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Chapter 58
Chapter 2 — Expand, my world! • Episode 2-5 • Preparation ⑧
Translated by KaiesV
Edited by KaiesV
Five swords are wielded, leaving silver trails in the sunset sky. The girl, however, was able to easily dispatch a barrage of blows from four swords and one large sword held in both hands, all from an invisible, transparent arm.
「You can’t beat me just by going head-to-head! Blade!」
「Kuh…! Sword Geyser!」
A tall girl with peach-colored hair pulled back in a single bun, Magical Girl Samurai Peach cut down all slashes with a single sword and delivered a powerful kick.
The impact of being kicked in the dove tail caused the five-sword girl, Magical Girl Blade, to fall back several meters, and she immediately activated her next spell to buy time to regain her posture.
The magic that once had a lag time between the completion of the chanting and its activation has become shorter and shorter as Blade became better, to the point where it now activates at the same time as the chanting is completed. And it’s not only the speed of activation that has grown. The magic circle, once about 2 meters in diameter, has grown to 5 meters in size.
Countless swords erupted from the magic circle that appeared before Samurai Peach’s eyes, blocking her way.
「Peach Slash!」
「Arrow Sword!」
「Sweet!」
When Samurai Peach attacked the magic circle with a sword surrounded by peach-colored light on the ground, the magic circle was shattered with a sound of destruction like glass breaking. Blade immediately fires four swords like arrows, but Samurai Peach flicks one of them and avoids the other three with a smooth, half-stride gait.
At the same time as she avoids the sword, she closes the distance rapidly by stepping forward with all her might from a state of gentle stillness. To Blade, who’s caught in a momentary lapse of consciousness, it felt as if Samurai Peach had moved instantaneously.
「Hah!!!」
「Guuuhhh!!!」
Blade quickly crossed all four swords in front of her own body, but Samurai Peach’s blow shattered all the swords and struck hard against the armor protecting Blade’s vital points.
Blade was in pain, but the Samurai Peach was still holding the sword in both hands, and she brought down the tip of her sword.
「That one hit the armor on purpose. Originally, that blow would have finished you off.」
「I know that well! But I can still fight!」
「There is no point in trying any more. You know it yourself. You’re getting lackluster.」
「But!」
「Let’s take a break. Get your head out of the clouds.」
「…, I understand…」
Blade nodded emphatically, as she knew herself not to be able to move as she normally would with all the blood in her head. Normally, she would not want to waste even a minute or a second, but she knew herself that if she continued any longer, it would be for naught.
Samurai Peach is a relatively high-ranking Magical Girl even in Phase 2, and of course, if she were to seriously compete, the current Blade would have no chance against her, but in this training, she is fighting with the handicap of using only one magic.
If Samurai Peach, with that much handicap, is the opponent, Blade is not originally weak enough to be defeated so easily. In fact, when she had just started training that day, she was cutting it with Samurai Peach on somewhat even terms.
However, as time passed, Blade’s expression became stern and the air she wore became devilish. It was so deadly that if she can kill someone with her spirit, she might be able to kill at least one person. However, if one could be strong only with spirit and determination, there would be no difficulty. If someone was talking about simple muscular strength alone, one may benefit from the adrenaline rush of heightened emotions, but swordsmanship and magic cannot be managed by muscles alone.
In her excited state, Blade’s swordsmanship skills drop significantly, although the weight of each blow is slightly increased. And even though she is aware of this, the more she fights, the heated she gets. No wonder Samurai Peach told her to cool her head.
Blade left the training room and sat on a bench, staring through a monitor at Elephant and Press, who was training with Tyrant Sylph and Extend Traveler.
Sylph and Extend are handicapped in the same way as Samurai Peach, but even so, the title of Witch is not a just a title. Elephant and Press were no match for them in a serious fight, but they still used their heads, played tricks, and fought with all their might.
（What am I doing…）
The more she fought, the more she found herself losing cool. Knowing this, she did nothing but charge in a rage, selflessly, and without thought. That is what she have been doing ever since she started this training. She tried to warn herself against such a situation, thinking she must do something about it, but when she started fighting, she ended up being swept away by the intense heat. Blade was so ashamed of herself.
Her gaze, which had been looking up at the monitor, gradually drops, and before long she nod her head and stares at the ground.
She knew why. It was impossible not to. The majority of the elements that make up the Magical Girl named Blade were shaped by the influence of that person.
Magical Girl Dyrad. A Magical Girl who is Blade’s senior, mentor and benefactor.
When she first started training, Blade firmly believed that the Magical Girl couldn’t be Dryad. She thought that her respected senior would never have done such a thing or said such a thing. It was a kind of delusion, but it was also certainly an uncharacteristic behavior of the Magical Girl called Dryad. That is why Blade determined that it was a fake. Objectively speaking, there was no physical evidence or hard evidence of any kind, but Blade was convinced that her Senpai would never do such a thing.
When was the last time a shadow fell over that unclouded trust?
No, maybe she was just averting her eyes and had actually noticed it from the beginning. Maybe she told herself it couldn’t be, and pretended not to notice.
The possibility that the Magical Girl was not a fake, but the genuine Dryad who had once been active in Sakira Town and fought alongside Blade.
There is only one Magical Girl magic in the world, and no one else can choose the magic that someone else has chosen.
That was what Jack had once told Blade when she became a Magical Girl.
The magic of the retired Magical Girl will return to the Archives and wait for the day when someone will choose it again, but until then, there is only one user of that magic.
Not that there were no exceptions, but as far as Blade knew, there was only one exception, and she could think of no reason why that person would go to the trouble of disguising itself as Dryad to attack Sakira Town.
Blade told herself that since there was one exception, there must be others that she’s unaware of, but the passage of time gradually broadened her narrowed perspective.
Dryad were certainly well known to Blade until she attacked Blade and her friends that day. The way she speaks, the accent of her voice, her choice of words and her temperament, to the extent that Blade wonders if someone could reproduce her so perfectly if they were to imitate her.
There were words that could not have been said that day unless it was Dryad herself or she had seen the memory of it in a short conversation. With a preliminary study of each magical girl’s designation and the content of her conversations, it would be possible to reproduce them, although it would be difficult. But the statement, “Don’t make a big deal out of every single thing.” She didn’t know that these are words previously thrown at Blade by Dryad just because someone else looked them up.
The touch and warmth of Dryad’s hand that stroked Blade’s head that day. It was the very Dryad that Blade remembered.
The more calmly she thought about it, the more the thought of whether the Magical Girl was really a fake came into Blade’s mind. Each time, Blade becomes angry at herself for not trusting Dryad, angry at the impostor who made her doubt Dryad, and angry to forget her doubts about Dryad.
In other words, she’s in a phase of escapism. The more her consciousness sharpened and the calmer she became during the battle, the more she wondered if that Magical Girl was the genuine Dryad, and she dared to let her anger get the better of her so that she could forget such questions.
（No! I’m angry because that fake is taunting Senpai! That can’t be Senpai! It can’t be her!）
It’s no wonder she didn’t put much effort into her training. While Elephant and Press are doing everything in their power to improve themselves in order to reclaim their town and to be humiliated, Blade is just trying to escape from reality. Initially, Blade was serious about hating the fake, and her goal was to reclaim the town and protect the honor of Dryad, but now hating the fake, which she doesn’t even know exists, has become an end in itself.
「Hyaah!?」
Something cold was suddenly placed on Blade’s cheek as he was pondering, causing her to let out an involuntary yelp. When she looked up in surprise, she saw Elephant standing there with a warm smile on her face, holding one can of sports drink in both of her hands.
「Ahaha, good job there.」
「Ugh! You scared me.」
When Blade accepted the offered can, Elephant sat down next to her and began drinking her own.
「Puhaa–! It tastes great after a long day!」
「…You’re right.」
While Elephant chugs and gulps down the can, Blade chuckles as she sips her drink.
Elephant looked exhausted from fighting with all her might, and Blade felt a slight sense of guilt. Certainly, she was tired, but it’s not because she was tired from fighting with all her might to seriously defeat her opponent. She was just moving her body in the dark, letting her anger get the better of herself, and she couldn’t say with pride that she had done her best in training.
「…Hmm? What about Sylph-san?」
Blade asks a question that suddenly occurred to her. If Elephant’s training took a break, Tyrant Sylph should have been with her, but when Blade looked around, she couldn’t see her. What’s more, there was no sign of Samurai Peach, who had been watching the monitor just a few minutes earlier.
「Ah— about Sylph-chan, look there.」
Looking toward where Elephant pointed with an annoyed smile, she saw a monitor showing a fight between a Tyrant Sylph and Samurai Peach.
「Peach-san caught me. I was forced to take her in.」
「Yeah, again…」
Samurai Peach, a Magical Girl who is not a fighting fanatic but pursues strength, desires to fight with the strong in order to improve herself. It was becoming a regular event for Sylph to be forced to participate in mock battles, unable to suppress her own desires in the face of Witches she rarely had a chance to fight.
「They were strong as expected, Sylph-chan, Ex-san, even Peach-san.」
Elephant muttered sullenly, and Blade just nodded silently.
Elephant probably lamented her own weakness, saying that if she had been stronger, she would not have been deprived of her role in protecting the town. Blade can see that, and she thought she should be as well, but she still can’t get Dryad out of her mind.
She was speechless, feeling ashamed of herself for worrying so much about whether Dryad was fake or real, secondary to Sakira Town and the Diests.
「Hey, Blade. Let’s have a mock battle too.」
「…Eh?」
「Come on, come on, drink it up quickly!」
「O–Okay.」
Elephant encouraged her to hurry up and down the rest of her sports drink, and Blade enters the training room without prompting. Samurai Peach had told her to cool her head, and she wondered if it was a good idea, but her guilt over Elephant won out, and she changed her mind and decided to go along with her for the time being.
Blade was mistaken at this time.
She thought that Elephant was impatient, grieving, and seeking strength because she had been deprived of her role of protecting the town of Sakira. She wanted to get as strong as possible as quickly as possible and even wanted to have mock battles during breaks.
Of course, Elephant also has a desire to take back her town, and she wants to be strong. But that was not the essence of the Magical Girl named Elephant. If there is a friend in front of her who is suffering, angry, and lost, it was impossible not to reach out to them.
Just before they faced each other in the virtual Sakira Town built in the training room and started a mock battle, Elephant said with a smile.
「It was the real Dryad-san.」
Blade’s thoughts stiffen for a moment at the completely unexpected words released from Elephant’s mouth.
「Power Of The Elephant, Two!」
As if to exploit an opening, Elephant uses body enhancement magic at the same time as she runs out. Elephant’s Elephant-based Enhancement Magic is not the type that can turn on a dime, but the enhanced leg strength produces great instantaneous power. When a human body gains enough strength to support the giant body of an elephant, the acceleration produced by a single step far exceeds that of a human being.
Elephant, which closed the distance like a bullet, swung her fist and Blade, which came back to life, defended herself with the belly of its great sword almost simultaneously.
「Kuh, it’s not like you to shake things up.」
Blade, who had softened the impact of the blow by leaping backward herself, said, shaken.
「Ahaha, I wouldn’t do that. I’m telling the truth.」
「T–That can’t be Senpai. Elephant knows it too, right? Can’t you tell how honorable and straight-laced my Senpai was.」
「Don’t look away, Blade.
Hard Of The Elephant」
「…Sword Dance.」
A new magic that Elephant learned as a result of her special training. It strengthens the skin so hard that it cannot be overcome by metal, and it rebounds with a high-pitched sound from the five swords manipulated by Blade. While the sword-wielding Blade is outmatched by the fist-wielding Elephant in terms of reach, Elephant is far superior in terms of speed and power. Elephant closes the distance step by step, as if to corner Blade, which fights slowly and backward. It was as if the psychological attack and defense were directly shaped.
「Even Blade really know, aren’t you? That the magic was from Dryad-san’s magic.」
「…Shut up.」
「Blade knows much, much more than I do. That was definitely Dryad-san.」
「Shut up!! You don’t understand!! There is no evidence anywhere that that was Senpai!? There’s no way Senpai would do something like that!! That had to be a fake!! Otherwise!! If not!!!」
As if to contradict Elephant’s words, the intensity of the sword fights increases, but at the same time, they become less and less precise. As Samurai Peach pointed out, Blade with blood in its head loses a great deal of accuracy in her techniques.
The four swords, wielded in a chaotic manner, were launched wide, and the only thing standing between Blade and Elephant was the great sword held in both hands. Elephant takes another step toward it, grabbing the blade with one hardened hand and forcibly prying open the path of the attack.
「You can’t run away!!」
With a scathing word, Elephant’s fist slammed into Blade’s cheek.
Blade, unable to escape the impact of the blow due to her grip on the great sword, took the blow in various ways and was blown away, uttering a dull cry and rolling on the ground.
「If it’s really hard and running away will help, then run away. But Blade will regret it if you run away from this. If you don’t take this seriously, you will regret it for the rest of your life.」
「You don’t know what you’re talking about…」
Blade, her cheek swollen bright red from the blow, wobbles to her feet with her great sword attached to the ground like a cane. Her voice was trembling as if to express her anxiety, but the fighting spirit in her eyes had not disappeared.
「I know! Because we’re friends!」
「You don’t know!! All my life I’ve believed! She’s someone who’s been following my back! The one who told me to keep the faith! How dare she say it was a mistake to take me as her apprentice!? And the words she gave me back then!! And its warmth!! Maybe it was all a lie!? She’d lived happily ever after! How could she possibly know how I feel!!」
The truth is, she noticed. It’s not vague to say that it’s possible, and Blade knew long ago that the Magical Girl she was facing at that time was Dryad.
So she turned away and kept running away from the truth that she had realized long ago, making excuses on the surface that it was a fake, but deep down inside, insuring that it might not be a fake.
「That’s right! It was Senpai! There’s no way I could have mistaken her as Senpai!!」
With tears streaming down her face along with her passion, Blade swung her sword without knowing what it meant.
She just couldn’t admit that it was the only thing that mattered. She knew that if she admitted that, she wouldn’t be able to fight anymore.
「What am I supposed to do!? If Senpai was wrong, what am I supposed to believe in and fight for!? Was I wrong about being right!? I don’t know what’s going on anymore!!」
Blade slams into Elephant with words with each swing of her sword.
The encounter with Dryad shaped the Magical Girl known as Blade. Dryad’s teachings gave Blade a reason to fight. For Blade, Magical Girls were like Dryad. If it was all a lie, then Magical Girl Blade doesn’t even know what to fight for.
It had to be.
「So you’re going to stay downcast and tormented like that forever!? Dryad-san was wrong! Is that why you can’t fight anymore! Is that how you’ve been shrinking all these years!? Is that’s what Blade is all about!?」
「I don’t know!! I don’t know if that’s a good thing!! Even for me!!」
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In response to Blade, Elephant raises her voice with each blow.
Blade should have had no more reason to fight. The justice she had come to believe in had crumbled, and she shouldn’t even know what she was wielding her sword for.
And yet, Blade was now wielding the sword. She was cut off from Elephant’s hard fist. Even though she was saddened by her mentor’s betrayal and trapped in despair, only her fighting spirit continued to burn deep in her heart.
「She takes good care of me! She’s very competitive! She won’t tolerate crookedness! That’s the Blade I know! Dryad-san has nothing to do with it!! If Dryad-san is doing something wrong, then!! Beat her to a pulp!! It’s Blade’s job to stop her! I mean!! Isn’t that the right thing to do, Tsuru-chan!?」
Catching the great sword slammed into them with both hands, Elephant shouted at each other, so close that they could hear each other’s breaths.
「Kuh!!!」
Elephant’s words, and most powerfully her will, evoked memories from Blade.
Once, before she had yet met Dryad. Blade had been trying to be right since then. And she was trying to right what was wrong. This was before she met Dryad, and there was certainly a righteousness in the girl named Tsurugi Nanami that she believed in.
If her little self back then could see her now, what would she say?
How does she feel when she see herself losing faith in her own righteousness and clinging to the righteousness of others?
What does she think of herself when she see herself losing the place to cling to and becoming unfaithful?
How could she have forgotten it? No, she was sure it remained in the back of her mind. That is why Blade, who should have lost the reason for fighting, was still able to continue wielding her sword. Even in the midst of despair, she didn’t lose her will to fight.
There was indeed a righteousness in Blade, not just the Magical Girl Blade formed by Dryad, but a little girl named Tsurugi Nanami.
「I’m sorry… All this time, I’d forgotten it.」
It was a vanishingly small penance, inaudible even to Elephant and her facing each other as if in a sword-fist duel.
It was a confession to her childhood self.
「No more getting lost.」
The great sword in Blade’s hand began to shine with a dazzling golden light.
.
Samurai Peach let out a sigh of relief when she saw Elephant and Blade fighting together even though they had told her they were taking a break.
She would have given them a sermon if this had not produced any results, but each of the two girls she can see through the monitor is equipped with a different weapon than before. This would be the best she could do with a few small words.
「Both of you have opened the second gate.」
「Geh!? They beat me to it!」
「Hmm, Press-kun will open hers soon.」
「I believed that I would open it!」
Samurai Peach and Tyrant Sylph were leaving the training room after the simulation, and Extend and Press were coming out at about the same time. The monitor then showed Elephant and Blade fighting with their special weapons, leading up to Phase 2.
Exclusive weapons are, as the name implies, Magical Weapons that are unique to that Magical Girl. It’s usually kept in the second room of the treasury, and Magical Girls who open the second gate will be able to call up the weapon.
Some Magical Girls have weapons from the phase 1 stage, like Blade, but there is an incomparable difference in power between them and dedicated weapons.
Elephant’s shoes on the monitor have changed dramatically from their original martial steel shoes to deep blue, mechanized-looking shoes. It’s apparent that even a single step has a larger output than before.
In contrast, Blade’s sword, which she gripped in both hands, had changed. Blade originally used magically constructed long swords and great swords, but her exclusive weapon is a dazzling golden straight sword with a number of geometric patterns carved into it, seemingly a work of art. The sharpness of the blade is extremely sharp, and while in the past blades have sometimes shattered the ground as if smashing it, its straight sword cuts both pieces of stone like a knife cuts tofu.
While everyone was staring at the monitor as if they were devouring it, the elevator doors opened with a light electronic sound.
「Oof, looks like you timed it just right.」
「Knuckle, you’re back.」
「Did you get anything out of it?」
「Good work.」
Leaving the role of watching over Elephant and the two on Tyrant Sylph, Extend and Peach Samurai share the information that Knuckle has gathered and the speculations that Knuckle has constructed based on that information. Nothing core, but the fragmentary information certainly confirmed that Knuckle’s speculation made sense.
「This is not just about us. We can’t just beat Dyrad’s group and call it a day.」
「But that stubborn girl will not listen to me.」
「In the end, you have to beat them once. The winner takes the initiative.」
「I’d feel bad if I didn’t do it back, too.」
The four’s gaze caught Blade and Elephant fighting in the monitor.
Until now, she had gradually lost her composure in the fight, but now her movements were leaner and rather more refined than ever.
「I honestly thought Blade shouldn’t have been allowed to be in this fight, but she held up.」
「Hmm, is it really? I didn’t get to see much of her, so I didn’t know.」
「I guess you could say she’s not in the right frame of mind. There was a sense that she wasn’t fighting for a purpose, but rather fighting for the sake of fighting. But that’s gone.」
「Maybe Ele-chan did something. Ele-chan is good at cheering people up.」
「I don’t think she is aware of it, though. I think it’s a natural thing.」
As the four began to praise the Elephant, no one noticed that Tyrant Sylph, who had been watching the monitor and listening, somehow looked proud of her.