Ch.327IF Side Story: From the Beginning (95)

From deep within my heart, a certain emotion slowly welled up.

Hope… no, it’s a bit different.

Hope itself is too complex to be explained as a single emotion. It could be a small joy within despair, a lifelong goal, or perhaps something like love.

Love, huh.

Yes. Maybe I do have such feelings.

It’s not exactly romantic, but rather a faint and subtle emotion. Still, I could say I love them as friends, couldn’t I?

Affection. Yes, let’s call it affection.

I liked these children who worry whenever something happens to me, who share my joy with pure expressions whenever I’m happy. So much that I could never give them up now.

We’ve been through a lot. There were times when I nearly despaired at reality.

These kids who picked me up.

My hopes.

“…You shouldn’t just take away such hope as you please.”

Light flows from my body. The bag I had been carrying on my back was now completely gone. Just as magical energy defined my form as a magical girl, the enormous magical energy flowing around my body did the same now. The generator fell from my back and floated into the air.

The white light flowing from the generator mixed with other colors like paints on a palette. White becomes whatever color it mixes with. It mixed with Hayun’s pink and became pink, then mixed with Jihye’s green and became green.

Red, yellow, purple, blue.

Yet they didn’t become a muddy color from excessive mixing, but layered upon each other.

It wasn’t like paints carelessly mixed in a container turning murky, but a picture drawn on a white canvas.

The color of my hope.

“…”

My already flowing outfit became even more flowing. If the fabric had to extend, I’d prefer it to cover my exposed skin rather than trailing behind me like some fairy.

What I held in my hand was a hammer, but its current form was different. The long handle below the hammer head had become a sword hilt. White light extended from both sides of the hammer head, forming a kind of crossguard. Above it rose the shape of a blade.

And around it, colors swirled. The colors of the children.

The hopes of these children who breathed beautiful life into my once colorless existence.

“You, you…!”

Seems like you can’t speak properly anymore.

No need to worry.

You won’t die anyway.

I don’t want to taint the children’s hope with your pathetic life.

I swung the sword downward.

Squeaky still didn’t give up until the end. Perhaps if she had been an Earthling, she might have produced quite a lot of magical energy.

But.

As the sword fell, it cut Squeaky’s raised hammer horizontally in two. Squeaky, who had held the hammer with both hands to block the blade, was dumbfounded seeing her hammer suddenly become two sticks.

The blade passed over her head.

Without leaving any wound, it passed beneath, slowly decomposing the armor Squeaky had created.

“Grrgh!”

Squeaky forced her body to move.

Bang. As if there had been some kind of air conditioning device on Squeaky’s shoulder, it split open and energy burst out. The arm beneath probably wasn’t in good shape either. She might have had some countermeasure for that, but…

…No.

The arm inside the armor was surprisingly intact. If anything, it didn’t look like a normal human arm as we know it.

It was the arm of a Kaijin.

“I can’t… end like this…!”

Squeaky shouted. Her voice was grotesquely distorted.

“Heh, hehehe…! Yes, that should…!”

“Whatever it is, the fight is already over.”

I said that as I rushed toward Squeaky. The children did the same.

Each confronting the opponent in their own best way.

The armor split in half, revealing Squeaky inside.

Surprisingly, her clothes inside were ordinary. A white shirt and black pants.

Of course, the state of those ordinary clothes was anything but ordinary. Muscles bulged randomly everywhere, tearing the clothes in various places.

In the same words as the beings she had so thoroughly exploited.

“Hrrgh…!”

Squeaky swung her arm.

Did our “emotions” have some effect? White magical energy also swirled from Squeaky’s hand. And that magical energy was burning Squeaky’s skin. Squeaky acted as if it didn’t matter, or rather, as if she would eliminate us regardless of the pain, and charged at us.

Boom!

But that magic was blocked by another magic.

“Kuh!”

Jihye’s shield caved inward. But it held. Because Jihye had seen that she was my hope.

There was an explosion. It came from the arm opposite to the one that had burst upon contact with my sword. Hayun had destroyed one of the air conditioning devices that had been precariously hanging and wildly swirling.

The magical energy weakened a bit. Not my magical energy, but Squeaky’s.

“Too late!”

“That’s rich coming from you.”

“You know nothing.”

Just to be sure, I checked behind me, but Jihye’s mother was fine. I frowned.

“What—”

“Keep wondering.”

Squeaky said that and then—rolled her eyes back.

She had completely become a Kaijin. Now, any conversation would be useless. What was too late—

“…”

No. There’s no need to think too deeply about that right now.

I raised my sword and struck the Kaijin with all my might.

The Kaijin also raised its claws against me, but that was all.

Those hands of the Kaijin, with their infinitely weakened magical energy, couldn’t block the formless hope.

The sword made of magical energy pierced the Kaijin’s chest.

The last air conditioning device completely broke and exploded slightly.

With that, the Kaijin stopped moving.

*

As soon as my transformation was undone, I collapsed into a sitting position, dropping the hammer on the floor.

“Jieun?!”

Hayun, who was rushing toward me, fell on top of me. A soft, warm body covered me, and I felt a bit strange.

But she wasn’t the only one who covered me like that. All the other children did the same.

Everyone lay down, resting their heads on my body.

“…”

Well, this is something.

I’m not sure if I should say it’s difficult or if it feels nice. Even in this situation, they all have such nice hair.

“What do we do now?”

In the middle of space.

Considering the amount of magical energy we emitted while fighting, we should have reached Jupiter by now.

Ju-a groaned as she forced herself to get up. Chaeyeon got up and supported her from the side. Even though she wasn’t in great shape herself.

I wanted to help too, but honestly, it was a bit hard to get up.

“No, I think we still have a bit to go.”

“Ju-a said.”

“I think some safety mechanism activated when it detected the impact during the fight.”

“Well, it is her own ship after all.”

I looked at Squeaky with an incredulous gaze.

Seems like other people’s lives don’t matter to her, but her own life is precious.

No, it’s because she thinks that way that she could do something like this in the first place.

“…How long will it take?”

“About two hours.”

I thought warp was something that instantly took you there. Isn’t it similar to teleportation? Or wasn’t that the word itself?

“There are so many broken parts in here. We must have hit something important.”

This is the first time I’ve seen Ju-a answer so casually. Well, in this situation, it would be annoying to think about anything more.

Anyway, I decided to just understand it as the ship being broken everywhere and moving slowly. I was too tired to think about it too.

“…”

So, does that mean we can sleep for about two hours?

It’s all over anyway.

Pang Pang was still safely at that Jupiter base, and there’s no one left to interfere with us.

So, this is the end.

“Let’s rest a bit.”

While I was thinking and saying that, Ju-a and Chaeyeon deliberately came back near us.

And boldly, they lay down side by side, resting on the remaining parts of my body.

Is my body that soft? Maybe I’ve gained some weight.

With our bodies broken everywhere, in a mess, and drained of energy.

We fell asleep in that engine room that had become little more than ruins.

It felt like I had a peaceful, deep sleep for the first time in a long while.

Even though it was brief.

*

Clunk.

I opened my eyes at the impact felt when the spaceship stopped.

I rubbed my eyes and slowly got up from my spot. The other children were already up and preparing.

None of the children were transformed.

Apart from hope, they truly had no strength left to fight. There are limits to physical endurance after all.

Wearing tattered clothes, we stared blankly at each other before letting out incredulous laughs.

“…Alright. Let’s go.”

I said.

“We need to rescue Pang Pang.”

All the children nodded vigorously.

Their appearance was completely different from how they looked, which made me laugh once more.