The Beast's Tail (5)
The Beast’s Tail (5)
A single bird flew around Pink Deneb. Then it became two, three, dozens, hundreds, thousands, tens of thousands—the number swelled without pause. The crows flew, drawing fierce gusts and trails of light.
Hair and fabric whipped ceaselessly. Even the moonlight bent, unable to withstand the wind. The roar of the wind silenced screams and proclaimed itself. It was wind of overwhelming force.
Pink Deneb had no power to manipulate the atmosphere. That did not change even now that the Black Dwarf state had brought her close to divinity.
Every bit of this wind was born from the beating of the Crimson-Winged Crows’ wings. The movement of mere beasts, gathered together, created a gale like a storm.
“What are you doing? I said let’s dance.”
She grinned darkly, her face smeared with blood and tears. The evidence of her suffering adorned her like a watercolor painting, lending her a yet more bewitching air.
She swept her hand sideways. A graceful curve was drawn, and the crows moved along that line. The flock of Crimson-Winged Crows, moving in perfect order, took on the supple elegance of a bolt of silk.
Whoosh!
The Crimson-Winged Crows, arrayed like a single path, flew toward the people.
“...What are you doing? That magic isn’t exactly suited to a cramped space like this. It’ll only increase the chances of them crashing into each other and getting hurt. The evacuation route is still that one way over there. Ah, the ceiling? Did you want to use it?”
Virgo laughed and moved her arm in time with Pink Deneb. Like a lake maiden dancing beneath the moonlight, both splendor and grace coexisted.
The crows moved at her command. Seizure of magical power through the Four Seasons, One Violet.
The stolen crows rose into the sky and filled the empty space like clouds. Even the moonlight was blotted out, and the darkness unique to the underground settled thickly.
“Now what? In the first place, how were you going to beat me with a few birds? You can’t bring me down with this kind of magic... Ah, one minute’s up.”
The wind did not cease even in the darkness. Its fierce speed swept away the stale air below and circulated fresh air.
“Now the ceiling’s sealed too... too bad. Looks like you won’t be able to evacuate anyone. That’s fine. Your touching sacrifice, burning away your own life, will be rendered perfectly meaningless. Still, society will mourn you appropriately.”
The starlight still emanating from Pink Deneb was the only light now illuminating the darkness.
“What are you talking about.”
She let the words of Virgo—who had stolen her magic—pass with a light laugh, then moved her arm again.
“You’ve been handling my magic and you still haven’t figured out its abilities? Just because you handle birds doesn’t mean your head’s turned into a bird’s head, right?”
The Crimson-Winged Crows had many abilities.
They could be deployed like wings on her back and let her run across the sky. They could detect starlight. And with that detection ability, they could serve as a bridge connecting the magical girls’ awareness in real time.
Yes, a bridge.
A structure meant to let things cross over.
Sea below, swamp below, lava below—even the sky itself—if you cross a bridge, you can get past it.
It lets you overcome any hardship. That is what a bridge is—a path.
Just as the crows gathered to form a bridge to reunite the Cowherd and the Weaver Girl, her Crimson-Winged Crows could serve a similar role.
“I don’t need the path that already exists.”
A path linking one magical girl to another. A sort of teleportation that ignores physical distance and spatial obstacles.
Originally, it was only possible between magical girls.
But now that she had awakened her divinity, such restrictions were gone.
“I don’t need to walk that narrow road.”
Whoosh.
The crows deployed and swept past people like the wind. The shadows that had been pressing forward in panic vanished.
Like a clogged drain, the people packed into the evacuation route—clogged with the foreign matter of human bodies—disappeared one by one.
The Crimson-Winged Crows no longer moved to carry people. They moved to become stepping stones to tread upon, a path that would guide those who walked it to the right road.
“I’ll make a new path.”
Those who walked that path of crows found themselves leaving the damp, dark underground and stepping into a city center brightly lit by human lights. It was a broad park.
As they looked around in surprise, other people who had been at the shelter began appearing around them one after another.
The commotion spread like a wave.
A commotion of joy—they had survived.
Every one of the Crimson-Winged Crows flew and alighted to become a path. They offered their own bodies to be lightly stepped upon as people passed over them.
The crows flew and flew again. So that no matter how many times someone stole them away, it would not stop their work, tens of thousands of birds beat their wings at once.
Silken Crow Rainbow Bridge (烏緞虹橋).
The crows spread out like silk and became a bridge leading to life.
Blooming like a rainbow at night, they drew a single beautiful line across the sky.
“I’ll be the path.”
With no lamps, with even the moonlight blotted out, when darkness had settled, she became the light and guided the people.
Like a star that shows the true way to a sailor lost on a vast, dark sea.
She pointed the way to escape from death, the straight line that would bring relief the fastest, that unerring straight line—she pointed north.
In this moment, she was the North Star.
The underground shelter emptied out, bit by bit. Among the many vanishing figures, only two forms did not move.
The one who would soon no longer be a magical girl, and the one who was no longer a magical girl.
Two similar yet different beings looked at each other.
“Are you in your right mind?”
A curve drew itself across Virgo’s lips. It was a smile thick with displeasure.
“You’ve gone completely crazy, haven’t you? Instead of using your magic to take me down right now, you used it to evacuate these morons? You really intend to die, don’t you?”
The more the signs of other people vanished, the more Pink Deneb’s light dwindled.
Black Dwarf.
A magical girl’s final starlight. Since it burns everything you have to produce light, the more light is cast out, the less remains.
It was like a candle.
If this starlight goes out now, that’s the end. It will be impossible to recover your strength and fight again. The starlight that has flowed away now will never return.
Not just the starlight—your life as well. If the transformation is forcibly broken, the life accumulated in your body will scatter and you will die.
Even if you power down by your own will, a time limit on your life is guaranteed.
Because this is a technique that burns everything you have to turn it into starlight. Naturally, that includes your life.
“That teleportation seems to cost quite a bit of magical power. Phew, it really is over now. With the magical power you have left, you can’t kill me.”
Her tone was openly disappointed.
“Since it was a secret art that converts even your life force into magical power, I was looking forward to seeing what kind of desperate struggle you’d put up... But, psh~ an evacuation is all it was? You idiot! Why’d you waste it on something like that? Are you stupid? If you’d spent that time thinking of a way to beat me instead... now all that’s left is a future where you die a dog’s death, poor thing...”
Disappointment, then mockery, then denunciation. Virgo tore into her.
Pink Deneb paid not the slightest heed and spread both arms wide.
Silence.
The crimson curtain made of crows—the silence—lifted.
Silence descended.
All that was visible was an empty void. A clean, empty space where not a single ant could be seen.
“Yap all you want.”
There was no one behind her. All the countless innocents who had been frantically pounding their feet just moments ago were gone.
She had succeeded in evacuating everyone who had been here.
“I was never fighting to win anyway.”
Victory—of course it’s a fine value.
But it is not worth a life.
“Whatever shit you spew from that mouth of yours, it’s none of my business. I just have to do what I have to do.”
No matter how many monsters you can kill, if you can’t protect anyone, the power is ultimately useless.
There is no need to win. Just save them.
That was the iron rule Pink Deneb had kept from the moment she first became a magical girl.
Fortunately, her abilities were suited to it, and she had continued to keep that rule to this day.
People rarely noticed because she often deployed alongside other magical girls, but she had always done what she could.
Pink Deneb.
The magical girl who recorded the most defeats.
The magical girl who recorded the most rescues.
Behind the record for most defeats, there was always a record for the fewest casualties.
“I can’t win? I know. I don’t live to win. Winning just gives you a short-term sense of satisfaction and then it’s over. Ah—of course, that’s me rationalizing. No one listens when a loser who loses all the time says stuff like this. But still...”
Pink Deneb pushed off the ground with her feet. A pink corona wrapped around Virgo’s waist, and the two shot straight upward.
“When people die, it’s over for good. Victory, that cheap thing—I can let it go.”
She bodily tore through the crows Virgo had blocked the path with and flew higher, and higher still.
She flew, rending the night sky. The bleak winter air filled her lungs, and tears welled in her eyes, perhaps from the cold. The chill wind seared the tears once and swept them far away.
“You were in a hell of a lot of pain just now, weren’t you, you bitch?”
I’ll probably die here.
When she coolly thought it over with a mind sharpened by the cold wind, that was the conclusion she reached.
Of course, she had many regrets.
She was sad, she was boiling with rage, and right now she wanted to gather up every foul word and hurl them at the world.
Instead, she decided to channel all that resentment into giving Virgo the middle finger.
A way to get some distance so Virgo couldn’t chase the people she’d evacuated, while also dealing some damage.
“You take a hit too, you goddamn bitch.”
Pink Deneb, who had been shooting upward for a long while, slowly tilted her body diagonally. Virgo, caught in her grip, naturally faced downward as well.
“It’s going to hurt a bit.”
At that instant, she flew at the maximum speed she could muster. Leaving a tail of light like a meteor, the two fell straight down.
**
Boötes was quietly looking up. She swallowed a hollow laugh.
Could it be that all the monsters she had created up to now would lose more than half their number in a single battle today?
“Mm... I guess I underestimated them too much after all.”
A gentle-natured person really is scarier when she gets angry.
She stroked her severed horn. Each time her fingers touched the cut, her body throbbed. It hurt quite a lot.
There was nothing in her four hands. No wooden staff, no belt. The wooden staff was lying intact beside her, but the belt had vanished.
It had probably gone to find its owner.
Happiness gradually spread across her face and made her smile.
“Still... it was magnificent.”
She recalled the battle just now.
The sight of that ferocious, thorough destroyer.
A bizarre monster that was both savage and mechanical.
“I look forward to the next time I see him...”
Boötes laughed with deep satisfaction.
Thinking of her wayward lamb, who grew more magnificent every time they met.
**
“A swarm of monsters... a trick to put some distance between us? My~ you’re stingy.”
Virgo dusted the dirt from her clothes as she stood. Her back bore the full marks of a fall from a great height.
Monsters surrounded her.
It was a remote mountain path, far from the city—a place where many of the monsters advancing from Dark Matter still remained.
“Still, I’ll let it slide this time. You’re tenacious, you are. You hate what you’re forced to do, but your sense of responsibility’s pointlessly high... Fine, you win. Well done. I’ll give you a round of applause. Clap, clap~! Such a good job!”
After clapping briskly, Virgo stopped her hands and looked at Pink Deneb.
A haggard sight. There was no need for her to lay a hand on her. Left alone, she’d either be killed by the monsters or die on her own. One or the other.
“Congratulations on your retirement, junior~”
With coldly sunken eyes, she scanned her and waved her hand lightly.
“At least you didn’t end up like me~ Well... dying or becoming a monster, I guess they’re pretty similar.”
She turned her back ruthlessly and vanished into the night’s darkness.
Jo Ah-yoon released her transformation.
-Grrr. Grrrrr.
She tried to raise her body. Her legs buckled and she collapsed onto the ground again.
She didn’t have the strength to move even her mouth, let alone her legs.
The voice of her mascot, which would normally have been chattering noisily by now, was silent.
The only thing cutting through the night’s silence were the threatening sounds of monsters.
After staring quietly into the darkness, Jo Ah-yoon slowly closed her eyes.
Ah, so this is the end.
It felt rather empty. There was no life flashing before her eyes at the final moment.
Without recalling the past or anything else, she quietly accepted death.
At that moment, everything before her eyes turned white.
“...?!”
A powerful brilliance that pierced through even with her eyes closed. Had dawn come early, or had she already reached the afterlife?
White beams of light streamed endlessly and slaughtered the monsters.
The lightning left a beautiful trail, like a beast’s tail, like the afterimage of a falling star.
“Ah...”
Taking in that scene with wide eyes, she let out a soft laugh.
“Ah-yoon!”
The source of the light approached and embraced her. A warm voice that did not match its cold body.
The ferocity of moments before scattered and vanished completely in front of her.
“Ah-yoon! Ah-yoon! Ah-yoon... No... Don’t do this... What... What happened...”
“What...”
The lingering trail of light like a tail disappeared, and the figure that had come to her was revealed. It was just as she had always thought.
“I knew it was my love...”
My beloved brother.
Why did this person always appear at the critical moment? Jo Ah-yoon smiled deeply.
To have this person beside her at the end—that wouldn’t be so bad.
With a hand she barely managed to lift, she brushed his tear-wet cheek and slowly closed her eyes.
“What—what is this. Why is this here. What. What is this... Whoa, wait—hey! Don’t! Hey!”
The racket made her open her eyes.
“Brother, I’m dying here... You’re so loud... Cry quietly...”
What she saw right in front of her was not her brother’s face. A metal orb. A metal orb floating alone in midair.
It approached her hand. The moment it touched her fingers, its form warped.
“...What the fuck.”
The metal orb transformed into a bizarre mechanical device.
A device somewhat resembling a telescope.
A black lens reflected Jo Ah-yoon like a mirror.
Beyond the lens, there was a distant light.
The light gazed at her, and she also gazed at the light.
Soon the light enveloped her.
That night, at the very start of December.
A horrific incident occurred, trampling the longing that heralds the beginning of a new month.
Monsters that had inhabited Dark Matter entered the city en masse.
This event, which could have become a great tragedy recorded in history, was suppressed early by the magical girls—and above all, through Pink Deneb’s sacrifice—and succeeded in ending with far fewer casualties than expected.
The currently confirmed human casualties are as follows.
A total of 8,568 residents chose evacuation, and 258 residents suffered moderate to severe injuries.
However, there were no fatalities.