Lazuline the Third
Lazuline moved swiftly down the hall, but since this Western-style estate was made to be larger on the inside than it appeared from without, it was a ways. Since there was no one there to call her to task for it, she ran down the hall, opening the door of the room that was her goal. Here, in a room of this estate that was Deluge and her crew’s hideout, in a linoleum conference room that would be unimaginable from the old exterior, sat two magical girls.
One of them was the master of this place, Princess Deluge, and the other was her right-hand woman, Arc Arlie. Placed at Arlie’s side was a portable cannon, and a sword was hanging from her waist.
Deluge eyed the clock hands on the wall with a mischievous look. “You’re five minutes late.”
“Sorry I’m late,” Lazuline said. “Um, lots happened.”
“The new leader has a lot of new struggles?”
“Stop calling me the new leader.”
During the magical-girl class incident, the homunculi had gone out of control, and it had all wound up the Lab’s responsibility. After that, various things about the principal Halna had been exposed, leading to the question of whether that incident had also been because of Halna, and the Lab had apparently managed to clear their name. But who cared about that? The problem was multiple magical girl–type homunculi. Lazuline had business with one of them.
The Lab and the R&D Department were irreconcilable enemies. Their relationship was such that you could not normally ask and have them accept. The security was also such that you could not simply steal them. In order to acquire them, they really had been put through it. She wanted to compliment herself for having worked that hard for the sake of a plan she couldn’t even be sure would pan out.
Arlie must have picked up on Lazuline’s exhaustion, as she made some concerned squeaking noises, and Deluge, sitting at her side, smiled weakly. She had experienced the same exhaustion.
“Well then, for the twenty-second…or was it the twenty-third debriefing?”
Lazuline also sat down, and then they put their heads together at the folding desk and the debriefing began.
The mysterious device that Shadow Gale had made—it resembled an old TV—had started correspondence with something from somewhere. Though they intermittently heard the sounds pon…pon, nobody knew what that meant. It wasn’t particularly anything useful. It was placed on the corner of the desk, without anyone touching it.
They said that Snow White had changed her name to Snow Blood and resumed activity.
“Snow White…,” Deluge muttered, and narrowed her eyes. That gesture had once made Lazuline think of Old Blue, but since saying so wouldn’t please her, Lazuline stayed silent. With nostalgia, sadness, and fear, she watched Deluge.
Arlie had saved Snow White and Mephis from the ruins, but they lost their memories of her and believed that Dory had rescued them all on her own. Arlie was apparently disappointed about this, but she had no choice but to suck it up. It wasn’t just Arlie—Lazuline had removed their memories of Deluge, Catherine, Brenda, and Lazuline herself saving them. That was because they no longer needed it. It was more convenient for Lazuline for them to forget that they had temporarily been together, and it was safer for them as well. This was best for everyone involved.
Lazuline had already been discussing with Deluge about “after Old Blue.” Their conferences had started at Magi-magi Cal-cal, then switched location to concept cafés, karaoke rooms, meeting rooms, and saunas and continued, firming up the framework of a plan bit by bit. Putting together the R&D Department’s accomplishments and Pfle’s legacy, they would be able to have a great influence over the current magical-girl system. Depending on how things went, there had even been the option of causing a coup d’etat against Old Blue. While removing memories, Lazuline had been moving things along in secret, but at this point, she wondered if maybe she had been noticed.
To Old Blue, even those she cared about were no more than pawns. And even she herself had been included among those she cared about. If the culture, information, presence, concept, and all the other elements of Lapis Lazuline were carried on, then Lazuline would not die. Maybe that was what she had been thinking.
Having closely examined Pfle’s legacy—the information, technology, connections, assets, and everything else—from the sheer complexity of it, Deluge had reached the conclusion that it was too much for her alone. Even adding in her ally Lazuline, it still wasn’t enough. That was precisely why what would happen next was needed: the technology to make actual magical girl–type homunculi that they had taken from Halna, the memory candies that Lazuline had, and Shadow Gale. If they put all those together—
The two of them talked that day, too. With occasional opinions shared from Arlie, they continued to talk. Naturally, they became thirsty, and so she was standing to go make tea when a crackle ran across the monitor of the mysterious device that was placed in the corner of the desk.
The three magical girls all looked at it at once. The crackling on the monitor jumped, and spread, and took form as a black-and-white sphere.
“I finally managed to transmit to you, pon! This is Fal! Right now—”
With an abrupt crackle, the power turned off.