Chapter 18
"Ugh... Ah!"
"Are you awake, junior?"
"A-Alice... Seniiooooor!!!"
-Whoosh
"Keh."
Mm. I saw that coming.
With this character, the relief of realizing she'd survived upon waking, the adrenaline still coursing through her, and Alice happening to be right in front of her all added up to one of the eight possible responses I'd predicted in my head: charging straight at me.
"Ow ow..."
"Alice is always grateful for your love, but no one can have Alice all to themselves."
"Aww... It was the perfect chance."
What chance? I could have reacted even if she'd been twice as fast just then.
I'd only hugged her because it was an emergency. Treating that as permission would be a serious mistake.
Maybe because they're all women, magical girls didn't seem to resist physical contact much. As soon as they thought they'd grown a little close, they'd hold hands, hug each other, and do all sorts of things. But I'd never given anyone permission to do that to me.
"Well, now that my junior is awake, Alice should be on her way ba... Oof."
The pain in my ankle had gotten worse.
Apparently, forcing it when I made that jump earlier had aggravated the injury.
It was only a brief hesitation, but apparently Alice couldn't bring herself to evade the gaze of the junior in front of me who was hopelessly devoted to Alice.
"S-Senior? Are you hurt anywhere? Come to think of it, your voice seems a little lower than usual, and your walk is strange, too. Did you get hurt fighting? Your leg? Your foot? Judging by your posture, it must be your left ankle. Could you let me see it? I'll heal it right away."
...She figured all that out from one brief look?
Whether it was because she was a support-type magical girl who also served as a healer and was good at assessing people's physical condition, or because she was focusing every bit of her attention on Alice—or both—she had figured out so much that I was briefly left speechless and could do nothing but hesitate.
I was already in checkmate.
If I wanted to avoid having my cross-dressing discovered, I should ignore her and leave. But then Alice's persona would fall apart.
Maintaining the persona while running away only worked when I could avoid hearing her or pretend I hadn't heard. Now that I'd heard her so blatantly, Alice wouldn't refuse this offer.
-Fidget.
'...This is why I should've just run away sooner.'
"No matter how sturdy magical girls' bodies are or how quickly they recover, you shouldn't ignore injuries carelessly. Even the smallest wounds can accumulate inside the body and become dangerous in an emergency later on."
"Mm."
"I understand. You're busy, right? Just hand it over and I'll heal it right away. I don't know how badly you're hurt, but this will be much faster than going to a hospital. Do you know how hard it is to find a magical girl capable of healing at B-rank or higher?"
...Indeed.
I probably didn't need to go to the hospital for an injury this minor... but there was a high chance it would be troublesome for the next few days.
'I'm already in checkmate anyway...'
As long as I hid the important parts properly, she wouldn't find out.
My foot was in a somewhat dangerous position, but Alice's skirt was plenty long. As long as I made sure it didn't get lifted, there was no need to worry about being discovered.
Alice's skirt was already enchanted so that nothing inside it could be seen, so the risk of being found out was extremely low.
Even so, I couldn't help feeling nervous.
"All right."
And with my reaction speed, I could respond even if this self-proclaimed junior suddenly lost her mind and tried to lift my skirt.
It might make me a little nervous, but it wasn't truly dangerous... and refusing this kindness wouldn't be like Alice.
Besides, I couldn't think of any particularly good excuse for refusing a junior who had gone out of her way to approach me and offer treatment.
"There. This way."
-Rustle.
For the record, I was doing my best not to show it in order to maintain Alice's persona, but inside, I was feeling deeply embarrassed.
I was used to walking around as Alice by now, so that alone wasn't particularly embarrassing. But exposing my bare skin to someone else while in that state was a different matter.
I hadn't drastically reduced the amount of skin exposed by Alice's outfit for no reason.
Doing my best to show no embarrassment, as befitted Alice, I naturally removed my shoe and stocking and offered the injured area to the self-proclaimed junior.
I also made sure to press my skirt down firmly so it wouldn't get lifted by any chance.
"...Your feet are really pretty, too."
"Alice is perfect, after all."
-Smile
'Don't say things like that, you crazy woman.'
Do people normally compliment someone by saying their feet are pretty?
Women really were impossible to understand.
I couldn't tell whether this self-proclaimed junior was simply strange or women were all like this. Just when I thought I had enough of a sample to understand them, something outside the pattern kept popping up.
Every now and then, I even saw magical girls playing around while touching each other's breasts.
"Oh dear... It's turned a deep blue. I'll heal it as much as I can for now, but you'll have to be careful tomorrow. If possible, try not to put too much strain on it."
"Alice will always run to anyone who needs Alice..."
"Hup."
-Press
"Eek?!"
"See? No matter how amazing a magical girl you are, magical girls are still human. When you get hurt, it hurts. So please don't push yourself too hard."
...Don't push yourself too hard... huh...
I'd already been pushing myself for eight years... No, for more than ten years.
Of course, it would be better not to overexert yourself, but it wasn't right to say things like that carelessly without knowing someone else's circumstances.
There are people who have reasons to keep living even if it means pushing themselves to their limits.
"Thank you for cheering Alice on. But Alice never overdoes it."
"Haha... Was I being too presumptuous? In the end, to you I'm just a junior magical girl you've only seen a few times."
-Squish-squish.
I didn't know whether kneading my foot was necessary for the treatment or motivated by ulterior thoughts, but the hands massaging it were so ticklish that I had to desperately keep my expression from twisting.
"Alice always loves everyone equally."
"...If you look at it the other way, doesn't that mean you treat everyone the same no matter how close you get?!"
Ah. She caught me.
"...Some people might be more equal than others?"
"What's that supposed to mean?! If it's equality, shouldn't everyone be treated exactly the same?!"
Ha, this magical girl apparently still didn't know how the world worked.
That's simply how the world works.
People go around saying that all human beings are equal, but in truth, some human beings are more equal than others.
I don't know why they stubbornly insist otherwise instead of just admitting that the world isn't equal.
"Anyway, thank you for the treatment. Alice has many places looking for Alice, so Alice should be going..."
"W-Wait a moment!"
"Yes. What is it?"
"I-I'm Mia! If we meet again, please call me Mia!"
...What were the odds that our patrol areas would overlap?
"Yes, junior. I'll call you by your name next time we meet."
-Flash!
After exchanging a perfunctory farewell and confirming that I'd teleported to somewhere like an abandoned building, with no one around and no CCTV cameras, the strength left my legs, and I collapsed onto the ground.
-Tremble-tremble.
"Bunny... I was actually scared shitless..."
[You have no idea how nervous I was, too...]
I'd pretended to be relaxed, but from an angle she couldn't see, I'd been gripping my skirt tightly with one hand and taking every precaution imaginable to ensure that the inside wasn't accidentally exposed.
The secrets I'd said must not be discovered.
The fact that Alice's behavior was an act, and the fact that I was actually a man. These two were merely small secrets necessary to conceal the biggest secret of all.
The truly enormous secret—the one that absolutely must not be discovered, the one that could never be undone once exposed—was that I was a fake Alice.
The real Alice was already gone, and I was taking her place. That was the secret I ultimately had to keep hidden.
The first two secrets might somehow be cleaned up if they were discovered, but this biggest secret couldn't be salvaged by any means.
The moment it was discovered, my life would be over.
It was a fraudulent scheme that deceived both Earth and the mascots by exploiting a loophole in my contract with the mascots, so it wouldn't be strange for both sides to come after me. The contract would be forcibly terminated by the Queen of the Mascots, leaving behind nothing but an ordinary person who had lost Alice's powers.
"Why are there so many people who are so crazy about this damn Alice...?"
Pretty and cute? I could admit that. But how many magical girls like that were there? Magical girls were all attractive by default. Surely people didn't like Alice based on her looks alone.
Was it this bizarre persona?
...How was I supposed to quit this?
When I became fake Alice, Alice's words and actions became a persona. But the real Alice hadn't been putting on an act—she genuinely thought and behaved that way.
But now that I was the fake one, could I really stop doing it?
I'd already done everything I could.
I'd taken all of Alice's old albums and merchandise off the market, recalled as much of what had already been released as possible, and drastically reduced Alice's public activities to the bare minimum needed to make a living.
But even after all that, why were there still so many people who were crazy about Alice?
-Clench.
It was terrifying.
People who would die without Alice and knew absolutely everything about her could compare the Alice I was now with the Alice of the past and realize that I was a fake.
My contract could be forcibly canceled, and I could be punished for deceiving people and mascots.
...Before I made my contract with Bunny. Returning to the state I had been in back then.
The people who were currently so fanatical about Alice would try to burn me at the stake once they learned I was a fake.
"It's still... It's still okay."
I'd hidden it well for eight years.
How many crises had there been during that time?
I'd gone through countless crises and overcome them all. That was why I was still here.
For now, I should deactivate my transformation, go home, and get some rest.
-Grrrgl.
...I needed to fill my stomach, too.
After such a grueling day, I returned home with my foot still feeling slightly strange, only to find—
-Rumble-rumble
-Whoooosh
"...Fucking hell, seriously."
The house itself hadn't been blown away, but part of the wall had collapsed, and the terrace had vanished without a trace.
In the past, the landlord would usually have covered the repair costs for damage to a building caused by an accident like a natural disaster. But these days, with Abyss One attacks having become an everyday occurrence, the tenant and landlord generally split the cost fifty-fifty. I'd actually signed my lease under those terms, so this was going to cost me quite a lot.
And considering how sharply the prices of building repair companies would rise because of this incident...
[Hello, Emerald. It's Alice. After giving the offer you made me some serious thought...]
...Sometimes, the world seemed scarier than monsters.