CH 89

Chapter 3 — Dry scrape, burn and perforate! • Episode 3–3 — Little Sister ②

Translated by KaiesV

Edited by KaiesV

In the pitch-dark cloudy sky, blocked by the moonlight, a large Owl-shaped Diest fly in all directions in search of invisible enemies. For the Owl-like Diest, the darkness of night was a field that should have worked to its advantage, but on this occasion, it was up against a bad opponent.

「Shadow Dive.」

The shadowy Magical Girl Shadow suddenly appeared in the air and swung a scythe of disastrous design, causing a deep wound on the right wing of the owl-shaped Diest. The Diest immediately swings its injured wing in an attempt to intercept Shadow, but its agonizing counterattack doesn’t catch her.

「Come here, you little bastard, heehee! Shadow Dive.」

As if to outwit the Diest who was devoting its attention to where Shadow had just been, Shadow, who had moved onto the opposite wing before the being knew it, thrust her scythe at the base of the left wing as if she were clearing weeds.

Although the Diest doesn’t beat the air and fly through the air by means of an actual physical body, it has the power to demonstrate the abilities of an animal that mimics its form. Conversely, it means that by destroying its form, the imitated ability is lost.

Torn to shreds until it no longer made sense as wings, the Diest attempted a counterattack on Shadow as it fell toward the ground, but the result was as empty as before. It was not merely avoided. As if by some kind of instantaneous movement, Shadow’s figure vanishes in an instant.

Shadow, who shouldn’t have the ability to fly, somehow managed to move freely in the air, overwhelming the distressed, who have the ability to fly, a natural enemy for most Magical Girls.

If this is a Diest that is far below her own aptitude, other Magical Girls may be able to do the same thing, depending on how they want to do it. However, the rank of Dist, who fell to the ground without being able to make a move against Shadow here and now, was an Earl-class. In terms of Shadow’s original ability, it wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say that it wasn’t just a lower-ranked opponent, but a higher-ranked one.

「Shadow Beast.」

A swarm of beasts controlled by Shadow rushed into the Diest, which had fallen to the ground after being hurt a lot. While the Diest struggle to regenerate its wings and return to the sky, the Shadow Beast devour the scarred wings faster than it can regenerate them. The strength of a single beast is Knight-class at best, and if the Diest was in perfect condition, it would have been easy to shake them off, no matter how many there were. As if to illustrate the nature’s predation of the weak and the strong, the Owl-shaped Diest was finally devoured by the Shadow Beast and disappeared.

「It’s amazing. There was no way I was going to be there.」

Elephant, a Magical Girl who had been watching the series of battles from a short distance so that she would be ready to help if anything should happen, spoke to Shadow, who appeared soundlessly out of the darkness, with a look of heartfelt admiration on her face.

She was worried about fighting alone, so she told Elephant that she would fight with her, the conditions that Shadow, who had been accepted by Sakira Town, could not refuse strongly enough, was, unless there was a problem with the way she was fighting, she was not to be interfered.

The reward for defeating a Diest is distributed according to the contribution of the number of participants, so the more people participating in the battle, the less each person’s reward will be. Shadow is grateful to be allowed to work in this town, which has such a high incidence of Diest appearance that it was called a Hunting Ground, but it would be a waste of money if her earnings were to decrease because of it. That was the only part that was non-negotiable for Shadow.

「Ahh, well, not so much…」

Shadow looked away, scratching her head in embarrassment.

Up until now, she had been moving from one town to another in various cities, working quietly so as not to be discovered by the local Magical Girls, and running away when they found her, so she had no one to give her this kind of head-on praise.

「I had assumed this since our revenge fight, but I knew you could dive into the darkness of the night.」

「If it’s this dark, though.」

The true essence of Shadow Magic manipulated by Shadow lies on cloudy nights when even starlight doesn’t reach the ground.

Although Shadow Magic is originally designed to hide in the shadows of objects and manipulate shadows like beasts, in deep darkness it melts into the darkness itself, moves freely, and can emerge from anywhere. In addition, the magic required to control the beast is reduced and the strength of the beast is enhanced, albeit slightly.

Elephant had previously fought and won a battle against Shadow to regain her position as the magical girl protecting Sakira Town, but that battle was during the daytime, when Shadow was least able to demonstrate her abilities.

Elephant herself was aware that the battle at that time was won partly by luck, but when she witnessed Shadow’s true ability in this way, she realized that she shouldn’t be satisfied just because she had opened the Second Gate.

「And how long are you going to keep doing this?」

「Eh?」

「I have more seniority as a Magical Girl, after all, don’t you think～? I was a little bit concerned about you, but I was fighting with you, too. There’s something going on behind the scenes, isn’t there?」

Even going to the trouble of temporarily leaving her own team and accepting conditions that the average Magical Girl would never accept, such as basically not participating in combat, Elephant pushed her way in because she was worried about Shadow. Nevertheless, although she wasn’t completely unaware of the situation, she seemed somewhat unfocused during the battle and didn’t seem to want to help Shadow with all of her strength. One might not have doubted that there would be a day like that, but it has been this way every time since Elephant began watching the Shadow fight.

Although Shadow herself doesn’t want to go to such lengths to help, Elephant’s somewhat lousy appearance, despite her drastic actions, made her assume that there are other objectives that haven’t been conveyed to her.

Of course, it’s not as if Elephant in this situation would accept a Magical Girl who attacked her to take her territory just because she was effective in defending the town, she didn’t believe that a girl who hasn’t a penny to her name, who doesn’t take part in the battle and watches over the shadows, is planning some evil, but she doesn’t believe that she is, if there is some other true purpose, she’d like to see them quickly accomplish it and return to their original team.

Shadow isn’t being bossy or pretentious, but from the bottom of her heart, she believes that she is more comfortable and fights better alone.

「B–Behind the scene, no way… It’s true what I say about you, Shadow-san, that I’m worried about you.」

「But that’s not all, is it～? Ah, is it about that Witch or something else?」

「Urk!? How did you know?」

「I was just trying to trick you.」

Nevertheless, it’s not entirely without reason that Shadow was the first to bring up Tyrant Sylph.

She tried to cast a spell on her when she first meet her, the Sylph who spoke to her in a threatening manner with an air of intimidation, compared to other Magical Girls, she made a stronger impression on Shadow. It’s like a total affirmation of what Elephant is saying, it was obvious that she was tame, whether she was trying to hide it or not.

It’s difficult to believe that there is nothing going on, for example, that the Witch who has been so troublesome and involved just by crying a little and talking about helping her move, has maturely allowed Elephant to leave the team and barge in on Shadow’s place, even if only temporarily.

Not showing any concern for the trouble she might get into with small brat, Shadow tries to find a way to avoid getting involved in the situation.

「No, I just wondered how Sylph-chan were doing.」

「If you can’t concentrate on the battle, why don’t you just go back? I think she would be happier that way. I prefer to be alone in the first place, and it’s depressing to have to fight with such a grim face.」

「That… I’m sorry.」

「Ahh, if something happens to you and I get the attention of the witch, we’ll be in trouble. Forget about me, just go back to your original team.」

While hiding her true feelings of not wanting to get involved, Shadow, in her own way, was concerned because the other party was also her benefactor, she meant to say, in a roundabout way, that she should mind her own business and go back to her Witch, after Elephant’s discouraging apology, which she took at face value, she now had to convey her thoughts almost straight to her, scratching her head in a gruff and embarrassed manner.

The normal Elephant, she would’ve been able to understand the concern behind such words, but she wasn’t able to understand the adolescent’s unique and universal concern for the environment, however, it would be unreasonable to ask so much of a young girl who is being pushed around by something that is unknown to her.

「That’s no good. Because whether or not I was worried about Sylph-chan, I’m still worried about you, Shadow-san. Come fight with us, Shadow-san. If you’re worried about income, you and Sylph-chan can take down some pretty big ones if you work together, okay?」

「I don’t know about the money thing, but group activities are not in my nature… When we were bickering, we were going our separate ways, weren’t we?」

「But now we can act like this, even if it’s just the two of us.」

Even though Shadow, who seems to have nothing to do with sincerity, is telling her to leave her alone in an unusually false and honest manner because she owes her a favor, Elephant shows her stubbornness based solely on her own ideas. Shadow gradually became frustrated with Elephant’s selfish and insolent attitude.

「Of course, you are my benefactor, so I’ll put up with a little, but two people and five people are quite different, aren’t they? Well, I wouldn’t mind working with a couple of you, but she’s the only one who has a bad impression of me, right? But you want to go back to the Witch, don’t you? Then you know the answer to your question.」

「Urk, that’s…」

「If it were true, I wouldn’t be saying this, but I’m in your debt, so I’ll say it. People have priorities. For me, I am the best, and those below me are almost like a big family. What is important to you? Do you value me more than anything else? Do you care about the Witch?」

All of them, all of them are equally important, and I will show you how to protect them all. I will choose them all.

Elephant would have been able to say that before, but the words didn’t come out on the spur of the moment.

She didn’t realize it until Shadow pointed it out to her. She used to want to protect the world, this town, her family, her friends, and herself equally, but now she wondered who she wants to protect and who she wants to help.

「I’ll let you do it alone. If you have some other goal in mind, I’ll stay with you until it’s done.」

With that, Shadow vanished with the light of the transition.

The words, “What is the most important thing to you?” kept playing in the heart of Elephant, who was left standing alone.