Malice (1)
What the hell is wrong with this hospital's security?
I flicked the sticky residue from my hands and let out a sigh.
The monster's corpse—or rather, its byproducts?
A thick liquid like black oil dripped down onto my shadow.
By the way, this stuff is edible too.
Cleaning the filthy hospital room wasn't much of a chore. The monster byproducts vanished the moment they touched my shadow, sucked up as if by a vacuum cleaner.
Yeah, when it comes to cleaning monster remains, leave it to Apocalypse.
Growl—
Still doesn't fill me up, though...
Monsters were pure lumps of despair, but devouring them never left me feeling full. Truly a shame. If monsters could fill my stomach, I'd be out hunting them right this second.
Still, well.
"I've got Tamako, so..."
What was I supposed to do with that little bundle of luck? Dealing with the monsters that came every night was a pain, but if I thought of it like swatting mosquitoes drawn by the smell of blood, it didn't seem all that bothersome.
"Akari, I'm here."
"...You've arrived?"
If anything was a pain, it was this. Emerald showed up without fail at least once a day. I had no memory of us becoming friends, yet every time she saw me she smiled with her eyes like that...
Did she eat something weird? Or did her memories just get wiped all of a sudden?
I wanted to ask her straight out, but they always said you weren't supposed to argue with people who weren't right in the head.
How long was she going to stick around today? Just thinking about it made a sigh slip out on its own.
"Aren't you a magical girl, Midori? I've heard monster incursions have been frequent lately."
"There are plenty of magical girls who can handle them even without me. A newly awakened one showed up recently, so things rarely escalate to my level anymore."
"...Is that so."
Then what exactly are you doing wandering around? Emerald had looked busy lately, so the question rose naturally in my mind. A magical girl dumping monsters on juniors lower on the totem pole than herself. And then saying something like, "I'm only telling you this for your own good~," no doubt.
"Nothing unusual lately? Feeling unwell or anything like that?"
"...I'm fine. The biggest problem is that the hospital food tastes terrible."
People always complained that hospital food was bland, but this time it wasn't a joke—it was genuinely awful. More precisely, the texture was pure garbage. They brought me porridge to account for my stomach, but porridge with zero flavor made me wonder if this was what it felt like to shovel mud into your mouth.
"Please bear with it a little. It's all for your sake, Akari."
In what way, exactly? Pretending to eat while secretly spitting it out was its own kind of ordeal. Why could my shadow absorb monster corpses but not porridge-shaped waste?
"Ah, that reminds me—there's one thing I've been curious about."
"What is it? Ask me anything!"
"..."
Her gaze was oppressive. The moment I said I had a question, Emerald leaned in close, and I had to ease my head back a little. Look, we're not even that close. This kind of distance is seriously uncomfortable. The hope sparkling in her eyes as she stared at me was nauseating, too. Yeah.
"Is it possible for a monster to appear in the city without the alarm going off?"
"Huh? Why are you suddenly asking about that..."
"No reason. Just curious."
Monsters kept invading the hospital room, so why hadn't the alarm ever sounded then? Don't tell me this is some kind of corruption? Like the alarm system only covers the outskirts of the city and not the whole thing. No—even then, the alarm should have gone off the moment they entered, right?
"...Just a moment. I have somewhere I need to go, so I'll step out briefly."
"Ah, yes. Go ahead."
If I stayed prickly, she lingered longer, so ushering her out like this was better. Stop smiling like that—you look like an idiot.
I clicked my tongue inwardly and stared hard at the door Emerald had vanished through.
At least I've confirmed they don't invade the room during the day...
Well, it should be fine. Staying cooped up in this room forever had reached its limit. Trying to cage a free spirit like me in a place like this?
"I'll be back soon, Tamako."
We'd never had a proper conversation, but my internal affection for Tamako was near maximum. How to put it—it felt like our souls were connected?
Slurp—
Ah, I'm drooling.
Just looking at her made my mouth water. If I'd been an ordinary monster, I might have swallowed her whole—that was how alluring her despair was. Be good and stay asleep until I get back, okay?
I stamped a final mental eye-print on her and slowly started changing clothes. No need to draw attention by wandering outside in a hospital gown.
Knock-knock—
"Hello, do you have a moment—eh?"
"Ah."
Caught. The nurse who opened the door found me frozen with my skirt only halfway up my thighs. Damn. The original plan had been to slip out and slip back in unnoticed.
"Ah, just a second."
"N-no! T-take your time putting it on!"
She jerked her head away with a creak at the sight of me, and I yanked the skirt the rest of the way up. Why was the one who'd seen it more embarrassed than the one who'd been seen?
"I'm just stepping out for a bit."
"Yes, take care—no, no no no! Where do you think you're going?!"
"Just a short outing..."
"Absolutely not!"
Shouldn't it be enough that a person can walk around fine on their own two feet? I sighed inwardly at the nurse barring my way with desperate resolve. This was why ordinary humans were like this.
I shook my head and peeled the nurse off my arm.
"Look. Do I look like a sick person to you?"
"Yes."
An instant answer? Anyway, where exactly? Aside from a face so pale it looked like I might collapse any second, there wasn't much else. Ah—and the pale lips, too. Other than that, didn't I look perfectly fine?
"Even like this?"
"Hwah..."
With people this suspicious, showing them with actions was the most effective approach. The best way to display vitality was to flaunt your own strength.
"U-um..."
"Do I still look like a patient to you?"
"N-no..."
I lifted the nurse clean off the ground and held her in my arms—the so-called princess carry. I might look like a pair of chopsticks standing upright, but my body itself was nothing like an ordinary human's. See? Show them a little power and they lose their minds on the spot.
"Then I'll be going."
"Y-yes... Yes?! W-wait, you can't! Just hold o—"
Rumble—
Aaah, can't hear you, can't hear a thing. The last thing I heard was her saying "yes," so it was fine for me to leave. Yeah.
The sky looked ready to rain at any moment.
Peridot stared blankly up at the black-clouded heavens before lowering her gaze to the white chrysanthemum in her hand.
Of everyone who had been in the Shelter, only those on the fifth floor had survived. The first true disaster had left the atmosphere around her—and her own heart—utterly desolate.
"...I'm sorry, everyone."
She murmured words that could no longer be heard and set the chrysanthemum on the stand beside the incense. A scene of such horror that not a single intact body had been found. The deaths of family, friends, and acquaintances had brought enormous shock and grief to this small city.
It was, quite literally, something that should never have happened.
"If only I'd been a little faster..."
There was no shaking it off. Even a single person's death was hard enough to accept—let alone so many. The weight of life and death pressed heavily down on Peridot's small shoulders.
Senior... I don't think I can do this.
The media condemning the magical girls. The bereaved families wailing for the dead to be brought back. Even her own defaced photographs. It was all possible. And because of that, she had no choice but to carry it.
There were simply too many things that pointed to her own fault, so the girl—Peridot—accepted every last one of them. That was the only atonement she could offer.
It would have been better if I'd just died.
Whether her memory had been distorted didn't matter. What mattered was that those words had been spoken with that intent. She crushed her lips together as she recalled the last girl she had seen.
It wasn't important that even one person had survived. What mattered was that she hadn't been able to save them all.
Plip, plip-plop, plip—
"...Ah."
Rain began to fall. A soft gasp escaped her at the coldness on her cheek, and the black ground grew mottled with raindrops.
Maybe it's all right to cry now.
She let the rain that settled on her brows trickle away and slowly exhaled—then a dark emotion began to bloom in a corner of her churning chest. She clasped her trembling hands together, trying somehow to calm herself, but she couldn't.
"Ah, aah... auh..."
It would have been better if I'd just died.
The girl was reflected in Peridot's eyes. The black-haired girl smiling deeply as she looked at her—exactly as she had looked the last time Peridot had seen her.
There she was.