Episode 11: A Smile at Last
Who was she?
With permission to use [magic], [Strawberry Pink] turned over the thoughts that had been released to her.
Access to the database was jammed. Communications with HQ were likewise blocked. Trying either would simply be a waste of time.
Instead, she brought to mind the names of the twelve Witches worthy of particular note.
Survivors of the Battle of Hakodate, still alive in the modern age, pitiful maidens swallowed by magic.
Their names had been assigned after the twelve signs of the zodiac. Among them, there was no Silver. And as far as she knew, none of them wielded a sword.
The enemy had chosen to attack when her armed right arm was missing.
She had sliced a custom-built black car, designed to withstand a gunfight, clean in two with a single stroke, without any phosphorescent magic.
“…Backed by an intelligence organisation. Must be the latest model.”
Her thoughts simulated the worst-case scenarios.
But there was no answer.
Only the silver mask staring her down, and the killing intent of the Witch before her. The girl in the silver dress had swept her skirts around herself and sheathed the Japanese sword joined to her staff. She was an illegal overloader of magical cyberwear.
“Revenge.”
“…You can talk, then. That’s unusual for a Witch. If M-particles haven’t eaten away at your language centre, this should be straightforward. If I offer you the chance to surrender…”
“I’ll cut you down.”
A flash of silver.
The sound of severing.
An instant.
“…Well, I didn’t think you’d listen.”
Strawberry Pink stared at the magical cyberdeck staff that had been cut cleanly in two, and sighed.
She wasn’t sweating.
Neither her shoulders nor her legs were trembling.
She felt no agitation, but her analysis was accelerating.
*
She hadn’t seen it.
*
Instinct.
She had used instinct to raise her magical staff as a shield.
Yes. That had to be it. Otherwise, she could never have defended herself. The M-particles merely clinging to her dress would never have been enough to stop the blow.
Her magical staff had been severed.
And her left arm, the one holding it, had fallen to the ground.
She circulated M-particles through her body, deliberately paralysing the pain nerves in her artificial spinal cord. But the bleeding wouldn’t stop easily. The problem was that it was her left arm. Damn it.
Her left arm had been flesh and blood.
One of the few parts of her that still was!
What had fallen was her forearm.
Her arm remained up to the elbow.
Strawberry Pink set her thoughts racing. It was the only thing she was free to do now.
“Apologise.”
The silver dress fluttered.
The Japanese sword slid into its scabbard.
That.
That scabbard.
“For what?”
“…For [Blue].”
“Huh?”
With a mechanical whine resembling a girl’s scream, the Japanese sword slid into its scabbard. A mechanical mechanism. She could faintly sense the sinister phosphorescence of M-particles emanating from it.
Black magical light.
“[Sapphire Blue].”
“The magical girl’s designation? Sorry, I don’t know anyone by that name…”
“You called her a [Witch]. Her, who was the most beautiful person in the world. Her, who was the kindest… My big sister.”
The scabbard was raised into position.
At her waist.
The stance of iaijutsu, the art of drawing and striking with a single motion.
She hadn’t been able to see it before. No, the girl hadn’t shown it to her.
A declaration that she had entered the kill zone, the range from which death was certain.
“So this is revenge.”
“…”
“Am I the one you want revenge on? Or the government?”
“…I’ll kill you, then bring the country to its knees.”
“I see.”
Strawberry Pink kicked the severed magical staff into the air.
“Then…”
She caught it between her teeth, its broken end pointed towards her chin like a fang.
“Die in this place, for the sake of serenity…”
“…At least try crying, you monster!”
The pink twin tails surged forward.
The streetlights on the bridge cast their shadows.
Peach-coloured phosphorescence burst into flame.
The Magus Engine went into abnormal operation.
Its operating noise resembled a girl’s scream, a death rattle.
Commands surged through the artificial muscles throughout her body, driving them beyond their limits. Her legs sprang, propelling her into motion.
Ah, Strawberry Pink thought.
At last, she understood.
She was not an ordinary girl.
Even with both arms gone, even with no help coming, she couldn’t shed a single tear.
And the freedom to think about that fact was burning her heart more fiercely than anything else.
Ordinary girls were afraid of blood.
Ordinary girls didn’t get covered in the dust of a battlefield.
An ordinary girl was a girl who could laugh outside the battlefield, beyond the reach of war.
“No… You’re crying, aren’t you?”
The scabbard flashed.
In the space of a blink, Strawberry Pink closed the distance to the silver dress.
Her severed, sharpened magical cyberdeck staff, its broken tip suffused with pink M-particles.
And a flash of silver.
*
They crossed paths.
*
The sound of severing.
*
The sound of something falling.
“What…?!”
Strawberry Pink gave a wry smile.
It wasn’t a simulated expression, a mechanical approximation of a human response.
For the first time since becoming a magical girl, Strawberry Pink had smiled from the bottom of her heart.
Her body was breaking apart. Pain so dizzying that even her pain controls couldn’t keep up was consuming her brain. Everything shook. Shook. Shook.
And yet, even more dazzling than all of that was the thought that she could smash that scabbard, that she could help the magical girls who came after her, that she could make sure not a single one of them died.
The collision of M-particles had shattered and split it apart.
She watched the sword’s scabbard fall in slow motion.
Strawberry Pink’s torso had been severed.
Soaked pink by the blood gushing from her body, the girl wore an untroubled smile.