A petite woman herself, Nagisa hummed as she moved the mask away from her. The tall beauty, who looked like she could easily do a dunk shot if she played basketball, chased after her with tears in her eyes.
I couldn’t understand why she couldn’t grab it back.
Unable to get her mask back, she hid behind Nagisa, shrinking her tall body, and whispered in a muffled voice, “I-I’m Atiifa Izdihaar Widad…”
“Louder! Don’t hide behind me!”
Twitching, the woman pouted like a scolded child.
“I’m Atiifa Izdihaar Widad… I’ve come all the way from Egypt to serve as a hospital magician… My hobby is cosplay… I made this costume myself… And I don’t like Nagisa…”
“What did you say?!”
“Eeep!”
She backed away furiously, jumped over the desk, and hid behind us.
Seeing that, Nagisa pressed her temples.
“…Ati. You’ve become an important magic handler. Why haven’t you changed at all since you were a student?”
“Y-you haven’t changed, either! You’re still as mean as ever! You’re terrible! Next time, I’ll make you wear an outfit that shows your butt!”
I looked down at the complaining magic handler—and our eyes met.
At that moment, she looked away, turned bright red in the face, and wore a goofy smile.
“H-hey, what is it…? It isn’t polite…to stare at someone like that… I—I have fans and get many retweets…so you better not get too carried away…”
“You’re the one who’s getting carried away! How many rehearsals do you think you’ve done every time you come?! Get over here! Do you understand your responsibilities as a hospital magician?!”
“Waaah, I hate this…! I don’t want to do any more rehearsals that go on through the middle of the night. It’s a violation of labor laws…!”
The hospital magician was grabbed by the neck and dragged away, and Ruby and I looked at each other.
“…What was that?”
“…Beats me.”
We were both so puzzled we’d forgotten all about our fight.
Her name was Atiifa Izdihaar Widad.
Everyone in our hospital class called her Ati. She was a head taller than the others, and her striking beauty made her stand out. Perhaps because she could communicate smoothly when she put on her golden mask, she quickly became popular at the hospital.
The pupils loved what was like a comedy act as Nagisa chastised Ati daily for coming in an anime costume, and she also mastered the art of having the pupils console her.
I watched her for several weeks, and I still couldn’t believe it.
The fact that Ati was one of the six ancestral magic handlers who existed in this world…and were equal to Astemir Clouet la Killicia, lauded as the toughest magic handler in the world.
The photo on the home page of the official Magical Society website showed an individual wearing that golden mask. The person had said in a past magazine interview that her hobby was cosplay.
“…She has to be a fake.”
She was now on an important mission in southern Egypt.
Understanding that, I tossed my hospital-issued tablet device to the floor.
Children like me, who had a disease related to magic power, weren’t allowed to touch magic devices. And since becoming a princess in this pure-white sick tower, I was strictly forbidden from providing any input or output of magical power.
“…A woman like that couldn’t possibly be an ancestral magic handler.”
I pulled out a scrapbook I kept under my pillow.
There was a photo of a short-haired woman pasted on a page.
She was an ancestral magic handler worthy of being called a hero. She saved a young child who had been caught up in an attack against demons and died in the process. She was known as the hero who lost her left arm.
Her name was Braun Les Bracketlight.
I traced a finger over the hero I had admired since childhood.
“……”
Then someone gently held my shoulders, smiled, and stroked the photo of a peace symbol being flashed—
“…Do you like her?”
“Oh!!!” I shrieked when a suspicious figure in a golden mask spoke to me.
Enshrouded in darkness, Atiifa appeared from a corner of the room, waving her stick and puffing out her chest.
“Braun is strong! So strong that Astemir said, ‘Well, she’s pretty tough, though compared to me, you know, but yeah, she’s good!’ She’s so tough that she’d be looking smug after a mock battle.”
“……”
I was speechless as Ati, without asking, sat on a round chair and began peeling an apple someone had brought me.
“For someone who idolizes Braun,” she said, munching on the apple, “you’re far from being a hero, Luri.”
“You…!!!”
I tried to argue, but I was so angry that it took me a while to find the words.
“You… What do you know…?!”
“I know.”
Ati, in the creepy mask, stared at me.
“There is no hero in the world without pride and a will.”
“……”
“Why do you intentionally isolate yourself?”
This time, Atiifa began peeling a pear.
“…What are you talking about?”
“You’re deliberately making people hate you. You find ways to make everyone avoid you. For a grade school pupil, you’re too smart and pessimistic, and it’s sad.”
“…I don’t understand what you’re saying.”
A wry laugh sounded from a gap in the mask.
“Don’t you like those pictures?”
“Huh?”
“Those pictures on the wall. You’re always staring at them like they’re long-standing enemies.”
This time, I laughed wryly.
“Of course I do. I hate that travesty. Why do we have to draw pictures of people who might die at any moment? I don’t know if it’s a custom here or what, but it’s no use putting them up since they’re going to be taken down anyway.”
“Oh, I don’t think so,” the masked Ati muttered as she examined the pear that she had peeled beautifully. “Everyone’s smiling in the pictures.”
I turned around and saw my photo. The younger version of me was beaming in the image.
“Nagisa never said a word about drawing pictures of each other smiling… And it’s lovely, very lovely, that that’s what everyone did… That classroom is filled with smiles…which proves that it’s the only place in this hospital where people can have smiling faces…”
“Geez!, that’s just a childish trick! Everyone’s going to die anyway! What good would it do to draw pictures of them smiling?! Everyone—everyone’s going to die! You can’t cure me! You can’t cure the others! You can’t cure anyone, so why do you call yourself a hospital magician?! Is it your job to talk about the ulterior motives of adults that are sold at bargain prices?! Outsiders like you can sit comfortably outside these safety cages and keep throwing shots of pity at us!!!”
Panting, I grabbed my chest and squeezed out the words.
“Get out of this room… Get out of that classroom…from my world…and disappear…!”
“……”
Silently, Atiifa stood up and placed a bent fang on top of my scrapbook.
A tattered scrap of paper smeared with blood in places was wrapped around it, and reddish-black letters were written in a winding pattern.
“…What is this?”
“It’s the coffin. The catalyst of my magic. It’s cut out of a dragon’s tusk, engraved with the symbol of protection and the words Protection of Day and Night. It isn’t a magic device. You could say it’s like a disposable Magic Eye. According to the sympathetic magic inscribed on ancient paper about heroes, it contains the magic power of heroes passed down through the generations,” the teacher murmured. “It also contains the magic power of Braun Les Bracketlight.”
“Huh…?”
“You trigger it by inserting the tip engraved with Protection of Day and Night into the heart of your target and pouring your own magic power into it… The magic powers of heroes contained in this fang react, and they destroy your malicious enemy. This is my precious treasure. It’s a mission that Braun entrusted to me.”
Ati carefully wrapped her fang in a handkerchief and tucked it back into her chest—and then flipped a page in my scrapbook.
“Oh…don’t…!”
A photograph was pasted there.
It was a memory of times she’d spent with best friends who no longer existed in this world. They were happy moments of laughing together, putting up strips of paper where they’d written their hopes and dreams, joking around, and eating cake with lots of cream on their cheeks.
An arrow had been drawn in crayon that looked like a worm slithering about, pointing to photos of precious friends and their names, Luri, Mii, and Yua. As if filling the gaps in between, promises were scribbled, saying, “Friends Forever.”
“…Your treasure is beautiful.”
As I put my hands over my scrapbook, attempting to hide my memories, Atiifa opened the door and whispered, “The picture they took off the wall wasn’t the one that Ai drew.”
Huddling over my scrapbook, I opened my eyes wide.
“It wasn’t the picture that she drew… It was the one you did of her smiling… Your grandmother gave it to her parents, and they thanked your grandmother and cried…saying it most closely resembled her smile… They said she must have enjoyed herself here…and kept thanking your grandmother, bowing again and again…”