NOVEL WEB Chapter 6
[Magical Girl Supernatural Ability Weaponization Plan]
The essence of this plan is very simple.
We collect children among the Magical Girls who are involved in crimes or are orphans and socially isolated due to unavoidable circumstances. Then, through harsh secret experiments and training, we check the limits of their abilities and use that data to select the gems that can work for the state and corporations.
In the early days of ability blooming, there were hardline discussions about collecting all girls identified as Magical Girls for national control along with identity registration, but after the emergence of Healing Ability, the approach shifted to indirect control while paying attention to external perceptions.
– I’m the bad guy who locks up and beats Magical Girls, but can you heal my son’s serious illness?
– Yes…?
To avoid such awkward situations, favorable policies and encouragement for social participation for the Magical Girls were implemented. However, they were merely educated based on data acquired from ‘somewhere,’ while those who were involved in the cruel experiments continued to struggle.
During the rebellion of the 200 Test Subject girls who were forced into harsh experiments, that ‘somewhere’ ignited into flames.
Amidst the chaos of the rebellion, armed with firearms and magic, the girls headed to the place where Fujimoto, the plan’s main responsible person and architect, was staying, seeking revenge.
And a single Magical Girl blocked the path of the one who bloomed the fate of the [Guardian].
The leader of the girls, the Magical Girl of [Freedom], bloomed late and established a self-governing organization.
– You don’t even know where to use your own strength.
– We will no longer be bound by anyone! We will raise the ‘FLAG of Freedom’!
The 50 surviving girls no longer trusted the state, hence declared the self-governing organization.
FLAG.
They continued their fight against corporations and the state, and Japan plunged into chaos.
This chaos, which lasted for six months, would later be referred to as the ‘Fujimoto Disturbance.’
Only after the main story began did people realize that the ‘Fujimoto Disturbance’ was what made [Magical Girl HAZARD] unable to end happily, and they realized it was an irreversible mistake they had made.
A tragic event marking the start of the Magical Girl era, and a monumental event that revealed the existence of the ‘blooming’ Magical Girls who could truly transform.
＊
“So what?”
“So what, Rani, are you an idiot? Why can’t you understand what I’m saying?”
“That’s not a proper statement.”
In a hospital room at Tokyo National Hospital.
There, a competent police officer, Yamashita, who graduated from Tokyo Law School and garnered results while not shying away from field work for a major regional police station, was finally allowed to enter the Tokyo Headquarters at a young age… but now felt despair for the first time.
“In the end, what you saw was just the suspect waving their hand in front of their girlfriend, right?”
“It’s a Magical Girl! Ma-gic-al-Girl! This is a real easy problem! Magic! Magic killer!”
“I was asking if there were any activation methods of magic or other abnormal signs.”
“That’s why you cops… that girl raised her hand like ‘Pop! Shoo! Pow!'”
“… Are you in elementary school?”
“What? Don’t underestimate me! I’m a first-year high schooler, what are you talking about!”
Japan is over.
No.
Rubbing his eyes, Yamashita changed his questioning approach.
“Um… speaking of which, your girlfriend, Yamahara, tried to steal the suspect’s star, right?”
“Uh? Oh.”
The delinquent boy, who had been furious the whole time, finally seemed taken aback.
“Yachin was jumping for joy the day she got her star, and I was really happy too…”
The boy scratched his cheek as he continued.
“… Yachin must have thought that wasn’t enough, got a bit greedy, and then felt bad after that.”
“Yamahara?”
“C, CP? I don’t know, but when they took the picture, the doctor said her head was fine and the spot she got hit didn’t seem weird.”
“Then why is she out of energy?”
“Guess she’s feeling down after getting hit by someone she usually looks down on.”
“I see.”
In the end, it was just a worthless and simple story of immature teenagers.
Tsk
Yamashita clicked his tongue and glanced at Yamahara, who was gloomily lying beyond the delinquent boy.
For Yamahara, who was living a pathetic delinquent life, being chosen as a Magical Girl must have felt like becoming Cinderella from a fairy tale.
And the foolish Cinderella seemed to be feeling down after trying to steal the glass slipper from the maid next door and getting hurt.
Yamashita felt a sense of irony and chuckled.
As the higher-ups of the state focused on researching the Magical Girls’ supernatural abilities, it seemed the Magical Girls had no choice but to submit to power for a happy ending.
‘That girl doesn’t even realize she’s lucky to be treated as a victim.’
The suspect was a 13-year-old, receiving a narrow protection under Juvenile Law.
Moreover, the suspect’s side could even argue for self-defense due to the recognition of impulsive crime and urgency, making it a situation where it seemed they would be let off the hook.
‘If only she had actively hired a lawyer and appealed to the media by turning herself in to the police.’
Even so, the media would probably bury it while looking at the interests of the political and business world, and she would be locked away in a research facility.
Busujima Haruko was trapped in a dead end.
While thinking that way, Yamashita’s phone vibrated.
As he answered the call, he stepped out of the room filled with idiots.
“Hello. Is this Chief Ooshima?”
[This is Ooshima from the scene. We’ve confirmed sighting information of the suspect. It’s near Yokohama.]
＊
Sato Hana felt good.
There were many reasons for feeling good, but the best reason was enjoying a vigorous stroll along the seaside in Yokohama with her newly freed legs.
It was mid-June, the beginning of early summer.
Soon the words ‘It’s hot’ would naturally slip from her lips during the summer.
The sea breeze that gently caressed her hair seemed to lift Sato Hana’s mood right up into the sky.
Fluffy clouds drawn on blue construction paper with white crayon.
It felt so vivid that Sato Hana thought she could run and grab them.
Perhaps a Magical Girl could jump and catch a cloud?
Bloop
‘Ah, no way.’
Still, Sato Hana wasn’t disappointed. With her healthier legs, she could do many things, so it didn’t matter if one or two things didn’t go well.
“Flap flap, sea breeze~ Seagulls squawk squawk~”
For Sato Hana, who always spent time alone at home, songs only consisted of the nursery rhyme tape she listened to when she was seven.
While her peers, 10-year-olds, idolized pop stars or whimsically sang along with hit songs with their classmates, Sato Hana’s taste was still stuck in the three years spent indoors due to her lower body paralysis.
“The sun is twinkling~ The clouds are flying~”
But that was okay, Sato Hana would soon enroll in elementary school again. She might end up running around a regular elementary school, making friends, and singing along with the popular songs.
“Huh?”
A middle school girl was sleeping in a corner of her usual walking path, covered in newspapers.
“Ugh, the smell…”
The middle school girl had messy hair and an indescribable foul odor wafted from her body.
“My mom said not to go near strange people.”
Remembering her mom’s words, Sato Hana awkwardly avoided the middle school girl sleeping in the corner as she tried to get up unsteadily.
“Ugh… uh… ugh. I have a headache.”
“Hey! Good morning!”
Following her dad’s lesson that one must always greet others before or after sleeping, Sato Hana greeted the middle school girl loudly.
“Uh… g-good morning?”
“Yep!”
Busujima Haruko, responding blankly with a dazed mind, was flustered.
“……”
“……”
Sato Hana and Busujima Haruko, with their eyes meeting, fell silent for a moment.
Sato Hana generally wasn’t good at talking to strangers, but due to her mom’s educational policy, she couldn’t let someone’s wrongdoing slip by unnoticed.
“Why are you sleeping on the street, miss?”
“Huh?”
“My mom said you should sleep at home!”
“Uh… that…”
The realization that someone had caught her set her mind blank, but Haruko suddenly felt exhausted.
It was an unbearable feeling that she couldn’t hold on without expressing her miserable situation to someone.
“I did something bad… I can’t go… home…”
“Don’t you have a mom?”
“Waaaa… d-don’t say bad things…”
From Sato Hana’s perspective, if someone was in trouble, that person must have parents to care for her.
Therefore, the question, ‘Isn’t there someone to help you?’ blurted out in a childish way, but to Haruko’s ears, it came off as a piercing remark.
So Haruko suddenly burst into tears, sobbing.
While Haruko was crying at the thought of her parents, Hana, watching in a daze, didn’t realize the surrounding area was turning unusually chaotic.
Clang! Thud!
“Eek?!”
“Huh?”
From the opposite end of the alley, the sound of a black iron barricade closing was heard.
Clang! Thud!
The barricade was closing on the opposite side, completely blocking the little-used alleyway in an instant.
“Entry, entry, entry.”
Armed police dressed in black began to approach from both sides of the alley, encased in protective gear.
“Eek?!”
Black protective gear. Blindfolded helmets. And the barrels of guns aimed sharply.
They approached while moving as one, each holding a shield and firearm, showing no signs of humanity.
They merely aimed their guns at Haruko as though they were just doing their job.
Clop, clop, clop
Noticing Hana standing in a daze in front of the approaching mass of black uniforms, Haruko screamed.
“Don’t!”
“Uh?”
“Run away!!”
Fearing that if they got involved with her, this girl might also get arrested, Haruko shouted.
‘What do I do, what do I do, what do I do, what do I do.’
Snap!
At that moment, a cheerful finger snap echoed through the alley.
“What, what’s going on?! Did the suspect escape?! Where did they go?”
“Where’s the suspect?!”
“HQ, respond!”
The wind sliced through Haruko’s cheek, and the girl beside her took flight through the air.
Just soaring through the air. The ground swapped places with the sky, spinning round and round.
With a dizzying view, what could be seen was the clear summer sky reflected as…
Brilliant silver.
So dazzlingly bright silver.
And she looked at Haruko and said.
“Ugh, the smell.”