Let's Be Friends (5)
Let’s Be Friends (5)
[Guardian, I will quickly contact the other magical girls...]
‘No, it’s fine.’
Refusing assistance, Red Vega dodged Watcher’s attack.
She was intrigued.
She wanted to know his true motives.
She wanted to know how far she could reach him now.
Unlike their last fight, where he had held back, she wanted to face him in earnest. True, her physical condition was quite poor at the moment—but perfect conditions were never guaranteed.
She considered this, too, part of the test.
“You said your goal was to eliminate magical girls.”
Red Vega swung her fist, wreathed in intense flames. The fire coiled around her hand stretched like a whip, tearing through the air.
“And your first target is me... because I’m weak?!”
Watcher threw himself to the left, evading the flames with sharp speed. The narrow back alley made dodging difficult; the movement sent him straight into a wall.
Just before impact, Watcher twisted in the air and planted his feet against the wall. His legs bent deeply, like a grasshopper poised to leap—telegraphing his next attack.
A downward strike. Fist or foot, the moment he jumped off that wall, a heavy blow was coming.
His legs moved. He launched himself toward the earth, the homeland of wingless beasts. Red Vega crossed her arms in an X and spun flames before her. A fine barrier of fire took shape.
Fist or foot, the instant anything touched it, he would be the one hurt. But Watcher was a step ahead.
[ALIOTH]
A crimson rapier, slender as a nail, materialized in his hand. Flame Nail. Much like the flame shield Red Vega had raised, his blade now bore its own wreath of fire. The sharp point was a spike hammering against her fiery barrier.
KWAANG!
The two flames collided. They exploded like water poured into hot oil. In heat rivaling a furnace, both fed their flames larger and larger.
At last, someone’s body tumbled across the ground.
“You misheard me. I don’t hold any special pity for you in particular. You are weak—that’s true. But that’s hardly a reason to attack you. There are far weaker people than you.”
It was Red Vega. Even the flames that had always been with her since she became a magical girl could not reach this monster. She felt wretched. The wretchedness spread, twisting into something close to resentment.
“Is it an inferiority complex... or just stubborn pride? Could it be you’re overreacting because I was the first person to hand you a defeat?”
Watcher shook the flames clinging to his arm with a sharp motion, as if flinging off blood. His own fire still clung thickly to the blade like molten lava, blazing fiercely.
He had greater skill than she did. And yet that one skill of his had shattered everything she had. Just as he had told her, over and over—she was weak.
“You’re the one who made me misunderstand!”
Red Vega screamed, every tangled emotion she’d been carrying riding on her tongue. She clutched her throbbing side and rose. Had she aggravated her injuries?
It didn’t matter.
Her body, running wild with excitement, pumped out adrenaline and endorphins. The pain numbed quickly. Somehow, it kept her moving.
“Whose side are you on?! Why did you help me before and now you’re attacking me?! Was worrying about me last time just a whim?! What do you actually want?!”
She drew magical power from her heart. Unlike a monster’s power, this was a beautiful, gentle light—the picturesque starlight unique to magical girls. The radiant glow lit the shadowed alley, gathering gradually in the girl’s hands.
The flames writhed inside her fist. A circular ring formed at her wrist—a red halo resembling a star’s or an angel’s. It vibrated like a sound wave. Rising, falling, rising again, it shaped a ring of high-purity magical power.
“What do you mean, you’ll eliminate magical girls?! Then why do you care whether I live or die?!”
A technique that symbolized her life as a magical girl.
The first technique she had ever completed on her own.
A technique born of admiration for Sky Polaris—bordering on homage.
“With all that power, why don’t you use it to protect the weak?!”
One Path. Flame Roar.
Red Vega charged at roaring speed. A sonic boom and a trail of red light marked the path she had run.
Watcher prepared his own technique. He bent his waist, drew his arm back, and pulled Flame Nail into position. A stance for thrusting. At his blade’s tip, a dark, deep red ring formed. It spun, generating more and more light.
Falling Starfire Path.
Red Vega thrust her fist forward. Watcher thrust his blade.
The two flames and two halos of light met.
KWAAAAAANG!!!
A blast of light flared through the back alley. The asphalt floor and walls, unable to withstand the shock, trembled in fear, fine cracks spiderwebbing across them. The ground shook.
The light receded, and the victor was revealed once more.
“I should be the one asking.”
Again, it was Watcher.
“Again...”
“With all that power, why don’t you protect yourself?”
A giant’s shadow fell over Red Vega as she struggled to rise. Watcher’s foot came down on her hand.
“Nngh!”
“Your injuries from the last fight still haven’t healed.”
“And you...”
Red Vega met Watcher’s eyes. She had to lift her chin as high as she could from the dry, ash-covered asphalt. Even though he was close, meeting his gaze was hard. He was far away.
“...you’ve recovered? Already?”
Red Vega remembered the wounds he had taken fighting a powerhouse like Libra. But now Watcher looked perfectly fine. Even for a monster’s body, it was absurd.
That had only been the day before.
“And why did you choose to fight? This place is near a hospital. I heard there were magical girls stationed here... Why did you fight alone? Fair and square? Is that what you were after? In a battle where your life is on the line, you’re chasing something like that? You even have civilians to protect.”
“That’s not... Aagh! Ngh!”
Watcher lifted the foot pinning her hand. It wasn’t mercy. Without a moment’s pause, he swung his leg and kicked her in the stomach.
“Keuk... ngh. No. I just... I wanted to know your objective... and avenge my defeat that day...”
Red Vega clutched her stomach and pushed herself up.
“Avenge? You say interesting things. To you, is defeat a disgrace?”
Watcher’s leg, refusing to tolerate it, rushed at her again. Kicked in the stomach in the exact same spot, Red Vega rolled painfully across the ground. The floor, heated scorching from the battle, was not a place anyone would want to lie on.
Just from rolling, Red Vega suffered mild burns and let out another agonized groan.
“Is defeat a disgrace for a magical girl? If so, what does that make your seniors who’ve suffered countless defeats? Is that an insult to them?”
“...”
“The correct response was to take flight the moment you transformed and bring backup. There are no civilians here for me to attack. That means there was no one for me to threaten, no one you needed to protect, while you ran. Did you just charge in blindly to soothe your own shame?”
An increasingly flippant voice pressed down on Red Vega.
“So it turns out you’re not just weak—you’re stupid, too.”
Thud.
A third violent impact struck Red Vega’s body.
“Keuhuk! Ngh... nghh...”
She could no longer swallow the pain. The agonized groan burst out, along with the breath and saliva she had been holding in her lungs.
She couldn’t even maintain her transformation. The clothes that had adorned her body scattered into light, slowly revealing the ordinary flesh and fabric of a normal girl.
And yet, no quest-completion announcement came from the Belt.
Just what kind of quest system was this, not stamping “complete” after beating a girl this badly?
What did this quest even exist for?
Han Jae-jung retraced his origins once more. What he had wagered to gain the power of the stars was none other than his own life. If he failed to fulfill his ideals, if he could not shoulder that responsibility, he would die.
Given that the penalty for refusing a quest was death, the criteria for issuing quests likely did serve his ideals. Most quests were, in fact, about eliminating threats to magical girls.
But what was this quest? An order to attack Red Vega. The fact that it still hadn’t declared completion even after forcing her to power down meant there was more to do.
How was this helping him achieve his ideals? He rested his chin on his hand and thought.
He took in the sight of Red Vega, huddled pitifully, clutching her stomach.
In that moment, a thought flashed.
The experience of being surrounded by monsters and mob-lynched in the past. The experience of nearly dying at Libra’s hands. Right now, Red Vega was in a situation similar to his own back then.
Protecting magical girls couldn’t be accomplished just by rushing in to save them every time they were in danger.
Like teaching a hungry person how to fish, what mattered was making them capable of protecting their own bodies.
Han Jae-jung now understood the meaning of this quest.
Just like what had happened to him back then.
“Hey, Red Vega.”
Make her feel fear.
In the face of death, paradoxically, let her realize the preciousness of life.
Become her fear.
“Wh... what?”
“Have you ever seen stars?”
Only now did he understand. What he needed right now was compassion. But not mercy.
Imagine it. What he had suffered back then. What he had felt, standing before sneering monsters.
And now, reenact it.
“People often say you ‘see stars’ when you take a hard hit. The optic nerve gets shocked and flashes. Have you... ever had that experience?”
There was laughter in Watcher’s voice. It was chilling. He was being playful—but to her, it wasn’t play at all. The games of an overwhelmingly powerful being become lethal violence for the weak.
Even though her transformation had dispersed, his shadow showed no sign of fading.
“What?”
Red Vega asked blankly. Her voice trembled faintly—like a child’s voice, quivering before a beating. Ignoring her answer, Watcher raised his foot again.
And brought it down.
“Keuhuk!”
Reeling from the impact, Red Vega forced herself up, her will blazing. Without even transforming, she clenched her fist and charged at him.
“Raaaah!”
Watcher didn’t bother to dodge.
Thunk. A fist crashing against solid metal armor inflicted no damage whatsoever. Instead, blood began to trickle from her own attacking hand.
“...What exactly are you doing right now?”
“I can’t... back down like this... I’m a magical girl...”
Without even pausing to wipe the faintly welling tears, Baek A-hee shamelessly kept talking.
In that instant, Han Jae-jung felt anger.
The kind of anger born of pity—what you feel watching a child who knows no fear, playing too rough on a playground, in a ravine, on a mountain. He was furious at the sight of a child who had no idea how precious her own life was, thrashing around recklessly.
If it had been another monster instead of him, what would have happened to her? He didn’t even want to imagine. He had earnestly persuaded and explained, over and over, and still she didn’t know how to use her life.
He remembered how, in the original, she’d been a character fans loved to hate—cancer-inducing, they called her. She only became useful at the very end. Before that, she survived solely because her seniors sacrificed themselves. A frustrating character.
Justice without power.
It had been fine when she was fiction. But meeting her as a real person, forming a bond with her, he now understood why people had cursed her name.
Someone who rampages without a plan is always a menace.
“You’re standing in front of a monster. Do you not understand what that means?”
Han Jae-jung grabbed the girl’s arm—the one at his chest—and pulled. He hooked her stumbling, off-balance legs and sent her crashing down.
“What you should have done just now wasn’t to resist. It was to run. Do you not know what defeat means for a magical girl? It’s not a disgrace. It’s a reason to feel relief that you survived. The fact that you lost a life-or-death battle and didn’t die is proof that you can go on to save more lives. You should have run. Why are you wasting your life for nothing?”
Han Jae-jung raised his foot again. And brought it down.
“Did you think I was soft? Did you think that because I saved you before, I’d understand all your pathetic tantrums? Did you think I wouldn’t kill you?!”
Again.
“Please! Understand! Your worth! Your life!”
Again.
“Fear is hope!”
He didn’t listen to the sounds. He didn’t look at her. His focus was entirely on the Belt’s voice. Until the notification to stop came, he moved his foot as much as he could. Lift the leg and bring it down again.
He had pulled his strength, but that didn’t mean it didn’t hurt.
Before the pain, the terror was bound to be overwhelming.
Baek A-hee had tried her best to resist, but an injured civilian stood no chance against a monster’s power. Every attempt to rise only got her trampled.
Gradually, the girl’s movements stopped. In their place, trembling began.
Watcher didn’t stop. Fear had to be engraved more deeply. The value of life always becomes clearest in the moment before death.
How many seconds had passed? No—had it actually been several minutes? Had an hour already gone by? It was a long exercise in violence. The most one-sided violence he had ever committed. It was horrifying. Each time his foot moved, it felt like sinking deeper into a swamp. A nightmarish stretch of time.
[Quest complete.]
He pulled his foot away at once. Beneath it was a girl, curled up, shielding her head with her hands, trembling uncontrollably.
“Hic... stop... stooop...”
Success.
The confident, proud Red Vega was no longer here. Only a girl named Baek A-hee remained—assaulted by a monster, tears brimming in her eyes.
“Hikk, nghh... hic...”
When the violence stopped, Baek A-hee barely managed to lift her head.
“Why...?”
What she threw at him was a question. A single word. Inside it swirled disappointment and betrayal—too much to be contained in one syllable—the question of why he had done this to her, the question of why she had to suffer this.
There was no fiery rage. No burning desire for revenge, no humiliation of the sort you’d expect from her.
Faced with an overwhelming gap in power, with that helplessness, people don’t feel anger.
They just feel fear.
Han Jae-jung, having done something unforgivable, covered his mouth and barely suppressed the urge to vomit. He stepped backward several paces, shuddering at the horrific scene he had caused.
It had been a necessary measure—but had he gone too far? The physical injuries were lighter than ever, yet the girl looked far more wounded, and a wave of doubt washed over him.
“You son of a bitch!!”
A desperate shout and a flying kick sent him reeling. It was Pink Deneb.
The mascot, unable to stand by any longer, had made contact on its own. That the most mobile Pink Deneb had arrived first was only natural.
She had transformed in haste, still in her patient’s body, and wore her hospital gown draped over her like a coat.
She swiftly deployed her Crimson-Winged Crows, shielding Baek A-hee while simultaneously sending them swarming at Watcher.
Each bird in the flock rushed him like a blade. Her fury was righteous.
“What did you do to our A-hee?!”
Pink Deneb glanced back at her junior. The normally unreasonably bright girl—who would ordinarily have cheered at her arrival—was wordlessly shivering. What little patience she’d had evaporated entirely.
She unfurled more Crimson-Winged Crows than ever before, blanketing the entire back alley.
“I was wrong to think... there’s no way a bastard like you could be him... You goddamn fucking piece of shit...! Is this what your mommy and daddy taught you? What did she ever do wrong?!”
“As you just said yourself—nothing. She did nothing wrong. But the world is full of people who don’t know that.”
Watcher answered calmly.
“So sometimes, people need something to make them realize it.”
This was enough. He had no desire to commit any more violence today. The time for abuse was over. Han Jae-jung knew that what he had just done could never be dressed up as discipline or education.
“You, on the other hand, seem to already know. That’s a relief.”
[ALKAID]
Smoke scattered from Watcher’s form. Pink Deneb rushed in and tore through it.
“Fuck! Don’t you run! You’re gonna get beaten too, get back here! I’m gonna pay you back exactly what you did to A-hee, so stay right there! Hey! Hey!”
She thrashed desperately through the smoke, but his body had already vanished.
“Fucking bastard!”
Pink Deneb’s fist slammed into the wall. Like a voiceless scream, only the sound of the impact echoed.