Malice (9)
"Ow?! Akari, you've never actually wrapped a bandage before, have you?!"
Akari's hands as she worked the bandage were rough—far too rough. It was almost enough to make someone think they'd be better off doing it themselves.
"Nope. Never have. But I'm wrapping it nice and tight, aren't I?"
"...You sure are."
There was a limit to how shameless a person could be. Still, those very qualities were what blurred the image of Apocalypse I carried in my mind, so I couldn't exactly say it made me feel worse. If anything, it made me feel better—
The moment that thought crossed my mind, Akari's expression twisted, as if she'd just seen something unpleasant.
"You're not doing this on purpose to hurt me, are you?"
"I don't have a hobby of making people who are already in pain hurt more, you know!"
"Ugh...?!"
Anyone could tell she was doing it on purpose. Putting extra force into the final pull, like she was giving a spirited shout, sent a sharp jolt of pain through me.
"So? What happened?"
"...Huh?"
"What did you go through to make your face look that bad?"
"...Nothing happened."
The conversation started to go in circles. Akari would press me about what was wrong, I would insist nothing had happened, and when she refused to accept that answer and dug deeper, keeping my expression under control grew harder and harder.
What the hell do you think you're doing...!
What were you planning to do if that monster just now had been a monster pretending to be human?
But—
There is no "but." You never know what will happen if you start making exceptions for monsters.
A pair of cold, piercing eyes rose unbidden in my mind. Another magical girl, just like me. Her name was Garnet. One of the two magical girls who protected this city, or so I'd been told. Her overall colors resembled Ruby's, but her presence was far darker and colder.
"...If something is half human and half monster, should we treat it as a person? Or as a monster?"
"..."
At the question that slipped out of me without strength, Akari fell silent. Like someone who had just been forced to hear something uncomfortable.
"...I'm sorry, Akari."
"No, well. The way Midori thinks about it makes sense, and—"
"I'm not talking about you, Akari! I just... wondered what it would be like if someone like that existed..."
I never should have said any of this in front of her. What kind of garbage was I spouting to someone who had suffered those horrors in the Doctor's lab? Shame made it impossible to look at her.
"Well... it'd be whatever Midori decides it is, wouldn't it? If you think of them as a person, they're a person. If you think of them as a monster, they're a monster."
"..."
It depends on how you choose to see them. I'd come back half-convinced by what that magical girl named Garnet had said, but what I had seen at the end had been closer to a person than a monster. No—anyone who saw those eyes would have had no choice but to think of them as human.
"Midori."
"...Y-yes?"
"What do I look like to you? Human? Or monster?"
Akari tilted her head at an angle, and for a second a chill ran through me. A sense of danger so sharp it made every thought I'd just been having feel meaningless began ringing alarm bells in my chest.
One wrong answer and it's over.
Despair that had wrapped itself tightly inside hope whispered to me.
But...
The answer was already decided. Now that I had returned to the past, Akari was not Apocalypse. Akari was simply Akari.
"You look like a person."
"...Is that so?"
Akari giggled at my answer, and she truly looked like the girl her appearance suggested. No—she was a girl of that age.
Aha. Ahahahahaha!!!
Th-that Emerald sees me as human? For real?!
Laughter burst out of me at the sheer absurdity of the situation.
"You're really something else, Midori."
Had something shifted in her heart during this last monster subjugation? Even after she'd opened up to me, that lingering look of suspicion had never fully gone away—until now. It was gone completely. Like a wild beast that had been bristling at a stranger had suddenly turned into a gentle lamb.
I wonder what it'll feel like the moment that trust gets stained with betrayal...
Betraying someone who believed in me didn't sound like it would feel particularly good—but honestly, this time Emerald had just gone and misunderstood everything on her own, hadn't she?
If the current me were human, it might be a different story. Unfortunately, the one sitting here wasn't the human Akari. It was the monster Apocalypse.
The flavor's a little different, but essentially we're the same thing.
Maybe it was just the difference between an Apocalypse that had gorged itself on despair and one that had barely eaten any. The original Apocalypse hadn't been on a despair diet like me, after all. Strictly speaking, it had been more like despair predation, despair obesity—no, despair super-morbid obesity. Obesity was the root of the three major adult diseases, right? Maybe Apocalypse had gotten a little off from all that despair fat too.
...Just in case, maybe I should start moderating my intake from now on.
Eat too much at once and you get sick. Overeat despair and I might end up turning into full-blown Apocalypse. I'd gotten a taste of that when I went exploring the underground. I hadn't eaten all that much, but I'd still found myself wanting to snap human limbs, yeah. If I'd kept stuffing myself with despair in that state, I might have caused a real disaster.
"Anyway, at this rate aren't I going to get discharged before you?"
"Huh?"
"Ah, if that happens, hand the house key over to me."
"Huh?"
What, is she broken? Why is she giving me the same answer to completely different things?
I tilted my head at Emerald, who was staring at me with her eyes round as saucers. I genuinely had no idea what had startled her that badly.
"Weren't you the one providing for me?"
"I-I mean... th-that's..."
"If you're going to drag someone home on a whim and feed them, you have to take responsibility all the way to the end."
It was the logic of a thief, sure, but she'd gone and brought a wild monster home and trained it however she liked, so she ought to accept that much. Think of it like picking up a stray cat and it was basically the same. If a full monster was a tiger, then I was more like a street cat.
"You're not going to take responsibility?"
"E-eee?"
"Then I'm going to turn bad, you know?"
I let just the faintest wisp of despair seep out—barely enough to notice—and Emerald's face froze solid. Hmm. Did I overdo it? Teasing her was just so much fun I couldn't help myself...
"I'll take responsibility."
"Really?"
"Yes. I was the one who brought you home on my own, so I'll take responsibility."
Yes! Jackpot~
So that meant from now on I could live without worrying about despair, right? Cooking a magical girl was this easy? And this was Emerald, who already knew about Apocalypse.
"Then I'll be in your care from now on, Emerald."
I gave her a soft smile as I made the declaration to a resolute-looking Emerald. Time to cling to her side and scrape the plate clean.
"Aya, you're okay, right? Hm?"
"Mm-hm, I'm fine. What about you, Mom? Are you okay?"
"Yeah. I'm fine."
I hid my trembling hands and pulled my daughter into my arms. Just when I'd been sick to death of the higher-ups summoning me at all hours, it was looking like I would have to submit my resignation after all.
They said they'd give me advance notice when they were going to call a monster in...!
And at the shelter, a monster had even broken through the door on the fifth floor. That was supposed to be the place they guaranteed monsters would never attack. If luck hadn't been on our side, I might have lost Aya. And if that had happened, I would have definitely—
"Mom?"
"...I'm sorry, Aya. I think Mom hasn't been paying enough attention to you."
"It's okay. I know you're busy. I'm a grown-up now too!"
I squeezed my eyes shut at my daughter's bright smile. If I kept them open any longer, the tears would start to fall.
Ding-dong—
"Ah, Mom, there's a visitor!"
"Wait, Aya—"
The doorbell rang out of nowhere. Mixed into that mechanical chime was something ominous, and I tried to catch my daughter—but the child slipped through my hands as if dodging me and ran straight for the front door.
No.
The moment I tried to chase after her on a surge of dread—
"Hello, Aya. Looking cute as ever today."
"Hello, Doctor!"
"Ugh...!"
Pure malice hidden beneath kindness. That black intent that no one who didn't know him would ever notice made my body lock up on the spot.
Why was he here all of a sudden. As if he had sensed I was about to quit and come straight over.
"Hello, Rina. Did I drop by a little too suddenly?"
"...It's fine."
"Ah. You seem a bit tense because of me."
The devil wearing a mask of kindness gave Aya's head a deliberate little pat. A gesture that seemed to ask whether I could see my child's head sitting right there in his hand. Watching that, even the spark of defiance that had just started to rise in me guttered out and died.
I can't escape.
From my sins. Not ever.
I still couldn't forget the screams of the people who had been forcibly fused with monsters by my own hands. He had read that in me and come here. Of course he had.
"How about it, Aya? If you're uncomfortable, I'll be on my way."
"I'm fine! I like the Doctor!"
"There you have it, Rina."
The revulsion that mixed with my child's sunny laugh finally forced my head down.
I can't escape.
From that man—from the malice he carries. I can never escape it.
And if I ever tried, I would meet a terrible end. The same miserable end as all the test subjects who had died by my hands until now.