Pythie Frederica
Frederica acted composed as she stood before the three magical girls, but on the inside she was not as cool as she was acting. Far from it—she was so discouraged, she wanted to collapse on the spot. The mental damage was far greater than the physical exhaustion.
“What are you doing? You work for me,” she said to Mephis, who was trying to stand up. Frederica sounded irritated. She wanted to calm herself down, so she bought herself some time by talking.
“Get off your damn high horse. You hijacked the faction,” Mephis replied.
Frederica understood at a glance. Mephis Pheles and Tetty Goodgripp as well as Snow White—the three of them were no longer the magical girls she so loved.
An ordinary magical girl would not be able to bear being within the ruins. They would immediately become covered in moss, collapse, and be unable to move. The fact that the three of them were facing Frederica with open hostility—though Tetty looked ready to flee—was basically proof that they had already been modified.
Frederica now understood what was behind the bad feeling she’d had. While she’d had a vague sense of it, she had been averting her eyes from it. Snow White was no longer Snow White.
She’d had that feeling since she’d seen the open door to the ruins. She hadn’t caught sight of Snow White inside the school and had received no reports about her. Considering her personality, if there were a way, she would volunteer to search the ruins. It was because Snow White was like that that Frederica loved her. But that was over now. She had stopped being a magical girl.
“Why? All of you—why…?!” Frederica cried. “You would so easily let go of something important, without a care for the person’s feelings?! And you call yourselves magical girls?!”
“I don’t want to hear that from you, asshole,” Mephis spat.
She flew at Frederica in one swoop, scattering moss as she went. She was far faster than Frederica had known. She made it seem like she was grabbing at her with both hands, and then her pointed devil’s tail made to stab Frederica’s leg from her blind spot, but Frederica stepped on it to stop it.
Mephis grabbed her shoulders with both arms, but Frederica ignored that and swung a knife hand down on her. Right before it could reach her neck, a mitten grabbed Frederica’s arm to stop her.
Oho…!
Tetty Goodgripp’s magic activated automatically against attacks. It was possible for her to capture Frederica, even with her attack speed. Frederica let herself be grabbed by the mitten.
Unlike Mephis just now, the grip of Tetty’s mitten made even Frederica’s current body creak. Even if it wasn’t enough to cause serious damage, it kept her from moving her right arm. With her still-free left hand, Frederica pulled out a crystal ball, and she shattered it to turn it into four sharp crystal fragments and threw three of them. The fragment that she threw at Tetty was stopped by her other mitten, Mephis twisted her body to block a fragment with her shoulder, and Snow White repelled her fragment with her naginata-like weapon. The remaining one stabbed into her own wrist, piercing Tetty’s mitten from above to hold it there.
Still with her grasp on Tetty, Frederica leaped vertically and landed on a head-sized crystal ball that was floating in the air. Without missing a beat, Snow White jumped for a sweeping strike at Frederica, and Frederica held Tetty up to make Snow White stop her attack, then moved the crystal ball horizontally, further descending.
Snow White landed with a dirty wet sound and pointed her weapon at Frederica.
Even filthy with muck, she still looked like Snow White. She was the magical girl in white. But she was too strong.
It had to have really exhausted her to get this far. And her continuing to remain here would slow her down that much more. But in spite of that, her slices were far stronger and faster than those of the Snow White Frederica knew. There was no way she should be able to repel and knock down the crystal fragments thrown by an incarnation. This was beyond the level of simply having grown, or having trained.
All three of them were physically capable, but Snow White was a head or two above them. Assuming she had been modified, was her being especially excellent the principal’s preference, or had it been out of necessity?
“You sure you should be ignoring me?” Mephis asked mockingly.
Frederica did not move her gaze from Snow White. This was no time to be paying attention to Mephis. There was magic in her words, but if you were aware of it, then you wouldn’t be greatly affected by it.
Feelings were a magical girl’s weapon and also her weakness.
Her once beloved student had been killed, and now Frederica was in a frenzy. Even understanding that it was not logical, that this could only harm her, she couldn’t restrain her feelings. She was moved then, to discover that she had a protagonist-like nature, that she could abandon herself to emotion. But ultimately what made a righteous magical girl was her expression in action, and Frederica was just not suited to that.
Snow White was different. She had possibilities. That had all wound up in the past now, but still, Frederica didn’t want to throw her away like a broken household object. At the very least, Frederica wanted to offer her a memorial on par with that of a once-treasured stuffed animal.
She felt pain in her left arm. Following her right wrist, Tetty was grabbing Frederica’s left upper arm. Her expression was serious, with teeth clenched and bared, but she was trembling and even had tears in her eyes. It was the look of a frightened little creature desperately doing its best. The places where she’d grabbed Frederica’s arms creaked. She had underrated Tetty, thinking that with her current body, it would be no problem, but this was a little—no, things had become quite dicey. Was there no upper limit to the effects of her magic, or was she trying to overcome that upper limit? It was also possible that there was an upper limit that Tetty herself had assumed, and it was actually not so. Then, rather than being embarrassed of her own overconfidence, she should be praising Tetty.
With the tenderness of a mother holding a child, Frederica smiled.
Snow White leaped. While leaping, she pointed her weapon at Frederica in a javelin-throwing stance.
Frederica swung up both her almost-broken arms to bring Tetty’s body in front of her face. If a weapon were being thrust at her, then she should just stop the attack with Tetty’s body.
“What the hell? A hostage? What kind of magical girl does that?! Guess you don’t know how to do things fair and square!” Mephis shouted.
She was trying to make sure Snow White’s attack would hit. But Snow White neither thrust with her weapon nor threw it. Still in that jumping stance, about five steps from Frederica, she tossed not the weapon ready in her right hand but something she held in her left.
It looked like an Eastern dragon. The small, cartoonish dragon flew at Frederica. There was no time to worry about what to do: block with Tetty or dodge. Frederica swung up a leg and kicked the dragon. She had meant to kick it back at Snow White, but the dragon was unable to withstand Frederica’s kick and shattered to bits, and the moss packed inside rained down.
The moss spread out through the air as if it had its own will. Her field of view was dyed in green. The moss rained down on Frederica’s face.
Kumi-Kumi.
She wasn’t here. So she had just left an item? Wonderful. They had even gathered the strength of those friends who were gone against a great enemy to aim for victory. That was righteously magical-girl-like.
The moss that was sprayed on her face, she left there. The leg she’d swung up, she swept back down hard, turning her body around and making use of the centrifugal force, leaping and dragging Tetty with her.
Her field of vision was blocked. All she could smell was the moss, too. But she still had a grasp on what was around her. Jumping together with Tetty, as she swapped positions with Snow White, she rolled on the moss.
“Don’t you dare run, Frederica!”
It was a nice voice, coming from the gut. It made her want to stop and fight. All three of them, Snow White at their head, were desirable magical girls. Frederica could see how this was going to end, but perhaps there was some merit in taking these three on.
Her sense of smell had dulled ever since she’d entered the ruins, and now with the terrible smell of moss stuck to her, she finally could not smell at all. Her field of vision was also blocked. She had relied on her ears, but Mephis was getting in the way. Relying on the vibrations she felt from the soles of her feet, Frederica turned to face the other direction.
Snow White was coming at her. Frederica’s hands were both still occupied. Snow White threw the weapon. It was frighteningly fast. There was no hesitation. Just, she was a little too hasty.
Right before the weapon could reach Frederica, a crystal ball suddenly appeared to swallow the weapon, and at the same time, Snow White leaped. She dodged the weapon that had come around to her back and grabbed the handle. She had read Frederica’s mind and evaded the attack.
Frederica exhaled, blowing away the moss on her face without using her hands.
“Wonderful, Snow White,” she said. Praise from the bottom of her heart.