Mahou Shoujo Ikusei Keikaku - Volume 5 - Chapter 1

CHAPTER 1

ESTABLISHING THE MAGICAL-GIRL SQUAD

  Postarie

Tatsuko Sakaki had been timid and introverted ever since she was young.

When she was chosen to be on the Cultural Festival Clean-Up Committee, where she’d be forced to work together with kids she’d never spoken to before, she wondered how she would manage. But her friend and classmate Kaori was chosen, too, which was a huge relief. Tatsuko was glad just to have someone who would join her in whining “Awww, man!” and “This sucks.” When she thought about having to make her way to the science prep room alone and trembling, the presence of a companion put her heart at ease.

Heading to the meeting, they passed by the table tennis club alternates doing push-ups in the hallway and ignored the sound of the concert band practicing. Putting her hand on the doorknob of the science prep room, Tatsuko found it wasn’t locked. This was the cleaning committee’s first meeting, and Tatsuko had left early to ensure she wouldn’t make the older students wait. It would have been best if she could have come before the teacher even unlocked the room, but it seemed there were already people here.

The room was dyed in the crimson light of the sunset, and inside was a girl sitting on a chair. “You’re both on the cleaning committee, too?” she asked.

“You too, huh?” Kaori responded.

Tatsuko left the conversation to her, practically hiding behind Kaori as she listened to them talk.

A few minutes later, the prep room door opened noisily. Two more older students joined the group. One of them was famous enough that even Tatsuko knew who she was.

Umi Shibahara. Her hair, tied into a ponytail, was dyed a shade lighter than what was allowed by the school, and there was something sloppy about the way she wore her uniform. She was well-known thanks to the dubious tales of her exploits: They said they couldn’t measure her grip strength because she’d crushed the hand dynamometer in her fist and that she’d once marched into some yakuza office to beat them all down solo. The veracity of these stories aside, she was not the type you wanted to get involved with.

Tatsuko had assumed all the students had been picked for this against their will, but it seemed this was not the case for Umi.

“It was just kinda like, y’know, I mean, sorta like, I could smell an adventure!” She was extremely excited. But what did she mean, she could “smell an adventure”? The normal assumption would be that this was a joke. But if Umi was in fact serious and Tatsuko laughed, she could see it ending very badly. So she just let the remark slide by with an ambiguous expression that could be taken either way.

Tatsuko preferred talking to older students over her own peers. If she acted timid talking with a classmate, they would look down on her for it. But if she were talking with an upperclassman, sometimes they’d interpret that as deference. The problem here was that one of these older girls was famous in school for her wild character, and Tatsuko didn’t know what sort of attitude might light her fuse. Maintaining this vague, noncommittal demeanor was really hard on her nerves.

The crimson hue of the sunset faded, and already a dark reddish-brown was beginning to illuminate the older girls’ faces. It was winter now. The sun would set soon. Checking Umi’s expression, Tatsuko saw she was glancing around the area restlessly, as if she was expecting something.

She wasn’t about to go on a rampage, was she? If she was the sort of person the rumors said, then it was bound to happen. Tatsuko continued to wait with an upset stomach from the building anxiety, and that was when the door to the prep room opened.

It was the teacher. Tatsuko knew her, too: Ms. Nozomi Himeno. She didn’t teach first-year classes, but she was still hard to ignore. She was the same size as the students…particularly the first-years. Despite probably being in her late twenties, she looked unusually young—childlike, in fact. If she were to wear a uniform, she’d probably have no trouble blending in with the students. Her age-defying appearance had earned her the nickname Monster, something even an outsider like Tatsuko knew.

“Have you already started?” the teacher asked.

“No, not yet.”

“Then let’s begin. It’s a little early, but that just means we’ll finish quick.” Ms. Himeno sat down in a chair, prompting one of the older girls to stand up.

It was the girl who had entered the room first. A single thick braid fell down her back, and her red plastic-framed glasses reflected the setting sun. She looked like a class rep. “I’m Musubiya from class 2-D, and I’ll preside over this meeting for now. Thank you very much for gathering here today for this Cultural Festival Clean-Up Committee meeting. Now then, before we decide how roles will be allocated, let’s introduce—”

“So you’re all finally here,” came a voice from no place in particular, interrupting the meeting. It sounded high-pitched and youthful, like a child’s—one you’d generally never hear in a middle school. Tatsuko and the older girls glanced around the room, but there were no little kids anywhere.

“You all have the strongest magical potential of anyone in this school. I want you to use your talents to save me… Of course, I’ll thank you for it. By making you all into magical girls!” A small, round ball of light fell from the roof. For an instant, Tatsuko tensed, thinking the light bulb was falling. The luminous orb slowly floated down and away from the ceiling, dimming as it descended. When it settled on the table, it had become a dull, pale white light. Within was a doll about half a foot tall. “Nice to meet you. My name is Toko. As you can see, I’m a fairy.”

Everyone held their tongues, eyes locked on the creature. It wasn’t a doll. It was moving. Words were coming from its mouth. Its musculature and movements were not artificial. Its expression was full of life, too. But it was still clearly not human. It was wreathed in light, with translucent, insect-like wings growing from its back—and there was no way any human could be just half a foot tall.

“As you can all see, you all have the capacity. I can nurture that talent and make you into full-fledged magical girls. Please, accept this offer and save me. I’m being chased by evil mages!”

Suddenly aware she had been holding her breath the entire time, Tatsuko blew out a phew. She was trying to make sense of what was happening and what she was hearing, but to no avail. She could tell she was confused. Looking to the side to see what Kaori thought of all this, she squeaked.

She found a strange woman sitting there. She was wearing a frighteningly garish and strange outfit. It was the kind of blindingly gaudy garment seen only in high fashion, the circus, cosplay events, anime, manga, or video games. The two ponytails hanging from either side of her head were a beautiful ombré. Her gloves sparkled in seven different colors, and her flamboyant clothing exposed quite a lot of skin, too. She was crowned with a prismatic halo that floated above her head, and another, larger halo hovered across her back. There were more around her ankles, too. As accessories, they completely defied reality. Whether she was hanging them with thread or supporting them with wire, they were somehow all in midair.

Tatsuko yelped, and the fancy-looking lady’s shoulders twitched as she looked at Tatsuko. Her face was beautiful, and so surreal it carried just as much impact as her clothing. Quickly, confusion spread across her perfect face. “…Tsuko?”

Tatsuko panicked and released the girl’s sleeve, startled by the fact that she’d been holding on to it in the first place. Her fingers should have been squeezing Kaori’s sleeve as she hid behind her. For whatever reason, at some point, she had ended up clutching the sleeve of this unfamiliar girl through methods unknown.

“Are you Tsuko?” The girl seemed confused. And Tatsuko was confused by her question, too. How would this stranger even know Tatsuko’s nickname? And where had Kaori gone? She gazed at her surroundings.

A pirate and a stage magician were pointing at each other and shouting. Both of them were no less beautiful than the girl who sat beside Tatsuko. A ballerina bedecked in ribbons was trembling, her face white as a sheet. And for some reason, there was also a bride in a wedding dress, and an Arabian-style dancing girl was floating in the air (!) and watching them from near the ceiling.

Suddenly, Tatsuko looked at her own hands and arms. Her fingers were long. These weren’t her hands. The outfit she was wearing was not her school uniform, either. She looked at her reflection in the window glass, and staring back at her was a cute version of a postal delivery person she’d once seen in some classic film. Just like the others, her features were perfectly flawless. When she gently patted her face, the delivery girl in the window touched her own face, too.

“Do you get it now? You’re magical girls, with all the talents that come with the title. You’re the only ones who can drive away the evil mages who are approaching this town.”

Tatsuko listened intently to everything the fairy said. But none of it stuck.

  Captain Grace

There were a lot of people who judged Umi Shibahara to be a lawless troublemaker.

However, the phrase did not describe her accurately. She could be violent, and she would often ignore the rules, but those were just the consequences of her nature. At her core, Umi Shibahara was an adventurer, and all she did was follow the desires oozing out of her.

She wanted excitement! She wanted thrills! She wanted to see what she’d never seen before! She wanted to do what she’d never done before! There had to be amazing things out there in the world that Umi didn’t know about yet!

She wished she could be a character in a story. She didn’t care if the goal was to find treasure or to beat up bad guys. As long as there was great adventure to be had, that was enough for her.

Whether by good luck or bad, Umi’s hometown was surrounded by nothing but mountains. When she was very small, she would literally go run around the mountains and fields—until she’d gotten herself lost one time in kindergarten and was no longer allowed outside. It was around that time when she’d learned various escape techniques, like pulling up tatami to remove the floorboards, pushing up ceiling boards, or hopping out the second-floor window to the branch of a tree that grew in the garden. Thereafter, she had cultivated a series of virtues: the strength of spirit to never be discouraged, even when scolded by her parents; the creative ingenuity needed to make escapes; the survival skills she’d learned in the wilderness; the physical ability to contend with beasts; and so on and so forth. It all led up to this point.

Yes, to this very moment. In middle school, together with Kayo Nemura, her childhood friend and constant companion, Umi had continuously sought adventure.

While everyone else had descended into chaos, Umi was different. She’d always dreamed of adventure, and her strength, experience, and most of all, her passion had been building all this time, so this was the very situation she’d always been waiting for. When you’re ready for anything, you approach things with a different mind-set than those who lack any preparation for such a strange situation. What’s more, she’d had a premonition. She’d felt almost certain that something was sure to happen before the end of the cleaning committee meeting that day.

“What’s going on?!”

“What the heck is this?”

“A f-fairy?”

“Is this a prank? Where’s the hidden camera?”

With a sidelong glance toward the others and their panicked commotion, Umi worked to get a handle on the situation. She tried lightly waving a hand. She clenched a fist. She drew in a breath, then exhaled again. She did a little jump. She’d changed, right down to the very structure of her body. She was strong and full of energy. She even felt as if she could knock out a whale in one punch.

Despite her excitement, her mind was calm—silently ablaze.

She checked her reflection in the window glass. A sword was hanging from her waist. She pushed the hilt up with her thumb to draw about two knuckles’ worth of blade out from the sheath. The single-edged curved sword shone dully. It was the weapon of a pirate. Just lightly touching her thumb to it drew blood. It was sharp. It was real.

The fairy had said they’d become magical girls. Umi seemed to be dressed up as a girly version of Captain Hook from Peter Pan, but the term “magical girl” made more sense for the other faces present.

“All right!” Umi pumped a fist. Everyone else seemed to be panicked and confused as they stared at her, but she wasn’t bothered. “You said magical girls, right?”

“Yep. You guys all have magical talent. You’re the ones who’ll be able to beat the evil mages.”

“Hmm…”

The fairy told them that her enemies had chased her out of the Magical Kingdom all the way here. The evil mages would mess up the human world if the girls did nothing, so they had to drive these people away somehow. The fairy spoke to them at length about this, but Umi casually ignored it.

“So we just have to fight these evil mages and win, right?” Umi just meant to confirm what it was they were supposed to do, but it seemed the fairy interpreted her inquiry as questioning the point of engaging at all.

“If you fight them for me, then you’ll be able to transform into magical girls anytime you like. That’s my thanks.” The fairy listed the merits of cooperating, then began to explain what her prize to them all would entail. “Magical girls are way stronger and faster than normal humans, and each one has their own magical power.”

There was a blink in space and a scatter of some unknown substance. Umi felt weight in her hands, and when she looked down, she was holding a heart-shaped device. Something was displayed on its screen.

“That’s a magical phone that only magical girls can use. Your names and personal information are all written in there.”

“You’re pretty prepared for this.”

Already, something that looked like Umi’s personal data was displayed on the device the fairy had given her. On-screen, there was a cute, cartoonish pirate captain and, beside it, some text.

“Captain Grace.” That must be her name. “Uses a magic ship that can go really fast over water.” Probably her magic.

“Hey, Kayo,” said Umi. “What kinda magic do you have?” From the side, she peeked at the magical phone belonging to the stage magician–themed magical girl. Her name was “Funny Trick,” and her ability was “to switch any two hidden items.”

“Um… Are you Umi?” Kayo asked.

“You can’t tell?”

“No, I can’t! I have no idea what’s going on here! Do you, Umi?!”

“I get the gist of it.”

“The gist isn’t good enough! How can you just accept all this?!”

“I told you, didn’t I? I’ve had a feeling about this since morning. By the way, your fishnets are pretty sexy.”

“That’s got nothing to do with this right now!” The fairy cut off Umi and Kayo’s conversation, flying in the air to land on the desk on her knees. “Please! Save me! And not just me! Save the world!” She was yelling. Perhaps she’d had about all she could take, because she was starting to act hysterical.

“Sure, I’ll do it.” Of course Umi would. The adventure she’d been waiting for had arrived.

The fairy’s face was bursting with glee. “Really? Thank you!”

“Umi!”

“Shut up, Kayo.”

“Don’t tell me to shut up!”

Umi couldn’t deal with Kayo anymore. She smiled at the fairy. “Anyway, me and Kayo will help you out.”

“Why am I in on this, too?!”

Another girl interrupted Kayo’s wailing. “H-hold on a moment, Shibahara… That is who you are, right?”

“Yeah, it’s Shibahara. Wait, are you Monst—Ms. Himeno?”

The ribbon-strewn ballerina waved her hands violently in a show of indignation. She still looked about as young now as she had pretransformation.

Kayo bowed her head, saying, “Go on, Ms. Himeno. Please talk some sense into her.”

“That’s no way to speak to your teacher! I don’t really understand all of this, but a fight with evil mages is serious business! Let’s leave all that to the police. It’s not something middle school students should be doing, at least.”

“Even the teacher’s accepted this for some reason…,” Kayo muttered, clutching her head. What was she so unhappy about?

The fairy raised her head and countered the ribbon girl’s remarks. “We have no more time. Our enemies are already close. And the police won’t be able to beat them. Only magical girls can!”

“I can’t let students engage in such a dangerous task!”

“And I’m telling you if you don’t stop them now, the peril will be even greater!”

“C’mon, let’s do it! It’ll totally be fun.”

“Shibahara!”

“Personally, I feel like anyone who wouldn’t try to save such a cute li’l fairy has got some problems, as a human being. She’s asking for our help, so we might as well. That’s what girl power’s all about, right?” Umi tugged on the sleeve of the girl in the wedding dress and stared into the eyes of the girl in the rainbow costume. “If we don’t do this now, we’ll be totally missing out. And even if all you guys aren’t gonna do it, me and Kayo will manage ourselves. But you might as well join us, right? C’mon, let’s do this, let’s do this! I just know we’ll have a good time.”

“I wouldn’t mind joining in.” The wedding dress girl stood up. She even had a carefully lit candle and a bouquet. “I thought this might be a prank, but this fairy is clearly alive, isn’t she? Apparently, what she said about incredible powers is no lie.” She plucked a ten-yen coin—probably used in some experiment—from where it had been left in the metal dish at the front of the shelf. Using only her index and middle fingers, she squeezed it to show everyone that she could bend it. “I was starting to get bored of studying for entrance exams. Powers like these would open some new avenues to us, wouldn’t they? I’ve determined that this is worth the risk.”

“Me too!” The girl carrying the rainbow on her back raised her right hand. “I’ll do it, too! I’ve always wanted something like this! You’ll do it, too, right, Tsuko?”

The postal delivery–style girl next to her glanced around nervously and then hesitantly nodded.

“Mei’ll do it, too.” Hearing a voice from above, Umi looked up at the ceiling. There was a girl floating cross-legged in midair, dressed in a very revealing outfit like the dancing girls from Arabian Nights. “Mei wants to be a magical girl.”

“Nice!” said the fairy. “I like those answers! So let’s get pumped up and beat those evil mages!”

“Like I said! How can you guys just accept this situation?!” Kayo yelled.

“Why are you all responding so quickly?! Take another moment to consider just how dangerous this is!” The girl in the ribbons whacked the table, and her curls bounced like coiled springs.

The fairy was flung off the table and caught by the rainbow girl. Unfortunately, one of the table legs had broken around the middle, causing it to tilt to one side.

“If you absolutely insist on backing out…” Still in the rainbow girl’s hands, the fairy turned back to face the ribbon girl. “Then I’ll just erase your memories and make you forget about this transformation. I can’t have any of you telling people about this. I’ve got to keep everything about magic a secret.”

“You can’t just…”

“You’re a teacher at this school, aren’t you? I understand a teacher’s desire to protect her students. I don’t know much about the human world, but that’s what teachers do, right?” The fairy’s expression appeared somehow more mature. Perhaps it was the illumination of the sunset. “Then you fight together with them. Either your memories will be erased and you’ll go back to your normal lifestyle on your own, or you’ll fight the evil mages together with your students. They’re almost here. It’s not just me in trouble—it’s the whole world. Please. Save me.”

  Tepsekemei

Mei had an incredibly limited amount of memories and experiences. Even if she learned something new, it would be quickly overwritten, leaving behind nothing worthwhile. And even the memories that did remain to her weren’t all that clear, either. She would immediately forget anything that wasn’t useful to her day-to-day life—because she didn’t need it.

When she was zoning out, that was literally all she was doing. Someone else might look at her and believe she was deep in thought, but Mei didn’t think or consider things, since she knew it was simply a waste to do so.

Having taken this lack of mental activity for granted, becoming a magical girl was an excess of freedom for Mei. Everything about the world was dazzling and bright. She could interpret other people’s intentions and use the same methods to communicate her own will. Her limbs moved freely and lightly. She could jump, leap, spin her arms around, fold her legs, do anything.

Best of all, she could fly. If she thought, I want to go here, I want to go there, then she was free to do so. No one could stop her.

While the others were having some conversation she couldn’t really follow, Mei continued to investigate her new abilities. She could move quickly, she was strong, and she could fly. She put her hand to her stomach. There was no chronic hunger, no sense of starvation that never went away no matter how much she was fed. She didn’t feel like she had to expel any waste. All sexual desire had disappeared, too.

I see, she thought. As she’d gained many things, she’d lost many, too. That must mean she’d not received this body for free, but rather had acquired it in exchange for something else now gone. After this consideration, she found herself shocked that she was capable of forming such thoughts. She could add and subtract.

Plenty about this was fun, in general. Even in this one room, there were lots of interesting-looking objects. As she fiddled with this, touched that, biting, whacking, rolling, and generally messing around, the conversation continued.

Mei said she wanted to stay a magical girl and found out that the others did, too. It seemed that magical girls were special. Though she didn’t quite know what to do with the ensuing pride, she decided she would stick with these people. According to the tiny human with wings, they had to beat these “evil mage” people or else they couldn’t keep their powers. Mei thought that would be very boring. Before she had become a magical girl, her world had always been peaceful and her life easy, but now that she knew about this new world, she didn’t want to go back.

Going outside, she learned even more. Magical girls had abilities called magic. Mei could become one with the air. By melting into the atmosphere, she could fly through it. And it seemed she could do much more with it, too.

She zoned out, listening to the human with wings giving them all instructions, and then noticed that the rainbow human was watching Mei. The rainbow human spoke to her. “Are you bored?”

“Why?”

“Oh, you just looked like you were.”

Mei wasn’t, of course. She’d never experienced anything so fun and interesting in her whole life. But the rainbow human had said she looked bored.

All the other magical girls were changing the shapes of their faces while they spoke out loud to communicate. They did not look at anuses or bump heads. Mei wasn’t trying to change the shape of her face. Maybe that had suggested she was bored.

Having hypothesized this much, Mei tried changing her own face shape at the rainbow human. She figured that alone wouldn’t be enough, so she also tried making a sound: “Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!”

That should give the sense she was properly enjoying herself. But the rainbow human bobbed her head back and forth and said, “I’m sorry,” then backed away. That didn’t seem like an acknowledgment that Mei was having fun. The other magical girls were also staring at Mei. She realized she’d failed to get the reaction she wanted.

If I have another chance, I’ll do a little better next time, Mei thought.

Being a magical girl was really hard but, at the same time, interesting.

  Captain Grace

Teachers, like parents, were an annoying obstacle. They always tried to get in the way of her exploits.

This totally unreal, fantastical event was happening right in front of them! Umi was completely baffled that Ms. Himeno could say something so completely lacking in adventurous spirit. A flying fairy coming to bestow you with magical power wasn’t something people got to experience more than once in a lifetime. In fact, for most, it wouldn’t happen at all. Even if she was their teacher, ordering them to kick this stroke of luck away was beyond arrogant. Umi absolutely could not accept that.

Adventure was waiting, right over there! It was only polite to run for it until their lungs gave out!

Fortunately, the fairy, Toko, was better with words than she looked. By offering the teacher the choice between losing her memories and returning to normalcy, and fighting together with her students as a magical girl, she had convinced her. Now nothing would get in the way of Umi’s adventure.

Though grudgingly, Ms. Himeno accepted, and all of them followed Toko’s instructions, preparing for their counterattack by heading out to where they would intercept their opponents.

Toko chose an intersection about a hundred yards from the school, heading in the direction of the mountains. No shops or institutions were visible from that point, except the school. Aside from a few sparse houses, the most this area had was a parking lot. Though the road was wide enough, it was in particularly poor condition with cracks large and small running through the asphalt. It was afternoon, but there were few pedestrians or cars passing through. Still, the number was more than zero.

“This is where you’ll fight back against the evil mages.”

“But if we fight here, won’t people see us?” asked Umi. “Isn’t magic generally supposed to be a secret?”

“It is, but this is an emergency situation. When things are this bad, you fiddle with the witnesses’ memories after. It’ll be fine as long as we can withdraw before the police and firefighters come.”

According to Toko, the evil mages might be able to detect the presence of magical girls. That was why Umi and the others had to detransform and go hide. Each of them was directed to a hiding spot where they returned to human form and waited patiently. After learning about their wonderful powers, going back to being human to wait for the fight made Umi rather uneasy. Looking over, she saw that Funny Trick—Kayo Nemura—seemed anxious, too, as she looked up at the traffic light. She’d also been restless the whole way there, peeking into the garbage bin next to the vending machine, jumping at the littlest noises, tensing every time a car passed. She was acting extremely suspicious.

Umi grabbed Kayo firmly by the head and yanked it up. “Listen. There’s no point in hiding if you’re gonna be poking your head outta the bushes.”

“S-sorry.”

“I get that you’re worried. But right now, we’ve gotta believe in Toko.”

Umi looked at the smartphone in her hand. The signal hadn’t come yet.

Toko had disappeared from her perch on top of the traffic light. She was just invisible, though, and she was still there, with a magical phone lying beside her. When the enemy came, she would give the order to everyone. That was the plan.

Umi and Kayo were hiding in the lilac thicket beneath the traffic light. The class rep and the teacher were using a car in the parking lot as cover, while the two first-years were hiding in the shadow of a cement-block wall around a house for sale. The Arabian dancer girl was apparently taking cover in a ditch. Umi was impressed she could bring herself to hide in a place like that.

She could have sworn the setting sun had been visible earlier, but now it was covered by thick, gloomy, murky black clouds. It was November. Now that they’d changed back to human form, she felt cold, as if she’d freeze from staying still. She tugged the collar of her jacket in and hugged her arms to herself. Directly inhaling the cold wind made the inside of her nose sting. She scowled at herself for being bothered by something so trivial as the temperature. If something this minor was getting to her, she needed better powers of concentration.

This was her first real fight as a new magical girl. Was that what was making her nervous? She reached out to the sword hanging from her hip, but her hand swiped through air. She recalled that she wasn’t transformed right now and scowled again.

“What’s wrong?”

“Nothing. If you’ve got time to be worried about me, then worry about yourself.”

Kayo seemed uneasy. She always did when she was with Umi. But usually, Umi would smile and say, “I’m providing you with some entertainment, so it’s cool,” and that would be it. But when Umi herself looked uneasy, those weak justifications didn’t hold up.

Oh. Now she got it. Umi hadn’t felt this in so long, she’d forgotten what it was. It wasn’t fear but a premonition. Something was approaching, something that would threaten her life, even now that she had Captain Grace’s power. Her intuition had acted up like this multiple times before, and these were the instincts animals followed to avoid danger. But Umi recognized the danger and braved it. Acknowledging its presence was enough.

Let’s get ready for this adventure. Umi began her routine for coping with peril, taking long but shallow breaths. She relaxed the senses in the back of her mind. This was something other people never got, even if she tried to explain it to them. She tensed her nerves, and the little things ceased to matter. She exhaled out all the air inside her body. When her lungs were empty, she forced out one more breath. Even though she was lying low in a thicket with cold wind blowing through it, her body grew warmer.

Quietly, the excitement built inside her. She wasn’t irritated anymore, even looking at uneasy Kayo.

“…They’re coming.” Toko’s voice came from Umi’s smartphone; they’d been connected in a call this whole time. The timbre of her voice was the same, just significantly quieter. The two words carried a tingling anxiety.

They couldn’t transform yet. Umi glanced along the road from the thicket to see a white station wagon rolling down the road. No other people or cars. She checked the sign by the road, and it said the speed limit was thirty miles per hour. The station wagon was driving about five miles below that. It slowed down even further and then pulled onto the shoulder about twenty yards from the light and stopped.

Her stomach was gurgling. Sweat from her neck was dripping down into her armpits. The lilac thicket swayed in the wind, and the tall weeds fluttered. Kayo gulped. Umi’s senses captured every little detail. Her concentration was fully engaged. Once she had processed everything, she focused on the station wagon. Smiling with just her lips, she thought, Not bad.

The door of the station wagon opened, and someone stepped out from inside. They were wearing a coat with a hood that hid their face and expression. Under this cold sky, they were wearing a well-known brand of sneakers with no socks.

“Toko.” It was the voice of a young woman, but it had a threatening edge. She addressed the hidden fairy as if she were plainly visible.

Toko replied in a casual, teasing tone. “You took longer than I thought.”

“Do you want this to hurt, or will you come quietly? Take your pick.”

Uh-huh, she seems to be a bad guy, all right.

“I don’t really like either option.”

Toko revealed herself. That was the signal.

Umi, now the magical girl Captain Grace, drew her sword as she leaped out. Behind her, she could hear Kayo tearing up the concrete road as she ran. The teacher, class rep, and the two first-years all sprang out of hiding in the same instant, too. Everyone had transformed. The Arabian dancing girl snaked up into the sky before descending to follow the station wagon.

  Funny Trick

She thought they were all nuts. She’d been hanging around Umi Shibahara for a long time, so she wasn’t as bad. Her crazy antics were nothing new.

But Mine Musubiya had an intellectual image, as befitting her title of “class representative.” The two first-year girls, wearing their school uniforms strictly according to regulation standard, had struck her as diligent students. Ms. Himeno had a baby face, but she’d lived about twice as long as Kayo and the rest, so she should possess commensurate life experience. These people had not seemed open to an avant-garde lifestyle like Umi. Or so Kayo had thought.

It was like a bad dream. She’d been dragged into this cosplay magical-girl army attacking these evil mages, with no permission to resist. Not even knowing who their enemy was, they were all converging on the vague idea of evil in this station wagon. This was no different from robbery or terrorism.

The woman in the coat yelled something into the car as she prepared to meet Umi’s attack. Kayo was a little surprised by how fast she reacted. She didn’t just have the speed of a magical girl; it looked like she’d sensed their attack. Umi, who’d dashed out in front faster than any of the others, swung her sword in a sideways arc, and her opponent evaded it with ease.

Though she breathed a sigh of relief, Kayo was shocked. The sigh was because she was thankful their enemy had avoided Umi’s decisive, potentially fatal swing, and the shock was because the enemy was quick enough to avoid the magical-girl attack.

“Why?! Why are there…so many?!” the woman yelled. At the same time, her coat ripped, and her sneakers flew off.

Underneath her coat was a kimono, but the hem ended four inches above the knee, boldly exposing her thighs. There was no mistaking that she was connected to all this: Her face was flawless, and she had bunny ears on top of her head.

Then the driver poked their head out from inside the car, too. This one was dressed in a black coat, sunglasses, and a black fedora, like some sort of Mafia lackey. “We didn’t expect nearly this many! Retreat for now!”

The mobster pulled out some kind of black stick, thrust it out the window, and aimed its tip at them. Flaming thumb-sized projectiles shot out of it with a bang, bang, bang. Despite the Mafia motif, the person was actually a mage. Kayo—now the magical girl Funny Trick—knocked down the stone-like projectiles flying toward her with her wand, even as she felt like bursting into tears.

The machine-gun fire of flaming stones had the element of surprise. Kayo was, in fact, very startled. But the weapon’s speed was no match for the reflexes of magical girls. Swords and ribbons batted the fire bullets away, and they quickly vanished. As the girls defended themselves, the mobster mage kept on shooting as they drove, spinning around to do a U-turn. As the car sped off, a casting net shot out of it with a pop. It was large but slower than the fire projectiles, and since it couldn’t kill them, the girls took fewer pains in dodging it. But the net did catch one girl: the one dressed like a European-esque delivery person. She was tangled up in the net, struggling.

Saying it aloud would be mean, but that one was sort of slow. Kayo recalled that girl was one of the two first-years.

With the net toss as its parting shot, the car attempted to speed away. The rainbow girl chased after it, and the bunny-eared girl stayed behind to fight.

The Arabian dancer girl was delivering alternating blows from up in the sky, but Bunny Ears avoided them as she restrained the girl in the wedding dress and fended off the blade of the pirate captain, Umi, even though it was moving so fast Kayo could hardly see it.

Kayo looked down at her feet. The postal delivery girl was struggling inside the net. She couldn’t tear it, but it wouldn’t come off, either, and the more she thrashed, the more it seemed to entangle her. The poor thing, Kayo thought. She clearly wasn’t good at fighting, and yet she’d been brought out here anyway. Thinking back to when the fairy had first shown up, she remembered one girl had seemed less than enthusiastic about the whole thing. She’d been dragged along by her friend, hadn’t she? Just like Kayo.

Kayo addressed the girl at her feet. “Don’t move. Curl up as small as you can.” She smiled as kindly as she could as the girl peered up at her in terror. Kayo was surprised at herself for keeping it together enough to show compassion to someone else and scoffed at herself. Maybe I’m just pitying a kindred spirit. The postal delivery girl did what Kayo said. Inside the net, she held her knees and balled up, and Kayo flung her cape over the girl, completely covering her body.

Kayo—the magical girl Funny Trick—could use her magic to swap the positions of any two hidden things. What she did was no different from sleight of hand, except without the sleight.

On the way there, Kayo had checked the garbage can beside the vending machine. The only thing inside was an empty can. In order for Funny Trick to use her magic, she had to check the positions of the things she would swap and ensure that neither would be seen by anyone.

Kayo tapped her cape with the tip of her wand, and the bulge of fabric collapsed like a deflated balloon. When she peeled it away, lying there was an empty can.

She’d managed to save the girl for now. This magic can come in handy, she thought, looking toward the vending machine. She spotted the delivery girl poking her head out of the garbage can, eyes darting over her surroundings.

The station wagon raced by at high speed, and the rainbow magical girl chasing after it stopped by the garbage can to drag the delivery girl out of it and yell, “The two of us can handle the car!”

She dragged the delivery girl along, in hot pursuit of the fleeing station wagon. Kayo doubted the postal girl even understood what was going on. Once more, the phrase pity for a kindred spirit came to Kayo’s mind.

  Captain Grace

The girl in the rainbow-colored costume and the delivery girl were chasing after the station wagon. With a magical girl’s strong legs, they weren’t going to fall behind. Captain Grace could leave them be. She had to deal with the other one.

Bunny Ears was agile. When the Arabian dancing girl hurled something invisible at her, she evaded it with a hop backward, and when the ballerina lashed out with her billowing ribbons, Bunny Ears grabbed them all at once and yanked to pull her opponent off balance, then followed up with a kick. The ballerina tried to block it with a wall of ribbons, but Bunny Ears kicked right through it and sent her skidding across the road.

The fleeing car or Bunny Ears: If Captain Grace was to choose one opponent, it’d be the latter. That one looked like more fun. Thinking about a fight with another magical girl, Umi couldn’t help the adventurous spirit boiling over within her.

Bunny Ears was a tough opponent. Attacking her didn’t ruffle her feathers. She avoided the Arabian dancing girl’s airborne strikes easily, dodging the assaults from all directions in a display of impressive technique. Even though some of the attacks came from above and behind, the typical blind spots, she remained unscathed.

When Kayo carelessly swiped at her with her wand, Bunny Ears seized her arm, about to swing Kayo around when Umi caught her. Neither the girl in the wedding dress nor the Arabian dancing girl could really make a move. And the indecisive attacks from the variously sized ribbons failed to hit their mark. Everyone was acting frightened. Were they scared of the flame projectiles, or had they just been stunned by the strength of their enemies?

This is pathetic. She’s unarmed! Umi railed at them all in her mind and examined her opponent once more.

Was Bunny Ears a kind of magical girl, too?

Just like Captain Grace, she was strong. What would happen if magical girls this powerful fought one another? She got excited just thinking about it.

Umi Shibahara’s rule of thumb was to fight fair and square, face-to-face. So she circled around to come in front of Bunny Ears, who was avoiding, blocking, and parrying attacks from the other magical girls. Captain Grace turned her one-sided blade around in her grip to swipe the dull end at the enemy, and Bunny Ears instantly squatted to dodge. Then, without even giving Umi the time to think Oh, not bad, Bunny Ears put her hand on the ground and kicked. Captain Grace didn’t quite fully evade, and blood spurted from her thigh.

It was just a scrape, but that injury changed the entire vibe. Not within Umi herself but around her. Their group had become the magical girls of legend who fought to defeat evil mages like in a fairy tale, but actually using weapons and witnessing real bloodshed had shaken them. Kayo, the class rep, and their teacher weren’t used to violence, unlike Umi.

Umi let out an intentionally loud laugh. If she acted cautious now, their enemy would make light of them, and her allies would lose morale. Their enemies were evil mages. If they were to back down, then the world would be destroyed. Raising her sword above her head, she swung it downward this time. It appeared to be another attack, but this was a feint. To the enemy, it should look like a large opening, and someone as good as Bunny Ears was bound to take advantage. Captain Grace would do just that.

C’mon, what’s your next attack gonna be? Umi readied herself, but Bunny Ears turned and made a break for it. She doglegged past the circle of magical girls around her to make her escape. Captain Grace made a rushed swing at her with her sword, but Bunny Ears ducked low and slipped under the blade.

“I’m not letting you away, fluff-brains!” Perhaps the added insult was an expression of irritation toward herself. She swiped at the fleeing enemy, but Bunny Ears was already out of range. In desperation, Umi hurled her sword at her, but Bunny Ears sank low to the ground to duck and went on running on all fours like an animal, without ever slowing down.

It was frustrating to admit, but when it came to speed and agility over a short distance, Bunny Ears seemed to be superior. But they wouldn’t know if she had the advantage when it came to long-distance endurance until they tested it. Since Umi didn’t know, it was worth trying out. At any rate, she was hot on Bunny Ears’s heels, and as long as she didn’t let her out of sight, she had a chance at winning. Her enemy was escaping on all four limbs, just like a real rabbit, and Captain Grace chased close behind.

Sprinting straight down the road, they passed the front of the school, then dashed up the wall of the farmer’s co-op to leap from that roof and land on top of the warehouse. They raced back down onto the ground, where Bunny Ears slowed down just a bit. The distance between them shrank.

—I’ve got her!

Umi reached out, but right before she could grab her enemy’s collar, she felt an intense shock in her thigh. She jumped up and stopped, settling into a fighting stance. It hadn’t come from Bunny Ears. There was no sign that she’d attacked Umi, and she was running off like a literal jackrabbit, and it wasn’t long before she disappeared. Captain Grace’s eyes darted this way and that.

Had someone attacked her? No. No one was paying attention to her now. The road was empty. Was it someone hiding? Where? There was only the sidewalk, the road, and the field behind her.

The spot where she’d felt that intense shock was the same spot where she’d gotten scratched after failing to dodge that kick. It wasn’t a deep wound at all. She ran her finger along her thigh and found the scrape was still just a scrape, after all. She’d felt shock and pain but had taken no damage. Still, there was no way she had just imagined that.

All that remained was the fact that Umi had let Bunny Ears escape.

  Rain Pow

As is the case with every creature, including humans, each magical girl is different. And these differences are not restricted to their magics. Their physical abilities vary significantly as well.

There were many variants among the four girls fighting Bunny Ears, too: the Arabian dancer was fast; the pirate was also quite agile and strong. Compared to those two, the ribbon girl was much less gifted, but she could still fight. The most the wedding dress girl could probably do would be to create a diversion.

Running behind Rain Pow was a transformed Tatsuko Sakaki. She was slow-moving, even compared to the wedding dress girl. Frankly speaking, she was a slug. She also didn’t look very strong, either.

Rain Pow called out to her with concern. “You okay, Tsuko?”

“Yeah…I’m okay.”

Still, it sounded like she could keep up with the car without getting winded, which was a relief.

Rain Pow continued after the car, maintaining a speed that would not leave Tatsuko behind but wouldn’t let the car pull away from them, either. If it kept driving in a straight line they would have to turn somewhere, as long as they weren’t going to take the bypass onto the highway. And once they turned, they wouldn’t be able to maintain their speed of over sixty miles per hour. If the girls ventured onto the highway, they’d be able to speed up without any reservations, too.

In other words, no matter which way the coin fell, it was no problem for them.

Rain Pow checked that Tatsuko was keeping up, occasionally shooting her concerned glances as they gradually accelerated. The station wagon nearly hit some pedestrians, and cars in the opposing lane were honking up a storm, but it didn’t slow down as it careened onto a side road.

—All right!

Kaori and Tatsuko were more familiar with this area. That car was headed for a narrow back road with a lot of turns. Even if they got through all that and came out onto the big road, it was packed with cars on their way back from work at this time of day. Traffic jams weren’t unusual.

But if they had to take their pick, a back road with fewer eyes was probably better than a major road with a lot of witnesses. Rain Pow kicked off a cement-block wall, using the recoil to send her into a pine tree, and from there, she grabbed some telephone wires and manifested a rainbow bridge that ran in a straight line from beneath her feet right to her goal. It took less than a second. This was Rain Pow’s magic.

And this wasn’t a regular rainbow; it was strong. Rain Pow ran atop it, making a beeline for the station wagon. Unlike the car, which was forced to turn with the road, she could ignore that and go straight ahead on her bridge through the air. Based on the car’s speed, she judged where it would end up and headed to that point.

But then something strange happened. Suddenly, smoke spouted out from the back of the station wagon. As Rain Pow jumped down from her rainbow bridge, she heard the station wagon crashing into something, and the ground shook. The gray smoke spewed out of the car in an increasingly thick cloud.

Covering her mouth, Rain Pow looked up. Through the smoke, she could see what looked like figures running along the roofs. They were splitting up to run in two different directions.

So they put up a smoke screen to split ways and escape, huh?

“Wh-what do we do, Kaori?” asked Tatsuko.

“Um… The two of us could…split up, too? Or something?”

“Whaaa…?!”

“Okay! Let’s do that! You chase that one, Tsuko! I’ll go this way!”

“O-okay…”

Tatsuko’s feet raced up the concrete-block wall to run along the roofs. Rain Pow was about to take off, too, when she felt eyes on her and turned to look back. A middle-aged woman was holding a child of about three and staring at Rain Pow with a look of terror on her face.

Rain Pow flung her right arm out in the woman’s direction and cackled, “Happy Halloween!”

Once the woman’s expression seemed to say, “Oh, so it’s that season?” she ran up onto the rooftops.

  Weddin (Time remaining: twenty-three hours, fifty minutes)

Every one of Mine Musubiya’s decisions was made on a risk-reward basis. Sometimes, her mother would tell her to think about things less in terms of profit and loss, but Mine didn’t feel she was wrong.

It wasn’t like she rejected ideas of friendship and love. If choosing them over money, status, and other important things was still the better option, then that was the choice that should be made. If the things to be gained through study were greater than the pleasure to be gained through play, then it was best to study. If the stress caused by studying outweighed its benefits, then it was best to seek relief in hobbies. In Mine’s case, she would go rent anime DVDs to watch.

Compare and choose. This was simple and easy to understand. Even when some of her classmates talked behind her back, calling her a suck-up or a teacher’s pet, if her status with that teacher was more important than that stress, she would choose that option. She would cut off those types of people and be kind to her other classmates. Doing things like letting people copy her notes or listening to people’s problems would gain her rewards. Mine was willing to peddle her benevolence for the advantage of popularity.

Now that she had the opportunity to fulfill the dream she’d had since she was little—to be a magical girl—she would do that, of course. Fighting some evil mages was no great price to pay, considering what she got in exchange.

The pirate returned, still looking alert. Bunny Ears was gone. It seemed she had let her quarry escape.

“Hey, hey! You can’t let them get away!” Toko was hopping mad. She had lined the girls up in a semicircle, and now the pirate was bearing the brunt of her anger. When the rainbow girl and postal delivery girl came back empty-handed, too, she exploded. “Why did you let them get away?! You had the upper hand! It should have been easy for you! This went to pot because you got cocky! Agh! You dummy dumb-dumbs!”

“How can you talk like that when you weren’t even fighting?” Mine spat out without thinking.

Toko’s reaction was shrewd. “What? You’re the one not even fighting. I’m the one who made you kids into magical girls, aren’t I? Without me, you wouldn’t have powers at all! If you’re going to whine to me after you let them get away, then I can make someone else a magical girl!”

Mine bit her lip. She couldn’t deny that venting her irritation like that had been thoughtless, but she was still angry. Right now, at least, Toko was not talking like someone who needed rescuing.

Seemingly ignoring Toko, the pirate took a step forward. “So this injury here.” The pirate pointed to her thigh. It was bleeding. Mine looked at it, too. It was bleeding because the kick from Bunny Ears had skimmed her, right? “It felt like a giant blade was slicing it off, then like someone was grinding salt into it or going at it with a cheese grater and slathering it with wasabi. Was this, like, that person’s magic?”

“Well, she’s an evil mage. Of course she uses magic. More importantly, you’ve got to go chase after them now and beat them.”

Timidly, the rainbow girl raised her hand. “The ones we were chasing used smoke to blind us. The car stopped, but the people inside ran away. We split up and searched the area, but we couldn’t find them… But just in case, we did hide their car.”

So Mine had been right to judge that a magical girl’s strong legs could catch up with the car, and she’d most likely also been correct in thinking that they could handle a fight with its passengers. It hadn’t even occurred to her that their targets would use confusion tactics on them to escape.

Mine heaved a sigh. “If we don’t take a moment to reflect, we won’t be able to move on to the next step.”

“How long are you gonna spend reflecting?! Chasing them down comes first! They’re evil mages! The world is gonna be in trouble! All your families are in danger!”

“It’d be best to think it all over rather than pursue them without a plan.”

Having acquired the fantastic powers of magical-girl-hood, they had headed out to play with the evil mages, where they could use their powers to their hearts’ content. Had Mine ever let her guard down? No, she had not. Their opponents were as strong as or stronger than they were. What’s more, she had believed her own powers were strong, but they were nothing to speak of in a battle between magical girls. It had taken all she had just to visually track the back-and-forth between the pirate and Bunny Ears.

Her own magic, to compel people to keep promises, wasn’t useful in battle, so there was no helping that. But still, the other magical girls might have had opportunities to use their own abilities. And if she didn’t know what those abilities were, then she couldn’t give orders to use them.

Actually, maybe she should be considering how she could use her own magic for combat purposes. Whatever the case, it would be best to know what the other girls’ powers were.

“I’m with the class rep.” The pirate indicated her agreement.

But there was something about the way she addressed her that left Mine unsatisfied. She shook her head and pointed to herself. “I’m not the class representative. I’m Weddin. My magical-girl name is Weddin.” Since this was the character she’d become now, she should make that clear. When a villain was yelling the heroine’s name, it was always, “Damn you, Cutie Red!” never, “Damn you, Yoshiko Takanashi!”

“I get it. We didn’t even know each other’s names, huh? We’ll never be able to cooperate like that. So I’m Captain Grace. Glad to be working together, Weddin.”

“Likewise, Captain Grace.” They shook hands and gave each other little nods. They were probably thinking along similar lines.

“I was champing at the bit, so I kinda rushed things. First, let’s introduce ourselves. And not just our names but our powers, and if you can, how strong you are physically, too.”

Toko complained so loudly that Weddin was impressed by the racket coming from such a tiny fairy. “Boo, boo! Forget that, and let’s hurry! They’re getting away!”

“Of course we’re gonna catch those guys. Duh. But even so, we gotta give this thing our all, right? You know that saying about how even a lion runs its fastest to catch a rabbit?”

“Agreed,” said Weddin.

“Mei will do that ‘reflecting’ thing, too.”

“You’re all driving me crazy! Agh! You have to beat those people up, or you can’t become official magical girls, okay?!”

“Learning from our mistakes is all well and good, but… Why don’t we do it somewhere else?” suggested the ribbon girl—that must be Ms. Himeno. Perhaps she worried people might see them, as she was surveying the area. The asphalt was so badly eroded and broken up that it would need repair after the pounding from their magical-girl legs. A trash can lay in the middle of the road. Plus, they all looked like cosplayers.

There had been no people around before, but there were houses nearby. Now some rubberneckers were looking their way, perhaps startled by all the commotion. An old couple doing farm work were pointing at them and commenting, “Must be filming some kind of TV show.” A middle-aged woman who seemed like a housewife was staring at them as if they each had two heads. A five-year-old girl stood in awe, her eyes agleam.

This crowd was bound to get bigger. The Japanese police were a formidable bunch. Patrol cars were sure to show up soon, too.