A convulsion—
The body of the magical girl, now a breeding ground, twitched, and from her still human-like mouth, a piercing scream erupted.

─Grrr, grrrk—!

After screaming for a while, a pitch-black world enemy popped out of the magical girl's body. Though it felt inappropriate to say, it resembled the magical girl giving birth to the world enemy.

The world enemy, born through the magical girl, flailed around in the middle of the otherworld, flying erratically. After some time, the newly born world enemy was devoured by the world enemy already clinging to the magical girl’s body.

Having consumed the newborn, the world enemy grew slightly larger, now occupying most of the magical girl’s body.

─K-Kill me...

Bubbling sounds accompanied the left side of her face, which wept in agony, while the newly grown right side, a monstrous face, grinned widely.

Unable to bear witnessing her comrade’s fate any longer, Harea dropped her head and looked at Eight.

“...P-Please, help.”
“─Help with what?”
“Anything. I’ll do anything... Just save them... Please, save those girls!”
“Do you really think I can do that?”
“You came to me because you can! I’ll give you anything I have—just, please, save them!”

Hearing Harea’s desperate plea, Eight smiled and nodded in agreement.

‘...I was planning to save them anyway.’

But if she was offering something, it would be rude not to accept.

The next moment, Eight began manipulating the devices connected to the spirit’s body. His goal: to save the magical girls who had ceased being human.

─Meow, meow... kill me...
“Oh? Should I revive you one more time?”
─I misspoke... Please, save me...

Elemental Flame’s spirit, Meowmeow, darted through the spirit realm, rescuing the magical girls who had become breeding grounds. Of course, the world enemies fused with the magical girls didn’t leave the spirit alone... but that didn’t matter.

After all, spirits and world enemies were practically siblings, both born under the Fairy Queen. Spirits, like world enemies, were composed of informational bodies, meaning they could be revived indefinitely as long as information was supplied.

This was one of the discoveries made through researching White Fang’s spirit. Spirits don’t die. Or rather, even if they die, they can always be brought back.

“...Meowmeow. If you manage to pull through, I’ll treat you to something delicious, okay? Just a little more effort...”
─Hearing you say that, Flame, is actually creeping me out... Can’t you just curse at me like usual?
“I’ll curse at you once you’re back...”
─Seriously, this is terrifying.

In any other situation, Harea would’ve been cursing at the spirit with her usual fiery temperament. But given the gravity of the situation, she was surprisingly offering comforting words instead.

To the spirit, who had lived alongside her, it sounded like the nauseating sweetness of someone baby-talking to their lover, a sound he found utterly horrifying.

Nevertheless, Meowmeow faithfully fulfilled his duty. After dying and reviving about 1,372 times, he managed to rescue the magical girls fused with the world enemies.

“Hold on. I’m opening the gate right now...”

To save the magical girls, whose bodies were half-collapsed and certain to die the moment they entered the real world, Eight prepared two tanks filled with restorative formalin.

He then opened the gate, carefully placing the rescued magical girls into the tanks. If he succeeded in placing them into the tanks before they regained their physical bodies, it would all be over.

From this point on, it was a race against time. He could already see the wounds of the magical girls in the tanks slowly starting to heal.

“Aqua, Leaf...”

Seeing her comrades inside the tanks—magical girls whose bodies were now stitched together like grotesque patchwork—Harea knelt before them, tears streaming down her face.

For Harea, who had believed her comrades to be dead, their mangled appearance only heightened her guilt.

“If only... if only I had paid a little more attention... If only I had fought a little better back then...”
“That’s wrong.”
“...What?”

I offered her a word of comfort as she knelt in despair.

“In the past, people used to die from minor diseases like pneumonia, tuberculosis, and cancer... But it wasn’t because they didn’t care enough, or because they didn’t try hard enough.”

It was simply because technology hadn’t advanced enough.
It was simply because they hadn’t had enough time.

Just as it would be unreasonable to expect someone born in the Middle Ages to know how to use a smartphone, it was also unreasonable to expect her to have foreseen or prevented this when she hadn’t known the true nature of the Fairy Queen.

None of this was her fault.

“So what? Are you telling me to just accept it and move on?”
“Of course not. That would be a very childish thing to do.”
“Childish? What does being childish have to do with this...?”
“Children should rely on adults. That’s what I’m saying.”

The situation had escalated beyond what a child could handle. It was time for an adult to step in and offer help.

I glanced at the computer, which was running intensive calculations. Despite using state-of-the-art components with minimal heat output, the room had grown warm from the sheer amount of heat the system was generating.

After a while, a notification appeared, signaling that the AI had finished processing. It had deciphered the reality-warping that had affected the spirit realm, as well as the breeding grounds.

Everything was ready.

“Aile? Could you point the camera this way?”
“Huh? Oh, yes, sure...”
“Yeah, just like that.”

I cleared my throat as I looked into the camera. Just in case I’d need to submit this later, I dusted off my suit and adjusted my attire a bit...

Once I had straightened myself up, I began my introduction to the camera.

“─Doctoral candidate, ○○○. This procedure is being carried out without the consent of the subjects or the authorities, solely to protect the subjects' minds and souls, and it should be recognized as an act under the Good Samaritan Law...”

And so—
The world was rewritten.

 

A convulsion—
The body of the magical girl, now a breeding ground, twitched, and from her still human-like mouth, a piercing scream erupted.

─Grrr, grrrk—!

After screaming for a while, a pitch-black world enemy popped out of the magical girl's body. Though it felt inappropriate to say, it resembled the magical girl giving birth to the world enemy.

The world enemy, born through the magical girl, flailed around in the middle of the otherworld, flying erratically. After some time, the newly born world enemy was devoured by the world enemy already clinging to the magical girl’s body.

Having consumed the newborn, the world enemy grew slightly larger, now occupying most of the magical girl’s body.

─K-Kill me...

Bubbling sounds accompanied the left side of her face, which wept in agony, while the newly grown right side, a monstrous face, grinned widely.

Unable to bear witnessing her comrade’s fate any longer, Harea dropped her head and looked at Eight.

“...P-Please, help.”
“─Help with what?”
“Anything. I’ll do anything... Just save them... Please, save those girls!”
“Do you really think I can do that?”
“You came to me because you can! I’ll give you anything I have—just, please, save them!”

Hearing Harea’s desperate plea, Eight smiled and nodded in agreement.

‘...I was planning to save them anyway.’

But if she was offering something, it would be rude not to accept.

The next moment, Eight began manipulating the devices connected to the spirit’s body. His goal: to save the magical girls who had ceased being human.

─Meow, meow... kill me...
“Oh? Should I revive you one more time?”
─I misspoke... Please, save me...

Elemental Flame’s spirit, Meowmeow, darted through the spirit realm, rescuing the magical girls who had become breeding grounds. Of course, the world enemies fused with the magical girls didn’t leave the spirit alone... but that didn’t matter.

After all, spirits and world enemies were practically siblings, both born under the Fairy Queen. Spirits, like world enemies, were composed of informational bodies, meaning they could be revived indefinitely as long as information was supplied.

This was one of the discoveries made through researching White Fang’s spirit. Spirits don’t die. Or rather, even if they die, they can always be brought back.

“...Meowmeow. If you manage to pull through, I’ll treat you to something delicious, okay? Just a little more effort...”
─Hearing you say that, Flame, is actually creeping me out... Can’t you just curse at me like usual?
“I’ll curse at you once you’re back...”
─Seriously, this is terrifying.

In any other situation, Harea would’ve been cursing at the spirit with her usual fiery temperament. But given the gravity of the situation, she was surprisingly offering comforting words instead.

To the spirit, who had lived alongside her, it sounded like the nauseating sweetness of someone baby-talking to their lover, a sound he found utterly horrifying.

Nevertheless, Meowmeow faithfully fulfilled his duty. After dying and reviving about 1,372 times, he managed to rescue the magical girls fused with the world enemies.

“Hold on. I’m opening the gate right now...”

To save the magical girls, whose bodies were half-collapsed and certain to die the moment they entered the real world, Eight prepared two tanks filled with restorative formalin.

He then opened the gate, carefully placing the rescued magical girls into the tanks. If he succeeded in placing them into the tanks before they regained their physical bodies, it would all be over.

From this point on, it was a race against time. He could already see the wounds of the magical girls in the tanks slowly starting to heal.

“Aqua, Leaf...”

Seeing her comrades inside the tanks—magical girls whose bodies were now stitched together like grotesque patchwork—Harea knelt before them, tears streaming down her face.

For Harea, who had believed her comrades to be dead, their mangled appearance only heightened her guilt.

“If only... if only I had paid a little more attention... If only I had fought a little better back then...”
“That’s wrong.”
“...What?”

I offered her a word of comfort as she knelt in despair.

“In the past, people used to die from minor diseases like pneumonia, tuberculosis, and cancer... But it wasn’t because they didn’t care enough, or because they didn’t try hard enough.”

It was simply because technology hadn’t advanced enough.
It was simply because they hadn’t had enough time.

Just as it would be unreasonable to expect someone born in the Middle Ages to know how to use a smartphone, it was also unreasonable to expect her to have foreseen or prevented this when she hadn’t known the true nature of the Fairy Queen.

None of this was her fault.

“So what? Are you telling me to just accept it and move on?”
“Of course not. That would be a very childish thing to do.”
“Childish? What does being childish have to do with this...?”
“Children should rely on adults. That’s what I’m saying.”

The situation had escalated beyond what a child could handle. It was time for an adult to step in and offer help.

I glanced at the computer, which was running intensive calculations. Despite using state-of-the-art components with minimal heat output, the room had grown warm from the sheer amount of heat the system was generating.

After a while, a notification appeared, signaling that the AI had finished processing. It had deciphered the reality-warping that had affected the spirit realm, as well as the breeding grounds.

Everything was ready.

“Aile? Could you point the camera this way?”
“Huh? Oh, yes, sure...”
“Yeah, just like that.”

I cleared my throat as I looked into the camera. Just in case I’d need to submit this later, I dusted off my suit and adjusted my attire a bit...

Once I had straightened myself up, I began my introduction to the camera.

“─Doctoral candidate, ○○○. This procedure is being carried out without the consent of the subjects or the authorities, solely to protect the subjects' minds and souls, and it should be recognized as an act under the Good Samaritan Law...”

And so—
The world was rewritten.

“Ugh...”

The sound of morning. A girl with blue hair stirred as the bustling noise of people preparing for work woke her up. She opened the window, letting in the fresh morning air and sunlight to help her wake up.

Feeling the cool breeze, she headed straight for the bathroom, quickly washing up before returning to the living room.

“Umi, are you up? Breakfast is ready.”
“Yes, mom!”

As she ate the breakfast her mother had prepared, Umi fiddled with her smartphone. Though her mother scolded her to focus on eating, she couldn’t bring herself to put the phone down.

Scrolling through the messages and news that had piled up overnight, she finished her breakfast, brushed her teeth, and left the house.

Off to school. A normal routine for someone her age.

“Umi!”
“Ah, Naru!”

As she walked down the street, Umi waved excitedly at her friend, a girl with green hair. The two linked arms and headed to school together.

“Did you see it yesterday?”
“Hmm? See what?”
“The magical girl of flames defeated another world enemy!”

Umi nodded in agreement, as if it was obvious.

“Yeah, I saw it! Flame is so cool, isn’t she?”
“She’s amazing... Ah, I wish I could be a magical girl too.”
“Yeah... You’d definitely make a great magical girl, Naru. Don’t the spirits know that?”
“Hahaha! You too, Umi! Your ability to control water would fit perfectly with Flame!”
“Then we’d be a magical girl trio?”

Their high school laughter echoed through the air. Umi fell into a brief daydream, imagining herself fighting world enemies as a magical girl, just like Naru had suggested.

Since she controlled water, would her magical girl name be Aqua?
And Naru, who could control plants, would be... Natural?

No, that wasn’t cute enough. Leaf would be better.

‘Flame, Aqua, Leaf...’

Even just the names sounded like a perfect trio. It was so vivid, as if it had really been like that not long ago.

Considering Umi’s usual lack of imagination, it was remarkable how clearly she could picture it. Almost to the point where it made her wonder if she had always had such vivid fantasies.

“Umi?”
“Oh, yeah! What’s up?”
“So, do you want to go to a cafe after school? There’s a new one nearby that’s trending on social media.”
“Let’s go!”

Snapping out of her daydream, Umi nodded enthusiastically. After all, magical girls were just a fantasy. They were just ordinary high school girls.

As the two walked toward school, high above them, Flame looked down at the girls with a bittersweet smile.

“...They really did come back to life.”
[Did you think I was lying?]
“No, it’s not that...”
[As I mentioned before, the two of them never became magical girls. Which means they were never harmed by the world’s enemies, nor did they become breeding grounds.]

“I see...”

At the evil scientist’s words, Flame let out a quiet sigh. All the events that had taken place after they became magical girls had been erased, which meant that all the bonds they had formed after becoming magical girls had also disappeared...

Even if she went to them now, would they recognize her? Probably not. They might know her as the magical girl Flame, but that was just her fame as a magical girl.

There would be no memory of Harea, the person, left in their minds.

[Aren’t you going to see them?]
“It’s fine.”

Flame turned her back as she spoke. Her friends were alive again, and that was enough for her.

Wishing for them to remember her as well would be too much.

As she flew back home with a satisfied smile, the scientist’s voice came through her communicator.

[Now, shall we discuss your payment?]
“...Ah.”
[You did say you’d do anything if I saved them, didn’t you?]

She had indeed said that.

Flame pursed her lips for a moment before sighing in resignation.

“Alright... I’ll do as you say...”
[Good. I’ll be counting on you, No. 2.]

And just like that, Flame found herself indebted to the evil scientist.
Her body, her mind, and even her identity as a magical girl—
Everything.