly insane people could probably even weave Mari-Isis-Dina together.
So why, of all things, was Dina-Riv trending in the black market, to the point of overflowing and becoming known in the open market?
No matter how much I thought about it, there was no reason for that.
At that, Leon, who had been quietly listening, apathetically speculated on the cause.
"Isn't it because there are a lot of elements usable for a sense of moral transgression?"
"What kind of insane talk is that, Prince Parma."
Unable to understand Leon's words, I pressed him for an explanation.
"Think about it. Even just the love between siblings is plenty as a transgressive element, and on top of that, Riv gets brainwashed if you just say a few keywords, right? That must have stimulated those writers' inspiration."
"....How does Your Highness know that?"
No sooner had I replied than Pia, who had been drinking tea on the opposite side of the sofa where Leon sat, underwent a sudden shift in expression.
Her eyes had never been particularly kind when looking at Leon to begin with, but now they were eyes that no longer treated him as a person.
Just as a red thread was about to wrap around her fingers, carrying the resolve to neuter him should Leon turn out to be a man who enjoyed the incest tag, Leon sighed and explained his reasoning.
"I didn't want to know either. But look at what you've been up to lately. Every time you pull off a big episode, the whole country is in an uproar. So this time, I ended up finding out because I immediately analyzed the things that were showing signs with experts."
At Leon's words, I briefly imagined the officials deeply analyzing the cause of the Dina-Riv pairing.
... I imagined middle-aged men with rotting expressions debating and lamenting why they had to professionally analyze this kind of nonsense.
'I'm feeling sorry for no good reason.'
While I was having such pointless thoughts, Leon heaved a deep sigh and closed the newspaper he was reading.
Then he cocked one eyebrow, as if to ask whether his explanation had been convincing.
"Understood. So what did that analysis team of yours conclude?"
"We decided to leave this one alone."
The imperial household had nothing to gain by meddling in the realm of derivative works for nothing, and there was a high probability it would only stir up trouble.
Aside from that, the possibility that this kind of pairing could cause a bit of a social issue was raised, as was the possibility that the Calamity Duke, should anyone dare touch his daughter, might sink an island—but that wasn't very likely either.
And there was an even bigger reason than all of these...
"Riv's going to die in a few episodes anyway, so the pairing won't last long."
Leon nonchalantly dropped a massive spoiler.
That's right.
Riv was slated to die anyway.
He had accumulated far too much karmic debt while operating as the Skeleton Knight, and it was also a problem that his existence was stealing the attention that should be directed at the magical girls.
Therefore, for the sake of healthy story development, Riv's exit was necessary.
... It was absolutely not because it was hard to strap a Death Knight arm to my shoulder and pull off Riv's action scenes.
And as for how Leon knew this fact, it was because he was our studio's sponsor.
Of course, when he told the analysis team this spoiler, their reaction could not have been good.
"When I told the analysis team this fact, they were absolutely dying of joy. In the eyes of a few ministers, you could practically read the rebellious intent."
"I heard about that from my father. I heard Uncle Emperor tried to cut your allowance after hearing it, is that true?"
"There's no need to ask whether it's true or not, it's already been cut."
"Oh dear."
Anyway, according to Leon, this craze didn't seem likely to last long, so it looked like we could just focus on filming as is.
*
A few days later.
As usual, we gathered at the filming set and prepared to record the Dina episode.
Ailey and I, whose lectures had ended relatively early, were diligently molding the set when the other staff members entered the set one by one.
While everyone was doing their respective tasks, the protagonist of this episode, Diane, arrived at the set.
Perhaps because her lecture had ended a bit late, she rushed in breathlessly with her bag still on her shoulder and apologized.
"Sorry."
"You're not late, so take your time."
In reality, considering her makeup and costume makeup, she was a little late, but giving her a hard time here would only rattle the protagonist's acting.
"Thanks."
Of course, perhaps aware of my consideration, her actions were hurried, making the words 'take your time' meaningless.
While that was going on, I saw contents in her bag that she hadn't managed to close properly—contents I wasn't supposed to see.
<Dina♡John doujinshi. -Brainwashing Edition->
Three copies at that: one for keeping, one for viewing, and one for distribution.
'This is insane.'
No wonder the analysis team had said the Calamity Duke would stay quiet.
So this person was the problem.