The teams assigned to primary guard duty in Region 4 all belonged to the coalition Adah had organized prior to the carnival: the Last Light, DreamRise, Fifty Flip, and the solo Seliah. These four teams stood above any other magic users in the region, particularly so now that their participation in the carnival had given them all a healthy boost of FP. They would be the region’s first response to any Cruelties that spawned in during the nation’s state of emergency.
The four teams were spread conveniently throughout the region, with DreamRise nearest the capital, Fifty Flip farther north en route to the Brume Forest, Seliah closer to Region 3’s border, and the Last Light at the center of them all. Each team had been assigned a protection zone that covered their corresponding section of the region, and they would be the first ones called upon to defeat any Cruelty that appeared within their zone. If a second Cruelty appeared within the same zone, another primary guard team would come to assist, with the remaining two teams expanding their protection zones to cover what the second team had left unguarded. If more than four Cruelties appeared at once, secondary teams would be called into the mix.
That was the procedure Adah had prepared for. Yet, according to Elise, none of it would be necessary.
There would be no more Cruelties today. Elise was certain of it.
Adah intended to make the Secretary hold true to her promise of explaining exactly how she knew such a thing, but in the meantime, she followed her orders. Elise’s logic made sense, after all. Right now, magic users needed to be seen by the public. Adah and her teammates had to project a sense of stability, and to give the people of Region 4 something to look at instead of a blank television screen. Adah didn’t much care to look at a TV right now herself. By flying around, she could at least feel like she was doing something.
Flying would also help her think, which was the best thing she could do right now.
The Last Light’s patrol route took them over several quiet towns and villages near the center of the region. These were places that typically only ever saw small fry Cruelties, like the F- and E-Ranks that Adah and her team had spent so much of the past few years fighting. Thinking back on those days made Adah’s body feel a little lighter. Although her time as Heartbreak felt longer than the rest of her career combined, the truth was that she’d spent far more time on cleanup duty in these tiny towns than she had on building her new persona.
Ironically, taking on higher ranked Cruelties and trying to outmaneuver conniving politicians helped her appreciate her past. Those jobs had been simple, but they were what allowed the people of these towns to live simple lives. It was easy to think of those low-ranked monsters as wastes of time—for the Cruelties and for magic users—but that was only the case because people like old Sparkling Starbloom put in the effort to maintain humanity’s advantage. That boredom Adah had felt earlier in her career had been a symptom of that advantage.
Today had been a reminder of what it felt like when the advantage swung the other way.
If another Cruelty like that S-Rank appeared again tomorrow, what would stir in the hearts of the magic users assigned to fight it? After they’d seen what had happened to the boys of Desiire, what emotions would they bring to that battle? Fear, hate, anger, despair—anything but peace.
And then, what would all those people in these tiny towns feel as they waited, like they waited today?
As Adah flew farther along the patrol route and left the towns behind, those thoughts stayed with her. Above the empty, rolling hills that filled this region, she reckoned with reality. These weren’t hypotheticals. So long as the Cruelties existed, another day like today would come. Those feelings—whatever they may be—would crystallize in the hearts of everyone in this world.
The next blow was coming, and more would rain down until humanity punched back.
Whatever it took, Adah would find a way to punch back. She’d find a way to deliver the finishing blow, and relieve the burden from all those hearts.
Her fight would begin today, and it looked like it would begin even earlier than she expected.
“Looks like somebody got lost,” Ami said, pointing to the left of the team’s flying formation.
In the distance, three human-shaped figures approached Adah and her team. Thankfully, they appeared colorful enough even at this distance that Adah could confirm they weren’t humanoid Cruelties. Though, their actual identities weren’t much preferable. If they were flying, they must have been magic users, and there was only one group of three that would seek out Adah and her team like this.
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“What the hell is this all about, Heartbreak?”
Iris shouted at Adah before she even got close enough for a real conversation, so Adah let her fly a bit closer before answering. Luckily, DreamRise had arrived while Adah and her team were flying over a more remote section of their patrol route. No bystanders would hear Iris yelling.
“I explained as much as I could in my message,” Adah said once the DreamRise trio got close enough that she didn’t need to raise her voice.
“You must have written that message in a fit of insanity,” Iris said as she came to a halt in front of Adah. “And that’s me giving you the benefit of the doubt.”
“It was a fit of stupidity,” Clair said, taking her place beside Iris with her arms crossed.
“And to not pick up my calls after—even stupider of you,” Iris continued. Apparently she’d stopped giving Adah the benefit of the doubt.
Ekki hovered to Iris’s right and took a moment to observe the surrounding area. Maybe his mind was in the same place as Adah’s, and he wanted to make sure no spectators had set their sights on this little rendezvous. That’d be a quick way to undermine the whole purpose of these patrols.
Either that, or he was keeping an eye out for a different kind of danger.
“I told everyone that we’d regroup after the patrols are over,” Adah said. “There wasn’t time to answer every question people might want to ask. Not over the phone and not in person. After—”
“Patrols,” Iris scoffed. “Those three boys are dead, and we’re out here doing what, exactly? Putting on a show? The same thing could happen here at any moment—we should be waiting somewhere we can hear about it right away.”
“I told you what Elise told me,” Adah said. “There won’t be any more Cruelties today.”
Iris rolled her eyes and said, “Ah, yes, I’m sure she crunched the numbers. How very reliable. I’m surprised you of all people believe her. I guess now you’re okay with following orders. Now you’re an upstanding magical girl.”
“I told you this was a waste of time,” Clair added. “We should go back home. The princess let her fame get to her head.”
Emi broke away from the rest of the Last Light, floating slowly to close the distance between herself and Clair. They stared at each other—Clair draped in her white dress and Emi covered by her black cloak.
“You don’t have to be scared,” Emi said.
Clair raised her eyebrows and said, “Are you trying to piss me off?”
“You told me when I didn’t want to hear it,” Emi said. “Now I’m telling you.”
Adah expected Clair to fire back, but she only continued to stare at Emi. Adah didn’t recall ever seeing the two of them interact during the carnival, so chances were that they still hadn’t spoken about what Clair had done during the IndieMagie. Emi had no reason to make amends with Clair of her own accord, and Clair didn’t seem like the type to apologize, but Adah didn’t get the feeling they viewed each other as enemies.
With the two of them speaking so little—and most of Clair’s words being venomous—it was hard to get a read on their relationship.
“In any case, none of us want to sit here doing nothing,” Ekki, the only member of DreamRise yet to speak, joined the conversation. “We’ll go along with your plan for now, Adah. But first, you need to tell me something.”
From the way Iris chewed her cheek, it was obvious she took issue with her team falling in line so easily, but she didn’t speak up. Even Clair drifted backward from Emi, until Ekki was the member who floated at the front of their team.
“What do you want to know?” Adah asked.
Though, she didn’t need to. After what had happened with the S-Rank, there could be only one question Ekki wanted answered.
“That was my spell, wasn’t it?” he said, pressing his left hand against the spot where his transformation’s foggy arm extended from his shoulder. “And you know something about it, don’t you? You know what came out of those portals.”
Adah could have told him she didn’t. Ekki had no real way of knowing how much she knew about the humanoids. This was conjecture, probably based on little more than her reaction to the outcome of Desiire’s battle. If the humanoid Cruelty had been as much of a surprise to her as it had been to everyone else, she wouldn’t have shifted her focus so quickly to maintaining the public’s perception of magic users. Most likely, this was something Elise had accounted for as well; Adah had less she would need to process in the aftermath of that battle.
But if humanity was going to punch back, and if Adah was going to lead the charge, she needed allies who were willing to follow her. The coalition would fall apart unless they all understood exactly what they were fighting for.
Adah looked Ekki in the eyes and nodded.
“I’ll explain everything I know later, I promise,” she said. “But for now, you’re right. I didn’t fully understand it at the time, but a while back I learned that the Cruelties were working on a new weapon. A weapon made out of humans. And today, they tested it out.”
Ekki closed his eyes. His face twitched slightly, but relaxed as he took a deep breath.
Adah had tried to balance her words. She didn’t want to sugarcoat the truth, but she also didn’t want her meaning to be misconstrued. None of this was Ekki’s fault.
Yet, it might not be so easy for him to believe that.
To him, what the Cruelties had unleashed today wasn’t a weapon made of humans, but a weapon made of him.
Adah had worried over nothing, though.
“Iris, Clair,” Ekki said, turning back to face his teammates. “Let’s get going.”
Iris glanced to Clair for confirmation of what she’d just heard, but her teammate was too busy squinting at Ekki.
“Huh?” Iris said, at a loss for words for once. “Just like that?”
“Adah was right,” Ekki said. “This won’t be a conversation we can have in the middle of everything else going on. When this is over, she’s going to give us all the answers we need. And she’s going to tell us what comes next.”
Ekki looked at Adah over his torn shoulder.
“Right, Adah?”
For the first time since his injury, Ekki’s eyes glowed with all the light they once held. That cocky boy who had told Adah she was going to lose before their duel even started had returned.
Whatever that Cruelty had taken from him, it had left that part of him behind.
“That’s right,” she told him.