The Great Moving Adventure — Part 1

The media, it seemed, had decided from the start that any mention of the incident in Kabukicho — a district already notorious for its ties to organized crime — was off-limits, whichever way you spun it.

Coverage of the Kabukicho incident got buried under a pile-up chain collision that happened the following day, relegated to a footnote of the news cycle. At most, it surfaced now and then as ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠one of the few concrete cases that demonstrated just what kind of power magical girls actually possessed.

'They're rushing through changes in order to actively absorb magical girls into the social system.'

Unlike the original story, where unawakened magical girls were ground down as expendable resources by a rigid, preordained social order, now that the world had witnessed what these girls could truly become, society was actually treating them with something resembling respect.

"How long are you going to sit there staring at the paper, Leader?"

"We're moving next door anyway, and honestly, outside of my phone, charger, and clothes, there's nothing to pack."

"Aagh! That's so mean-sumda! Moving is supposed to be one of the great household ceremonies, a sacred rite performed on an auspicious day!"

"Well, the fact that Kyoko just fit three Sino-Korean words into a single sentence proves it's definitely a rare occasion."

"Leader! That's just plain prejudice against Kyoko! Sure, Kyoko talks like a knucklehead most days, but still!"

"…The Captain's jab hurt more, actually."

The landlord had approved Ichika and Kyoko's move. Their sole channel of communication with him was the rent envelope, so we had slipped in a note reading 'Two women wish to occupy the third floor' — and by the next morning, the key to the next room had been left at our door.

"Heh! I'm a proper homeowner now."

"That's right-sumda! We finally have territory of our very own!"

"…It's a rental. Anyway, we barely have any stuff, so the move's basically done already. Were you planning to go shopping for furniture or what?"

"Hmm~ let's see? Nothing I need right away, though I'd love to get a kotatsu by this winter."

"Yes! ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠Sitting around a kotatsu having a hotpot party together has been one of my long-held dreams-sumda!"

"We should invite Hana, Busujima, and all the other girls who live elsewhere and have a big, noisy get-together."

"…Yeah. I'd like that."

Kyoko had been chattering away about the winter kotatsu hotpot party, but then she suddenly seemed to hesitate.

"I-I'd kind of like a vanity… something like a vanity table, maybe-sumda."

"Huh?"

"Yeah?"

"Ah, w-well, it doesn't have to be anything expensive, I just thought it'd be nice to have one… hehe."

"You basically spend every day either at the Leader's cafe or hauling cargo at your loading job. Do you really need one?"

"That was too far!"

I didn't wear makeup myself, but I couldn't help thinking that Ichika's remark would land carelessly harsh on any girl in the prime of her youth.

Come to think of it, Ichika's a girl at that age too — how on earth is she this oblivious?

So I took Kyoko's side, the poor thing having visibly wilted under Ichika's words, and offered her a way out.

"Sure, why not? Then let's stop by a furniture store on the way and pick one out. Might as well grab anything else you need while we're at it."

"L-Leader…!"

"Come on, let's just get out and look around."

"Captain…!"

The moment our plan of action was decided, we grabbed our phones and wallets and headed out the door. The streets of Tokyo, where the full swelter of summer had set in, were drenched in blazing sunlight.

We walked on, threading our way from one patch of shade to the next.

"Uuu, it was hot enough indoors, and it feels even hotter out here-sumda."

"Honestly, the best thing to do is kill time in the AC at the Leader's cafe."

"Now that you mention it, we should probably pick up a fan on the way back too."

Beep-bonk.

Beep-bonk.

Beep-bonk.

Once the crossing signal forced us out of our shade with no retreat left, we fell silent and simply walked, quietly enduring the heat.

"Oh, hey, Leader."

"Hmm?"

"Are you not hot at all? You've had your jacket zipped all the way up this whole time — looking at you is making me sweat."

"Are you perhaps on a weight-cutting regimen, ma'am?"

"Oh."

I tugged down the zipper of my training jacket a little to show them the T-shirt underneath.

The moment the zipper came down, the two taut mounds that had been compressed within sprang free of their confinement.

Sweat had pooled beneath my chest, leaving dark, unmistakable damp trails, and the sweat-soaked fabric clung to my skin, baring the shape of my breasts in shameless detail. The shadow beneath the curve of my upper body — a gift of my slender waist — only threw it into sharper relief. It was an intensely embarrassing sight.

"………"

"……."

"This happens every single summer, so I just keep everything zipped up. Either way, it all gets soaked in sweat eventually."

Both Ichika and Kyoko were dressed for the season in denim shorts and tank tops, and secretly I wished I could dress that light too — but hating the embarrassment it invited, I always wore an extra layer or two.

Hearing this, the two of them fell quiet, staring down at their own tops and fidgeting with the fabric.

"………"

"……."

"What's wrong with you two? Come on, let's go."

"…Right."

"…Yes, ma'am."

We walked the rest of the way in a curious silence and soon arrived at a large furniture store nearby. The latest J-pop hits circa 2011 drifted from the speakers inside, and the cool breeze of the air conditioning blissfully dried the sweat from our skin.

"So, what should we buy first?"

"The vanity's the whole point, so let's go look at vanities."

"Ahh, thank you, Leader!"

I strode briskly along the path of pristine white flooring and stepped onto the escalator at the center of the store. And just as I was about to head straight up toward the third floor —

"Wow, Leader, I guess you're way more hot-headed than you look."

"Was your mother Russian by any chance, ma'am?"

Far behind me, Ichika and Kyoko were standing politely in single file on the left side of the escalator, riding up like two model citizens.

Whoops.

My kimchi-stew soul slipped out for a second there.

"…I just got excited. It's been a while since I went shopping."

"You don't sell it with that haughty look on your face, mal-sumda."

"You always have your eyes half-closed, Leader, so half the time I can't tell what you're thinking."

"…They're narrow, not closed."

Anyway, the fifth floor we arrived at was lined mostly with women's wardrobes, vanity tables, and ornamental antique furniture. The three of us spent a long while poking around here and there until Kyoko spoke up.

"Um… everything seems pricier than ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠I expected-sumda."

Now that she was comparing the real things against the numbers, she could see it no matter how she looked — the unmistakable shape of a busted budget. Kyoko, who had been flinging drawers open in excitement, began to mutter in a deflated voice.

"Does it? Feels like a week of hardcore loading shifts would cover it, no problem?"

"But that's our living money too… phew…"

Kyoko, too mortified to know what to do with herself, quietly closed and tidied up the vanities she'd been rummaging through.

"I'll chip in too."

"Eh?! Leader?!"

"There we go! It's just a few more loading shifts — just buy it."

With me and Ichika backing her up, Kyoko squirmed and writhed where she stood, overjoyed to the point of tears.

"Leader… Captain…!"

She shuffled over hesitantly toward the very first vanity she'd been drawn to the moment we arrived — the one she'd approached like she was under a spell — and gently stroked its surface.

It was a piece with simple storage units attached on either side, the kind that could double as a wardrobe with minimal assembly.

"Thank you so much, really. Hehe."

"Don't mention it. I'll be using it plenty myself, so think of it as an investment."

A lie.

I had absolutely no plans to start wearing makeup.

"Good for you, Kyoko."

Ichika came over grinning ear to ear, and the three of us called a clerk over and bought the vanity. After we paid, the employee asked us to wait a moment and brought back a huge cardboard box containing the product, retrieved from the storeroom connected to the ground floor.

"Wow, this is gonna be brutal."

"Eeee…"

Once it was fully packed with cushioning material, we had ourselves a cardboard box of such colossal volume that all three of us could have ridden it like a raft. Kyoko hung her head, apologizing for the trouble all over again.

She didn't need to. I'd already worked out every method imaginable for hauling bulky objects.

"Let's leave this here for now and go buy the rest."

"Oh, planning to ask for their delivery service?"

"Uuu, I couldn't possibly be any more sorry-sumda! I'll carry everything myself, one piece at a time…!"

"It's fine, Kyoko."

After talking the stamping-her-feet girl down, we bought the cheapest fan we could find at the nearby shops, along with toilet paper, a folding table, floor cushions, and the like.

"Oh wait, come to think of it, we need to buy ramyeon! It totally slipped my mind-sumda!"

"Right, ramyeon is essential."

My place already had the electric kettle and rice cooker handed down from Master's cafe, so our last stop was a grocery store, where we stocked up on food and all sorts of odds and ends.

When we circled back to the furniture store with everything we'd bought and gathered it all in one place, the haul had swelled to the point where we honestly should have called a small truck.

"Should we call a delivery van, Leader?"

"No need. But you two packed everything into the boxes nice and sturdy, right?"

"Wrapped every single thing in cushioning we bought separately, mal-sumda."

"Good. Then how about both of you shield your bodies with psychic barriers and stick close to the cargo?"

"Eh?"

"Oh, you don't mean—"

Over the past month, training alongside Ichika, I'd developed a feel for just how far psychic output could be dialed down before it hurt a person. And drawing on two years of hard-earned logistics experience from preparing for my own apocalypse, I decided it was finally time for my first-ever attempt at transporting people plus cargo.

I draped my illusion veil over the mountain of boxes and over Ichika and Kyoko, then began slowly levitating everything with psychic force.

"Uwaaah… th-this feels so weird-sumda."

"Whoa, hold on, this is pulling my stomach like crazy! I think I'm gonna throw up?!"

"The Hikari ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠Express is now departing."

"W-wait, Leader, wait just a second?!"

Whoooooosh.

Waaaaaaah.

Ichika's screaming made it hellishly difficult to control our altitude as we floated along. I never would have guessed that a girl who fearlessly leapt off high-rises would be such a coward about this.

"Why do you have to be so dramatic about everything?"

"That looked dramatic to you?!"

We made it safely back to the apartment, unpacked everything, and were boiling up the ramyeon we'd bought earlier while talking over plans for a housewarming party.

"The girls who left for Hokkaido and the ones in welfare homes out in the provinces will be hard to invite, but I'd love to get everyone living nearby back together again."

Among the girls who'd been held with us as test subjects, those placed in the small family-run factories of Saitama Prefecture lived roughly the equivalent of Korea's Gyeonggi Province — close enough that a housewarming was a perfectly good excuse to call them over.

"Ahaha, when they show up they'll be shocked to realize they've worked at the factory longer than they were ever locked up, mal-sumda!"

Just as the conversation was hitting its stride over steaming bowls of ramyeon, the radio we'd left playing drifted into earshot.

"Come to think of it, the Magical Girl of [Beginning] seems to have been forgotten somewhere along the way."

"Hm?"

"Yes, ma'am?"

"A monster that just appears out of nowhere is hard to keep people's attention, I suppose. Still, I'm glad everyone seems to be taking the Magical Girl of [Beginning]'s words to heart and accepting magical girls — their powers and their existence — for what they are."

"Uh…"

"Um…"

"Fufu. It's a little lonely, sure, but my goal was to help the world accept magical girls as members of society, natural as anything."

"L-Leader…"

"Let's just keep working so nothing like the Kabukicho incident ever happens again."

Ichika and Kyoko exchanged flustered glances before cautiously broaching the subject.

"Leader… you don't really browse the internet, do you, ma'am?"

"Ah… no computer at home, and I don't use a smartphone. Though I do read the paper and listen to the radio every day?"

"That's why. I was wondering how our resident mental-patient Leader saw all that and didn't say a word."

The community site on the phone screen Ichika held out to me was overflowing with pure madness.