Organizations Are Always at Extremes
Organizations Are Always at Extremes
It was a pitiful day.
That was Red Vega’s assessment of today.
A loss was a loss. And it was already the unchangeable past.
That loss had lodged in her heart like a thorn, and in the end she couldn’t even properly finish the task she’d steeled herself to take on.
Red Vega’s secretly held suicide counseling session.
This kind of work was just as important as magical girl work.
But.
‘I was naive.’
She had shown terribly clumsy handling.
An emotionally unstable counseling subject might do anything, so she should have responded calmly, but she’d panicked just because the subject had been asleep. She’d failed to demonstrate a proper counselor’s demeanor right from the start.
That wasn’t all. She’d been unable to properly apply the manual she had memorized days earlier because her mind was elsewhere, and in the end, the subject had been the one to show consideration for her.
To abandon a subject she hadn’t managed to give any positive influence and go out on a sortie.
And on that sortie, she hadn’t managed any notable contribution.
‘I lost it... I totally lost it... Aagh, this is so humiliating!!!’
For two days straight, she had made a colossal fool of herself.
These were things that must never happen to Red Vega, who aspired to be the perfect magical girl.
[Um... Guardian?]
Ribbon called out, but she didn’t hear. Her ears were blocked solid by the roaring sound of her thrashing regrets. If only her undefeated dream had been shattered and that had been the end of it. But she had shown failure after failure.
The regret echoing in the fragments of her shattered dream broke down another piece of her composure, and within those fragments, it echoed again. Repetition upon repetition of regret toppling like dominoes.
All that grew within that endless regret was self-loathing.
In a magical girl who was meant to give hope, hope had begun to fade.
[Guardian? Are you okay?]
‘I’m not okay... but I have to be okay.’
Within that regret and shame, Red Vega pulled herself together once more.
‘Because I am a magical girl.’
Because she was someone who must never lose her light, no matter what hardship or failure she faced.
‘If I mess up like this again next time, I’ll really...’
[Guardian?]
‘Really...’
She had tried to punish herself as an act of self-reflection, but no punishment came to mind.
’...What should I do?’
[Um... how about handing over one of your collectibles to the person you hate most?]
“Oh, that’s a good idea.”
She said it out loud by mistake.
“Ah.”
Red Vega quickly covered her mouth and glanced around. It was too late once the words were out. The past could never be gathered up again. Everyone’s eyes began to turn toward her.
“A-hee. What are you doing? Not focusing?”
“Deneb. No using real names during meetings.”
“Yesss~”
At Blue Sirius’s warning, Pink Deneb, who’d been sniping, shut her mouth.
“Vega, you too. Talking with your mascot is fine, but this is a meeting. Focus, please.”
“Yes...”
This was all because of that monster from yesterday. That monster was what had exhausted her like this.
-They say even a professional fighter rests for fifteen days after a bout. You must have had a hard time flying through the air yesterday. Wouldn’t you be better off choosing rest instead of burning with such passion?
His words from today suddenly surfaced in Red Vega’s mind, but she firmly rejected them.
‘Flying through the air? He’d taunted me, and now he’s telling me to rest. What is that supposed to mean?’
He’d deliberately chosen every phrase to get on her nerves, and now, with nauseating pretense, he was urging her to rest. It was clearly mockery, telling her to quit being a magical girl and live a normal life.
“Keh-heh, that’s gotta be mortifying for you!”
“Hey, who taught the Jap this kind of talk? A-hee, was it you?”
“I am not a Jap! I am the cute and lovable White Dabih! And you’re the one who curses the most anyway!”
“Oh yeah? Wanna go?”
“Guys, please...”
Meetings with these members, bursting with personality, were always a trial. Blue Sirius, who as the eldest had been handed a leader-like role, pressed her fingers to her forehead.
“No fighting! Right now we are holding a meeting for everyone’s sake!”
“Your word choice was wrong. Fine. You’re right. We’ll settle this later.”
“I don’t want to see you later! I am going straight home!”
“Everyone quiet. Unnie’s having a hard time as it is.”
“You started all this, so what are you...”
Fortunately, the commotion didn’t go on any longer and silence fell. It was a silence as piercingly blue as the sky after a storm.
‘They’re fundamentally good kids...’
People really do ruin their personalities when they fight for too long.
Ahem. Blue Sirius cleared her throat and fixed Red Vega with her distinctive, coldly settled blue eyes.
“...Then, to shift the topic, shall we piece together the information on this monster?”
Her long, slender fingers pointed at the screen behind her.
A photo of an S-rank monster, taken during today’s emergency sortie and kept confidential from the press.
A giant clad in black leather that revealed no human skin and ornamented green armor.
Except for the uniquely designed belt wrapped around his waist, he looked similar to most other S-rank monsters.
“He arrived at the scene you were originally supposed to handle and slaughtered the monsters.”
When word had come that he had arrived at the scene Red Vega was supposed to deal with, all magical girls were ordered not to deploy as originally planned but to observe him. Red Vega was one of them.
She had been forced to watch him slaughter monsters as easily as autumn leaves swept by the wind, handling them far more skillfully than she could.
“He was incredibly strong... that bastard wasn’t handling just one Star Power.”
“Multiple Magic! Constellation-class!”
Ordinarily, a single star only permitted a single type of magic.
Just as Red Vega wielded fire magic and Blue Sirius wielded ice magic. Up until now, for every magical girl: one star, one magic.
And then there were the finishing moves, created by honing that magic to its absolute limit.
“And his techniques... we confirmed at least three of them.”
Because every magical girl’s magic was different, direct assistance in crafting their finishing moves was impossible.
Thus, every magical girl had to build her finishing move alone, from the ground up, with no foundation to rely on.
A sure-kill (必殺).
Created with the heart to kill without fail, with the readiness to die at any time.
A finishing move forged with killing intent and the spirit of a moth flying into flame, steeped in blood.
“Each one was powerful... and there were three of them. No, there are definitely more.”
Strength that broke all standards.
There was a huge gap based on Star Power alone, and he also possessed techniques that maximized that power.
A grave mood dominated the meeting room.
“Oh, right! His senses seemed good too! We were all hidden by Aldebaran-senpai’s magic, but he still noticed Ms. Vega!”
“...Dabih. Comments like that only break morale.”
At Aldebaran’s somber remark, Dabih’s cheerful voice sank, and the room fell grave once more.
“A-hee. You’re the first witness. Don’t you have any useful information?”
“Information...?”
“Deneb, I told you about the name... Haah, never mind.”
Leaving Blue Sirius’s sigh behind her, Red Vega began to think. Since she’d had the most conversation with him there, the question was only natural.
“If I recall our talk, he was extremely arrogant...”
“We confirmed that for ourselves today. He was so relaxed, as if he felt no threat from us at all. With that kind of power, I suppose that’s only natural. Not that. Do you have any clues on how to bring him down?”
Red Vega rested her chin on her hand and tried to recall his words. Most of it had been infuriating, garbage arrogance. But a few things nagged at her.
-I earnestly ask you, could you please surrender? Things get rather troublesome if you don’t, you see...
-...Wouldn’t you be better off choosing rest instead of burning with such passion?
’...Huh?’
Red Vega’s eyes flashed.
“That monster... maybe we don’t necessarily have to bring him down.”
“What? Did you get shot in the head?”
“Obviously not. Even if I did, I’d just get a bruise. No, that’s not it... I think that monster has no hostile intent toward us.”
“Is that...”
Aldebaran fixed her with a cold stare and asked,
“...because that monster was originally human?”
The room seemed to hold its breath for a moment. The matter was that significant.
Human Monsterization.
The process where a person long exposed to Star Power, who also absorbs negative emotions, is reborn as a monster.
A person who becomes a monster loses all memory of their own life and lives according to a monster’s instincts.
“I’m certain.”
“Yeah... there are plenty of clues. He knew human culture inside and out, like cameras and professional fighters. There’s no way he’d know those things unless he’d been hiding out in human society for years or wasn’t human to begin with.”
Humans who underwent Monsterization were invariably powerful.
The sample size was so small the average might be skewed, but the statistical record showed at least A-rank power levels.
Such monsters were major enemies of the magical girls. Naturally, the strength mentioned earlier was one reason for this.
But the greatest problem was the monster’s raw material. A monsterized human meant they had failed to protect someone they were meant to protect.
And it meant they had to kill the one they had been meant to protect.
“Ah, no. That’s not it. It’s a deduction based on our earlier conversation. He urged me to surrender the moment he met me, and during our encounter today, he chose to flee without any apparent will to fight...”
“Trying to understand how a monster thinks! Your head is a flower garden!”
“Hey, I asked who taught the Jap that kind of language.”
The words were harsh, but nobody denied them.
“Vega, you’re a rookie so you might not know... but monsters like that have cropped up now and then. The kind that won’t commit unnecessary slaughter if it doesn’t serve their objective. But once it does serve their objective...”
Blue Sirius clamped her teeth together.
“...they will kill anyone without mercy.”
Pink Deneb nodded.
“Right. And there’s an organization made up entirely of bastards like that.”
“What? There’s something like that?”
“Just assume every S-rank monster we haven’t taken down yet belongs to it. Their activity has been sparse for a few years, and the organization is kept top secret, so it’s not strange you wouldn’t know. What was the name...”
**
“Dilemma.”
If it’s a star-themed group, you name it with stubborn gravitas, like the Twelve Zodiac Constellations or something. What the hell is Dilemma supposed to mean? I clicked my tongue and surveyed the figures gathered around me.
“Oh, you knew about us? How delightful.”
“Impressive. I wonder where your intelligence apparatus might be.”
“Don’t talk shit. He just guessed right.”
“Ha-ha-ha! No matter what comes out of your mouth, it always sounds so low-intellect. I must ask you to keep your mouth shut, as I feel my own intelligence might drop.”
Give me a break.
I’d been walking along when the world around me suddenly went dark, and by the time I’d come to my senses, I was in the middle of an enemy organization’s gathering.
“Pay no mind to those two imbeciles. Personally, I also prefer to enjoy a bit of leisure. However, you might find it frustrating, so let me get to the point.”
“Belt.”
Dilemma.
A gathering of S-rank monsters.
No leader actually existed, and neither did any purpose.
That meant the group had no shared goal, though each member had their own.
If I had to define the group’s purpose, it was something like a temporary cooperative relationship to more easily achieve their individual aims.
Anyway, they had zero cohesion.
So what’s the problem with a group like that?
“Prepare to transform.”
The problem was that these bastards were the main culprits who killed all the magical girls and destroyed the world.
Snick. The metal sphere circling around me fastened to my waist and became the Belt.
“Haha, you truly are swift. First, to get to the matter at hand...”
“Belt, what are the odds I can take all these bastards down right here?”
A voice came from the Belt now attached to my waist.
[0.2%.]
“What a steal.”
Those were odds I could work with. I immediately placed my hand on the Belt.
[However, the probability of your survival is 0%.]
“...So what’s your purpose?”
The Corrupted Magical Girl on my right shouted.
“World annihilation!”
“Transform.”
[ASTRONOMICAL OBSERVATION.]
What’s the difference between dying in annihilation and dying here fighting?
‘Even now, it still won’t give me a Main Quest...’
Not even giving me an excuse.
Grumbling, I charged at them.