Mahou Shoujo Ikusei Keikaku - Volume 13 - Chapter 1

CHAPTER 1

THE SCHOOL BELL IS THE OPENING THEME

  Tetty Goodgripp

It was a three-minute walk from her house to the closest station. From there, she would sway on the train for two stops to emerge from the west exit of the biggest station in the city. It was another minute’s walk from there to her destination, where she would climb up to the seventh floor of the seedy old building that had no elevator—in this day and age!—before finally passing through the school gate. This was the route she was supposed to be taking to school.

But travel costs were generally on your own dime, and that was too much effort to bother with every morning. So Fujino Tohyama would start by transforming into the magical girl Tetty Goodgripp, then sprint past two stations, run over some boxy concrete public buildings, a few private residences, and lots of telephone poles, iron towers, and electrical lines, before entering the building from the roof. The door up there wasn’t locked, something she chose to interpret as an act of kindness toward magical girls from those in charge. The strange floating sensation she felt going through the gate got her excited the first time, but by the second time, she was used to it; after the fifth time, it was boring; and now she felt nothing. It was no different than any mundane form of public transportation.

Detransforming as she came down the stairs, Fujino felt a bit Cinderella-like as she stood before the door. This was one of the Magical Kingdom’s gates that instantly transported you to a designated destination.

The gate was in front of her, but Fujino didn’t go through it yet. First, she smacked her cheeks twice, hard. Harmony, unity, tranquility, safety—the more peaceful and idyllic an idea was, the more strength it required to see it to fruition. You couldn’t be the student rep of a magical-girl class just by being nice. Once she was feeling fully fired up, Fujino inputted the numbers and letters into the console beside the door and went through the gate.

Her surroundings shifted from concrete to wood.

She had instantly teleported from the reinforced concrete tower to the old wooden school building, and by the time she noticed that the atmosphere had changed, Fujino found herself in completely different scenery. She pushed open the door to the courtyard; at this time of day, only people involved with the magical-girl class would be in here, so she didn’t need to worry about bumping into someone who would question her presence.

This place was affiliated with Umemizaki Junior High School, more or less—externally, they were calling this an AP class—but the two institutions were completely separate, with no connection between the magical-girl campus and the new school building. The Magical Kingdom must have wanted to eliminate even the slightest risk that this secret class would be leaked.

Fujino strode across the pristinely manicured lawn, went over the light brown brick path that cut through the courtyard, then called out to someone bent over by a wheelbarrow filled with a bucket and pruning shears.

“Good morning.”

“Oh, good morning, Tetty. You’re looking cheerful as usual this morning.”

Between the dirt-stained green overalls covered in small leaves, the white towel wrapped around their neck with a local bank’s logo, and slightly worn knee-high rubber boots, this individual who looked like a bona fide gardener was actually a mage. This mage had shown Fujino many spells before, such as making weeds soar into the air like birds before dropping them into a wheelbarrow or running a lawn mower without laying a hand on it.

“A good day to you.” Still bent over, the mage turned toward Fujino and smiled.

Fujino returned the smile and replied, “You too.” The mage gave two slow nods in a kind gesture. Every one of this person’s smallest gestures and words were languid, easygoing.

When Fujino was still in elementary school, she’d had a next-door neighbor named Mr. Satou who talked at a similarly slow pace. He was a sweet old man who gave Fujino a few candies to take home every time she saw him.

She wasn’t in elementary school anymore. Now she was a full-fledged middle school student, and most importantly, she was a magical girl. No matter how lenient a person seemed, she had enough sense not to say out loud something rude like, “You remind me of this old man who used to live next door to me.” So she kept that thought to herself and called the mage Mr. Satou in her mind.

Something about this mage was mysteriously calming. Those of Fujino’s classmates who associated with mages a lot often complained about them, claiming they were all nasty people who look down on magical girls. “So useless, considering how arrogant they are,” her classmates would say, or “They act like they’re so much better than everyone,” but you couldn’t know those things unless you actually dealt with them.

Fujino left the mage version of Mr. Satou and strode briskly into the school building.

Unlike what you might imagine from the words “old school building,” the interior was surprisingly new. Apparently, it had been renovated immediately after it was designated for use with magical-girl classes. The linoleum in the hallways had a spring to it, like a major hospital or private library, and Fujino thoughtlessly rushed on and onward, slowing down only when she noticed the sign reading NO RUNNING IN THE HALLS pinned to the wall with thumbtacks. Not that she had to rush anyway; her destination wasn’t far. From the courtyard, she went along a covered walkway up to the bathrooms, which were only five seconds from her classroom.

In front of the classroom stood three girls with their heads together, talking. They were all Fujino’s classmates, members of Group Three. They must have heard Fujino coming, as they all turned to her.

Before they could call out to her, Fujino raised a hand and greeted them with “Morning,” and a smile.

The girl with long, straight black hair with blunt bangs and similarly blunt layers next to her face—her magical-girl name was Princess Lightning—quietly replied, “Morning.” Her face was so frighteningly beautiful—even though she wasn’t transformed!—that the slightest movement of one feature cranked the tension up. When she parted her deep red lips and let her clear voice sound, that tension reached its zenith. Or maybe it was just Fujino who felt that way, but it did actually make her palms sweaty, and sometimes, her voice would even tremble.

When she had first joined the class, she’d been overwhelmed by Princess Lightning’s uncanny beauty, and it had been difficult to even say hi. But ever since that field trip before Golden Week when she had seen Princess Lightning stuffing her face with what had seemed like an armful of rice balls, Fujino had relaxed a bit, and now she could exchange a few words with her, at least.

And then the next girl. The right side of her head had been shaved to reveal a tattoo of a chimeric yokai—a Nue—that went over her head to her cheek, in a style sort of like an ink-wash painting. On the left side, her unshaved hair was in a mohawk that went in a circular fire pattern. This girl was Diko Narakunoin. She just bowed her head without a word.

Diko had shocked Fujino in a different way when she’d first seen her. But when Fujino recalled the school rules, they’d said nothing about hair or tattoos. Diko was equally stoic in nature, like she did her own thing—in the class book-report contest, when everyone else had picked books about magical girls, she’d been the one person to select classical literature from the Taisho period.

The third girl—Ranyi—had a light brown ponytail that went down her back; she likewise replied “Morning,” but her expression was not friendly. She made it clear with that look that she wanted to go back to talking with her clique. She could be particularly exclusionary, even compared to the other members of Group Three. During their night marches, she would never leave her group, and even if you tried to approach to talk to her, she would hardly even reply.

Looking at them made her remember the clique of girls back in elementary school who would whisper among themselves over every little thing. Girls would mutter that they had bad vibes, while the boys would point and call them nasty, but they never stopped doing it, and they’d stayed like that until graduation. Fujino had thought both then and now that if she could just have a proper conversation with these girls, they could make friends. Maybe it was actually because she’d been unable to make friends with those girls in elementary school that she felt this way now.

Passing in front of the girls, she went into the classroom.

When she had attended a regular middle school, there had been a hidden division between cliques. There had been a hierarchy derived from the combination of various elements: who stood out and who was more reserved; who had talent and who didn’t; hobbies and interests; clubs and after-school activities; good-looking or ugly; personality, nature, and disposition. This hierarchy couldn’t be seen with the eye or expressed in words, but it had been real, and all the girls in her class had been clearly aware of it.

She really hadn’t been fond of that tendency. But even so, you couldn’t live life as a student if you ignored it.

“Morning, guys,” she said.

“Morning!”

“Good morning, Tetty.”

“Morn-ning.”

“Morn.”

Since magical-girl school was for socially aware magical girls to get together and learn with the shared goal of becoming full-fledged professional magical girls, Tetty had assumed there would be no such hierarchy or divisions. But when she actually entered the class, she’d found they were generally divided into the same groups, leading to the disappointing clique situation. As the student rep, Tetty wanted this to be a class where people could make friends beyond such social boundaries.

Group Three made no attempt to be friendly with other groups. They would do no more than say hi or speak on specific business matters. Just one member of the group, Sally Raven, would respond with a smile, while the rest of them offered only curt reception.

Group Two had Fuuko Sayama, who had been in Fujino’s class in elementary school. Not only that, Fuuko had also become a magical girl in the same exam as her—her magical-girl name was Mephis Pheles. They’d grown apart after Fujino changed schools, but after several years, they were miraculously reunited in this class. When the class had first started, they’d been on fairly good terms, but a spat over a game of cards had led to them talking less.

Fortunately, her own group was full of good girls. At first, they’d been pretty stiff, but a month of classes had fixed that. They’d experienced many events together—a field trip, night marches, a group-wide choral competition, a book-report contest. They had now become friendly enough that when they all went out on Golden Week to the amusement park, they talked about how, if they’d become friends a little earlier, then maybe they could have gone out together before the holiday, too.

Miss Ril broke the ice, her plump frame quivering. “Have you heard, Tetty? There’s a transfer student coming.”

“A transfer student? Guess we get those here, too.”

Miss Ril usually wore a gentle smile, but right now, her eyebrows were drawn up in excitement. She hadn’t been this worked up since that basketball game during their rec time, when she’d been unfairly judged for traveling.

And Miss Ril wasn’t the only one so up in arms.

“And get this! Apparently, it’s not just any transfer student!”

“Not just any transfer student…?” said Tetty. “You mean she’s a magical girl, right?”

“Well, duh, if she’s transferring into a magical-girl class! But that’s not what I mean! It’s a bigger deal than that! I mean like one of these!” Rappy Taype said with a grin. She held her wrists out as if they were handcuffed, the chestnut-colored hair piled on top of her head swaying with the movement. She was loud in general, but today she was even louder—and quite excited. Being so close to her shouting made Fujino’s ears ring. During rec time, the volume and energy of her voice alone would pull the whole team along after her, but Fujino felt it was a little too loud for regular use.

“Prizun.” The sisters Arc Arlie and Drill Dory folded their arms, nodding twice in the same manner, like carbon copies.

“Huh? A pri…what? A prison?” Fujino repeated.

Between their skin that was even darker than Rappy’s, light brown eyes reminiscent of hazelnuts, long black hair that was naturally wavy, and broken speech, Arlie and Dory were clearly foreigners, although Fujino couldn’t really figure out where they were from. They weren’t fluent enough to explain it. Studying for tests was always an ordeal for them.

Dory repeatedly said, “Prizun,” while Arlie nodded along every time.

“I heard she came to school in cuffs! Isn’t that bonkers?!” cried Rappy.

“Wait, what? That’s what you meant by prison?” said Fujino. “Not that she worked at a prison?”

“She’s the real deal! Just outta the slammer!”

“Mafia!”

“Pushy, pushy!”

“I hope she isn’t a serious offender,” said Miss Ril.

“Uh, yeah, she obviously is! A legit gangster, a real baddie!” Rappy squealed.

“Ohhh, so that’s why Group Three left the classroom to talk.” Fujino peered toward one corner of the room. Group Two was huddled over there, having a discussion of their own.

“This transfer student will be in Group Two, won’t she?” said Miss Ril.

“Numberwise, I guess so,” Fujino replied.

“Fiiive.”

“Fourrr.”

“I’m so glad we’ve got five people in our group!” said Rappy. “Seriously, what a relief! If we had four, that’d mean we’d get stuck with the ex-con, right?! No way do I wanna be watching my back while we’re all doing stuff together!”

“You don’t have to be so nasty about it,” Fujino told her.

“I’m not being nasty! This is legit scary! For real, though!”

Rappy talked like she wasn’t happy about this news, but she was acting rather gleeful. She’d always been the type who liked events or the excitement of a festival, and she’d get worked up about things, even if they were scary or dangerous.

Miss Ril offered a worried smile, while Fujino spoke vaguely about the matter, then looked away. Glancing over at Group Two, Fujino noticed they were all looking restless, talking on about this or that.

Fujino turned back to her fellow members of Group One and lowered her voice a notch. “Not that I really know, but…this means she did her time properly and was released, right?”

“I’m sure she wouldn’t have come here after escaping,” Miss Ril agreed.

“Prizun break!”

“Season twooo!”

So this transfer student coming in after everyone else was just out of prison. Group Two was seriously unlucky, having to welcome her as a member of the group. It was only natural that they would be upset, and Fujino felt bad for them, basically being made to take the brunt of the situation.

“Sounds difficult, doesn’t it?” said Miss Ril.

“It really does,” Fujino commented, and when she glanced over to Group Two, her eyes met with those of the one walking toward them.

She was just over five foot six inches tall, with an adult build. Her natural dull blond hair, cut evenly at her shoulders, pale skin, blue eyes, and her magical-girl name on top of that all indicated her European origin. Unlike Arlie and Dory, however, her Japanese was fluent. With a very affable smile, Thunder-General Adelheid raised her right hand with a “Morning.” Miss Ril and Rappy greeted her back as they split away to either side, and Adelheid slid right in.

“Sup. Did y’all hear?” she asked.

“An ex-con, right?! Yeah, I heard! For reals!” Rappy nodded so emphatically that it looked like she was headbanging.

“Adelheid, hasn’t your group heard anything?” Miss Ril asked.

But Adelheid just shrugged theatrically. “Naw, we ain’t got a darn speck o’ information.”

Adelheid was perfectly capable of speaking properly. At the beginning of the first semester, when some big-shot mage had come on inspection, all her responses had been flawlessly enunciated and grammatical; the look on her face back then indicated that this was how she normally spoke. But most of the time she employed a rather dubious accent, yapping about how it’s “all a part o’ my brand.”

“Numberwise, I reckon she’s gon’ join up with Group Two,” Adelheid continued.

“Yeah, probably,” Fujino said.

“Probable.”

“Prob.”

“We were talkin’, sayin’ for starters we’d treat her like a guest and see how things go. But still, Mephis might just randomly start up a scuffle with ’er. Bein’ Mephis, after all.”

Fujino looked over at Group Two. Fuuko Sayama—the magical girl Mephis Pheles—shook her head hard as she asserted something emphatically and repeatedly, while the other two members of her group seemed to be somehow pacifying her. She never changes, Fujino thought with a sigh. Her appearance—big glasses and all her hair gathered in a braid—had changed quite a lot from the past. She was the same on the inside, though. Even if at a glance she looked like a bookworm, she was a delinquent at heart. She got into fights at the drop of a hat.

Ever since elementary school, Fuuko had fought anyone she didn’t like, even boys or older girls, and once she became a magical girl, she’d even challenged her examiner, saying she didn’t like her arrogant attitude. The reason the games of Millionaire the groups had been playing against one another on lunch breaks were now canceled was also because Fuuko had kept losing and gotten mad about it, making a grab at Fujino and causing an uproar, and so the teacher, not wanting to deal with the trouble, had decided that nobody was allowed to bring playing cards to school anymore.

“Well, when problems crop up, come give ’er a hand, Ms. Student Rep. We’ll be countin’ on ya.”

“Huh?”

True, Tetty Goodgripp was the class’s student rep, more or less. But Group Two’s problems should be resolved by Group Two—in other words, their group leader, Mephis Pheles. That was when Tetty realized Group Two was talking about how their leader might start a fight with the new student. She doubted the very person who started a fight would be able to resolve any problems herself.

She glanced over at Miss Ril to see her smiling weakly—“You poor dear,” that expression seemed to be saying.

Rappy was smiling happily, waving both hands at her.

As for Dory, something must have happened, as her eyebrows were angled downward and she was bopping Arlie on the head. Arlie was looking down with a sad expression and letting herself be bopped.

“What are you doing?” Miss Ril asked.

“For real, cut that out!” Rappy joined in.

“Come on, you two; these fights are silly,” Tetty said, and with the help of the other two, they pulled the sisters apart. Despite being a set who were generally glued at the hip, they snapped at each other out of nowhere. It was hard to tell whether they were actually friends.

While calming Dory, she thought about how she didn’t want anyone causing problems. This was an exhausting class, with no lack of kids who would make trouble, though, or seemed like they would, this transfer student included. But somehow, Fujino was attached to them. Maybe it was because this was the first class she’d ever coordinated as the class rep.

  Halna Midi Meren

Two candelabra sat on the metallic table, one on each side. The flickering, wavering sources of light illuminated a mage sitting in a chair and another standing behind said chair. The young woman sitting in the chair, Halna, did not conceal her foul mood. She scowled while the woman of around the same age who stood beside her, Calkoro, shifted her gaze about restlessly, letting her eyes wander aimlessly to the curtains or potted plants, tightly squeezing the brim of the tricorn hat she held against her chest as if it would be a shield to protect herself.

With the clack, clack of each opening lock, the room became a notch more suffocating. When the second and then the third were unlocked in succession and the heavy fetters were laid on the table, Calkoro audibly swallowed. Halna glared at her out of the corner of her eyes.

Calkoro may have been a talented mage, but she lacked emotional maturity, and that meant she wasn’t the greatest teacher. A timid and overly cautious person who bent to others’ opinions would have students looking down on her in any schoolhouse—to say the least of when you were dealing with magical girls.

Only the security homunculi dispassionately continued working, stacking leg cuffs over the arm cuffs, removing the helmet that covered the head using three types of screwdrivers, until all the restraints were taken off of the girl in front of them.

Calkoro swallowed again, and Halna sniffed.

The girl’s brilliant silver hair reflected the flickering light of the two candles, her graceful legs extending from the skirt of her uniform. Her healthy figure didn’t look like it had just been released from prison to the outside world, while by contrast, her eyes, narrowed against the light, lacked in vitality and luster.

The magical girl didn’t even glance at the black humanoid figures that stood guard at her sides, looking at Halna, then Calkoro, then Halna again, before shaking her head. Her silver hair, cut evenly at a short length, swayed, fully regaining its original shape in under a second. The gesture could have been merely an expression of her weariness, or intended as a scoff at the two mages, or because she simply didn’t like the position of her hair. No life or emotion showed in her eyes. There was no way to guess at what she might be thinking, or if she was even thinking at all.

Was this just how she was? Or was she suppressing her expression to keep herself from being read?

Halna stroked her pointed ears, not even offering a polite smile as she folded her fingers in front of her chest. She faced the magical girl in an unmannerly pose, sitting on her chair with her chest puffed out and hands folded on the table, and in a tone that was even more difficult to describe as friendly, she said, “Your name?”

The magical girl narrowed her eyes a bit, with no sign of responding, and Halna’s brow furrowed even deeper. Calkoro stared at the carpet and her own toes buried in it. Halna made no attempt to hide the bite in her voice as she repeated, “Your name?”

“Kana,” the magical girl answered briefly. Calkoro breathed a sigh of relief, while Halna snorted in displeasure. The cause of her displeasure was 80 percent the magical girl and 20 percent Calkoro’s timidity.

“You will respond as promptly as possible,” said Halna.

“Okay. Like this?”

Halna cleared her throat in a deliberate-sounding way before she continued. Rather than replying to the magical girl’s question, she continued as if the girl had asked nothing. “I am Halna Midi Meren, and I’m in charge of this school. This is the teacher for your class, Calkoro Culumff. Her magical-girl name is Calkoro.”

“Good to meet you, Halna. It’s good to meet you, Calkoro.”

“Don’t call us by our given names. Address us as teachers.”

“Pardon me, Ms. Meren.”

After clearing her throat once more, Halna continued. “You made mistakes and were imprisoned for it. Your past cannot be erased. However, you have been given the right to attempt to atone for your crimes… Do you understand how extremely lucky you are?”

Kana tilted her head. She didn’t seem to understand.

Halna went on as if she hadn’t seen that. “The old prisons were solely for locking away criminals. It was highly doubtful there was any functional point to them, no honorable mission of giving convicts a chance to reflect on their actions… That was how the prisoners saw it.” She paused for a moment. She waited for Kana’s tilted head to right itself again before continuing, “But now, the prisons are different. Not only are prisoners given the opportunity to reflect, they can demonstrate what they’ve learned via their actions. Locking up trash serves no purpose.” She put particular emphasis on the word “trash,” with a strong bite as if spitting it out. “But through service, that trash…the sinful can engage with society. Rather than being called by an inmate number, a piece-of-trash criminal, something worth less than vomit, you can be treated like an individual magical girl.” She once again stressed the word “trash.”

The magical girl—Kana—slowly shook her head. Halna eyed her with suspicion. “What is it?” she asked.

“My memories were erased. I don’t know anything about me being a criminal.”

A long moment of emptiness passed. Neither Halna nor Kana reacted at all, not even a twitch of eyebrows or cheeks, both of them staring at each other. Trembling, Calkoro squeezed the brim of her hat even tighter.

Halna drew her cheeks into a strained smile. “Robbing a prisoner of their right to reflect on their actions is the height of pointlessness.”

“I agree.”

“No chattering without being spoken to.”

“My pardon.”

Halna folded her fingers together again, and leaning forward slightly more than before—she figured this would give off the air she was trying for—she drew her jaw back. “All you need to think about is being mannerly, obedient, not causing problems, and being useful to others. Don’t talk too much, generally sit waiting in the corner, and only work as much as necessary when it is demanded from you. Expect no commendation, ignore any scorn, and make modesty your principle. Even self-abasing is acceptable—consider that you are being allowed to live in order to serve, and that without service, your life is worthless.”

Halna muttered a few words of a spell, swiftly moving the fingers of her left hand. A piece of paper appeared from thin air, which she sent gliding a few feet over the table, and Kana caught it right before it hit her in the chest. Written on the paper in very small print was a list.

“This is your background,” said Halna. “Memorize it.”

“My background isn’t that I’m a prisoner doing community service?”

Deep wrinkles carved in Halna’s brow. “This isn’t a prison; it’s a school. Ostensibly, it’s a facility for the education of young people. Do you think we can openly announce that we’ve had you transfer in as part of a prisoner-reform program? Of course not; what a ludicrously trash concept.”

Halna snorted, rapping on the desk with the tip of her right index finger. The two homunculi came up at Kana’s sides and took her by her arms; unmoved, Kana looked back at Halna, whose gaze was more irritated than anything else. “Know your place and don’t forget that you are a cursed wrongdoer, but keep that to yourself; don’t tell anyone. I’m sure magical girls like you are good at pretending to be good people.”

“Does anyone else know about my background?”

“Me—the one in charge—Calkoro here, and you. No one else.”

Calkoro flinched at hearing her name. It was such a violent response that Halna felt sorry for her. She was muttering something that sounded like excuses under her breath.

But Halna ignored that with a wave of her hand. Two homunculi dragged Kana out of the room. “Don’t forget—you’re always being monitored,” Halna called out after her.

Then once the door closed, Halna dropped her head back, bent it forward, and returned it to the center position. “Some criminal, acting so full of herself,” she said with a sigh.

She wasn’t actually that angry, but she acted as if she was, since she had no idea where Calkoro might discuss her mood. Being the person in charge mad with rage about the Caspar Faction’s abuses of power would be the easiest thing to make that notorious usurper—Pythie Frederica—believe.

Before Calkoro could make a comment, Halna slammed the desk with her fist, making Calkoro snap her mouth shut and drop her eyes to her feet. The scared woman focused all of her attention there as she dug her feet into the carpet.

Paying her no mind, Halna continued. “Is the Caspar Faction trying to play slick games with me? Do they understand that this isn’t just about the faction—that the future of the Magical Kingdom hangs on this enterprise? To think they would take on the responsibility of sending their best and then drop a prisoner on us… As long as they’re powerful, then character isn’t an issue, is that it? Believing such incredibly archaic ideas will be accepted is the sort of thoughtlessness I’d expect from the Caspars.”

A full ten seconds after Halna finished griping, Calkoro spoke hesitantly. “Their faction…has always been like that, you know.”

There was a cajoling tone in her voice, and Halna didn’t like it. But what irritated Halna more than what Calkoro said was how clearly she could see that Calkoro feared her deficits. Halna bitterly cleared her throat and did not respond to Calkoro’s comment.

  Calkoro

Not a single day had passed since her assignment to Class 2-F when Calkoro didn’t have a stomachache. In day-to-day classes, all the kids lacked any motivation or talent, while during events, they all got carried away and caused trouble for everyone else—there was absolutely nothing good about the group for their teacher. Why had she been forced to make that rule that they couldn’t play cards on lunch breaks? Why couldn’t these kids at least pretend to get along? Calkoro couldn’t understand it.

The students were all management candidates sent in from each faction, and none of them gave a rat’s ass about their teacher’s authority. On her big day—the beginning of her teaching career—Calkoro opened the classroom door brimming with determination. I have to be teacherly, she’d thought, but the moment she’d seen this postapocalyptic-looking girl with her hair in a mohawk and a facial tattoo to boot, that determination fell to pieces: Oh, what’s the use?

And then there was her boss. Her one superior at the school, the principal Helen Midi Meren, could not be called incompetent by any measure. She was from a prestigious family that ranked up there with the Sage Chêne Osk Baal Mel, with skills in magical techniques that rivaled specialists, eyes that could penetrate into the soul, and the strictness to carry out decisions to adopt or eliminate without hesitation. And her appearance was absolutely striking, with the mage-like traits of pointed ears and eyes of different colors, but she also had soft, beautiful features, creating a perfect balance. Halna would sometimes keep things peaceful and occasionally flip a table in anger, and she had the outstanding political ability to tie everything to her benefit and make use of everything she had. She was a great among greats, having risen to deputy chief of the Information Bureau at an unprecedented young age.

She was worthy of respect, but as for whether Calkoro could respect her personality—that was not the case.

The Puk Faction had been pushing for the establishment of a magical-girl school, but the Osk Faction had used the incident Puk Puck had caused as an opportunity to steal it away from them. That was fine; the problems came afterward.

Now that it was no longer solely a Puk Faction enterprise, the further the plans went along, the more self-proclaimed “assistance” joined in. It had begun with a tug-of-war within the Osk Faction, and in the end, the Caspar Faction and other influential aristocrats were sending in their own magical girls to expand the program, and it had turned the school that was supposed to have been for raising magical girls into the stage for a proxy war.

Halna had been in charge of the project, pushing for this enterprise ever since it had been snatched from the Puk Faction, so this was absolutely not the outcome she wanted, but it wasn’t as if she could completely ignore the balance of power. Sneaking into the school to act as the principal here so she could manage things directly, at least, had to be the most she could do.

When the Puk Faction had been the parent organization, they had done two successful test runs here. And they were now making use of the data from those tests—in other words, they’d gone through an alpha and beta edition, and now they were getting started in earnest. Apparently, the plan had been to keep the same teacher as well, but unfortunately—rather, of course—that teacher had been a member of the Puk Faction. Like the majority of those affiliated with the Puk Faction, her name was erased from the register, so they wound up looking for anyone at all for the time being—they’d just had to find a mage who could transform into a magical girl. And so, they’d turned to one student who’d been diligently studying around the clock to become an authority in criminology: Calkoro. She could transform into a magical girl, and based on that alone, she’d been tossed out into the completely different field of education.

And that was how that legendary woman who was always in a mood had become Calkoro’s boss.

Just getting through the day without any major screwups required quick wits, preparation, and consideration, and the bar for such a day was far higher than what Calkoro had imagined. Nothing was good enough to satisfy Halna.

“Pardon me,” Calkoro called, knocking on the door to the teacher’s office before entering.

The silver-haired magical girl Kana had seated herself at the center of the long table and was staring at Calkoro. To an outsider, it looked more like Calkoro was the one being interviewed.

“Are you ready?” she asked.

“I am,” Kana replied.

Calkoro took a moment to mull over her next words. “I suppose you’ve forgotten what I said before.”

“Just what did I forget?” Kana said plainly, her face expressionless.

Calkoro almost got the crazy idea that she was the one doing something bad. She cleared her throat and continued. “Classes are divided into general education and magical-girl education. You will attend the former while untransformed and the latter while in your magical-girl form.”

“I see.” Kana pushed her chair back and stood. “Then let’s go. Show me around.”

Calkoro wondered what to do next. She had meant to say, “Please undo your transformation before going to class,” but Kana seemed not to have picked up on that. Calkoro couldn’t help but feel like Kana was only pretending she didn’t get the hint.

Basically, it made sense to assume that Kana didn’t want to show her human form. The sort of magical girl who would be locked up in a prison would not actually be middle school age in the first place.

As an expert in criminology, Calkoro knew there was no precedent for someone to be judged beyond reform at middle school age or below. If Kana detransformed, it would clearly expose that she was not a middle schooler. That was why she was pretending she didn’t notice and was trying to push through the order.

Calkoro drew back her jaw and let out a little breath, then gestured to the meeting room door. “…Well then, let’s go.”

She would let it go—this time. She would report it to Halna, even knowing that it would anger her, and then look into how it might be dealt with. That way, it would make Halna the one picking a fight with the Caspar Faction—the ones who’d shoved Kana in here—and Calkoro would not take the brunt of it. If Calkoro took issue with her behavior now, then the worst-case scenario would be the Caspar Faction becoming upset with her.

Calkoro had learned how to stay out of danger. Mages with magical-girl abilities were lonely creatures. Magical girls didn’t think of them as one of the group. They thought of them as the dogs of political authorities. The aristocrats of the Magical Kingdom, on the other hand, treated them as items of convenience and did not call them comrades.

So Calkoro had to manage danger delicately and adapt to the needs of the moment. But there would be further opportunities for her boss to yell at her. Halna was already in a foul mood, after having this magical girl straight from prison shoved off on them, so if Calkoro allowed any further unruliness, Halna would get three times more angry than usual. And so Calkoro’s stomach hurt.

Calkoro spared a glance behind her as she and Kana walked down the hallway. Kana’s uniform was torn in various places. What was that about? She couldn’t have been given secondhand clothes.

“What’s going on with your clothes?” asked Calkoro.

“This is my uniform.”

“No, I know that. But it’s damaged in places.”

“I made some adjustments so that it’s easier to move in.”

“…Right.”

Calkoro felt the same uneasiness she had when she’d seen that mohawk on Diko. It was best to throw her hands up; this was none of her concern. She would simply make a note of it later.