0 Lulu
She really couldn’t help but get the feeling that she’d been left out of the loop. As the Lightnings were fighting all over the place, they got something like orders from the headsets they wore, resulting in displeased expressions and snorting.
Lulu had been supplied with nothing so fancy as a receiver.
Still with no idea just what was going on right now, she had no choice but to fumble her way along. Of course she didn’t want to run into either the masked magical girls or the students of the magical-girl class, but neither did she feel like encountering the Lightnings. If she met up with Snow White and gave her Ripple’s name, she could apparently read minds, so she should be able to figure things out, the fact that Lulu wasn’t lying included. The problem was just how she could pinpoint Snow White in the middle of this hell. The safest thing would be to dig into the ground under the floor and stay there in her basic trench, but thinking about Ripple’s concerns for Snow White, she couldn’t not do anything. Ripple wanted to help Snow White more than anyone here, and she’d headed off to the Caspar Faction estate in order to take down Frederica, leaving Lulu to handle things at the school, saying she was counting on her. If Lulu abandoned that now, she could no longer call herself a magical girl.
She just had to keep going. Grabbing a brownish-red sphere with a diameter of a fraction of an inch, she pulled it out and prayed as she cast her magic. This was the biggest bead of all the stones that Lulu carried, her goldstone.
God, please.
That it was big meant, in other words, that it was cheap, but it wasn’t as if price decided how strong the magic was. Even if it was a man-made stone composed of mixed copper and glass, the effect to be gained grew larger in proportion to its size.
The effect should be larger… Should be.
Just in case, she decided to take out a second and third.
The meaning of this stone was a chance encounter. What she was looking for now was a good encounter.
She wanted to head for someplace quiet. But that was no good. She doubted that Snow White would go someplace quiet. But if she went someplace where the fighting was raging, Lulu would be in trouble. As a Lazuline candidate, she had learned some combat skills, but she was just a little less than mediocre, and on top of that, her magic was not suited to combat. She had to get to a good position somehow—difficult to target, where it was easy to get a grasp on the overall situation—after thinking that far, she shook her head. If there had been such a spot, there was no way her master wouldn’t already have her eye on it.
Should she make meeting up with Snow White her secondary goal and start off with meeting her master first? Whether she could win her over or not aside, she could get the Lightnings to explain things to her and understand more about the situation—after thinking that far, Lulu nixed that idea.
She was off the mark. If Old Blue hadn’t told Lulu, that meant there had been no need to do so. She shouldn’t be clinging to her master like a god. If she were foolish enough to do that, at best she would be shaken off, or she would just be used and then discarded, or sacrificed.
She could hear sounds from all over the place. The Lazuline candidates all had sharp senses. Based on what she heard, she headed in the direction that was best for her.
The sound of lightning falling. Not that way. The sound of swords clanging. That wasn’t good, either. Different combat sounds. It sounded one-sided. Hard metal was being struck repeatedly. The smothered voice of a girl resisting pain. She was resisting pain and hurt. The words “bullying the weak” rose in Lulu’s mind.
Lulu muttered, “Damn it,” under her breath. She probably shouldn’t go that way. If she was considering what was best, she shouldn’t go. So then she should ignore it. Normally. Now was different. She was wandering about in search of connections.
Looking down at the goldstone in her palm, she clasped it tight. She prayed that this was guidance.
“Hold it!”
Prepared to take an attack, she stepped into the classroom. Five Lightnings pointed their swords at her and turned around all at once. Their expressions were not dangerous. They were confused. This, she could handle.
Lulu swiftly checked the classroom. Five Lightnings, signs of destruction, burn marks, and fire flickering on the windowsill. A metallic, crumbling human shape—she couldn’t really tell if it was standing or sitting—was in front of a cracked blackboard that was broken right in the middle, and it made creaking sounds as it wobbled around.
“Who are you?” one of the Lightnings muttered—a very reasonable question.
Fully confident that she had every right to be there, Lulu pointed to herself with her thumb.
“You don’t know 0 Lulu, the one they call the best of the Lazuline candidates? Do you live under a rock?”
The Lightnings exchanged looks. They reacted to the term “Lazuline.” It was not a hostile reaction. While they were confused, they lowered their swords.
While Lulu was privately relieved, she didn’t show it on her face and continued. “I wonder what Master would think if she heard that all five of you got together to bully someone so weak.”
“What? She’s not weak. You can kick her or hit her with lightning, and she still won’t go down.”
“She got in the way and let her allies escape.”
Lulu pulled a bean paste bun out of her pocket, and five sets of eyes gathered on it. When she held it out, one of them took it and tore open the wrapping. The remaining Lightnings also reached out their hands, and it was gone in the blink of an eye.
“No more?”
“That was the last one,” Lulu replied. “More importantly, you should hurry to the courtyard. There’s not enough people there.”
“Yeah, we got a message earlier.” One of the Lightnings put her hand to her headset. “It said not to attack the class 2-F students.”
“Then do as you were told. Why are you fighting?”
“We thought it’d be weird to let her go now.”
“Just get out of here already. I’ll take care of her somehow.”
While giving their whispered reviews on the bean paste bun, the Lightnings raced off. Lulu blew out a deep breath and let her shoulders drop. Her magic was not suited for battle, and neither was her heart, and if she had any inherited talent from her parents, then it was probably that of a fraudster. She felt like lately, she’d been doing nothing but tricking people with a glib tongue.
She was quite exhausted, but that didn’t mean she could rest. She turned to the metal humanoid who was standing in front of the hole.
“You’re…um…Miss Ril?”
She remembered every single one of the students of the magical-girl class. As for why it took her time for the name to come up, that was because the current twisted humanoid figure rather didn’t match the beautiful statue that Lulu knew.
“Who…are you…?” Miss Ril’s body audibly creaked as she turned to face Lulu.
“Are you okay?” Lulu asked her.
“Why…is the class being attacked? What’s going on with all these Lightnings? Are you with them?”
Unsure of how to describe herself, figuring that this was the best way to gain her trust, Lulu decided on, “I’m a mutual friend of Snow White’s.”