Raban looked at the two of them. Magi White’s face was clear, but Magi Black’s face was still faint.
*Is it because I’m hoping Magi Black isn’t Na Ihyeon, or is it truly because they aren’t the same person?*
A mascot’s cognitive distortion loses its effect on those who know a magical girl’s identity for certain. The problem lay in the words *for certain*. To break through the distortion required perfect conviction, not merely one hypothesis among many.
I should proceed with counseling while accepting that Magi Black’s identity is “highly likely to be Na Ihyeon.” Raban opened his mouth, planning cheap tricks to raise intimacy.
“Does this come with danger pay?”
“…?”
At that truly out-of-the-blue opening, the magical girls’ faces filled with questions.
“If not danger pay, then night shift pay? Don’t tell me magical girls are non-regular workers, so they ignore all special allowances?”
“Um, teacher. Magical girls and mascots aren’t in an employment relationship, so of course it’s unpaid….”
“So you’re saying no! At an age when you should be studying—no. Even if studying is optional. They’re consuming your time and effort but giving you nothing in return? Isn’t this exploitation?”
Raban grumbled with half sincerity. Mascots really work people to the bone.
“Well, I mean. We do it because we want to.”
“Yes, Black. Uncompensated devotion is truly a noble choice, I think. But I feel like the friends who hired you should have at least prepared a proper compensation plan.”
Magi Black scratched her head. In fact, the mascot hadn’t incited her to fight with an *If you don’t fight, you can’t survive!* either.
Magi White had been cornered while fighting a monster, and she had witnessed it. Somehow, she had picked up the transformation item, the Magical-Fon, transformed, and thus ended up a two-person team.
“White. Did you perhaps sign some kind of contract?”
“Uh, no? I….”
Syune couldn’t explain to Na Ihyeon how she had become a magical girl.
To expose and punish the secret of Naju Pharmaceuticals—which had annihilated her entire family—to the world. While somehow digging into the secrets of the Luxtiera High School faculty, who seemed connected to magical girls, she happened to bask in the Mother Fairy’s light.
Papirun had desperately tried to stop her, but when asked whether defeating monsters would bring her closer to the secret of Naju Pharmaceuticals, she couldn’t bring herself to say no.
Syune’s double life began from then on.
How could she tell Na Ihyeon, the only daughter of the Na family, about her motive for revenge against Naju Pharmaceuticals?
In the end, the explanation she spat out was a somewhat abbreviated and distorted form.
“I met a fluffy furball and was wondering what it was, so I tore into it….”
Raban nodded. To try to capture and dissect a mascot upon first seeing it—she was no ordinary person.
Even if the mascot had deliberately revealed itself before a talented candidate, such proactive violence was a hard-to-find talent. Raban trembled at the terrifying destructive impulse the magical girl possessed and opened his mouth.
“So that means the floating furball beside you doesn’t give you anything special?”
“Uh… Actually, there might be scholarships through a linked program with the Charles Foundation or something?”
Magi Black smiled awkwardly. It was a somewhat awkward thing to bring up since the people she had just fought were that scholarship foundation’s directors.
Raban was bewildered. He had planned to lightly mock the mascot—who could be considered the workplace superior—to give a friendly impression. He hadn’t expected a Charles Foundation linked program to come up here.
“Oh, I’m glad they at least look after you in some way. Personally, I wish there was more emotional support than financial….”
Raban pondered how to change the topic without awkwardness, then decided to subtly ask about today’s battle.
“I heard you all suffered greatly.”
“Ah.” “Mm….”
“So before counseling, I wanted to ask this. Was it literally a fainting spell—where your memory cut off temporarily and you lost control of your body? Or was it mixed with mental suffering, where some negative delusion surfaced in a comatose state to torment you?”
Raban added that there was no need to answer this question here and now.
“This kind of counseling is important for facing your own condition. Let’s think carefully about what symptoms you experienced before we begin.”
Shrugging his shoulders, Raban said, “Then, whoever is ready, come into the inner counseling room~,” and headed inside.
*Perfect, that was natural!*
***
“I’m first today! Ah, I mean.”
“…You look very uncomfortable. If honorifics feel awkward, you don’t have to use them.”
Raban had lightly tested Magi Black. If that kid really was Na Ihyeon, speaking casually would be more familiar to her anyway.
“I told you before, it’s the mindset that matters.”
“It’s quite sufficient that I’m using honorifics, unlike usual.”
Raban had very naturally planted a trap. The part about *unlike usual*. While Raban spoke casually to most students who visited the counseling room, there were exceptions.
He always showed a certain courtesy to first-time visitors. Most students who visited the counseling room frequently enough to be “familiar” with Raban’s casual speech were peer counselors.
“Is that so…? Well, I never get used to hearing this old man use honorifics, no matter how much I hear it.”
Raban wanted to sigh. To think there was someone who called him “old man” instead of “teacher.”
Still, there was hope yet. What kind of hope, even Raban himself couldn’t clearly state, but black magicians were originally beings who could offer sacrifices believing in unseen hope.
“Then, were there any notable symptoms while you were unconscious?”
“Mm.”
Na Ihyeon swung her legs on the chair. Her crossed legs repeated a pendulum-like motion, then gradually stopped.
“Old memories came to me. Not nightmares, just childhood memories.”
Raban resolved not to recklessly approach Magi Black’s past, which exuded deep regret. There were several other ways to find out without asking directly.
“I’m glad it wasn’t the kind of dream that torments you, Ms. Black. Then, shall we continue what we were doing last time?”
Na Ihyeon tilted her head at “last time…?” then soon clapped her hands.
“Ah. The picture game!”
“Yes. Last time we finished the first picture, the circle. This time, fill in the next picture, the inverted triangle, and write down what kind of picture it is.”
People’s unconscious is easily influenced by their surroundings.
Raban’s question had caused Magi Black to recall memories of the past. Therefore, what she filled the inverted triangle with now was highly likely to reflect Magi Black’s past.
And Raban roughly knew Na Ihyeon’s past. If he heard a suitable explanation of the drawing, he could more reliably narrow down whether Magi Black was a candidate.
***
“What is this a drawing of?”
On top of the inverted triangle, one circle was drawn. An extremely simplified human shape.
“Mm, my uncle?”
Raban closed his eyes.
Charles, that bastard, was Na Ihyeon’s uncle.
Suppressing the lamentation threatening to pour out with superhuman patience, he continued his line of thought.
*I should accept this as established truth now, not merely a hypothesis.*
Having lifted the veil and glimpsed the truth, Raban resigned himself to the inevitable reality.
***
“The small triangle and circle below are me. There was a time when I walked home with my uncle in the rain, so I sheltered from the rain under my uncle’s coat while we walked.”
He seemed to hear a demon realm commoner somewhere shouting, *“What exactly did you take my words to mean?”* but Raban was unashamed.
A black magician who believes a demon’s words completely is third-rate. No matter how persuasive the words may seem, he had to verify them himself.
Raban blinked with a mind closer to resignation than acceptance.
Then the faint impression corrected itself. Gleaming silver hair and sharp eyes—the kind that, had Raban seen them during his school days, he would have lowered his gaze and walked past; a thought he had entertained again and again.
Suppressing the sigh threatening to pour out, Raban continued his act with a smile.
“Uncle, you say… This is quite an unexpected result.”
“Unexpected?”
“Yes. You expressed yourself as a smaller picture beneath the large inverted triangle, did you not?”
Raban pointed at the picture. Besides the shapes said to depict Charles and Na Ihyeon, there were notable points in the drawing.
First, the background. Split in half, one side was colored dark, while the other remained blank white. The words written to suit the inverted triangle were as follows:
Taciturnity, unknown, long strides.
“Truthfully, when depicting someone reliable, someone bigger… that is, an adult, parents usually come out. But Ms. Black mentioned ‘uncle’ first. Is his birthday coming up or something?”
Na Ihyeon shook her head.
“Mm, well. Mom and Dad were busy with outside work. So I was usually home alone, but among the adults in the house, Uncle was the one who showed his face most often.”
*What? Charles, that bastard, was he planning to offer Na Ihyeon as a sacrifice since childhood?*
Raban wondered what could possess Charles, who was from a chaebol family, to plan to throw away even his close relatives, and moved to the next step.
“I understand the descriptions of taciturn and unknown. Adults usually look somewhat scary to children. But what does ‘long strides’ mean?”
“Maybe because he was clumsy at looking after kids. He didn’t match my pace. He just strode ahead, and if I seemed to fall behind, he’d stop and wait for me.”
It was a depiction completely different from the impression of Charles that Raban had witnessed. If he were a black magician of average intelligence who established the Charles Scholarship Foundation and attempted a reversal with a self-orchestrated kidnapping when his identity was exposed, he wouldn’t bother with such troublesome consideration.
*If he were an average black magician, he wouldn’t have taken the kid in the first place, or would’ve gone home alone….*
Come to think of it, Na Ihyeon had once said that the Charles of the past was much more taciturn than he was now.
A rift between past and present. Raban felt a certain premonition.
He wasn’t entirely sure, but it seemed he had found a clue that would lead to Charles’s weakness!