Magical Girl Huang Xing

Huali, standing nearby, watched everything with deep confusion.

She tugged at the green-skirted girl's sleeve and whispered, "Are they arguing?"

Green Yi glanced at Fu You, frowning as she said quietly, "Don't trust her too much. She's not a good person."

"But she's my senior."

"You should know what the black on her body represents, shouldn't you?"

"But she has gold on her too, doesn't she? And isn't she a magical girl as well?"

"Once something has been stained black, it can never turn white again."

Green Yi's voice was earnest and stern, without the slightest hint of a joke.

Huali neither agreed nor disagreed, merely blinking her eyes.

The seemingly lifeless remains of the Fierce Beast on the ground suddenly had a relatively intact arm spring up in an eerie motion. Its tip split open, revealing a sucker-like maw that lunged at the back of the blonde girl's neck with lightning speed.

Without even turning her head, the blonde girl swiped a hand across her waist. No one saw where she had pulled it from, but another pistol had appeared in her hand.

The muzzle swept in a short arc and pointed behind her.

Bang!

Muzzle flash erupted. The severed limb that had launched the sneak attack exploded less than half a foot from her hair, filthy blood spraying everywhere.

Bang! Bang! Bang!

Three more crisp, decisive shots followed.

The Fierce Beast's last trace of life was utterly extinguished beneath the gunfire.

The Fierce Beast's enormous body began to crumble, rapidly turning into wisps of pitch-black smoke that rose and dissipated like a wax figure burned by invisible flames. All that remained was the unconscious body of an adult man, along with three black diamond fragments the size of fingernails, their luster dim and gloomy as they lay quietly on the ground.

With a wave of the blonde girl's hand, the flintlock pistol that had fallen aside flew naturally back into her grasp. Then, both guns suddenly broke into fragments and vanished into thin air.

"Fu You, one day, you'll die by my hand."

Fu You did not even look at her. She merely raised her head toward the sky and swung her legs on the parallel bars. "Fine."

The blonde girl stopped engaging with Fu You, turned around, picked up the three diamond fragments from the ground, and walked over to Huali and Green Yi.

"This belongs to you."

She handed one of the diamond fragments to Huali.

Huali did not take it, only shaking her head and waving her hands. "You killed it. This should belong to you."

The blonde girl smiled. "But we couldn't save them either, could we?"

Huali fell silent for a moment. "Saving people is what we should do."

The blonde girl sighed. "Yes, what we should do. But precisely because it's what we should do, you deserve a reward even more. You did what a magical girl should do. This is what you deserve."

Green Yi smiled. "Take it, Little Pink Hair! This sort of thing is nothing much to us veterans, but it's a nice bit of startup capital for you."

"Take it," Fu You said from nearby.

"This isn't your place to speak," the blonde girl said coldly.

Fu You shrugged, continuing to swing her legs as she watched the deep crimson sky about to sink into the night. She no longer paid them any attention.

Huali looked up at Fu You. Her face was clearly full of arrogance, as though she held everything before her in utter contempt. Yet if she truly did not care, she would not have needed to stay here specifically, speaking in that tone as if deliberately trying to anger them.

Only then did Huali carefully select the smallest black diamond fragment from the blonde girl's hand and accept it.

These black diamond fragments were important items magical girls used to exchange for resources at the Special Incident Response Department.

"How about teaming up with us from now on? Our team happens to be short a healer." The blonde girl gently held Huali's hand, her tone earnest. "I can look after you from now on."

"Not for now. I... still need to train with my senior."

"Her? You'd be better off trusting a stray dog by the roadside."

"...I... still want to try."

"Suit yourself."

"Oh, right, Senior, what's your name?"

"Just call me Huang Xing. She's Green Yi."

"Mm! I'll remember that."

"What's your name?"

"My name is Pink Huali."

"Good name." Huang Xing smiled and patted the back of her hand. "We'll be going, then. Be careful on your own. We'll take these two patients to the hospital. As for that corpse... people from the Special Incident Response Department will come collect it later."

Green Yi also smiled and waved at her. "Little Pink Hair~ We'll meet again next time~ Take care of yourself."

"Thank you, Seniors!"

The corpse on the ground was the original body of the person who had transformed into the Fierce Beast, revealed after death.

Huang Xing and Green Yi each carried a patient on their backs and headed toward the nearby hospital.

After watching the two leave, Huali hurried over to Fu You.

"Senior..."

Fu You did not look at her. "Don't expect too much from me."

Huali said, "I know you're different, Senior."

Fu You lowered her head and glanced at her. "I am different. I'm not some righteous magical girl. If you want to protect love and justice, you should stay with them."

"...But you're the senior Minister Sun assigned to me by name."

"Him? Heh... He's even less trustworthy than I am."

"I want to trust you, and trust her too." Huali refused to let it go.

Fu You was silent for a moment.

"You shouldn't trust anyone. As long as you have even a little value left, the people you trust will find every possible way to squeeze it dry."

"...What do you mean, Senior?"

"Your value is greater than you imagine. There are also many people coveting it. Sun Feiliu, for example."

"I don't care. I know that the bare minimum in being a person is loyalty and righteousness."

"...Loyalty and righteousness?"

Fu You was slightly stunned.

After being a magical girl for so long, this was the first time she had heard the phrase loyalty and righteousness.

"You accepted my gift, so you're my senior! And since you're my senior, you should be loyal to your friends!"

Huali clenched her fists.

Her tone was unexpectedly firm.

Loyalty to friends?

Fu You snorted with laughter, smiling for the first time in a long while.

What kind of bizarre angle was that? For a moment, she could not think of how to refute it.

"How do you know I'd be loyal to my friends?"

"Intuition. Because I think... you're really cool, Senior! Someone as cool as you must be loyal to your friends!"

Fu You's eyes widened slightly. The teasing expression on her face froze for a moment.

Cool?

As a magical girl, she had received all kinds of evaluations before.

But cool... that was a first.

—If it's loyalty to friends, then I guess there's no way around it?

That was rather interesting.

She jumped down from the parallel bars.

"There. The Abyss Witch is coming."

"The Abyss Witch?"

"That was only an ordinary Fierce Beast just now. Are you ready?"

The instant her words fell—

An invisible curtain suddenly enveloped the surroundings. The sky, which had still held a trace of twilight, abruptly darkened as though ink had been splashed across it. The streetlights around them and the light spilling from the hospital windows rapidly weakened, becoming dim and distant.

Heavy darkness, almost tangible, surged in from all directions alongside bone-piercing cold.

"Hee hee hee... Hahaha... There are magical girls here?! Die!"

A shrill, twisted laugh, as though countless voices had overlapped into one, exploded all around them.

Huali did not even see how Fu You moved.

She only saw a black shadow flash atop the parallel bars, and Fu You's former position was already empty. Immediately afterward, an irresistible force seized the back of her collar, and her vision spun wildly!

"Waaah?!"

The cry had barely left her mouth when she discovered that she had been flung entirely into the air. A powerful sensation of weightlessness instantly gripped her heart. She flailed her arms and legs in panic, desperately trying to adjust herself into a position that would not make her fall too badly.

Amid the howling wind of her descent, she barely managed to turn her head.

Below, amid fragments of dim light and shadow, a petite yet sharp black-and-gold figure held that dark-gold staff. Like a meteor tearing through the gloom, she crashed with unflinching resolve into a mass of absolute darkness.

Fu You's skirt bloomed like an ink-black lotus for an instant at the edge of that thick darkness before being completely swallowed.

The real battle had only just begun.