The Manipulator and the Creator
The fist came hurtling in with savage speed, wiping away the sweat that had been streaming down my cheek. The spot where the droplets had clung stung like a fresh scratch from a fingernail. What the hell is she so strong for…! I was feeling the overwhelming gap between me and Jem in every inch of my body. Even after starting the fight with her thigh torn wide open, she could still unleash this kind of power and speed? Dodging her attacks was already taking everything I had. Counterattacking wasn’t even on the table.
“You were running your mouth so well earlier. What’s wrong? Finally figured out the situation?!”
Damn it. I felt pathetic thinking back to just moments ago, when I’d been trying to work out how to subdue her without killing her. She was already badly hurt, so if I dragged things out, wouldn’t she collapse on her own? Not a bad idea, except the same logic applied to me. Every time I moved, my head spun and the wound in my side grew wetter, soaking through.
“Die, you bitch!”
“You think I’ll die just because you tell me to?!”
Another fist flew at me. I yanked the thread in a panic. The axe blade whipped around, aiming for Jem’s throat, but—
“The same pathetic trick again! You really think I’ll fall for it twice?!”
She caught the axe blade with her gauntleted hand. No matter how hard I pulled, it wouldn’t budge. I was hopelessly outclassed in both raw strength and ability.
A gunslinger, my ass… The whole three-gunslingers theory was trash. That woman wasn’t a gunslinger—she was a machine gunner.
With her snarling face right in front of me, I slowly backed away. What now? If things kept going like this, I’d end up a broken mess dangling from the gallows at the entrance of Talos City, the star of some public execution spectacle.
Should I drag Pania into this? If I wanted, I could force her onto the arena. All I had to do was lure Jem in her direction. I considered it for a second, then shook my head. It might buy me a little more time on this side of death, but the end result wouldn’t change.
Beside Pania, a hazy shape was flickering. She seemed to be using her object creation ability. What was she trying to make? A shield, maybe? As I watched, the blurry form gradually took solid shape. What finally appeared was a short, stocky little figure. It was the small golem I’d seen on the way here. What was she planning to do with a toy like that?
Just as I started to look away, another hazy shape began forming next to the golem. What was she churning out now? ……?
A thought flashed through my mind. No way?
I turned back and studied Pania’s face. She looked calm, almost detached. But the way she was biting her lip betrayed the impatience she couldn’t quite hide. Every few seconds her eyes flicked toward me, checking my reaction. At this point it was impossible to miss.
I still didn’t know why she’d changed her mind, but I understood Pania’s intention perfectly.
“What, you’re gonna beg that half-dead bitch for help? Wouldn’t it be smarter to beg me to spare your worthless life?”
Jem had noticed the silent exchange between us. She cracked her knuckles and advanced. She was talking like she still held all the cards, but it was pure bravado. The body can’t lie. The way she was dragging that leg told me she didn’t even have the strength left to pretend she was fine. She knew she couldn’t last much longer.
It looked like good news at first glance, but it wasn’t that simple. With time running out, her attacks would only grow more vicious.
“You say that like you’d actually spare me if I begged.”
“Dream on. Still, you never know, right? I might leave you with at least one good arm.”
If I was going to die anyway, what difference would it make? I played along with Jem’s nonsense while extending my threads to snatch up the small golem Pania had created. The strands sank into its body, connecting seamlessly.
“Doesn’t sound very tempting. Any other offers?”
“Sure. If you’ve got a last will, spit it out now. You won’t have the luxury of flapping that jaw much longer!”
The moment the words left her mouth, Jem’s massive frame charged like a wild animal. Her momentum made it hard to believe she was critically injured. She looked exactly like a boar that had been shot but refused to die. I kept my eyes locked on her. No reason to be afraid. Once I’d decided to fight magical girls, this was a sight I’d be seeing again and again.
I twisted my fingers, winding the connected thread. The golem shot forward with both legs extended.
—CRACK!
Jem blocked it with her left arm alone, then threw a punch with her right. Through the shower of shattered fragments, her eyes burned with even greater fury.
“Ha! I wondered what you were so cocky about, and it was just this piece of garbage?!”
They’d keep coming until she went down, yet here she was celebrating over smashing one doll. I kept retreating, maintaining distance. Even while moving I glanced at Pania. In that short time she had prepared two cross-shaped shuriken beside her. After seeing the previous exchange, she must have realized small golems couldn’t land meaningful blows on Jem.
Jem’s fists would never break, so a single heavy strike wouldn’t accomplish much. She’d simply block it. What I needed was a relentless chain of attacks that gave her no breathing room. For an evil spirit possessing Pania’s body, she had a surprisingly sharp mind.
I released more threads and snatched up the two shuriken. Each one the size of a human head, they floated in the air, staring down at Jem.
“Did you two hook up already? Doesn’t matter. You’re still just two bugs!”
“Look at you, talking big with that trembling voice.”
With a grinding sound of teeth, Jem charged again. Her pride must have taken a hit; unlike before, her fists now radiated pure rage. It was a display worthy of her True Name—Might.
But unlike before, I had completely regained my calm. Simply having something in both hands gave me a sense of stability. I even had the composure to wrap threads around my torn side and tighten them to staunch the bleeding while facing her.
I crossed my arms and lashed out with the threads. The two shuriken flew in from opposite sides, carving graceful arcs. The attack was aimed precisely at both of Jem’s temples.
“I already told you these cheap tricks won’t work…!”
Jem swung her right arm, batting both shuriken aside, and barreled toward me.
“You think it’s over just because you blocked it once?”
The real strength of magic thread manipulation lay in its ability to perform far more complex, flexible, and precise control than simply swinging a weapon. I seized the two deflected shuriken again. Then I yanked them back and re-aimed. One at the chin. One at the spine!
Unable to react in time to the successive pincer attack, Jem’s eyes widened. She frantically raised her gauntlet and knocked away the one flying at her chin. But only one.
—THUNK!
“Ah…! Aaaagh! Gaaaah! Ugh… Aaaaah!!!”
Jem’s scream shook the entire underground passage. She dropped to her knees and struggled to rip out the shuriken buried more than halfway into her back, then hurled it away. With a heavy clang, blood sprayed upward like a fountain.
“All that big talk when you didn’t even know your place. Have you finally understood the situation?”
I looked down at her with a relaxed smile, throwing her own words back in her face.
“Don’t make me laugh… Me… I, the security chief of Talos City, the right hand of the strongest magical girl Lady Serafina, Jem the Magical Girl of Might… losing to this kind of trash…!!”
Half-mad from pain, fear, and rage, Jem flailed her arms wildly and charged. Tsk. The tide had completely turned. Anything she did now was nothing but a pathetic death struggle. The only thing left for me to consider was how to capture her alive without killing her.
Of course, even with the upper hand I couldn’t afford to drop my guard. I continued backing away while she swung her arms haphazardly, keeping my distance. In the air, afterimages of threads and shuriken tangled and swirled in every direction. Every beginning, middle, and end of those trajectories pointed straight at Jem.
I didn’t expect it to be this effective… It can even do this kind of manipulation?
The slashing of thread and shuriken was so fast that even a magical girl’s dynamic vision would struggle to follow. All you could see were faint lines drawn in the air followed by flashes of light. Jem resisted desperately, swinging her gauntlets in a frenzy. But it was futile. The storm of shuriken flowed like water—soft yet ferocious. Her struggles were pathetically weak in comparison.
Only now did I understand why Pania had swallowed her pride and sided with me. Manipulation and creation. Our abilities perfectly filled in everything the other lacked.
—CRASH!
Suddenly the sound of something shattering rang out. A blood-drenched Jem stood panting, clutching fragments of a shattered shuriken.
“Huk… Haa… Krr… You son of a bitch…”
She destroyed it after all? She really was terrifying. It hit me again that without Pania I would have died for sure.
But now that one was gone, what next? It would be difficult to draw out the same potential with only a single shuriken left. I quickly scanned the ground near Pania’s feet. Since I already knew how quick-witted she was, she must have prepared the optimal solution again. What had she made this time?
When I saw the shape of the object at her feet, my eyelids twitched. Because what she had prepared this time wasn’t a shuriken.
…This was unexpected. Why that, of all things? Did that mean she really was Pania…?
Pania met my gaze with narrowed eyes. Expectation and murderous intent swirled together in her pupils. The twitching corner of her mouth looked ready to break into mocking laughter at any second.
No. That couldn’t be it. It was a common cliché—a zombie revived while retaining fragments of the original body’s memories. She must have created this for that reason…
With a trembling hand I reached out with my threads and snatched up the item Pania had prepared.
“Krr… Gaaaah! This can’t be happening! There’s no way I—I, Jem the Magical Girl of Might—would lose to some wandering magical girl!!!”
Jem’s gauntlet began glowing with deep blue light. Her ultimate technique, Strong Fist. I’d thought it would never come out, but in the end she had chosen mutual destruction.
Her legs were wobbling as if they would collapse at any moment, yet she squeezed out every last ounce of strength. The blue light, burning at full power and blazing even brighter, came hurtling toward my face.
I smiled at her.
Convinced her attack had landed, Jem smiled back through a face twisted in agony.
Just before the fist could bury itself in my face—
—CRACK!
A chilling tearing sound cut in, stopping Jem’s fist at the last possible instant. Beneath her shredded thigh, three pairs of steel saw blades were buried deep in her ankle, creaking ominously.
Crunch. Snap. In the sudden silence, the sounds of ripping tendons and breaking bone echoed with grotesque clarity.
“Ah… Aaaah… Th-that… Uwooo…”
“Aha, ahahaha!! Look at the state you’re in! How does it feel to have your foot caught in a trap? Pretty numb, right?!”
With Pania’s mocking laughter, Jem collapsed to the floor. She had completely run out of strength. Rolling in a pool of her own blood, she twitched without even managing a scream. The bear trap continued to grind against her ankle with an unpleasant metallic screech.