CH 83

A Letter From the Past

Translated by LyraDhani

Edited by LyraDhani

“Is there still no reaction today? She’s awake, right?”

“Yes. She is awake and conscious, but she doesn’t respond to the questions at all…”

In front of the hospital room where Hitsugi was hospitalized, a doctor and a nurse were having a conversation. Hitsugi listened to their voices in her blurred consciousness.

“The wounds on the body have been almost completely healed by the power of Magical Girls with healing-type skills, but the effects of the erosion of the Demonic Beast are still unknown. It is not surprising that some kind of mental disorder remains. …I guess we’ll just have to let time solve this one.”

“That may be the case. –And, I’ve received numerous requests for visits, should I decline? Some of them are from Jukka.”

“Hm. Meeting with colleagues may be stimulating in a good way. I will allow up to three visitors a day. I’ll leave it to you to choose the person.”

“Yes, I understand.”

With that, the doctor left. The nurse who came into the hospital room changed the IV connected to Hitsugi’s arm, looking at Hitsugi painfully.

–What in the world am I doing?

Such a question came to her mind, but no answer came out. She felt like she was forgetting something very important, but it felt like there was a fog hanging in her head and she couldn’t think straight.

While Hitsugi was thinking about such a thing in a daze, the nurse was gone from the room before she knew it. Apparently, the work was done while Hitsugi was thinking.

–The flow of time here was very strange. The moment she closed her eyes, the color of the sky changed. Her consciousness was unsteady, fluffy, and fluttering It was as if her mind was refusing to recognize reality.

She closed her eyes and opened them again. At that moment, she heard the rattling sound of a door opening.

“Hello, Hitsugi-san. How are you doing?”

A girl with red hair sat on a chair next to the bed and asked Hitsugi with a lovely smile.

“Are you still unable to reply? …You may not be able to hear me, but I’ll just give you a report.”

The red-haired girl – Toono Sumire – continued her words quietly.

Toono told Hitsugi three major things.

The first was that Hitsugi’s outburst was treated as a “gas explosion caused by aging government facilities”.

The second was that Hitsugi would not be held responsible for this incident.

The third was that it was almost impossible for Hitsugi to return as a Magical Girl in the future.

“The damage to one lung itself is not that much of a problem. However, in your case, the vessel that stores divine power has been almost completely destroyed by the erosion of Demonic Beasts. Once something is broken, it can never be restored. Unfortunately, you will have no choice but to retire as a Magical Girl.”

Hitsugi tilted her head as she stared at the red-haired girl who was spinning her words in an indifferent manner. The girl’s words should not have entered her mind much, but she felt a pain deep in her heart.

–I feel like I have lost something important. Her head hurt. She involuntarily held her head and grabbed her face.

“…I guess that’s all for today. I will come back soon. I hope we can talk then.”

Saying this, the red-haired girl stood up. Then, putting her hand on the door, the girl turned around and opened her glossy lips.

“Hitsugi Airi. You were a splendid Magical Girl. –I am proud of you.”

After saying that, the red-haired girl quickly left the hospital room.

–A splendid Magical Girl. As she repeated those words in her mind, a warm feeling spread in her chest. It was fluffy and somewhat unsettling. But – it wasn’t unpleasant at all.

After that, many girls visited Hitsugi’s hospital room, talked with her about trivial things, and left. Some laughed, some cried, some got angry, and their reactions varied, but in the end, they all said “I will come back again” and left.

Little by little, a small spark was building up in her heart. It felt like that.

–When Hitsugi could no longer remember how many nights had passed, as she gazed absent-mindedly at the raindrops streaming outside the window, a visitor appeared.

She had long black hair and light-pigmented steeple eyes. A tall girl wearing an antique one-piece dress held out a small paper bag in front of Hitsugi as soon as she entered the room. It was a pretty paper bag with a green four-leaf design on it.

The girl forced Hitsugi to hold the paper bag and sat down gently on the chair beside her. Then, with a difficult look on her face, she opened her mouth.

“…I had a strange dream yesterday.”

The girl quickly pointed to the paper bag and urged Hitsugi to “look inside”. She took the contents just as she was told.

–There was a shabby brown envelope. On the front, the words “Dear Hitsugi Airi” were written in blurred letters.

“The sender of the envelope’s sister asked me to give it to you at the party a while ago. …I was actually going to give it to you after you recover, but things have changed a bit.”

Saying this, the dark-haired girl laughed.

“A girl a little older than the little sister who gave me the letter said to me in my dream, ‘I want you to deliver that letter to Hitsugi-san’. –It is strange, isn’t it, that I have never met the girl herself?”

Hitsugi silently stared at the dark-haired girl who said so. Strangely, her consciousness was clearer than usual.

The envelope in her hand had a mark as if water had spilled on it, showing its age somehow. Then, Hitsugi looked at the name of the sender written next to it.

–Yumeji Yotsuba. The name is familiar.

It was an important person whom she could remember clearly even in her blurred thoughts. A cute junior who became the starting point of “Hitsugi Airi” as a Magical Girl. –I’ll never see you again now.

She felt a little sad and looked down. What is already lost will never return. She knew that herself.

“You can open that envelope later. …I’ll tell the nurse not to throw it away without permission.”

The dark-haired girl let out a small sigh as she spoke. She looked a little tired.

“…Everyone seems to be wishing for Hitsugi’s early return to work, but I don’t think you deserve to be punished for taking it easy. Hitsugi-san was working a little too hard. Well, I’ll leave you now. –Next time, I’ll bring you some delicious sweets.”

After saying that, the black-haired girl left the hospital room. Hitsugi, who was left alone in the room, stared at the envelope, and then she suddenly ripped open the envelope’s closure.

The sound of the paper tearing echoed in the quiet room. She opened the envelope and tried to take out the contents. A small object fell on the bed. It was an indigo bookmark.

–The moment the bookmark entered her eyes, she felt as if the world had turned a bright, young grass color.

Behind her eyelids, a girl was smiling at Hitsugi, just as she had in the past. –It felt like she was called Airi-senpai in her ear.

“Ah, ah…”

A muffled voice escaped from Hitsugi’s throat. It was unmistakably a sob. From the closed box of her heart, emotions that had been dormant until now flowed out as if overflowing. Her heart ached, her pulse increased, and her chest tightened.

With a hand trembling as if in a fever, Hitsugi opened the letter.

Dear Airi-senpai.

I believe that this letter will reach you and spell it out.

I am really sorry that I have to break my promise. However, you are not to blame. It is all because of my weak heart. I am unable to bear the heavy responsibility weighing on me.

–I have been most fortunate in my life to have met Senpai.

If I had not met you when I was a candidate, I would not have had a dream and would have chosen suicide much earlier.

Only when I am with you, I could be just a [junior]. –I can’t tell you in words alone how happy that made me.

So, at least, please live your life with your heart only as a senior. That is my only wish.

The bookmark I put with the letter is the one I originally intended to give to Senpai. Please accept it if you like.

Your inadequate junior, Yumeji Yotsuba.

Hitsugi finished reading the letter and picked up the indigo bookmark. On the surface of the bookmark, there was a pressed four-leaf clover embedded. It seemed to be handmade. The bookmark was rough in places, but this made it look even more rustic.

“I-I wonder if I was really able to help you.”

With tears streaming down her face, Hitsugi gently hugged the bookmark.

–An important junior. Myself. What I have done. And the sins I have committed. Hitsugi remembered all of them.

“Hey, Yotsuba. I have worked hard all this time so that I can be proud of you. No matter how hard it was to kill the Demonic Beasts, no matter how scary it was, no matter how much work it took, I never whined. I thought it would be bad for you.”

–She who was talented but could not become a Magical Girl, and Hitsugi herself who became a Magical Girl even though she was talentless. The two of them were in opposite circumstances, but they were strangely in tune with each other.

When Yotsuba gave up on the path of a Magical Girl and said she would become a government employee, Hitsugi promised her, “Then, I will become a splendid Magical Girl.”

It was a light-hearted promise at first, but Yotsuba died soon after that. Hitsugi could not break the promise and continued to be a Magical Girl. Yotsuba’s existence was that big in Hitsugi’s mind.

And when Hitsugi started to feel her limitation as a Magical Girl, she remembered Yotsuba’s words. –Even if I quit being a Magical Girl, if I could become a government employee in her place, her promise wouldn’t be broken. That was what she thought.

…Now that she thought about it, it was just a terrible outlandish idea. But it seemed like the best thing Hitsugi could do at the time.

Wiping away tears, she turned her head to the side and noticed a lot of gifts on the table. Perhaps they had been left there by her junior Magical Girls who had come to visit.

“Seems like a lot of kids came to visit me while I was in a daze. I don’t deserve to have them worry about me anymore.”

Working hard and running, Hitsugi tried to fulfill Yotsuba’s wish. She was well remembered by the government and had good relationships with other Magical Girls. Everything was going well. –But what awaited Hitsugi, on the verge of retirement, was the terrible stigma of being a government assailant.

…Toono Sumire said that Hitsugi was not responsible. But not everything would be the same as before. Even the almost certain job offer from the government must have been rescinded.

She only vaguely remembered the time when her consciousness was taken over by a Demonic Beast. But she did remember that she had cut through Yukino, Hagakure, and the others. The only thing that would not fade away was the red blood that splattered on the floor.

“I’m sorry, Yotsuba. …I failed at the end.”

She muttered this as if in penitence. Covering her face with her hands and turning over to hold her knees. She didn’t want to think about anything else.

“It’s okay, senpai. Don’t worry about your promise anymore. –Don’t be trapped by me, the dead one, anymore.”

A small voice reached Hitsugi’s ears, who was sobbing and crying. She looked up with a start. But there was no one there obviously. Hitsugi let out a disappointed sigh and smiled bitterly.

“…That’s right. I must have heard wrong–”

At that moment, she smelled the scent of fragrant osmanthus. It was the same scent as the scent bag she used to love. As if guided, she put her hand into the pocket of her hospital gown. A small object touched her fingertip.

“–Ah.”

An out-of-season golden osmanthus, broken into thumb-sized pieces. A tiny four-leaf clover was tied to the tip of its branch. As if to say, “I’m here”.

“Hu, uuh, uwaaaa!!”

–She couldn’t stand it. She let out a wild emotion as if she was screaming. A nurse rushed into the hospital room and asked, “Are you okay?!” but even that fell on deaf ears.

Nobody would believe her if she told them this story. But she would believe in herself. Yotsuba had cared about her, her senior, even after she died.

That day, Hitsugi cried and fell asleep as if losing consciousness. –Whether they meet in the dream world or not, only God knows.