Embracing Hope (3)
Magical girls never showed themselves to the public eye.
If the existence of beings from another dimension, the monsters known as Unknowns, and the true nature and madness of magical girls were ever revealed to ordinary people, the resulting chaos would be utterly beyond control.
Things might have been different if magical girls really were the bright, dream-filled embodiments of hope that appeared in girls’ anime. But they were not.
In this world, every last magical girl was out of her mind. Not a single one had ever overcome the surging tide of madness. The vast energy of Gamma Ether deformed their brains in the most horrific ways.
First the sympathetic nervous system collapsed. Emotions either exploded into extremes or became impossible to express at all.
Next came power—more precisely, an irresistible craving for ether. To force ever greater quantities of it into their bodies, they fired their Remegeton without end, no matter who stood in the way.
Go mad, or die.
Those were the only two choices given to a magical girl.
Or both at once.
Whichever path they took, only a wretched end awaited. There was no salvation. From the most distant past, magical girls had always been beings who sacrificed themselves unilaterally. No one was the exception.
They were, after all, living time bombs that could detonate at any moment. Society could never simply leave them free. In the blink of an eye they possessed enough power to slaughter every human around them and still have strength left over.
It was no different from handing a circular saw to a psychopath unbound by any law. A murderer whom conventional weapons could not even scratch would stroll the streets, calmly slicing through the necks of families, relatives, and lovers.
The upheaval that would strike the public was beyond description.
They must never be allowed to witness the scene: the magical girls who had once protected them transforming into murderers and staging a massacre.
The shockwaves would be uncontainable. Of that he was certain. Combine the invasion of the Unknowns with the already swelling anti-magical-girl sentiment, and humanity would simply perish—without even the faintest hope of recovery.
And so, by any means necessary, the existence of magical girls was quietly, thoroughly concealed. Managed with iron precision so that they would never, under any circumstances, be exposed to the public.
In this world, the number of people who knew magical girls truly existed could be counted on one hand. Only the highest leadership of each nation or agents of the oversight organizations ever became aware of them at all.
There had been those who tried to expose magical girls to the mass media.
Every last one of them had become a corpse.
The Bureau and every other oversight organization across the globe showed no mercy to traitors or outsiders who attempted to reveal their own identities or those of the magical girls.
Politicians, journalists, active-duty generals—even royalty.
A bullet driven into the skull, or tortures so merciless that what Ian-na had endured looked like a child’s game, broadcast live to every oversight organization on the planet; or a quiet assassination by tea laced with poison or radiation.
Bombings were never left out either. The classic example was the royal family torn to shreds by a bomb planted in the engine of the yacht they were touring on.
To keep the secret of the magical girls and of themselves, the oversight organizations would stop at nothing.
Magical girls had to remain secret beings forever. Interest in them was meant to stay safely inside a monitor. No one was ever to believe that magical girls actually existed in reality.
That was also why they had been given the name “magical girl” in the first place.
No sane person believed magical girls truly walked the earth. Anyone who did was clearly not in their right mind. Even if the term “magical girl” somehow floated to the surface, the vast majority of people would simply shrug and move on.
And yet.
While the existence of magical girls had to be kept secret from the public no matter what…
the oversight organizations themselves had to know every single action of the magical girls under their command.
It was a paradox.
Under no circumstances were magical girls permitted to hide anything from the organization to which they belonged.
Of course, that was only the official regulation. They were required to report the color of the underwear they wore, what they had eaten for dinner—even the partners with whom they shared a bed. Unsurprisingly, not a single magical girl ever followed the rule properly.
In the most basic common sense, the various oversight organizations never forced the regulation either. A surge of discontent among the magical girls would lead straight to open rebellion.
So they chose covert surveillance instead.
Quietly, so quietly that even if it came to light it could be dismissed as a mere grievance. Every regional oversight organization watched its magical girls with merciless thoroughness.
The Bureau of Magical Girl Correction and Surveillance, which administered the entire Far East, poured especially vast manpower and budget into that surveillance.
Magical girls were nothing less than time bombs.
Before they exploded, the only way to minimize the damage was to snuff the fuse or cut the circuit.
…At the very least, that much was true.
Ho-jun shared that conviction with the Judgment Committee that sat above the Surveillance Bureau.
“…Deputy Director, the movements of the Star Cluster are unusual.”
So-rim reported the suspicious tracks of the Magical Girl of the Star Cluster.
Ho-jun, who had been lost in thought for a moment, turned his gaze toward the closed-circuit feed of Corridor 22, where the Magical Girl of the Star Cluster was visible.
She was pressed into a corner of the corridor. She glanced about as if hesitating, then dropped her head and began to move.
Even at a glance she looked restless, unsettled.
As though she were hiding something.
Ho-jun’s eyes drifted naturally to the great table in the center of the surveillance room.
A massive rectangular table dominated the space, currently displaying a holographic map of the entire Bureau.
It was a real-time holographic map that showed the position of every magical girl inside the facility.
…Surely not.
The black light that marked the Star Cluster’s location began to move.
Along the edges and corners of the broad corridor, through every blind spot, toward places where people were scarcest—little by little, step by step.
It was drawing closer to a brightly shining white light.
Ian-na.
Han Byeol-hwa, Magical Girl of the Star Cluster, was approaching Ian-na.
Without drawing attention.
“…Shall we issue a warning to the Star Cluster?”
“No need. That child is not a fool.”
For the briefest instant he recalled how Illusion and the Scales had unleashed indiscriminate violence on Ian-na.
And how he himself had looked the other way and allowed Ian-na to suffer critical wounds.
But whatever the Star Cluster intended, it did not seem to be that.
She was not stupid enough to torment Ian-na in a situation like this; she was clearly acting of her own will.
If it was his own daughter—who could not even properly kill an ant—then he could probably rest easy.
…Except.
The Star Cluster had always possessed sharp instincts. Her reasonably sharp mind and keen senses sometimes uncovered the “truths of the Bureau.”
It was extremely interesting.
If—
If Han Byeol-hwa reached the truth he was hiding simply by speaking with Ian-na…
he intended to praise her for it.
Blood, after all, does not lie.
“Waning Moon and the Star Cluster are projected to make contact. Shall I connect you to the Adjutant?”
“Tell him to perform his duty. If he shows the same disgraceful behavior as last time, there will be no next time.”
“Understood.”
He had not expected it, yet the situation was becoming rather entertaining.
Byeol-hwa was never a child who moved without purpose. He knew that because she was his daughter.
She would not approach Ian-na merely to trade idle jokes.
Knowing full well that the Bureau’s surveillance net spread through the underground like a spider’s web, yet still making contact so openly—
it could only mean she was plotting something.
“…Is there a recording device at the site?”
“There is none in Corridor 23, where the two are expected to meet.”
Even if he could not hear the conversation, it did not matter.
He could simply go himself.
Just as Ho-jun was about to leave his seat—
“What’s going on?”
“…Understood. I’ll head there at once.”
The veins in Ho-jun’s neck stood out taut.
Just as the Bureau of Magical Girl Correction and Surveillance that administered the entire Far East sat in Gangwon Province of the Republic of Korea, oversight organizations were stationed all across the world.
The Mediterranean-Atlantic Magical Girl Detention Bureau—charged with the Mediterranean, the Atlantic, all of Europe, and North Africa—was carved into the Alps.
It possessed more than three of the Magical Girl Twelve Seats and hundreds of artificial girls, giving it enormous voting power among the oversight organizations.
For contact with such an institution to be severed completely meant…
Civil war.
A large-scale civil war waged with magical girls.
War.
Or an attempt to launch a war against the Bureau in order to seize its excellent personnel, research materials, and magical girls.
Or, if neither of those…
…Annihilation.
Total destruction, with not a single survivor left.
Whichever it was, the situation was racing toward the absolute worst.
Jaw clenched, Ho-jun hurried toward the Control Room.