Mahou Shoujo Ikusei Keikaku - Volume 4 - Chapter 14

Memories of the Blue Magical Girl

This story is set partly before the game in Magical Girl Raising Project: Restart begins, and partly after the game is over.

You mean me? Huh? The Magical Kingdom? Is this by chance related to magical girls? No way!

Oh, I’m sorry. Um, it’s just that coming up to talk to me when I’m walking around isn’t the most magical way to do it, I guess… Oh, that’s not what I mean. I just got caught up in my own ideas about that stuff. I had these fantasies about a big owl bringing me a letter, or a witch on a broom coming to deliver a message or something… I’m sorry, really.

Huh? Oh, right. I do have time. Hey, let’s go to that café over there.

Blue Comet? Oh yeah. I actually have met her. Of course I haven’t forgotten. I guess it was two years ago. Um, one, two… That’s right. It was two years ago. Um, would I get in trouble for this? That’s not what this is about? So then what is this about?

I just have to talk about how I met her? Okay.

Um, two years ago, I was in my third year of middle school. As for what I was up to, well, studying for entrance exams. That was the main worry on my mind at the time. I was doing my best studying, but my grades had been going down, and every day I was anxious I might have to go for a lower-ranked school.

Oh, I’ll have a café au lait.

…Where was I? Oh yeah. Entrance exams were no fun, and I was wondering if maybe my life would never be fun again. I was really bored, but of course I didn’t have the courage to go and blow off steam to feel better, either.

That day was especially awful. The chain came off my bicycle. I’d studied hard at the library and right when I was like, Okay, it’s closing—time to go home! I rolled up onto the curb by the gutter and the chain just dropped off. At the time, I didn’t know how to fix bike chains. Nobody was walking by, either, so I couldn’t ask for help.

It was already dark out. I walked my bike up to a streetlight, and I was like, Maybe this? Maybe that? but nothing I tried would work. My hands got all black, and right when I was just like, Ahhh, what do I do?! someone came up to talk to me.

“Heyaaa! You in trouble?”

I turned around, and she really knocked me for a loop.

She had short, straight-cut black hair and gentle, pale-brown eyes. Taking those features out of context makes it sound like she’s the demure type, but she was totally gorgeous. I just zoned out, staring at her like, “Whoaaa.” Plus, her outfit was amazing. She had this traditional blue dress, white over-the-knee socks, and this pure-white, fluffy fur cape. Before I started studying for exams, I went through a whole bathtub’s worth of anime and manga and light novels. I’d seen tons of stuff like this in those stories, but this was the first time I’d ever seen someone wear a cape in real life. And then she had this…accessory, I guess it was? Thinking back on it now, maybe it was the real thing. She even had a black-and-white-striped tail, like a white tiger.

It was like, here comes a mysterious beauty in cosplay! I was so confused. I mean, if we were in Akihabara or someplace like that, that’d be one thing, but why in this neighborhood? But the girl pushed me aside and touched my bicycle. Even now, I still remember perfectly how nice she smelled when she pushed me out of the way.

“Oh, it’s the chain, huh? Lemme see for a sec.”

I was anxious. Not ’cause some stranger was touching my bike or anything like that. But what if she got her clothes dirty? I mean, they looked expensive. I knew that costume had to be pricey.

The girl hooked the chain in diagonally and spun the pedals, fixing it up in a flash.

“Th-thank you.”

“Oh, no, no, I’m just glad I could help ya out. More importantly…” She held both her hands out to me. Her fingers were slim and her palms were white and pretty, but they were black with bicycle oil. I freaked out and pulled out my handkerchief to scrub at her hands. But I’d forgotten—since I’d been fiddling with the chain myself, my own hands were all black, too. Handkerchief aside, everything my hands had touched were blackened, and I was freaking myself into a panic.

“Um, that ain’t what I meant,” she said. “Well, for now, let’s just go wash up.” She tugged me by the hand to a nearby fountain, where we washed side by side. Man, seeing her up close, she was so cute. Oh, and she had a mole like a teardrop. I was zoning out, thinking, Man, she’s so adorable, when suddenly, she looked at me. That sure startled me. I think I actually jumped. But she didn’t seem to mind at all as she said, “Oh yeah. I have to give ya this, don’t I? Sorry.”

As she waved her hands to flick off the water, she plopped something into my hands—it was clearly some of those fugashi snacks. Not the plastic-wrapped, store-bought kind, but the type you’d find at a little candy shop run by some old lady… They were all different sizes and shapes.

I looked back at the girl with this awful half smile, like, “What the heck would I do with this?”

She seemed confused, too, but not as much as I was. “I wanna trade you this for somethin’.”

“Pardon?”

“A trade. Like an exchange. Please? Anythin’s good.”

This conversation barely counted as a conversation, but as we talked, the girl was still shaking water off her hands. But focusing on the conversation must have distracted her. It was like something suddenly occurred to her, and she shook her hand right into the telephone pole, hard, and part of it ripped clean off with a bang! The concrete exploded like a shotgun shot…not like I’ve ever seen a shotgun, though. The flakes of concrete made dents in the wall of the library, thunk, thunk.

The girl looked back and forth between the telephone pole and the wall with an expression on her face like, “Oh crap.” I looked at her, and…I dunno. At any rate, I was surprised and I guess kinda glad, too. It was the first time in my ten-odd years of life that a manga scene had happened to me. Thinking about it now, I suppose I was really happy about it.

I jumped on that as hard as I could. I think my eyes were probably sparkling. “Are you an Esper? Mutant? Superpowered? A visitor? Alien? Superhuman? Cyborg? Robot? Dimensional traveler? The chosen one? A god? Experimental subject? Sorcerer? A different species?”

“Pardon?”

“Super-soldier? Immortal? An awakened being? An apostle? Divine vassal? Ninja? Magical girl?”

“Huh? How did you know I’m a magical girl…?

“Magical girl?! You’re a magical girl, huh?!”

“Uh, well, um…”

“Please. I won’t tell anyone. So could you please tell me your story?” I was so enthusiastic about it, I don’t really know if I was grabbing her or begging her. I doubt I’ve ever been that hungry for anything in my life. I didn’t want my first manga-like experience to end there. I was just totally, single-mindedly desperate for this.

“It really is a secret,” she said, and she told me her situation.

The girl’s name was Blue Comet.

“Th-that’s an awesome name.”

“Well, it’s kinda like a stage name.”

I had thought magical girls were only fiction, and now that I’d found out they were real, my heart was fluttering hard as I listened to her story.

Blue Comet was being tested to see if she was qualified to inherit the name of her teacher, Lapis Lazuline. The test was for her to help people in trouble around town and make trades with those people until she could upgrade what she had into something better. If she could get ahold of an amazing item that would satisfy her master—she hadn’t been told precisely what would qualify—by the end of the day, she would pass the test.

Listening to her explain this stuff so politely to me, I was sure she was the real deal. If I missed this chance, I’d never get another one. I’d live a good life or a bad one, and it’d end without any wondrous or fantastical experiences. No matter how good or bad my life turned out, I knew it’d be ordinary.

“Blue Comet.”

“Yeah?”

“If we’re doing a trade, then take this.” I took my fountain pen out of my bag and showed it to her. I’d bought it with my New Year’s money that year. I think it cost about 5,000 yen. It was pretty comfortable to use, and it was super valuable to me. But if this was the price I had to pay for a taste of real wonder, I wasn’t going to skimp. I offered what was probably the most expensive item I owned to this girl.

“Ohhh, that’s a full rank up from fugashi snacks. Thanks so much.”

She reached out to take it, but I pulled the fountain pen back, bringing it to my chest. “So…there’s one thing I want to ask of you.”

“What is it?”

“I’ll trade this item with you…so in exchange, could I go with you?”

I was sure she’d say no. While I was thinking about how to complain when she did, she actually agreed. “If that’s your condition for the trade, I’ve got no choice, then.”

I called my mother to tell her that a friend’s parents were off at some relative’s funeral, so I’d decided to stay over to hang out and study. I’ve basically always been a straitlaced daughter, so I don’t think she was suspicious of me. And I got Blue Comet to pretend to be my friend and talk on the phone. I was a little uneasy about that, since her casual “Heyaaa, ’sup!” greeting was not like anything a friend of mine would say.

“Oh yeah,” Blue Comet said then, “I ain’t asked your name, huh?”

“Oh, it’s Miharu Yatsu.”

“Ohhh. Miharu-cchi, eh?”

“Um…cchi?”

“If a name ends in ru, ya add cchi. If it ends in ko, then chan, right? And when it’s yo, ya end it with shi.”

Frankly, I didn’t really understand what she was talking about, but made it look like I did and nodded. I mean, I didn’t even get what magical girls were in the first place. Maybe the real thing wasn’t what I was familiar with. So I thought, Oh, so this is a magical-girl rule.

Magical girls really are mysterious. I could catch up with her eventually if I pedaled my bicycle as hard as I could, but I think I was slowing her down anyway. She would stop and glance back at me with a look that said, “You coming?” She seemed like she felt sorry for me, like, “Sucks that bicycles can’t climb up telephone poles or get up on roofs, huh?”

I was wondering how she tracked down people who were in trouble, so I asked.

“My intuition tells me, y’know? It’s like, Oh, I think there’s one around here,” she answered vaguely.

And maybe she really did just have an amazing intuition. She pointed in one direction, then kept on running that way for fifteen minutes. In front of this little train station, there was an old woman talking with this white guy who looked like he was a backpacker. The old lady was tiny, and the white guy was kinda scary. He was two heads taller than me, and his voice was loud, too. He was trying to complain about something, but the old woman didn’t seem to understand and was just confused. A bunch of people around were watching, but all they did was give concerned looks, and nobody came in to help.

Blue Comet zipped in between them and started talking to the guy. Well, it was less like they were talking and more like…I dunno. It was baffling, like they were both speaking two totally different languages, but for some reason, they could communicate…pointing to the ticket vending machine, pointing to the railway platform, and then at the end, the two of them smiled and hugged, and the foreign guy cheerfully waved at her as he disappeared, heading off to the platform.

“Um…what was that?”

“He didn’t know how to get to the station he wanted, so I gave him directions.”

“Did you understand what he was saying?”

“Nope, not at all. But well, my intuition just gives me a sorta vague idea.”

Her intuition. Is this a power magical girls have?

Blue Comet told the old lady what was up, keeping the important parts secret. The old lady was like, “Kids these days play such interesting games,” and traded the fountain pen for her handkerchief. It was a white one, with elegant violets embroidered on it…it looked pretty expensive.

After that, Blue Comet kept on trading up from one item to the next.

She ran up buildings like, da-da-da-da! Yeah, she wasn’t climbing them—she was running up them. She’d zip on up, and then—zoom! She’d vanish only to zoom! appear again in search of people in trouble. It took everything I had just trying to keep up with her.

For a fussy kid who refused to budge, she sketched up an illustration of a character and gave it to them as a present, then she did a spoon-bending trick… I think what actually happened there is that she was just crazy strong, but she stopped the kid from crying.

“You’re good at drawing, huh?” I said to her.

“Well, a magical girl can’t make her livin’ just by bein’ a magical girl. My master said if ya learn a skill, then you’ll be set at times when ya need it.”

When she ran into an office worker struggling in the bathroom because she couldn’t figure out how to do her makeup quickly when she had to hurry to make it to a mixer, Blue Comet put together a new look in a flash. I saw what the lady looked like before, so I can say this—she was like a different person, like way too pretty, I mean, it was practically fraud. The lady seemed touched.

“You’re good at makeup, too, huh?” I said.

“Even when you’re transformed into a magical girl, your real face kinda shows through. So I’ve gotta hide it with makeup, or you could figure out my true identity. That’s another somethin’ my master taught me.”

A couple of guys came to try to pick us up. Both of them had really bright-colored hair.

That was exciting in a different sort of way than mystical fantastical stuff. I didn’t even know any girls in my class who’d gotten hit on in the street. Maybe partly because I went to this straitlaced private school or maybe ’cause middle school is too early for that…I think.

I was wondering, Does getting picked up count as helping people? But the two guys were like, “Let’s hang out, just for a little while!” and “Think of it like you’re helping us out.”

Blue Comet was stoked about this, like, “If this is helpin’ out, then I’ve gotta do it!” and she pulled me by the hand to karaoke… It was the first time I’ve ever gone to karaoke without an adult, so I was so tense. I don’t remember what I sang or how. I just tried to fill the time by eating pizza and pasta.

Blue Comet guzzled down drinks, forcing the guys to keep up with her as they sang hard, and before I knew it, the two guys were so drunk they were nearly ready to pass out. When Blue Comet said she wanted to make a trade, one guy offered this silver, dully shining chain…I guess you call that stuff sterling silver? So he held that out to her, and then in less than five minutes, he was lying on the sofa, snoring loudly.

“Toxins generally don’t work on us, so no matter how much I drink, I won’t get drunk.”

“Oh.”

“And if ya sing while you drink, ya get drunk faster. My master taught me that drinkin’ someone down like this and then takin’ ’em home is… Oh, I’m not doin’ it this time, y’know? This is for when there’s someone you’re really into.”

“O-oh…”

What sort of master is this? Probably no one good.

Compared with that, I think grabbing the collar of a little kid who’d thoughtlessly hopped out into traffic on his way back from cram school to save him was more respectable. Before I could even think, Ah! she’d already done it. She was so fast, I couldn’t see her.

“Our spinal reflexes are way faster and can do way more than normal humans, and if ya train it up, you can make it so that when the time comes, you can act fast…or so my master said.”

“That’s pretty amazing.”

“Apparently, if ya master it, ya move without even thinkin’ ’bout it. My master said that even if your brain stops completely, you can move just a little. I think she was jokin’, though.”

“Ah…ah-ha-ha…”

When Blue Comet made that kid stop crying, she’d exchanged the handkerchief for a scarf from the kid’s mother, and when she did the lady’s makeup, she swapped the scarf for earrings, and when they sang karaoke and ate and drank, she got the silver chain for the earrings.

Then she’d saved this elementary schooler. But there was no way a kid on the way home from cram school would have anything good, right? But she had to trade with him. So she gave the kid the silver chain and got a tiny doll in exchange. It was a figure of a character from a shounen manga…one of those things you get with ramune candy. Basically, a cheap toy.

Ultimately, I’d found out about this game ’cause of the fugashi, then I’d gotten involved, so I guess it’s appropriate that we ended up with a toy that comes with candy, sorta… The kid seemed happy about the silver chain, though. He was like, “This is so cool! Awesome!” But we’d spent all that time gradually getting better items only to jump right back to square one, basically.

It was already pretty late at night. My cell phone displayed the time ten thirty. Right when I was thinking, If she starts over now, will she make it on time? Blue Comet broke into a run.

“Hey!” I said. “What is it?”

“I’ve got a feeling there’s something good over this way!”

I stubbornly pedaled away on my bicycle. Blue Comet was probably slowing down for me, but I still had a hard time keeping up. I was out of breath and pushing my thighs, and I was bound to be in pain the next day.

I’m not sure how far she ran, but before I knew it, we were out of the downtown area, and as the streetlights thinned, we came to a place where you’d be more likely to hear stray dogs howling than people talking. Here and there, the asphalt had peeled away, so it wasn’t a good place to be riding a bicycle after dark. I got off my bicycle right about the same moment Blue Comet stopped…and I think it was less than a minute after that when the man stepped out of the shadow of a building.

I was startled. I inched back without even thinking. The man’s head was shaved, and he wore a black suit, gold-and-silver-striped necktie, and a deep-red shirt…basically, like he was on the wrong side of the law. And considering where we were, it didn’t seem like he could be anything else.

The man approached Blue Comet seemingly without hesitation. Seeing him up close, his suit looked ready to burst. He was bulging with muscles, and I trembled by myself, wondering who would be able to stop him if he lost it.

“Are you the ‘magical girl’?” His voice sounded no less threatening than I’d assumed.

“Yep,” said Blue Comet.

“Is that so? It’s a little early for our appointment, but…it helps me out that you’re early.”

“Glad to be helpful. ’Cause helpin’ people is my business,” Blue Comet replied cheerfully, as if she didn’t acknowledge him as a scary person.

The scary guy’s shoulders shook with muffled laughter. “I like that. Yeah, your business is helping people, I guess. I heard your calling card was a doll, though…”

“I do have a doll.”

When Blue Comet showed him the character figure from the candy pack she’d just gotten from the elementary school kid, the scary-looking guy muttered, “A puppet-master, huh,” and nodded twice, then handed over a Duralumin case. “I’ve told the master of your request. The reward is just what you asked for. If you need to convert it to cash, feel free to do it yourself.”

“Oh, I can’t take cash.”

“Well, now you have it.”

Still facing us, the scary-looking man was about to shuffle off backward when Blue Comet called out, “Hold on. I’ll be in trouble if ya don’t take this doll.”

“Uh, I don’t need it.”

“Ya said I helped ya out, ain’cha?”

“Yeah, you did.”

“Then we trade. That’s the rule.”

“Is that…so? I ain’t really followin’, though.” Glaring at the toy with a serious expression, just as he had when he’d come out, the scary-looking guy disappeared into the shadow of the building… Actually, I think he was more than scary-looking. The whole time I watched the scary guy disappear, I’d been holding my breath—even though I was totally out of breath from all that constant cycling.

“Was that…someone you know…?”

“Nope. Total stranger.”

The Duralumin case was not locked. When Blue Comet opened it, there was a soft-looking wine-red cloth spread inside. The center of the eight protrusions firmly held a gem. Yes, it was a gem. Just as I was finally able to breathe, my breath was taken away again. The stone was blue, about the size of a baby’s fist, and cut beautifully… Well, there’s no way it was real, right? I mean, how much would that even be worth? Or maybe depending on the stone, even a big one could be cheap, I guess. I don’t know a lot about gems, though, so I have no idea.

Blue Comet gently shut the lid of the Duralumin case and extended her hand to me. I kinda vaguely shook back, but maybe what she’d wanted was a high five. I remember clearly how soft her palm was.

“Mission complete! This’ll be enough to satisfy my master!”

“C-congratulations.”

I’d thought for sure she was going to fail, but the way she just forced her way to success at the end was like, I dunno… I dunno. Maybe that’s what magical girls are all about.

And that was the end of my mysterious, fantastical experience. After that, me and Blue Comet went to an always open family restaurant to eat and chat… It was fun, but it wasn’t a very mysterious or fantastical ending.

I haven’t had any mysterious experiences since that day. Good things have happened, like I managed to pass the entrance exams for the school I wanted into…but I don’t have a boyfriend, no.

I still feel like I’d like to become a magical girl. I mean, she really seemed like she was having so much fun, being one. But it must be hard. I wonder which is harder—that or getting a boyfriend?

So then I…I… Huh? What was I just talking about?

Letting her white-streaked hair down to her back, she passed her arms through her deep-green jacket. The middle-aged woman left the cafe, the automatic door whirring shut behind her. She folded her arms, then raised them up over her head, still folded, to stretch her back. You could hear it cracking.

“Hey, hey, master.”

The woman glanced to her side to look at the girl in a school uniform. Her eyes seemed to sparkle with expectation.

“Was it a good idea to erase her memories?”

“Those memories of hers you read were everything, based on what she told us, right?”

“Yeah.”

“Then it’s best to erase them.” The “master” began walking through the commercial district, where closed shutters called some attention to themselves.

The girl followed after her. “Won’t it be sad if nobody remembers the second anymore?”

“Don’t you bother with that sentimentality. You don’t want the second’s misconduct to be adversely affecting you when you’re about to become the third, do you? It seems to me as if she was lacking when it came to trying to hide her true identity. She didn’t get the idea that a magical girl should keep herself secret and out of view.”

“Isn’t that because of the way you taught her?”

“Yes, that might be the case. And so to avoid incurring the censure of the Magical Kingdom, I really do have to erase the girl’s memories of Blue Comet.”

“I don’t know…”

“I do.” The master stopped walking and turned back to the girl. The way her eyes drooped seemed sad, but the way the corners of her mouth lifted made her seem glad, too. Wearing that expression, she said this:

“Everyone else may forget, but I will remember that girl. That’s enough, isn’t it?”