1

A man was lying in his bed at a terribly advanced time of day, snoring peacefully without a care in the world.

But suddenly a loud bang shattered his peaceful sleep. At first it was dismissed as a hallucination – maybe something in his dream caused this noise, which left him in a groggy, disoriented state, about to slip right back into pleasant dreams within minutes.

Then a second bang sealed the deal and had him jolt wide awake. A third followed, then a fifth and finally it became a rhythmic cacophony of low, thudding noises. The point of origin was right down the hallway, past a few tied-up plastic bags filled with month-old garbage and a clutter of aluminum cans where his front door was located, neatly visible from his cheap bed.

He squinted his eyes as a ray of light hit his face from the sloppily closed curtains. It was around noon. Way too early for him to be awake. In fact, one could argue that being required to be awake and lucid before two in the afternoon was a human rights violation that every nation in the world was guilty of.

But enough of that. For now, he had to figure out what that infernal noise coming from his door meant. Was it a neighbor visiting to complain about the stench of garbage? Unlikely. All his neighbors were loathsome beings, commonly referred to as ‘normies’.

It being a Wednesday meant they would be at work at this time. Or, if they were those who worked afternoon or night shifts, would be asleep like him or out in Kabukichō to be given false compliments by pretty girls who pretend to like them for money.

Those who were even higher on the dreadful ‘normie’ totem pole might even be out there in Shinjuku on a date with their girlfriends. They should die.

The next possibility was a delivery, though that was also not very likely. He didn’t remember ordering something recently and if a pre-ordered figurine from one of his favorite anime had been delivered after he placed an order half a year ago, he would at least get an email notification about it. Alas, there were none of those on his phone. And come to think about it, he had never met a delivery person passionate enough about their job that they would keep banging on his door until he woke up.

He crossed his arms in front of his chest and took a deep breath as he contemplated the implications of the thought that had just crossed his mind:

With all the other options exhausted the only thing that was left was-

“Yoshida! I know you’re in there. You NEVER leave that stinking apartment! Your manuscript was due this morning!”

-exactly that one. His editor was paying him a visit.

Oh.

Toya Yoshida was a 20-year-old professional writer. And he was in big trouble.

He immediately jumped off the bed and towards the low table in the middle of his room. His laptop was still there, and with only a single push of a button it woke up from sleep mode. He frantically checked his progress on ‘The Demon Lord’s Right Hand Woman is my Sister Volume 6’, which he had to finish and send to his editor this morning.

Okay, that was not the whole truth. He had to send it to her two months ago but since that was a so-called ‘soft deadline’ he didn’t care much about it. He apologized to an appropriate degree and promised to finish it before the true deadline. Needless to say, he just passed that one, too, resulting in his editor banging on his door in this very moment.

If his progress was far enough, he could try to quickly write whatever was left and simply pretend that he overslept for the turn-in deadline.

Ah…

That single word pierced his mind as he witnessed the fruits of his lack of labor. He was three whole chapters off from finishing the volume. There was no chance in hell he would be able to write that much before his editor broke down his door and dragged him to the publishing house to have him court-martialed or whatever publishers do with lazy writers.

Ignoring his judgment of the situation he started typing. He wrote, and wrote, and wrote. His focus was impeccable! He actually couldn’t hear the banging on his door anymore, only the soothing ‘clack-clack’ of his fingers hitting the keyboard, that’s how focused he was! He continued writing, not even knowing himself for how long until suddenly it got harder to see what was on his screen. A ray of sunlight fell on the device and the weak backlight stood no chance against the radiance of a million grains of dust lighting up like a sea of stars, obscuring the words on his dirty machine. He really should invest the one minute it would take to wipe the screen. Maybe tomorrow.

Must have left the balcony door open and the wind is pushing the curtains away. He contemplated before turning around.

His heart stopped in his chest as he turned to the balcony door and saw something frankly impossible. Seika Hitoishi, his editor, stood right in front of him in the flesh. She was dressed in the plainest office worker outfit imaginable: A white shirt with a pencil skirt covered her body, a dress code shared by nigh uncountable offices around town. Black high heels made the short woman stand a little bit taller, though it didn’t help her much.

The black tights she wore were about the only thing adding a little excitement to her attire of choice.

She wasn’t bad looking, but her job took its toll on her. Her angry, dark eyes were fixed on him with an expression that definitely went through the possibilities of committing murder and getting away with it. They had dark rings underneath – the lack of sleep that caused them was in no small part his fault, he was sure. The half-rim glasses she was wearing fit her face nicely, which was framed with shoulder-length hair that she kept in a wolf cut.

But more important than all of that was the burning question on his mind.

“How the hell did you get up here?! We’re on the third floor!”

“I climbed.”

Her voice was trembling with anger. He could feel a cold sweat breaking out across his body.

2

Just a few moments earlier Seika stood in front of Yoshida’s apartment and knocked impatiently.

Maybe he overslept and forgot to turn it in. I hope that he overslept and forgot to turn it in.

She had been at the office all night. The encroaching deadline with no word from the author had her on edge and she chose to be ready to start editing the second she received the manuscript.

However, the manuscript never arrived. As the deadline passed, she had to make all the necessary calls to apologize to all the right people in the production chain and beg them for some more time while she gets this mess sorted out. Making all those calls already took hours, mostly thanks to the people she let down yelling at her.

If he doesn’t have the manuscript I’m going to kill him. Oh, who am I kidding? If my threats were believable my authors wouldn’t slack off like this.

She kept knocking for now. Boom-boom, boom-boom, boom-boom. Boom.

That last one was her head hitting the door – she had just fallen asleep on her feet, but the impact woke her up instantly. Letting out a sharp gasp, she slapped her cheeks with both hands.

This job is going to be the death of me one day.

Staring daggers at the door she took a deep breath, holding it for just a second before she let her voice boom out:

“Yoshida! I know you’re in there. You NEVER leave that stinking apartment! Your manuscript was due this morning!”

Of course there wasn’t an answer this time, either. She’d have to look for another solution. Since her eyes threatened to close all on their own again, she looked for a nearby convenience store first and left the apartment complex’s loggia.

“Thank you very much!”

The convenience store clerk’s words accompanied her on her way out of the building, energy drink in hand. She quickly twisted off the cap and brought the potent liquid to her lips, gulping it down like water.

One of these days this will stop working as efficiently if I keep abusing it.

She grimaced at the thought as she brought her eyes back to the apartment building in which her wayward writer was entrenched in this very moment.

It was a typical apartment building. On one side you had an outdoor staircase getting you to the loggia of every floor, on the other side you had balconies stacked together like the saddest grey beehive – if bees ever decided to make use of rectangular shapes.

Yoshida’s apartment would be the second one from the left on the third floor.

It's open.

She immediately latched on to that fact as she saw the balcony door. She tossed her empty drink into a garbage can and moved into a nearby alley.

Seika Hitoishi was a 30-year-old woman and editor at Magic Collection Publishing, a small Light Novel publisher with sixteen currently running series in a wide variety of genres, though most were settled in urban or classic fantasy with the odd venture into science fiction.

That was what most of her acquaintances knew about her. But ever since she was fourteen, she had kept a secret from everyone.

She was a Magical Girl. A guardian against all kinds of threats, be they interdimensional or even mundane. And in this very moment she decided to be a guardian against the threat of a missed deadline due to a writer’s lack of enthusiasm.

First she made certain that no one could peek into the alley and accidentally see what she was doing, then she removed the crimson, triangle shaped gemstone dangling from the single earring on her right ear. Closing her fist around it she closed her eyes and took a deep breath before uttering the simple command:

“Transform!”

Simple, bereft of any magical flourish, but it did the job.

Immediately a bright light enveloped her entire body. Her office clothes simply turned pink orbs of pure magical energy and got absorbed into the gemstone. Piece by piece it exchanged them for new pieces of clothing. A red corset with a black petticoat covered her torso, soon followed by thigh boots, connected to somewhere under her skirt by a garter.

White gloves covered her arms almost up to the shoulders. A walking cane adorned with a crimson gemstone appeared out of thin air and she grabbed it with her left hand. Her hair turned a glowing shade of flaming red and grew beyond her shoulders all the way down to her hips before it swayed in an imaginary breeze.

Her eyes opened; their ordinary hazel replaced by a brilliant emerald that glowed with an inherent magical power. Most importantly, they showed not a single sign of her usual exhaustion, the tired rings banished from her appearance.

Finally, the gem approached her chest, turning into a brooch. An old librarian’s uniform jacket draped over her shoulders like a cape, fastened by the gemstone-adorned clip.

The ordinary-looking editor had turned into Minerva Crimson, a Magical Girl.

All this happened in less than a second – yet she still got incredibly self-conscious about the part where her clothes disappeared and she was exposed – ignoring the fact that she was covered in a blinding light and it happened too fast to be picked up by cameras, let alone a human eye.

Despite her discomfort she was focused enough to turn her attention to the apartment building again.

“It almost feels like a waste to do this just for a little break-in…”

“It definitely feels like a waste to use me like this. You’re lucky that I like you.”

“Calm down.” She spoke to her crystal – the little thing had a mind of its own that fused with hers when she transformed – and sometimes it couldn’t help but give its commentary.

With a single magically enhanced jump she was soaring through the air and landed without a sound on Yoshida’s balcony. As she stepped through the curtains obscuring the view inside, she let go of her transformation. All the exhaustion and other ailments of her ordinary existence rushed back into her mind and bones.

This transformation might be more addicting than those energy drinks.

“Please don’t compare me to those disgusting things.”

Her mood soured immediately as she caught a glimpse of Yoshida’s laptop, though. He wasn’t even close to finishing this morning. It was all she could do to stop herself from punching him as he turned around to face her, shock and fear written across his face.

“How the hell did you get up here?! We’re on the third floor!”

“I climbed.” She lied.

3

MagiColle Publishing was located in a small office building hidden away from most eyes on a side road. Its exterior was unassuming enough, save for a sign with the company’s logo and name on it. Its three stories offered enough room for the half dozen editors, two meeting rooms and what is referred to as the cells among staff. It was also only half an hour of walking away from Yoshida’s apartment complex.

Or so it would have been if the man had come along quietly. He clawed, screamed and kicked like he was being dragged into the literal flames of hell while Seika did her best to get him moving. She held him in a one-armed headlock while carrying his laptop with her other hand, slowly but surely dragging him along.

After the half hour that would supposedly have them stand in front of the office, she was still struggling with him on the halfway point, turning a corner while her head and upper body were drenched in sweat. The smaller woman dragging the younger man along like this must have made for a peculiar image, as some passersby were throwing them odd glances. The few that stopped and looked like they were about to say something or intervene were hurried away by Seika casting them a murderous gaze.

“Let me go! I’m not going into one of the cells!”

“You should have thought about that when you decided you could goof around instead of doing your work!”

“Help, help! I’m being abducted by this crazy lady!”

“Would you pipe down?!”

Step by step they advanced in the direction of the office before Seika heard the voice of her crystal.

“Hate to interrupt you while you’re wrestling for your job, but there’s an emergency nearby. A Shadow has appeared and is about to devour a young girl.”

Ugh, are you kidding me? Now of all times?

“I’m truly sorry.”

Seika closed her eyes and let out a loud groan that got stretched out for at least half a minute. She then slammed Yoshida against a nearby wall, pushing his laptop back into his hands.

She poked his sternum with a sharp finger as she looked him in the eyes. It seemed to have the intended intimidating effect as she could see the man physically shrinking.

“I’m going to take a leak. You stay here.”

“Huh?!”

“If you move from this spot, I’ll kill you.” She hissed.

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“Yes ma’am!”

“Good boy.”

With that she turned around and ran around the nearest corner in a little jog, transforming the very second she was out of sight, and flying through the alleyway at ground level before she ascended a good distance away from her misguided author.

“He’s not going to stay put.”

“I know.”

4

“Stay away from me!!”

Her voice rang through the back alley as she ran away from the approaching danger, knocking over cardboard boxes, bins and crates.

She didn’t know what was happening or why it happened to her. Just a moment ago she left her middle school, walking home with her friends. She entered the convenience store on the way, asking for her friends to wait for a moment so she could buy some snacks for a study session at her house.

As she left the store the streets were eerily empty, and she was all alone. Even going back inside, the store clerk was nowhere to be found and the music on the radio had fallen silent.

Before she could make sense of the situation a shadow approached her from the corner of her vision. A terrifying, dark mass that lifted itself from the ground.

Looking at it strained her eyes in the strangest ways – a lack of light created a shape vaguely resembling a bloated human without legs or a neck that seemed to only grow larger, slithering on the ground without friction.

Just as she was about to retreat a step away from it the mass sprouted bright, empty eyes and a mouth filled with jagged teeth. It grew a multitude of shadow arms and let out a high-pitched screech as it lunged towards her.

And this is how she ended up here, running through empty back streets where not a soul heard her crying and screaming as she ran for her life.

“Please leave me alone!”

Her pleas left her strained lungs as a weak squeal. Sweat dripped on the paving underfoot as her stamina gave out. Turning a final corner in desperation she found herself in a dead end, only a locked backdoor and a few dumpsters awaiting her there.

“No…”

Tears welled up in her eyes as the hopelessness of her situation dawned on her and she fell to her knees. She would be at the mercy of a monster in this alley. She’d be eaten by some shadow… thing in front of a dumpster.

The hair on the back of her neck started standing up as she could feel the shadow creature drawing close. The closer it got the darker her environment seemed to become.

Giving into the hopelessness she let her head hang down and closed her eyes, resigning herself to her fate.

She didn’t know what to expect and she didn’t want to find out at this point but whatever was supposed to happen simply didn’t.

“Have no fear! Minerva Crimson has arrived!”

Reluctantly the girl opened her eyes and looked behind her. The monster was still there, clawing against what looked like a magic circle from a role-playing game. Quadratic and triangular shapes overlapped into a complex pattern within circular shapes, with unfamiliar runes going along every line. Its white glow seemed to drive back the darkness of the environment around it, not yielding in the least to the monster’s relentless clawing attacks.

The girl looked around in confusion until she looked up and saw a person on the rooftop overlooking the alley. She was wearing a red costume with a black skirt and white gloves, with a uniform jacket around her shoulders like a cape. Her red-orange hair glowed against the darkened sky, as did her emerald eyes.

The Magical Girl lifted what appeared to be a walking cane and pointed it at the monstrosity, which slowly turned around and looked at her with its dead, vacant eyes.

“Begone!”, she shouted and the red crystal atop what now doubtlessly was her magic wand glowed in a brilliant light. A fireball manifested and slammed into the shadowy creature like a cannonball.

The girl in the alley covered her head but soon realized that the fireball’s heat didn’t reach her at all, just like the previous attacks made by claw and fang. The Magical Girl’s first priority was her safety in everything.

The mass of shadow howled – it was missing half its body and multiple of its arms fell off, burning to nothing on the ground, but it was still standing.

“A resilient one! I will have to cut it down in melee!”

Letting her voice boom out and commenting on the effect of her magic like she was in an overly dramatic theater play the woman dressed in red jumped off the roof. The shadow creature retaliated, its remaining limbs extending like they were made out of rubber, shooting towards the crimson woman.

The woman didn’t seem to be bothered at all – her trajectory towards the ground changed impossibly abrupt, her body dashing to the side mid-air as she kicked herself off more magic circles that appeared in convenient places for her.

The creature’s attacks hit the wall behind her, causing rubble to crash to the ground. As one larger piece fell down behind the Magical Girl, she used it to push herself towards the shadow’s location – and as she was flying, she revealed that her magical cane was more than just a wand and walking aid.

A glint of silver was the first hint that the girl saw, then the magical woman unsheathed her cane sword entirely. The brilliant steel of its blade was surrounded by arcs of lightning which illuminated the alleyway in short bursts like a club house’s strobe lighting.

As the lightning-imbued blade penetrated the shadow creature’s unreal-looking body it straightened up and let out a roar. The electricity jumped from steel to shadowy ‘flesh’, causing spasmic twitches in the multitude of arms even as the creature’s torso was bisected by the slash.

Collapsing to the ground, the creature released black smoke, signaling its death.

The Magical Girl looked over her shoulder, confirming her kill before she sheathed her blade and held a hand towards the distressed girl who had witnessed the entire ordeal.

“Are you unharmed?”

The girl stared at her savior in front of her and the tears she had in her eyes were finally flowing freely, fear giving way to relief in her heart.

“Thank you!”

Minerva Crimson using lightning magic [https://i.imgur.com/XouOWww.png]

A soda can fell to the ground of the convenience store, blackened. As it rolled away it started to disappear entirely, disintegrating into flakes of ash that floated away on an unfelt wind. The girl who had just been saved from a nightmare looked around in confusion, only to be surrounded by her friends who instantly hugged her.

“Sakura! Are you alright?” “We were so scared when you disappeared!”

Minerva Crimson let out a relieved sigh as she left the girl in the care of her friends. She stared at the spot where the can had just disappeared, furrowing her brow. Recently encounters with shadows have become more common. They were ambush predators from an entirely different world, taking the shape of a mundane object and waiting for a hapless soul to touch them.

From that moment on the victim would be dragged into a pocket dimension mirroring the surrounding area. Once that happened there was no way out save for killing the shadow – a feat beyond those who didn’t possess magical abilities like her.

“Take good care of her! She’s been through a lot.” She told the girls surrounding the trembling Sakura whose tears of relief now became those of happiness as she embraced her friends.

Minerva left the convenience store and took off. Some people took pictures of her on their phones, but it didn’t bother her. As a Magical Girl she has always had a passive spell that prevented people from recognizing her.

Her mind was entirely occupied with going back to her slacking writer.

5

Yoshida looked at his phone to check the time. The way Hitoishi had left him here was bizarre to say the least. And to take a leak? Where did she even go? They were in a residential neighborhood and the nearest public toilet wasn’t anywhere nearby.

Something was up, he just knew it. But for now, he focused on getting out of his precarious situation.

“She just left me here, right? So, if I run away that’s negligence on her part. It’s not my problem. That’s right, what’s she going to do about it? I’ll just go home and lock my door and my balcony window.”

He lifted his left foot to start walking.

If you move from this spot, I’ll kill you.

He froze and returned to his original spot, staring straight ahead as cold sweat ran down his back.

Good boy.

The way she had said that was doing something to him. He didn’t know what, and he wasn’t entirely sure if he liked it or not. He clenched his hands back into fists and stared ahead, with his laptop held under his armpit.

Wait, why am I being so obedient?

He shook his head and slapped his cheeks with both hands, then he grabbed his laptop and looked down the street.

Catch me if you can, hag!

He started running. And running. Houses flew past him, and he laughed. He was free! He could just return home and finish his novel at his leisure while locking her out! No way she was going to catch up to him while returning from her call of nature.

He turned the next corner in the direction of his apartment and let out a high-pitched screech as he almost pissed himself.

There was Hitoishi in the flesh, catching his laptop out of the air after he dropped it while falling backwards, trying to crawl away from her.

There was murder written in her eyes as she looked down over the rim of her glasses.

“Yo, Yoshida… remember what I said?”

6

The so-called cells were simply small office rooms on the upper floor. The distance to the ground combined with the locks on doors were there to dissuade would-be escapees from trying to run away. Usually they weren’t needed – at least the locks weren’t. But when it came to authors like Yoshida who insist on keeping their stories locked up in their heads instead of writing them down in time for publication, they were necessary.

Seika tossed him into one of these rooms and put his laptop on the work desk placed by the wall – notably more gentle than she handled the author himself.

“You’ll stay in here until you’ve finished the chapters. I’ll bring food and water three times a day. That’s when I’m checking your progress.” She announced. And with that she closed the door behind him and turned the key.

“You can’t do that! I’m your author, not your damn slave! At least leave me with an internet connection so I can watch v- I mean so I can do research!”

Ignoring the banging and the muffled pleas from behind the closed door she headed downstairs to the editor’s office.

Only three others were there. Two of her editor colleagues had their noses buried deep in a manuscript or were reading web novels to scout for potential new authors. MagiColle wasn’t a big publisher; unlike those they couldn’t hold annual contests for prize money and a guaranteed serialization, so this was their method of getting new talent.

And even here they had to compete with larger publishers who could offer more attractive conditions, so it could happen that an editor stumbled upon a diamond in the rough after reading through twenty uninspired stories full of grammatical errors only to be rejected outright because the author had already signed up with a big player mere hours before.

The third person was her boss. Fumio Watanabe, the editor in chief of MagiColle publishing. He was a man in his fifties of average height and ordinary build. He kept his hair short and wore round glasses that gave him a somewhat nerdy appearance. In fact, he founded this company because he loved Light Novels and wanted to be in charge of the process after being an editor himself for two decades.

“Problems with Yoshida again?”

“You know it.”

Seika sat down and picked up the phone at her desk. “I’m going to have to call the printers and ask them to wait a little longer. Three more days, possibly.”

“At this point they might be used to it from Yoshida.”

“That is not very reassuring. They could at least stop yelling at me if they know that it’s not my fault.”

Watanabe raised his hands in a defeated motion in response to her words and got back to his own work.

“What are you going to do after you called the printers? I doubt Yoshida will be done in the next few hours and you already spent the night. Maybe you should go home and get some shut eye?”

Seika stopped dialing the number on her phone for a moment as she pondered the offer. She was falling asleep, that much was true. But if she took some leave now and didn’t end up being well rested the next day due to her other obligations, how would that look?

“I appreciate the offer, but I want to finish something first. Maybe I’ll take a nap at my desk.”

“Suit yourself. Just don’t collapse on us.”

Seika nodded and fought back some tears as the prospect of an early sleep floated away from her.

The call to the printers went exactly as she expected it to go. People got angry and started shouting at her, then there were frantic attempts to reschedule the printing. Once Yoshida was done Seika would have to proofread the entire manuscript and start editing, adding the illustrations that the artist had finished a long time ago and checking that the formatting looked good in the typical dimensions of a Light Novel.

However, that was still some hours, if not at least a whole day away. Seika opened her work desk’s drawer, revealing an assortment of energy drink bottles. She grabbed one and started gulping down its contents as Watanabe looked on.

“Those things will be your death one day.”

“At least I’ll be productive until that happens, eh?”

Watanabe let out a sigh in response.

“This is the kind of stuff that makes people call you the demon of MagiColle, you know, Hitoishi? You keep chugging stuff like that in an amount that could kill a normal human being.”

“If being a demon inspires enough fear that our slacking writers turn their manuscripts in for editing in time, then by all means, call me a demon.”

Seika at her work desk [https://i.imgur.com/Fal0R9M.png]

She started up her work PC and got to work scouting for possible new talent on various web novel sites. Before she realized it, she had spent two hours reading through various new entries – first chapters that more often than not will remain the only chapter if a writer doesn’t get the immediate gratification of comments and ratings, poorly written power fantasies that play their hands way too fast, hellscapes of grammatical errors, and finally, probably the rarest among them, stories that showed promise.

Seika found one of them this time and subscribed to it to keep an eye on its development.

A writer usually doesn’t get an offer off the first chapter, but an editor also can’t wait too long to offer a promising author a deal, lest they get snatched away by one of the big players. She’d have to keep up with the releases and once there’s enough material to fill a debut novel, she can consider giving them a deal.

As Seika leaned back and stretched, she felt a vibration on her right ear as her partner spoke up again.

“Another Shadow! It has already grabbed a civilian!”

It’s one after the other today, isn’t it?

Seika grabbed a pack of cigarettes from her desk drawer and turned to her boss, announcing in a flat voice:

“Watanabe, I’ll be on the roof for a smoke break.”