Mahou Shoujo Ikusei Keikaku - Volume 9 - Chapter 11

The Blue Magical Girls Are Busy

The girl moved just her eyes to watch the sky. It was covered by thick clouds, concealing the moon, stars, and sky from view. The wind was strong and cold. There were only the swaying reeds and bare, rough rocks jutting out from the ground.

She narrowed her eyes. Her preliminary investigation was complete. There were no sorts of traps or contrivances around. As a warrior, she would engage in no such cowardly behavior, but she always took measures against foul play. A disgraceful loss would be not only her own personal shame, it would be a shame to her teacher, elders, the younger students—everyone.

She brought her hands to her neck to retie her necktie. It was blue, her representative color, a beautiful azure that would bring to mind the clear summer skies. Looking at this color would calm the heart and hone the nerves, even when battle was before her. Even under the blast of a cold wind, she would overlook no sight or sound.

On the eastern side, from behind where the rocks towered high, she heard the sound of running feet. They climbed up, arrived at the top, and from there, came rushing down lightly. The girl listened closely to the sound of the footsteps without turning to look, arms folded as she waited for that someone to run up to her.

“You’re late. Are you trying to play it like Musashi?”

The someone struck a pose and cried, “The blue flash descends on the battlefield! Lapis Lazuline!”

“Lapis…Lazuline?” A crease formed in the girl’s brow as she looked back at the newcomer. Her costume was blue all over, and she had a white-and-brown tail. On her back was a cape with the same pattern as the tail. The girl had never forgotten any of it—from the black hair that was just shy of touching her shoulders to the dark mole by her eye. This was her. Every time she remembered this girl’s face, the memories were so vivid, it would make her face twist with humiliation and shame. The name, however, was unfamiliar.

“I thought you were Blue Comet.”

“Yeah, my name got changed recently. I inherited this one from my master.”

“Well…congratulations.”

“Yep.”

“And what a coincidence.”

“Coincidence?”

“I also changed my name.” She turned to the other girl to show her the back of her left hand. On it was a blue dragon with a long, twisting body that held its own tail in its mouth. “I was once called Panas, the Azure Dragon.”

“It’s different now?”

The girl—Panas—raised up her right hand next to the left, showing her the back of this one as well. On it was a black dragon with its wings spread, ready to take flight. “Now, I am no longer an azure dragon. I am the Twin Dragons Panas. You would do well to assume I’m not the same as I was before.”

“Ooooh, that’s pretty cool.” Squinting and leaning in, Lazuline examined the two dragons.

Panas snorted, responding, “Once, during an Archfiend Cram School event…you and I had an encounter.”

“That was a real rough moment. I mean, having a super-strong opponent suddenly show up right at the beginnin’ and all.”

Panas sucked in a slightly longish breath, then exhaled in many short breaths through her mouth. There had not been a single day since that event when she had not dreamed of a rematch with the blue magical girl. It had been a battle royal–style exercise in a forest, with multiple girls all fighting in a melee. Panas had only been sort of half listening to the instructions from Archfiend Pam to be careful of the participants from outside the school. She had been aiming for victory. She would knock everyone down. Panas took to the challenge eagerly; her very first opponent, Blue Comet, had been stronger than she’d expected, and Panas struggled to hold her own. In her shock, the situation then took a turn for the worse. The next thing she knew, she was found on a bed in the first-aid station, looking up at the roof of the tent. It had been nowhere near victory. Her first opponent had become her last.

Some magical girls might have retired out of shame, but Panas never considered gracefully backing away. She knew herself. She believed she was still on track as a magical girl. A swift retirement would not free her from the humiliation—she had to become strong and win.

She’d returned to the Archfiend Cram School, her alma mater, and appealed directly to the Archfiend, saying she wanted to retrain herself as a new student. After that had come training and more training, fighting upon more fighting, more and more studying, practicing, honing her skills, crossing the line of death, making her body strong, making her magic strong, all to the point where the other students feared her as a madwoman. She had continued to train for over a year, evolving her physical abilities and developing a new element of her magic. And now, finally, she was certain she could win.

Lazuline stared rudely at the dragons and tilted her head. “About your magic, Panacchi.”

Panas glared at Lazuline. “By ‘Panacchi,’ are you referring to me?”

“Uh-huh. So, Panacchi, I take it your magic basically materializes the dragon drawings on your hands to make ’em attack and stuff?”

“Don’t call them ‘drawings.’”

“What should I call ’em?”

“Dragon crests. Back when I was Azure Dragon Panas, it was the most I could do to control one dragon. But now that I’ve become the Twin Dragons, I’ve acquired magic powers that far surpass those I had in the past.”

Raising up her left hand, she cried, “Jörmungandr!”

Raising up her right hand, she cried, “Níðhöggr!”

She had merely shown her cards because she wanted to have a fair match. Taking her opponent by surprise to win with a magic they weren’t aware of may well be victory, but it wasn’t the victory Panas wanted. It wouldn’t wipe away her humiliation-stained memories.

Lazuline tilted her head to the left. “In other words, if ya get more crests, you’ll get stronger and stronger? Won’t increasin’ ’em a whole lot end up being too much to handle?”

Why did this girl have to be so worried about her? Choking down bitter feelings, Panas explained, “Even simply increasing from one to two requires intense training that would kill your average magical girl five times over. It’s not something that can be increased indefinitely just because you want more.”

“Well, that’s good. I was wondering what’d happen if, in the end, ya wind up tattooed all over like Hoichi the Earless.”

Panas did her best to restrain the impulse to punch the thoughtlessly grinning girl before her. She was even sad to think that she’d trained all this time in order to defeat someone who lacked any sort of nervousness at all. But she couldn’t change the fact that she’d once lost to this girl. And even if her rival was not the one Panas would have wanted, it wouldn’t do for a warrior to get worked up about it.

Panas took three deep breaths, and once she’d calmed herself, she turned back to Lazuline. “You will now learn of the power of the Twin Dragons.”

“Oh, I knew it! You suddenly started explainin’, so I wondered just what was goin’ on there. Man, I’m so happy. This’ll be the memory of a lifetime. Ridin’ on a dragon’s back to fly into the sky has been a dream of mine since I was a little kid.” Lazuline smiled happily.

Panas gave her a questioning look in return. “What are you talking about?”

“I mean, you’re gonna teach me ’bout the power of your dragons, right?”

“Just how does that mean you can ride on one to fly through the sky?”

“We’re about to go out for ramen, right? And if you’re goin’ to teach me the power of the dragons, that means basically, we’re goin’ to ride the dragons to go to a ramen shop, right?”

“…Huh?”

“When ya called me all the way out here into the middle of nowhere with no people around, y’know, my heart was pounding, wonderin’ what was gonna happen. But now I’ve switched from heart-poundin’ mode to tremblin’ with excitement mode.”

“Hold on a second.”

“What?”

“What do you mean, ramen shop?”

Lazuline looked at Panas with an expression of sincere bafflement. “For real? Ya didn’t know about ramen shops, Panas? A ramen shop is—”

“No! I’m not asking what a ramen shop is. I’m quite familiar with them. I eat ramen about once a week, and I also don’t scrimp in the effort to search for good shops online.”

“’Course ya do. It’s soul food, right? Man, ya startled me, there.”

“What I want to know is why you believe I would take you to a ramen shop.”

“’Cause it was written in the letter ya gave me, Panacchi.” Lazuline reached under her cape and pulled out some stationery Panas recognized. It was the invitation to duel that she’d sent Lazuline. The wind blowing on the ledge made the letter flap loudly, so Lazuline squatted there to hold down the sides of the paper with both hands. Panas circled around to the windward side, guarding the letter from the gale as she leaned close. The content of the letter was as Panas had thought it was, and she couldn’t see any parts that had been altered. Of course, there was no mention of ramen.

“There’s nothing about ramen in here.”

“It’s here, right here. Look, it says, I haven’t forgotten that time. And it also says, Now is the time to fulfill my long-standing desire.”

“So? Ramen has nothing to do with it. At our last encounter, I was met with defeat, and in my single-minded pursuit of claiming victory against you, I tortured myself, training continuously. Now that the Azure Dragon has become the Twin Dragons, finally, I am certain that I have surpassed you. My long-standing desire to battle y—”

“I don’t really get it, but…that’s kinda strange, don’t ya think?”

“Hmph. Perhaps a common magical girl like yourself would not understand the pride of a graduate of the Archfiend Cram School.”

“That’s not what I mean. I mean, back durin’ that event, ya didn’t really lose, though. Right, Panacchi?”

“Huh?” Panas stood up and retied her necktie.

Lazuline likewise got to her feet, tucking the letter back under her cape, and looked at Panas like she was at a loss. “Ya don’t remember?”

“I’ve not once forgotten since that day. I, being not of the Archfiend Cram School, underestimated you, and your unexpected skills gradually overwhelmed me, and then when I came to, I was on the bed in the first-aid tent.”

“I didn’t beat ya, Panacchi.”

“Of all the things you could say…”

Lazuline opened her right palm, waving her hand side to side in front of her face. “I ain’t lyin’. I was thinkin’ like whoa, this girl’s strong, maybe I’m screwed for real if my first opponent’s this good, and then when we were fightin’, there was this big explosion behind you, and ya got blasted away and your head buried in the ground, and ya got knocked out. I dug ya up and carried ya to the first-aid tent.”

Panas put her right hand on her jaw and looked up at the sky. The wind was strong, and there was no sign the clouds would clear from the skies. She tried to remember what had happened then, but of course she couldn’t recall what had happened while she was unconscious.

“No, wait,” said Panas. “Yes, I do remember something. Blue Comet retrieved Panas the Azure Dragon’s points flag. That’s proof that you defeated me.”

“I got the flag from ya when you were passed out, Panacchi. If you go to the first-aid tent to get treated, that’s game over, so I figured it was okay for me to get the flag… Should I not have?”

Panas put her hand on her jaw once more and considered. All she remembered was who had gotten whose flag, in the end. From the fact that Blue Comet had retrieved a flag from someone who had fallen, it wouldn’t be strange for it to be made out that she had defeated Panas. And even if she were to search for material to deny that, she wasn’t going to find anything. Panas thought and thought and thought, and when Lazuline impatiently came to examine her face, Panas clapped her hands.

“Indeed, there may actually be a shred of truth in what you’ve said.”

“’Course it’s true. I’m just bein’ honest about the whole thing.”

“But ramen has nothing at all to do with anything we’ve discussed, has it? You’ve been spouting nonsense in an attempt to confuse me, haven’t you?”

“When I was carryin’ ya to the first-aid tent, it looked like you were havin’ a nightmare, and you were sayin’ ramen…ramen…the whole time. That’s what I thought ya meant by that time. And that your long-standin’ desire was eatin’ ramen.”

“Lies!”

“I ain’t lyin’!”

“I would never be so blindly obsessed with ramen!”

“What kinda ramen do ya like, Panacchi?”

“In magical-girl form, I prefer the largest sizes and fattier cuts of pork. Women typically find strong flavor, large portions, and high calories undesirable in food, but as a magical girl, you can simply enjoy all of that without a care in the world. Magical girls can further enjoy ramen thanks to our sharp sense of smell, which allows us to better appreciate the aromas of Kumamoto ramen or Kurume ramen. In human form, I prefer the light flavor of chicken or seafood base over the heavier types. But a thick, rich tonkotsu is great with tsukemen even in human form, mixing the springy thick noodles and the soft flat noodles together.”

“You are obsessed with ramen!”

“Only as a simple pleasure! Who would cry for ramen when they’re on death’s door?!”

“You were crying for ramen, Panacchi!”

“I was not!”

They yelled at each other, glared at each other, and finally, Panas was the first to avert her gaze. It wasn’t that she was lacking in fighting spirit. She just realized from an objective standpoint how much of a waste of time this was.

“Understood. Let us leave the matter of ramen aside. Even if we argue now about who was in the right, it’s not as if any evidence or witnesses will appear.”

“I’m not lyin’.”

“Never mind the ramen. It’s not the real issue here.”

“Oh?”

“Even if what you say is true…even if it’s true that I was caught in an explosion and passed out, and you stole my flag…”

“Stole? That’s a mean way to put it.”

Panas stuck up the index finger of her right hand and pointed it at Lazuline. “Then that still means our match has not yet been settled!”

“Yeah, well, I guess.”

“Then we must fight.”

“We must?”

A particularly strong wind blew through. Panas’s necktie danced in the wind, fluttering in front of her face, but Panas chose to pay it no mind. “Of course,” Panas continued. “Today, here and now, we shall settle matters. You are also a warrior. You cannot say you will run.”

“I’m not gonna run, but… Ah, now I’m stuck, huh?” Lazuline scratched the back of her head, folded her arms, looked up at the sky, unfolded her arms, and scratched her head one more time. Meanwhile, she muttered something under her breath. “The truth is, my master asked me to handle some stuff… If we had a duel now and I lost, or even if I won, but then I couldn’t move, then I’d be forced to tell my master at the last minute that I can’t do it.”

“Why did you agree to do errands when we’re about to have a duel?”

“’Cause I didn’t think we were actually gonna have a duel. The plan was that we go eat ramen! I figured I could finish the business for my master on the way back.”

“That’s understandable, but…”

Panas had no intention of letting Lazuline leave unharmed. She didn’t think of her as an opponent she could hold back with.

And since she wouldn’t limit herself, that meant she would beat her opponent down. And once Lazuline had been reduced to a pulp here, she would be quite unable to complete the errands her teacher had requested of her.

Being a graduate of the Archfiend Cram School, the word “master” was extremely weighty to Panas. If Archfiend Pam had asked her to do something, and then Panas were forced to cancel that at the very last minute…

Pressing down her wildly flapping necktie with her right hand, Panas looked at Lazuline. She was groaning “hmm, hmm…” like she really didn’t know what to do. Though Lazuline was her fated foe, the one with whom she’d been wishing for a rematch for a long year, Panas had come to seriously doubt the basis for Lazuline being her sworn enemy and was actually feeling kind of bad about it.

Maybe Panas was the one who should be yielding here.

“Then let us do this,” Panas said. “We’ll do things in the opposite order. You finish this business for your master first. After that, you fight me. So then, even if you become incapacitated from fighting me, it won’t be a problem.”

“Ohhh! Good idea! Then let’s head down the mountain together.”

“…Why do I have to go with you?”

“C’mon, now, Panacchi. It’d be bad if you were to just let me go and finish the business for my master, and then I’m like, Ah, great, now I guess I’ll go home, right? Ya may not think so, but right here is the magical girl who can easily win the title of General Forgetful. It’s a bad idea to leave me alone.”

Now that Lazuline had said that, Panas was uneasy. She didn’t think Lazuline would up and run away, but she did have an air to her like she would forget things when it was convenient for her.

“So then you come down the mountain together with me! On that dragon!” Lazuline pointed to the back of Panas’s hand, her eyes positively sparkling.

Panas did rather get the impression that Lazuline ultimately just wanted to ride a dragon, but even if that were true, would parting ways now be a good idea?

Panas looked up at the sky. The clouds were becoming thicker and darker. The wind was blowing harder, too. It could start raining. If she was going to wait until Lazuline came back, then she couldn’t be like, Oh, it’s raining now, so I’m going home. Simply imagining getting turned into a drowned rat waiting was enough to make her feel miserable. Panas made up her mind.

“I’ll go as well.”

Each tap of heels on the floor made the footsteps ring through the warehouse. Perhaps it was her tension that was making the mere sound of footsteps so particularly grating to the ear. And Panas wasn’t the only one who was tense. The man in the black suit with the silvery metal briefcase as well as the magical girl in an all-black costume who stood beside him wore tight expressions, alert and on guard. Only Lazuline, the one they were so wary of, was smiling lackadaisically, which just heightened the tension.

The situation of being in a warehouse at the pier and receiving a metal briefcase from a man in a black suit would make anyone tense. Panas did not ask exactly what it was they were doing. She didn’t think prying into it would result in anything pleasant.

With cautious footsteps, the man in the black suit edged toward Lazuline and handed over the briefcase. Lazuline casually took it from him and popped it under her cape.

The man sighed deeply, and the magical girl at his side shot Lazuline a glare. “Bringing a bodyguard? Seems like you don’t trust us, huh?”

A bodyguard—that seemed to refer to Panas. She very much wanted to correct them, but she didn’t want to get involved, if possible.

When Panas said nothing, Lazuline opened her mouth. “She’s not my bodyguard. She’s a friend.”

“A friend? Don’t make me laugh. The dragons on your hands… You’re Twin Dragons Panas, aren’t you? Bringing an Archfiend Cram School graduate here, do you think saying ‘my friend just happens to be with me’ will work—?”

“I’m not Twin Dragons Panas.”

Panas folded her arms, answering boldly without showing a modicum of the anxiety she was feeling. The pair in black closed their mouths, staring at her. They seemed suspicious.

“I get mistaken for her a lot—we look so similar.”

“…Huh, is that right? Well, it doesn’t really matter who you are anyway.”

If this exchange, which at a glance looked like an illegal one, was actually an illegal exchange, and if the two in black were arrested and said something like, “The Twin Dragons Panas was there when the deal was made,” then even Panas, who wasn’t a part of this, would be investigated. She didn’t know if insisting she had nothing to do with it would work or not.

I’m someone else, I’m not Panas, she told herself. The pair in black’s dubious looks at her never changed. Lazuline offered them a twelve-inch-squared black paulownia wood box, and they grabbed it and left the pier warehouse. The grating sound of footsteps faded out, and after some time passed, Panas unfolded her arms and retied her necktie.

“Right, then you’re done with your business? Then it’s time to duel.”

“Sorry. There’s still somethin’ else.” Lazuline raised a hand in an apologetic gesture, and Panas gave her a look of sincere exasperation.

Once they were done with the warehouse deal, they headed a few dozen miles northwest, this time, going into town. When Panas wondered just what they were going to do, Lazuline dragged her into a building at the end of a back alley that looked like a day care or a preschool. Apparently, it was some sort of home for orphans.

“’Kay then, you melt the butter with that hot water. Ah, watch out not to get it directly in the water.”

“Okaaay!”

“You separate the whites from the yolks. Do it all careful like, so ya don’t mix them up.”

Lazuline gave instructions, and the children did as they were told. While everyone there was properly doing their jobs, Panas alone was confused, standing there. Lazuline handed the briefcase from before to the older woman who seemed to be in charge of this facility, and in exchange, she received a large cardboard box.

“Thanks,” said Lazuline.

“Oh no, thank you. The children worked hard making these.”

“Naw, thanks for real. Having this’ll be a huge help.”

Panas had assumed this would be another sort of deal, but that was not so. Surrounded by children in aprons and headcloths, Lazuline also put on an apron and a headcloth, handing over a paper bag to Panas, and inside was another apron and headcloth. Though Panas did put them on, she didn’t get the point.

“Hey, what’s this about?” asked Panas.

“Apparently, my master gives this place a lot of money. She’s like Tiger Mask, huh?”

“That’s not what I meant.”

“Today’s a bakin’ class. We’re gonna make a cake so good, it’ll make your cheeks fall off.”

“Why would I help with something like that?”

“Then I’m gonna ask ya to handle this, Panacchi. I want ya to beat this until it peaks.” Lazuline handed her a bowl with the whites that had just been separated from the yolks and an egg whisk.

Panas pondered for a moment. She didn’t know what Lazuline meant by all this, but if Panas didn’t get this done, then Lazuline’s errand wouldn’t get done, either.

Making up her mind, with her right hand on the beater and her left holding the bowl, she beat the whites hard. Whipped with the strength of a magical girl, never mind becoming a meringue, the whites splattered everywhere, and the children shrieked.

“Panacchi! What are you doing?!”

“I-I’m sorry.”

“You’re supposed to whip ’em gently and lightly!”

The children quickly cleaned up the huge mess Panas had made, saying encouraging things like, “This stuff happens” and “Don’t get discouraged, miss!” and “Let’s all pitch in,” before returning to their own tasks. What mature little brats…er, children. Panas mentally thanked them, then resumed her task.

Once they were done baking the cake, they crossed four prefectural borders to arrive at the next location.

Smack-dab in an area with nothing but rice fields all around sat a brand-new gymnasium. If there had been an analyst there, they may have told them something about the harms of government policy that was overfocused on the construction of community buildings. The parking lot was pretty full, heavily clashing with the deserted surrounding scenery.

Panas was led through to a spacious room that she was told was a changing room, and it was full of young women who were busy putting on makeup and costumes.

Inside the paper bag she was handed was a magical-girl costume. The fabric looked cheap.

“What is this?” Panas asked.

“It’s a Cutie Altair costume. Oh, would you have preferred Cutie Vega, Panacchi? But you’re more like Altair, figure-wise.”

“That’s not what I’m asking. What sort of gathering is this?”

“It’s a local cosplay event.”

“And why must I participate in it?”

“My master said the cooperation of professional magical girls is essential for the development of regional magical-girl culture. Frankly, I don’t really get it, but she’s probably right.”

Panas got the feeling that she was being wheedled into this with plausible-sounding but bunk logic. But if she were to say no now and Lazuline were to get away from her, then all her efforts until now would have been for nothing. Going out to the warehouse by the pier and playing bodyguard, as well as making cake with the children and getting laughed at for the whipped cream on her cheek would all become meaningless.

She couldn’t have that. Panas sighed and accepted the paper bag.

“The dos and don’ts are all written down here,” said Lazuline. “I want ya to read over it. Veeeeery occasionally, some pests’ll turn up to these types of events. Of course, ya can’t be causin’ problems yourself, either.”

“Don’t insult me. I’ve been a veteran magical girl for a very long time. I know how to deal with magical-girl fans. Don’t take me for some meathead.”

Five minutes after the event had begun, Panas was already exhausted.

When people asked her to pose, she was obligated to do so, and she always had to smile and look like she was enjoying herself. She felt so many rude gazes all over her body that it physically pained her. Fortunately, there was no excessive physical contact or extreme low-angle photography going on or anything, but she was so unused to being a model, it drained both her body and soul.

Though they couldn’t have realized the two of them were real magical girls, a particularly large crowd gathered around Panas and Lazuline, and they could hardly see what was going on elsewhere, which only made Panas more uneasy. It was also quite humiliating to be wearing Cutie Altair’s outfit. She knew Altair from the Archfiend Cram School—a real surly character. If Panas were to act out the woman herself, then she should be sullenly brooding instead of smiling. When they’d gone camping, Altair had burned their fresh fish all black until it was practically ash, insisting, “This is how they do it at my home,” and had offered not one word of apology. It pissed Panas off even to this day.

Back-to-back with Lazuline, who was wearing the outfit of Cutie Altair’s partner in the anime, Cutie Vega, they posed, and Lazuline whispered quietly, “See, I knew you’d be great! You’ve got a dazzling smile, Panacchi.”

She thought it’d feel real good to punch Lazuline, but if she were to do something like that while the cameras were flashing, that would leave evidence. And if that evidence were to get circulated to Archfiend Pam… Forcing down the anger inside with a smile, Panas showed off her Cutie Healer poses.

After the cosplay event went off without a hitch, Panas and Lazuline were on the gymnasium stage. They could see outside through the still-open doors that the participants were going home. Watching the cars disperse beyond the rice fields made her feel rather gloomy. It wasn’t the fault of the cars—it was the fault of Lazuline and her master. Already, half a day had passed since they’d originally met up for their duel.

Lazuline set down her armful-sized cardboard box down on the floor to check its contents.

“What is that?” Panas asked.

“The secret weapon I just got. Though the one flaw is that it’s a little bulky.”

“A secret weapon, you say? What do you plan to do next? Or rather, how long is this going to go on? What does your master want to do?”

“Hey now, calm down.” Lazuline pulled out something like a notepad from under her cape and flipped through it. “Accordin’ to the schedule my master made, it’s about time… Ah, here they are.”

Sensing something had come, the moment Panas readied herself, slightly over ten presences appeared within the gym, surrounding Lazuline and Panas. They didn’t come running or walking—the dark, shapeless “somethings” that suddenly appeared there reminded Panas of her master Archfiend Pam’s wings. She couldn’t see the expressions on their faces, but she sensed no anxiety or fear from them.

The things weren’t only inside the gym. There were more outside, stirring and writhing.

“Now you’ve done it!” A voice came from the entrance. It was the magical girl in black who’d been in the warehouse at the pier. From behind the writhing somethings, she was giving Lazuline a stabbing death glare. She raised up high that black wooden box and slammed it down against the floor. The box cracked open, the hinges came off, and blown by the wind, it scattered apart. There was nothing in it.

“Giving me a stupid empty box! You may have tried to outwit us, but you won’t get away with it!”

“If I return what ya gave me, will ya forgive me?” Lazuline’s voice was calm.

“Just giving it back won’t be enough. You’re going to offer payment to make up for it. Give up all your place’s research results to us. Then we’ll forgive you.”

“Um, I dunno about that… My master’s note said not to give it back.”

“If you’re not giving it back, then all the more reason for this.” The magical girl in black raised her right hand. But right before she could snap her fingers, without any forewarning at all, Lazuline boldly drop-kicked one of the somethings that was protecting the magical girl, smashing it and the girl together out the door.

Panas jumped to the side to dodge the enemy that grabbed for her, after which Lazuline knocked it down with a punch. Struck, the something popped like a balloon, flying apart.

Lazuline punched down three more somethings. The somethings stopped rushing for them wildly, instead encircling Lazuline and Panas from a distance. They seemed to have some brains, as they closed in gradually, trying to constrict the circle around them. Lazuline looked over in the direction she’d tossed the black magical girl and went, “Ohhh.” The girl was at the gym entrance. She carried a big jar on her shoulder, and something was oozing out of it like mud and coming into form. It was coming out at a frighteningly quick pace, and the whole gym was about to be buried by the black somethings.

“There’s a lot of them,” said Panas.

“Uh-huh.”

Panas had worried quite a lot, expecting that Lazuline would come to rely on her, and so she’d figured she’d help, but Lazuline was calmly pulling little balls out from the cardboard box on the floor in front of her. They were the type you’d see at the ball-scoop game stands at night markets.

“Bouncy balls…”

“They’re Lazuline balls. They’ve got scrap gems in ’em.”

“Oh…?”

“The kids from the place where we just baked that cake made ’em for me.”

Thrown with the strength of a magical girl, the countless high-rebound rubber balls bounced rapidly around the gym, from wall to wall, from ceiling to floor. Then one of the rubber balls transformed into Lazuline. No—it didn’t turn into her. She’d moved instantly to the position of the ball.

Lazuline kicked off the wall in a three-point jump. She stomped through the floorboards to hit the enemy, striking it down. Simultaneously, at the other end of the gym in the other direction, she went from a low sweeping kick to dropping her heel in an ax kick. The rubber balls rebounded all over the gym, bouncing in an irregular manner, making it hard to even follow them with your eyes.

With a flutter of her cape, Lazuline flicked away a rubber ball, then appeared again in the position she’d sent it to. She used the recoil of a punch to the enemy to bounce another ball, appearing again at the end of its trajectory. With moves that would dazzle the eye, she was going around crushing the somethings.

Panas was practically entranced by the way Lazuline moved so smoothly, like she knew where every single enemy was. Her jab, jab, hook, uppercut, straight punch combo just kept on destroying each different foe in each different location. Turn kick low, middle, high, spinning hook kick—the combination moves done in anticipation of an individual opponent had been sublimated to a technique used against multiple targets.

Enemies were flying every which way, destroying the walls of the gym. But their number wasn’t actually going down. The somethings welled up from no place in particular, oozing out to appear in the parking lot, the field outside, and inside the gymnasium.

The enemy was coming for Panas, too. But she was not going to stand there and take it.

Raising up her left hand, she cried, “Jörmungandr!”

The dragon’s tail, over thirty feet long, made to mow down everything around, but multiple black somethings banded together to stop it. They were tougher than she’d thought.

Raising up her right hand, she cried, “Níðhöggr!”

The dragon’s jaws bit into the black somethings, piercing them with its fangs, and on top of that, it breathed flames that scorched the whole area. Without even a scream, the group of somethings turned to vapor. She burned up the gym floor, melting off every metallic part, leaving the interior exposed. Panas covered her mouth and backed away to escape the high-temperature gas and steam.

“You are Twin Dragons Panas from the Archfiend Cram School, after all! I know that magic!” the magical girl in black was yelling outside the door.

Panas yelled back, “No, I’m just paying homage to her magic!” She decided to play dumb until the very end.

The fierce battle very quickly made the gym collapse, and even if the area was nothing but rice fields, making that much of a ruckus, there was no way they wouldn’t get noticed, and when cop cars and ambulance sirens began to sound, the enemy fled, and Lazuline and Panas also ran into a nearby forest, somehow avoiding detection.

Panas was tired. Even the Archfiend Cram School’s hellish training had never been this exhausting. It wasn’t that she was tired only from the fighting—she was mentally exhausted, too.

Lazuline extended a hand to Panas, who was leaning against a big tree. “Okay, Panacchi, I’ve done my errands for my master, so we can finally fight.”

“Ahhh… Okay. By the way, about that gym… For compensation…”

“Ya don’t hafta worry ’bout that. Apparently, the mayor here wanted to rebuild it ’cause he got some subsidy from the federal government, but the gym was still too new, and nothing about it was broken, so he was having trouble. Destroyin’ it was one of the errands for my master.”

Hearing this very dirty story made Panas even more depressed. Taking the hand extended to her, with a heave, she got up, and Lazuline showed her the biggest smile of the day.

“Which ramen place do ya wanna go to? Ya know some good ones, right?”

Panas looked back at Lazuline and pondered for a while. This girl had already forgotten just why Panas had been sticking with her all this time. But Panas didn’t have any more energy left to yell at her.

Swallowing her sigh, Panas turned back to Lazuline and nodded. “There’s a shop around here that serves good curry ramen.”

“Ooh, curry ramen! I’ve never had that before!”

“You’ve never lived until you’ve had curry ramen.”

Panas stuck her finger in the gap between her collar and necktie and tugged hard to loosen it. The two blue magical girls began walking off toward the ramen shop.