Mahou Shoujo Ikusei Keikaku - Volume 17 - Chapter 2

Magical Test of Courage

  Koyuki Himekawa

“Huh? You’re coming with us for the test of courage, Koyuki?”

“I dunno if that’s a good idea. We might actually run into something!” Sumire dangled her hands in front of her face to mime a ghost.

Koyuki shook her head. “I’ll be okay. I’m not scared of monsters or ghosts.”

“You don’t have to act tough.”

“I’m not,” Koyuki insisted, her smile bright enough to dispel the unease in Sumire’s and Yoshiko’s expressions.

Sumire closed her eyes and nodded heavily, then pulled Koyuki into a tight hug. “You’ve gotten so much stronger.”

“Come on, Sumi… You’re being dramatic.”

Yoshiko still seemed unsure. She heaved a sigh and shrugged. “Well, when you faint or pee yourself, I’ll make sure you’re taken care of.”

Koyuki smiled uncomfortably, still in Sumire’s hug, and scratched her head.

  Minael

Minael was the first one to notice the change in them all.

Ten days earlier, her team did a big cleanup of Ouketsuji, the abandoned temple they used as their base, under the orders of the worst leader ever. Ruler was so overbearing, she just gave commands while hardly working at all herself. They’d been told to sweep the dust and wipe the soot and throw out the trash, but there was so much of it, Minael sneakily stuffed it under the floor. Now that’ll make this place easier to use as a hideout, she thought—but only briefly, as the next day, she felt fatigued.

It was difficult to force herself to move, and when she sat around, she did nothing but yawn. Though she was basically fine when she was at home, whenever she was at Ouketsuji, it made her want to sleep or sit down. Being in her magical girl form usually made her feel light and encouraged her to move more than when she was human, but now was different. When she looked around again, wondering if it was just her, she found something strange about the other magical girls, too.

Ruler kept on sighing. Blunders that normally would have had her yelling and raging got off with just a light scolding. She was also making fewer orders and declarations. There wasn’t any spirit in her words.

Tama was the type to stare into space to begin with, but now her tendency to be off in the clouds was even more marked. She made more careless errors and minor blunders, and began falling frequently into the holes she’d dug herself.

Swim Swim started off sitting formally on her knees, but then her shoulders drooped and her back rounded. When she noticed this was happening, she tried to sit properly only for her posture to deteriorate again, and she ended up repeating this routine over and over.

It wasn’t because Minael was particularly sharp that she was the first one to notice these minute changes. With Tama and Swim Swim, it was because they were zoning out particularly hard, and with Ruler, it was because of the way she’d never acknowledge a single problem herself. Minael exchanged a look with Yunael, confirming that she’d also noticed, and once they were home, they discussed why this was happening.

“What’s up with everyone?”

“Delayed Sunday scaries?”

“Wanna try talking to Ruler about it?”

“Come on, you think she’d acknowledge it? Besides, if we say we’re tired, she might get mad.”

“So do we try waiting until she talks?”

They didn’t come to a conclusion that day and decided to put it off for a little longer, to see how things went. During the next few days, Ruler continued to sigh a lot, Tama made mistakes, and Swim Swim couldn’t sit properly. There had been plenty of times before when someone had screwed up, and Ruler had gotten mad, and the atmosphere had gotten all tense—but things had never gotten uncomfortable like this. It was aggravating that the twins were the only ones bewildered by it.

It became too much work to think about it themselves any longer, so the twins tried hitting up Top Speed, who called herself a good friend of Ruler’s. On top of a high-rise, Minael grabbed Top Speed’s right arm and Yunael grabbed her left, tugging and wailing for her to talk to them.

“Wait, wait, wait—what the heck, you guys? What’s going on?” said Top Speed.

“Things’ve been weird lately.”

“They’re weird.”

“Weird…? You guys are always weird.”

“Rude!”

“How dare you!”

Top Speed glanced at the ninja-looking magical girl who was leaning against the wall and looking over at them, and the ninja quietly averted her eyes.

Top Speed flashed a strained smile and looked alternately between the two angels. “Sorry, sorry,” she said. “Don’t get so mad.”

“We’re not mad! Just listen to us.”

“I’ve been listening to you,” Top Speed insisted.

“We feel real sluggish.”

“There’s something funny going on.”

“Ruler seems tired, too, and everyone else is zoning out.”

“Well, your team’s base is real musty and dank, right?” said Top Speed. “No wonder you’re feeling low. Wouldn’t moving to someplace clearer and breezier solve the problem?”

“Even if we suggested that, Ruler would never listen.”

“It took her so long to find this place, after all.”

“The princess is so proud of her castle—that stupid old temple.”

“So then…”

Top Speed squeezed her eyes and mouth shut in an expression like she was thinking, but since she had angels hanging off both arms, she didn’t really look like a deep thinker. “Hmm… How about you try remodeling the place?”

“Remodeling?”

“They say that switching where you put stuff or changing the wallpaper and little tweaks like that can bring good luck or make you more cheerful, right? Like feng shui, I think it’s called?”

“Sounds sus.”

“For real. Totally sus.”

“No, seriously, at the end of the day it’s all about perspective. Like if a room is brighter, your mood brightens, too. Whaddaya call it…the placebo thing?”

“Isn’t this kinda different?”

“If they’re similar, you can basically call them the same thing.”

“You think? I mean, sure, I guess.”

“And wait—feng shui doesn’t seem very you, Top Speed. Your outfit is more Western. Isn’t feng shui Chinese?”

“Feng shui is basically like magic,” Top Speed told the angels. “It’s normal for witches to cast magic.”

“Huh,” said Minael. “You have a point.”

“Hmm…what do we do, sis?” Yunael asked.

“Yeah… Might as well give it a shot.”

“Ruler’s so unmotivated right now that just rearranging stuff probably won’t make her mad.”

“Then let’s try it out. Thanks, sorta, Top Speed.”

“No need to thank me. We’re all magical girls here.”

The twins went back home to search online about feng shui, wrote down some notes, and took that to Ouketsuji. Though Ruler trashed it and called it useless and foolish, after seeing Yunael and Minael write in their star sign and blood type on a piece of calligraphy paper, even she joined in arrogantly like, “Well, I wouldn’t be opposed to blessing you with my presence from time to time.” They got together the data they needed, and based on that, they tried changing the positions of things and placing small housewares around and such. Then three days later, at the point when they were feeling so tired, it reached the point of dizziness and headaches, the twins once again headed to the building where Top Speed was.

“That didn’t fix it at all!”

“Top Speed, you liar!”

The twins got right in her face.

“Hey, you guys, hold on, don’t cling to me like that.” Recoiling from them, Top Speed looked over at the ninja magical girl, but she quietly averted her eyes. Top Speed sighed. “Fine, fine. I’ll take the blame. Anyway, tell me whatcha did.”

“We did lots of things—lots.”

“We did so much, it’s, like, legit unbelievable that nothing happened.”

One by one, Top Speed checked over the big collection of charms that the twins shoved at her, and after flipping through a bunch, her hands stopped. She groaned quietly as she checked over one piece of straw paper multiple times. “Huh? This one here…”

“What is it? What is it?”

“Spit it out! If you’re just being full of it, we’ll totally flip.”

“I’ll tell you, so get off me a second. You guys are heavier than you look.”

Letting the angels down off her arms, Top Speed turned on her magical phone, checked something, and nodded.

“Knew it,” she said. “Look at Ruler’s star sign—isn’t her birthday either this month or next month?”

Minael went “Huh?” right as Yunael went “What?!” which was immediately followed by Top Speed finishing off with a “Hey, now.”

She brought the twins closer in both arms. “We might as well celebrate.”

“Why?!”

“Why celebrate that crazy hag’s birth?!”

“Come on, just listen. If the mood is the problem, then if you throw a big event like a birthday party, it’ll get everyone excited, and you might feel more energized, too, right? Let’s go all out and blow away the gloom.”

The twin angels groaned.

“What do we do, sis?” Yunael asked Minael.

“If we have a party, then we can slack off that day without getting in trouble, right?”

“Yeah, that’s a good point.”

“Besides, I love parties.”

“You really are a party person, huh?”

Top Speed laughed. “I’ll help you set up, don’t worry,” she told them. “Hey Ripple, you help, too—”

The ninja magical girl was already gone.

  Koyuki Himekawa

A public holiday, the weekend, and the anniversary of the school’s founding created an impromptu four-day weekend. The back-to-back holidays—sort of like Golden Week—got all the students excited.

The Koyuki, Yoshiko, and Sumire trio were not thinking to just spend the holiday idly. They were discussing going somewhere, but they had no money.

“How about we go hunting for a tsuchinoko?” Sumire suggested. “I hear somebody saw one in the mountains near M City. We’ll get paid if we find one, so it’s two birds with one stone, right?”

Yoshiko made a show of sighing. “Here we go again with your weird interests.”

“What’s weird about this?”

“You’re so into hunting for things that don’t exist, like a tsuchinoko, or Nessie, or Bigfoot, yetis, aliens, ghosts, magical girls. You can do that stuff on your own if you want, but don’t drag me and Koyuki into it.”

Koyuki flashed an evasive smile.

Sumire snorted indignantly. “Why are you assuming they don’t exist?!” she demanded.

“I mean, they just don’t.”

“Then prove it!”

“At least pick a different hill to die on.”

It looked like things were getting weird. They’d gotten derailed from their discussion of going to have fun somewhere to the two of them getting worked up and arguing about whether supernatural things existed or not.

“I’m gonna make you realize that ghosts, UFOs, and aliens are real, Yoshi.”

“Go ahead and try.”

“Aha! Okay, then we’ll do a test of courage at the ultimate spooky spot. This isn’t gonna be some tsuchinoko-hunt amateur hour. We’re going to a serious, real-deal, super-dangerous location. I might reconsider if you get freaked out and apologize, though.”

“Why would I freak out over something that doesn’t exist and then have to apologize for no reason?”

“No looking back now!”

Things moved along without a hitch, and so they wound up doing the test of courage for their holiday excursion. Searching for a tsuchinoko could have been done as casually as a side thing to a picnic, but that wouldn’t do for a test of courage. Sumire would normally never try this sort of challenge, and typically Yoshiko would not get this stubborn. It was dangerous for middle school girls to visit a desolate spot at night, even without any spiritual happenings. If Sumire and Yoshiko had any good sense, then they would realize that danger and quit while they were ahead. But this was what it meant to give tit for tat. The both of them had gotten emotional, and they had failed to realize the obvious.

That was why Koyuki opted to join them. It was dangerous to let the two of them go on their own. If she went with them, then she could stop them—and if necessary, transform into Snow White and eliminate the danger. Sumire and Yoshiko, who didn’t know that Koyuki was a magical girl, had opposed her coming with them, but she stubbornly insisted that she would be fine.

“Isn’t it kind of the wrong season for a test of courage?” asked Yoshiko.

“Spooky spots are a limited-time-only thing,” Sumire replied. “They’ll often just disappear if you wait for the right season.”

“Really? Why?”

“I mean, these places are usually ruins and stuff, right? Those kinds of things can be knocked down at any time. Next thing you know, they get turned into parking lots. Heh-heh.”

“Why are you acting all smug about that?”

“As a spookiness expert, I’m just educating the less experienced. We’re not doing some silly little haunted house tour like the popular kids do. We’ll be setting foot on some serious, real-deal, actually dangerous spots, so I need you to be extra careful. You’ll literally get the shivers.”

“What, because it’s cold?”

“No, I mean like you feel sick, or lethargic, or dizzy, or you’ll get a headache and zone out—that sort of stuff.”

“Isn’t that just menopause?”

“It’s got nothing to do with your age!”

If Koyuki openly admitted that she and her friends were testing their courage somewhere haunted, then her parents would stop her. Her cover story was that they were setting off fireworks at a friend’s house, but her father was still worried—she managed to get permission under the condition that she would keep in touch with him and have him pick her up when they were done.

Koyuki felt guilty about lying to her parents, but she encouraged herself by saying that this was all a part of her magical girl activities. She couldn’t abandon her friends when they were trying to do something dangerous. If she tried stopping them, they wouldn’t listen to her anyway; since she could transform into a magical girl, it was best for her to accompany them.

She messaged La Pucelle—“I can’t come today; something came up on my end that I can’t get out of”—and then went with her friends. Sumire and Yoshiko had come to pick her up at her house, and then the three of them headed to their goal.

When she checked the time on her phone, it was past nine o’clock. The sun had fully set; there were few people passing by, and the streetlights weren’t quite trustworthy, either. She had thought that she’d gotten used to going out at night since she’d become a magical girl, but now going out into the night streets as a human, helplessness welled within her.

Koyuki pressed her lips in a tight line and shook her head.

“What’s wrong, Koyuki?”

“No, it’s nothing. Just getting myself psyched up.” She smiled as encouragingly as she could.

  Minael

“Hey, welcome.”

“’Sup. Ruler isn’t here yet?”

“Not yet, but she could show up at any time.”

“By the way, Top Speed, who’s that…?”

“Good evening! This is quite, how do I put it, um, a classical spot.”

Another magical girl was floating behind Top Speed, wearing pajamas with a pillow under each arm, for a total of two pillows. She scanned the room curiously, restlessly—eyeing the Buddha statue and poking at it, looking at the broken floor and peeking into a hole, then flying up to the ceiling out of curiosity about a stain.

“Could you be…Nemurin?”

“That’s right. I’m Nemuriiin. Top Speed invited me, so I left the house for once.”

“Ohhh…so Nemurin exists in real life, sis,” said Yunael.

“I thought for sure she was a program built into the chat room or something,” said Minael.

“Eh-heh-heh.”

Nemurin, the magical girl in pajamas, did a turn in midair, and then another turn the other way. She was smiling with amusement, although Minael couldn’t tell what was so funny. The main temple building was quite large, but Nemurin was bouncing around too much; with each movement, her white fluff stroked the ceiling and floor and stirred up dust. Minael and Yunael coughed and yelled at her to stop until she finally did.

“You’re pretty active for someone who says they never go outside.”

“I’m just a little excited over being out and about for once,” Nemurin said.

“If you break something, we’re the ones who’ll pay for it, just so you know.”

“Sorry, sorry.”

“So you were close with Ruler, Nemurin?”

“Nah, Ruler doesn’t post in the chat much. Hopefully we get to know each other today.”

“Just having you around makes things feel more chill, Nemurin. I’m glad you’re here with us.”

“You’re kinda like a scented candle.”

“You’ve got a soothing vibe.”

“Eh-heh-heh.”

At any rate, the participants had all gathered. Everyone decorated all over with the paper chains they’d been working on diligently and secretly on the side, Swim Swim hung from the ceiling the paper tiara and scepter and such she’d made at home, the twins placed the folding table they’d made at home in the center of the main temple building, and Top Speed placed her homemade cake on top of said table. A Ruler with a smug, haughty face was drawn on it deliciously with whipped cream and fruit.

“It looks so tasty!” said Tama, her eyes sparkling as she leaned close to the cake.

“Hey, hey, Tama, don’t drool on it.”

“It does look really good, though. Even though it looks like Ruler.”

The twins pushed Tama aside.

Nemurin ran over as well. “Show me, show me!”

Then, right as Nemurin was about to approach the cake, Swim Swim stood in her way and said, “Wait.”

“Huh? What? Nemurin wants to see the cake, too!” Nemurin puffed up her cheeks to express her displeasure.

Swim Swim pointed at her. “You’ve got dust on you.”

The twin angels also looked over at Nemurin, their brows immediately furrowing.

“You’re right! She’s super dirty!”

“Huh? It’s that bad?”

“No, no, I mean this stuff!!”

Nemurin herself was fine, but the white fluff that wafted around her was all dusty and dirtied black.

“It’s ’cause you’ve got those things that collect dust and you keep poking around everywhere.”

“Go leave them outside.”

“Awww… But the Nemurin antennae will get lonely.”

“It’s just for a little while, so suck it up.”

“Top Speed brought her broom inside, though!”

“Me and Rapid Swallow are a package deal. We explode if we’re apart.”

Nemurin repeated, “I don’t wanna,” over and over, but she still went outside with her Nemurin antennae. When she came back, her fluffy fuzzies were gone, and she was in simple style: just her pajamas, pillows, and socks. And there was another magical girl with her.

“Hey! What on earth are you all doing?! Why is Nemurin here…and even Top Speed?! You can’t just come in without my permission—”

With Ruler showing up, clearly angry, Tama, Swim Swim, Minael and Yunael, and Top Speed pulled out the crackers they’d brought and pulled the strings. Popping sounds echoed in the temple hall and confetti and paper tape flew through the air, fluttering down on top of Ruler, as her expression changed from anger to confusion. Top Speed counted them in with a “One, two, three…,” and then the magical girls said the celebratory words: “Happy birthday!” and Ruler’s expression changed from confusion to something indescribable.

  Koyuki Himekawa

“So where are we going today?”

“A temple.”

“Are we allowed to just go in?”

“I mean, it might not exactly be legal…but it’s just a run-down old temple, and I don’t think anyone’s living there, so they’re not gonna have security cameras or anything like that.”

“Sounds sketchy as all get out.”

“And a little scary, too.”

“It’ll be fine. You can never chase your fantasies if you worry about the law. And more importantly, it’s an amazing temple. I’ve checked it out twice, and it’s crazy run-down—plus, I hear there’s been sightings.”

“Hmm.”

“Apparently, someone saw a shadowy figure there one night.”

“Hey, isn’t it a little dangerous to go to a place like that at night?”

“No worries—we have this.”

Sumire opened up her bag and started pulling out unfamiliar items one after another. “We’ve got purifying salt, evil-repelling talismans, a cross, and holy water. Don’t hesitate to use this stuff if things get dicey.”

“More useless junk.” Yoshiko furrowed her brow suspiciously.

Sumire, on the other hand, was smiling. “You’ll soon find out that what I’ve been saying is true.”

“As if.”

“Hey, you never know,” said Koyuki.

“Exactly! Seeing is believing. You really get it, Koyuki.”

Sumire started getting excited, clapping her hands in glee. Yoshiko breathed a small sigh. She shook her head at Koyuki, who smiled back at her awkwardly.

“So what’s the temple called?”

“It’s hard to see ’cause it’s worn down, but the name Ouketsuji’s written there.”

  Yunael

“Happy birthday, Ruler.”

Swim Swim opened the box, and an automatic cleaning machine came out from inside.

“Ohhh, ain’t this pretty expensive?” said Top Speed.

“I brought it from home.”

“Ah, there’s one from me, too.”

Ruler stripped the wrapping off the sizable package Tama brought out to reveal a trilobite fossil as big as two fists together.

“That’s amazing—is it real?” Top Speed crowed.

“Nemurin brought something, too. Happy birthday, Ruler.” Nemurin offered up the pillow she was carrying under her left arm. Seen up close, it was decorated with a pink ribbon. “It’s a cutting-edge pillow made with special cushioning developed by NASA. It’s amazing stuff, the best modern science has to offer. Using this, anyone will get a good night’s sl…zzzzzz.”

“Hey, don’t go falling asleep on your present. You’re gonna get drool all over it.”

“Everyone brought such amazing stuff. It’s gonna make the cake I baked look so shabby,” said Top Speed.

“That’s not true. This cake looks really good.”

“Yeah, yeah. This chicken is good, too.”

“Yummy!”

Extravagant tributes kept on being piled up beside Ruler. It was just as if she were a real princess, like her appearance implied. Ruler put on a dignified expression and nodded heavily each time a present was offered to her, but her nostrils were flared, and there was redness in her cheeks.

“Hey, what about our present?” Minael whispered to Yunael.

“This is it.” Scrawled on the stack of paper that Yunael quietly offered was a coupon for a shoulder massage.

“You think it looks bad if we’re the only ones giving a shoulder massage coupon?”

“It does… Look at everyone else—they all brought luxury items.”

“It’s like, are we back in the bubble economy days or what?”

“What do we do, sis?”

“What if you turn into a gold bar or a diamond or something and make that the present, Yuna?”

“How long am I supposed to stay transformed? Wouldn’t we eventually get found out?”

“True. Okay. In that case…let’s look for something from down there.”

“You mean… there? Can we even make anything from there into a present?”

“It’ll be way better than a shoulder massage ticket. Go for it, Yuna.”

Taking advantage of a moment when eyes were on the presents, Yunael transformed into a big centipede and slipped her way through the cracks of the broken floorboards. A whole bunch of junk had come out in the big clean the other day. Ruler had ordered them to separate it all and put it out with the trash, but there was no way they’d bother with a hassle like that, so they had quietly crammed it under the floor. Yunael would look through that for something that seemed legit.

They could insist that a rock was an expensive garden stone, and there was also the option of claiming some old withered tree branch was a famous fragrant wood. They just needed something that would satisfy the authoritarian Ruler, something that wouldn’t look bad compared to the other gifts, something that looked extravagant.

Yunael skittered her legs, her body undulating along as she scoured the mountain of junk. She had the feeling that maybe (or maybe not) there could be something that didn’t look like junk, something among the old things that was kind of tasteful. Not this, not that, she thought, in search of such an object.

Eventually, she reached the bottom of the junk pile and clasped what came up in her pincers. After gingerly pulling out the item, she turned herself into a raccoon to wipe off the mud and pat off the dirt. It was a pot that could fit in a human’s palm. Despite its small size, it had a carefully placed lid on top. It was quite old. Not being a connoisseur, Yunael couldn’t tell what it was for. Frankly speaking, it was battered, old-looking, and junky, but one could say that being so old gave it a strange appeal.

“Hey Yuna, you’re still not done?”

She heard Minael’s voice. She was probably whispering through the hole in the floor. Yunael returned to the hole holding the pot, then pushed the pot upward, transforming herself once more into a centipede to return to the main temple building, where she undid her transformation.

“We’ve got a present from us, too.”

Trying to settle her racing heart, Yunael carried the jar to Ruler as if she’d had it all along. Ruler looked at the jar with great interest. Not a bad response.

“This is an Azuchi-Momoyama period jar we won at an auction.”

That BSing came out real smooth, if I do say so myself, Yunael thought, impressed.

“Ohhh, that’s some pretty fancy stuff. Wasn’t that expensive?” said Top Speed.

“Sort of. But the price doesn’t really matter. Ruler always does so much for us, so we wanted to give her something good to show our thanks.”

Tama seemed glad. Swim Swim applauded impassively while Nemurin acted all knowledgeable: “Maybe Sen no Rikyu used it.” Ruler looked up at the ceiling, blinked twice, averted her face with a sigh, and then turned back to Minael and Yunael.

“…You got me something rather thoughtful, for a couple of idiots.”

What a way to talk to us when we went to all that trouble to get you a present, thought Minael. But she kept her annoyed comment to herself and said proudly, “Anything for you, Ruler.”

“You guys…” Ruler wiped her eyes and turned back to the other magical girls. “Today’s not my birthday, though.”

“Well, we only know your star sign.”

“Hmm. Whatever.”

Ruler picked up a wineglass. It was filled to the brim with red wine that Top Speed had brought her.

“Cheers.”

She held up the glass for a while, tilted it, and then swallowed it in one go. The other magical girls all called cheers and clinked their cups and glasses, spilling juice on the floor as the party began. They bit into roast beef, fried chicken, and other stuff they’d brought. Relieved that Ruler had easily accepted her present, Yunael exchanged a look with Minael as she pinched some smoked salmon in her chopsticks and popped it atop her tongue.

Ruler picked up the portable mic that had been placed on the table and furrowed her brow. “What’s the mic for?”

“We’re about to sing karaoke.”

“Huh? Why…?”

“It’s a party essential.”

“It’s very essential.”

“What? Why would we do something so loud and—?”

“I wanna eat cake.”

“Leave dessert for later, Swim Swim,” said Ruler.

“Yeah, after karaoke.”

“That’s not what I’m saying…”

“Who’s gonna sing first?”

“We’ll start off!” said Minael.

“Yaaaay! You’ve got serious pipes, sis!”

  Koyuki Himekawa

“Is it just me, or…did you guys hear something coming from the temple?”

“Yeah, it sounded like people talking.”

“Oh come on, now you’re forcing it.”

“No, it’s just… Whatever, let’s keep going.”

The girls nonetheless walked cautiously. Since going through the temple gates, they had been moving forward bit by bit, in tiny steps. They had flashlights for everyone, so there was enough light to walk along, but none of them were making to rush ahead.

Yoshiko had claimed her friends were forcing the spooky vibe, but that was clearly unnecessary: The vibe was already hair-raising. No one would be surprised if a ghost popped up. Even Yoshiko, who was all about living in the moment, had a serious look on her face, and the fingers of her right hand were tinged red where she gripped her flashlight.

Since they were calling it a test of courage, Koyuki had vaguely imagined that maybe they would be going in one by one, but nobody proposed that. Or rather, they probably couldn’t. None of them were about to walk into a place like this alone.

Even a delinquent wouldn’t choose to make a temple like this their hideout. The stone flooring was broken in places; Koyuki stifled a shriek when she saw the line of Jizo statues with missing heads. The building was damaged enough that it was noticeable even in the dark, and the humid air clung to their skin. The grass was overgrown, and a part of the wall had collapsed. There was a Buddha statue with a missing arm standing to the side of the entrance—there had to be some reason for that.

Koyuki firmly visualized herself as a magical girl. She’d come here in order to show off her strength and courage. She actually wanted the eerie atmosphere. Being able to take that step forward in a situation where everyone was scared was what made her a magical girl.

She sped up just slightly ahead of the group.

“Hey, Koyuki,” Yoshiko called, but Koyuki didn’t stop—she moved forward with firm steps, then came to a halt.

“What…is that?” she said.

“Are those…voices? Children’s voices?” said Sumire.

It sounded like a little girl. A voice like it was singing, or maybe reading sutras, muttering in a fixed rhythm could be heard from the temple. It was joined by another voice that came just a beat later, and then after a while, silence visited again.

The three of them went quiet and looked at the temple. None of them tried to say a word about what they’d just heard, faces pointed in the direction the voices had come from as if paralyzed. The rumors that there were some mysterious beings in this temple seemed to gradually rise from the ground at Koyuki’s feet, and she imagined that they would be caught and dragged to the bottom of a bog or something—shaking that off, she clenched her teeth once more.

  Minael

“This is how we’re starting off?!” said Ruler. “I don’t know if that was singing or casting a spell or what. But put yourself in my shoes, being forced to listen to that sort of chanting in a round!”

“Rude!”

“How dare you call the Peaky Angels’ vocals casting a spell!”

“Hmph. It’s my birthday we’re celebrating. I’m not about to allow a bunch of amateurs to toot their own horns. A certain level of quality is required, even for simply singing with a karaoke mic.”

“Boo! Boooo!”

“Boo! Boooo! Boooooo!”

“Good grief…give me the mic. I’ll show you how it’s done.”

“Whoa, wait your turn,” Top Speed said. “I’m next!”

“When did we decide we’re going in order?”

“Then I’ll sing.”

“Butt out, Swim Swim!”

“D-don’t fight…ah!”

“Oh no, Tama knocked the salmon over!”

“Bad Tama!”

“Come on, clean it up right away! And stop crying, Tama! It’s annoying!”

“S-sorry…ahh!”

“Oh no, Tama knocked over the bag of all the party cracker bits we cleaned up!”

“Bad Tama!”

“Agh, good grief! You people!”

  Koyuki Himekawa

A raw smell—like fish—wafted toward them on the wind.

“What’s this smell?” said Koyuki.

“It’s kinda fishy,” said Sumire. “And isn’t a warm wind, like…you know, a pretty common theme in ghost stories?”

“Don’t be weird,” Yoshiko snapped.

“I mean…don’t you think it’s weird, too, Yoshi? Like those voices before.”

“That was just…your imagination.”

“No way. That sounded like children chanting a spell. And this odor—” Sumire tilted her head up and sniffed, bringing her brows together. “Huh? It’s not fishy… What…is this?”

Koyuki sniffed along with Sumire and found it was indeed different from the earlier fishy smell. “Yeah, I smell it, too. It’s like fireworks…or maybe gunpowder?”

“Maybe it’s the lingering spirits of soldiers who died on the front lines of battle years ago?”

“Stop it, Sumi,” said Yoshiko.

“Sure, I’ll stop—but I legit smell something. And there’s no way you’d smell gunpowder out in a place like this. It’s gotta be some paranormal phenomenon. Accepted it yet, Yoshi?”

“Come on, people are just setting off fireworks somewhere nearby.”

“Still in denial? You don’t know when to give up—”

There was a clunk. Some kind of noise was coming from the temple.

Both Sumire, who was insisting this was a spiritual phenomenon, and Yoshiko, who was denying that such a thing could ever happen, got serious looks on their faces and turned toward the sound.

  Minael

“How did you like my beautiful voice? Entrancing, wasn’t it?” said Ruler.

“Ooh, that was great, Ruler. You could be a professional singer,” said Top Speed.

“Amazing,” Nemurin agreed.

“Heh.” Ruler snorted smugly.

“Nghh…”

“Ghhh…no! I think that was different from being good at singing!”

“Oh, a sore loser?”

“That was an imitation, not singing!” Minael insisted.

“Yeah, yeah! You made a good point there, sis!” said Yunael.

“Being able to imitate the original singer means you’re good at singing,” Ruler pointed out.

“But, like, originality is important for a magical girl.”

“Yeah, it’s super important.”

“An imitation doesn’t have any originality at all, right?”

“Nope, none.”

“You two…!”

“What?”

“Yeah, what?!”

“Stop fighting! It’s making me tired!” Tama cried.

“Yeah, let’s drop it,” Top Speed agreed. “We did all this to celebrate Ruler’s birthday.”

“Yeah, yeah! Stop it, stop it!”

“Cut it out!”

“Why you little—!”

“Whoa! Ruler snapped!”

“Hey! Don’t throw things! That’s dangerous!”

“Ow!”

“Eeeep!”

“Watch out.”

“Be nice to each other!”

  Koyuki Himekawa

They weren’t just hearing things, and it wasn’t their imagination. This was beyond the level of the sound of the wind or insect noises. The sound of something striking hard could be heard from within the temple.

“I hear a knock! It’s a poltergeist!” Sumire cried.

“Hey, Sumi, be quiet,” Yoshiko snapped back.

“You heard that, didn’t you?! Didn’t you?! This is it! This is a supernatural phenomenon!”

“Calm down, Sumi.”

“It’s the real thing! This temple is legit the real deal!”

“That’s obviously not what’s happening.”

“Why are you being so stubborn, Yoshi?! Just admit it!”

“There’s no reason for me to admit to anything. There’s either some homeless person squatting there, or it’s a hangout spot for some delinquents. It’s dangerous, so let’s go already.”

“Then what were those children’s voices just now?!”

“A young homeless person, or a delinquent whose voice hasn’t dropped yet…”

“You always have some excuse! You won’t believe me, no matter what I say!”

“Hey, Sumi, you’re talking too loud. The whole town’s gonna hear you.”

Sumire swallowed her words, and Yoshiko glared bitterly at the ground. Koyuki shifted her gaze between the two girls.

“No matter which one of you is right, it would be bad if someone found us here,” Koyuki told her friends. “I don’t want to run into delinquents or paranormal stuff on the edge of town, where we can’t expect anyone to help us. Look, let’s just go home. It was a bad idea to walk around a place like this at night.”

She was finally able to say what she should have said all along.

Sumire made a wordless noise and hung her head.

“Yeah,” said Yoshiko. “Maybe we are doing something stupid.”

“C’mon, let’s go home. It doesn’t matter who’s right and who’s wrong—”

Something rustled in the nearby thicket. Koyuki panicked and turned around, and Sumire and Yoshiko, who’d been hanging their heads, jerked their chins up.

“What? What was that, just now?” Sumire said.

“I feel like…there’s something there,” Yoshiko replied.

“A ghost? A cryptid? Did a tsuchinoko come all this way? Oh, or maybe it’s a magical girl.”

“Ridiculous.” Yoshiko took a few steps forward to stand right in front of where the weeds grew thick.

“Hey, Yoshi, don’t stand so close—”

“It’s probably a stray cat or something. Why are you so freaked out?” She clearly was forcing herself to be positive—she was trembling a bit. “I’m way more of a cat person than a dog person. And it’s not one-sided, either—cats like me, too. I’ve never met a single stray cat that hasn’t let me pet it.”

Yoshiko parted the grasses and moved into the thicket until she eventually caught sight of something: A number of white somethings, hazy as clouds, were floating deep in the undergrowth.

They looked like cotton. Yoshiko didn’t move an inch, as if time had stopped, and neither Sumire nor Koyuki were able to even call out to her, either. A gust of wind blew through, the leaves rustled, the branches creaked, and the white cotton-like things swayed lightly, spinning around.

They were not cotton. On each of the sides that were turned toward them were faces, just like people. The “faces” looked sad and were muttering that they were lonely.

Yoshiko spun around and ran off. Sumire shrieked and fled. Koyuki just about fell, but she somehow got her legs moving. Gone were her convictions about how she was a magical girl and therefore strong of heart. All she could think about was that there really were ghosts. She raced through the gates to escape.

The three middle school girls fled, stumbling as they went. They ran back to the shopping district, passing by a few vehicles and some pedestrians who gave them skeptical looks, then slowly came to a stop. Once they realized that they had been gripping each other’s hands, they all sighed in unison.

  Minael

While flying through the sky, Minael insisted very firmly, “We can’t keep letting Ruler act so high and mighty!”

“It’s her birthday, so I think it’s fine for her to be like that, though,” Nemurin said in a relaxed tone as she flew beside them.

Minael glared at her bitterly. “It’s not fine!”

“Yeah, it’s not. No wonder you’re mad, sis,” Yunael agreed.

Since neither party would back down on the matter of singing, the birthday party had been put on hold. Ruler and the angels had insisted that to settle things conclusively, they needed a proper karaoke machine with a grading system, so they decided that they’d reconvene with a karaoke set that had a serious grading function. Right now, the angels were going back to their house to grab the karaoke set, with help from Top Speed and Nemurin, who were waiting on top of a building.

“No way we’ll lose with this.”

“Why do you guys have that? How much did it cost?” Top Speed asked.

“The cost doesn’t matter if it’s for the sake of getting a high score in karaoke.”

“Exactly. Listen, your karaoke score isn’t just about whether you’re good or bad—there’s a trick to it. More than having a good voice or technique or whatever, whoever learns the trick to scoring points wins. That’s why I chose the rules and brought our own mic and karaoke machine, see. This is common sense if you like karaoke.”

“If it’s such common sense, then how come I’ve never heard of it?” said Top Speed.

“This stuff’s obvious if you’re hard-core into karaoke.”

“Hard-core, yeah.”

“Even Ruler went back home to get her own mic. Plus, she gave Tama and Swim Swim some change and told them to get her some throat lozenges—she’s way more hard-core than us.”

“For sure, Ruler’s super hyped up.”

“She’s still gonna end up losing, though.”

“Sis practiced tons on DUM karaoke.”

“I average 93 points on the Magical Daisy opening.”

“Yaaay! Daisy Carnival!”

“You guys really are hopeless,” Top Speed said from atop her broomstick.

“If only you and Ruler got along better,” Nemurin added, bobbing in the sky.

But neither of them seemed to mean what they said, and that just made Minael more irritated.

“Like heck I’m gonna be friendly with her! We’ll settle this!” she yelled.

“You still wanna celebrate Ruler’s birthday that bad? You’re a nice girl,” said Top Speed.

“I just hate how she acts so arrogant!”

“My Nemurin antennae are saying that you should get along, too. They say there’s been nothing but fighting today.”

“Who cares about your legion of fluff? Karaoke is more important—karaoke!”

“You’re such a vocal legend, sis.”

  Snow White

Koyuki transformed into Snow White and looked up at the temple gates. It had seemed so eerie when she was in human form, but once she was a magical girl, it looked like just an old building…or so she told herself. Even transformed, the fear wouldn’t quite go away, but she shoved it deep down and passed through the gates.

If she had been just Koyuki Himekawa, she could have run back to her friends so they could console each other, saying “Wasn’t that scary?” But since she was a magical girl, she couldn’t just leave the mysteries as mysteries. If she left them be, then bad things might happen to someone. And if that happened, then she wouldn’t be able to continue her magical girl work as Snow White.

Clenching her teeth, she smothered her fear and went into the thicket, reaching the place where the white faces had been floating—but there was nothing there now, and she breathed a deep sigh.

No, she couldn’t relax just yet. She hadn’t resolved anything.

She headed for the temple, quietly saying “Pardon me” to announce her visit as she went inside.

Magical girls could see well in the dark. Even without a light, she could observe the interior of the room in detail. A big trilobite fossil, a pillow, a microphone, half-eaten food, juice, wine, mineral water, cake, cutlery, a small pot, a little table, and an automatic cleaner.

What’s going on here?

The assortment of stuff didn’t really make sense. It looked like some people had been having a party. So was this delinquents, or homeless people, or something inhuman? She picked up a fried chicken leg to find it was still a bit warm. Whoever had been eating it couldn’t have gone far.

Were they still nearby? Snow White cautiously looked around the area and was about to quietly proceed inward when she suddenly stopped. She could faintly—just faintly—hear voices.

“It hurts…”

“So thirsty…”

The voice was muttering, but it wasn’t out loud. It was the voice of someone’s heart.

It was not the high-pitched, childlike voices that she’d heard with Yoshiko and Sumire. It was a parched voice, weedy like a dried-up tree.

“Thirsty… So thirsty…,” it said quietly but urgently, and when she looked in the direction of the voice, there was that little pot from earlier.

Drawn by the quiet voice, Snow White shakily picked up the bottle of mineral water that had been set down on the ground. She opened the lid of the pot and poured water inside. A muggy smell rose up all around, and at the same time the voice became quieter, and then vanished. Snow White squatted down on the spot—rather, she collapsed on the spot and put her hands together at the pot. She had to do it. Over and over again, she apologized—to who, she didn’t even know.

Suddenly, Snow White heard the loud flapping of wings from outside, and she panicked and stood. Just like before she’d transformed into a magical girl, without looking back—the flapping sounds had come from the front, so she raced at full speed for the back entrance.

  Minael

A few days later, Ruler’s fatigue, headache, and dizziness were completely gone, and she was angry just as usual. Tama was making a moderate amount of mistakes, and Swim Swim was sitting properly with her back straight. Minael hadn’t thought that simply celebrating Ruler’s birthday would fix everything, but it actually had, in a way. In other words, Top Speed must have been right. Minael and Yunael nodded at each other, agreeing that the placebo effect was indeed amazing.

“That takes care of one problem. Onto the next one.”

“Karaoke practice, right? We’ll beat Ruler this time for sure!”