Love and Peace (2)
I forced myself to think it through calmly.
Ho-jun.
Why had the man who formed the Bureau’s very core—its command tower—shown himself in person, bringing every scrap of force he could still put into the field?
…This is an emergency.
That much was certain. The transmitter-radio fixed inside his coat pocket had said as much. An emergency—and the word had come from no one but Ho-jun himself.
Ho-jun was a man who could not leave his post for even a moment. In all but name, he was the Bureau’s true director, its head.
For someone like that to come find me in person, with a crisis already bearing down on the Bureau, could only mean—
Star Cluster…
Ho-jun’s surveillance net stretched across the entire Bureau. Outside my own room, it was no exaggeration to say I was watched at every hour, in every place.
He must have seen Star Cluster strike at the Adjutant and rushed out in a panic.
He would have decided that, like Illusion and Libra, Star Cluster was a threat to my life.
The Magical Girl of the Waning Moon, Ian-na, still could not be allowed to die. Ho-jun meant to use Ian-na’s body until the very end; he would never tolerate a variable that might throw his plan off course.
And yet—
The artificial girls standing at Ho-jun’s side.
They were still in a stage of development so secret that even the novel had only ever mentioned them as “under construction.” They were Ho-jun’s hidden trump card, and the only time they had ever appeared was during the “Girls’ Rebellion” that Illusion and Libra had set in motion.
By the calendar, it was far too early. They should not have been here yet.
Prototypes.
The odds were high that these were the first units of chimeras not yet properly completed. The robes that covered them from head to toe were almost certainly there to hide unfinished exteriors.
But still—
Ho-jun had no reason to drag them out into the open. Unless he were driven into an absolute corner, he would never expose a card this important.
From his perspective, the risk was enormous. Only a handful of people inside the Bureau even knew the chimeras existed; if any ordinary agent so much as glimpsed them by accident, the resulting shockwave would be catastrophic.
On top of that, the chimeras were still under development. They could not possibly be performing at full capacity. Each unit’s strength would be roughly equal to Star Cluster’s, or only slightly above it.
If his goal were simply to put down Star Cluster’s “rebellion,” he could have brought any of the other artificial girls. His hand still held plenty of units that could crush the current Star Cluster without breaking a sweat—
from third-generation artificial girls whose egos had been cut out of them, to those who offered Ho-jun a blind, fanatical loyalty.
No matter how I turned it over, there was no reason for him to show the chimeras now.
…I started over, thinking it through again with deliberate calm.
Ho-jun had said it was an “emergency,” and he had raced here with chimera artificial girls in tow to stop Star Cluster.
…Where are the other magical girls?
From the moment this began, no one but the Adjutant and I had been out in the corridor. Not a single person.
Given the scale of the Bureau’s personnel, that made no sense. This hallway saw heavy traffic under ordinary circumstances.
The last pieces of the puzzle seemed to slot into place.
An emergency.
If something could rise to the level of an emergency inside the Bureau, there was only one possibility.
A magical girl’s rebellion—or a rampage.
The appearance of an Unknown did not even qualify. Before the Magic Crusade, that had been little more than a daily occurrence.
What the Bureau truly feared was a magical girl’s rebellion or rampage.
And when it arrived, it always came in the worst form imaginable.
From that point on, the future Ian-na already knew began to overlay the present.
Once certainty took hold, it did not take her long to understand what event had broken out.
…Of course.
Every agent in the Bureau would be scrambling. The magical girls the same.
That was why the corridor was empty. That was why Ho-jun had not a single magical girl left he could still call on—
except Star Cluster and the chimeras.
Light spilling from the corridor fixtures settled around Ian-na in a soft glitter. For a fleeting moment her eyes, restored to something of their former clarity, shone with real brilliance.
Ian-na was calmer than she had ever been.
As calm as a past that could never be reclaimed.
“…Ho-jun. This isn’t the time. You can’t afford to stand here trading stares with Star Cluster. A magical girl has started to rampage.”
When Ian-na raised her voice, surprise flickered across Ho-jun’s face. He had intended to keep the rampage a complete secret from her until she was inside the Control Room.
From past experience, Ian-na always refused to enter the Control Room whenever a magical girl went berserk.
Her guess had landed dead center. Ho-jun had pushed himself to the edge simply to come protect her—to pull her free of his own daughter, Star Cluster, lost to Madness.
There was no time. Not a second of slack. His absence would paralyze the entire Bureau. Nothing would move properly without him.
That was the system Ho-jun himself had built.
And still—
He could not stand by while Ian-na’s life hung in the balance. To save her, he had even brought the unfinished chimeras. They were the only card left in his hand.
Without quite realizing it, Ho-jun drew a white wristband from his pocket.
If he put it on, he could forcibly broadcast Ian-na’s brainwave signals and get a rough sense of what she was thinking.
He wanted to know how she had read the present situation with such precision.
A sedative alone could not explain it. The same had been true last time. Identifying an Unknown’s weakness from a single glance at a monitor was impossible, even for the Magical Girl of the Waning Moon.
…Perhaps.
Perhaps Ian-na really—
“Ho-jun, you don’t need that… I haven’t hidden a thing. Whatever you want to know, I’ll tell you all of it. Not a grain of falsehood.”
“…I never meant to doubt you, Director.”
At Ian-na’s intervention, Ho-jun stopped short of fastening the band. He was afraid, even now, of placing any further strain on her brain.
Star Cluster, who had watched the entire exchange, went blank with disbelief.
…Why?
Her own father—the root of every evil, the vermin who had thoroughly conditioned and controlled Ian-na and forced her into countless atrocities—
why was he listening to her?
It meant Ian-na was not being controlled.
She refused to accept that. It could not be. It must not be. Ian-na had to be a being without moral defect. She had to be thoroughly controlled, or thoroughly coerced.
Otherwise, there was no legitimacy. Otherwise, there would be no excuse left that could be offered to the magical girls who had already died.
“…Lady Waning Moon.”
A seed of doubt settled in Star Cluster’s chest.
An ember caught and began to smolder.
Ian-na.
Even Ian-na could not tell what Star Cluster was thinking. She could not even begin to guess.
All she did was stroke Star Cluster’s hair. All she did was try to soothe her—to keep a father and daughter from sliding into the worst possible rupture.
“It’s all right. You don’t need to worry. I’ll handle everything.”
Ian-na thought Star Cluster was tense. She thought she was frightened.
“Ho-jun, you saw. There was some misunderstanding… but it’s resolved. Send the Adjutant to the infirmary. After that… we go back to the Control Room and work out a response.”
“…Her Madness has clearly broken the surface. If we don’t eliminate her now, she will become a serious threat.”
“You’re the one to talk, you psychopath who uses Lady Waning Moon like a tool—”
Ian-na flinched at Star Cluster’s words.
…How much does she know?
She seemed to have seen through it—that Ian-na was being used by Ho-jun.
Ian-na looked at Star Cluster’s face again.
…Perhaps.
Perhaps Star Cluster would stand on her side. When the Bureau or the other magical girls eventually moved to erase her, perhaps this girl would fight beside her.
Of course, that was a story for the distant future.
She resolved to speak with Star Cluster more carefully—somewhere Ho-jun was not present. Her room, for instance.
For now, the priority was to settle the situation before the side effects hit. Leave things as they were and one of the two would die without fail. Judging by the present balance, the far more likely corpse was Star Cluster’s.
Star Cluster was a precious magical girl who might one day stand on her side. Ian-na could not simply let her die here.
Mending the rift between father and daughter could wait. Time was vanishingly short; what she needed now was a way to break the stalemate in front of her.
While Ian-na wrestled with that—
Star Cluster still refused to let go of her suspicion. Ian-na did not seem controlled. Even Ho-jun had stopped at her word.
No…
In her heart she denied it absolutely. It could not be. It must not be. Her own theory had to be correct. Ian-na had to be thoroughly under Ho-jun’s control. She had to tremble in fear at the sight of him.
But—
Doubt breeds doubt. And Star Cluster’s nature was perfectly suited to letting doubt grow.
Just as that doubt was hardening into conviction—
“…Both of you.”
Ian-na opened her mouth in a heavy voice.
“Stop it. Right now… Take the Adjutant to the infirmary, and let’s go back to the Control Room. We don’t have time for this.”
“…Director.”
“Ho-jun.”
For a moment—only the briefest moment—a heavy silence settled over the corridor.
Ian-na met Ho-jun’s eyes without flinching. She was not cowed in the least.
And then—
“That is an order.”
Ian-na’s voice, heavier still, rang hollowly down the corridor.
The tremor in my chest would not stop. Even breathing hurt.
Even so, I could not stop.
I could feel Han Byeol-hwa’s warmth. Her back was soaked with sweat, but it was not unpleasant.
Right now I was being carried on Han Byeol-hwa’s back as we moved at a near run—together with Ho-jun.
Thankfully, the Adjutant’s injuries were not severe. He had only lost consciousness.
Ziiing—
“Deputy Director!”
“…What’s the situation.”
Ashen-faced agents cried out at the sight of Ho-jun. Alarms were already howling through the Control Room. A deep red light lay thick over everything.
RED ALERT IN EFFECT
Control Room status: CRITICAL
“All Spes units deployed to the field have been annihilated. Among the second-generation Formula artificial girls, Units Six and Seven are dead; Unit Nine is still engaged; Unit Fourteen is withdrawing with severe injuries. We have requested reinforcements from Illusion and Libra. As soon as maintenance is complete, Strages Unit Two will head to the site.”
“Worst possible outcome.”
“…I have no excuse.”
Ho-jun’s intensity was uncharacteristic of him.
He clenched a fist and turned his gaze to the monitors, and I—still on Star Cluster’s back—followed his eyes.
The main display showed the interior of an abandoned building. It was a space of absolute black, without a single thread of light. Aside from the pools of blood soaking the floor, nothing was visible.
And yet—
in one corner of the screen, something was writhing.
A chill crawled over me.
…It’s already begun.
I knew exactly what that thing was.