1

Friday morning was utter torture. Naturally, Watanabe noticed her complete lack of sleep again, but Seika wasn’t swayed into taking breaks while she still had work to do. At least there was nothing left in the way of the release of ‘The Demon Lord’s Right Hand Woman is my Little Sister Vol. 6’, no thanks to Yoshida. For now, Seika did her best to get her brain functional with another energy drink, much to the annoyance of her concerned supervisor.

As she checked her mailbox, she noticed that one of her writers sent her a manuscript. This one came from a much more dependable writer than Yoshida by the name of Hifumi Ebiko. A pen name, obviously. She debuted at MagiColle in March with the first volume of ‘The Starfaring Maiden’ – the manuscript that just arrived was the first draft for volume two and Seika couldn’t wait to read it. She was enough of a fan that she bought a copy of the first volume’s commercial release for her own private collection, after all.

The Starfaring Maiden follows the story of a young woman called Felicia, who was born on a faraway planet several thousand years in the future.

Humanity had already spread across the entire galaxy and terraformed any planet it could, but it turned out to be impossible to form a cohesive government stretching beyond one’s own solar system, resulting in the emergence of independent nations around every star in the night sky.

Felicia always wanted to be a Starfarer, a traveler without a home, and see what humanity was like on all the worlds it settled.

On her eighteenth birthday her parents gifted her a spaceship by the name of Neptune, a live-in vessel with enough space for Felicia and maybe one or two occasional passengers, offering all the necessary comforts of life for a long journey across the stars.

An onboard AI sharing the name of the ship is her travel companion with whom she shares the majority of her dialogue. During her travels she responds to distress calls, has to fix issues with her own spaceship or simply lands on one of the isolated nation planets and experiences their unique cultures for a few days each.

The writing style was less a connected overarching story as it was a collection of short stories all told from Felicia’s point of view, giving the author the freedom to simply write about whatever she felt was interesting instead of worrying too much about the greater picture.

There was a tendency for Ebiko to mostly write other women into the story – women who develop a crush on Felicia, or women who live in the places that Felicia visits, who have a problem that Felicia helps resolve, which in turn helps them to get their happy ending with… you guessed it: another woman. Ebiko loved her yuri content, though it never distracted from the mystery and beauty that was central to the novel.

Seika spent most of the day reading the manuscript, taking notes of what could be improved to flow better, correcting the usual typos and even writing down her thoughts. Overall, she was thoroughly satisfied and thought this could already sell, but with the first deadline still being so far away thanks to Ebiko’s diligent work she could potentially push her to make it even better.

‘Dear Ebiko, thank you for your fast and diligent work.

I have attached a file with corrections and annotations for the usual polishing process.

Other than those I like the manuscript as it is and if you say you want to have it published like this you will hear no objections from me.

However, given that we now have quite some time until the deadline, I’d like to encourage you to experiment a little more with your manuscript. Have more thematic connections between chapters and their resolutions, think over if you want to create some really shocking twists maybe or tug a bit harder on the heartstrings.

Keep up the good work!

Seika Hitoishi’

Seika pondered over her mail for a while before she hit ‘send’. She hoped she didn’t give off the impression that she was actually dissatisfied with what Ebiko delivered.

It didn’t take long for her to get an answer. Ebiko agreed to do a little bit of experimentation with the manuscript while keeping an unaltered copy for if it doesn’t work out.

“You’re in a good mood. Nice to see after you came into work looking half dead.”

Watanabe was looking at her from his desk, beaming her a smirk.

“Ah… yeah, I’ve been reading Ebiko’s manuscript.”

“Already? She sure works fast. When you edited her debut novel, she was already quick to apply your suggestions.”

“Yes… and she will use the extra time to experiment with her story, to see if she can do anything better. It’s a nice break from writers like Yoshida.”

Watanabe let out a chuckle. “Everyone has their problem children and their favorites. Glad to see you catching a break sometimes.”

Seika responded to that with a little triumphant grin and continued her work scouting for potential new authors.

2

Seika arrived home at around eight in the evening. Letting out a little yawn she fell face-first on her bed and let out a long sigh. It was the weekend, and unless her earring warned her of sudden danger, she finally got a chance to sleep properly. Though this weekend would be something special.

She got herself up from the bed again and looked at her phone’s calendar.

A date with Miori at ten in the morning - I wonder what she wants to do.

Should I pick out some clothes for our date? Could I just show up in my usual shirt and skirt combination? Probably not.

Seika went to her closet, opening it and looking at a collection of everyday clothes she hadn’t used in quite a while.

In some ways it’s a blessing that I remained as short as I was in high school.

She unbuttoned her shirt and put it aside to try on some of her older clothes but stopped as she saw a big black bruise on her stomach where the criminal had punched her unconscious yesterday.

Even if it’s hot outside I can’t wear anything that’d be too revealing.

She would have probably fared better if she transformed before the attack. Her magical armor lets her shrug off hits that would kill humans; In her sixteen years she’s been impaled, set on fire, blown up or similar and walked away from it.

Sure, after enough damage she will show signs in her Magical Girl form. The magical dress will rip, she will bleed and maybe even lose the function of a limb, or even ‘die’. But as long as she undoes her transformation, she will be okay in her normal form, save for bruises in spots where she suffered the worst hits.

Naturally, the trade-off for this ability is that her Magical Girl form will be unavailable for a while as it needs to repair itself, so this trick can’t be used for quick healing in the middle of a fight.

After some more deliberation she decided on a shirt with denim shorts. She wasn’t too sure about showing off her legs, but if she was with Miori all eyes would be on her anyway, so she felt a little bit braver than usual.

With that decided she took a shower and a bath immediately, relaxing before she went to bed early to catch up on sleep. She was woken up by her earring at 2am as another Shadow appeared to hunt a young girl.

3

After an incomplete night’s sleep Seika was dressed and even a little dolled up for her date with Miori. They were going to meet near Shibuya Crossing at the famous Hachiko Square, a rather popular spot to wait for one’s partner, as the dog whose name this place inherited did so many years ago. She could already see men, women, boys and girls sitting or standing while looking at their phones, waiting for someone to arrive.

Right now it appeared like Seika was the first of the two to arrive, so she browsed the internet on her phone. She immediately found an article about the events in the warehouse.

‘BLOODY MASSACRE IN TOKYO BAY WAREHOUSE!

On Friday Night at around 3am, a young woman called the police to alert them about a group of kidnappers who turned one of the bayside warehouses into their base of operations.

Officers were dispatched but were left with no living criminals to apprehend.

DNA evidence pointing to wealthy and influential clients of this human trafficking operation was secured.

The victims of this organized crime group had already been rescued while the kidnappers themselves were all killed by bladed weapons.

By whom? None other than Magical Girls!

This marks the first occasion of violent retribution against human criminals by the hand of these supernatural defenders.

Will they stop just there? Will we be left at the mercy of supernatural vigilantes?

The mayor is expected to hold a press conference to announce how to deal with the possibility of killer Magical Girls!

Stay tuned for more!’

The writer was right. In all her years, no Magical Girl had taken justice in her own hands like that mysterious woman in blue. Then again, most Magical Girls were kids, thankfully unaware of just how depraved the world around them could be. And if Seika had a say in it, those children would remain just as blissfully ignorant. She was the only adult in this world, at least until that night, so only she should be shouldering those burdens.

I hope the girls get the support they need after all that.

“Senpai, what are you looking at, hm?”

Seika lowered the phone and found herself only a hand’s length away from Miori’s face, who greeted her with her usual gentle smile.

“Woah! Too close!” Seika flinched backwards.

“Sorry! Did I startle you?” Miori kept her smiling expression as she took a step back and looked Seika up and down.

“Simple yet fashionable. Well done, Senpai!”

“You... you’re pretty cute yourself, Miori.” Seika answered with a blush and turned her head away.

“I’ll see myself out into hibernation. I really don’t want to be a third wheel here.”

Miori appeared to their date in a gothic lolita dress. Instead of her usual ponytail which she wears at Snack Starlight, she was wearing her hair open, fully presenting her hime cut. Her blonde hair flowed in a slight breeze and her blue eyes sparkled as she received praise from Seika.

“Aw, you’re so nice to me today, Senpai! Well, want to decide where we should go first?”

“I haven’t… done dating before, really, so… why don’t you pick?”

Miori acted like she was weighing her options really hard, but Seika could immediately tell that she already planned everything out.

“Oh, I know! Come along Senpai!”

Miori took the lead, both in guiding Seika to their first stop and in displaying her affection. She hooked herself under Seika’s right arm while putting her right hand on top of the smaller woman’s shoulder.

Miori was almost a whole head taller than Seika. While the older woman was stuck in her high school size, the beautiful blonde in the meantime got a last growth spurt after her eighteenth birthday and quickly surpassed her senpai.

It kind of annoys me.

“Look, Senpai! It’s like you can see the whole city from up here!”

Miori’s first stop was Shibuya Sky. They arrived on the observation deck and the vast sight of Tokyo’s concrete jungle stretched all the way to the horizon. From this distance the buildings looked like variably sized blocks, with much taller ones sticking out in irregular intervals. Patches of green interrupted the white grey like splotches of paint on a canvas.

Above all else, it gave a breathtaking overview of how extensive the Tokyo metropolitan area really is.

There were handrails and tables to lean on by the windows, as well as chairs and pillows to share for couples.

As Seika expected, Miori dragged her to one of the pillows and the two sat down to take in the view a little bit longer.

“I love the sight of the city from up top like this. Though I hear it’s even better at night, when all the lights are on.”

Miori explained to Seika, still clinging to her arm. Seika knew the sight of the illuminated city below all too well, after all, most of her time as a Magical Girl is spent flying above these very lights.

“I can imagine.” She lied. She’s been doing that a lot recently.

“Maybe we should come another time for a night date, Senpai.”

Seika thought about it. She didn’t want to get too close to Miori. This date was supposed to be a one-time thing for the info, but she already enjoyed herself quite a bit, even with her lack of sleep and the comfortable seat making her drowsy.

Before she knew it her head slumped to the side and landed on Miori’s shoulder. Her eyes shot wide open as she noticed her blunder and tried to pull away, but she immediately felt Miori’s hand on top of her head, patting it.

“My, my. I know you said it annoyed you that I started to grow taller than you when we worked together, but this isn’t so bad, is it?”

Seika’s ears turned red as she struggled a bit to break free from her embarrassing position – though not hard enough that Miori actually let her go.

“What’s wrong, Senpai? Are you embarrassed to let your guard down? Afraid I might crack those walls around your heart?”

In Seika’s eyes Miori had something rather sadistic to her in this moment – her smile was a bit too wide, and her eyes shone a bit too brightly.

“Ugh… spare me.” Was all she could muster to say.

They made their way up to the proper observation platform on the roof. This high up and exposed on the rooftop the wind had a little bite to it, even in summer. The roof was equipped with a large helicopter landing pad, open to the public when it was not in use. From up there one had an unhindered 360° view of the city. Couples and families stood against the glass barriers, taking photos of each other or together. Some posed for pictures by pretending to lift the morning sun or blowing away the clouds.

Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

Seika and Miori decided to relax in some of the hammocks that were facing outwards from the sides of the helicopter platforms. The ropes and knots where a little uncomfortable at first, but once she could find the right balance it was very relaxing.

“Senpai, what’s your type of girl?” Miori asked all of a sudden.

“Huh? Where did that one come from?”

“We’re on a date and you’ve been rejecting my advances, so I’d like to know what kind of girl you’re into if not me.”

“You’re quite certain that it’d be a girl.”

“I’ve never seen you flirty with a guy before. And you have a certain… vibe?”

Miori turned her head and gave Seika a smug grin.

“So, go ahead and tell me.”

My type is you.

“I don’t know what my type is.”

“Liar.”

Seika paused – Miori was giving her a knowing smile, looking quite full of herself.

“I won’t press you about what it is that keeps you from being honest. I’m just happy spending time with you like this.”

Miori grabbed her hand and pulled her up from her hammock.

“Let’s go have lunch. After that I know our next stop! Perfect to melt your icy heart.”

They stopped at a restaurant that served western style pasta with either western or Japanese ingredients. Seika ordered some with miso tomato sauce and shimeji mushrooms while Miori opted for shrimp and mussels on hers. The quiet moment of eating together with not many words exchanged felt refreshing.

It only took a few more minutes until they arrived at the spot that Miori was talking about. And she was right: it did melt a ton of ice right off Seika’s heart.

Her eyes went wide, and she let out a rather undignified sound of joy as Miori brought her into a hedgehog café.

“What is this??” Seika turned around to Miori, her face almost too close to the blonde’s. “This is adorable!”

“It’s all my treat, Senpai!” Miori announced, hands on her hips with a smug look of superiority on her face. “Grab some gloves and give them some love!”

Seika didn’t need to be asked twice. She sat down on a bench at one of the walls and put on the provided safety gloves – the table in front of her held a small animal enclosure on top of it that was open to the front. Inside the little environment was styled like a house – in different styles even, depending on which hedgehog’s enclosure you sat down at. Seika’s little fellow had a Japanese house styled enclosure.

She gently grabbed one with both hands, lifting it up. With her cupped hands she let the little creature rest, watching it uncurl and curiously sniff around.

Before long the hedgehog crawled its way to where her wrists met and stuck its head out to look at her directly.

“Ooh! You’re such a cutie!” Seika entirely entered her own little blissful world as Miori looked on. If Seika still had any sense of awareness, she would have been able to see that Miori herself was barely holding on herself thanks to a cuteness overdose, though hers stemmed entirely from watching her senpai fawn over these little animals.

“Haha, yes, you’re a cutie! I would take you home if you could. Aw, don’t look so disappointed, hehe!”

One of the staff members came over and had a quiet chuckle to herself before she raised her voice.

“For five hundred yen you can have something to feed them.”

Seika’s head snapped towards the employee almost immediately. “I’ll take it!”

The staff didn’t let her wait long and put down a little ceramic cup. Inside were five wriggling mealworms and a pair of pincers. Seika grabbed the pincers and immediately proceeded to pick one of the writhing insects up to bring it into the enclosure, holding it next to the curled-up hedgehog inside.

Again she was so focused that she couldn’t see what Miori was doing – and this time the blonde backed away from her senpai as she saw her handling mealworms with no problem, trying to hide a disgusted expression.

The little hedgehog inside his room uncurled and sniffed at the mealworm before happily chomping down on it and swallowing it entirely.

“Oh! Look, Miori, he lets me feed him! Miori?”

Seika was quite puzzled as she noticed that her date partner took a step away from her. Then she showed a terrible grin on her face.

“Don’t tell me you can’t stand bugs?”

“Senpai… don’t get any weird ideas, please…”

“If I wave one of them in your face, we’ll just get thrown out for messing around, so no worries!” Seika turned around and continued to feed the hedgehogs with mealworms. “Oh, who’s a hungry little cutie? You are!”

4

“That was so good! Where are we headed now?” Seika was revitalized and didn’t even mind that Miori had hooked her arm into hers again.

“I thought we could do a little bit of shopping, Senpai.” Miori answered quietly.

“I want you to pick which outfit looks best on me.”

Seika raised an eyebrow and looked at Miori.

“You’re going all out for this. It’s like the high school date I never had.”

“That’s the plan, Senpai. The better the time I show you, the harder it will become for you to refuse me!” Miori’s grin was mischievous.

“I’ll have to admit you make it harder for me to say no…”

They entered a shopping center and went up to the second floor via escalator to reach the boutique. It was one for general fashion, not quite the styles she’d expect from Miori.

“Are you sure we’re in the right place?”

“Hm? What do you mean?” Miori was already busy picking out various clothes to try them on.

“This doesn’t really seem to be ‘you’. You’re much more into alternate and subculture fashion.”

“Oh, Senpai. I do like to wear regular cute clothes from time to time!”

This came as a bit of a surprise to Seika – whenever she did catch a glimpse of Miori outside of her working hours she was wearing alternative fashion, mostly of the lolita variety. But then again, she never really saw her anywhere but at her place of work in Kabukichō.

“Hm… I guess I don’t know as much about you as I thought.”

“Then you can learn more about me! Doesn’t that sound fun?”

Seika couldn’t help but hide a grin behind her hand.

“I guess it does sound fun.”

Miori vanished into the changing room. Seika sat outside, waiting for the little fashion show that the blonde beauty wanted to subject her to.

The curtains opened, and Seika couldn’t hold back her laughter. Miori grabbed the opportunity to wear something so removed from her own image that it caught her by complete surprise.

She was wearing a flannel shirt with jeans that rode a bit too high while her hair was fastened with a headband.

“What’s with the otaku look?!”

“Just trying to be in line with your tastes!”

“Listen, I might be an otaku, but I’m not gone that far!”

“It got you to laugh!” Miori beamed while spinning around once.

“Oh dear, I forgot to program my TV Recorder for my anime! I must go!”

With that she vanished behind the curtains again, leaving Seika to dry her tears of laughter.

She reappeared a little while later, this time she was dressed in more typical fashion. She wore a shirring textured camisole with wide-leg fabric pants, challenging her senpai with another one of her smiles as she looked her in the eyes. “What about this?”

“I couldn’t even tell it was you at first glance… it’s a completely different vibe from usual but it suits you well…”

“Hmm… not used to seeing me so elegant without a Lolita petticoat?”

“I guess so.” Seika reclined in her chair. “Still, a treat for the eyes, thank you very much.”

“If you like it that much I might as well go to the cashier with it!”

“Oh no, you’re not getting away that easily, you picked something else!”

Miori vanished again and the rustling from inside the changing room lasted a little longer than before. As she appeared again, she was dressed in form-fitting navy-blue denim pants, a red-white striped shirt with a navy cardigan on top and finally a women’s trench coat allowing a view of everything underneath through a tasteful opening.

“They call this style French casual. The entire thing might be a little out of season, though.”

With that Miori removed the trench coat and wore it over her arm.

“Much better, don’t you think?”

Seika nodded along, her chin held in one hand as she pondered over Miori’s appearance.

“I think I like that one the best so far. The coat might really be too much in current temperatures, though.”

“Well, if my beloved Senpai likes this one the best, then that’s what I’m going to buy.”

Miori went back inside to get changed into her usual Gothic Lolita outfit before she went to the cashier to pay for her newest outfit.

“However, Senpai…” she spoke up with a mischievous expression.

“What is it, Miori?”

“Picking an outfit for me means that we need an opportunity where I’m going to wear it! Meaning another date.”

“Oh…” Seika hadn’t thought about that at all.

After their little fashion show the two simply enjoyed each other’s company on a bench for a while, both sipping on a Frappuccino. Seika glanced over to Miori, who looked as much at peace as she felt.

“I really don’t understand why you tried to avoid this for so long, Senpai! I’m having so much fun, and I can tell that you do, too!” Miori said with a gentle smile.

“Never mind that. Let’s continue to our next stop, hm?”

Seika offered Miori her arm this time – she would hook herself in anyway.

image [https://i.imgur.com/WNF9NbV.png]

5

Seika was floating. There was a certain calmness that embraced her and a soft warmth at her back. A gentle breeze caressed her forehead and spread through her entire brain in a relaxing, therapeutic wave. Maybe she was in heaven right now? Did she die from overworking herself and had entered one of the fabled isekai where all your wishes come true?

It was like the stress and tension of her everyday life was melting away. She wanted to melt into this sensation, too. To cease to exist and become a shapeless form of warmth that never had to worry about deadlines or interdimensional beasts again.

Only after she got too comfortable it dawned on her.

I fell asleep.

She opened her eyes, slowly. The warmth at her back was Miori’s thighs, who had provided her a lap pillow to rest. The breeze turned out to be Miori’s fingers, which had gently caressed her forehead.

She now remembered. After their shopping trip they went to karaoke. Miori went first and naturally picked her favorite love-themed anime openings to sing to try and fluster Seika. It worked, but after a while Seika’s lack of sleep caught up to her. The room was at just the right temperature and the lights were dimmed to give more attention to the person singing, making it harder for Seika to keep her eyes open.

Before long she had drifted away into sleep and found herself in this situation.

“Are you awake now?” Miori asked, her hand withdrawing from Seika’s forehead.

“I am… how long was I gone?” Seika asked as she sat up, leaning against the backrest.

“About half an hour. Senpai? Are you alright?” Miori seemed worried. Seika didn’t know why until she felt a tear run down her cheek.

“Ah…” After she touched the wet trail more tears followed.

“I’m sorry, Miori… you planned this entire date for me, and I didn’t have the decency to stay awake for it.” Seika wiped at her tears. It was only half of why she was feeling so upset. She realized once again that she wanted to be with Miori – that having that warmth in her life would make things better for her, but ultimately this was a selfish desire of hers. Getting this close to Miori on a constant basis would just put her in harm’s way.

Through her blurry vision she could see Miori drawing closer to her face and panicked.

“No, don’t…!”

She felt the warm sensation of Miori’s forehead against her own. Miori held that position a while longer, her eyes closed, before she withdrew again.

“Senpai… you still aren’t entirely honest with me or yourself.” Her hand wiped away any new tears that rolled down Seika’s cheek.

“There’s something weighing on you. I’ve known you for long enough to realize that. You don’t have to tell me what it is. All I know is that it prevents you from being honest with your own feelings.”

Seika looked to the side, biting her lower lip as she tried to come up with anything to say. Miori instead continued.

“However, I see that you are wearing yourself down with your day-to-day life. And a date like today’s had you beaming like I haven’t seen from you since we worked together at that convenience store.”

Seika looked up as the blur in her eyes receded. Miori’s smile was as warm as ever, like she was kindness incarnate.

“Take your time to find yourself. I don’t mind if you sleep the entire time or not, but this date was clearly good for you. I will gladly go on many more with you, even without being your proper girlfriend.”

Seika gulped and looked to the side. Tons of different emotions and thoughts raged within her. Was it even fair to go on these dates to heal herself without any regard for Miori’s feelings? Wouldn’t Miori still be in danger if she had regular contact with her as a regular friend? But she was right about this day having such a healing effect on her.

I have to turn her down.

Seika looked up and steeled herself to tell Miori her decision.

After saying goodbye to each other, they went their separate ways at the train station.

Seika entered the train car to head home, looking at her phone screen.

‘See you at Snack Starlight, Sen~pai♥’

In the end, Miori only had to smile, and Seika folded like a lawn chair. She installed LINE and gave Miori her contact information so they could easier plan more dates like today’s.

Seika just sincerely hoped that this wouldn’t backfire on her.

As she arrived at home later that night, she took her time in the bath. After falling into her bed, she drifted away into an uneasy sleep, filled with dreams of regret.