Chapter 188: A Disaster.

It happened all too fast. One moment we were standing by as Kenta, the traitor took the disc from the ground. The next, Terada was rushing him down.

Kenta reacted immediately, he pulled back and raised his pistol and pulled the trigger. The pistol barked, the first round went wide, hitting the ceiling with a dull crack. Second shot fired right after with another loud bark, this time finding flesh as it hit Terada in the shoulder.

Even then, Terada didn’t stop, though he did stumble. He was like a bull that saw red, only going forward. I heard a third bark, but by then Terada crashed into Kenta, throwing him to the ground. Kenta’s pistol hit the ground, misfiring, and skittering across the ground. The misfired round cracked into a car’s window, shattering it, and with it the car alarm began to blare, drowning out every other noise. What followed was the disc, slipping out of his grasp. I barely saw it slide under a car.

Terada was on Kenta, the two rolling, fighting. I had hardly a moment to process the scene before my body moved. My body was sluggish, it felt like I was underwater.

What was the plan? What was happening, why had Terada did that?

I didn’t know. I didn’t have the luxury of ice to buy me time, to give me the chance to process anything. Everything felt so raw, so real. All I could do was make for the pistol. My own feverish brain sputtering to come up with anything beyond even that.

Seeing me move, Kenta struggled even more fiercely, managing to kick aside Terada with a loud shout. Thrown aside, Terada didn’t immediately get back up, causing my heart to leap into my throat, but I didn’t stop.

Kenta scrabbled forward, not even trying to fully stand up while he made for his discarded weapon. By some miracle I made it there first, scooping up the pistol and facing it towards Kenta who was still on the ground.

My heart hammered in my chest. My body soaked through with clammy sweat. I felt like I’d pass out, every breath was harsh and hurt to take in.

Questions ran through my mind. How many rounds were left? Was the gun even primed? Would it shoot?

I couldn’t get answers, not at this moment, all I could do was level the muzzle in Kenta’s direction and hope. Hope that just the threat of the pistol would be enough to keep him down, and for the moment it did.

“Terada!” I shouted, but no response came back, not with the blaring car alarm filling the space. I hazard a glance, and freeze.

Terada wasn’t moving. He was lying on the ground, a pool of blood slowly forming below his prone form.

Kenta suddenly moves, lunging for me. I back off, but not quick enough as he latches onto my leg, pulling me down. I hit the concrete hard enough to take the air out of my lungs, but I didn’t let the pistol go as my grip held.

I swung the pistol at him as he clambered over me, slamming the butt of my gun right into his face, breaking his nose. Before I could hit him again, he throws himself on that arm, the one holding the gun and slams it into the concrete, a sharp pain shoots up my arm, down my spine, but I hold fast. I try to throw him off, working my muscles to switch our position, but the action, the very attempt rewards me with another surge of vertigo.

I lose all sense of where I am, a wild swing of my elbow connects with something as I feel another final jolt of pain shoot through my pistol wielding hand, as I lose all sensation from it. The moment after, my elbow connects with something and I hear a crack, and Kenta’s body slumps into me. Slowly, I work my way out from under the mass that was Kenta’s body.

The moment I’m out, I don’t care for my injured hand. The pistol long forgotten as I scramble to my feet and over to Terada. He was breathing still, the loud, blaring car alarm was still going off, echoing off the walls.

As I looked over his body, wincing at the sight of bullet wound in his shoulder, I saw another, one in his gut that was bleeding profusely. I tried to put pressure on the wound, but I felt too weak. I could feel the gushing blood pushing against me, my injured hand contributing little, as I struggled to put any strength at all in it.

He was losing a lot of blood. His mouth was moving, the words drowned out by the blaring car alarm. His eyes moved, body tensed. I glanced over and froze as I saw Kenta struggling to get up, blood leaking from his broken nose, and sporting a sizeable bump on the side of his skull where my elbow had cracked into his head.

However, most pressing, was the pistol in his hand. He looked groggy, his steps unsteady, unsure like a newborn fawn as he tried to stand up straight, in the end, he was forced to stand against a parked car.

He looked like he was trying to say something. Anything, but… well… with the alarm going off, nothing he said was getting across. Realizing that, he grit his teeth, and I could tell he was calculating his next move.

Yet before he could come to a conclusion, a new face entered the scene, bolting in, Liche came from the side and slammed into the unlucky man, sending him to the ground. His pistol once again fell free, clattering not just to the ground, but sliding under a nearby car all without misfiring.

Two struggled for a moment, but Kenta managed to throw off Liche and bolted, rather, limped away rapidly, leaving a dotting trail of blood in his wake. Liche made to pursue, but…

“LICHE!” My voice cut through the noise. She jerked into my direction, her eyes fell onto me leaning on Terada. The blood. My state. I saw her lips move; a spoken curse buried under the noise and ran to me instead of pursuing the fleeing man. The moment she was next to me, she spoke, but I didn’t hear it. I just yelled.

“I can’t stop his bleeding!” I yelled, cried. I wasn’t in control. Everything was slipping free from my grasp, like the blood seeping between my fingers. Slowly draining Terada dry. Hearing my words, or perhaps, seeing the state Terada was in, Liche moved fast.

She worked to make a makeshift tourniquet from her clothing, wrapping it around the wound, the two of us working to stem the tide, but even then…

Even with the blood loss stemmed, Terada was in no better shape, if anything, he was worsening by the second. His pulse slowed, his breathing stopped. Liche pushed me aside and began to work, pushing against his chest, and breathing into his mouth to resuscitate him.

And somehow, he was back to breathing, but Liche did not look relieved. She looked at me, yelled something. I barely caught it, but the moment I did I understood. I ran out, grabbed my phone and immediately called for emergency services.

With that done, I came back inside, the car alarm now finally silenced, but… my ears were still ringing. My body shaking. I helped where needed, continuing to apply pressure as Liche kept an eye on the man and eventually the ambulance arrived.

The moment he was inside, and being driven off… I felt like a weight was lifted off my chest and well… I collapsed.

Everything went dark.

I was hot. The air was sweet. The thumping beat of a distant heart. I felt moist, soaked through in sweat… No, not just sweat, but blood. My hands were coated in it. It was dripping freely, without pause. And below me, he lay. Laughing at me, mocking me with that same smile.

With a pen, his favorite pen jammed into his eye, his blood covering my body. Inside his own office, was Him. His voice, his words echoing, reverberating, the office filling with blood. Slowly pressing me in, suffocating me slowly until all I could taste was the sweet taste of blood.

And the moment it filled my lungs, I jerked awake. In both a familiar and unfamiliar place. I was hooked up to a heart monitor that was beeping away, dressed in a hospital gown lying on the bed. My breathing was ragged, body coated in sweat. An IV was in my arm.

I watched, as my breathing evened out as the heart monitor slowed, as the incessant beating slowed to an even tempo.

Once I felt back in control, recent events filtered back in. I wanted nothing more than to jolt out of this bed and demand answers, but…

I didn’t. I collapsed back into the bed and shut my eyes. Doing my very best to breathe, in, and out. In and out. Over and over and over. As if, with every cycle, the vast amount of stress, was slowly being worked away.

It worked, but only to an extent.

I felt more in control. Less like a leaking ship, and more like a well-shaken bottle of cola ready to blow. An improvement, if not barely. As time continued by, as I continued to lay back and just breathe, I felt a growing sense of restlessness.

Wondering what had happened, how Terada was. If they’d found Kenta. The state of the disc, and so much more. And just when I felt like I couldn’t continue to simply lay back, where even my breathing exercises threatened to falter in the wake of the bubbling pressure inside me, the door opened.

“Ah, your awake.” I opened my eyes and before me was the doctor, dressed more conservatively than usual, in sweater that clung to her figure and donning her doctor’s coat. “I’m sure you have many questions.” She continued, speaking before I could even begin too.

“However, I must say, you really did push yourself too much.” She said with a sigh. “What your experiencing is backlash for using your uniform to avoid the inevitable, especially without having trained your body to handle it. Given a day or two, you would have recovered fine, but you just had to get involved in a little scuffle, now, didn’t you?” She sounded annoyed, but at the same time, it didn’t feel like she was really deriding me.

“Right after we collected your colleague, you collapsed and we had to send another ambulance over to pick you up as well. Luckily, no real harm came of it. As you can see, we hooked you to an IV, and as long as you don’t keep pushing yourself, you should be mostly fine by tomorrow, though, you still won’t be able to user your magic. I do hope you understand what I’m telling you.”

I nodded along. “I do.”

“Good…” She sighs. She doesn’t continue standing, but instead, slumps into a nearby chair. “As for your, colleague, or friend, I’m not sure which. Well…” A pause, “We did what we could. He survived the surgery, but he’s currently in a coma and… well, we’re not sure if he’s going to wake up. Even then, from what we’ve gathered, he doesn’t have long.”

“What?” I voiced well before my mind could even begin to work. “What do you mean he doesn’t have long?”

“I mean, his vitality has been exhausted. That he even survived surgery was only because of the transfusions we gave him, but as it stands, we can’t do anything more for him. We’ve already called his family, and they’ll be here soon, but… that man, Terada, he isn’t long for this world.”

I didn’t have an immediate response. No, I just sat there, struggling to put together everything. Piecing it together, little by little. Thankfully, the doctor was still seated, patiently letting me wait for me to finish.

“Is there really nothing you can do?”

“We did the best we could. I’ve said it before, but there is a limit to what we can do with city residents. Part of it is because they lack magic tolerance, but the other part is a bit trickier. Mainly, it’s a matter of the soul, or perhaps fate. I’m sure when you talked with matron earlier she told you a bit of this and that regarding how death can affect magical girls, yes?”

“She did… yes…”

“Well, city residents aren’t nearly as resilient. I’m sure there are ways to work around it, but that would probably be within a sheep’s domain, and a very specific type of sheep as it is.”

“Are there no other options?”

“Not unless you had a gold coin.”

A gold coin? Her mentioning that almost had me break out into self-deprecating laughter. After all, I didn’t have a gold coin. If I’d won against the death knight… but even then, how?

Joan could have finished him off with her execution ability. Liche could have helped as well, but… if they were with me and not with the division would the division have rallied? Would I be in the same situation, or at least, a similar situation?

There was no good answer. Really, no matter how I looked at it, or considered it, there was little to nothing I could do…

And… I didn’t like that…

“If you’d like I can see if you can visit him before his family arrives? It won’t be difficult to get you in.” She asks. Clearly worried for me.

It was a nice gesture, but… “No, I’m fine… I just… I need a moment is all.”

“Of course, I understand. If you change your mind, do let me know, otherwise, your free to use the room until tomorrow.” She said before leaving me alone.

The moment I was alone, I settled back into bed and stared at my ceiling. Not really thinking but just, existing.

Throughout the rest of the day, a number of visitors arrived. Everyone had heard about what happened with Kenta, and about what had happened to Terada. A constant stream of people, with Liche coming in and giving me her side of the story, and what led her to check downstairs. With only Joan being the odd one out, not even bothering to visit me, or Terada.

The last visitor of the day, of all things, was Leo. “You okay?” Was the first words out of his mouth. It was a dumb question…

“Not really.” Was my answer. It wasn’t a great answer either. On hearing my answer, he took the chance to take the nearby seat and just, look out the window.

“I visited Terada…” He started. He never finished. Lapsing back into silence as the mood worsened.

“He was an idiot.” I answered. Letting my true thoughts out. “All we had to do was hand over the disc, and we would have been fine.”

“You’re not wrong about that…” Leo responded back, “When the executive heard about the situation, he was understandably upset. Something about other companies breaking the rules or something. And how that old man could never hold himself back…” He says with a shrug.

“I had thought so…” I trail off.

“I do have a smidgeon of good news though… while we were looking over the scene, well, we found the disc; It was still serviceable and I managed to get it delivered to the executive.”

I nod, “That’s good…” Though, there was no emotion behind it. “Anything else?”

“Well… quite a bit actually. But it hinges on your decision going forward.”

At those words, he had my attention. “And what would that be?”

“The executive wanted me to tell you that he wanted to meet you after the weekend is up to discuss what the future will look like. As it is, the project that was submitted isn’t quite ready for distribution, to put it lightly. The executive has offered the company’s full resources behind the project, but he needs to know that you’re still up to the task.”

“And the meeting?”

He shrugs. “He simply said he wanted to discuss what the future would look like, I don’t know anything more.”

“Which means I’m probably not being let go…” I let out a sigh and looked over at Leo. He didn’t look great; he even looked worried. For me? Terada, or was he just shaken by everything that had happened?

Even then, he’d still followed up, found the disc, made sure it was delivered, even talked with the executive. He really was growing up…

“I suppose that means our project was a success?”

“I suppose so…” He answers back, uncertain.

I shift in the bed. “I remember making you a promise, back when you first negotiated this project for me to lead. Have you considered what you wanted?”

Of all things he blushed… “I haven’t no… I just…”

“Didn’t think it would get to this point?” I answer for him.

“Well, yes and no… I mean, I believed in you, I knew you’d do it, but…” he motioned with hands, to the room, the hospital itself.

“Right…” I mutter, fully understanding. Maybe talking of paying back a promise here was in poor taste and yet…

“Your father, were you aware he was a magic user?” I ask, deciding to get to the point.

“I was aware.”

My stomach churned. “And were you aware that I was a magical girl?”

A pause, a gut wrenching one. His face had that mystified look I understood all too well. And I wasn’t sure if that bothered me more, or less.

“Could you repeat that, I don’t think I got what you were just saying?”

I kept quiet, eyeing him. I could probably push through the effect, if I kept pushing perhaps… Yet…

“I’m assuming you have no magical talent.”

His eyebrow quirks. “No… I don’t, it’s part of why my father sees me as such a failure. Why, does this matter?”

I bite my lip… “What if… I said I had a way of making you into a magic user, would you want that as payment?”

He was silent. He didn’t immediately answer, he just sighed, scratched at his head and leaned back in his chair.

“Magic huh?” He answered back, “I mean, sure, if I could use magic he’d see me another light. Probably treat me like a true son, but…”

He works his jaw. “I don’t want that. I’d have to turn you down.” He says, looking me in the eye, taking me aback.

“Truly? You don’t want to have magic, to be a magic user?”

“No, I don’t need it. I don’t want it. I don’t care for my father’s opinion or anything else, really, I just want to do my own thing.”

I couldn’t help but stare at him dumbfounded. That he’d turn this chance down. That and his reasoning it was just so… dumb.

If it was Him… No… “You really are nothing like Him.” I said aloud, catching his eye.

“Like who?” He asks at first before pausing, “Wait you mean…”

“Yeah…” I mutter back. “He’d have taken the first chance to gain power, or a leg up… and you…” I actually laugh. There was something in that laugh I couldn’t quite place. Like a weight leaving my chest.

When I breathed in, something felt different. And when I looked at Leo, something about him felt slightly different as well. And the way he looked at me was different as well.

“Well, think about what you want for your reward.” I gave him a smile, he worked his mouth but, in the end, simply nodded and excused himself.

Leaving me alone with my thoughts. I let out a final sigh and lay back into bed. Shut my eyes, and despite everything, I felt just a little like I was looking forward to the future.

That… and I had the blood moon coming up, and the so-called summer event. Whether that was a good thing or not, well, only time would tell.

As for Terada… I remembered every moment, his confession in the elevator, and him bleeding out on the floor. I thought of his lips moving and I swear, perhaps, in those final moments, perhaps he was apologizing for being such an idiot?

Making some excuse for why he did what he did.

Not that it mattered, what is done is done. There was no use crying over spilled milk, Terada made his choice, and what I could do is make sure the project he sacrificed himself for becomes a true magnum opus. A timeless classic. Something that would truly honor the man that he was…

Oh, And of course. Help me with my own ambitions. After all, this isn’t the first time someone died on my path to ascension. Not that it made this any easier, but at least, it wasn’t something I had never experienced. And I knew, from my own experience, the best thing I could ever do, is to keep moving forward.

To whatever end awaits me… For good, or bad…

Book 6, End...