Day two as the newest magical girl council member, it was another eventful day for me. Yesterday I spent the morning hunting caterpillars and resting in the afternoon. My injuries miraculously healed quickly, leaving not a single scar in my punctured body. Dinner was wonderful, I stuffed all the food I could find until I was satisfied, and to top it off Okumura paid for all of it.

This tasteful evening was just a reminder of how great having money is.

Just like last time, Okumura accompanied me to the next location of an invasion. This time it was right next to the dock of an ocean or perhaps a big lake. The body of water was not important to me and I was here for the bounty it had.

I sat on the dock, my feet dangling in the air above the water. Behind me Okumura stood gazing at the horizon. "What are the invaders this time? Some sort of fish insect hybrid?"

"Sorry Shima but this time I don't know the exact details… Anyway, wanna continue last night's game? I didn't know you enjoyed that type of stuff." She said, holding her deck of cards near me.

"You don't know much about me Okumura~"

I stuck my tongue out to taste the saltiness and rich taste of the sea but alas taste buds did not function in that way. I stood up and lifted my glaive into the air. It would be great if the invaders didn't have painful attacks this time. I may have gotten some resolve but getting stabbed by multiple needles really hurts.

My enthusiasm drops low whenever I imagine the pain… "The sea is really calming." It reminds me of my mother's salty dishes. I hope she won't get sick from all that salt intake.

After a long time of waiting, a portal popped up on the water, pushing out entities but not letting a droplet of water fall in. Flowers began swimming around the sea, moving at fast speeds, it seems the monsters this time were huge fishes with even bigger flowers sprouting on their body.

"Shima don't jump into the water. I can see you're eager to kill them but I don't want to see you get ripped to shreds."

I stabbed my glaive down into the wooden boards and raised my arms forward. This is easy Shima, just what range move can I do? Those pillars I created before were slow and weak. I need something better. As a magical girl, we are gifted the power of our own imagination and a unique ability.

Okumura said to me that hers was a secret and babbled on about Chiasa's and Ayaka's. Chiasa has the power to create and mold metal and summon fire from metal. Ayaka has the power to create and mold water and to summon metal from water. With this power and their imagination, they can easily kill invaders.

I don't know, but as far as I'm certain, I can summon anything with enough concentration and willpower. Of course the strongest thing I have summoned is this glaive but that doesn't mean my guess is wrong. I just hope this power is unique to me, it would sadden me if I found out every magical girl can do this.

I pointed my hand at the water and shot out a fast moving solid heart at a flower. The heart slowed down when it entered the water and missed the fast movements of the fish.

"A heart? That's… please don't try to copy her moves."

"Why?"

"Originality is key. Inspiration is good but you can never get your own personality if you copy others."

"It's hard to visualize new things but I will give it a try."

I don't know what I am or what I want to be. As a child I idolized the people that create wonders and experiences for people around the world with games but as I grew older I realized that I can't be a part of those people. The world of arcade game creation just seemed so far.

Many reasons come to mind but the death of my childlike curiosity and admiration was the leading factor. I love games and playing them but what I love more is having food on my plate at the end of the day. I raised my hand up and slammed it down into the water.

By my command, multiple turrets sprouted into the air and took aim at the sea. It made no sense as to why the fishing games in arcades gave you a minigun instead of a fishing rod but it sure made it fun.

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"Destructive Combo!" Shouting a cool sounding attack name, I commanded the turrets to rain down pixelated bullets at the invaders. Flowers sprouted up from the sea, blocking my bullets and launching them everywhere.

I grabbed my blade and slashed at the bullets coming at me, it seems my attack was useless. Maybe an actual fishing rod would do me better. "Destructive Combo!" I rained down a second time, the flowers sprouted and I raised my arms up. I conjured a boomerang and threw it at the neck of the flowers, cutting them down.

With no defense left, my bullets bombarded the ocean, filling up the sea with dangerous mines of death even fish as fast as these were unable to avoid. I cleared the school down in an instance and I felt proud and lethargic.

Why does magic make me feel so weak? It's infuriating. I slammed the turrets down into the sea, letting it dissolve into particles in the sea. "Let's go eat food." I signaled Okumura to leave but her face was occupied with some game console. I feel complicated about her, maybe It was wrong for me to babble about gaming to her.

I stomped my foot and turned my back on her. "Come on hurry up, I want to get proper fighting here. I need to get stronger."

"Stronger? Why? You don't need to force yourself. You can take it slow."

"I have nothing else to do. This is my life now! I need to be stro-ngahhh!" A vine wrapped my leg and pulled me down into the depths of the sea. Damn it. I left one alive. The fish's monstrous jaws clamped down on my abdomen and my feet kicked in a furry inside the slimy mouth of the monster.

It hurts so much but I'm not giving up! I will kill this bastard!

I slammed my arm into the eye of the beast and gripped hard into its pupil. Memories of pointless shaman's appointments filled my head and I ripped the eye and its stalk off the fish as the teeth dug deeper into my flesh. I could feel the teeth clicked together as my bone and flesh stuck like thin paper mache

I slammed my hands down at the fish, digging my fingers into its scales and ripping them off. The fish trashed and shoved a sprouting flower into my mouth, filling my lungs deep with water.

Its dark. I'm dying. No no no! It's so dark please no...

"Braghh!"

I vomited my fair share of food,water and flower petals into the ground. I failed again. And this time if it wasn't for Okumura I would be dead. It hurts a lot. Why do I need to keep trying?

"Shima! Please don't die on me! Your flesh is barely holding on, I think you should keep looking up! It would be bad for you to see the state of your innards right now.

"I don't need to see it, I feel it already… Am I crying right now?"

"Loads. Loads of tears."

"Aaaaahh! It hurts!”

“You know… you're not close to her at all.” She let out a sigh as she stood over my mangle body. “I don't know why I keep comparing you to her. “Shima, she was a great person. A courageous hero who taught me everything I needed to know. But I'm not her and you are also not her.”

I roughly coughed as my head tried to understand her words. Her eyes gazed past me as her lips quivered softly. “She was a real hero. She was strong and smart, she was the perfect leader before me, she was the person I admire the most and yet. Even after all that. She's gone. Just like that in a flash. The only thing I have left are the important memories of her.”

I slammed my arm onto the floor next to me, my eyes closing slowly as a flow of words I can't understand entered my hazy mind. Is she telling me I'm a replacement?

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Day three as a magical girl, my body is lacking any wounds and scars. I feel like a monster whenever I see myself. All I needed was an outrageous amount of food and I was able to heal all the injuries I endured yesterday.

Right now I'm on my own, chasing after a nimble and evasive monster in some alleyway in the city's outskirts. I think this was Dandelion city but I can't remember clearly anymore.

The creature dashed to the right, wagging its tail to knock over trash cans to block my path. The creature was a long worm with segmented hard shells and spiky legs. On second thought, this was a centipede, a massive one that left a trail of smoke.

I jumped over the bins and swung my weapon across the air, dispensing the smoke in front of me. The smoke blew away and the centipede appeared in my vision, facing me and ready to slam its head.

I was knocked back and thrown into the floor, my weapon scattering out of my hands. The monster used the smoke as a way to get a free hit on me. I clenched my teeth and pushed myself up. The centipede slowly moved back, exhaling a puff of smoke over the alleyway.

I contemplated if I should grab my weapon or try to create a new one to prevent getting attacked while in a fragile position. If I had just a little bit more experience I would create a new glaive in less than a second but I can't. At my current skill it takes too long and I need to focus hard to produce something useful.

I took a couple steps back, my hands staying rigid in front of my body. I was waiting for another tackle to happen. Any moment now, this centipede will charge at me and I will be ready to grab it and to bash it's head in my gruesome strength. I waited and I waited but nobody came.

A minute has passed by, my heart has stopped beating crazily and my eyes felt hot from the smoke. I dash forward to where my weapon was and swung it around me, removing the static smoke. The centipede was not here.

I ran forward with haste, maneuvering through this maze of alleyways until I came outside to an open area filled with smoke. I raised my glaive high up into the air and swung it full force in order to disperse this smoke cloud.

My weapon collided with and remained motionless in the air. A gloved hand was holding my glaive by its blade and stopping me from pushing it down. "Weak. You can't even kill something as pathetic as this insect."

In my limited vision, I could see a person with an old military style gas mask staring directly at my eyes. The smoke was blown away with one swift slash down from the stranger's hand.

"Look around you. Do you really think you have the right to continue playing hero?"

I glance around, my eyes instantly landing onto the squashed dead corpse of the centipede and the blood flowing from it. My eyes then caught a glance of a person's corpse and then another farther away. Red. Why are they so red? I let go of my glaive and slowly backed off, clenching my mouth and stomach.

"I was curious as to what the new member was like and so I followed you. I saw you were doing something as small as hunting down a singular invading monster and I thought to myself. Why the hell would a magical girl council member do such a thing?"

"..."

"I thought you were a hardworking person at first. Working even when there was no large-scale invasion happening and trying to save as many lives as possible by killing single monster invaders. But I saw the truth, you're nothing but a weak poser trying to improve by killing these strays."

"..."

"That isn't really a bad thing but take some advice from me, from one magical girl to another. You are not suited for this. I heard from the magical girl of Justice, you don't even have a symbol as a magical girl… Hey, stop looking over there and look at me!"

I hesitated and did something stupid as waiting for a monster to strike first, expecting it to act as to how a human would act, why would a monster fight me, when they could go for easier victims.

"I'm sorry. It won't happen again."

"Huh? Yeah… Make sure it won't. If you want real strength then go and fight an invasion or have someone teach you."