Episode 30: Pecking
The [Thought] of [Strawberry Pink] was stained pink.
Blood caught in a fluffy golden wig.
Limbs hanging limp, drained of strength.
A gaping hole in her chest.
Her body split open.
Covered in soot.
A girl.
[Chihuahua Yellow] lay sprawled among the rubble, the light gone from her eyes. She slept in a hellish place where rain poured down and the stench of industrial waste hung in the air.
*
“■■■■■■■■ GREEN VORTEX.”
*
Lightning scorched [Strawberry Pink]’s skin.
Her limbs convulsed.
Her eyelids twitched.
Her internal organs burned.
[Strawberry Pink] had cut off her sense of pain. She felt nothing. The faculty that recognised pain had been lost, and no matter how badly her soft, white skin was burned, it should not have diminished her performance.
That was how it was supposed to work.
Fear had been the first thing excised. The longing for home, yearning, loneliness, all had been removed in surgical procedures long ago. None of them remained within Strawberry Pink. The emotionally charged conversations exchanged between the girls were nothing more than attempts to imagine what they had lost, to fill in the gaps with make-believe… controlled, sterile imaginings… nothing but sterile things.
“Senior Strawberry Pink! Where are you going to take me next!?”
“Just one bite! …Please? Is that too much to ask?”
“…Th-thank you, Senior…”
[Reminiscing] was forbidden.
*
“…Isn’t that terribly sad?”
*
Something forbidden was staining the [Thought] of [Strawberry Pink].
Her star-flecked pink eyes stained her [Thought] black.
Black, black, black.
As though painting over it.
As though defiling it.
As though denying it.
“…Ah.”
Her body stopped moving.
The control of [Magic] through [Thought] ceased.
The pain she had been desperately holding back came rushing back. The agony of her skin burning stained her brain.
“■■■■■■■■ GREEN VORTEX!”
Lightning coursed through the tears spilling from her eyes.
*
Black phosphorescence.
*
Thread cleaved through the lightning.
Thread wreathed in black phosphorescence: the [M-65 Monofilament Whip].
Its physical force, capable of slicing through anything it touched, severed something that should have been beyond its reach: intangible energy. Lightning itself.
“…”
『From HQ to [Strawberry Pink]. Authorisation to use [Magic] is revoked.』
“■■■■… yes.”
『Repeating. From HQ to [Strawberry Pink]. Authorisation to use [Magic] is revoked.』
*
What assaulted [Strawberry Pink] was the sensation of biting down on a strawberry and crushing it.
*
Crushing it.
A little fibrous resistance.
An overflowing sweetness, a texture of tiny seeds.
She [Reminisced]. [Strawberry Pink] knew this texture.
Beneath glittering Christmas illuminations.
Papa.
A restaurant table extending out onto the street.
Mama.
A Christmas cake.
Me.
A strawberry.
“…■■■■■■ Shut up.”
[Strawberry Pink] severed the thought transmission.
She had not intended to do so.
She had simply found it annoying.
She thought it.
She [Thought].
And so [Magic] activated.
And so the threads of her magical cyberwear shredded the Witch spreading her wings into countless pieces.
*
Steel fragments rained down.
The sky began to clear.
Raindrops dripped from above.
Her black dress fluttered; her black twin tails grew wet in the rain.
Her peach-coloured eyes, scattered with stars, were concealed beneath a pitch-black mask.
*
[Strawberry Pink] reached into the heart of the fallen [Witch of Gemini], the Magus Engine, and tore it free with her bare hands.