A Lonely Transformation
…What even was a magical girl, anyway?
"Well, if I'm being honest…"
I still couldn't shake the impression that they were creatures of fiction — beings who pulled off dramatic, childish victories in moments of crisis through the power of friendship, or love, or whatever else the script demanded.
"Everything I'd ever seen was like that."
The flashy bank scenes…
Showing off the toys they needed to sell while transforming on camera.
Spouting lines about love and justice — and a few other cool-sounding phrases — until everything from their hair color on down flipped into something else entirely. Something that had never quite managed to grow out of its kindergarten aesthetic.
And now, that was something I had to do.
"…Haaah."
If I wanted to live — if I wanted to make money — I had no choice. If I wanted to avoid ending up on the street, I had to transform into a magical girl, no matter what it took.
Getting the word "transform" out of my mouth required more resolve than I'd expected. I had to crush down every ounce of revulsion first.
I paced. I flailed. I wrestled my shame into submission, bit by bit.
In the end, it took me a full ten minutes just to say those two syllables.
"Tr… transform."
…Nothing happened.
The world stayed perfectly quiet.
Of course magical girl wasn't a real job. Of course someone like me would never catch so much as a scrap of an awakening.
"Huh?"
The second I let my guard down, light washed over every inch of my body. A warmth I'd never felt before brushed across my skin.
…It was the sensation of a transformation I had wanted less than anything in the world.
The moment the light first slammed into my eyes, I lost all control of my own body. It moved on its own, answering the call of the transformation as if it already knew the choreography by heart.
I closed my eyes, surrendering to the sensation of being wrapped in light. Everything that followed unfolded of its own accord, the way a body remembers a dance it has practiced a thousand times.
And yet, completely against my will, the corners of my mouth lifted. I moved with exaggerated force, as if putting on a performance for an audience.
Layers of fabric began to settle over my light-wreathed body, piece by piece. Fragments of magical moments drifted toward me, one after another.
Starting with a suddenly fuller upper body, a creeping sense of wrongness built as something was layered onto me. Shame flooded through me at the feeling of being dressed by invisible hands; I flushed and ducked my head.
Then the light faded, and the moment both feet touched the ground, my tightly shut mouth opened on its own.
Striking a ridiculous pose I had never agreed to, I shouted a name that wasn't mine.
"Nezery, reporting for duty!"
…I was alone in my own apartment. The only person who could possibly hear this mortifying monologue was me.
So why did it feel like a mocking laugh was echoing back at me?
Was it just my imagination that this silence felt like a reaction aimed squarely at me?
"…I'm losing it."
What the hell did I just say?
What did I even just do? Since when could I move like that?
"No, wait — shit."
Before I could even process my own behavior, a wash of pink and frills filled my vision. My lower half felt strangely exposed. Like I was wearing next to nothing underneath.
"Is this a skirt…?"
I walked straight to the mirror.
Was this really what "transformation" meant? Had it actually turned me into a magical girl?
"…Oh, hell."
As if laughing at every fear I'd had, the mirror showed a girl who looked nothing like the person who'd been standing there moments before.
More precisely — the vibe was completely different.
The face was still reasonably cute. The eye color was the same. The small frame was still mine.
…But the scruffy, washed-out look from before was gone, as if someone had done my makeup.
My hair, which had lost all its color, had been dyed a vivid pink.
And as if that weren't enough, it was tied up in twin tails. Complete with pretty ribbons.
"This is real…"
The instant I'd said the word "transform," everything had changed.
The T-shirt I'd been wearing had become a frilly black dress that looked like it belonged on a doll.
Heart-shaped earrings dangled in clusters from ears that had been bare and empty before.
And in my hand was a staff longer than I was tall.
"Wow…"
Someone like me had actually become a magical girl.
Blinded by money, I'd gone and transformed. And now there was no running from it.
I was a genuine magical girl…
An awakened hunter.
"Is there supposed to be a mascot or something…?"
For a magical girl who was supposed to sing about love, I sure seemed to be carrying a lot of loneliness.
The space around me was still so quiet it felt like sound itself had been forgotten.
Being home alone made that natural enough — but even so, wasn't this a little pathetic for a magical girl?
Weren't magical girls supposed to write themselves more hopeful stories than this?
I'd awakened. I'd transformed. And I was still completely alone.
I didn't even have one of those mascot creatures every magical girl seemed to get.
Could you even call this being a magical girl? I just looked like a delusional lunatic who thought she was one.
"Hmm…"
The outfit suited me better than expected, though. Probably because the base model was pretty to begin with. Even in clothes this childish, nothing looked out of place.
Holding that toy-like magic staff actually looked pretty good on me, too.
The only tiny problem was that the person holding it was a twenty-four-year-old man.
"Don't modern magical girls just punch things these days?"
How painfully by-the-book was this look?
Then again, a magical girl hauling around a staff as tall as she was was probably pretty rare. I felt like I'd only seen one like that recently.
"…"
If I swung this staff and poured mana into it, could I cast magic too? If I just let this power that had been trying to spill out of me flow into the staff, maybe I could finally use magic like a real awakened hunter…
…No. Better not.
"…Using magic right now would be a bad idea."
Ever since the transformation, I'd been focused entirely on holding back the mana that kept trying to leak out of me.
I was trying to get used to a sensation I'd never felt before. The mana wanted to burst free.
Was it always supposed to overflow like this? Until a few minutes ago I hadn't felt a thing.
…Just keeping it under control was hard enough. If I actually cast a spell in here, wouldn't I put the whole apartment at risk?
"I'll use it at the Tower…"
I'd figured out what it felt like for mana to flow. For now, that was enough. The rest I could learn through real combat.
I wanted to climb the Tower already.
…And I wanted to make some money.
Thankfully, undoing the transformation turned out to be simple. My body just knew how.
Two quick taps on those annoying earrings, and a burst of light flared out again — and just like that, the transformation came undone.
The staff, though, studded with its jewel, refused to disappear. It stayed behind like a leftover trace of the magical girl I'd been.
Shrunken down to the size of a toy, it showed no intention of leaving my side.
"…"
A silver ring I hadn't noticed before had appeared at the end of the staff, as if telling me to wear it like a necklace.
It felt like a shackle. If I lost this staff, would transforming become impossible?
"…Things just got weird."
Muttering to myself, I headed for the Awakening Gallery out of pure habit. I wanted to scrub this unsettled feeling out of my head.
With no friends and no family, this was the only place I had to lean on. An internet ghost had to live somewhere, and this was it.
Was there a better playground anywhere for forgetting how rattled the transformation had left me?
"…Not that this is the time."
If I had time to post garbage on the gallery, I'd be better off thinking about the Tower I was planning to climb tomorrow.
I needed to get used to my skills as fast as possible and start ascending. I knew that. But right now it felt like the road was blocked. Because who on earth would believe me if I said I'd awakened as a magical girl?
"Wait a second…"
…I could just ask here, couldn't I? This was the Awakening Gallery. Surely I was allowed to ask something like this.
It was called the Awakening Gallery, but in reality it was mostly a hangout where active hunters came to lurk under throwaway accounts.
They'd at least know something about the Tower, right?
"…What am I overthinking this for."
I'd been making something simple way too complicated. All I had to do was post. My idle fingers started moving again, ready to write.
"Okay."
One half-decent title that popped into my head. Instead of a question post nobody would ever see, I dumped out a title engineered to pull aggro.
A question post that would decide a hunter's entire life. I hit submit without a second of hesitation.
hey so is there anything I should watch out for when climbing the Tower
wanna try going once but I don't know jack lol
"What's that about?"
I'd figured it was just more bait. But after a short wait, he sent me a link pointing somewhere else entirely.
Fearless as ever, I clicked through — and found myself looking at a gallery I'd never seen before in my life.
I realized this was a kind of invitation.
Verified Hunters Only
"…Oh."
So that was why all those awakened hunters barely ever showed up in the Awakening Gallery.