Quoted By:
At the conclusion of her speech, one or two cheers come from the supportive onlookers, before they return to their café activities. The girl with the funny hat just sits there, lips tightly shut as she thinks. Clover continues to stare at her determinedly. Eventually, the scarfed girl sighs, then looks up to meet Clover’s gaze. “…Listen. You’re not wrong. In fact, you’re right. Caring can make a lot of beautiful things happen. If the whole world thought like me, it’d be worse because of it.” She pauses for a moment, looking away to take a sip of her coffee. She cradles the warm cup in her hands gently. “The thing is, caring only gets you so far. When you sit down and really try to fix something… that’s when you find out how hard it really is.”
Clover takes a seat. Her response is firm. “That’s okay. How hard it is doesn’t matter to me. No one gave Adolph Murie some wolf-o-matic or whatever to repopulate the wolves. Those people thought it was something worth doing, so they did it.” Clover finishes her pretzel, then wipes at her mouth with her sleeve. “Just tell me about the detective. If my caring pays off, that’s great. If it doesn’t… then I guess I’ll see you in howl.”
The scarfed girl’s eyes are hidden under her hat. She tugs at her scarf, looking away, before putting her face in her hands and giving a soft scream of frustration. She looks back up. “Okay, look. I’m… not saying there is a magical girl killer, but say there were one. And say you manage to track her down somehow. What then?”
“What then?” Clover tilts her head, confused.
“Yeah, what then?” The girl looks at her directly, eyes completely serious. “This isn’t some fairy tale. You can’t convince her to stop. There’s no prison that can hold her- she’s a magical girl, she can break out. You don’t really have any way of stopping her at all… other than killing her.” Her voice is somber. “Can you do that? Are you willing to do that? Sure, maybe it’s theoretically the ‘right’ thing to do, but do you have what it takes to be an actual killer? Could you even live with yourself after the fact? And if it turns out you can’t, if it turns out that no matter what you’ve told yourself beforehand, you just can’t do it in the moment, when it really counts…” The girl sets her jaw. “You’re dead. She kills you.”
Clover blinks.
“…That’s just one thing you’d have to consider.” The girl sits back in her chair, looking up at the ceiling, exhausted. “I’m not trying to take this lightly. It’d just be better to avoid it entirely. No point in putting yourself on her radar. Theoretical radar.” The girl sighs.
>...Your thoughts?
