The malachite would normally heal so slowly it was no different from first aid, but with Miss Ril’s size, it displayed more dramatic results than magic medicine or a magic stone. Ripple’s body was healed at a speed that shocked even Lulu, and she breathed a sigh of relief.
That was when she realized something. Ripple’s expression was strange.
The look on her face was not that of the Ripple she knew. Even when she fought with a strong enemy or was terribly wounded, Ripple would not be frightened or run away. There was a constant anger there. She burned her heart as fuel, and the stronger her opponent was, the more aggressively she would face them. But despite that, right now Ripple was just staring vacantly at the sky. Even when Lulu showed her face, Ripple’s eyeballs only moved slightly, and there was hardly any reaction.
It was not only her body. More than that, it looked as if her spirit had been wounded.
“Hey, what’s wrong?” Lulu asked.
There was no reply.
“What’s wrong?!”
Yelling did nothing; she still got no reply.
“What are you doing, zoning out at a time like this?! You still haven’t found Snow White!”
Ripple tried to sit up, and groaned, and Lulu hastily supported her.
“Oh, feeling motivated again? And hey, who did this to you?”
“Frederica…,” Ripple muttered—to herself, not at Lulu.
“Seriously? Pythie Frederica? She’s here? Hmm, yeah… We’ve got to get her back for what she’s done.”
“No…”
“Don’t give me that! Are you still Ripple?!”
There was no response. Miss Ril, who was sparkling so hard it was comical, watched with concern, but she didn’t intervene. In a business where many people would butt their noses in not knowing the situation, Lulu was grateful for that attitude. But that meant, in other words, that Lulu had to manage things somehow on her own.
“You’re giving up because Frederica beat you to a pulp?”
“No…that’s not it.”
“So what’s the problem?”
“She… I… Snow White…”
“What?”
“I didn’t understand…”
“Understand what…?”
“…anything…about Snow White.”
“Oh…”
“It was all for nothing… But… Damn it, she—”
Lulu clenched her right fist and dropped it down on Ripple’s nose. Miss Ril hastily cut between them, and Ripple sat up while gushing blood from her nose and grabbed at Lulu’s collar.
“What was that for?!”
“You didn’t seem to care anymore, so I smacked you out of it! If you’ve got a problem with that, then just hit me! C’mon!”
The fingers grabbing her lapels gradually weakened, and Ripple’s arms dangled downward. The nose she’d punched and the blood flowing from it immediately healed. This was a funny time to be impressed by what happened after using such a big piece of malachite, but there was nothing amusing about it.
Lulu dipped her fingers into the little bag hanging at her side. What should she do next? Having healed the wounds of her body, should she heal the wounds of her heart? Would something that could recover her fighting spirit be good?
Regaining fighting spirit. Then she would be back to the usual Ripple. Wait, she thought, putting on the brakes in her mind. Shouldn’t she just take the spineless Ripple and escape from the school? She had the feeling that would make things work out peacefully.
“No!” she yelled. Ripple and Miss Ril were looking at her.
What was the point of putting on the brakes now? Lulu was here now precisely because she had destroyed her brakes. It was fine to regret that she was here, but she could make it meaningless.
Lulu brought her face within inches of Ripple’s. Ripple tried to turn to the side, but Lulu held her face in both hands and turned it toward her.
“Hey, do you know my master?” Lulu demanded.
“What?”
“You know her, don’t you?”
“…Yeah.”
“She understands me. Maybe even better than I know myself. And it’s not just me—she understands you, and her other apprentices, and the Lightnings that are lying in heaps out there. She knows you all shockingly well. That’s what her magic does. One look, and she gets it.”
Lulu averted her gaze from Ripple, drew in a breath, and looked down. Ripple was staring back at Lulu. The ninja magical girl was bewildered, but her face remained expressionless.
“So what of it?” Lulu demanded, still visibly angry.
“What are you…talking about?”
“Say she does understand people. How happy does that make someone? She only understands people so that she can make good use of them. She has no desire to make them happy. That’s why the Lightnings are all lying there. That’s why my master is using those apprentices. Here I’ve been struggling all day, and now that it looks like something bad’s happened to my master; it’s like, so what if she understands me? Just because she’s so incredibly understanding, that doesn’t make this okay. Getting all bent out of shape because a nutjob like Frederica beat you up and told you some nonsense to justify her behavior—I mean, how lame can you get? I thought you were a cooler magical girl than this, Ripple.”
Lulu dropped her fist down, thinking to sock her one in the nose again to finish it off, but she was stopped. Ripple’s face was hidden by Lulu’s arm and Ripple’s arm, and she couldn’t see her expression.
Ripple stood up. Her wounds were healed. She clenched her teeth, her eyebrows pointed downward, using all of the parts of her face to express her anger. It was an expression Lulu knew well.
Lulu got to her feet. “…Are we going?” she asked Ripple.
Still with that frightening look on her face, Ripple nodded, bowed her head, and muttered a hoarse “Thanks.”
“What’re you thanking me for?” Lulu muttered even more quietly, clearly confused.
Miss Ril nodded; for some reason, she looked the happiest of everyone.