CH 95

Chapter 95

Chapter 3 — Dry scrape, burn and perforate! • Episode 3–3 — Little Sister ⑧

Translated by KaiesV

Edited by KaiesV

I didn’t want to be a Magical Girl.

I was afraid of being made into this body, of having my fear taken away from me, of not being myself anymore.

I didn’t want to fight for my life.

That’s what I thought at first. I couldn’t forgive Jack.

If he had said this to me at that time, I’m sure I wouldn’t have forgiven Futaba either.

I might have yelled at her that I didn’t want to do it, kicked her out, and never spoke to her again.

「It may not ring a bell because you’re scared or misguidedly anxious when you fight, but Magical Girls are in danger that they could die at any moment.」

But now, since that day when I swore to protect Elephant-san, I’ve been a Magical Girl of my own volition. Even if I got a sex change drug, Elephant-san is so important to me that I wouldn’t want to use it until this battle is over.

From Futaba’s point of view, Mizukami Ryō is still a little girl and she doesn’t want to let me do anything dangerous. I know how she feels. At the same time, I can sympathize with her because she know how I feel.

If I could, I would want Elephant-san to stop being a Magical Girl and live happily in a peaceful world as a normal girl. But I’m sure she will continue to be a Magical Girl, smiling because she wants to protect everyone and putting herself second. I don’t have the right to stop it, so while Elephant-san is protecting everyone else, I will protect Elephant-san.

I understand long ago that I might die, and I’m prepared for that.

I would have been dead when Elephant-san saved me. Still, it is for Elephant-san that I stepped over such fears and continue to fight now.

「I have a friend I want to protect. I never want her to die, I love her so much. So, I will not stop being a Magical Girl until this battle is over. 」

「Ohh, is that so. I see… Then it can’t be helped, I suppose. Hmm, I am very worried, but if there is a good reason, I can’t force you to stop. You probably wouldn’t have stopped either, even if I had told you that…」

I guess that’s what she meant when she said that if it was true, she didn’t want to tell me. Futaba herself was not the kind of Magical Girl who would honestly stop when someone told her. I think she was just saying it in passing and didn’t really intend to stop Magical Girls at all costs. If that were the case, I would’ve told her not to say that from the beginning. If it weren’t for Elephant-san, I’d be on a rampage right now.

Also, if I said I would stop being a Magical Girl at this stage, I don’t know what the fairies would do to me.

Even Earth, the head of the Bureau of Magical Arts, is willing to give a sex change drug as a prize for the competition in exchange for not using it until the King of Distortion is defeated, and I feel that even if I tried to stop him, he would force me to continue.

「But be really careful. There have been Witches who have lost their lives in battle. A friend who was fighting with you until yesterday and who you thought would continue to protect the town with you may die. Magical Girls are not invincible heroines, so don’t let your guard down or be too proud, okay? I’ll be sad if you die, Ryō-chan.」

Futaba seems to have understood my resolve, but that’s not to say she’s overprotective or meddlesome… I don’t know how long she has been doing this, but even Futaba was a Magical Girl, and how could she put herself on the shelf and say that?

…Huh? Come to think of it, since when was Futaba a Magical Girl?

「I’ve almost died since becoming a Witch, so I’m not going to let my guard down. More than that——」

「Eehh!? You almost died, are you alright!? Is there something wrong with you or something!?」

「No, I was fine because my friend helped me before it got serious.」

Interrupting my conversation, Futaba, whose face turned blue, came up next to me and touched my body, so I pushed her away as fast as I could.

「Is that so, I’m glad… You can’t let your guard down, but you should never overdo it. There’s a big difference between being prepared to fight and taking your life in stride.」

「I understand. I don’t want to die either. I’d like to ask you one more question, Futaba-san, since when have you been a Magical Girl?」

「Ahh, hmm… It has to do with the fact that Ryō-chan wanted to know if I was a Magical Girl, and it’s a little long, but will you listen?」

Futaba gently reached out her hand to my head, slurring her words as if she was having difficulty saying them. I slapped her hand away and urged her with a glance to quickly continue.

Futaba laughs and rubs her own hand that was slapped and starts talking.

「I was roughly seven years old when I became a Magical Girl, and I was still in first grade.」

…I knew it.

Rather, why didn’t I notice immediately when I heard that Futaba was a former Magical Girl?

I was under cognitive inhibition at the time, so it’s no wonder I didn’t notice it, but if it were true, I would’ve noticed it much earlier, that is, when I became a Magical Girl and escaped the effects of cognitive inhibition. There were plenty of hints.

「At that time, I had no idea that I was risking my life or anything, and I was just crazy about the idea of being the Magical Girl of my dreams on TV, wearing sparkling costumes and using magic.」

Futaba has always loved Magical Girl anime.

She would be overjoyed if she could become a Magical Girl herself.

「Of course, the identity of a Magical Girl was a secret, but I was very proud of it to Onii-chan. I was pretty much sticking to Onii-chan, so I guess I wanted him to tell me I was awesome and to praise me there. But he didn’t believe me at all, so I gradually stopped talking about Magical Girls to Onii-chan.」

That memory is not with me.

I’m sure Futaba really, innocently and happily talked about such things, but I didn’t get it right due to cognitive inhibition. Soon it became unimportant and the memory was lost.

「It’s no wonder, there’s cognitive inhibition. But I was so young at the time, and I was so mad at him, wondering why he didn’t listen to me properly.」

Futaba’s hand reached out again, but this time I didn’t feel like knocking it off.

「Soon after I started working as a Magical Girl, my friends also became Magical Girls, and after that I made many friends and acquaintances of Magical Girls, and I started talking about Magical Girls with them. Every day was like a dream. Like a children’s cartoon, I usually went to school, had a mascot, and worked together with my friends to protect the town without being seen. So on my days off, I would play in a special world with these friends. It was hard not to get carried away.」

It means what Press-san said before.

A Magical Girl doesn’t have to be explained in detail, just the title is acceptable.

Those dreamy children with a yearning for their creations become Magical Girls without question.

「Before I knew it, Magical Girls were at the center of my life. I didn’t get spoiled by Onii-chan, who I loved, as much as I loved him, and since I spent every day with my friends, our personal lives often crossed paths. There were times when I had to leave late at night because of a Diest outbreak call, and I often stayed over in the name of a strategy meeting…」

Before elementary school, Futaba and I were very close siblings.

We were 10 years apart in age, and more importantly, I only had Futaba.

I spoiled and cared for Futaba a lot, telling her that I would protect her and that she had to have me.

It was the happiest time in my life until I became friends with Elephant-san.

Such a relationship clearly changed when Futaba entered elementary school.

The number of times Futaba talked to me decreased drastically and she was often not at home. Sometimes I would find her not at home at night, and before I knew it, she would be back. I never questioned it. I felt something strange, but didn’t realize it was strange. In this way, the contact between me and Futaba was visibly decreasing.

I was able to recognize the parts of the story that had nothing to do with the Diests or Magical Girls, so I once warned her that she was staying out a lot, but then Futaba would disappear like smoke in the middle of the conversation, and I was fooled into thinking that we could talk about it again later.

「As the school year progresses and I continue with my Magical Girl activities, it’s not just a matter of purely enjoying being a Magical Girl. I had a lot of money and could do things that other people couldn’t do. I started to feel depressed with Onii-chan who thought I was special and gave me a lot of attention.」

Not only did we talk less and less, but Futaba was getting rowdier and cockier every year. Still, I kept a bit of distance from her, thinking that’s how it should be at her age.

I wasn’t happy with the way she looked at me when I spoke to her, and it was obvious that she was trying to be a pain in the ass, but she wasn’t happy at all, I tried various approaches to ask her why and admonish her, instead of yelling at her over her head.

「I think our relationship broke down decisively when I was just about Ryō-chan’s age. When my teammates were killed by a Diest and I first realized the horror of what we were doing, I was sad, scared and full of myself … I threw a tantrum and said a lot of terrible things to Onii-chan. When Onii-chan tried to comfort me after I had been depressed, I told him that he didn’t know what he was talking about, and that he was being unreasonable.」

…Indeed, that was when I gave up on trying to repair my relationship with Futaba.

I had hoped that someday we would be able to talk again, at least casually, if not as casually as in the past. But Futaba was looking at something other than me even when she talked to me. Something I couldn’t understand was always surrounding Futaba, and no matter how hard I tried to step into her mind, I couldn’t get close to her heart.

That day, I gave up on Futaba who was saying incomprehensible things and throwing abusive words at me. I threw the towel. I assumed Futaba didn’t like me and was trying to put me off with incoherent and meaningless words, so I ran away.

After that, I hardly ever spoke to Futaba and left home when I got a job.

「I guess you could call it a cold war… We managed to get back on our feet by supporting each other with the survivors, but my relationship with him was never the same again. I don’t know how Onii-chan felt about it, but I intentionally shifted the rhythm of my life to avoid seeing him as much as possible.」

I was the same way. And I’m sure we both understood that somewhere.

Otherwise it would’ve been unnatural, we rarely even saw each other.

We were not a family at all, just strangers living in the same house.

「In the end, Onii-chan left home in such a state. By that time, Ryō-chan was probably born? I didn’t talk to Onii-chan properly for 8 years after he left home, no, about 10 years if you include that cold war, so I didn’t know he had a child.」

Futaba’s voice mutters sadly, and I involuntarily turn my face down and bite my lower lip.

I, I’m an idiot.

Not knowing that Futaba was suffering like that, I assumed that she rejected me because she didn’t like me, and I resented her one-sidedly and hit her coldly…

It doesn’t matter that I was suffering from cognitive inhibition. If I had been a better person, if I had looked after Futaba better, if I had faced her properly, I wouldn’t have made her face like this…!

「I retired from being a Magical Girl on my 20th birthday, and as I was visiting the graves of my friends, I thought. I realized that it’s not limited to Magical Girls to die suddenly and without warning. Father, Mother, and even Onii-chan were no exception. That thought made me scared. That I’ll never be able to talk to my parents properly, and that I will never be able to talk to Onii-chan again without having a falling out with him. That’s why I was looking for Ryō’s father. I’m sorry because of how insistent I was at first.」

I was a jerk, wondering what she was up to, wondering if she was here to ask for money or something.

「I regret what I did that day. I was a really selfish child. Onii-chan was trying so hard to step up to me, but I kept rejecting him until the end, and now I’m still struggling to get my footing.」

I was the kid.

I was always the kid.

Futaba became much more mature.

For the past eight years, I just spent my days like inertia, not even thinking about my parents or Futaba as far as I was concerned, living without any growth.

But Futaba was different. Futaba became an adult, found me without knowing my address or contact information, and came to give me a fresh start.

「Errm, I feel like I got a little sidetracked as I was talking, but what I wanted to say is that what I just said was my failure. The lesson is that you’re a Magical Girl and you’re struggling to get back what you’ve lost. So Ryō-chan, I don’t want you to make the same mistake I did. If you can still get in touch with your father, let’s have a proper talk, shall we? Besides, you should go to school. Even if you try to start over later, it may be too late.」

Futaba wanted to know that I’m a Magical Girl to tell me that?

She don’t want me to repeat the same mistake by making herself the bad guy for the sake of her niece whom she just met who she don’t have much to do with.

Talking about your friends dying is not something you would normally be able to talk about like that. Now you make it sound like you don’t care anymore.

「…I understand.」

I wondered why I wanted to go back to that joyless life with all the anguish and fairy harassment.

At first, I thought it was because I wanted to live a normal, ordinary life, tracing my mundane, railroaded life.

But after becoming friends with Elephant-san, wanting to protect this person, making the decision to fight as a Magical Girl, and being willing to go through rough times to do so, there was still a part of me that wanted to return to my original form.

The feeling, once broken by fear, never completely disappeared. It was definitely not because of inertia, because I wanted to live a normal life.

Such a reason was just a pretext. I must have had a reason that I was not even aware of.

…No, the truth is, I already know. That day, the day Futaba first visited me, even though on the surface I was depressed and angry at her for what she was doing now, deep down inside I was happy. But because I couldn’t admit it, because I couldn’t face it, I yelled at her to deceive her.

I had always wanted to start over with my family, just not consciously. I wanted to talk to my parents and ask them why they didn’t love us, to reconcile with Futaba again like we used to. That surely didn’t change after Elephant-san became my friend. It was just that my friendship for Elephant-san was so great that I couldn’t see it.

So, while saying that all I needed was Elephant-san, I had a contradictory wish to become a man again.

If I didn’t, I wouldn’t be able to talk to my family. If I told them I was Mizukami Ryōichi in this condition, they would not believe me.

「Futaba-san, I, I——」

But now, Futaba who used to be a Magical Girl would believe me. That I’m Mizukami Ryōichi. I will tell her that the drugs for rejuvenation and sex change just made me look like this. If I told her everything, apologized, and told her I wanted to start over again, me and Futaba would be able to be a family again.

——■■■■■■？

「——.」

「Ryō-chan…?」

It should have been, but for some reason I couldn’t put the rest of it into words.

Rather than confiding in her right here and now, I have been thinking that I should go back to being a man and start over in the form of Mizukami Ryōichi.

I don’t know why. I wanted to be a man again because if I didn’t, they wouldn’t believe that I was Mizukami Ryōichi, but Futaba, who knows what happened to the Magical Girl, would believe me…

If I became a man again, I would have to say goodbye to Elephant-san. I may look like a girl now, but there is no way a middle-aged man can be a friend of a middle school girl. No, I shouldn’t be. I knew that, and even up until now, I couldn’t decide for myself whether I should go back to being a man or not.

If I could start over in this form, wouldn’t that be much better? I may never see my Father or Mother again as Mizukami Ryōichi, but I still have friends and a family. It’s like a dream. It’s so much more than I could have predicted not long ago. Is that not good enough?

——■■■■■■？

I don’t know why. I don’t know, but no matter how many times I think about it, I always end up thinking that I should go back to being a man.

If that’s the case, then I’m sure that’s what I’m really feeling. There have been times in the past when I have been unable to recognize my true feelings. Just as I realize now that I wanted to start over with my family, there must be something, something I’m not seeing right now.

「Futaba-san, there are things I can’t say just yet. But I will settle everything and I will surely lead you to a happy ending. Until then, can you just wait a little longer?」

「Ryō-chan? …What are you saying? What do you mean?」

Win the competition and get the magic potion.

And when this battle is settled, then I’ll go back to being a man and start over.

Mizukami Ryō will no longer exist, but the Magical World will be responsible for dealing with that. It is their fault to begin with, so they must do at least that much.

「R–Ryō-chan? What are you talking about?」

「It’s all right. There’s nothing to worry about.」

If I can’t win the competition and I really can’t go back to being a man at worst, I can reveal everything only to Futaba, but that’s a last resort.

I will become a man again. There is no more hesitation.