1

April 2011

Magical Girls have been a reality of daily life for the past three years at this point. What was once just a dream for girls, boys and otaku in their thirties, had now turned into reality for a select few girls in the world.

If you were lucky you could see their pastel-colored light trails in the evening sky as they fly to a person in need of rescue, be it from evil magical adults or even monsters from beyond who were certain to find their end at the wrong side of a bright magical beam.

One such girl was currently slacking off in class, looking dreamily out of the window as the back row seat allowed her to do without catching the immediate attention of the teacher.

“Sayaka!”

“I’m awake! Sorry! Huh?”

Sayaka yanked her body around to face forward but only found that the rest of the class was already leaving. Apparently, she had daydreamed intensely enough to miss the bell.

The person talking to her was one of her classmates – her friend Hina, to be precise.

“Seriously, Sayaka. If you don’t pay attention, you’ll be held back. Anyway, we wanted to ask you if you want to go to the new store that just opened nearby. I heard they make little strawberry tarts and…”

Again Sayaka spaced out, but this time it was a voice in her head that stopped her from paying attention to the outside world.

“Sayaka. There’s trouble. A creature has been summoned on a nearby playground.”

“Understood, Kuma. Did you tell the others already?”

Sayaka responded by simply thinking the words to let her magical patron read them.

“Of course.”

“Sorry, Hina! I just remembered that I actually have cram school today! I spaced out so hard that I totally forgot! Tee-hee!”

“Don’t tee-hee me, Sayaka! You always do that! Wait, where are you- “

Sayaka had already started running out of the classroom, taking her bag with her.

Shortly after she arrived on the roof – which as pointed out by a sign on the door was off limits for students, but at this point she had broken that rule so often and without being caught that the sign might as well not be there.

“There you are!”

“You both got the message as well?”

Her friends Haruka and Fuuka arrived shortly after her. And soon after they were joined by Kuma himself – a strange magical cat-like being with the head of a stuffed bear which walked in the air as if it were solid ground. Its amber eyes were glowing faintly from beneath its alabaster fur.

“Well, there’s no time to waste.” Said Sayaka, rummaging through her bag until she found her transformation item: a hand mirror in the shape of a heart with pink accents. Haruka and Fuuka retrieved their own, almost identical to hers except for the variation which pastel color was represented on them.

The three of them held the mirrors high above their heads and shouted in unison.

“Pure Heart Form!”

They were enveloped in a brilliant light that changed their clothes into frilled, brightly colored dresses matching their mirrors and gave them wands with five-pointed stars at the tips. The transformation items themselves turned into tiaras with colored gemstones on their heads.

Armed like this they launched into the air, leaving a trail of light matching their respective pastel colors in their wake.

They arrived at the playground shortly after. The creature was supposed to be here – a type of monster by the name of ‘Scare Hare’, a giant stuffed rabbit that moved on its own. Its usual appearance is that of a stitched together mess from different kinds of materials, the majority of which were chosen from a sickly purple – they had mismatching button eyes, and it wasn’t uncommon for one of them to hang on a thread. There was however something unexpected as they arrived:

The creature was already dead.

Before it sat a woman with glowing hair, poking at its spilling stuffing with a one-handed sword. Her head tilted as she leaned in to inspect the lifeless remains of the once moving stuffed animal.

She wore what appeared to be a uniform jacket over her shoulders, concealing a red corset and black frilled skirt underneath.

She looked every bit as magical as the trio approaching her, but at the same time wildly different.

“Anomaly…”

“What did you say, Kuma?”

Sayaka asked in confusion.

“It’s nothing. Be on your guard. She might be part of the evil organization.”

2

Minerva Crimson, at this point in time 17 years old, was out on patrol again, as usual after school. Her glowing ruby hair flowed behind her as she soared through the skies, looking for people who might need help.

Monster attacks weren’t really a daily occurrence despite Magical Girls becoming a fact of life, so she attempted to help people in any mundane way she could, be it by saving cats from trees or using her ability of flight to catch purse snatchers mere moments after the act.

Today, however, held something special for her.

“What is that? That is not a Shadow. Or any kind of enemy I know about.”

“It’s unfamiliar to me as well.” Answered the voice of her crystal.

A creature resembling a two-meter-tall rabbit plushie was stumbling over a playground, sluggishly swinging its arms around. The children were running away scared – but the slow, lumbering movements wouldn’t have caught them even if they had walked at a comfortable pace. It almost looked like an adult in a tasteless costume playing catch with willing participants while giving the kids a large handicap to account for their small legs.

Minerva landed in front of the creature and looked around, seeing mothers grabbing their children and holding them close.

“Look! A Magical Girl! It’s going to be okay now!”

A nearby mother spoke softly to her crying daughter, bobbing her up and down to calm her nerves, all while walking away from the scene.

“So, uh…”

Minerva cleared her throat, then she addressed the odd rabbit mascot with a clear and loud voice.

“You’re not a human in a costume, right?”

The lack of a response was all she needed.

It had only taken a single slash of her magically infused blade. The creature was gutted, spilling cotton in a way that would elevate a movie a few age restriction ratings higher if it were real guts. Flailing its arms helplessly it collapsed and remained motionless.

Minerva could only blink in confusion, squatting down next to the thing and poking the cotton filling with the tip of her cane sword.

“That’s it? Come on. Stand up. Please? You can’t just give me an anticlimactic ending like this after scaring the kids! You’ve got to… I don’t know, give me trouble in a way that makes me realize an important life lesson?”

She kept poking without a response. After another ten seconds or so of incessant poking she let out a long sigh and was about to stand up, then she heard someone speak nearby.

“Anomaly.”

“What did you say, Kuma?”

The voices of a man and a young girl came from above her, which was quite unusual. Minerva looked up and her eyes widened. Magical Girls, in the flesh! In pink and blue and yellow with frilly clothes and little magic wands and everything!

She had gone three years without encountering any others in person, so she was desperate to connect with at least one other Magical Girl. As she was about to say something she made brief eye contact with the odd stuffed bear-faced cat that was flying next to the three girls.

Though its face was motionless, something in its eyes told Minerva that nothing good was about to happen.

“It’s nothing. Be on your guard. She might be part of the evil organization.”

Huh? Me? Part of an evil organization?

“You’re too much of an airhead to be in any kind of organized evil.”

Oh, shut it, you.

“Got it, Kuma! Strike first, ask questions once she’s on the ground! Hyaaaah!”

The blue girl separated from the group and came at her with a flying kick right out of Kamen Rider.

She definitely looks like the tomboyish type who would try that.

The kick connected as Minerva distracted herself with her smart-ass observation and the two vanished in a cloud of dust as her head made rather uncomfortable contact with the sand.

3

“Wait! Fuuka!”

Sayaka tried to stop her friend from rushing in without a thought, but it was for nothing. She could see her heel connect with the strange woman’s cheek before dust was kicked up and obscured any view of the result.

“Fuuka, you boneheaded idiot!”

This time it was Haruka who berated their friend. Kuma was eerily quiet.

Why is he acting so strange?

She wanted to ask what he meant with ‘anomaly’ and why he assumed the strange woman was affiliated with the organization that summoned the creatures terrorizing the area, especially since it looked like she defeated one of those creatures.

But she was forced to focus her mind on something different. The dust settled on the impact and to her shock all she saw was Fuuka sitting in the fresh crater, visibly confused. The strange woman was nowhere to be seen, then suddenly:

“Sayaka, watch out!”

She yanked her head up and saw crimson. The strange woman had her sword sheathed, arms crossed and looked at her with a ponderous expression.

“I think you misunderstood. I’m not- “

She couldn’t finish her sentence and was hit in the side by a yellow-colored magical beam from the tip of Haruka’s wand – it sent her flying away with an annoyed “Ugh!” that the woman stretched until she caught and stabilized herself in the air.

“Would you just listen to me and- “

Another flying kick from Fuuka came in. This time the other Magical Girl, if she was really that, dodged to the side. She spun her cane to point behind her and the crystal on top of it glowed. Right after a thud sounded as Fuuka appeared to have crashed into a magic barrier. Her leg was surrounded by cracks like she had slammed into a glass window, though there was only air and glowing lines of a magic circle that kept spinning its confusing geometry around an axis, crackling and flickering as the intrusion of Fuuka’s leg disturbed the magic.

“Ugh, I’m stuck! Help me!”

The red woman didn’t waste any time and simply yanked the tiara off Fuuka’s head, forcibly turning her back into a normal middle school girl who was now dangling upside-down from a magic circle in the air and did her best to keep her skirt from hanging downward.

“No! Fuuka!”

Haruka was next, firing beam after beam from her wand. Similar barriers to the one that caught their comrade in the air deflected the beams like it was nothing. The terrifying woman simply closed the distance and snatched the tiara off Haruka’s head, which turned itself back into a hand mirror and Haruka’s clothes back into her uniform. Now robbed of the power of flight, she fell – but a magical wind caught her and let her down gently in the sandbox below.

Fuuka soon followed – lowered to the sand before the magic circle disappeared and let go of her.

The stranger now focused her emerald eyes on Sayaka herself.

“You haven’t attacked me like a bull-headed idiot. Good. Maybe we can talk? Then you can have these back.”

She opened her palm and offered the hand mirrors.

Sayaka was about to step forward to accept the proposal, but Kuma suddenly floated in front of her.

“I will talk to her. Tend to Fuuka and Haruka.”

“Oh? The mascot himself? That’s good by me. Here, catch!”

With that the stranger tossed the hand mirrors over to Sayaka and flew away, Kuma in tow. Sayaka went to work to care for her unharmed, but thoroughly humbled friends.

4

Minerva Crimson stopped on a rooftop a good distance away, but close enough that she could watch the three girls on the playground who were busy making sense of their recent defeat. The mascot arrived behind her and stared at her.

“So, we need to have a talk.”

She started, emerald eyes now pointed at the mascot’s bear-like face.

“We should. Let me apologize for telling the girls that you might be a part of the ‘evil organization’. Such a thing does not exist. It’s an elaborate lie to keep them away from more dangerous magic users. It backfired, as you just witnessed.”

‘Kuma’s tone could be described as sterile. Not offensive, mostly because the way he talked didn’t evoke any feelings in the listener in the first place.

“First off… I’m not actually talking to you right now, yes?”

Minerva turned around and stared at the odd creature.

“A necessity. Humans might find our true forms… unsettling.”

Great, that will be a few sleepless nights with my imagination running wild.

“I had a hunch when you appeared after I gutted that rabbit thing. Same magic. Your little avatar there is an animated stuffed doll as well, right?”

“Correct.”

Being right on the money felt good. Minerva Crimson basked a little in the payoff of her three years of experience with magic and her once again confirmed status of being the Magical Girl of wisdom. Then she continued.

Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

“What did you mean by ‘anomaly’? I think I heard you mutter that while your girls spotted me.”

The creature remained silent for a while. Minerva could feel its eyes uncomfortably scanning her as if it wasn’t entirely sure what it meant by ‘anomaly’ itself. After what seemed like an eternity, she finally got her answer.

“Your powers are unlike anything demonstrated by so-called Magical Girls in this world. They are radiating from that gem you’re wearing, which appears to convert the passive energies of your very environment, like the passing of time. You’re not in contact with a ‘mascot’ like myself, are you?”

“No. Got this thing gifted by a traveling wizard.” She replied bluntly.

“Who are you calling a thing?!”

“Are you making a fool of us?”

“I agree that it sounds a bit silly, but at least consider how it looks with you asking.”

The creature remained quiet and simply looked at her, but it seemed to accept that answer for now. Minerva was the first who spoke up again.

“Another question… what’s the point of their fake powers?”

In the earlier fight Minerva was taken by surprise at first. Being kicked sure hurt, but not much more than it would have without any magical enhancement. As she trapped the blue magical girl to remove her tiara and thus the source of her powers, she could feel that there was barely any magic enhancing her.

Sure, she could fly. She could punch and kick a bit harder than a normal human being, but in the grand scheme of things it was miniscule. If she had encountered a Shadow instead of that stuffed rabbit she would have been done for.

Then there were the magic attacks from the yellow girl. The beam had some force to it, knocking her backwards. But it wasn’t as hot as it should have been. A Shadow would have brushed that attack off and that stuffed rabbit would have taken a volley of them before bursting.

Minerva Crimson observed the floating creature’s reaction to her question, its amber eyes unmoving.

“We give them hope and a few fun adventures. They give us nourishment.”

Minerva blinked and leaned in; her brow furrowed. Seemingly sensing her unease, the bear-faced mascot continued:

“We are a species that nourishes itself with magical energy. We give some of your people the means to convert their emotional energy into magic – and some enemies to fight. Then we absorb the residual magic left over from their battles.”

That sounds a bit too similar to a show I’ve seen this winter…

“Just to make sure, you’re not purposefully making them experience bad things to get that emotional magic energy, right?”

“Only positive emotions generate magic at all, so that would be fruitless. In fact, negative emotions reduce the yield of magical energy significantly. It is of utmost importance that the girls lead a happy, ordinary life outside of their duties.”

Minerva nodded, cupping her chin in her hand as she thought all this new information over.

“Next question: what’s the point of keeping them so weak, then? Is that all you’re getting from emotions? Surely, you’d be getting more residual magic from stronger Magical Girls.”

The amber eyes continued to look at her expressionlessly.

“We keep things danger free. We have no desire to hurt those girls. And if they go through too much stress, their emotions might sway into the negative, reducing our yield.”

“But you do get that you’re not the only Magical Girl operation out there, right? There are creatures like the Shadows out there, who ambush people and drag them into pocket dimensions to devour them. Or to turn magically sensitive girls into their Queens to create more Shadows!

“I’ve seen animated marionettes with razor arms, poison needles that turn a person into a berserker with claws springing from their hands! If your girls ever encounter those types of enemies, they will stand no chance with this level of power! They will die!”

Minerva worked herself up – she even shouted the last sentence. The girls on the playground surely must have heard her, even if the distance and afternoon breeze would have rendered the words themselves unintelligible.

“Enough!” Kuma seemed worked up now – anger was the first emotion Minerva could ever read from him. “I will not put them in danger for the sake of power!”

“But you must! And if you won’t, I will have to go and smash their little hand mirrors!” Minerva was about to turn around and make for the girls on the playground as the ground below her feet soundlessly opened up into a black abyss and she fell inside.

She fell and fell – the darkness around her seemed endless. After a while she simply floated with her powers. There was nothing to see around her, only the deepest darkness of a sunless place. She brought up her magic cane and cast a spell, summoning a large orb of light right above her head. It almost looked like a halo behind her.

With this source of light now present, Kuma came into view.

He didn’t resemble a bear or a cat at all. He was like a giant humanoid with sickly grey skin. There were no eyes on his face, only a swollen-looking bulb sitting on top of a slit nose. Razor-sharp teeth were put ill-fittingly together in a mouth that seemed to cover half of its head’s circumference. Magic symbols appeared on its skin, glowing and moving constantly. Its hands had three fingers each, all of them tipped by what looked like suction cups.

As it noticed Minerva it stood up, towering above her like a skyscraper.

He wasn’t kidding about his form being unnerving.

“I’ll say it again: You might think that you’re protecting them, but you’re simply dangerously coddling them. What’s your plan for when they encounter something with actual strength?”

“I will dispose of the danger. In here. Now relent!”

The threat boomed through the empty space and Minerva could feel a drop of sweat running down her temple. She couldn’t get a proper read on this creature’s strength in here, and her being trapped in its domain put her at an implicit disadvantage. Still, she was fighting for the safety of those girls outside – against a foe who did the same, using much more foolish methods.

“Then show me how well you can protect them!” She issued her challenge.

The answer came immediately. The creature pointed a finger at her and a volley of fireballs rained down on her position.

Minerva dashed from side to side, summoning magic shields that caught the fireballs as they rained down on her. She got swallowed in the explosions before emerging with her skirt a little singed.

‘Kuma’ followed up with electricity, sending a continuous stream of lightning at her which hit her shield once more. She doubled and tripled it up as the first started to crack and break, desperately holding the magical onslaught at bay.

It was then that she noticed the imposing figure of ‘Kuma’ shrinking with every passing moment.

It dawned on her now that it was eating through its very life force to cast magic. Magic nourishes this creature, so likewise casting a lot of it will drain ‘Kuma’. She focused on deflecting the electric blast to the side and got moving.

As the creature grabbed for her, she unsheathed her cane sword and separated its right fingers, then she sheathed her sword and used the magic cane to incinerate the fingers to prevent re-absorption of their magic energies.

‘Kuma’ grew his fingers back, as she assumed would happen, and his size further shrank. He now attempted a punch in her direction. Minerva would lie if she said that the sight of a giant fist coming her way wasn’t at least somewhat unnerving, but for now she kept her cool.

Before the impact she leapt to the side – then she catapulted herself towards the giant limb and found solid ‘ground’ under herself – she ran along the arm, letting out a war cry as she unsheathed her sword and let it rip through the flesh she ran across. She kept this up until she reached ‘Kuma’s shoulder and jumped off, dodging his other hand coming to squash her like a bug.

His hand was separated from the wrist right after, together with the cut-up arm, which detached from the shoulder via a precise cut from her magically imbued blade.

Minerva sheathed her sword and unleashed an inferno, turning the detached limbs into nothing but useless ash, forcing the giant creature to shrink significantly to regrow what it had lost.

Their battle continued. Magic was exchanged and punches were thrown. At one point Minerva got caught by an icicle penetrating her shoulder but melted it off with magic flames before she returned the favor with more amputations.

Before long, ‘Kuma’ was in front of her, its currently human-sized form breathing heavily at the point of Minerva’s blade.

“That’s enough, don’t you think?” Minerva asked as her own breath had become ragged and heavy drops of sweat were running down her face. Repeatedly cutting away at the giant had taken its toll.

The creature didn’t reply.

“I get it. You’re like a protective father to these girls. I couldn’t sense any sort of malignance towards them. But a father’s role is also to prepare his daughters for the real world instead of keeping them locked inside until they go out on their own and get in trouble.”

Finally she managed to take a deep breath, lowering her blade and simply sheathing it. “I’ll even give you some pointers on how you can package it for the girls. What do you say?”

5

Sayaka was busy patting Fuuka’s head.

“There, there. Don’t be angry. You did your best.”

She tried to calm down her friend, who was pouting quite heavily after being defeated like a mere mob character.

“I can’t believe her! She just stole my transformation item like it was nothing!”

Fuuka kept complaining loudly, looking over to the rooftop where that mysterious Magical Girl had a talk with Kuma. They had vanished somewhere else in-between, and she didn’t know what was happening. It worried her a little.

“Now, now… you shouldn’t have rushed her like that, either. If we had just tried to listen to her, none of this would have happened.”

“I know! It’s still so frustrating! I want to get stronger!”

Fuuka pumped her fist towards the air, an annoyed look on her face. Haruka sat next to them and drew circles in the sand as she seemed unable to cope with the fact that her magic beams did nearly no damage.

“How would we get stronger, anyway?” asked Sayaka. All three of them sounded a long ‘hmm’ as they pondered their predicament.

“I hope you three aren’t taking it too badly.”

The monotone voice of their mascot broke them out of their contemplations.

“Oh, Kuma! Wait, where’s the girl?”

“She left after we finished our talk.”

“And? What’s the deal with her? What’s happening now?”

Fuuka of course interjected crudely as always.

“She’s no danger to us. But this served as an important lesson. All of you need to get stronger. I’ve underestimated the kind of dangers you could face. Forgive me for that.”

Kuma tilted its head downwards in a bow as it asked for them to accept its apology.

“Please, Kuma! It’s not your fault! We were simply not ready!”

This time it was Haruka who interjected.

“No. The responsibility of preparing you for the world’s dangers lies with me. From now on I will make sure that nothing can tear the three of you down!”

There was an unusual hint of emotion behind the little mascot’s voice, a cause for pause among the group of friends.

Sayaka spoke up first, grabbing the mascot’s little paws.

“If you say so, Kuma. If you know how to make us stronger, we’ll listen. We trust you!”

From that day onward Kuma subjected the three Magical Girls to a training regime made up of a lot of physical exercise. Jogging, sit-ups, push-ups, meditation under a waterfall, you name it. All while he rewrote the output of the girls’ magical foci in secret.

Of course two of the girls complained about it all the time, while the sporty, tomboyish Fuuka easily kept pace.

Before long they were stronger and faster, attributing it to their rigorous training. A little while later, they achieved new forms, or rather, Kuma changed their magical girl appearances, transforming them into better magical armor.

From that day on their group kept defeating the (incidentally way stronger) Scare Hares and a few odd enemies that didn’t fit their usual pattern in-between.

They never saw the mysterious Magical Girl again, save for the occasional phone camera footage online, and they never learned about Kuma’s initial deception. A few years later they graduated from high school and bade farewell to the life as Magical Girls as their ability to generate magic from emotions faded. They took precious memories with them that they still think back on to this day.

6

June 2024

Beep! Beep! Beep! Beep!

The sickening sound of the alarm woke Seika from what little sleep she could get that night. Crawling out of bed, it took all of her willpower to change her underwear and get dressed in a fresh pencil skirt and white shirt for another day.

She only started feeling somewhat like a human as the bitterness of the first cup of coffee touched her tongue and she involuntarily shook her body in response.

I haven’t thought about the Kuma Group in ages. I wonder what kind of girls Kuma is guiding these days.

“Hopefully fewer hotheads that hit first and ask questions later.”

She had secretly watched them from time to time until their days as Magical Girls came to an end, always ready to end Kuma if he broke her trust. But he never did. He really increased the amount of magic generated from emotions and with that the output of their attacks. As a trio they were able to take down Shadows without even knowing the specifics about them and various of the other enemies she encountered in her sixteen years as a Magical Girl.

Hope those original girls didn’t get too muscular from their fake training.

She chuckled quietly to herself as she left her apartment, barely awake.