Virgo

(Sun Yao)

The fourth Water Spear struck the bubble with a violent impact... followed by the sound of shattering glass.

My nearly depleted magic finally gave out. The feeling of magical exhaustion left me unable to catch my breath.

"Whew, hah... I discovered this power too late."

The female Monster had already reached the shore. Her repeated attacks had failed, and she was beginning to panic. With the lake drained dry, her only remaining means of attack were those three Water Spears.

But it seemed I was the one who reached my limit first...

The cracks in the bubble gave her hope. She bared her serrated teeth in a grin as the fifth Water Spear shot forth.

It shattered with a crash.

The bubble that had rejected everything in order to protect us was finally broken.

Was my resolve really only this much?

The Water Spear, its momentum undiminished, was about to pierce straight through both Miluno and me...

A clear metallic clang rang out. A massive "shield" stood before me, its surface bulging horribly... from where the Water Spear had struck through from the other side.

"Sorry to keep you waiting, rookie!"

The one holding the shield was a girl with long chestnut hair. She wore a Battle Dress that resembled a high school uniform, complete with leather shoes and loose socks.

I knew her.

She was the Magical Girl in charge of this C4 Area. Arriving only now was already a serious delay.

With her back to me, she wiped her nose and examined the warped metal shield in her hand.

"Well, this is my first time fighting a Monster with evolutionary abilities too. That destructive power is seriously ridiculous. Even my shield nearly couldn't hold it off. You blocked four whole shots. That's amazing."

The fourth shot had gotten through completely, though. And besides...

"If it weren't for me... Miluno wouldn't have..."

Virgo's soothing voice came through my earpiece.

"Don't blame yourself too much, Ceruno. You did very well, and the task of holding her back has been completed. Take Miluno and leave first."

"...Yes."

I hoisted Miluno onto my back and called out to the Magical Girl who had just arrived.

"I'll leave the rest to you, Miss Metal."

"You know me?"

The Magical Girl named after metal replied energetically, "Then leave the rest to me! This area was supposed to be my hunting ground, after all!"

Unexpectedly, the female Monster attacked at that moment. She fired the sixth Water Spear in our direction while clutching the final one and lunging at the intervening Metal, looking ready to risk her life.

"Watch out!"

Metal hurled the shield in her hand toward Miluno and me, then faced the Monster's close-quarters assault empty-handed.

Clang—!

The Water Spear collided with the metal shield, producing a deafening sound like a tolling bell.

When I looked back, the shield had been pierced through, but it had also deflected the projectile's trajectory.

Looking again at the two locked in combat, the Water Spear in the Monster's hand had already become two liquid short blades. Metal was forced into a defensive position...

I need to give her shield back to her.

But I couldn't lift it, much less throw it back... Wait, there were other weapons here.

I looked at the dark golden broad blades beside Miluno. Though I didn't know what they were made of, they should have been metal too.

"Miss Metal! Please use these!"

I threw the pair of swords toward Metal.

"Oh, thanks!"

Miluno's short swords were simple. As far as I remembered, they had no special abilities, so there shouldn't have been any problem using them.

"Ha!"

With a flick of her wrist, Metal transformed the short swords in her hands into longer, thinner rapiers. Wielding one in each hand, she thrust again and again. Her storm-like strikes hammered against the female Monster's silver scales. Already at the end of her strength, the Monster had no power to fight back, and bloody holes were carved all over her body.

Metal was incredibly strong. After all, she was a Magical Girl who could fight while carrying a solid metal shield. The female Monster was a mage-type fighter who projected firepower from afar, putting her at a disadvantage in physical combat. Forced ashore to fight only after exhausting all her ammunition, she was no match for Metal at all.

Bzzzz—

The low hum of a wormhole opening.

"I'm here."

The person who fell from the wormhole was Virgo, who had come from headquarters.

The legendary Magical Girl.

Her entire body was wrapped in glowing, gauze-like scarves. She was covered up tightly, and not even an inch of skin, including her cheeks, could be seen. Yet she wore no other clothing, and even her feet were bare. Her naked feet stepped onto the riverbank, making one feel both pity and regret.

At the sight of Virgo, the female Monster let out a piercing roar. Abandoning her strategy of "attack the weakest target first," she knocked Metal aside and turned to pounce on the newly arrived Virgo—the Magical Girl Virgo.

But as one of the earliest Magical Girls, even though she was a sage and strategist, she possessed highly refined combat skills.

"I'm sorry. You still hate me after all, don't you?"

Virgo raised a hand, and two scarves shot from her back, wrapping around the female Monster's arms.

"But it's all right now. I'll take you home."

Home?

What Virgo said was hard to understand.

"Hey, are you two all right??"

"I'm fine... but Miluno..."

With Virgo's arrival freeing her up, Metal turned back to check on Miluno and me.

"It's not too serious. It looks scary, but there are no broken bones or damaged muscles. They're all flesh wounds. Magical Girls like us who fight up close are much tougher than you... and she's especially tough even among us."

After examining Miluno's injuries, she began using her magic to clean her wounds—pulling out the chains and short-blade fragments embedded in her flesh.

"What about you? Are you hurt?"

"I'm fine... as long as I don't have a concussion."

Other than getting struck on the head twice by the blunted Water Spear, I hadn't suffered any further injuries.

I had been protected the whole time—by Heat Haze, by Miluno...

Yet they had both fallen before my eyes.

The shark-like female Monster had already been slammed to the ground by Virgo. The water blades in her hands had long since vanished. Those seemingly weightless scarves possessed both strength and flexibility.

But that was only a secondary effect of her power.

Virgo's true magic, the one she was known for, was Mental Overlay.

The scarves continued to wrap around the Monster, spreading from her arms to the rest of her body, just as they wrapped around Virgo herself.

In the end, not even her tail was left exposed. Virgo wrapped the female Monster into a mummy. At this point, she had become Virgo's puppet, completely losing control of her body.

Soon, even her thoughts would be taken away, wouldn't they?

It was magic considered highly aberrant even among Magical Girls, something more suited to a villain.

Yet she truly was a Magical Girl revered as a hero.

Virgo walked over with the captured female Monster, removing the scarf that covered her own face as she came.

Her face looked exceptionally pale, as though she had not seen sunlight for a long time.

"...You've worked hard."

That was all the greeting she offered.

"Miss Virgo, what exactly are Monsters like this?"

This clearly abnormal "female Monster."

"They are Witches."

She looked at the female Monster beside her, pain on her face.

"They were once... Magical Girls too."