Let's Be Friends (4)
Let’s Be Friends (4)
Blue Sirius gazed out the window with melancholy eyes, radiating an untouchable allure.
She was beautiful, yet a solitude hung about her that no one dared to breach.
Abruptly she turned toward Baek A-hee. Their eyes met, and Baek A-hee flinched, rooted in place. The shock was like ice entering her body. Blue Sirius was especially beautiful today.
An ominous beauty.
“I’m sorry. You came all the way here and I left you hanging. What brings you?”
“Ah, it’s, well.”
Baek A-hee hesitated. Would it be all right to bring up that monster now? Would it only add unnecessary anxiety?
Watching her, Blue Sirius smiled bitterly.
“You were going to ask me how to become stronger again, right?”
“Oh... yes, yes! That’s right! Heh heh....”
She ducked her head and laughed awkwardly. She’d said it so often that it must have stuck in the older woman’s mind. Indeed, she frequently asked Blue Sirius for combat tips and secrets to getting stronger.
The answer was always the same, though.
“I’ll say this as many times as I have to: I’m not strong. You’re better off not expecting too much. And besides, each magical girl’s magic varies widely from one to the next, so rather than fighting on someone else’s advice, it’s better to find a combat style that suits you. And another thing...”
The response was always the same. This time was no different. Except today, more words followed.
“Vega... no, A-hee. Don’t be too startled, and listen.”
That ominous beauty from before brushed against her again. The cause was Blue Sirius’s eyes.
“This time... I received a retirement recommendation. Did you know?”
Like frost flowers blooming on thorns, a fragile light resided in her eyes. A beauty that looked as if it might melt away at any moment.
“...Excuse me?”
“It really isn’t strange. I’m at an age where still being active is the surprising part. I’ve heard the rumors now and then for a while. It’s just... this is the first time I’ve heard it said directly, right in front of me.”
Magical girl retirement.
The timing is abnormally early compared to other professions. It’s comparable to figure skaters, who retire early even among athletes.
By their early to mid-twenties, most magical girls start considering retirement.
“B-but Blue Sirius, you’re still strong! So why retire...”
Even as she spoke, Baek A-hee knew.
A magical girl doesn’t retire just because her combat power declines.
“They must have gotten it wrong!”
Magical girls have a particular trait.
They don’t age.
Once the body has matured to a certain point, aging slows drastically, as if time’s passage lightens its hold on them.
There is no loss of combat power due to aging.
If they can fight while maintaining the form of their prime, how could a loss of power ever arise?
So there is another reason they retire.
“I heard you got even stronger this time! It’s not your time to step back yet.”
People have limits.
No matter how much someone enjoys being in the spotlight, they will wither and die under excessive, unrelenting attention.
It’s no different from giving a plant too much water and killing it.
“Dilemma... they’re going to keep moving now....”
They have to smile in public while looking at an endless stream of corpses. When they save someone, they’re praised; when they can’t, they receive blame that’s a twisted mirror of that praise.
If the body can influence the mind, the reverse also holds true.
A worn-out mind creates a worn-out body.
The body doesn’t age, and it recovers quickly from injury. But the mind is different. Once scratched, the wound weeps a persistent, sticky fluid. The names of that fluid are sorrow, guilt, self-loathing, and more.
And when you’re adrift in those things, swimming through them,
someone will gently let you know.
That it’s time to rest now.
Don’t kill yourself trying to save others.
A magical girl doesn’t decide her own retirement. The sense of duty cultivated from her teenage years, protecting people, won’t allow it. It’s others who say the words.
That you are no longer in a condition to work.
More than anything, it’s humiliating, and that shame makes the heart even more inclined toward retirement.
“Of course, I’m not saying I’ll do it this very moment.”
Blue Sirius answered Baek A-hee’s gloom.
“I’m saying I’m at a point where that’s my condition now. It means you chose the wrong person to ask. A-hee, you started being a magical girl quite late, didn’t you? You’re anxious because of that. But there’s no need. You’re already getting stronger quite well. If you try to run faster than this, you’ll only end up falling flat on your face.”
“B-but now there are stronger monsters...”
“A-hee.”
Blue Sirius’s voice was gentle but firm.
“For us, falling means death. You can’t get back up.”
It was coincidence, but her words resembled those of the monster she’d originally come to ask about.
“Magical girls retire young, you know. So until then, we have to protect as many people as we can. A-hee, there is no value in our deaths. Do you think monsters will stop being active just because we die? Monsters don’t vanish just because we die. In the end, our deaths would only be sacrifices that end as a momentary, fleeting emotion.”
The value of a life, spoken by Blue Sirius — a magical girl who had been active for nearly ten years — was impossibly light. There was no praise, no exultation, no reverence.
Death was simply death.
It has no value at all.
“A-hee, walk. Don’t run and don’t fly. Walk, so you don’t fall. Then someday, you’ll reach the strength you want.”
Baek A-hee wanted to ask.
Then, how many corpses must be left in your footsteps behind you?
In the end, she couldn’t ask.
Because she couldn’t dare imagine the number of corpses Blue Sirius had witnessed.
How many bodies had she been forced to shoulder over the past ten years? How much had she suffered because of it? She couldn’t imagine it.
But even if she couldn’t imagine it, she would know soon enough.
She, too, was a magical girl like her.
Give it just a little time, and she would be in the same position.
**
In the end, the hospital visit had only added more weight to her heart.
“Haa... aah.”
She sighed, and her side ached again. Maybe because she’d shouted earlier, the pain was worse than before.
[Guardian...]
Her mascot, Ribbon, spoke to her with a pitying tone. As a mascot who could share her feelings, Ribbon knew how great her sorrow was.
She had learned in quick succession that the senior she admired was badly injured, and that this senior might retire.
There was no way she wouldn’t feel wretched.
The step she’d taken to resolve her worries had solved nothing and instead brought back new, swollen troubles.
“Ribbon....”
She hugged her mascot close, voice thick with tears. At her touch, the mascot, normally invisible to others, took on physical form. A cute appearance that looked like a cat plushie.
She buried her face in that fluffy fur and rubbed vigorously. Its distinctive texture seemed to heal her.
[Guardian...]
Unlike a moment ago, the mascot murmured in a bothered voice.
“Oh, what’s the matter, I’ll only borrow you for a bit.”
[I’m not a plushie, Guardian...]
She let the mascot’s sulky complaint drift lightly past and soothed her troubled heart.
She could understand the maxim itself — to value your own life.
But wasn’t that an attitude that ought to change depending on the situation?
‘A magical girl running away because her life is in danger is weird too.’
Am I just too young to understand? Baek A-hee tilted her head.
[Guardian.]
“Ugh... being a magical girl is really hard, Ribbon....”
[Guardian.]
“Am I really the type who’s so reckless they’d say that kind of thing...? Ribbon, am I a little hotheaded?”
[Guardian! Danger!]
“Huh? What’s...”
She pulled her face away from Ribbon’s body, and a face was directly in front of her.
“Not looking around while you walk is rather hotheaded, I’ll grant you.”
“...?!”
A rough hand shot toward her, and before she could even scream in surprise, it clamped over her mouth.
“Mmph!”
She tried to yell “Watcher,” but it was already too late. His other hand pinned her arm so she couldn’t transform, and he whispered quietly.
“Be quiet.”
For a moment, she was terrified. The strength of a monster, encountered while she was helpless. Her legs went weak before that overwhelming force.
She wanted to resist, but her body, contracted with tension, wouldn’t permit even that. Like prey frozen after meeting a predator’s eyes, she remained rigid as Watcher’s hands pulled her along.
“This spot should be out of sight.”
Watcher dragged her into a secluded back alley and flung aside the hand that had been covering her mouth.
Her body sailed through the air and tumbled across the ground. A dizzying pain flowed in from her back. Still, her body hadn’t forgotten the breakfalls drilled into it, and she managed to soften the impact.
“...Why are you suddenly doing this?”
“Does a monster need a reason to attack a person? Or, if I said there were unavoidable circumstances I had no choice in, would you believe me?”
“If you tell me....”
Baek A-hee forced her trembling legs to move and stood up. Perhaps because of the faint trust she’d held, it hit her as even more of a shock.
Were monsters just monsters after all?
“Fine, I’ll tell you. I was threatened that if I don’t attack you, I die.”
Red Vega knew instantly that it was a clumsy lie.
This was the man who didn’t fear combat even against other monsters if they got on his nerves — and he was being threatened by someone?
Red Vega wiped her face. She felt a faint dampness. She had been so startled she’d teared up.
“Don’t lie to me.”
“It’s the truth. I’m sad you won’t believe me.”
Baek A-hee clenched her teeth as she watched Watcher shrug with a leisurely air. Was he mocking her?
She’s often misunderstood as docile, but she’s hot-tempered by nature.
Her emotions run high, she’s easily moved, but she also gets angry often.
If someone provokes her, she’s quick to rise to it, and she’s prone to misunderstanding things.
The appearance of the foe who inflicted her first defeat.
She cooled her startled heart and heated her passion to a boil.
“Honestly, I’m glad it’s me you attacked.”
If this had been an ordinary civilian, they would have died without being able to offer any real resistance. Counting herself lucky to have been the one attacked, she clenched her fist. The terror she’d felt just moments ago, she now crushed and tossed away.
She opened her fist, and a small ember bloomed in her palm. It was a flame like a jewel. When the mascot placed a hand over the ember, the ember transformed into a ribbon.
From the handle, lavishly set with brilliant jewels, a red ribbon streamed out long. It was shaped more like a rhythmic gymnast’s ribbon than something for clothing. She spun the ribbon above her head, tracing a circle.
“Dress Up!”
[Dress up your star!]
Light cascaded from the circled ribbon like a waterfall. The red light fell like a curtain, screening her body from the outside world.
The clothing she’d been wearing turned to ash and scattered. Starlight wrapped around her now-naked body, and that starlight became flame, and that flame gave birth to new raiment.
She shed her physical body’s clothing and donned a fantasy.
A red overskirt formed over a white dress resembling a school uniform, and numerous ribbons, frills, and jewel ornaments adorned her. Her loose hair, catching the starlight, shone red like flames as it split into twin-tails and billowed out.
The curtain that had concealed Baek A-hee opened wide, revealing her transformed figure.
Finally, the curtain gathered at her chest, becoming a jewel-studded ribbon at its center.
And so, Baek A-hee became Red Vega.
“Like a red comet into your heart! Red Vega appears!”
Watcher clapped, admiring the transformation. Not even a second had passed, and the entire transformation that had just happened was already complete. It was nothing like his own transformation, which ate up a full three seconds at minimum every time.
A fast transformation like that seems better than having a defense system during the sequence.
The grass really is greener, he thought. It looked more convenient than his Belt transformation.
Red Vega settled into a stance and asked, her voice sad.
“...Can’t we be friends?”
“That’d be difficult.”
Watcher tapped his belt lightly. The quest completion chime hadn’t rung yet. Which meant he needed to harass her a little longer.
“My apologies. I won’t make it hurt too much, so would you mind not resisting and just letting me do the hurting?”
“Your phrasing is a little weird!”
Red Vega clenched her fist and rushed at him.
“Obviously, I refuse!”
“Then I’ll make it hurt.”
Watcher also clenched his fist and launched it toward her.
Two fists met.