The Magical Girl in Violet
"So you managed to take care of it somehow."
A beautiful girl revealed a dazzling presence before Somi, who had barely managed to neutralize Dark Melon. Somi's gaze turned toward her as a matter of course.
The first thing that caught the eye was the girl's calm, intelligent gaze. Those pale violet eyes regarded Somi steadily.
The airy costume she wore was so similar to Somi's — color aside — that a passing glance would scarcely tell them apart. Somi's was a white-based magical girl costume; hers was pale violet. Where Somi's gave off a lighter, more cheerful air, hers felt delicate and elegant.
"You're a magical girl too?"
It was the first time she had ever met a fellow. Somi couldn't hide her excitement as she approached. The other girl, however, glanced around and spoke in a cold voice.
"We should get out of here first. Casts."
"Leave it to me~kaets!"
A purple mascot popped out from behind the beautiful girl. It had the same plump, squishy quality as Tambourine, but where Tambourine resembled a slime, this one looked exactly like a seahorse. Fluttering wings sprouted from its back just the same.
"Ah! It's Casts~taemp!"
"What's this. It's that scatterbrain Tambourine~kaets."
"You two know each other, Tambourine?"
At Somi's question, Tambourine trembled as she opened her mouth.
"That's Casts, top graduate of the Magic Realm's Spirit School~taemp! An insanely obnoxious piece of work~taemp!"
"Heehee! For the record, Tambourine graduated dead last~kaets."
"Don't say that~taemp!"
The two mascots eyed each other and bickered. In truth, calling it bickering was generous — it was Casts's one-sided assault.
The pale violet magical girl, Yang Gain, frowned and urged Casts along. People were already crowding in, so they needed to wrap this up fast.
"Casts. Hurry up."
"Got it~kaets! I'll manipulate everyone's memories with magic~kaets!"
At Casts's words, Han Somi turned to Tambourine.
"Wow! Can you do that too, Tambourine?"
"O-of course I can~taemp! Memory manipulation magic is nothing…"
"As if a scatterbrain like Tambourine could pull that off~kaets. How many times did you fail Magic class again?"
"Grr! I'll show you~taemp!"
Provoked by Casts's taunt, Tambourine flared up and cast a memory manipulation spell. In an instant her body was wrapped in white light.
Somi watched the glowing Tambourine with wonder, while Gain sighed. She looked at her own mascot and asked,
"Can we trust that?"
"Beats me~kaets. Well, scatterbrain Tambourine will figure it out, so let's just get out of here~kaets."
"Don't just wrap things up so sloppily…. Ah! I have something to say to that girl."
Gain pointed at Somi.
"Hey, could you come with me for a bit?"
"Me? Why?"
"There's something important I need to tell you. This isn't the place for it…. Let's go somewhere without people."
Gain leaped away in the opposite direction from downtown. A single bound sent her soaring dozens of meters — every inch a magical girl. Casts followed after her.
Left behind with Tambourine, Somi looked around, unsure what to do. The bright light pouring off Tambourine had the surrounding people covering their eyes in pain.
"Um…. can I trust you with this, Tambourine?"
"Don't you worry~taemp!"
Seeing Tambourine's confidence, Somi made up her mind and chased after Gain. The unease in her heart remained, but more than that, she wanted to talk with another magical girl she'd just met for the first time.
The moment Somi moved, Geum Taeyang — who had been hiding and watching her — moved to follow as well.
The place Gain brought Somi was a small construction site where work had been halted. It sat a little apart from downtown, and there was nobody around.
The concrete walls were covered in dirty spray-painted graffiti. A few cigarette butts lay scattered around a drum can bearing the traces of a fire. It was the kind of rough place a model student would never set foot in.
"Here we can talk without anyone overhearing."
Gain said this and released her transformation. Pale violet light enveloped her body, and the dazzling magical girl costume changed into a Jinglebell Middle School uniform. Her pale violet hair and eyes turned a calm black.
A plain beige headband with no pattern on it made her already composed impression look even more so. This was her original appearance.
"Huh? You're a student at our school."
Somi, who had followed, released her transformation as well. She held out her hand to Gain.
"Nice to meet you. I'm Han Somi. First year, Hope Class at Jinglebell Middle School."
Gain just stared blankly at Somi's hand without taking it. Embarrassed, Somi withdrew the offered hand.
Gain introduced herself in a blunt voice.
"Yang Gain. First year, Wisdom Class. Magical girl."
"Hmm? Wisdom Class, so that's the class next door. Have we seen each other before?"
"No. I don't care about other classes. Or rather, I don't care about other students, to be more precise."
Gain was an extremely cold and stiff type. Somi, however, didn't drop her smile as she pressed on.
"Still, I'm glad we met like this. A fellow magical girl friend! Let's take down the Shadow World's monsters together from now on!"
"I don't particularly need your help. Casts and I are more than enough for the monsters."
"That's right~kaets! We don't need that dimwit Tambourine or her magical girl~kaets!"
Casts puffed out its chest as it spoke. The mascot and the magical girl's personalities were remarkably similar. Somi found herself wondering if she and Tambourine were alike in the same way.
No, at least I'm not as scatterbrained as Tambourine.
She concluded, privately, that she came out ahead.
"If we cooperated, dealing with monsters would be even easier. Like this time! Plus we go to the same school, and our classes are right next to each other. I'd like us to get along."
Somi, with her easy warmth, was good with stiff princess types like Gain. When she suddenly closed the distance, Gain's cheeks flushed and she took a step back.
This style was a first. Until now, whenever she let out a moderate chill, the people around her had kept their distance on their own. That had always been more comfortable for her.
"Hmph! Helping you this time was a coincidence. From now on, I'll find and deal with the monsters first."
"Heheh! I have a feeling we'll see each other again. My hunches tend to be pretty accurate, you know."
"Th-that's enough! Anyway, what I wanted to say is something else."
Gain composed her voice. Having calmly recovered the composure she'd lost thanks to Somi, she explained why she'd called her over.
"Have you, by any chance, felt a strange sense of déjà vu at school lately?"
"Déjà vu? Hmm…. now that you mention it, I think I might have felt something like that…."
At Gain's words, Somi rewound her memories.
Come to think of it, there had been times lately at school when she got a weird feeling. She couldn't pinpoint the cause of that strangeness exactly, but it had made the back of her head itch more than once or twice.
Of course, that strangeness she'd felt would melt away like snow after a little time passed. That was why, until now, she'd thought it was nothing important.
"There's something. I don't know exactly either, but at our Jinglebell Middle School…. I think something bad is happening."
"Something bad? Could it be a monster from the Shadow World!?"
If it was something bad, there was a high chance it was related to a Shadow World monster. Come to think of it, Tambourine had once said she sensed a suspicious aura at school. If a monster had infiltrated the school, that would be no small matter.
"It might be. Casts hasn't investigated the school yet, so I can't be sure."
"I want to go to school too~kaets! Gain, why won't you show me what you look like at school~kaets!?"
"It's a privacy thing. But it looks like I'll need your help this time. If a monster really is hiding at school, we'll need to deal with it fast."
At Gain's words, Somi recalled what Tambourine had said before and opened her mouth.
"Tambourine investigated the school once. She said it didn't seem like there were any monsters or anything."
At that, Casts, floating beside Gain, puffed its chest out as far as it would go.
"You can't trust scatterbrain Tambourine~kaets! That one failed Monster Tracking class twice~kaets! Meanwhile I always got A's~kaets!"
"I-is that true?"
"That's right~kaets! Monster tracking is a mascot's basic competency~kaets! Even the Queen of the Magic Realm herself can't match us mascots when it comes to detecting Minus Energy~kaets! And Tambourine is the worst of us all~kaets!"
"Tambourine…. she never told me any of that."
Somi's face flushed tomato-red.
"Anyway, you should be careful at school. We magical girls have earned the wrath of the Shadow World's monsters."
"Come to think of it, Tambourine said something before. That she sensed a strange aura from our PE teacher."
At Somi's words, Gain's eyes sharpened. Geum Taeyang's face formed in her mind.
Deeply dyed golden hair and darkly tanned skin. The owner of an appearance far too distinctive to belong to a teacher.
Because of that look, plenty of girls had been afraid of the PE teacher at the start of the term. But he was actually a decent teacher, and by now a fair number of students followed him. Gain personally thought he seemed like a decent teacher too.
"The PE teacher. His name was Mr. Geum Taeyang, right?"
"Yeah! Yeah! But later Tambourine said she must have been mistaken. I'd gotten in trouble with him a few times, but he actually turned out to be a really good person."
"Looks like scatterbrain Tambourine messed up again~kaets! She was always like that at magic school too~kaets!"
Casts said this with a smug little laugh.
Gain, however, thought it over with a serious expression. Something strange was definitely happening at school. She just didn't know the exact cause. To get closer to the truth, she would have to chase the few clues she had.
"Mr. Geum Taeyang. Worth looking into. Right, that's all I needed from you. I'll be going then."
Gain turned around and left the construction site without so much as a thank you. Somi, showing no sign of taking offense, waved at her receding back.
"See you next time~"
Gain whirled around and shouted at Somi.
"There won't be a next time! Even if a monster shows up, I'll deal with it first anyway!"
Somi kept waving until Gain disappeared. Then she left the construction site herself. Once Somi was gone, a man emerged from behind a pile of stacked materials. It was Geum Taeyang.
"Yang Gain. Because she's stronger than Somi in the early stages, is that it? Looks like she's resisting the Common Sense Alteration Sticker to some degree."
The enhanced Common Sense Alteration Sticker had enough power to brainwash even a magical girl like Somi. Against Gain, who was stronger than Somi, its effect seemed to be halved.
Of course, that didn't mean Gain was completely resisting the sticker either. She, like every other student at Jinglebell Middle School, was under its influence. Had she fully resisted it, she wouldn't have given such a lukewarm reaction — her response would have been entirely different.
Looks like I've got myself an interesting new toy to play with.
A few entertaining scenarios surfaced in Taeyang's mind. At present, the only person at school he needed to be wary of was the school nurse, Han Dambi. No matter how much some naive magical girl played at being a detective, she would never slip from his grasp.
Shattering Gain's mind completely and putting her under perfect brainwashing wouldn't be a bad approach either. He left the construction site, turning over in his mind just how he would play with her.