Mahou Shoujo Ikusei Keikaku - Volume 12 - Chapter 13

Magical Boys’ Elegy

  La Pucelle

La Pucelle respected magical girls as a whole. Those feelings hadn’t changed one bit ever since she’d been just another magical-girl fan, Souta Kishibe. Even if a soccer fan became a pro soccer player, his years of admiration for the greats weren’t going to change overnight. Similarly, it wasn’t becoming of a noble magic knight to be flippant and get carried away with herself just because she now stood on the same stage as those she admired.

Once she’d begun working as a magical girl in N City, La Pucelle had also learned about the less glamorous side of magical girls.

Twice, the robotic magical girl Magicaloid 44 had scammed her out of small change by pawning off useless items on her. Weiss Winterprison, the one with the trademark scarf and coat, very persistently tried to get her to go along with her taste in B movies. The classic witch–style Top Speed was particularly overfriendly and very touchy, which was bad for La Pucelle’s heart. And whenever Ruler, the one in a princess costume, occasionally showed up, she did nothing but brag. The girl in pajamas, Nemurin, hung out in the chat room all the time like she was the boss there, and often got pestered by the mascot Fav to work more and engage in more activities.

All of them had a side to them that made La Pucelle tilt her head and wonder if that was okay for a magical girl. But still, seeing their activities on the N City magical girl info aggregate site, La Pucelle couldn’t help but be impressed. Actual magical girls really are something else, huh? she thought. Resolving all sorts of problems with a selfless spirit was the very ethos of the old-school magical girl. And if you added in those activities that people never saw, then it wouldn’t be an overstatement to say that the whole of N City, which had become quite large after absorbing all the surrounding smaller municipalities, was encompassed.

However, there were some magical girls La Pucelle could not respect at all.

When the cowboy-style magical girl had shown up on the aggregate site, she’d arrived with the clear scent of violence. It was on the kinder side when she was just kicking, punching, stomping, and making people grovel—she was also accompanied by men who looked clearly criminal, received cash under the table that appeared to be bribes, fired shots at the sky—there were more than just one or two reports of that sort of blatant criminality.

This anti-magical-girl-like behavior from Calamity Mary, the top outlaw in N City, did not jibe with La Pucelle’s aesthetic sense. It wasn’t even a matter of respect at this point—she wasn’t even forgivable under such superficially noble pretexts as “individual freedom” or “variety among magical girls.” She was just a criminal being allowed to run wild.

So La Pucelle had suggested in the chat that they should at least tell her what they thought, but then all the senior magical girls warned her off.

Forget it, forget it! Ya shouldn’t even be sayin’ this in the chat, where ya can browse the logs.

That’s dangerous~! And scary~! And frightening~!

Fal can’t recommend it at all, pon.

If you simply insist you must do it, then I would be glad if, before the deed, you were to write a will indicating you will leave all your assets to Magicaloid.

kdsflkj, fsorry, my stupid dog was just jumping on me.

Despite her being very calculated about it, picking out a day when there were a lot of people in the chat and anticipating at least one person had to agree when she brought it up, everyone was totally against the idea. The nun-style avatar’s head hung, her eyes filled with distress as she silently shook her head. Winterprison’s expression was serious as she responded with only, “You should drop the idea.” It seemed as if she was telling La Pucelle not to stick her nose in, and it probably wasn’t just her imagination.

Glaring at the chat window, La Pucelle clenched her fist.

She’d heard the story of how the kindhearted nun Sister Nana had stepped into Calamity Mary’s territory in an attempt to say her piece, and of how she’d only somehow managed to get away with Winterprison protecting her. Sister Nana was La Pucelle’s teacher, and Nana’s partner Winterprison was also basically her teacher when it came to combat. La Pucelle knew Nana was strong, which was exactly what made that episode when she’d been driven to flee with her tail between her legs so frustrating. La Pucelle felt more than just slightly that if she’d been there, something like that wouldn’t have happened. She’d thought Winterprison would surely agree, but Winterprison had opposed her.

Sitting herself down on top of the steel tower, with nobody else around, La Pucelle questioned herself.

There was an extremely dangerous outlaw whom even magical girls could not touch. But could you say that washing your hands of the matter because she was dangerous was right? Was that something a noble-minded magical knight should do?

In the chat, the subject had already changed, and Magicaloid had begun trying to sell junk.

Three days had passed since that magical-girl chat. It was five in the afternoon. Under the glow of the sunset, La Pucelle jumped from building to building. Fundamentally speaking, magical girls were most active from sundown to late at night, but she figured that in Jounan’s red-light district, also known as the rural nightless city, there would actually be more people around later, and so, after racking her brains about it all, she’d chosen the dusk. This had come at the cost of faking illness to get out of club time—behavior bad enough for Souta to lose his right to be a member of the soccer club.

Even if Winterprison had had Sister Nana to protect at the time, for her to choose to leave the scene when Sister Nana fled was no minor matter. Calamity Mary was unquestionably strong. She was feared for more than her nasty behavior.

So then how would La Pucelle fight? Her opponent’s aesthetic was cowgirl, so of course she’d mainly use projectile weapons. La Pucelle would get into close range, and if she couldn’t do that, she’d extend her sword to forcibly get in range and knock down Mary’s weapon. If she couldn’t manage that, then she’d hit the wall or ground to knock off stones, barraging her enemy to keep her from firing her guns.

Through repeated mental simulations, La Pucelle came to the conclusion that if she did it like this, she could succeed. Worst case—though it wouldn’t be very cool, she could add in the option of using her extending sword to cut open an escape route. So then it should basically work out, somehow.

Or so she had more or less hypothesized, but the optimal route would be to change Mary’s heart, even a little bit. Thinking that he’d prepare something beforehand to convince her, Souta had started writing an essay, but then he’d gotten really into it, and it had kept growing and growing, and by the time he’d cut it off, thinking this much really had to be enough, he’d had about ten pages of squared draft paper. It was a voluminous work full of love for magical girls, pulling up magical girls old and new as examples.

Any player who had become a real magical girl through the cell phone game Magical Girl Raising Project would have an unusual love for magical girls. Calamity Mary had to have a beloved magical girl as well, and if La Pucelle went for that, she was sure to win her over.

The number one goal was to earnestly win her over, but La Pucelle also went through repeated mental battle simulations in preparation for possible failure, giving herself firm confidence in the success of the operation. There were no weaknesses in this double-layered plan. Once night fell, this situation—a magical girl gone astray in N City—would be amended.

A sense of exhilaration spread to fill La Pucelle’s chest. She had so much energy, it felt ready to spill out—so she put it into her legs instead as she sprung off a roof. She couldn’t be getting too giddy, now. The challenge was only just beginning. She just had to speak calmly, without fear, without getting worked up, acting as usual. Standing on the roof of the abandoned building that was her goal, La Pucelle took a deep breath, swinging her sword up to stop flat in front of her eyes, taking one more deep breath before she slid it into the sheath on her back again. It would be okay. She was calm. It was the same as always. She could do this.

She approached the door, and when she turned the knob, it went right around. The door wasn’t locked. This was defenseless, surprising for a building Calamity Mary was using as her hideout. But still, no robber would break in from the roof of an abandoned building, right? So maybe this was what villain hideouts were actually like.

When she opened the door, she still called out, “Pardon me,” as she went inside. Within, there was a landing that led straight to a downward staircase. If Mary was here, she’d be below. La Pucelle’s voice rang out abnormally loud. Though it was still dusk, it was dark in here like the middle of the night, with a dusty smell wafting around. When La Pucelle took a step onto the landing, there was a loud clanking sound underfoot, and she automatically drew back her leg. She mentally counted to thirty, and when she confirmed that there had been no reactions to her voice or to the sound of her feet, she stepped forward more boldly than before.

The sound here really did echo. If Mary was inside the building, she should already have noticed her. La Pucelle laid her right hand on the hilt of her blade as she walked, so she could draw it at any time. Maybe it was because she was tense, but she felt like her breathing had become shallower. She made a conscious effort to take deep breaths. Halfway down the stairs, there were a number of places where it seemed like the concrete had been gouged out. It looked like something sparkly hung there, and, looking closely, she saw it was piano wire. The windows on the doors of the rooms were sealed with boards and nails, too, with not even a crack of light leaking through. There was a mess of abandoned machinery of unknown purpose, and La Pucelle thoughtlessly reached toward one machine but changed her mind before she touched it. She’d announced her presence, but it wasn’t as if she’d gained permission to come in. She shouldn’t be touching things in someone else’s home without their say-so.

Adopting her original stance, she descended the stairs. A dismantled fire alarm, pulled off the wall. A stepladder left standing, an electric light removed, body and all. A dustpan and a broom, and a rag that was still damp. La Pucelle couldn’t help but feel that every single item was in an unnatural position. This wasn’t quite what she’d expected, from what she’d heard from Sister Nana and Winterprison. It looked clearly like they were in the middle of something, like moving or prep for renovation, but there was nobody here—what did this mean?

La Pucelle went one flight down, two flights down, and it all still felt strange, and Mary never appeared, either. The entrances to all the rooms and windows were sealed with boards and nails. Was Mary around somewhere? Or was she not? Three flights down, four flights, five, she continued her descent. Since she’d been tensed to respond at a moment’s notice to a surprise attack this whole way down, she didn’t know anymore what floor she was on. And having come here by jumping from roof to roof, then intruding from the roof as well, she hadn’t actually checked how many floors the building had. She also didn’t know how many she had to go down to reach the bottom.

Maybe they’d already moved? Or was this a trap or something? Though she was completely on edge, she was still uncertain as she stepped into a large room.

There were no more stairs to go down. So in other words, did that mean this was the first floor?

There was a large door ahead, securely sealed with chains and a padlock, windows placed at evenly spaced intervals, plus two hallways extending to the right and left from the room where she currently stood.

La Pucelle examined the big door first. It was sealed with a padlock and chains. There was also no sign that anyone had gone through recently. So did that mean that if Mary was here, she’d be down one of the two hallways? La Pucelle started to head down one, but her feet stopped. You should always be absolutely sure. Before she tried the hallways, she should make sure the door was really locked. She didn’t want to be attacked from behind. La Pucelle took the padlock in hand and lifted it up.

A shrill alarm drowned out the sound of the chains clanking. La Pucelle jerked back, looking all around. She yanked her hand away from the padlock in a panic, but the deluge of sound showed no sign of stopping, just about driving her out of her head, and then there came an even louder yell.

“What’re you doing?”

Reacting to the voice, La Pucelle was about to turn around, but she was flung away with a crash. Rolling to the floor, she hurriedly pushed herself up to see an unfamiliar magical girl standing with her back toward her. What had happened? The moment she tried to call out, a ray of light shot out. Her field of vision was whited out, then gradually regained its color. The magical girl had raised a shield big enough to cover her body—it was in the shape of a heart, with a cute design—and white smoke wafted from it, along with a scorched smell. A crackling noise came from the surface of the locked door as it sparked.

“What is thi—? Huh?” said La Pucelle.

“It’s a trap, a trap. C’mon, we’re running!”

La Pucelle was forced to run, dragged along. The fine skin she felt against her hand made her heart flutter. And not just that. Even in this unusual situation, there was her lightly swaying hair, the strength with which she tugged a magical girl like La Pucelle along, and a fruity smell that tickled her nose. She had a ribbon on her head, and a decoration like waterfowl wings on her back. She was also wearing a jacket, which stuck out from the rest of it.

A magical girl…!

This wasn’t anyone La Pucelle knew from the chat. She had never seen any witness reports of a magical girl like this on the aggregate site, either. Was she a new one, or had she come from another district?

In the blink of an eye, they rushed through the hallway, then stopped in front of a metallic wall. It was a fire door. It blocked the hallway like a shutter. A panel was installed on the wall, and a cord extended from the buttons there that was connected to a laptop that had just been left there in the hallway. The laptop was shaped like a blazing flame, and it had cabriole legs and a transparent exterior—some weirdly intense personal aesthetic.

The magical girl hit the keyboard, and the computer started to glow dimly. She continued to clatter away on the keys like she was irritated, but it continued to just glow dimly, and nothing changed.

“Agh, geez! That alarm is obnoxious! But there’s no time! And the door won’t open!”

It seemed like she was trying to open the door, but it wasn’t going well.

La Pucelle put her hand on the magical girl’s shoulder and pushed both her and the computer to the left. Still listening to her complain, she drew her sword with her right hand. With the alarm still ringing, she swung down as hard as she could. She extended the sword from eight inches, so that it wouldn’t hit the ceiling, to a full yard as she swung, crushing the fire door, ceiling, and wall. She’d meant to just cut it in half with that move, but it hadn’t worked out that way.

“Nice! Okay, let’s go!” said the girl.

When the girl raced out, though, La Pucelle didn’t follow this time, instead standing still.

The girl turned back impatiently. “What’re you standing around for?”

“I kinda just did that without thinking… I don’t really get what’s going on.”

“We’re running! There’s something scary coming right behind us! We don’t have the time to escape from above!”

The magical girl firmly took her wrist. Skin rubbed against skin. La Pucelle could feel her humidity, her body heat, her pulse, all through her skin. She was still trying to get out what she meant to say next, but La Pucelle’s mouth stopped working, and with blood rushing up into her head, she couldn’t even think straight about what she wanted to say. She was unable to resist the mysterious magical girl, and the two of them swept up dust as they ran down the hallway until they both body-slammed the window at the end of it. There was no sound of glass breaking or impact, like she’d expected. They broke through nothing, just space. Had the glass been removed? Was this how the other girl had gotten in? Or had she secured this as an escape route beforehand? Whatever it was, this was a sneak thief’s MO.

Maybe La Pucelle had wound up being complicit in a burglary. But even if she wanted to question the girl, her hand was still in the girl’s grip, and La Pucelle couldn’t get a single word out. Landing just like that on the road, La Pucelle kept her hand on the hilt of her sword as she looked around the area.

This place looked like a back lane. It wasn’t overflowing with people like a major artery, but there were people stopping to stare at the building. The alarm was gathering a crowd. People who looked like office workers, people who looked like they were out for fun, ones who looked like hosts, and others who looked like students—many groups were milling around, some pointing, some laughing, others looking concerned. Weaving among the people who had been brought to a halt by the sound of the alarm, the two magical girls ran, becoming a gust of wind that raced through before anyone could notice what had happened.

After going from the shadow of one building to another to a back road by way of a monument that was shaped like something unidentifiable, they paused a moment at a plastic bucket that smelled strongly of tonkotsu before coming out into a back alley.

The sound of the alarm grew distant. But it wasn’t gone yet.

“This is bad.” The magical girl turned back to a nearby building, getting a wrinkle between her eyebrows. Her expression was the one thing about her that looked adult.

Turning her eyes to where the girl was looking, La Pucelle saw men with the kind of clothes and vibe that did not say “honest profession” yelling at each other and gathering together. They looked bloodthirsty. It seemed like it’d be disaster if the two of them were caught.

“She really seems like the type to come shooting while those guys are roughing up the crowd,” said the magical girl. “If we ignore them and run away full speed, we’ll leave traces. And there’s people watching, too. I heard this area was rural, so why’s there so many people around? With so many witnesses, she’d catch up to us somewhere, and just letting us go…is obviously not something that magical girl would do, huh?”

It didn’t seem like she was necessarily talking to La Pucelle. But her voice was too loud and her words too clear for her to be talking to herself, so maybe she was saying this for La Pucelle’s benefit.

“Maybe we have to get a bit drastic,” the girl said.

The hand clasping her wrist squeezed hard. La Pucelle’s heart hammered in her chest.

“Let’s undo our transformations.”

La Pucelle didn’t have the time or composure to argue back. Her brain was all in a fluster, and once she saw that the other girl had undone her transformation, she followed reflexively. And then once she’d followed, she realized what she’d done, but she was too late.

The girl went, “Huh?”

“Ah, uh…um.”

When it came to differences brought about by magical-girl transformation, there was such a wealth of variation that you could say only, “Depends on the show.” With the mobile game Magical Girl Raising Project, no matter what your pretransformation form was, after you changed, you would become a beautiful girl. Souta knew that personally.

“You’re…”

“No! Um…”

The mysterious magical girl had transformed into a human girl. Her hair was darker and shorter, and the line of her jaw was sharper, with less softness in her cheeks. Her build as a magical girl had suggested the third year of middle school, and she’d shrunk to about the first year of middle school or late elementary. Of course, her attire had become plain: a T-shirt, parka, and cargo pants with lots of pockets—the sort of clothes you might see anywhere. But—though it wasn’t as if Souta could say specifically what about her gave him this feeling—there was something vaguely similar about her overall facial features. She had a balanced face that didn’t give you the sense that she had radically changed. She was quite pretty.

With her eyes and mouth open wide in surprise, the girl rudely examined Souta in his school uniform top to bottom, while Souta hemmed and hawed and twisted around awkwardly. It wasn’t like he could turn back time now, and he couldn’t erase the girl’s memory, either, but if possible, he would like it if she didn’t stare.

Souta wanted La Pucelle to be a magical girl who was only ever gallant and classic. Being a middle school boy pretransformation was a very eccentric side character sort of thing. And in the first place, he felt like one guy being mixed up in a group of beautiful girls was corrupt, or like, perverted.

He’d gotten swept along, and now something had happened that he couldn’t take back.

After looking at him two, three times, the girl nodded, saying, “Guess some are like this, too,” and pulled Souta’s hand. Even her voice was similar to that of her magical-girl form. “Oh well.”

“Um, I wouldn’t say it’s ‘Oh well…,’” Souta said.

“You can tell me more over there.”

The girl was trying to head in the opposite direction from where they’d been going—in other words, toward the nearby building. They’d just been desperately running away from there, so why did they have to head back in that direction?

Souta stiffened his legs, resisting. “Isn’t it a bad idea to go that way?”

“Times like these, it stands out more if you try to run. We detransformed in order to wait it out, so we should take it easy. Panicking and leaving the scene is actually riskier.”

Now that she pointed it out, maybe that was true. The girl pulled Souta along with surprising strength, and, unable to resist, he was taken to a burger chain that had a number of branches in the city. The girl ordered fries and a shake, and Souta got iced coffee—he didn’t actually want it, but he put on a cool act like he did—and they sat down at a two-seat table by the window. As people went by probably just as usual with nonchalant expressions, the two of them got a front-row seat to the sight of those scary-looking men yelling at each other as they raced off. Terrified half to death, Souta gave them little flicking glances. Was it his imagination that they looked like they had something they were scared of, too?

With the girl enthusiastically slurping her shake in front of him, Souta was still confused. What was the meaning of this? Who was she? How should he make excuses for himself? Or should he be shameless about it? The more he thought about it, the more heat built in his head. Did his head feeling hot mean he was blushing, too? She’d been holding his wrist, so she definitely would have felt his temperature and heartbeat. If she already knew all about how flustered he was, then maybe there was nothing to be done about that, either.

“Sorry, gotta use the bathroom for a sec.” Souta figured that it’d be best to cool his head, for now. There had to be things that he wouldn’t think of unless he calmed down.

As soon as he was in the bathroom, he washed his face at the sink, then carefully wiped it with a paper towel so it wouldn’t be noticed that he’d done so. He took some deep breaths, but maybe there was nothing he should be doing in here. He decided that he might as well do what you do in the bathroom. He stood in front of the toilet, pulled down his fly, and did his business as he considered what to do.

“I hope we can go home soon.”

When someone spoke to him, he looked to his side. That girl was right there.

He just about fell over backward, but he caught himself. He was thankful that his major personal rule of never moving when he was doing his business still lived within him. The girl brought both hands in front of her before the urinal, and she was humming. She’d just walked right in. She—no, he—was clearly used to this.

“Th-this is…quite a situation, huh?” Souta said.

“Sure is.”

As time passed, the shock like lightning racing around in his body settled down. When he tried thinking about it, this wasn’t a bad thing. You were denounced as a pervert for sneaking into a girls’ school only because the others were girls. If they were both guys, then it was actually nothing worse than two pitiful people sharing woe, and a younger boy was easier to be around and easier to handle than a younger girl. Souta was used to that with the soccer club, after all.

But still…

Souta pretended he’d known this person was a boy all along, but inside, he was completely shocked. He’d totally thought he was a girl. Now that things were like this, he didn’t doubt it, but without material proof, he wouldn’t have been able to believe someone telling him this was a boy. Now that he thought about it, though, that pull on Souta’s hand had been strong, with no reserve in the way he held it—put in a less flattering way, it had been rough. If you’d told Souta those fingers and nails touching his skin had been a guy’s, that would have made sense. He also dressed nothing like a girl with the values of that age bracket, like trying to look nice or fashionable, and he was actually a boy.

But still, Souta really had gotten the wrong idea. It wasn’t just the way he looked, or his face. Seen from behind, he’d walked slightly pigeon-toed, with small steps, and as if he was walking with grace, even though it was an emergency situation. His walk was ladylike and quiet, just as Souta imagined a “girl walk” to be.

After coming out of the bathroom, the two of them sat down at their original table and started talking, the atmosphere more relaxed than before. Just the other person being a boy made Souta less nervous. That they’d stood side by side in the john together put him even more at ease.

“You’re not…a magical girl from around here, are you?” said Souta.

“My normal route’s a long ways from here,” the boy replied.

“I’ve heard it’s kinda rare for boys to become magical girls.”

“I think we’re really rare. This is the first I’ve ever met another one.”

“Two rares meeting each other by chance is even more rare…but wait, what were you doing there?”

“That’s what I’d like to ask you, dude. What were you doing?”

“You can call me Souta.”

“I’m Kaoru.”

Souta was about to say that Kaoru sounded like a girl’s name, but he bit his tongue. There was absolutely no benefit to angering a fellow magical girl he’d just met.

“You were just thinking that even my name is girly, weren’t you?”

Souta choked. Wiping off the coffee he’d spewed on the table, he looked over at Kaoru to see him smiling like he was amused. His smile had a feminine aura.

“No I wasn’t,” Souta retorted. “Anyway, what’d you come here to do?”

“The higher-ups got an anonymous tip that someone might be breaking the rules… Whoops, better keep that just between us. That and the fact that I’m even here. And I’d appreciate it if you didn’t share our secret with any of your friends, too.”

“Oh, yeah. I get it, sort of.”

Were the “higher-ups” that Kaoru spoke of with the Magical Kingdom? Fav had made vague mentions of some sort of big magical-girl administrative body.

That made sense. If Calamity Mary was doing just as the rumors said, there was no way an organization governing magical girls could stand by and do nothing. Maybe La Pucelle hadn’t needed to act on her own.

“Why were you there, Souta?”

“Um, I heard she was doing bad stuff…and I figured I couldn’t just stand there and do nothing.”

Compared with a professional like Kaoru, who’d been deployed under orders from the “higher-ups,” Souta was only able to say something like a small child would, which utterly embarrassed him. To distract himself from his embarrassment and irritation, he chugged a big mouthful of coffee and choked a bit.

In sharp contrast with Souta’s mental state, Kaoru laughed like he was entertained. “I like that! Makes you sound like a superhero!”

“…It does? I don’t like to admit it, but it feels like I didn’t get anywhere.”

“That’s not true at all. It’s cool, really cool. I like that sort of thing. The magical girls I know have all sort of shifted away from the business, so they don’t act out of a sense of justice or anything like that.”

“Huh.”

“I think it’s great. So that’s where the whole knight look comes from?”

“I sort of get that feeling, yeah.”

“I’ve heard that usually guys who can turn into magical girls are the type whose transformations aren’t much off from their original form, but it’s amazing you change that much. Horns and a tail, and the length of your hair is totally different, with perfect eye shadow, and you have a big butt and boobs.”

Hearing the words “butt” and “boobs” with that girlish innocent smile made Souta choke again. “Well, um…now that you mention it, you come off pretty similar as a magical girl, Kaoru.”

“Apparently, that’s more common. I mean, that’s just what I’ve heard. Not like I really know. There are hardly any guys in this business in the first place. Today’s the first day I met one aside from myself.”

“I heard from Fav—um, from a mascot—that we’re unusual, but using my body has never felt off to me. I know someone who’s a robot-type magical girl—never mind pretransformation gender, doesn’t that seem like it’d feel weirder?”

“So there’s other amazing ones out there, huh…? Wow, N City’s got it good.”

“Oh, so robots are unusual, after all? I kinda got the feeling maybe they were.”

The two of them thoroughly discussed various topics about magical girls. It was the time of day when the restaurant would gradually get more crowded, but no one appeared to be listening in on their conversation. The two boys just talked—about magical girls they knew or had seen on TV.

Souta had been speaking timidly at first, always checking on their surroundings, but before he knew it, he got sucked into the conversation, leaning forward enthusiastically. “Is your magic your computer, Kaoru? Or your shield? They both looked like magic items to me.”

“Well…both, I guess. My magic lets me use other people’s magic items decently well. Not as well as the owner, but good enough.”

“Aha, so there’s another person who gets to use items that weren’t their own.”

“Huh? You’re not that surprised? I thought it was a pretty rare power.”

“Oh, I just know a magical girl who keeps coming to sell off items she made.”

“…N City’s got it real good.”

And magic wasn’t the only thing they talked about; they discussed the struggles of boys who loved magical girls and the embarrassment of being a magical girl among all girls. Souta complained about how, although he was glad the others didn’t feel they had to be reserved with him, magical girls were far too lacking in restraint, and shouldn’t they keep their cards a little closer to their chests? Kaoru complained about how it was fine to make plots, but he didn’t really like it when they were so secretive that they’d say nothing right up until push came to shove. They shared their memories of the first anime magical girls they’d seen—Miko for Souta and Kiyoko for Kaoru. Souta got really worked up talking about Cutie Healer, and by the time they finished discussing how Cutie Healer Galaxy should have ended, Kaoru had an awkward look on his face. Souta somehow got the feeling that Kaoru had slid his chair several inches backward. Souta must’ve gotten a little too worked up.

Souta also spoke passionately about La Pucelle’s story background and what her actual activities were like. Kaoru was particularly interested in the magic sword that could grow and shrink, questioning Souta in detail about the conditions for activation and how it was used. Souta proudly explained the details, but when he said maybe it would be a good idea to actually show Kaoru, he turned his eyes to the window to see it had gotten dark.

No sooner had he noticed this than he rose to his feet. A middle schooler in uniform chatting in the Jounan district late at night could easily wind up with local cops escorting him home. And his mother might also be worried about him, not coming home even though his club activities were over. If she called the school, then it’d even be exposed that he’d skipped club.

Timidly turning his eyes out the window, Souta checked the road in both directions. The sketchy-looking men had disappeared earlier. It was just students and salarymen and such walking along outside.

“I guess I should go soon.” Kaoru stood along with Souta. “I figure it’s gotta be okay by now.”

“Oh yeah… Of course.”

“I had fun today. Hope we run into each other again.” Kaoru offered his hand, and, after pausing a moment, Souta shook it.

“Yeah, that was nice… It’s been a long time since I’ve talked so much about magical girls. Let’s meet up again.”

Kaoru’s handshake was firm, but he was kind of pigeon-toed, and his bearing was timid and restrained.

Now Souta felt even more strongly that it wasn’t just Kaoru’s appearance that had made Souta mistake him for a girl, but that his gestures were a large part of it, too. Even if he was a boy—no, precisely because he was a boy, perhaps he was trying to reduce the sense of something being off post-transformation by adopting feminine body language.

Deep down, Souta thought very earnestly, Man, the pros are so different.

  Kaoru Osanai

Twenty minutes after parting ways with Souta, Kaoru sat down around the middle of the stone steps up to a small shrine on the west end of the Jounan district. He was tired enough that a sigh slipped out of him automatically. Talking with Souta had been a lot of fun, and Souta himself was a good guy, but all the stuff Kaoru was carrying had restricted his movement, and it had been really uncomfortable. Kaoru took out the piano wire, chains, and steel wire that had been wrapped inside his shirt, and the steel plate that had been tucked underneath his parka, and from the pockets of his cargo pants, he pulled out a remote control, black powder, sleeping powder, grenades, an incendiary device, a stun gun, and more, lining everything up on the stone steps to confirm that he hadn’t overlooked anything before packing all of it into a small bag. There was magic cast on each item, so they were even more incredible.

La Pucelle bursting in had forced Stella Lulu to escape a bit earlier, which had reduced the number of items she’d plundered somewhat, but she’d been able to acquire no few magic weapons. Disarming all the alarms and booby traps one by one as she made her way along had been a real struggle, and even after that, carrying these piles of pillaged goods had kept her from moving freely, and it had been an uncomfortable experience, but it had been worth it. Stella Lulu had heard that in N City, there was a magical girl who used various magical items, but these were more impressive than the rumors said.

Still, Stella had heard that the examiner running the magical-girl exam being held in this city was the Musician of the Forest, Cranberry. She was the strongest of the strong, having come from the Archfiend Cram School and graduating by landing a hit on the Archfiend Pam. If Kaoru got carried away and tried to acquire even more items, he was bound to catch the examiner’s eye, and it would be unbearable to witness if the resistance was arrested one after another after him.

Resistance efforts against the tyranny and oppression of the Magical Kingdom had to be carried out surreptitiously. Nobody knew what the Magical Kingdom was really up to, so you could never be too careful where it was concerned. He should be satisfied with this much.

He had considered nabbing La Pucelle’s sword while he was at it, but talking to Souta had put Kaoru off from acting on that desire. Doing that sort of thing to a good magical girl like him wasn’t to Kaoru’s taste—though maybe his older sister would do it. If it came down to a full-scale showdown with the Magical Kingdom, then maybe La Pucelle would be an enemy…but he couldn’t rule out the possibility that she might be an ally as well.

The next time they met, Kaoru would try having a deeper, more meaningful chat. He shouldered his bag and trudged away from the shrine.