Get on the Same Boat (1)
Get on the Same Boat (1)
“Yeah, it’s not over yet. I know, fuck.”
Jo Ah-yoon, muttering roughly, looked at Watcher.
“Now what...”
She swallowed dryly from the tension and slowly assumed a stance. Watcher was blankly staring at Aquila’s head, which had been reduced to powder. Only once the powder had fully scattered and dispersed did he raise his head.
His gaze soon fixed on Jo Ah-yoon. Her eyes met his, encased by those lenses.
Compared to what she had just witnessed, the luminosity here was distinctly fainter. It felt as if an artificial current, rather than a lightning bolt, was running through her body. Through the flashing lights, white and black armor plate was visible.
“W-wait! I know it might be hard to believe since I look like this... ah, damn it, even my voice is modulated.”
Watcher, who had been staring at her silently, raised his axe. With the same mechanically cold and thorough attitude he’d shown when he swung it at Aquila.
Jo Ah-yoon tensed and readied her stance. The time she had left was very little. Even if she used up all her starlight, twenty seconds were unlikely to remain.
“Seriously, what do I do about this...”
Her heart was troubled. What would happen if he exhausted all his starlight?
Like any other monster, he might fall into a state where he could no longer exert his power, or his transformation might simply release. But that was nothing more than a hopeful assumption.
What if, when that starlight was entirely depleted, his life came to an end along with it?
Given that he had forcibly filled the gaps in his body with lightning to maintain function, it was a distinct possibility.
Jo Ah-yoon tensed at the chilling thought. At the same time, she had to be tense for another reason.
Watcher had completely readied himself to attack.
[Prepare yourself, Guardian! Here it comes...!]
He only prepared.
“...He’s not coming?”
[Uh... well, that’s rather strange. The probability he would attack was definitely over ninety percent.]
“Hey, you fraud. You transferred from that Parrot head to a cast-iron head, but you’ve still got a birdbrain.”
[Fr-fraud! The newly acquired prediction system is remarkably accurate! The strange one is him, not me!]
“Him? Look at you running your mouth.”
[You’re the one cursing more, so why am I the only one...]
Even while the mascot’s flustered voice reverberated in Jo Ah-yoon’s head, Watcher showed no sign of moving.
As if the operation of a machine’s gears had been forcibly jammed, he had come to a cold stop. Considering his goal, failing to deal with the monster right in front of him counted as anomalous behavior.
[...Could his memories still remain?]
That question drifted in from the Belt. The reason he had stopped acting now stemmed not from a sense of purpose but from human consciousness. It was certainly a plausible hypothesis.
‘So even with his heart pierced and under the domination of starlight, it means he still cares about me...’
Jo Ah-yoon’s heart grew more troubled.
‘If only I’d been able to transform a little sooner...’
But even the time spent on these thoughts was precious right now.
Jo Ah-yoon had to make a choice. Whether to let his starlight be wasted or to stop it.
“Shit, seriously... if anything goes wrong, I’ll at least come with you to the underworld!”
Shrrk. She took hold of butterfly-shaped shuriken. A mysterious pink light flew beside him.
[No, wait. Guardian. Your unrequited love seems like he’ll be fine. There’s no need to rush.]
“I-it’s not unrequited love?!”
Jo Ah-yoon yelled out in a shrill voice. She’d even steeled herself for things she couldn’t tell anyone, and that solemnity vanished in an instant.
[Don’t you think it’s pathetic that you still won’t admit it? Anyway, brat. That’s not what you need to worry about right now.]
The sky was clear. The lightning rain had vanished. It was because Aquila was gone. Now that the menacing beams that had made it hard to even take a step had ceased, naturally, those who had been protecting people within those beams could approach this way.
[Start worrying about the ones who are about to show up.]
Sensing a chilling presence, she looked to the side. From a place so distant she could barely track it with her eyes, hostile gazes were being directed this way.
Jo Ah-yoon knew the identity of those gazes.
“Orange Altair...”
At this sort of distance, Orange Altair was the only one who could snipe. From way back, she’d been a rude magical girl who frequently checked her and picked fights.
“What kind of bullshit is that bitch trying to pull...?”
Could she be thinking of shooting Watcher? Even though against a magical girl, he wouldn’t be able to put up a proper resistance.
But this wasn’t the time for her to worry about Orange Altair alone.
“Hello.”
The surrounding temperature dropped sharply. Even for December, this was an abnormal cold. An extreme weather event that could rival the rain of lightning. Jo Ah-yoon knew the culprit this time as well.
No, any civilized person would know. There was only one person who could wield ice magic of this scale.
‘It’s only been a few seconds since Aquila vanished...’
Blue Sirius, one of Jo Ah-yoon’s heroes, had appeared.
“Are you very busy?”
“...Blue Sirius.”
“You know my name? I’m flattered.”
Though she laughed softly, Blue Sirius’s eyes were by no means gentle. A gaze colder than the current air temperature pierced Jo Ah-yoon.
‘So this is what she’s like when dealing with monsters...’
Overwhelming bloodlust. A weak monster would have been stopped dead simply by that look.
Fortunately, she was someone who prioritized evacuation and protection over monster extermination, so she likely hadn’t participated in the fight just now.
Inside that storm, people would have been dying more easily than flies. Which meant she’d had to devote all her abilities to protection.
But now that the conflict between monsters was over and the rain of lightning had ceased, the need to suppress hatred had vanished.
Blue Sirius became utterly merciless toward monsters. Even among the magical girls who had deep-seated ill will toward monsters, she possessed an unusually intense hatred.
It was a look incomparable to how she usually saw Jo Ah-yoon. Facing this clear enmity for the first time, Jo Ah-yoon flinched and shuddered.
In the case of monsters, they were typically brimming with savage instinct and arrogance, so she hadn’t often had the chance to taste true killing intent.
But not Blue Sirius right now. This was an utterly human killing intent, mixed with reason and instinct. The person she cherished most was trying to kill her.
At that fact, Jo Ah-yoon felt not just fear but also sadness.
“I have something I’d like to ask. That’s Ah-yoon’s starlight, so why are you wielding it?...No, right? It can’t be. Right? Surely not...”
[Guardian! Look after your unrequited love first! There’s no need to fight now! If you aren’t planning to put on an identity-reveal show, go grab him immediately!]
Blue Sirius’s voice and the mascot’s voice from the Belt intermingled. Snapped alert by the urgent shouts, Jo Ah-yoon’s head cleared.
[It’s releasing!]
Jo Ah-yoon looked to the side. The starlight was faint. It was a very frail light, as if about to vanish at any moment. The lightning and the armor that had composed Watcher’s body were scattering into particles of light.
“Ah crap, we’re fucked.”
She threw the butterfly she’d readied into the air and toward Watcher. The instant the butterfly and Han Jae-jung’s body touched, his body flew through the air.
Han Jae-jung was in Blue Sirius’s blind spot in a split second. Jo Ah-yoon didn’t give her even a moment to turn her head.
In the mere span of a single blink, thousands of butterflies flew across the sky, disorienting the field of view. She had already trained in wielding projectiles that endlessly resembled living creatures back when she was Pink Deneb.
In a span that didn’t even give Blue Sirius time to respond, she made several leaps across the world. Naturally, it was a massive waste of starlight.
It didn’t matter. This was a retreat anyway. This was a journey where she’d cast aside all assumptions about the battle ahead.
[Use it sparingly, you bitch! You’re gonna puke your guts out! You’ll hurt later! You bitch! Hey! Hey!]
Compulsively, she threw butterflies and teleported to them, over and over.
[Hey! This much is enough! Stop it!]
“Ah.”
Only then did Jo Ah-yoon stop moving. She’d wasted most of her starlight. After exhaling a deeply held breath, she spent a long while gasping roughly.
A body abused to the extreme by tension and overexertion screamed in protest. Jo Ah-yoon powered down. Pink particles scattered away from her, revealing the small, familiar body beneath.
“Ugh... I thought I was gonna die.”
And beside her was someone who really had died and come back.
“...Oppa.”
A sturdy adult male body just shy of 190 cm, breathing evenly. It was Han Jae-jung’s body. As the mascot had said, he hadn’t died. That was truly a relief.
But she still needed to confirm something beyond mere survival.
“We’ve already seen each other naked anyway... so, understand?”
Jo Ah-yoon carefully removed his top. It was a shirt, so it was easy, only requiring her to undo the buttons. Still not physically recovered, her breathing was rough and her face was flushed.
She lamented the sight of herself, red-faced and gasping while stripping a man’s clothes, but her hands moved without hesitation.
“...Strange.”
The three holes that should have pierced through the area around his chest were clean, without a single trace.
“Even for a monster... no, well, sure, that bastard from earlier exists, but.”
Recalling Aquila, who’d kept talking and moving just fine even with his head severed, her mood soured instantly.
“Oppa’s body is human. So why is he perfectly fine like this... hey, Parrot. You know anything?”
[I don’t know.]
“...?”
She stared at him flabbergasted. He had reverted from Belt form to the shape of an iron ball.
“You said he was fine earlier! Isn’t that because you knew something?!”
[Something was blatantly visible to my eye! Whether it’s a function of this new body or what, anyway, it’s become easier to predict than before! You know because you kept getting assistance during the battle!]
That was true. The mascot had become far more useful compared to when she’d been a magical girl. He gave real-time advice on enemy attack paths or where she should throw her butterflies. Thanks to that, she’d been able to dodge several of Aquila’s attacks.
“So you don’t know why Oppa is like this?”
[I’m telling you, I don’t! It’d be quicker to ask the man himself instead of me... hey, what are you doing.]
There was a rustling sound, the sense of a presence from behind.
The eyes that had been beautifully closed until just now snapped open. They met Jo Ah-yoon’s own in an instant.
Han Jae-jung moved his head and surveyed the surroundings. Only then did Jo Ah-yoon realize her current state: she was gripping the front of his shirt, still left unfastened.
“Ah. O-oppa... this is...”
“...Our Ah-yoon.”
Han Jae-jung chuckled.
“Do you want to see my body that badly? You did this last time, and now again.”
“The moment you wake up, you’re already spouting shit, you psycho. No, there’s a perfectly good reason for all th—“
Suddenly, her vision wavered. It felt similar to the symptoms of a high fever.
No, it was a high fever itself. This was the body of a sick person.
[I told you. You’d be turning your stomach inside out later.]
She hadn’t known it meant *this*. Before she could even retort, Jo Ah-yoon collapsed onto Han Jae-jung’s chest.
Inside her fading vision and consciousness, she heard the mascot’s jeering. The last thing she saw was Han Jae-jung’s bewildered expression.
Even as she looked at him, Jo Ah-yoon was worried.
She recalled the pain she was currently experiencing and the look she’d just seen in Blue Sirius’s eyes.
Had Han Jae-jung been going through this kind of thing, continuously?
“Gweh.”
He really was a pitiful guy.
**
“Ugh-huh!”
The moment she woke from her sleep, she jolted upright. She was considerably startled by the unfamiliar interior. This wasn’t her house.
She saw Han Jae-jung, who had been dozing off in a chair beside her.
“O-Oppa! Where is this...?”
“Huhwuh?! Uh, ah... you’re awake? I’m glad. Ah! You know what? Your fever was insanely high. Are you a bit better now?”
“Huh? Uh-uh... think I’m okay. Where are we?”
No matter how she looked at it, it wasn’t the interior of an ordinary home. Cheap-looking wallpaper and pointlessly gaudy curtains. Still half-asleep, Han Jae-jung massaged his head and muttered.
“Motel...”
“What the fuck?”