The Meaning of Protection (5)
The Meaning of Protection (5)
Evening filled the landscape. It was red. Light poured through the window and washed over the Belt, staining it crimson. The color flashed like blood. My breathing was harsh—tension. The cawing of crows, scattered through the silence, unsettled it further.
[Do you accept?]
The Belt asked again. I remembered that first night—perhaps not truly the first—when I fled from a monster, knowing nothing.
The difference was this: back then, transforming was my way out of a deathtrap. Now, transforming meant walking into one.
A rescue, or holding out—maybe. But elimination?
Could I succeed? I had just witnessed Libra’s power firsthand. Pseudo-divinity. Even handling all seven stars at full output, victory was far from certain.
My head throbbed. I wiped my face with trembling hands. Even a small movement made my shoulder ache and my body protest. The wounds had healed fast, but they hadn’t fully recovered.
Excuses were plentiful. Reasons to flee, reasons to give up—overflowing.
My injured body. My insufficient power. Death upon defeat...
And the people I was about to save were not ordinary citizens. They were heroes.
On the TV screen, the faces of civilian onlookers and reporters appeared. Worry and unease showed, but beneath them, a faint trust lingered.
The sort of trust that said, “The magical girls will handle it somehow.”
In a worldview steeped in heroism, people take a hero’s sacrifice for granted. Even the heroes themselves do.
Maybe my memories from before the possession are fake. But I still hold those values. Sending a child who hasn’t yet found her footing in society off to fight for her life—that has always felt wrong to me.
The reason magical girls are girls is that every magical girl gains her power before reaching adulthood.
Glamorous child soldiers.
I despised it—that immoral arrangement—yet on some level, I understood. They had power. Unlike the citizens trembling in fear of death by a monster, they possessed a special power, like starlight in the night sky.
People would admire it. In a corner of their hearts, they would envy it. And ultimately, they would lean on it. Expect it. Expect that she would save them. That even at the cost of her own life, she would fulfill that expectation.
Vicarious satisfaction gained by projecting oneself onto a hero.
Because that is the weight a hero must carry.
Because a hero shoulders not only the lives of others, but their expectations too.
People did not see the star. They saw the light.
Too distant to feel empathy, to truly know. They only gazed at the brilliance.
Fickle eyes that would turn away when daylight’s radiance or the night’s artificial glow or clouds obscured the star—when the starlight vanished. Self-satisfied eyes that envied at length only while the light remained aloft.
Red Vega’s words surfaced. Those mad words—that she could throw away her life to protect someone.
The virtuous madness that sustained this world. Leaning on it, she would burn her life away today.
She had tasted defeat several times already. She would not give in to stubborn pride. Those who fight to protect something have no retreat. The desperate are those with something to lose, not those with nothing.
Certain death.
In the truest sense, to fight resolved to die.
“Hoo...”
I drew a deep breath and let it out. I rubbed my face hard with my palm. I was exhausted. I was in pain. My body trembled continuously from fear, and trauma kept the nausea at bay again and again.
Death was terrifying.
But that was not reason enough to do nothing.
[Guardian, make your choice.]
Now, at last, I understood why I was a Guardian.
Only after turning my fear over and over could I reach a conclusion.
I knew the value of my life. I knew what was precious. I knew my situation.
And because I knew, I understood that the words I was about to speak were far from light.
“I accept.”
I had no regrets about this answer.
Resolve forged in fear is solid.
An answer given knowing the value of one’s life shines brighter than life itself.
The trembling in my hands stopped. But my heartbeat remained. It grew louder.
My heart pounded with conviction.
I rose from the slightly stiff hospital bed. Compared to where I’d slept before, it had been heaven. A shame to leave it.
**
I went up to the hospital rooftop and looked down. The cool autumn wind, now that the sun’s warmth had faded, chilled my body more sharply. It was almost painful in the thin hospital gown.
I grabbed the Belt, which was floating beside me in its spherical form.
There was no turning back now.
But no regrets either.
The Belt completed its transformation with practiced ease—shifting from a sphere into a buckle resembling a telescope. I fastened it around my waist. The coordinates transmitted to my mind marked the path with clarity.
I didn’t even need the information. Flames were already surging spectacularly between the buildings ahead. Some might see it as the ignition of courage, but to me, it looked like a signal fire.
Around the source of those flames stood a barrier that barred only magical girls. Ordinary people could pass freely, yet the area held only those hoping the barrier would be lifted. No one dared enter it to rescue the kidnapped.
The path I had to take was clear.
I gripped the buckle and fixed it to my waist. Rattle-clink. A metal cable extended from the buckle and wrapped firmly around me, locking into place.
The solid weight of the Belt at my waist declared that I too had stepped beyond the ordinary. Power.
I had a special power, different from the rest.
I was not like those who, lacking power, merely projected themselves onto heroes or hoped a hero’s fall would bring them down to their level.
Not like those who, though capable of entering the barrier, lacked the courage to act and only shuffled their feet from a distance.
I acknowledge it. Demanding courage from them would be tyranny. It would be no different from telling them to die pointlessly against a monster.
But I was different. I had power.
It might be the same kind of power a monster wields. But how that power is used depends on the inclination of the user.
Power that could easily take a life. The direction of its use had been decided long ago.
Looking up at the darkening sky, I murmured.
“Did I look at the stars?”
With the engine-like throb of my pulse serving as the transformation standby tone, I placed my hand on the Belt.
“Now, I will not look away.”
Even within fear, I will seek it.
My ideal.
To do so, I had to change this feeble body, this fragile heart.
And so I cried out.
“Transform.”
The protection I must carry out.
Only I could do this.
Because I came from somewhere with different values, I knew that what is taken for granted is not truly granted.
Even if these memories are lies, my heart will not change.
A guardianship permitted only to me—someone not of this era, not one who takes magical girls’ sacrifice and brilliance for granted.
Because I know they are girls before they are magical girls. Because I know they are multifaceted human beings who can be wounded. Because I know they are children who should be enjoying a happiness far too young for bearing such grueling burdens.
Only I.
Only I, who understand a hero’s mental scars, their madness.
Only I can feel the need to protect them.
I looked at the stars.
[ASTRONOMICAL OBSERVATION.]
I observed the stars.
I did not see their brilliance. I saw their loneliness.
I witnessed the destruction of stars.
I knew their hidden sides. I saw their end.
Because I could observe, I knew. Because I knew, I could walk the right path.
If a hero is a guardian who protects the citizens—
Who protects the guardians?
In a society that takes a hero’s sacrifice for granted, where even the heroes themselves readily discard their lives—who protects them?
I will take that role.
I will become the guardian of guardians.
I am not a star. I don’t need a star’s brilliance.
Not a star, but the one who watches them.
The one who observes.
The one who watches, and realizes.
Not one who turns away disappointed when the stars are hidden by darkness, but one who watches endlessly and remembers the worth of their light.
One who remembers and protects that light.
One who observes, and guards.
This is my ideal.
I finally understood.
I finally remembered.
Starlight welled up abundantly from the Belt. Like a star rising from the dark depths of the sea—deep and heavy, carrying the vastness of the ocean within it.
In the past, under that overpass, when I was drenched in blood and water and sneered at by a monster, I feared death—and I feared something else.
Blue Sirius. I feared her guilt. I feared her blaming herself for what was not her fault. I feared how she would grieve.
Her sorrow—that was my true terror.
Not just her. Every magical girl must be the same. They would seek no reward for their suffering and sacrifice, only mourn each grain of life they failed to catch, like sand slipping through their fingers.
What I reached beyond the pain was compassion. And beyond that compassion, I saw a constellation.
[THE BIG DIPPER.]
The Big Dipper.
The cluster of stars that guided the lost. I gazed at them and reached out my hand.
Death was acceptable. I only asked for strength—the strength to survive among them, the strength to find a path that would spare them grief.
So I grasped a star in my hand, and I survived. I gained the strength to endure among those monsters.
I was not ruled by the star. I was not chosen by the star.
I chose the star.
What I carry is not desire, not duty. It is will and responsibility.
Stars are merciless.
They demand a price for the strength they grant.
If you do not move forward, only death. Only the death you postponed, delivered.
This is my origin.
[ORIGIN.]
Transform, or die.
I knew my origin. I knew my ideal. I knew what I must do. It was unshakable resolve, uncovered within fear.
Seven stars rose from the Belt and streaked across the sky before touching my body again.
Within that glow, distinct armor appeared and encased me.
Armor riddled with cracks, as if it might crumble at any moment. This instability was no reason to retreat.
There was no hesitation in this step.
Certain of the path I had to walk, I moved forward.
**
Red Vega swung her fist. With the added propulsion of her flames, it was a blow powerful enough to collapse a building wall.
But Libra caught it with his chest.
“Feeble!”
He threw a punch of his own into Red Vega’s stomach. A grotesque sound, like leather twisting, and a pained groan escaped her lips.
“Keu, huk...”
Unable to withstand the impact, Red Vega sailed through the air, far from her own will. Like all wingless beasts, her body that had surged upward came crashing back down, rolling miserably across the ground.
She landed among the citizens she was meant to protect.
“Red Vega...”
Their voices were uneasy. A sign of how wretched she looked right now. Red Vega kindled her will once more.
“I’m fine!”
She forced out a ragged breath, stood up, and clenched her fist.
[Guardian...]
Red Vega gritted her teeth.
So I have to resort to this after all. But there was no turning back now. Holding out had reached its limit. No sign of reinforcements.
A hero had to stake her life.
[Gu-Guardian, no—don’t! If you do that, you’ll...!]
“Sorry, Ribbon.”
Red Vega grinned.
“I don’t think I can keep my promise.”
At the center of the ribbon on her nape, the jewel there blazed like molten lava.
“Right here, right now, I’ll—huh?”
KABOOOOM!!!
A massive blaze erupted toward Libra. It wasn’t Red Vega’s. Right beside her, on her right, red-green flames surged with a menacing roar.
“Still so fragile, I see.”
A man strode out through the scattered flames.
“Step aside, pitiful thing.”
A green giant, the Big Dipper’s mark on his belt. Though now clad in red armor, she did not mistake him.
“That one is my enemy.”
The monster who had helped her, time and again.
The Big Dipper Monster had come.