Mahou Shoujo Ikusei Keikaku - Volume 4 - Chapter 11

Knight on the Day of the Offline Meetup

This story is set a few months before the competition for magical candy in Magical Girl Raising Project begins.

An off-kai. An offline meetup.

A gathering where people who knew one another through online chat, message boards, or MMORPGs eat, drink, sing, chat, and hang out in real life.

He’d thought about going to a meetup more than just once or twice. Souta Kishibe had a secret love of magical girls, so the chat board on the general fan site was the one place where he could loudly proclaim his love for them.

The general magical-girl site Magi-magi Cal-cal covered media from every possible source on the topic, and it had a message board boasting the largest number of posts not only among magical-girl sites but among all anime sites, as well as a great variety of threads.

He knew all the regulars on this message board, as well as who liked which shows, which characters, and which sorts of stories. Sometimes they’d fight over the theories behind the works; other times they’d debate interpretations, pore over magical-girl history, or talk about their passions to make one another into better fans.

Every time a meetup was planned and then actually happened, Souta would read the reports with a sober eye: Hmph! Well, aren’t they cozy? Sometimes he’d think, If they want to talk, they could just do it in chat or on the message board. But at the same time, he’d also think, Aw, they look like they’re having fun or If I’d been there, I wonder what we would have talked about.

Souta had signed copies of the first-edition Cutie Healer manga. He had the gold version of the PlayStation edition of Star Queen. He had the Hiyoko transformation set, which had quickly ended up recalled due to numerous people getting their fingers stuck in the joint parts.

Only people who shared his interests would understand the value of these rare items, and he wanted to brag about them. In his real life, he didn’t have anyone he could even admit it to, never mind bragging.

Souta was in his second year of middle school. This was the age when kids were most concerned about image. The whirlpool of values he lived among told him nothing was worse than being uncool. To make it worse, Souta was in the soccer club. He had always been a jock. And the current captain of the soccer club in particular was the hard-line jock type who would mock indoor types at every chance with comments like, “Why’s the glasses count in the science club so high?” And these days, the whole soccer club had basically become like that. Souta just went with the flow and basically ignored it, but he didn’t even want to think about what would happen if they found out he liked magical girls.

Some of the guys in the club liked anime and manga. But even those otaku boys weren’t purely devoted to magical girls like Souta was. The eyes of the world would surely be kinder if he were into shounen manga and similar interests. But not with this. The world would only perceive him as a creep panting over underage animated girls.

To Souta Kishibe, being exposed as a magical-girl fan was basically social suicide. He absolutely could not let this secret get out.

This was the first reason he couldn’t go to any meetups. If he went, someone he knew could see him and ask, “Huh? Kishibe? What’re you doing here? What kind of meetup is this?” And if he failed to come up with a good lie, from the next day forward, he could be sure there would be no place for him at school.

There was one more reason. On the site, Souta had lied about his sex. He was a so-called G.I.R.L.—Guy In Real Life.

He wasn’t trying to catfish anyone, and it wasn’t like he had any twisted desires, as far as he could tell. He’d just settled down into the position without even realizing it, and at some point, he was pegged as a woman, and everyone had ended up calling him “sis.” Maybe it was because of his user name, “Magical Girly.”

Souta had heard plenty of funny stories about a girl meeting someone at a meetup and finding out it was a middle-aged man, but he’d never imagined that person being himself. He was not bold enough to join in with a laugh: “Well, I’m actually a boy in middle school.” He was actually on the sensitive side, in his pubescent way.

In real life, he hid his interests, and on the Internet, he couldn’t talk freely about everything. He walked the path of a lonely fan. And it was at that stage, six months earlier, when Souta had encountered the mobile game Magical Girl Raising Project. He had become a real magical girl about two weeks ago.

There had been rumors about the game, saying that people who played it could acquire real magical powers.

However, Souta hadn’t been playing the game with that expectation in mind. Since he wasn’t a girl, even if he were to get magical powers, he’d look like a total disgrace. He could predict just how it would go by imagining himself cosplaying as Cutie Healer or Star Queen. Enjoying a game was one thing, but becoming a real magical girl—or in this case, a magical boy—was just not an option. Souta just had a pure interest in enjoying the game. As a fan, designing his ideal magical girl had to be fun.

But then he’d done it. He became a magical girl.

“Um, I can’t do this. I do like magical girls. But it’s not like I want to be one myself.”

“Well, that’s a problem for us, pon. A boy magical girl is such a rare find.”

“It’s not a rare find. There’s no demand for it!”

“There certainly is, pon.”

“No, there’s not.”

“Oh, there is, pon.”

“No, no!”

“This is getting annoying, so could you just look in the mirror, pon?”

“Gross.”

“How can you be so stubborn about this when you readily accepted that magical girls are real, pon?”

“I mean, they are real. They actually exist.”

“Hey, do you get a lot of people telling you that you don’t listen, pon? I mean, notice your own voice already.”

After that, Fav made a dedicated attempt to persuade him, and Souta did look in the mirror, find out about his magical powers, and conduct his own examination to confirm that he had actually become a girl. And so Souta Kishibe accepted the identity of the magical girl La Pucelle.

Magical girls. Ever since kindergarten—when Souta had first watched an anime about them with his childhood friend—they had captivated him with their big dreams, mysterious magic, hard work to make people happy, and sometimes, battles against evil. Now he had become one.

For his first week as a magical girl, he was incredibly busy. He was only using his spare time to help people, so he couldn’t be that busy, but he just wasn’t used to it. All the various tasks he had to do, like networking with senior magical girls and keeping his identity hidden as he helped people, were mentally exhausting.

However, after that week, he started getting the hang of it. It became part of his daily routine to sneak out of his bedroom window at night to go search the town for people in trouble, help them out, earn candy, and then return in the morning.

When you get used to things, you gain some extra time. And once you’ve got extra time, you end up thinking too much.

Souta had believed a boy like him could never become a magical girl, so he’d been wildly overjoyed to become one, but with some time, that had cooled down a bit. Now that he’d regained some calm, he thought that perhaps he could use this power for ill.

The first thing that came to his mind was I could be a robber and absolutely never get caught. But then he panicked and erased that thought. It wasn’t like such a thing had never happened in slapstick magical-girl gag manga, but for a real heroine, engaging in criminal activity was inexcusable. In the Cutie Healer series, Dark Cutie had once attacked a bank, but that had ultimately been the act of a villain. There was another one called Baby Crown, which featured a phantom thief who stole things with magic, but that was a different character type from the pure, noble knight La Pucelle.

Having reached the conclusion that theft was bad, the next thing Souta thought about as he lay in bed was If I transform, I could get into the women’s bath. And then he felt ashamed of his own pettiness for coming up with that idea. But even as he was ashamed, he took that thought one step further.

If he were to transform…then couldn’t he go to an offline meetup?

There were two reasons he hadn’t been able to go before: One, if someone he knew happened to see him, he’d be in trouble, and two, he’d been lying about his sex online. But both of those problems would be solved by transforming into La Pucelle, right? He might be able to go to a meetup just like he’d always wanted.

With that thought, he looked at La Pucelle’s figure, reflected in the mirror. She had horns. That was a problem. Normal people didn’t have those. She also had a tail. Another wrench in the works. As he had tweaked things here and there in creating his ideal avatar, he had added dragon-like elements to a plain knight, resulting in this.

But if he could hide these two things, couldn’t he go to the meetup?

Souta detransformed and booted up his computer. The next one would already have been scheduled. He checked the date and time of the upcoming event in the meetup thread on Magi-magi Cal-cal. It was exactly one week away. Sunday. It would be at a family restaurant in the city. The plan was apparently to go to the restaurant in the afternoon and then head off to a second and then third location in the evening.

I…I wanna go…

Thinking about how he might be able to do it really made him want to join in. He wanted to talk about magical girls. He wanted to chat. He wanted to argue pet theories with the others. He wanted to brag. Oh, and he’d heard that the last time, they had planned some kind of magical-girl niche trivia tournament. How far could he go with his knowledge? Even if he couldn’t win, he could rank pretty high up there, couldn’t he?

He couldn’t even sit still thinking about all this. Before he knew it, he’d sneaked in a message on the meetup thread, saying he wanted to go.

So Magical Girly is coming. First time?

I’m glad Magical Girly’s coming.

Souta got these kinds of comments in response to his declaration he would go. There was no backing out now. He had no choice but to steel himself and go to the meetup.

He would transform into La Pucelle, take off his magical-girl costume, change clothes, and pretend to be your everyday, average girl, then head out to the meetup. That was the strategy he had come up with.

The horns and tail would be in the way, so he would hide them.

I can just hide the horns under a knit cap… Or so he’d thought, but they turned out to be longer than he’d figured and poked right through. A cap was no good. He needed a real hat—one that was as tall as possible, too. Then he could hide the horns.

Souta looked. He didn’t have anything like that.

He could borrow one, but there was no one for him to borrow it from. None of his friends or acquaintances were the fashionable types who would have a lot of hats. And since he was an only child, he had no siblings to lend him anything, and he couldn’t count on his mom or dad, either. If he asked any of the girls in his class or that girl who was his childhood friend, “Hey, can I borrow a hat?” they might treat him like a pervert. Sister Nana, the senior magical girl he knew, might have a hat like that, but still, how could he ask her for one? If he were to tell her he wanted it to hide his horns, he’d obviously be forced to admit his reason for hiding them. His pure and noble image as a knight would crumble, and Sister Nana would feel sorry for him, mock him, or condescend to him, and he didn’t want any of those reactions.

He could wrap a towel around them like a turban? Or harden his hair with wax to hide the horns? Or wear a veil like Sister Nana’s? None of these ideas really felt quite right.

Should he give up on the meetup? But he had a feeling that if he bailed now, he’d never be able to go to another for the rest of his life.

Souta opened up his short wallet and pulled out the cash card tucked inside. On that card was money for a new pair of soccer cleats. He’d scrimped and saved for this, tucking it away slowly, bit by bit, from his allowance, from New Year’s money, and from the little extra his mom gave him when she got him to go shopping for her.

Souta looked at the card. Now he was standing at a crossroads.

Down one path was magical girls. Down the other was soccer. Both of these things occupied important positions in Souta’s life. But he had to choose. He couldn’t pick both. He didn’t have enough savings for that right now.

Souta chose magical girls.

Soccer was important to him. He still hadn’t abandoned his dream of becoming a pro and playing in Europe. But at the current point in time, he was already a pro magical girl. So he should prioritize that…probably.

He used a seasonal discount ticket to connect between limited express trains until he reached Tokyo Station, which was so big, it made his head spin. Multiple times, he had to ask a station employee about which platform to go to, and after a number of stops, he arrived at his goal. He was wearing a hat called a “cloche,” which hung down over his whole head to cover his horns, and he could pull it down to hide everything above his eyes. The shape of his lower body he concealed with an ankle-length skirt that flared out. This kept his tail under wraps.

He’d bought all these things from the neighborhood department store, so there was no helping the overall cheap-looking aesthetic, but it did work more or less. Underwear was the one thing he just couldn’t bring himself to buy, so he used La Pucelle’s costume as is for that.

He’d come from his house to Tokyo in this outfit. He wanted to believe that the occasional glances he got were not because he looked weird. He was pretty sure there were only a few minor things about him that were off—like the mismatched look with his sneakers and travel backpack, and how the size of the sneakers was a bit wrong, making him walk sort of funny.

Maybe I should have gotten changed somewhere after all.

He’d thought about going into some bathroom to get changed, but it would be weird if Souta Kishibe were to go into the bathroom and then come out as La Pucelle. He was sure the best way to do it was to wait for the moment when both his parents were out of the house, transform, and then sneak out so that no one would see him.

Such worries had plagued Souta on the way as he was rocked on the train, but when he arrived at the family restaurant that was the venue for the meetup, he found a number of people who looked like they’d come for the event had arrived and were chatting pleasantly. He recognized the words they were using.

When he approached the group, they all suddenly went quiet and looked at La Pucelle. Nervous, he bowed his head. “Um, is this the meetup?”

“Yes, it is.”

“Nice to meet you. I’m Magical Girly.”

“Oh, you’re Magical Girly?”

“Wow, you’re just like I imagined! You startled me!”

“You’ve got such nice skin!”

The welcome made him breathe a sigh of relief. He shuffled to a seat among the group and sat down. If the captain of his soccer club had been there, he would have said of the crowd, “The glasses count here is way too high!” But they were the people Souta most wanted to see right then. This family restaurant was no different from the branch in his hometown, and their corner of it had become a gathering spot for magical-girl talk. So this is a meetup, Souta thought, heart pounding.

“Hello, hello, I’m Genopsyko.”

“Oh. You’re Genopsyko? Thanks so much for all you’ve done for us.”

Genopsyko was a central figure on the message board. She was a somewhat round young woman. She was basically what Souta had imagined. She gave him a beaming smile as she reached out to a large serving of fries. “I thought you were the type who wouldn’t come to these things, Magical Girly.”

“Ah-ha-ha.”

“You’re really pretty.”

“Oh, not at all.”

“You’re not in the business, are you? You’ve got the face, and the body type, and…the vibe.”

“Pardon?”

“Oh, if you don’t get what I’m talking about, then please, don’t worry about it… I wish Pelette could’ve come. Then we’d have the full set of regulars.”

“Does Pelette not come to meetups?”

“They’ve never come before.” Genopsyko’s voice got quieter, and she leaned in toward La Pucelle. “I think they’re probably someone from the production side. If they were to show their face here, some of us would recognize them, so they can’t go to meetups. That sort of deal.”

“Ohhh, that sort of deal.”

Pelette was another regular on the message board who knew even more about magical girls than Souta did. They were a big fan of Magical Daisy in particular, and a certain post of theirs beginning with the line “Magical Daisy is over, and so is my youth” had become a meme.

This tidbit from Genopsyko kinda sounded like gossip, but it also had a subtly realistic edge to it… Souta felt like Pelette had often talked about behind-the-scenes stuff, like interference from sponsors, the relationships between voice actors, and company plans. Mostly in relation to Magical Daisy.

“Even people in the anime business comment on the message boards and stuff, huh?”

“I heard there’s a bunch of people. And then there’s me…heh-heh-heh.”

“Huh? You’re in the business, too, Genopsyko?”

“Ohhh, I can’t really answer that question. Heh-heh-heh.”

Souta moved around to many different seats, introducing himself over and over and chatting.

“You’re not playing Magical Girl Raising Project, Kanossa?”

“I’ve heard about it. But I just can’t bring myself to be interested.”

“It seems like there aren’t many people in Tokyo playing it.”

“It’s unusual for a mobile game to be popular in just one particular region, isn’t it? From what I’ve heard of it, it seems interesting, but for some reason, I just can’t get excited about it. It’s strange. It’s a magical-girl game, so there’s no way I wouldn’t want to play it. And it’s free, too, right? It’s just weird that I’m not into it. I really don’t get it. Maybe it’s age.”

Talking to people, he started to see a little of what their relationships were like, too.

“Watch out for Misoyaki,” one girl said.

“Oh?”

“He gets a little too excited around cute girls.”

Souta glanced over at Mr. Misoyaki. He was a man with a rather unique sense of fashion: He wore a brand-name summer jacket paired with a fan that had the four characters of “magical girl” written on it in elegant grass script. His beard was vaguely sketchy-looking.

“I think we should just ban him. But Genopsyko is lenient when it comes to this stuff.”

“Oh…I’ll be careful.” Souta glanced over at Mr. Misoyaki one more time, and their eyes met. When he gave a little nod, the guy smirked and stood up. Maybe he meant to come over here. Having just been told to watch out for him, this felt a little awkward. Maybe it’d be better to head this off.

Souta said “Pardon me” as he cut through the crowd with a slicing hand and switched to another seat. “Nice to meet you. I’m Magical Girly.” He introduced himself with a smile, but the girl sitting beside him just gave him a little head bob. “Um…”

The girl was looking at La Pucelle with a slightly confused expression. It seemed he was making her uncomfortable, which made him uncomfortable. He grasped for a conversation starter, but she wouldn’t get into any talk about magical girls, or the message board, or even the weather that day. She just nodded or tilted her head and didn’t reply.

“What do you think about that show?”

“…”

“Good thing it’s sunny today.”

“…”

“Magical girls are great, huh?”

“…M’yeah.” That was the only word he got from her their whole conversation.

After that, Souta asked Genopsyko, “Who is she?”

But Genopsyko shook her head and shrugged. “I dunno? Maybe some newbie? I mean, anyone can come if they pay for entry.”

He was just curious about the girl, somehow. She continued to eat alone in silence without participating in the conversation. Something about her reminded Souta of his childhood friend. It wasn’t like their faces were similar, and this girl was quiet and timid, which wasn’t really like his friend, either. Maybe it was her vibe.

Souta was curious, but he didn’t have any more time to spend with her. After chatting up a storm about magical girls, bragging about the rare items he’d brought wrapped in packing material, playing magical-girl word games, getting some souvenirs, then regretting he hadn’t brought things to give out, too, and gently rejecting guys who were giving him too many compliments on his looks, it was already time for his train.

There were still so many things he wanted to talk about, and he was curious about the after-parties, but he had to go home now or his parents would get there before he did. If he got home as La Pucelle and ran into his parents, it’d be a catastrophe. But if he got changed in some bathroom on the way home, he would be forced to walk out of the girls’ side, and that would be a catastrophe, too.

“I really had fun today,” he told everyone.

“I had a great time, too.”

“See you on the boards.”

“We’ll have more meetups, so I hope to see you then, too!”

“Let’s chat about the new Cutie Healer.”

As Souta was leaving, he glanced at the silent girl. She was looking at him, and—though it was very faint—she smiled. Feeling vaguely pleased, Souta left the family restaurant.

There were places he wanted to stop by and things he wanted to see, but Souta didn’t have the time. Telling himself he’d see the sights of Tokyo another time, he checked the path to the station on his map, figured it would be faster to cut through a back alley, and after about five minutes of walking, someone tapped his shoulder from behind. He turned around, surprised.

“Hey, where are you going?” It was Mr. Misoyaki. He was wearing really big sunglasses that he hadn’t used inside the restaurant, making him seem even more suspicious.

“Um, why?”

“You’re asking why I’m here? Well, I can’t let a girl walk back alone, right?”

“No, I’m okay.”

“Don’t be shy.”

He wasn’t being shy, but it didn’t seem this guy would listen.

“Hey, before you go back, why don’t I show you around the area? I live in Tokyo, so I know the place, you know?”

Even Souta, a middle school kid, could put together this guy’s reputation, attitude, and expression to figure out he wanted something. But Souta had no interest at all in giving him what he was after. “No, I have to make my train.”

“It’ll be fine.”

“I have to go home.”

“Going home? That’s no fun.”

“That’s not the issue.”

“Let’s go out to eat somewhere nice, not just a family restaurant. What do you like, French or Italian?”

Souta couldn’t hit the guy, but it didn’t seem like he would shut up and listen, either. Souta could turn around and head to the station, but the guy might keep on following him anyway. And that would really suck.

Souta had never in his life experienced a man persistently trying to hit on him. Of course, he’d never thought about what he might do in this situation, either. His heart started racing. What would a woman do in a situation like this? The more flustered he became, thinking, What should I do? What should I do? the more he panicked. And then, right when he was totally at a loss with no idea what to do…

“Stop right there!”

A girl stood there with the sun at her back. She was wearing a full-body suit like she had jumped out of one of those cheesy special-effects shows, and even with the light behind her, you could clearly tell her face was beautiful. Souta knew she had to be a magical girl.

“Persistently dogging a girl in a deserted alleyway is inexcusable!”

“Wh-what the hell is that outfit?” Mr. Misoyaki stuttered.

“You’re supposed to say, ‘Who are you?!’”

“That’s not the discussion here. And this has nothing to do with you. Butt out.”

“You don’t get that she doesn’t like what you’re doing?”

Mr. Misoyaki and the magical girl were arguing. Across the older man’s shoulder, the magical girl winked at Souta. In other words, she was telling him to hurry up and run away.

So the heroine watching over this area must have come to help him since he was in trouble. Souta bowed to her, then ran for the station as fast as possible. Yes, he most unfortunately ran as fast as possible.

Arriving at the station, he looked over at his backpack to pull out his ticket when he noticed what was wrong.

A magical girl’s costume is specially made to withstand her activity. She can fly far faster than the speed of sound or dive deep underground, but her costume won’t rip or fray. By comparison, human clothing was not made to be worn by magical girls. This was no problem when they ambled along at a normal human pace, but normal clothing didn’t have the durability to withstand full speed.

His skirt had shredded, his hat had split open, his shirt was a mess, and his backpack, contents and all, was now fit only for the trash. When Souta realized what had happened to his rare items, he wailed. The people around who heard the outcry turned to look at him, which made him scream again. His first cry was a “Yaaargh!” and the second more of an “Eeeeek!”

Did he instantly cover his chest out of reflex? Or was it instinct?

Since now he had no ticket or wallet, he couldn’t take the train back. Worse than that, now he had no clothes. He was so mortified, he couldn’t move his legs. As he slumped there on the ground, a hand rested on La Pucelle’s shoulder.

“…Huh?” The color of his body changed, creating a collar, sleeves, patterns, pockets, and fasteners. At a glance, it would look like skintight clothing.

He rose to one knee and looked behind him. Nothing. Nobody.

“It be no maesterwork, but it’ll ’old till ye reach ’ome.”

He turned around on his knees, then stood up to check everywhere, but there was no one there after all. Still, that voice had not been a hallucination.

Every button or zipper he touched turned out to be his own skin. If you looked closely enough, you’d probably be able to tell that he wasn’t wearing any clothing. But this should be enough to fool people.

He couldn’t understand what had just happened, but it was painfully clear that all eyes around were still locked on him. He had no choice. La Pucelle shook off their gazes and ran. It was a long way home, but if he sprinted along the railway line, he should be able to make it.

But…what was this?

There was no way anyone but a magical girl could have done this. Was Tokyo a city full of them, where one would pop up every time there was a problem? Was that because of its population density?

The next day, Souta read the report on the meetup, which said that Magical Girly was cute, and smiled weakly.

She’d believed the hotel pamphlet when it said you could see the Tokyo Skytree from the window, but now that she was there, a building under construction was in the way, and she wasn’t able to see even the tip of the tree. Pressing up against the window, she’d thought maybe, somehow, she could see it, but the only result was a mark from her cheek on the glass.

Sitting on the bed of the business hotel, Mashiro Kuji was in low spirits.

Cranberry had given her an order: “Melville? I have a request of you, do you mind? A certain magical-girl website is planning a meetup soon, and I’d like you to infiltrate them. They say many of these fans possess aptitude for the role. If you find anyone with potential, then scout them… Oh, no, it will be quite all right. I know you can do it. So do your best! Go!”

And things had gone fine until she’d actually managed to sneak into the meetup. But she had felt too awkward to talk to people, and to make it worse, La Pucelle, a participant in Cranberry’s current exam, had shown up in transformation at one point. In a panic, Mashiro had hardly been able to do her job at all through to the end of the meetup. Cranberry had made this request of her because she’d believed in Mashiro…in Melville, the magical girl. But at this rate, she couldn’t even make an excuse to Cranberry.

La Pucelle had talked to her about a bunch of things, and Mashiro, concerned for her, had followed her out, but the one to save her had been Genopsyko Yumenoshima. Still invisible, Melville had missed her opportunity to appear. The one thing she had accomplished was saving La Pucelle when she’d lost her clothes. If Melville had done nothing and left La Pucelle helpless, it might have hindered Cranberry’s exam in some way. In other words, Melville had been useful to Cranberry…probably. She wanted to believe that.

Mashiro reflected on her day. She wasn’t good at talking to people, and she was even worse at mingling with groups of strangers. But if she just decided she was bad and left it at that, she wouldn’t grow. She made up her mind not to be shy about her accent and to do her best to try talking to people.