Chapter 59: Goodbye, Blue Sky

– User authentication. Yu Ji-hye, Head of the Korean Magical Girl Association.

– User authentication. Kim Hyeon-jeong, Head of the Medical Department of the Korean Magical Girl Association. Welcome.

Along with the inorganic female voice of the security system that flowed out after completing the iris laser scan and magic pattern confirmation through the palms of the two people, the giant steel door opened left and right with a heavy sound, and a strong, sterile white light turned on, illuminating the dim entrance.

As Blanc and Violet stepped into the inner space, the steel door closed again with a heavy sound, and the even thicker steel door inside opened slowly up and down, revealing a corridor with pure white lighting and a completely unadorned, pure white interior.

The deepest part of the Magical Girl Association’s basement, the isolation floor.

The two had come to this place, where no one ever visited, where no one could invade or escape, to visit a single fallen magical girl.

A fallen magical girl is a magical girl who has committed a crime and is being pursued by the association, and the standard for being ‘fallen’ depends on whether they have committed murder or a similarly serious crime.

After being arrested by the Magical Girl Association, fallen magical girls are nominally supposed to be imprisoned as criminals after a proper trial, but it was an open secret that in reality, arrested fallen magical girls were taken to the Magical Girl Association’s basement and imprisoned without any trial process, as there was no way that prison guards or police who couldn’t use magic, and flimsy prison facilities, could handle them.

In the past few years, most of the infamous fallen magical girls other than Sanguine Obsidia had been captured, and without exception, they were all dragged to this place, a sterile, pure white space with no stimuli other than the occasional meal and newspaper, and all of them were either dead or waiting for the day they would die.

And the cause of death, without a single exception, was recorded as suicide.

“How are you doing? Number 04.”

Standing in front of one of the ten rooms, the only one with its lights on and a person imprisoned inside, Yu Ji-hye called out her number.

The imprisoned magical girl once had a real name as a human and a code name as a magical girl, but now she was just Number 04.

Thump.

“Haha, look who it is. You crazy witch. You’ve got some nerve showing your shameless face around here.”

Number 04 approached the transparent glass wall that offered a clear view of the inside, banged her head against it, and laughed, showing her forehead, which was torn and bleeding profusely as she roughly pushed back her long blonde hair.

The whites of her eyes were bloodshot, redder than her crimson pupils.

A flash of golden magic flickered, but it couldn’t even scratch the glass wall, which was reinforced with Yu Ji-hye’s magic, and Number 04 punched the wall in frustration, to the point of breaking her hand and drawing blood.

“Seeing you so full of energy, you must be doing well. That’s good.”

“Yeah, thanks to our dear association head, I’m doing just great. Just you wait, once I get out of here, I’ll throw you in this cell and make you feel just as great as I do.”

As Number 04 said this, her voice and limbs trembled as if she had already realized her fate.

“Her magic levels are normal. In that case…”

After hearing Blanc’s words, who had checked a panel on the wall.

“I’ll let you out, just as you wish. Though it won’t be alive. If you’ve killed over ten people, you should give up any expectation of a happy ending.”

Yu Ji-hye declared.

“Ha, the number of people you’ve killed is…”

As Blanc pressed a red button, a red warning light came on in Number 04’s isolation cell, and her efforts to dig her nails into the glass wall were in vain as she collapsed without being able to finish her sentence.

– Subject suppression complete.

– Sleeping gas removal and stabilization of Isolation Cell 04 atmosphere complete.

After confirming that Number 04 had fallen asleep as if in a transparent gas, and after a short time had passed, the two unsealed the wall and stepped into the room.

“…Her magic organ is fine. But, Jihye.”

Blanc took her hand off the panel, her gray eyes widening as she stepped forward to block Yu Ji-hye, who was approaching Number 04.

“I decided to affirm everything about you, to accept everything even if you commit sins. But I don’t want any more. I don’t want you to dirty your hands any further.”

Rationally, she knew she couldn’t stop her, and that she herself would ultimately stay with her until the end, but she couldn’t help but block her way.

“You promised, unni. This one, and then Sanguine Obsidia, will be the last.”

“…Alright.”

After a long moment of hesitation and contemplation, Blanc finally moved aside, leaving behind a single word laden with many meanings.

Approaching the fallen Number 04, Yu Ji-hye plunged a dagger of violet magic into the center of her chest.

The immense magic that flowed out as the magic organ behind her solar plexus was destroyed was quietly absorbed into Yu Ji-hye’s body.

“Cause of death, suicide. I’ll record it as suicide after a failed escape attempt led to despair. Just like before.”

The already lifeless body was engulfed in violet flames and burned away as the two left the room.

Isolation Cell 04 returned to a sterile, pure white, as if no one had ever been there, and Blanc manipulated the panel to enter something.

“This is, a resolution.”

Wizard in Violet was publicly known for not having a unique magic, instead being able to handle numerous spells with her genius-level magic manipulation ability, but her unique magic did, in fact, exist.

The Theft of Magic.

The ability to steal the magic of a magical girl she had personally killed, to plunder their knowledge of magic manipulation, and to analyze and partially recreate their unique magic as her own.

In fact, that ability didn’t hold much meaning for her. From the beginning of her activities, her magic was already close to perfection, and she could wield immense power.

Therefore, she used that ability to protect ‘magical girl-ness’, to steel her own resolve.

To execute those who had abandoned the path of a magical girl, the path of protecting humanity with their power.

There was the secondary benefit of stealing their power and gradually raising her own magical prowess, but her motivation for dragging fallen magical girls here and executing them herself was not based on such small gains, but on ideology.

There must not be anyone who rejects the reason for a magical girl’s existence, the first clause of the first contract to protect humanity.

An uncontrolled superhuman who commits crimes is a greater evil and harm than any monster.

Therefore, kill them.

For that purpose, she had created this facility, to prevent fallen magical girls from being released into the world, and to make them her own sustenance.

“A resolve to achieve my goals, even if it means dirtying my hands.”

It was an act condoned by the government and the committee, who likely suspected the truth, and even by the Gazer, who was like the eyes of the Spirit King, but Yu Ji-hye was aware that it was not simply justice, but a clear murder, an execution beyond the control of the law.

“Sanguine Obsidia will be much stronger and more cunning than when we last met. This is certain just by looking at her combat records from the past eight months.

But, she is still no match for me. Therefore, this is a process.

A process of turning the world upside down in the name of magical girls. Killing Sanguine Obsidia will allow me to analyze and recreate her spiritualization and blood magic, but that fact is not important.

What’s important is that all the fallen magical girls in this country are dead. The demons have also been dealt with. Now, I can finally turn my gaze towards humanity and society, not just monsters.”

After killing the worst fallen magical girl in existence, Sanguine Obsidia, and gaining a little more power by analyzing her spiritualization and blood magic, her next task was,

“After Sanguine Obsidia, it’s the committee, and then the military, and then the government.”

Yu Ji-hye, and Blanc, had witnessed all too often during their long years of active duty how evil the Magical Girl Association, controlled by the likes of the committee and the government, serving as a handmaiden to ugly power, could become.

Financial corruption was so common it was considered trivial.

There were too many lives that could not be saved due to the irresponsible and complacent judgments of the committee, and there were even those who tried to profit from the chaos caused by monsters.

There were even villages left to be destroyed by monsters.

There were also sins that were hard to even speak of, like the human experimentation on magical girls that was exposed to the world eight years ago.

Therefore, what she desired was a world where magical girls could be magical girls.

A nation where magical girls, who protect humanity with the power of magic, could stand in a position befitting their responsibilities.

In short, it was a coup d’état.

In a world where some countries had been overthrown by terrorist groups created by fallen magical girls, what would be the problem if a clean and normal Magical Girl Association,

Having purged all criminal magical girls, suppressed the incompetent committee that was only concerned with protecting itself and at best the area around Seoul, and stood above them?

That was why Blanc also agreed with her methods, and affirmed the sins of murder she had committed and would commit in the future.

Yu Ji-hye, enveloped in an ominous violet magic, and Blanc, left the darkened underground facility behind them.

The two years since Yu Ji-hye became the association head were too short to prepare for a government overthrow, and there was still too much to do to orchestrate things without causing as much harm to people as possible.

Killing Sanguine Obsidia was the first step.

***

“Jihye…”

Watching the violet meteor fall from the sky, Bistour Blanc bit her lip.

But in the end, since Blanc couldn’t kill Sanguine Obsidia, the latter part of herself could no longer exist.

All that was left was to watch Yu Ji-hye kill Sanguine Obsidia and help prepare for the turmoil she would bring.

As she gave orders to the other magical girls and the police to move to the area where Yu Ji-hye had landed and surround Sanguine Obsidia, Blanc prayed.

It didn’t matter who heard her prayer, whether it was God, the Spirit King, or anyone else.

Please, let that child not have to bear any more sins.

It was a futile prayer, so she did not voice it.