Mahou Shoujo Ikusei Keikaku - Volume 13 - Chapter 8

CHAPTER 8

DON’T WANNA GO HOME TODAY

  Kana

Once she was done reading the first arc of Scrap-Iron Knuckle Dusters, a total of fifteen volumes, Kana let out a slow breath and placed the final volume down on the bed. Mephis was watching her with an unusually tense expression.

Kana stuck up her right index finger and pointed to volume fifteen of Scrap-Iron Knuckle Dusters. “This is…” Now she exhaled from her nose, got up from the bed, took two steps toward the door, then three steps back to the window again, and turned around. “Interesting.”

The tension melted off Mephis’s face to reveal joy. But Kana’s seriousness did not falter, maintaining her tension as she looked upon the book, eyes filled with only sorrow. “But is this all right?”

“It was interesting, right. What’s the problem?” Mephis demanded.

“It’s interesting…but isn’t it too interesting? It’s highly stimulating. And highly addictive, too. Despite having finished part one and reached a tentative conclusion, I want to read the rest so badly. Just what was the group that captured Tatsuo after he ran away? What was the thing that dwells within that Ryuuichi whispered of? And who is that legendary boss nicknamed Knuckle Dusters…?”

“So basically, you got into it.”

“Isn’t this stimulating beyond what should be sold to the public? If the population abandons everything and becomes engrossed in reading, the nation will fall apart. These works are mass-produced and put on the market at such a cheap price that they can be acquired by anyone, made for the sake of promulgation to—”

“Stop making this so complicated! Seriously, that’s the thing about you.”

“What sort of thing about me? If you could point out specifically—”

“Drop it!” Mephis stood up, smacking Kana in the back like a tough reprimand. Mephis forced Kana to sit and, once she was on the bed again, immediately plopped herself down by her side. The violence of her body language aside, her expression was peaceful, her cheeks unusually relaxed for Mephis, with a charming smile on. “If it’s hit you that hard, then you should just have a cooldown. Times like this, okay, you have a book talk. You chat about stuff like—this part was interesting, or that part looked like foreshadowing, right, to get yourself ready for more. That’s the sort of stuff manga fans do to cool their heads for a bit.”

“I see. Perhaps that’s logical.”

There was a mountain of things Kana wanted to talk about. She brought up things like the relationship between the protagonist and the rival, and if the countless acts of brutality that the largest biker gang in the prefecture was said to have done had actually been them, and couldn’t the protagonist’s father, a former gang leader, be straight with his son instead of always speaking so ambiguously.

“Gotta be careful not to spoil things,” Mephis replied with enthusiastic zeal. But when it came to the protagonist’s romantic affairs, she wasn’t willing to talk anymore, saying, “Not interested,” “It’s not that genre,” and “Forget that stuff, seriously.”

“I think it’s deeply interesting who will be the partner, though.”

“It’s a delinquent manga, so it’s about the battles—the battles! You can read romantic comedies or love stories or whatever for romance, so you should just leave the mushy stuff to those. Nothin’ beats a good rumble in the streets.”

“Couldn’t you also call the competition to see in what form genes will be passed to the next generation another sort of battle?”

“That’s not the kind of battle that a battle manga should be dealing with.”

“If you won’t talk with me about it, then where should I vent these feelings in my heart?”

“It’s nothing that dramatic, okay. Lillian’s a romance nut, so maybe she’ll be into it. She’s always reading nothing but lovey-dovey manga.”

“So there’s that sort of manga, as well?”

“Not in my place, though. I don’t like them.”

So there was a broader range of manga out there than what Kana had imagined. But this was Mephis’s apartment. Things that did not suit her tastes would be rejected. If Kana was to get serious about manga, then eventually the time would come when she would have to leave the nest and fly off from this place. But she would cross that bridge when she came to it. Right now, even just the manga in this room was enough. Excess of such stimulating pleasure would cause mental abnormalities. Putting her hand to her cheek, it felt a little warm. It was hotter than her regular temperature. This was even causing her physical abnormalities.

Mephis had suggested that they chat to cool down, but never mind cooling down—she was becoming even more heated. Kana judged that it would be dangerous to talk about manga any further. “You said Lillian likes romance manga,” she said.

“Yeah. Girls’ magazines, ladies’ comics—she’s game for it all,” Mephis replied. “She looks like the quiet type, but she’s actually not only into girl-boy stuff, she’s even okay with girl-girl or guy-guy. Even with full-on shounen manga with hardly any romance at all, she’ll squeal and get excited like, ‘Doesn’t this scene mean this?’ or ‘So and so might be trying to tell something-or-other he’s into him.’”

“So that’s one way to enjoy it, huh.”

“And I’m always going to the post office every weekend to buy stamps for the prize send-ins, but I’ve never won anything, even once. Maybe that stuff is kind of like a scam. There aren’t many hardcore fans like me, so they could at least give me a bit of a freebie.” Since a number of technical terms had come up there, it was difficult for what she meant to get across, but Kana felt as if she had managed to get a general grasp on what Mephis was trying to say.

Kana stroked the line of her hair with the index finger of her right hand, then put her index and middle fingers together to point at Mephis. “Have you known Lillian long? It seems like you know her well.”

“Well, since before starting middle school, so I guess that does count, more or less.”

“What about Kumi-Kumi?”

“The same as Lillian, I guess. Just can’t get rid of either of them.”

“What about Adelheid?”

“I met her when we started here. She’s not a bad person, sort of.”

“Then what about Tetty?”

Mephis narrowed her eyes, then raised up one knee on the bed. Her gaze on Kana chilled somewhat, compared to before.

“Did I say something to offend you?” Kana asked.

“Well, if I have to say, then yeah. But it’s not really anything that big. We’ve known each other since we were little kids, and we became magical girls together; that’s it.”

“Considering that, you seem to have a fairly rocky relationship.”

“Well, yeah. After all that time apart, she’s gotten real full of herself. Way back then, she was always following me around wherever we went and hiding behind me when anything happened. But now she looks down on me, yeah? She acts like she’s so important. It’s like, who died and made you queen? And she was acting like a big deal in the mock battle, too. Like, what the hell.”

“Hmm.”

“Anyway, why’re you asking stuff like that…? It’s like you’re trying to probe me for info.”

“That’s not my intention. You and I are in the same group—in other words, we’re allies. You would be curious about your allies.”

“Hmm. Huh.”

“It’s not only me. It seems like Kumi-Kumi, Lillian, and Adelheid are also worried about you.”

“Feh.”

“And Tetty, too. She’s often looking at you with concern.”

“What? For real?”

“For real.”

Mephis opened her mouth wide and made a bizarre shriek at the ceiling that made Kana want to cover her ears, and by the time she’d turned back to Kana again, her eyebrows were all the way up her forehead. Disgruntled, she yelled, “You trying to be team mom or what?!”

“What’s ‘team mom’?”

“You trying to act like my mother?! Who the hell do you think you are?! What kind of angle are you looking at me from?! How can you look down on me when we’re the same age?! You asshole! Idiot! Moron! Tetty!” Mephis threw a cushion, and it bounced off the wall, bounced off the floor, hit the edge of the bed, and bounced again. Leaping to her feet in a rage, Mephis transformed into the black-haired magical girl. She made a fist, throwing a punch at the wall, but then right before it hit, she froze just a finger’s width away and let out a long sigh. Her squared shoulders dropped.

When she turned back, it seemed she’d done the “cooldown” she’d described before, as she spoke more calmly than she ever had. But that just made her seem more intensely emotional. “Why aren’t you stopping me?”

“What do you mean?” Kana asked.

“I’m renting this apartment. If I punched the wall with the power of a magical girl, it’d be a disaster.”

“You’re the head of household here, so I thought it would be best to let you do as you please.”

“You seem sensible, but you’re a total weirdo.” Mephis let out a sigh about half as long as the earlier one and sat down next to Kana. She spread her legs wide, put her hands on her knees, and let her back hunch. She shot Kana a sidelong look from below. “My magic is kind of a roundabout sort of thing, right? It’s not something you use head-on in battle, right?”

“It’s more suited to battle than mine,” Kana pointed out.

“But like, with Tetty or whatever, hers is totally combat oriented. If we got in a straight fight, she could easily pin my limbs. One grab, and she could crush me in the blink of an eye.”

“She did very well in the mock battle.”

“It’s like, you know, way back before, I was the one protecting her. But then, like, ever since we became magical girls, man—I dunno, it’s just—she’s got a pretty battle-like kind of magic.”

“I don’t really understand what you’re trying to say.”

“Agh, whatever, if you don’t get it. It’s not like I really want you to get it anyway. More importantly, let’s talk about you. Like, you seem pretty secretive.”

Folding her legs, she pressed her right thumbnail to her lips and stretched out her back. Her braided hair surged, the ends pointing at Kana from every direction, and Kana slid back one third of a bottom’s worth.

“You’ve never undone your transformation in front of me, huh?” said Mephis.

“I haven’t.”

“Doesn’t that seem secretive?”

Detransforming had been Mephis’s own free choice, and there was no reason at all Kana would have to do it as well. But even if she explained that carefully and politely, it would just make Mephis angry and would add nothing. This was one of the rules she’d learned from experience, in her countless failures since entering the school. In order to get through this, she should try approaching from another angle.

“There was once a magical girl called Archfiend Pam,” said Kana.

Mephis furrowed her brow suspiciously. Her hair writhed in a circular motion. “I know that. She’s the one who made the Archfiend Cram School, right? Why’re you bringing her up now?”

“Archfiend Pam preached that you should never undo your transformation, whether it be with friends and acquaintances or other sorts of people.”

“Why not?”

“Oh, I didn’t hear as far as that. An acquaintance of an acquaintance of an acquaintance… No, I suppose it’s an acquaintance of an acquaintance. I believe she was a magical girl who knew Archfiend Pam. My memories are vague, but I do have the feeling that I listened with some fairly deep interest. Still, it was just thirdhand information, so I didn’t think to dig deep into the reason.”

“The hell, that’s just one of those friend of a friend of mine stories. Like how people always start off sketchy ghost stories. That basically kills all its credibility right there.”

“No, I believe it was accurately communicated to me. The human form is nothing but a weakness.”

“So then that means I… And wait, everyone in our class has shown you their weaknesses, but not the other way round. This is what I mean—if we’re all a team, then do you gotta be so uneven like that? Let’s be open with each other.” Mephis was smiling with only one cheek. It was a bold smile.

Automatically, Kana smiled back at her with one cheek. You’d probably call this a weak smile. If she was comparing herself to Mephis, Kana could never hope to beat her in a verbal contest. Sometimes using intimidation, other times using flattery, Mephis would try to open up the door to Kana’s heart. And with her magic added on top of that, even resisting her words required a great deal of patience.

“We have to go to school soon,” said Kana. “Mephis, prepare us breakfast.”

“Yep. Too bad, tonight’s the field exercise, so Calkoro told us yesterday to rest during the day.”

“…Now that you mention it, perhaps she did say that.”

“Don’t try to get outta this. It’s not like I’m asking for anything major, here. Let’s undo our transformations?”

Kana was not sure at all of her own fortitude. She thought it was common to believe that people who were locked up in prison would likely often not be good at restraint.

Kana was not confident she could put up with this forever. That phrase Mephis had said so casually, “if we’re all a team,” had loosed the hinges of the door, rattled the knob, and was sticking lubricant in the keyhole. The way this was going, it was becoming like Kana was doing something bad. Guilt that shouldn’t have been there was stirring in her heart, and the sudden urge to apologize was sneaking up behind her.

As you might expect from having a devil motif, Mephis had a smooth tongue. It wouldn’t be strange at all if Kana were bound by some outrageous contract unawares, just like that poor old Doctor Faust.

Kana consciously shifted her plan of action. This was not retreat. This was a change of course. She dropped the smile she’d made to match Mephis, tightening up her lips. Kana’s serious expression seemed to affect Mephis, as a powerful edge of seriousness came to her face. She looked back at Kana with sharp eyes.

Enunciating each of her words cautiously, Kana said to her, “Now…is not yet…the time.”

“Huh? What do you mean?”

“I will…never…give up on…my dream.”

“Hmm?”

“Look him…in the eye. That’s…a wildcat.”

“Wait, hey… Those are all lines from that manga!”

“The Dead Road gang are all just dogs. They ain’t got any more brains than dogs, either.”

“You cut that out! I’m trying to have a serious talk, here!”

“Don’t ya worry, I’ll keep you safe.”

“You bitch!!” Mephis pounced on her, and Kana dived into the futon. Mephis’s hair tail zoomed in after her, and Kana slid through the bed to escape from the pillow side, leap out, tunnel under the bed, and come out at the foot to pull a right, emerging in front of the bookshelf to throw the fallen cushion there at Mephis and hit her in the face. While fleeing, she repeated the lines that she “wanted to try using someday” that she’d learned from bingeing that manga.

Mephis howled, and Kana cowered. Without Mephis ever realizing, Kana had turned this into a chase instead, and at some point, the talk of undoing her transformation was like it had never happened. By making Mephis angry, Kana had turned the big minus of danger to herself into a plus. Her negotiation skills must have grown a lot, to be leading the devil around by the nose.

Eventually, her pursuer said with a laugh, “How can you remember that much just from reading it once?” and then the two magical girls played tag in the small bedroom for a while.

  Tetty Goodgripp

With the field exercise coming up so suddenly, she had a whole bunch of free time. Once Fujino got done with all the things she’d wanted to do on the weekend—cleaning, laundry, and tidying her room—she didn’t have anything left to do. It was too early in the day for magical-girl activities, and having lived a life dedicated to being a magical girl, Fujino had nothing like a hobby.

She did advanced studying and review of her regular classes and her magical-girl bookwork, and she even put together the curriculum for Arlie and Dory as well. When she looked at the clock, it was still only eleven. The thought struck her that she should have made an appointment to go out to eat with the girls of Group One, and she bit her lip, then happened to flick her eyes to the calendar.

They were past halfway through May. More than a month had gone by since she’d entered the magical-girl school.

Looking back to ask herself if she was doing well, she concluded that she was probably not. She’d attempted to make up with Mephis, but in the end, she hadn’t managed it. She’d only apologized, not made up.

Fujino had always been bad at inviting people to things or getting into a group of friends. For a child, this was a vital issue. When she’d only started elementary school, she hadn’t been able to make friends, and she’d tended to be on her own. The first one to be her friend had been Mephis—Fuuko Sayama. A little while after becoming friends, they’d both taken the magical-girl test together. Though they’d said things like, “We’re rivals, so no matter who passes, no resentments,” when they had both actually passed, Fujino had relaxed and smiled. Things had really been fun then.

They didn’t smile together anymore. When they’d reunited at magical-girl school, they’d both been pretty excited about it, and they’d talked and stuff without fussing over who was in what group—until around April. Now, that association had ended.

The recent tendency of the division between groups could be said to have originated with Fujino herself. She had to do something about that. She knew Mephis wasn’t a bad person, after all.

Should she try to be a little more proactive about talking to her? But Fujino had only just reaffirmed that she wasn’t good at talking. Maybe I could focus on the courtyard Satou told me about, she thought as she scribbled up a plan for making up on a piece of loose-leaf paper. She knew putting together planning documents didn’t mean she’d be able to do anything according to plan, but she didn’t have anything better to do anyway.

  Pshuke Prains

With the field exercise coming up so suddenly, she had a whole bunch of free time. That’s what Pshuke had expected at least, but she had received an unexpected invitation. They were to meet up in front of the school gates and go together to a neighborhood cafeteria. She’d gotten her hopes up, wondering what kind of fancy clothes the other girl would show up in, but it turned out to be simply a school uniform. Still, Pshuke had come in her school uniform, too. Two middle school girls in their uniforms were drinking tea on a weekday afternoon. Fortunately, there were no customers here, and the staff didn’t call them to task, either. Though they did have the excuse, just in case, that they were in AP classes that had the afternoon off, but if nobody was going to say anything about it, nothing could be better than that.

The girl with her was eye-catching, after all. She kind of faded out among the rest of the class due to the presence of the inhuman beauty that was Princess Lightning, but Sally Raven in human form grabbed attention so effortlessly that she could be assumed to be an amateur model with an Oh, of course she is. Her eyes were large; her shapely nose was defined and high. Even as another girl, the picture she made on a daily basis, chatting with Lightning, was a treat for the eyes.

“There’s something I kinda wanna talk about, yeahhh,” said Sally.

“Is it something we can’t talk about at school? Honestly, this is a hassle,” Pshuke replied.

“Hey, don’t say that. Pshuke, you don’t think things have been a little weird?”

Pshuke answered instantly, “I do.” She didn’t even have to think about it. “Lightning fighting with Adelheid, and Lightning setting up Group Two during the mock battle—that’s what you mean, right?”

“Oh, you’re making this quick. That’s exactly what I mean, yeahhh.”

“Listen, this is all too much trouble for me. We’re all right in the middle of puberty anyway, and magical girls are all weirdos to begin with, so obviously we’re gonna do weird things, right? It’s really way too much trouble to get dragged into every little thing. I don’t wanna.”

“Hey, now. I do get that feeling, but…”

The server came over with their rainbow peach tea, so the conversation was put on pause for a moment. It was an aesthetically pleasing tea, divided into seven different-colored layers. They took one snap of the scene around them, reflecting the sunlight streaming in from outside the café, and another snap of the two of them side by side, holding up their glasses.

They returned to their seats and resumed their discussion. “Pshuke,” said Sally, “you were a pro before coming to this school, yeahhh?”

“A pro?”

“You were doing security at the Cutie Healer twentieth anniversary party, right? I’m from the PR Department. Since I like Cutie Healer.”

Pshuke hadn’t thought Sally would know of her. Naturally, a wrinkle came together in her brow. “So what about it?”

“Oh, I was thinking a pro would be able to tell. It seems to me like Lightning’s stirring things up deliberately. Like, you know, she might be doing it for some purpose, yeahhh.”

“So what if she does?”

“I don’t really like talking badly about people who aren’t there, but…,” said Sally.

“You starting a fight with me?”

“No, no, it’s fine for you to do it. It’s just that ultimately, I’m not into it, so I don’t want you to be offended. Ummm, Ranyi and Diko don’t really seem like they wanna interfere, either, right. So when Lightning goes off to do whatever she wants, we can’t stop her.”

“Well…that’s true.”

“This depends on Lightning’s plans and what she does, but worst case, you can imagine a situation where even we can’t graduate anymore, being in her group, yeahhh? It really looks to me like Lightning is trying to create divisions in the class.”

Pshuke didn’t nod. But she was mentally agreeing. She got the feeling Lightning wasn’t just acting wild because she wanted to. She wouldn’t let Group Three be friendly with the other groups, she’d made Tetty and Mephis fight, and she’d gotten into a fight herself with Adelheid.

“And then there was her fight with Adelheid, too, yeahhh,” Sally continued. “It really feels like something is there. And with the way Ranyi and Diko reacted, that was, like, it feels like they know something.”

Pshuke thought Sally had good eyes. But she didn’t want to compliment her out loud.

“Even if we don’t take this till graduation,” said Sally, “so long as I can keep on the job somehow up until the first term of next year without any big incidents, then I… Yeah, around the term after next, or the one after that, or after that, they’re talking about maybe making me a Cutie Healer. Just the name Cutie Healer Raven has gotten unofficial approval, and it really is a great name, right? So I really don’t want to get dragged into some weird trouble, yeahhh? So like, Pshuke. As pros, okay? The both of us. When things get real sketch, let’s work together. Yeahhh?”

The wrinkle between Pshuke’s brow eased just a bit. She understood what Sally meant. She wanted to agree, too. She absolutely didn’t want to get dragged into Lightning’s recklessness and get expelled. If worse came to worst, she wanted to separate from the group to save herself. Sally was not included in that, but Pshuke nodded anyway, putting on an expression like they were in the same boat. “I like that. Agreed. Let’s go with that. So then, if the time comes, we help each other.”

“Ohhh, I’m glad this all went so quick with you. Just what I’d expect of a pro.”

“Well, you know. There is money hanging on this, after all. You have money on this, too, don’t you? Won’t you get quite a lot if you get chosen as a Cutie Healer?”

“Nahhh, not at all. A magical-girl anime is about the prestige.”

“Huh? Really? That’s dumb; what a waste of time.”

“Not at all.”

“Come on, but even if you do get to be Cutie Healer—that’s not even prestigious; the show only exists to make money.”

The expression dropped right off Sally’s face. She seemed strange. Letting out a sigh long enough that the air reached Pshuke, she drew in a breath just as long, then smiled thinly. “Pshuke. There are two types of magical girls in the world. Magical girls who love Cutie Healer. And magical girls who don’t yet understand how great Cutie Healer is.”

Ah, Pshuke thought. She’d experienced this very thing before, many times. This was the feeling of stepping on a land mine.

“There’s no school until this evening, so you’ve got lots of time, yeahhh? It’s okay; I’ll teach you all about how great Cutie Healer is, so that you can understand, Pshuke.”

Sally’s smile grew even stronger.

  Kumi-Kumi

With the field exercise coming up so suddenly, she had a whole bunch of free time. But even saying that, it wasn’t as if she could make effective use of this sudden free time. Kumi-Kumi went back to sleep until nearly noon, then went out to the neighborhood supermarket to buy groceries for lunch and dinner, put her reusable bag into her bicycle basket, went back to her apartment, listened to the creak of the stairs, fished in her pocket for her key, stuck it into the thickly rusted keyhole, and went into her apartment.

All she could think about was the class—but not about herself. About Mephis. Kumi-Kumi thought things were mostly Mephis’s fault. It was just that pointing that out would make Mephis angry and get them nowhere, so nobody said so. But she was sure the whole class agreed.

Ever since Mephis and Tetty had reunited in their class, they’d gotten into quarrels at every opportunity, like with the card game or mock battle, and it had planted a seed of discord in the class.

Of course Kumi-Kumi wanted them to make up. She wanted to graduate without any issues. Two of her friends fighting made things difficult. There was nothing good about it. But the issue came down to the single fact that Kumi-Kumi wasn’t good enough at talking to mediate between them. Lillian in magical-girl form would be aware of the situation while also being fairly eloquent, but it seemed her motif influenced her in that area, and she’d act all enlightened and say things like “Time should resolve matters for us” with a know-it-all expression.

Lillian could not be counted on. The only one Kumi-Kumi could count on was herself. Even if she couldn’t say it well, if she made a sincere effort to try to say what had to be said, her feelings should at least kind of get across. So then, what to do? As Kumi-Kumi pondered this, she opened up her fridge and put the groceries away. Pulling out the bottle of barley tea she’d made the day before, she poured some into a cup and drank it down. But in the process, her hand slipped, and she just about dropped it, and though she somehow caught it, she splashed some tea on the floor.

She couldn’t go leaving a stain on the floor. Kumi-Kumi seemed to remember there had been a box of tissues on the table. Pulling open the sliding door to go into the living room, she was drawing a tissue from the box when she made eye contact with the person sitting on the opposite side of the table.

“Oh, welcome home.”

Kumi-Kumi instantly transformed into a magical girl and readied her pickax, but before she took a swing with it, she slowly lowered it to the floor. She had seen this magical girl before. She had a fortune-teller-style costume and large crystal ball, but more iconic than her looks were her sickly sweet smile, her surprisingly clear eyes, and her voice, which put the listener vaguely at ease. What was her name again? She’d come to visit the Elite Guard in the past. Kumi-Kumi hadn’t been informed specifically as to what her rank was, but she was in a high position—someone you couldn’t offend.

As Kumi-Kumi went through her mental inquiry, confirming that this information was not mistaken, she recalled that one of her seniors had complained that this person could be childish in odd ways and would sometimes give you weird surprises.

Once Kumi-Kumi had calmed her heart, she sat down at the table opposite the woman. “So…can I ask your business…with me?”

“That was a wonderful reaction. I’m glad I came to your place,” said the woman.

“Um…your business?”

“I wouldn’t mind some barley tea, either.”

Kumi-Kumi rushed to her feet again, and her knee bonked the table. Being in magical-girl form, it didn’t hurt, but it was embarrassing. The woman before her hid her mouth, and her shoulders shook, making Kumi-Kumi even more embarrassed.

Getting up as if nothing had happened, Kumi-Kumi poured barley tea into a cup and pushed it out in front of the visitor. It was just bargain-sale cold-brew barley tea, but the woman brought it to her lips as if it were absolutely delicious.

“The truth is,” said the visitor, “I’ve come here today because I have a very important request. Ahhh, I’ve already finished checking to see if there were any listening devices planted in your apartment; don’t you worry.”

“Oh…thanks.”

“About the magical-girl class you all attend. The original plans were arranged by the Puk Faction. After Puk Puck passed away, the Osk Faction snatched away the project, but the Osks were never aware of its true goal. Well—being unaware of it until recently myself, I can’t criticize. And so. The magical-girl class is ultimately a cover, as Puk Puck meant to use it as a backup plan for saving the Magical Kingdom. Puk Puck never did set the backup plan in motion, having lost her life on her main plan, but her backup scheme was never entirely wiped out. If things go well, it can also be reused for you, and so…I would like to ask for all of your cooperation.”

Since Kumi-Kumi had been so focused on memorizing everything the woman said so as not to forget a single word, she hadn’t gone so far as to scrutinize the content and only managed to grasp that she’d just been asked to do something.

  Calkoro

The students gathered in the classroom that night were in magical-girl form. Thinking about all it had taken to get here made Calkoro want to cry, but she firmly restrained the urge as she opened up the class list.

She’d been feeling quite miserable ever since she’d begun preparing for this exercise. Starting with her preliminary inspection of the mountain area, she’d gone over a total of a hundred spots that seemed particularly important, installed magical hidden cameras, and produced printouts that listed out points of concern for the exercise, and by the time she’d finished everything, it had been just about sunset. She felt like she’d been the one forced to go on a field march.

She’d come up with this plan in an attempt to lessen her own workload somewhat, but she couldn’t help but feel that Halna had assigned her added suffering that hadn’t been there originally.

Calkoro called Arc Arlie’s name. Her reply sounded like chirping but was energetic. Going in syllabic order, she called Kana next. Her quiet answer was no different from the day before. When Calkoro’s gaze hit Kana, she froze up. It took her an unnecessarily long moment to call the next name, Kumi-Kumi. Clearing her throat, she finally called her name, then continued roll call like usual.

While calling Classical Lillian’s name, she glanced over at Kana. Her eyes hadn’t fooled her. She was different from yesterday. Her hair was tied up in a bunch of ponytails that seemed wildly scrabbled together—was that some kind of spell or what? It was way too sloppy to be called fashion. A chain hung from the front of her uniform with a spiked iron ball on the end. These things, maybe you could insist were fashion, but the brass knuckles on her right hand were nothing other than a weapon.

Why had her clothes changed overnight? The school rules were supposed to have an article forbidding the addition or modification of costumes. But even if Calkoro were to use that as a pretext to order her to put her costume back, would she listen? She was clearly already ignoring the rule that you couldn’t be transformed on a regular basis.

The roll went on to Mephis Pheles. Halna had told Calkoro about Kana staying over at Mephis’s house, so she was aware of that. So then wouldn’t the most reasonable explanation be that Kana had been influenced by Mephis’s delinquent interests? Looking over, Mephis seemed somehow smug or in a good mood.

If Mephis was influencing Kana, it would be best to stop her. The kind of student who was convenient to Calkoro was definitely not Mephis. Silently laughing at herself for being so teacherly, thinking about how she had to keep a good student from being sucked in by a delinquent, she called Rappy Taype’s name. Her reply came loud, as usual.

“All right,” Calkoro began, “tonight will be our field exercise, just as I explained beforehand.”

Despite being such a sudden event, all the students had come. Halna wasn’t going to get angry at her about the number of participants now.

“The location is the mountain behind the school. Stick with your groups and remain on standby at your designated positions. The exercise will start at eleven thirty on the dot. All right, please head out, everyone.”

Confirming that the students were all out of the classroom, Calkoro headed for the Procedure Room. Despite the name, this was a room for configuring the homunculi that were mainly used in experiments and such. It couldn’t be used without the permission of the two staff who worked in the school—in other words, Halna and Calkoro.

Calkoro slid her personal key card through the upper reader, then bent down slightly to slide the shared key card through the lower reader. The door slid open, the lights went on automatically, and the liquid that had been dammed back by the door flowed to her feet. Calkoro froze her footsteps.

It took her a while to grasp what was going on. The impossible had happened. There was a man lying limply on top of the long table in the Procedure Room. He looked like he was in his late twenties, wearing the basic mage fashion of a robe and triangle hat, and the fluid that was dripping down from his body—blood—had soaked through his robe.

Stepping over the puddle of blood that was pooling around her feet, Calkoro entered the room, approached the man’s side, took his pulse, and checked his breath. He was dead. He’d already gone cold. There was no way he’d be alive, after losing this much blood.

Calkoro’s shoulders were heaving. She couldn’t stop. The air she was breathing in and out was filled with the scent of blood, making her feel even sicker. She squeezed her eyes shut, then opened them. First, she’d report this. She reached out to the alarm installed in the room and stopped halfway. The security device had a large dent in it, most likely from blunt trauma.

Calkoro’s pulse raced. She’d been the one to use the key card to open this place up. There was no one here aside from the fallen man. So then had he been the one to destroy the security device? Why?

For now, she’d just do what she had to do. She pulled out her magical phone. She didn’t need the security device to contact the outside, or so she thought. But her phone wouldn’t get through. Why? It didn’t make sense.

What should I do? She looked right, then left, gaze wandering restlessly around to catch on the man’s dangling hand. Pushing up her sliding glasses, she brought her face close to the back of his hand. It had a tattoo. She’d seen this insignia before. Members of that place would intentionally display the backs of their hands to show it off.

He’s from the lab…!

Calkoro checked the settings. There were numbers on the screen she’d never seen before. She typed at the keyboard, but it wouldn’t respond. The numbers just kept moving. Calkoro hadn’t given authorization. What was going on here?

Halna was at a meeting at headquarters. She wasn’t at the school. Since Calkoro couldn’t contact her, she had no choice but to use her own discretion. Regardless, at this rate, all over this mountain, there would be homunculi—homunculi with values that did not at all seem like field-exercise use would be unleashed.

Oh, right… If I use the master communications unit… Will I make it in time?

Almost slipping on the blood, Calkoro ran out of the room.