Transformation or Death

Like Family (4)  

She was the one who protected me in the Dark Matter.

To explain why such a relationship was formed, I had to go back to our first encounter.

When I first saw Virgo, I couldn’t think of her as a villain at the time. 

The only parts that could be judged as villain were her eyes filled completely black without whites, and her wings as black as the area around her pupils. Apart from those two, her appearance was exactly the same as a human’s.

I just thought she was a peculiar magical girl.

It wasn’t the first time a magical girl took on a somewhat peculiar appearance while using magic.

Rather, I thought she was mysterious. 

Her slightly non-human appearance added a sense of extraordinary sorrow rather than revulsion.

The fact that she was reportedly a deceased magical girl, and that she was in the Dark Matter, doubled that mysteriousness.

Until then, she was Red Spica to me, not Virgo.

Looking at her appearance alone, it hadn’t changed much from her last known photos. Her eye and wing colors didn’t quite fall into the ‘much’ category – those were things that could be artificially attached as a disguise.

More than anything, it was her personality that had changed.

I can’t say what her private side was like since I never had a personal interaction with her.

But it was clear she wasn’t the type to grab a civilian by the neck and slam them to the ground right away. If she was, there would have been an even bigger controversy about her attitude than during the myth.

Her restraint skills were quite clean.

Her personality of not hesitating for even a few seconds after facing someone before pinning them down was truly as impressive as her mysterious appearance.

“Who are you…”

“Huh…what?”

“Who, who are you? Are you, are you here to…kill me? Or maybe to take something? What’s your goal? What’s your goal to come for me, for me…”

She was quite hysterical. Her words were slurred, her teeth chattering, and the hand grabbing my neck was weak and trembling. But by magical girl standards, it still had enough force to twist my neck.

“Your self-consciousness is quite something…”

Having come prepared to lose anyway, I let my tongue loose without restraint. I had nothing to fear. Whether I lost to a villain or a mentally unstable missing magical girl, it was all the same.

No one would know of my death once I died in the Dark Matter. The cause of death didn’t matter.

“Who would… Come here to see you…! You were reported to have passed away… I didn’t come to see you…”

“Then! Then what!”

“Because I hate humans…”

Speaking it out loud, it was quite a lame reason. Fundamental reasons tend to be embarrassing. There is no decorum in blatantly revealed likes and dislikes, so those who value decorum and appearances would naturally find it embarrassing.

I did too. Even in this situation, I felt a sense of shame immediately after blurting it out. It was the typical remark of someone lacking in social skills and being anti-social. But the words were already out, and I couldn’t take them back. So I continued speaking.

“After experiencing some shitty things in society…I developed a hatred for humans…so I came here…”

“That…shitty…ah really. But what kind of shitty things…”

So she would grab someone’s neck while cursing? An interesting person indeed.

“Cyber bullying, stalking, incidents with weapons.”

“…Oh.”

“Not just me, but my girlfriend at the time also went through a lot…”

“Girlfriend…? Eek…you, you came to deceive me…?!” 

“We broke up.”

“Aha.”

Her anger seemed to subside a little, as Red Spica’s grip on my neck weakened.

“So you became pessimistic from being dumped by your girlfriend and came here to kill yourself? Huhu, how childish. The world is so beautiful! You shouldn’t impulsively try to end your life! Whap!”

She lectured me while flicking my forehead with her fingertip. The slight tap produced a booming sound. Was she unaware of her own strength? I rolled on the ground in agony, feeling like my skull had split open.

“Oh..oh no…what do I do? I’m, I’m sorry! Did that hurt a lot? Oh, what should I…ah, ah! Just a moment…. Uhm. Well, a mother’s hands are gentle hands~”

She gently placed her hand on my forehead and began singing an ancient spell song passed down orally since long ago. 

Pure or childish, the latter was more fitting for this situation.

“Stop it! I’m not a child or anything!” 

“Child? But my mother did this for me often… Ah, no! How’s that! Did, did it trigger memories of your mother? How’s that? Do you feel like going home now?”

“Suddenly?”

She wasn’t just childish, but extremely childish.

“Yes! That’s what I was aiming for! Absolutely! I didn’t just panic and give weird first-aid treatment!”

“I see…that was first-aid treatment…”

“Huh? You’ll go back?” 

“No? I’m going to keep going?”

“Oh whyyyy! It’s dangerous here! Go back quickly! Don’t you miss your mother’s face?”

Red Spica seemed quite unhappy about me staying here. Was it a sense of duty as a heroine? Even thinking back now, there was still much I didn’t know about her.

“I can’t see her even if I go back, since she was killed by a villain.”

I still didn’t have any memories of my parents. The memories I could retrieve were relatively recent ones. Most of my childhood memories were lost. Still, I knew one thing.

In the past, I harbored considerable displeasure and anger towards the fact that my parents were taken from me by a villain.

It was only natural for someone to feel that way if their parents’ killer, wasn’t it. Who could love their parents’ enemy?

“Ah… I see.”

Red Spica became visibly gloomy.

“So you came here instead of committing suicide. No one here knows who you are, and they won’t care even if you die. There are a lot of villains around too…”

As Red Spica assaulted me, I picked up the iron pipe that had fallen to the ground.

“I want to kill at least one villain before I die.”

Looking back, I had never heard such crazy words. The remarks of a childish brat. To claim to be able to kill a villain with an ordinary person’s physical abilities. She, who had killed villains many times as a magical girl, must have found it absurd. 

She probably thought it was ridiculous, pathetic, and disgusting.

At that time, I was also skeptical. I didn’t think for a moment that I could truly kill a villain.

I came here with the intention of dying. I came here to die without anyone knowing. I came so that no one would remember that I had died. But I would remember myself, so I thought it would be comforting to at least do something before I died.

That’s why I spouted such nonsense about killing a villain.

“Interesting.”

Pewing. 

Red Spica raised her finger. A crimson beam came out of her fingertip, and the iron pipe in my hand easily melted away like ice cream.

“Ugh…!”  

“How?”

She smiled thinly and asked a question.

“How are you going to kill it?”

“Diligently.”

I answered seriously. That was my serious answer.

“Then you’ll have to work hard. You’ll die if you slack off even a little.”

Shvek. She approached me. Just one step was enough to get so close that we could exchange breaths.

“Hey, aren’t you curious? Why I’m here, why I ended up like this. What I am…”

“I don’t know for sure, but I can tell you’re a psycho.”

Red Spica burst out laughing, apparently quite pleased with my answer.

“Ahha! Uhuh! Ahahahahha!”

“Wow, is it really that funny?”

“I’m laughing because it’s so absurd… so you really did come here to die? You’re not even trying to read the situation?”

She waved her finger with the beam concentrated at the tip, signaling me to stop entertaining pointless thoughts.

“Do you even realize how ridiculous it is to say you’ll kill a villain with an ordinary human body? It’s the same as saying you’ll pluck a star from the sky. It’s utter nonsense!”

Red Spica, who had let out a deep sigh, looked me up and down. I showed a slight displeasure at her evaluative gaze, but she ignored my reaction and continued doing what she was doing.

“Your face is quite plain, but your head must have tasted really good… You’re quite pitiful too!”

“You have a plain face too while you’re here doing who knows what.”

“Me? Well, of course… Ah. I only listened to your story and didn’t tell you mine at all, did I? Sorry, sorry.”

She laughed dryly and poked me with her finger near my heart.

“I’m similar to you. I came here to rest too. I don’t like people either.”

It was an inappropriate remark for a magical girl. Come to think of it, she was no longer a magical girl, so it didn’t matter if it was inappropriate or not.

“Unlike you, I didn’t come here on my own. I don’t even remember when exactly I ended up here or why I ended up like this.”

She must have been suffering from the blessing of oblivion by then.

“I miss my mom and there are things I want to eat, but… I just don’t want to leave here for such trivial reasons. For some reason, I don’t want to leave. This place is just the most comfortable for me.”

Her statements were clearly contradictory. If this place was truly comfortable for her, she wouldn’t have huddled up crying, wishing her mom would take her away.

“Maybe it’s because you don’t like people?”

I said it lightly, as if it wasn’t a big deal, but it was an immensely weighty statement. For a magical girl who obtained starlight for the sake of people to harbor hatred towards them meant it was no light hatred. 

It must have been an extremely strong hatred, powerful enough to completely change her life.

“So that’s why it’s troublesome that you’re here… I understand your circumstances are difficult, but who knows if that’s really the truth? Most people who come here are just trashy criminals, people whose lives have hit rock bottom… There’s a high chance they’ll cause a disturbance!”

Heat gradually started rising from near my heart. There was no excitement, only fear. The heat concentrated in her finger that was touching my body.

“Are you going to kill me?” 

“Um… Should I? But, I’ve changed my mind a little.”

Red Spica smiled at me.

“You’re not the kind of person I dislike. There are no bad people among the people who dislike people!”

An enemy of an enemy is a friend.  

Someone who disliked people felt goodwill towards someone from the same ilk. That’s what she felt, and what I felt. 

However, this statement of hers was also contradictory.

“But you said earlier that you couldn’t trust me.”

“Did I say that? Sorry! Anyway, what I’m saying is….”

The beam she had gathered near my heart shot upwards, and…

“I’ll give you one-on-one lessons until you can kill a villain. How about it?”

The nearby villains gathered around us. This was her excuse to herd the villains towards me and repeatedly watch over me while I practiced killing them.

It was the start of a strange relationship.

***

Ippotranslation

***

And now, she continues to watch over me without changing.

The feeling of a murderer protecting me was quite cozy. 

Ha fuck, be happy, seriously.

Virgo’s gaze was still inscrutable.

“Good morning! Did you sleep well?” 

“Thanks to you, very well.”

I definitely didn’t sleep well with my neck strained like that. I looked around the surroundings.

Was this Virgo’s hideout? For ruins, it was oddly well-organized.

“Is that so? Then let’s sleep again!”

Oh fuck this.

“Let’s have a little chat…”

As I moved my feet to approach her.

Took. Something got caught on my foot.

I lowered my gaze to see what it was.

It was a mechanical lump. 

A rather sophisticated looking mechanical lump that did not seem to belong here.

I instinctively realized it was an item that attaches to a belt.

And I also realized why I was told to let Virgo live.

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