This was the first time a monster had come looking for her at school.
And this time, the monster seemed to be a type she’d never encountered before.
Up until now, the monsters she’d faced had mainly fallen into two categories—”Flower” and “Bird”—along with the recently, strangely mutated Thorn Monster.
This one, too, looked different from the earlier Thorn Monster.
At the start of the battle, mindful that this was a school, she’d first deployed a barrier to keep ordinary people from entering.
For a magical girl’s battles, ordinary people were arguably the most troublesome presence of all.
Students especially.
There had been many cases where innocent bystanders were hurt during a magical girl’s monster-hunting, and it was always students barging in of their own accord that caused it.
This was doubly true in a place like Neon, where 2D otaku culture ran rampant.
There were plenty of reckless high schoolers who would deliberately move in close while a magical girl fought a monster, engaging in a whole series of baffling human antics—trying to punch the monster with their bare fists, or hitting on the magical girl herself.
Not long after the battle began, the magical girl Silver Feather sensed that something was off with her condition this time.
She felt oddly fatigued, unable to muster her strength.
She’d just tried to stomp on the monster, but it had barely done any damage.
It was as if she still hadn’t recovered from her earlier fight with the Thorn Monster.
Had using the “Snake” crystal that time drained too much out of her?
She bore down harder with her foot, meaning to crush the monster underfoot then and there—but a spine draped in tattered rags lashed out at her like a whip.
The magical girl Silver Feather twisted aside, dodging the blow, and when she looked down again, the monster had already vanished.
Normally she’d have just switched to gun mode and sprayed it with fire, but right now she was still inside the school, where plenty of students likely hadn’t gotten out yet.
“It’s a great honor to meet you, magical girl.”
The monster’s cold, sinister voice came from behind her.
She swung a fist backward, but felt it connect only with weightless rags, while the monster rose into the air like a ghost without mass, drifting around behind her once more.
“Sorry, but I’ve never met you.”
The magical girl Silver Feather folded down a wing, light gathering into her magic wand—though she quickly felt as if the magic within her was about to run dry.
After she slashed out, she only barely managed to cut apart a length of rags, failing to wound the monster’s true body.
“I’ve been a monster since three years ago, you know—though thanks to that magical girl Huanfeng, it’s taken me until now to be able to fight again…”
The monster let out a low, sinister laugh that made the magical girl Silver Feather deeply uncomfortable.
“Three years ago?
You’re…”
Though she didn’t recognize the monster before her—since three years ago she’d only been an ordinary middle schooler—she knew the magical girl it spoke of.
The magical girl Huanfeng—the magical girl who had been active in Kaedehara City three years ago, and once the magical girl with the highest monster-kill count in all of Kaedehara City.
But one day, this magical girl had suddenly disappeared, going from the most active magical girl of all to gone without a trace.
“Let me introduce myself.
I’m the Kite Monster, the same ‘Wind’ type as the magical girl Huanfeng—though three years ago, she defeated me once.”
She had no idea how this thing had managed to survive to this day, but right now…
The magical girl Silver Feather clenched her fist—
“Then whether my hand or the magical girl Huanfeng’s hits harder—you can find out for yourself, with your own body.”
……
Up in the school building, Kazama Kiriori leaned against a windowsill, gazing down at the battle.
Naturally, the school building was empty now, leaving only her, standing here quietly on her own.
And after getting a look at the monster fighting the magical girl Silver Feather, she murmured softly to herself:
“So it’s this monster…”
She knew this monster now doing battle.
It was a Wind-type monster called the Kite Monster—fast, with a bizarre way of fighting.
That said, it wasn’t an especially strong opponent.
But a Bird-type magical girl was not well-suited to dealing with Wind-type monsters.
On top of that, the magical girl Silver Feather’s condition looked terrible—she was fighting in what amounted to a state of complete exhaustion.
Fighting like this, beyond what her body could bear, was dangerous even for a magical girl; if it got serious, it could even affect the ordinary-person part of her.
She was curious—where were the magical girl Silver Feather’s companions?
In a situation like this, why had the magical girl Silver Feather been fighting alone this whole time?
If she remembered correctly, that person named Takanashi Shiori should be a magical girl too.
…
Outside the building, the magical girl Silver Feather was locked in a grueling fight.
Her body was in bad shape for some unknown reason, and this time’s monster wasn’t a type she was good at handling.
She swept her gaze around quickly, searching for a trace of the vanished monster, but found nothing—until she heard the sound of something dropping from above.
Lifting her head, she saw the monster plunging out of the sky.
The eerie creature came rushing at her like a falling, broken kite, thrusting out two withered legs to try and entangle her.
The magical girl Silver Feather froze for a moment, seemingly not having expected this Kite Monster to fly.
The plummeting monster just barely grazed her arm, sharp pain spreading across it, and when the magical girl Silver Feather opened her eyes to look ahead again, she found the monster had already vanished without a trace.
This thing was so fast…
Never before had there been a monster faster than her.
Right after, she sensed the wind stir and the grass bend to her left, and soon the monster’s figure surfaced at the edge of her vision.
This time the monster fully stretched out its body, the tattered rags on it spreading like a bat’s wings.
It let out a shrill, grotesque cry, then, like a ghost forever swaying and whirling, surfaced in one place after another.
She dodged them all, yet found she couldn’t get a grip on this monster at all.
Her Transform had a time limit.
Just as she was about to call Takanashi Shiori over for help, she suddenly sensed a familiar magical aura approaching.
And at that very moment, in the instant she was distracted, the Kite Monster launched a surprise attack from a corner she hadn’t noticed, about to wrap around her neck with the strike.
“—Bang!”
The instant before the attack could touch the magical girl Silver Feather, a magic blast bomb dropped from the sky and struck the Kite Monster.
The bursting light was like fireworks, scattering down in a riot of colors.
And the Kite Monster was knocked to the ground by the blow.
“……”
The magical girl Silver Feather raised her head to see a resplendent figure slowly descending through the air.
It was a girl like a stage star, dressed in an elaborate, gorgeous pink-and-white gown that fell in layer upon layer, entwined with blossom after blossom of flowers in full bloom.
She had long, faintly dreamlike pink hair adorned with pure white roses, and her eyes held a shimmering color like stage lights.
A pink-themed magical girl.
“Long time no see, Xiao Ai.
Surprised to see me?”
She greeted Silver Feather warmly.
“You… when did you get back?”
Seeing this person, Silver Feather was a little taken aback.
Just as the two of them were talking, the Kite Monster on the ground struggled to rise again, and the next moment, thorned vines grew up out of the earth, coiling around it and binding it fast bit by bit.
Taking advantage of this, the magical girl Silver Feather pressed down on her Magic Tool, spending the last of her magic as she aimed at the Kite Monster’s mask.
—A beam of light pierced through the Kite Monster’s skull.
With a shattering sound, the Kite Monster’s mask was crushed, crumbling bit by bit into powder, and within its body as it collapsed like sand, all that remained was a single brilliant green crystal.
The pink magical girl bent down, picked up the crystal, and then said with a smile—
“I came back for school, of course—though I never expected to run into a monster attacking the school the very moment I got here.”
The magical girl Silver Feather said nothing, then let out a sigh:
“Thanks, I suppose.”
There was no doubt about it: the magical girl before her was one of her companions, the “Flower”-type magical girl—the magical girl Star Flower.
And at the same time, the most popular magical girl in all of Kaedehara City.
Just as she said this, she suddenly felt the world before her sway, her consciousness growing hazy, the magic throughout her body all but drained.
“Xiao Ai?
You look a little pale, you…”
The other girl’s voice grew indistinct in her ears, and Silver Feather’s body tipped forward.
And her world, too, sank into darkness.