But now, she could only watch helplessly as Rin used that Blue Talisman with its enormous side effects again, despite her body already being on the verge of collapse.
Whether as Ando Koichi, Ando Meiko, or even Ruby the magical girl she was now, she would never allow something like this to happen before her eyes.
For the first time, intense fighting spirit surged into the eyes of Ando Meiko, who had always avoided battle whenever possible.
At this most critical moment, the battle-fired-up Ando Meiko finally caught the faint feedback from her body. Her outstretched hand clenched at empty space as though grasping something. "Got you! O-saki pa-shi-ni... I've got you!"
The light erupting from the gem on her chest turned hexagonal. Her top shortened, revealing a diamond-shaped opening that stretched from below her navel to above her chest. The outermost layer of her skirt transformed into a long dress, her hair became low twin-tails, and her feather-shaped hair ornament unfolded into an X shape.
The gem, freed from its ribbon, floated behind her on either side like a pair of remote gun turrets.
"It's here! The Master's power type!"
After returning from battle, Ruby had told Ando Meiko about her evolved form. Ando Meiko had given this powerful charged form, obtained by breaking through the charge limit, a name...
Holy Armament—Starlight Radiance
"Ruby, leave the fine-tuning of the magic power to you."
"Don't worry, Master. Leave it to me!"
The magic power she released completely enveloped the wand in a red sphere. Inside it, the wand was broken down into Aether, making it easier to reshape.
"Synchronization begins!"
Tiny components manifested from Aether according to Ando Meiko's mental image. After Ruby fine-tuned them, they began assembling themselves.
The chamber, barrel, stock, scope, bipod... As the magic bullet entered the magazine, it was loaded into the gun body, and the rotating bolt was pulled back to chamber the round.
The glow of Aether faded, and a red-painted M93 anti-materiel sniper rifle appeared in Ando Meiko's hands.
She hooked the sniper rifle's bipod onto the balcony railing and looked through the scope. The eight-times magnified image placed the crosshairs directly on the Void Spider's head.
Volume One: How I Was Tricked Into Becoming a Magical Girl: Chapter 64: Pulling the Trigger
Ando Meiko had her reasons for spending time Synchronizing her wand into a sniper rifle instead of using a bow.
There was no denying that magic arrows were extremely powerful, both in attack strength and penetration.
However, they required multiple charges to unleash their true power, and their travel speed was far too slow. Against an agile Void Beast like the Void Spider, unless it was stupid enough to stand there and take the hit, it would usually dodge the moment it sensed such an enormous amount of magic power.
A sniper rifle did not have those problems. Its greatest advantage was that it required no charging, meaning the leaking magic power would not alert the Void Beast.
Peering through the scope, Ando Meiko suppressed her magic power and silently watched the Void Beast being held back by the magical girls. The finger resting on the trigger trembled slightly with tension.
With an ordinary sniper rifle, a sniper would need extensive shooting adjustments to fine-tune the scope and ensure accuracy.
But this sniper rifle was made of magic power, and its magic bullets would not be affected by weak winds within their effective range.
Ando Meiko did not know whether the sniper rifle she had created would be more powerful than the real thing.
But if she did not know... why not just try it?
"This won't work... Why is this damn thing moving so fast?"
The Void Spider was simply too mobile. No matter how she aimed while holding the cumbersome sniper rifle, whenever she brought it into the crosshairs, it would dart away the next instant, leaving Ando Meiko with no chance to pull the trigger.
A sniper's concealment was extremely important, especially for the first shot. If it failed to take out the target immediately, the sniper's position would be exposed, making her the primary target.
"I can't get a shot. Is there any way to temporarily restrict its movements?" Ando Meiko whispered into her earpiece.
Just as she finished speaking, she saw through the scope that Rin and Furago both paused for a moment.
The two magical girls had heard her request.
Even trapped in danger, Furago barely managed to take out a card and swipe it across her wand. Though bound by spiderwebs, she struggled to form a slender cannon barrel over her left hand.
A red rocket, like the one she had used to cover Ando Meiko's retreat, fired once more. This time, the rocket struck the Void Spider's back as Rin held it in place.
A concussion rocket. It was not as powerful as an ordinary rocket, but the high-frequency vibrations released upon explosion could destroy most structures.
The waves caused by the high-frequency vibrations made the spider shriek in pain. Though it lasted only an instant, its body truly did freeze.
Seizing that fleeting opportunity, Rin, who had moved beneath the spider's abdomen, leaped up. Her full-powered punch sent the Void Spider flying into the air.
Perfect!
There was nothing in the air for it to brace against. That meant that before the spider landed, this was her best chance.
"Thank you so much, Rin." Instead of following the spider with her sniper rifle, Ando Meiko aimed the crosshairs at the path the spider would follow as it fell under gravity.
"It's here!" The instant the spider entered her crosshairs, the finger poised on the trigger pulled decisively.
The bullet shot from the chamber like a wild horse breaking free of its reins. Magic power roared from the muzzle brake in every direction, yet even so, Ando Meiko's arm was nearly dislocated by the tremendous recoil.
The distance of less than three hundred meters vanished in an instant before the magic armor-piercing bullet traveling at eight hundred meters per second. It did not even take a full second. The moment the Void Spider entered her crosshairs and she pulled the trigger, the bullet had already reached the end of its journey.
The bullet pierced through the Void Spider's hardened armor without any resistance, blasting a basketball-sized hole through its head that was visible to the naked eye.
The Void Spider was knocked off course by the bullet's impact, but to everyone's shock, it climbed back to its feet.
"No way!" Ando Meiko could hardly believe what she was seeing.
Its brain had been pierced directly by an armor-piercing round, yet it could still stand again. Was that even a living creature...? Then again, could something like a Void Beast really be called a living creature?
"If even that doesn't work... Oh no!" she thought, then flipped over and jumped from the roof of the tenth floor. After landing, she rolled forward and sprang up, rushing toward the Void Spider.
[Master? What are you trying to do? Don't be reckless, Master!]
Ignoring Ruby's words in her mind, she did not slow her pace in the slightest.
It was not because she wanted to finish off the Void Spider, but because Rin, who had created that opportunity for her, had already fallen beneath it.
"Faster, even faster!" In an unconscious attempt to increase her speed, she concentrated magic power into her legs.
The Void Spider had recovered. All sixteen of its eyes had changed completely from black to red. Driven utterly mad by Ando Meiko's attack, it saw the defenseless Rin and raised a spider leg without hesitation before stabbing down.
"Don't you dare hurt her!" Ando Meiko, who had reached Rin's side, slid forward. After reaching Rin, she grabbed her clothes and hurled her aside.
"Ahhhhh!" The spider leg had not taken Rin's life, but it pierced through Ando Meiko's left arm.
Only someone who had experienced it firsthand could understand what it felt like to have muscle and bone pierced through... Pain. Unbearable agony nearly washed away Ando Meiko's consciousness.
All sixteen eyes fixed on the girl who had nearly killed it, reflecting Ando Meiko's face twisted in pain. At the same time, the Void Spider opened its blood-filled maw toward her.
"No! Meizi!" In her panic, Rin even called out Ando Meiko's name directly.
Hearing Rin call to her, Ando Meiko regained a sliver of clarity. Enduring the indescribable pain, she slowly raised the sniper rifle.
"AAAAAAAAAHHHHH!"
She roared and pulled the trigger. The magic bullet lurking in the chamber burst forth instantly with spiraling force.
That shot pierced directly through the spider's lower abdomen and exited through the hardened armor on its back.
Blasted backward, the Void Spider released the spider leg embedded in Ando Meiko's arm. As she fell to the ground, she gritted her teeth and forced herself back up, pinning the sniper rifle beneath her foot as she worked the bolt to chamber another round.
She raised it, then fired.
Kneeling beneath the spider at such close range, she did not even need to aim.
Raise the gun, fire, lower it, work the bolt. She repeated the same motion mechanically until, when she pulled the trigger again, the empty click of the bolt announced that every bullet had been used up.
Only then did the sniper rifle revert to a wand, the Holy Armament fade away, and her transformation end. She and the massive Void Spider collapsed to the ground at the same time, unconscious...
Volume One: How I Was Tricked Into Becoming a Magical Girl: Chapter 65: Returning Safely
Seeing that the Void Spider could no longer rise, every magical girl who had participated in the battle lay back on the ground, whether from fear or from having exhausted their magic power, gasping for breath.
Only Rin dragged her body forward, every part of it aching from her recklessness, taking one step at a time toward Ando Meiko.
Looking at the body lying on the ground, already dyed red with blood, Rin's worry deepened with every step she took. "Please don't let anything happen to you."
"Um... I know this may not be the right time to say this... but before you all lie down, could someone please save me and get me down?!" Furate shouted at the resting magical girls.
After an unknown amount of time, Ando Meiko woke peacefully. The soft sensation beneath her head and the uncomfortably hard feeling against her back told her that she probably had not returned yet.
"Meizi, you're awake."
"I... ngh..." The first thing she saw was Rin's delicate, flawless face. She must have been resting her head on Rin's lap.
A lap pillow. It was a lap pillow! It would have been nice to enjoy that feeling properly, but after using the Blue Talisman three times in a row, how much better could Rin's condition possibly be than hers?
Not wanting to burden Rin further, she braced herself and slowly stood up.
The slightest movement tugged at the muscles in her arm, making her grit her teeth in pain.
She glanced at her wound. The pierced arm was wrapped in strips of cloth, but the little bit of fabric had already been completely dyed red by blood seeping from the wound.
When she turned and saw Rin's smooth, flat abdomen exposed where a piece of cloth was missing from her clothing, a hint of gentleness flashed through Ando Meiko's eyes.
"It's good you're okay. It's good you're okay..." Seeing Ando Meiko wake up safely, Rin finally relaxed. Then her eyes rolled back, and she collapsed unconscious.
Ando Meiko caught Rin with quick hands and sighed softly. "This girl... she pushed herself far too hard."
Furate walked over to the two girls. Seeing the gruesome bloody wound on Ando Meiko's arm, she could not bear to look at it. "Ruby, that wound of yours really is terrifying."
With a faint smile, Ando Meiko did not respond to that subject.
"Furate, the surrounding area has been secured. You can open the door and come out whenever you're ready."
"Got it."
Yōichi's voice came through the earpiece. After receiving Furate's response, one of the Azure Magical Girls who still had magic power left opened the door back to the Mortal World.
[Seriously... this hurts like hell.] While waiting for the door to open, Ando Meiko endured the pain as she complained to Ruby in her mind.
[Master has already been very lucky. Because Master is not purely made of flesh and blood, the pain you feel has been reduced by at least seventy percent.]
[Seventy percent...]
Even with the pain reduced so much, it had hurt badly enough to make her pass out. If she had felt the full pain, the moment her arm was pierced might have been enough to give her a heart attack.
[By the way, why can't the commander send people into the Void World to fight alongside us?] Ando Meiko asked curiously in her mind.
After a slight pause, Ruby explained, [Human bodies cannot enter the Void World.]
[Why? Is it one of those settings where you get crushed to pieces by the dense magic power the moment you enter?]
[Of course not. The Void World is actually like a mirror. It is the reflection of the Reality World, so it naturally rejects things from the Reality World. They cannot even get inside, let alone fight.]
[I see.]
After the injured were carried out by the magical girls still able to stand, Ando Meiko slowly rose to her feet. Only then did she pick up the petite Rin and become the last person to leave the Void World.
"Good work, Ruby. We really have you to thank this time." The hurriedly arriving Yōichi gave her a salute.
Compared to the other unconscious wounded, Ando Meiko, covered in blood from head to toe after undoing her transformation, stood out far too much. She stood out so much that no one could overlook her.
After Ando Meiko laid Rin on the waiting stretcher, Yōichi stepped forward to support her, but she waved him away. "Help the others first."
"But..."
"I'm fine." Though she was covered in blood, Ando Meiko's injuries were not as severe as they appeared.
During the time she had been unconscious, Ruby had used magic power to nurse the pierced arm, and it had already healed. What remained was mostly pain. Though she still could not move it, it was nowhere near serious enough to affect her ability to walk.
They did not need to take the train on the way back. The more severely wounded magical girls were rushed to the base in special vehicles for treatment, while Ando Meiko unhurriedly boarded the commander's private car.
"We really have you to thank this time, Ruby. It seems our understanding of Ghost-Tier Void Beasts' strength was still far too lacking."
Ando Meiko nodded seriously.
That battle had been utterly brutal. After the Void Spider entered Wrath and unleashed its domain, Furate and several other magical girls had nearly died right before her eyes.
If that domain had not merely been a half-baked imitation with no real substance, not one of them would likely have survived.
Thinking back on the battle, Ando Meiko realized that these magical girls had a major problem.
Aside from herself, their lineup consisted of three Starry Magical Girls and five Azure Magical Girls who did not even have familiars.
In truth, when facing the Void Spider head-on, Rin had been the only one with any real combat power.
The Starry Magical Girls could use the Star Tarot for rapid magical assaults, but their methods of attack were far too limited. Unless the team was selected specifically for the situation, they rarely had abilities suited for battle.
Although Rin was also a Starry Magical Girl, her inheritance came from elsewhere. As a result, she possessed many strange methods that differed from the magical girls here during battle, so she naturally could not be counted among them.
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