I can't tell exactly how long the fight lasted, maybe a day? I know we started in the morning, and then it got dark, so it was definitely a while. That means we managed to destroy everything in the city in less than a day, the hard part was calming down Frustration once we were done, but throwing the script at her was enough to bring her back to her senses.

We are still being filmed, so we had to say some corny stuff about how we'll meet again or whatever. The news will probably find a lot of plot holes in how we acted or something, but it doesn't matter if they figure out this was all an act--the point of the script wasn't to fool the greater public.

I drag myself to the orphanage, apparently there's a general rule that you shouldn't film magical girls without their consent if they aren't transformed--which implies you can non-consensually film them if they are transformed--so I quit my magical girl costume to make sure I don't get pestered by journalists or something.

"I'm back~" I say as I enter the orphanage.

None of the kids seem to care about the fact that I'm back in one piece, which kind of hurts my feelings--except Leilani, who is waving at me excitedly, so I make my way to the one person who is happy about my return.

"Miss Leave! Is Hotel okay? They aren't with you, are they?" Leilani asks, 'looking' around. Right, even if she's blind, she can see Hotel's soul can't she? I'm a little sad she only cares about me because of Hotel, but it's not like I was ever particularly close to her.

The door behind me slams open again, and I turn around to see Amaris holding Hotel in a princess carry.

"Haa...Haaaa....W-where's...my hoodie?" Amaris says, sweating, out of breath--and as expected--blushing, it's honestly impressive she managed to stay flushed for that long, at least it means the plan worked.

"It's in your room, change the rest of your clothes too, it must smell," I tease her. She just lowers Hotel on the ground and runs to her room without saying anything more than a meek 'shut up'.

Leilani runs past me and hugs Hotel, to my surprise, they actually reciprocate. I wince, if there's a moment to do this it's now or never, even if it might ruin the moment.

"Hey, Hotel, did you rebuild everything?" I ask.

"Amaris says I did." Hotel answers, still in the middle of a hug.

"Right, are you..." I try to choose my next words carefully, I dread the question just as much as I dread the answer, "...ready to leave then?"

"Everybody should be happy now, I am ready." Hotel nods. I'm surprised they were that easy to convince, if it was me then- ha, no matter.

"Wait? You're leaving!? Why?" Leilani protests, on the verge of tears. "Y-you can't just- you said we'd read 'Magician's Promise' together! Y-you said" she hugs Hotel tighter, which is what I was afraid of.

"It's..." I take a deep breath, that's it, that's truly it, The point of no return. "It's not a goodbye, it's a..." It's so easy to think you've changed, that you're better now, but you can't shake off something that's been a part of you for so long easily, but that doesn't mean I can't try. "We'll...probably come back."

Coward, 'probably'. I'm taking the non-choice, the easy way out, it's like I didn't learn anything at all.

"Even if Miss Leave doesn't come back, I will," Hotel says, slowly pulling out of her hug. "I promise."

"R-really? Promise?" Leilani asks, wiping the snot and tears dirtying her face.

"Yeah." I ruffle her hairs. "If anything, I promise I'll bring them back here if it's possible, besides..." I pull out the hyper-communication skill window, and quickly link it between them, it doesn't take that long since they are right next to each other. "You'll still be able to talk to each other, or write, I suppose."

Even though she's blind, she should still be able to read and write on the menu...I think. I don't entirely know how the skill works since I haven't really used it before--not as far as I can remember, anyway.

I sigh and pull out the error logs of my Memory Cleanup menu.

"Hey, How long do they have until it goes bad?" I ask.

MEMORY CLEANUP ERROR LOG: 'HOW_LONG'

Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation.

> 2.

"Only two? And what does that mean for me?"

MEMORY CLEANUP ERROR LOG: 'IT_MEANS'

> A choice.

I close the error log, I know what it's saying, although it is hard to accept.

Just two, huh? I hope I'll be ready by then, I hope that 'probably' becomes 'surely' by then.

But I want to do a few things before I leave.

*****

I open the door to the magical girl office, and I can feel two intense glares my way before I even speak a word.

"YOU!" the man shouts, basically frothing at the mouth. "YOU HAD ONE FUCKING JOB, DO YOU KNOW HOW MUCH SHIT WE HAVE TO DEAL WITH NOW?"

"I like to think I'm pretty chill, but even I have my limits." The woman takes away her sunglasses, revealing eye bags rivaling that of her coworker. "Couldn't you have at least waited until you got a proper agent?"

"About that~" I say, trying to come up with a good way to break the bad news. "I'm here to hand out my resignation, I'm quitting!"

None of them say anything, the man just lowers his head, his anger replaced by complete and utter apathy, all that rage now transferred to the lady at his side.

"What!? What do you mean you quit? IT'S A TWO-YEAR CONTRACT!" She takes her sunglasses and throws them against the desk. "I- I CAN'T EVEN-" She can't even finish her sentence, I assume words are simply not capable of expressing how she feels right now, I'm afraid she's going to become a magical girl herself for a minute, but she snaps a pen in her hand instead.

"Uhm, I did bring this as an apology." I throw a bar of gold on the ground, and it crashes through the wooden floor. "Oops."

The woman loses her bravado too, the same empty look as her coworker now covers her face. She has lost, it's over, "this isn't worth as much as you think it is."

"Okay, another one then!" I throw another gold bar, and it makes another hole in the floor. Making gold is child's play with soul surgery, so there's no need to hold back.

"A hundred." she demands.

I drop the requested amount of gold bars on the ground, to no one's surprise, most of the floor collapse and the desk even starts to tilt downward.

"It doesn't even make sense that she can do that...how is that even Cowardice?" The man mutters, not a single shred of life left in his voice. "Even if we cash this out, how do we justify where we got all this money? It'll look suspicious..."

"Get this," The woman clasps her hands together. "We use that money to hire someone else to do our job for us, and a lawyer or something to justify where we got all that gold, then we keep the rest."

"So...we pay someone else to suffer for us?" Life starts to come back to the man's eyes. "Sophia! You're a GENIUS!"

"I know!" Sophia grins. "As long as we're careful, we can get away with it!"

"Do I get a thank you?" I ask tentatively.

"GET THE FUCK OUT OF OUR OFFICE!"

****

"So you're leaving, huh?" Luis leans back against the fridge, peeling an apple. "Well...as long as you take the kid with you, I'm okay with it."

Amaris looks down, "Haaa...s-so you won't really work as a magical girl then? A-are you sure? Y-you'll be in a lot of legal trouble if you quit now..."

"I'll manage, I've also dropped a few gold bars in the storage room to make up for the money I won't make by quitting early. Did you make up with...Ve...Vera?" It takes me a moment to say her name, I'm still not comfortable saying names out loud, even if I'm getting used to thinking them.

"H-ha...we're not exactly friends b-but...I might t-try to talk to her s-sometimes...maybe convince her to become a legal magical girl...I-I doubt she'll listen though-"

"Wait," Luis interrupts Amaris, "What was that about gold? If you stole that from a bank we'll be in trouble, you realize that, right?"

I shrug, "Man, I can't make anyone happy, can I? It's part of my power--sort of. You'll think of something."

He eyes me suspiciously, but doesn't ask any more questions. I don't think he likes me that much either, honestly, but that's fine.

"W-will you come back?" Amaris asks.

"I...can't say how likely I am to come back..." I reply hesitantly.

"B-but? T-there is a 'but' right?" She grabs the peeled apple out of Luis's hands and nibbles on it nervously.

"But Hotel will come back...alone."

"Why can't you come back with them?" Luis asks in a somewhat accusatory tone.

"Because I have to go somewhere, and it's a one way trip."