11 Magical Girl, One Year On

Author: Kumanano
Raw: https://ncode.syosetu.com/n7313mj/11/
Translator: Lilia v4
Editor: Yuriko AYA

A year has passed since I became a magical girl, and a new summer has come.
I had my birthday on March 30 and turned ten, but as of July some of my classmates are already eleven, which is unfair.
It’s still eight months before I turn eleven.
But from the summer I became a magical girl, in this one year, I’ve fought all kinds of magical beasts, youkai, ghosts, and things hostile to people.
I’ve met magical girls from other places, and fought together with them too.
There aren’t many magical girls.
The magical girls I’ve met are five or so, at most.
A lot, and not a lot.
I’ve even met a magical girl from overseas, just once.
As a perk of becoming a magical girl, being able to understand overseas languages helped.
I mean, I don’t understand foreign languages, and I can’t speak them either.
But the Cat God used a magic circle and made it so I can understand foreign languages.
Of course I can speak foreign languages too, and I can even read foreign writing, and write it.
This applies in ordinary times as well.
I feel like I’m cheating somehow, but I’m risking danger to fight, so I think it’s all right to have this much of a benefit.
The other day I even went to see a foreign movie with subtitles.
I can follow the movie without looking at the subtitles.
It felt a little like I’d become a grown-up.

And Kumayuru and Kumakyuu, who I contracted, grew and became adults.
If they stayed that big I couldn’t even summon them in my room, so the Cat God made it so Kumayuru and Kumakyuu can become small.
At home they’re small, and when we fight they get big and fight with me.
They became reliable contracted beasts.

And what I learned this year is that miasma possesses not only animals, but humans too.
An evil spirit that died betrayed by people possesses a living human in the same kind of situation.
If you attack a human possessed by an evil spirit, the possessed person dies.
In other words, it becomes murder.
But the Cat God says it doesn’t become murder.
If it’s early enough, you can save someone possessed by an evil spirit, apparently, but by the time the Cat God can sense it, it’s often too late.
In Dad’s case, I was a magical girl candidate, so the Cat God noticed.
If I hadn’t been a magical girl candidate, it wouldn’t have been noticed, and Dad would have died.

If you leave a human invaded by an evil spirit, there will be damage. There will be deaths too.
In the end, I defeated people invaded by evil spirits.
In other words, I killed people.
But when the evil spirit vanished, and the consciousness of the person left in the body came back for an instant, they said “thank you,” and died.
There are a lot of lives I couldn’t save.
I’ve asked the Cat God why he can’t find them sooner.
The answer was that gods aren’t omnipotent either.
If he could do anything, he wouldn’t be borrowing a magical girl’s power, he says.
That’s true. If he doesn’t borrow a kid’s power like this, he can’t defeat magical beasts or youkai or evil spirits.
That’s why we magical girls have to fight.

A notification comes on KUMA Chat.

Dad: I’ll be home at 6:00 p.m.
Yuna: I’ll make dinner and wait.

I press the reply button.
For that day’s dinner, I decide to make curry, which Dad loves.
Then I wait for Dad to come home so we can eat the finished curry together.
But 6:00 p.m. comes and he doesn’t. The time goes past 7:00, 8:00.

Yuna: Dad, what’s going on?
Yuna: Did work come up?

I KUMA Chat, but there’s no reply.
Dad’s job is a police officer, so emergency work does come up.
But when that happens there’s always at least a word, like “sorry, I can’t come home,” and today there’s nothing. No reply comes.
I call, and it doesn’t connect.
I have a bad feeling.
Since I became a magical girl, my sense of danger has gotten sharper.
Something may have happened to Dad.
The unease only piles up.
That’s when the phone rings in the quiet room.
I grab the phone in a hurry.
On the screen are the words for the police station.
It was a call from the police station where Dad works.
Maybe it’s Dad.
I hurry and press the call button.

“Dad!”
“Am I speaking to Kisaragi Yuna’s phone?”

It isn’t Dad’s voice.
But I’ve heard it before.

“Yes, this is Kisaragi Yuna.”
“Yuna? It’s me, Maehara.”
“Maehara?”

Maehara is Dad’s colleague, a police officer the same as him.
I’ve met him a few times.
But why would someone like that call me?

“Stay calm and listen.”

I can tell through the phone that Maehara is having a hard time saying it.
Did something happen to Dad?
Did he get hurt?
But the next words were different.

“Kisaragi has gone missing.”
“Dad has!?”
“Today Kisaragi said you’d be making him curry, so I thought you’d worry, and I contacted you. Yuna, I want you not to worry, and to wait. I’m sure we’ll find him soon and have him get in touch.”

He says it in a voice meant to reassure me.

“Yes.”

I hung up with a shaking hand.
Dad is missing.
Even when plans came up suddenly, there was always an apology, “sorry.”
But today there wasn’t.
The police say they don’t know where Dad is either.
I feel like the unease will crush me.
I summon Kumayuru and Kumakyuu and hug them.
Time passes.
That’s when a notification sound rings on my phone.
I pick up the phone and check, and it’s a notification on KUMA Chat.
I open KUMA Chat, and it’s from Dad.
I check.

“A map?”

A map was attached from Dad.

“Is Dad here?”
“Kuuun.”

Yuna: Dad, I just have to go here?

I reply on KUMA Chat, but there’s no reply.
Maybe for some reason he can’t reply?
But I don’t understand why he only attached a map.
I don’t know anymore.
Only, it is definitely sent from Dad’s phone.
I transform into a magical girl and fly out the second-floor window of my room.
Kumayuru and Kumakyuu follow after me.
The map is a place a little apart from the residential streets.
I fly.
Dad, Dad.

“It should be around here.”

I look around slowly.
The surroundings are pitch dark.
There are fields, a place people don’t come at night.
The map’s marker shows this area.
I come down to the ground and look for Dad.
Dad, where are you?

“Kuuun.”

Kumayuru cries.
Was Dad here?
Kumayuru and Kumakyuu break into a run.
I chase them.
Kumayuru and Kumakyuu are heading for a single tree beside a country road.
As I get closer to the tree, I notice something unnatural.
Something is hanging from the tree, swinging left and right.
No—I realize right away that it’s something in the shape of a person.
No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.
I move the feet that had stopped. I start walking slowly toward the tree.

“…Dad.”

What was hanging from the tree was Dad.
A single rope around Dad’s neck.
Faster than I can think, I loose magic and cut the rope that had been put around Dad’s neck.
Then I catch Dad as he falls, and lower him slowly to the ground.

“Dad! Dad!”

Dad isn’t moving.
No matter how much I call, his eyes don’t open.

“Looks like he committed suicide.”

The Cat God, who was there before I knew it, says it while looking at Dad.

“Dad would never commit suicide.”

But Dad had put a rope on the tree, hanged himself, and died.

“Cat God, bring Dad back.”
“Even I, a god, can’t do that.”

I know.
I’ve seen dead people up to now.
Even a god can’t bring people back to life.

“Dad would never commit suicide. He said he was coming home.”

I look at the chat exchange on my phone.
It says he’ll be home at 6:00 p.m.
A dad like that would never commit suicide.
I hold Dad.

“Someone killed Dad and made it look like suicide.”

People might say that’s manga or drama.
But Dad would absolutely never leave me and commit suicide.

“That’s right. Your father was killed.”
“You knew?”
“I checked just now, and I understood.”
“Do you know who killed Dad?”
“A magical girl’s role isn’t to catch criminals, or to defeat them. That power is a power for protecting people.”
“Dad is one of the people in that protection, isn’t he. He isn’t included?”
“I just don’t interfere in conflicts between humans. How many conflicts do you think are happening in this world? I can’t save everyone, and I have no intention of saving them. What we fight is only things that harm people.”
“Even if the ones harming people are people?”
“That’s right. That’s something for humans to settle among themselves.”
“……”

I put Dad in the Extra-dimensional Box.

“What are you going to do with your father?”

I don’t know.
But I don’t want to leave him like this.
I float up without a word.
There’s no point saying anything more to this Cat God.
Behind me the Cat God is saying something, but it doesn’t reach my ears.

I carry Dad home and lay him on the bed.
The rope mark on his neck looks painful.
Dad would never commit suicide.

“What are you going to do with that father’s corpse?”

I ignore the Cat God’s words and freeze Dad’s corpse, bed and all.

“I don’t think doing something like that will mean anything.”

He’s persistent.
I’ll find the one who killed Dad.
But from the conversation so far, if I say that to the Cat God, he’ll stop me.

“I’m sorry. Let me take a break from magical girl work for a while.”
“Your father died. I’m not an oni either. I’ll ask the other magical girls, so you should rest.”

The Cat God says that and vanishes.

“Dad… I’ll definitely catch the culprit.”
“Kuuun.”

Kumayuru and Kumakyuu press against me, looking worried.
That day, I cried.