Chapter 5: Freak The Fuck Out And Panic Sell Everything Right Now

Vatz followed Magenta and Sulfur to Azure's location. They were too slow to catch sight of the villain, but they did see the grisly aftermath.

Magia Azure, on the ground by her family's shrine, dazed and missing a foot. Nearby lay her blood-splattered wand, a kitsune mask, and a smashed offering box. Coins were strewn about - each small, but together demonstrating the town's piety.

"A-Azure!" Magenta called out. "What just... Your foot..."

Azure fumbled with her words. "I... she... Magia Baiser..."

"The new villain?" Sulfur asked. "Is that what she's calling herself?"

Sulfur sat down next to Azure. Magenta set about cleaning and bandaging her wounded leg.

"Yeah, she..." Azure winced and inhaled at Magenta's movement. "Used the mask and box, and... with my sword..."

It wasn't hard to imagine events that might have ended like this. But something felt off.

Sulfur, it seemed, had a different concern. "I can't believe you took her on alone. You saw what her monsters can do!"

"I-I know, but..." Azure's gaze dropped. "She was right here, and..."

Vatz floated closer to her. "This new villain, Magia Baiser. Even without a full understanding of what she can do, taking her on alone appears... dangerous. There's nothing we can do about what's already happened, but we shouldn't repeat this. If any of you encounter her alone again, try to just observe from a safe distance and wait to engage once you're all together. Okay?"

Azure nodded. "I understand."

Magical girls were valuable investments, both strategically and financially. A marketable one with the right contracts could bring in millions of yen per month, but there was no shortage of expenses in getting them to that point and keeping them there. And the market was not kind to girls who didn't adhere to its preferred image. A missing eye could be hidden, or an eyepatch incorporated into a suitable "cool" or "tough" persona like the one Sulfur now sought. But a missing foot...

For a magical girl adept at levitation, loss of a foot was less of a blow to expected combat performance than losing an eye. But the impact on marketability was far greater. It was no issue if the public didn't find out, but trying to conceal it would pose its own challenges.

And there were two prongs to that dilemma. Concealing the state of Magia Azure, and that of Minakami Sayo.

"Azure, you will have to take time off school," Vatz insisted. "There's no way we can hide your condition fast enough for you to attend uninterrupted. And if we don't hide it..."

Magia Baiser knew that Magia Azure had just lost a foot, and was surely spreading word to her allies. And identifying Sayo as part of Tres Magia would in turn cast doubt upon the two friends she was always with - the trio who always left class or other obligations right before Tres Magia appeared. All three of them and their families would become easy pickings for Enormita.

Sulfur's condition rendered the situation even more dire. Even if Sayo and Kaoruko both successfully concealed the timing of their injuries, if word got out that they both had wounds matching members of Tres Magia, it would raise all the same issues. Which meant they would need to find a longer-term solution before things could reach that point.

"...I guess not," Azure conceded. "What about my family?"

That was a stickier issue. "Hiding your injury from them would make it difficult to interact with them until you can obtain a prosthetic foot. Even then, you would have to only let them see you while wearing and concealing the prosthetic. If they do learn about your condition, we will have to convince them to keep it secret, which may require revealing your magical girl status. I don't think we have any good options here, but whichever one you prefer, I'll do my best to help."

Azure's gaze dropped. "I don't want them to know. But if we try to hide it and fail, that could make things worse, right?"

"That is a concern, yes," Vatz agreed. "In any case, we should take this discussion indoors. Azure, can you try levitating?"

Sulfur and Magenta gave her space. Azure began to rise, then jerked to a stop with a pained noise.

"Moving your leg means jostling the injury," Vatz noted. "But please try to endure it. Sulfur, can you get some pain medication?"

"Yeah, sure." Sulfur flew off.

Azure tried again, straightening her body as it left the ground. "I feel... wobbly."

Other wounded magical girls had reported similar issues. "Your body has become asymmetric. It will take time for you to adjust."

Azure nodded.

There was still a mess here to deal with. The blood, in particular, would raise questions. "Magenta, could you clean up the rest of this?"

"Of course!" Magenta agreed.

Vatz and Azure floated inside. Azure sat down, then crossed her legs and massaged her bandaged ankle.

Pressing too much would be unkind. But something wasn't adding up.

"Azure... why did Magia Baiser leave when she did?"

Azure's eyes jumped to attention. "Huh?"

"The first time we fought her, she only withdrew after Magenta wounded her. But this time, she fled before Sulfur and Magenta even arrived, and I can't figure out why."

Azure's gaze dropped to where her foot should have been. "I, um..."

"I'm sorry to ask you to think back on such a painful moment," Vatz said. "But it could help us to understand her."

"M-Maybe she wanted to play it safe this time?" Azure suggested.

"An increase in caution would make sense," Vatz agreed. "But with the time she had available... This is unpleasant to think about, but she could have hurt you more and still escaped. It's strange that she didn't."

Azure looked away. "I... guess so."

She was clearly still in pain, processing what had happened, and working through the remorse of knowing she could have avoided it. There were all sorts of reasons for her to show signs of anxiety.

And... Vatz couldn't think of a reason why she would hide something like this.

It wasn't enough to completely shake the feeling. But it was enough that Vatz couldn't justify voicing it.

There were enough other things to consider. In order for Magia Azure to reliably wear a prosthetic foot for long periods of time, she would need multiple high-quality prosthetics, likely hundreds of thousands of yen each. At a time when Sulfur's expected profitability was set to drop, and it was only a matter of time before Azure's would drop further. And if any of them suffered additional injuries, it would further jeopardize income, combat performance, and morale.

Other funds could be made available to patch up gaps, but selling stocks would mean forfeiting their contributions to future income, and cutting into charitable donations would mean reducing the good they were accomplishing right now. Would they have to contribute less to malaria prevention now to protect their opportunity to do more good later?

If things got bad enough, there was always the option to torpedo the operation and start over. Repossess the group's transformation devices in exchange for generous severance pay and witness protection protocols for the girls and their families, then use the devices to establish a new group. But both sides of that equation involved significant costs in time and money. As long as Tres Magia showed no interest in a step like that, it was better to keep things as they were.

Before long, Sulfur arrived with medication and water. Magenta was next, offering box in tow.

"Azure, where should I put this?" Magenta asked.

"Just set it down there," Azure replied. "As long as it's not in the way, it's fine. And... thanks for the help, all of you."

Most of the immediate issues were settling down. That in mind...

"Azure's wound has likely finished closing by now," Vatz announced. "We should check on it."

Magenta removed the wrappings. As expected, it had recovered to a degree that would have taken a regular human weeks of recovery, and likely professional medical attention. Magical healing couldn't replace missing appendages, but as Sulfur's stab wound had demonstrated, it was fast and effective at other repair. There was, however, still plenty of discharge from before it had finished healing.

"You're still a mess, huh?" Sulfur observed. "Let's hit the showers."

Azure's eyes returned to her ankle. "Yeah. Um, I'm not quite sure how to, well..."

"We'll help, of course!" Magenta promised.

Vatz followed the three of them to their destination. It left them privacy for the task at hand, but remained in earshot in case anything came up.

"...Magenta? Why are you looking at me like that?"

"S-Sorry! I didn't mean to stare. I was just thinking about, um, earlier..."

"Earlier?"

"When I was putting on your bandages. I noticed that your, um, thing was..."

"Wait. Azure, is she saying you had a fuckin' hard-on?"

"I-It happens sometimes! It doesn't mean anything, it's just how these things..."

"I KNOW HOW DICKS WORK, AZURE. It's from extra blood in 'em, right? And you just lost a bunch of blood! If you were getting hard right after that, it sure sounds like you got turned on from getting your foot chopped off!"

"I-It's not like th-"

"DID YOU GET TURNED ON AGAIN BECAUSE I SAID THAT. AZURE WHAT THE FUCK."

Vatz gripped the ends of its ears. Perhaps it had underestimated the level of concern.