Episode 19: The Witch of Cancer
Chiba City was hell. So [Sere] thought.
Children had to steal to survive.
Criminals poured in.
The government turned a blind eye.
There was no running water.
With this place lying right next to Magus City Tokyo, the capital of Japan, it spoke volumes about the state of the south of the country, even if the north had been left in tatters by the Battle of Hakodate. Sere didn’t like this country. The children living in the light-filled city, and the children living in the city of darkness. The gulf between them was simply too vast, and it left her feeling helpless. Before it burned, her home city of Moscow had been much like Japan.
“But y’know… silver-hair’s partly to blame, too, right? Wandering around Chiba dressed like that. Whatever you’ve got on you, you look rich.”
“My clothes are my choice.”
“Just being able to choose what you wear puts you among the winners.”
“Then I’m a loser, too. These are the only clothes I own.”
Led by the street child whose life she had saved, Sere ventured deeper into the illegal buildings, the staff of her magical cyberdeck, complete with its scabbard, strapped to her back.
Water dripped somewhere nearby. Some kind of industrial waste, judging by the sound.
The stench of death and decay assaulted her nostrils.
From every shadow, the eyes of drug-addicted residents glinted at her. If she let go of her belongings for even a moment, or strayed from the child in front of her, her local guide, Sere would immediately be labelled prey. She looked no more than an innocent young girl.
Or perhaps…
As long as the staff of her magical cyberdeck remained visible on her back, no one would dare attack her.
That was Chiba City.
The locals still called it Chiba, the name of the place before it had collapsed.
Deep in the city, where illegal buildings piled up and the streets had become a jungle of scrap materials…
“…Here we are. Old hag’s house.”
“Hey, don’t call her that.”
“She is an old hag. I’m going in! Hey, you gloomy old hag!”
The child kicked in a wall of corrugated metal. It was a crude door.
*
A dark room.
VHS tapes piled high, crammed into every available space.
Square televisions were stacked in towers, row upon row, and every single one played the same sort of anime footage, tinted with blue light.
An anime about [Magical Girls].
A series that had been running for decades, ever since the Third World War. Propaganda, stuffed to the brim with falsehoods. A childish, tedious anime containing nothing but fun, simplistic tales of good triumphing over evil, and advertisements for government bonds.
“Oi! You’ve got a customer, old hag!”
The child kicked over a television.
With a crash, a tower of VHS tapes came tumbling down.
“Guegh!”
A voice cried out from beneath the collapsing pile.
“…I’m here, [Wandmaker].”
“Ah… ahh… that voice… the presence of your magic… heehee, heeheehee…! [Blue]. [Blue], is that you? [Sapphire Blue]. The most beautiful shade of blue…!”
In response to Sere’s voice, it rose from a mountain of VHS tapes piled up like rubbish.
*
A girl with no eyeballs.
*
A pitch-black mask covered the lower half of her face.
Her magical cyberwear was overloaded to the point of grotesqueness. Both arms were steel monstrosities, sprouting countless pairs of scissors.
She looked around fourteen or fifteen, yet her long, unkempt black hair, riddled with split ends, made her seem like a decrepit ghost crawling up from underground.
Her hunched posture ruined what would otherwise have been a voluptuous figure, fuller than Sere’s.
A grotesque girl with countless scissors growing from both arms.
A gloomy woman who reeked of alcohol.
“…That’s not right, [Wandmaker]. I’m…”
“[Blue]! Heehee! Heeheehee!
“For you, I would do anything! Anything at all!
“For the most beautiful girl in the world.
“For the most beautiful shade of blue in the world.
“I, [Topaz Orange]! Nay, the [Witch of Cancer]! Heehee! Heeheehee! I’ll do anything, anything at all for youuuuuuuuu!!!!”
A dense concentration of black phosphorescence flooded Sere’s vision.