Dragonfly sighed and then her body glowed, her outfit disappearing, briefly revealing her naked body before her clothing appeared again.
“Let’s head back to the café and I’ll answer your questions, Crystal Flower.” Dave turned to look at Hailey, or Crystal Flower, a moment before her body starting to glow as her outfit disappeared, her breasts grew back and her clothing appeared on her body again.
Although, something that Dave hadn’t noticed before was that she’d actually gotten shorter when she had transformed and as she de-transformed, her height returned.
Making it seem as if she was a completely different person than her alter ego.
“Alright, but I’m not leaving until my questions are answered,” Hailey informed Himari.
Himari merely shook her head in amusement, looking as if she was humoring Hailey more than anything else.
Which Dave suspected was very well possible considering the fact that Himari hadn’t been able to do more than essentially scratch Himari’s alter ego.
“Hey, why isn’t my nose in as much pain as it was before?” Hailey wondered aloud, as she felt her nose where Dragonfly had hit her.
“I told you I’m not talking about anything directly related to what magical girls can do,” Himari replied casually, as if this sort of topic came up all the time.
Dave quickly flew up to Hailey’s shoulder, not sure if she’d forget him otherwise, as she started to follow Himari out of the alley.
Hailey picked Dave up and held him in her hands, though the way she held him was almost like she was starting to think of him as different than she had when they first had gone into that alley.
Which Dave hoped was a good sign.
When Hailey set Dave down on the table when they returned to the café, he couldn’t help but feel conflicted about what had happened in the alley now that he’d had some time to mull over the events in his mind.
Especially since if Hailey hadn’t been able to shoot out the crystal shards, he suspected that Himari might have decided that Hailey wasn’t worth leaving alive.
He was glad that it ended before it got to that point, but he couldn’t help but consider Himari, and by extension Hoshi, dangerous.
“So, let’s start with the first question,” Himari said calmly.
A little too calmly after their fight for Dave’s comfort.
“You wanted to know why magical girls fight.
Well, the simple fact is that if we don’t fight, the evil spirits that appear will lay waste to the entire planet.
Some through weather events, some through tectonic events, and some through other disasters.
Now, while some disasters will still happen without the aid of evil spirits, those don’t happen as often.” Hailey looked like she wanted to say something but kept quiet.
Which told Dave that she really wanted to hear what Himari had to say about this subject.
“While it’d be nice if we could just have a cup of tea and talk through the problem and come up with a solution that worked for everyone, that’s just not the way the world works.
Some creatures, people and spirits, aren’t interested in finding a way that works for everyone.
Some have already decided on what method they want to go after what they want and don’t care to change that method no matter who it hurts.
The spirits who take that approach are primarily the ones magical girls were originally created to fight.” Hailey blinked.
“If that’s the case, then why the factions?
Shouldn’t magical girls be trying to get along with each other?” Himari chuckled, as if Hailey’s statement was naïve and foolish.
“Well, that enters the second question you had.
Why are there factions?
It’s because like everyone, we find it easier to deal with friends.
That’s how the factions started in the first place: faeries who were friends with each other formed teams to help boost their strength when it came to fighting evil spirits.
However, because evil spirits don’t always attack, magical girls don’t always get the growth that they were hoping to get from those fights.
Then when you get factions who felt like their territory was encroached on to defeat an evil spirit, conflicts arise.” Dave almost felt like he was getting a history lesson as he listened to Himari.
He found it rather fascinating, especially since he’d gotten pulled into this without having been given a chance to decline.
It certainly made it feel like the world that he’d been forced into was widening up and showing him more of what there was to see.
“In essence, the fights became common enough that magical girls of other factions were more likely to attack each other for both territory and to get stronger themselves.
So, that’s what the factions are about,” Himari concluded.
“Uh, but that doesn’t explain why this country was forbidden to have magical girls created in it.” Himari nodded as if she was just about to get to that.
“Well, it ties into the factions.
Because faeries have to recruit magical girls from humans, there were a few who started talking about traveling around and collecting magical girls to build an army of them.
Yet, enough factions agreed that doing that would be as bad as letting an evil spirit roam free.
So, it was decided that certain areas were to be left alone unless evil spirits start appearing there and threaten the lives of humans in those areas.” “So, you’re saying that there’s no evil spirits here?” Dave blurted, not sure why the voice had told him about evil spirits to begin with if there weren’t any here.
“I’m not saying that.
Evil spirits can appear anywhere spirits can and this country does have sprits who appear sometimes.
Though there was discussion about letting faeries come to this country to start recruiting because they’re certain that evil spirits will start making their appearances here, nothing had been decided just yet.
So, while I’m not going to kill you just because you’re a magical girl in a country that shouldn’t have one just yet, others might not feel the same way when the taboo is lifted.” Hailey nodded, though Dave couldn’t help but feel like he had just had his death warrant signed since he was the one who had created Hailey’s magical girl alter ego.