Chapter 12
"Even if you offered a fortune, you still couldn't have Alice all to yourself."
"You know, the more expensive you act, the more fired up I get, right? How can someone with such a cute face refuse even one simple hug? If you keep this up, I don't know what I'll do, sis."
"Alice is everyone's starlight."
"Whew. Say what you will, but you really stick to your concept. Fine. I give up. I won't try to hug you, so let's just have a chat for the first time in ages."
With an exasperated look, Emerald raised both hands, brought over a chair, and sat down beside me.
From the way she spoke, she and Alice seemed close, but this woman's personality was simply like this.
She was famous for arbitrarily hugging any cute magical girl she took a liking to whenever she encountered one while out on deployment, and Alice was no exception.
I had never let her get that close, though.
When I first met her, she suddenly charged at me, which put me in a bit of a bind, but I barely managed to evade her. After that, I stayed on guard every time we met, so in the end, she had never even managed to hold Alice's hand.
Still, she was stylish and pretty enough that one might wonder whether being hugged by her was really so unpleasant. But one had to remember that I was, unequivocally, a man.
I was slender for a man, so with a flashy outfit covering me properly, I could pass for a woman, but there was no getting around the differences between a man's body and a woman's.
If I casually let her hug me, she might cross the line and start touching me all over—and if she discovered I was a man, my life would be over.
Even if she didn't touch me all over, someone with sharp senses could discover it from a simple hug alone, which was why Alice had been famous since long ago for not even offering her fans the most ordinary handshake.
As you just saw, I handled that with my concept.
Fan service was something you did if you wanted to and didn't if you didn't, so no one could complain about Alice when she was this firmly committed to her concept.
"I've been planning a program recently. An experienced veteran magical girl will train promising rookies like the ones you see over there—girls who still lack experience but clearly have potential..."
"I'll have to decline."
"What is it with you? You're a magical girl, so how can you hate appearing on TV this much? Is your public profile okay? Doesn't your mascot say anything?"
"Alice is already perfect."
"I know that's just your concept. Don't you remember breaking character during the Leviathan incident? Your juniors seem to think you just gave them some harsh advice for their sake, but I was right there when you lost your temper, abandoned your concept, and started spouting whatever came to mind."
...What a tiresome woman.
As if I did this concept act because I wanted to.
You act differently in front of cameras than you do outside, too.
"I think your facial muscles just twitched."
"I'm not sure what you're talking about. Alice came here to commentate on today's match. If she doesn't hurry back, the people who came to see Alice will get tired of waiting and collapse."
"Then let me ask one other favor. I'll pay you twice the fee I promised today, so do one exhibition match after the final."
"...Alice has somewhere else she needs to go protect."
"Instead of raising it little by little, I'll raise it all at once. Five times. It won't matter how quickly it ends. I'll pay you in full even if you finish it within ten seconds of the match starting."
...Tsk. That's a pretty big offer.
Alice's profile wasn't particularly high, but given her rank, her basic appearance fee was considerably higher than those of other magical girls.
Her appearance fee was expensive while her profile wasn't especially high, so offers themselves didn't come in often. And since she screened even those few offers through stringent conditions, it was only natural that Alice rarely appeared on television.
I had no trouble making a living, so I wasn't particularly greedy for money, but that was different from deliberately avoiding money I could earn.
If an unavoidable Abyss One attack ever destroyed my house, I'd have to spend a substantial portion of my savings overnight. Even if I had enough to live on right now, it would only take a moment for trouble to land at my feet if I simply left everything alone.
'Ugh. But it would be a problem if my profile suddenly shot up.'
This program was fairly popular right now, as far as I knew.
In fact, I didn't enjoy being in the public eye, so I hadn't been particularly pleased about commentating on the final. I accepted because
the person who planned it was an acquaintance of mine, the pay was pretty good for the time involved, and I didn't think I'd get any more work for a while if I turned this down, so I appeared with a click of my tongue.
And Alice... there was a reason she couldn't become too famous.
It wasn't simply that I found all the attention uncomfortable. There was a reason beyond that.
"That would be difficult. I'm grateful that you love Alice, but Alice can't be bought with money."
Don't be greedy. This appearance alone was already more than enough.
"You thought about it for ages and that's your answer...? Honestly, your concept really is something else. You used to do everything—dramas, music releases, the works—and now you avoid cameras like the plague. Have you really hit puberty or something?"
"Even when Alice can't be seen, she always loves everyone..."
"Yes, yes. My mistake. Tell me if you change your mind. You know why I'm asking, don't you? Think it over just a little longer."
Emerald might look like an ordinary program producer chasing a huge success, but in reality, she was a woman who truly loved magical girls.
The purpose of this program was to help rookie magical girls understand one another through sparring, making it easier for them to cooperate with other magical girls later, and to let them build up combat experience in a safe environment that they could use in actual battles against Abyss Ones.
More specifically, she wanted to give additional support to the magical girls who showed promise, so they could spread their wings.
In other words, she wasn't someone who had opened a magical-girl arena simply to make money.
But why had she asked me specifically?
Because Alice was strong, kind, and experienced, with advice to spare for her juniors... or so she probably thought.
Even setting Alice's act aside, it was an indisputable fact that she was genuinely strong and experienced. Besides, the other magical girls who could be compared with Alice couldn't even be booked for an appearance.
Most magical girls in the higher ranks were really, really busy.
Could there really be an S-rank magical girl who worked freelance all by herself, without so much as a manager, agency, or staff?
Right here!
"Then Alice will go back to check on the juniors."
"Right. Oh, that's right. I did bring you here because I wanted to see you, but when I asked them to write down which magical girl they wanted to invite to the final, both of them wrote Alice. They're your juniors and enthusiastic fans, so please pay them some attention."
"Alice loves everyone equally."
"I suppose that's true. What could anyone expect from someone who won't even hold the most ordinary fan-signing event?"
I'm sorry, but I don't consider Alice's fans my fans.
Alice is Alice, and I am me.
We had to keep that distinction clear. The people who liked Alice liked the 'Alice' I was portraying. They had no interest in the person inside her—and, more than that, they didn't want to know me.
It was a strictly business relationship between us.
I had a reason to live as Alice, and they wanted to be fans of a pure and powerful magical girl. We each had our own roles to fulfill while respecting the other's boundaries.
If I got close to them in the name of fan service and shattered the illusion that Alice wasn't as perfect a magical girl as they imagined, they wouldn't want to go through that either, would they?
"Ah, Miss Alice. You're back. The match is..."
"I've been listening to everything. Miss Berte's Elemental Burst activated safely, and Miss Black Rose answered with Dance of the Black Swan. She shot down most of the attacks aimed at her but couldn't handle all of them, and some struck home. Then an attack hit Miss Black Rose through the smoke that rose, while a magic bullet flying through the smoke struck Miss Berte, who had let her guard down. As a result, both sides have expended their ultimate moves. Miss Black Rose has taken damage to her left leg, and Miss Berte to her right shoulder. Miss Berte has a slight advantage, but the basic matchup favors Miss Black Rose, so I'd call it fifty-fifty. The key will be what attack Miss Berte uses to break through Miss Black Rose's hail of bullets."
"E-even though there was quite a distance between us, you understood the entire situation! Even the parts I didn't mention...! As expected of an S-rank...!"
The magical girl serving as MC exclaimed in admiration as she spoke with Emerald, apparently amazed that I had grasped the situation through sound and my other senses alone.
What's so impressive about that?
To identify citizens in danger and rescue them while fighting an Abyss One, this much was the bare minimum.
"Miss Black Rose's basic tactic is to foil enemy attacks with her high attack speed. But Elemental Burst is a finisher, and it fires dozens of elemental crystals infused with Miss Berte's magical power. No matter how many ordinary magic bullets she fired, they would have reached Miss Black Rose before breaking those crystals. Miss Black Rose understood that too, so she countered with Dance of the Black Swan, which increases her attack speed and movement speed, as well as the power of her magic bullets. She succeeded in cutting Elemental Burst's power in half with her enhanced magic bullets, but she couldn't block them all. Hmm... That was a splendid exchange. They both used the best moves available to force the other to expend her options. Still, if I were to offer a few pieces of advice..."
No matter what I thought on the inside,
ever since the day I made my contract eight years ago, I had always faithfully fulfilled my role as Alice.
That was the one thing no one could dispute, no matter who they were.