The apartment where Makoto Tsukimi lived was located near the outskirts of the city, approximately six bus stops away from Mitakihara Private Middle School.
When Homura Akemi stepped through the front door, she had expected to find a rather messy living space.
Surprisingly, however, the interior was exceptionally tidy.
It was also unexpectedly spacious and empty.
Apart from a sofa, a television, and a few chairs, there was practically no other furniture in the living room.
Yet there was something rather peculiar about this emptiness.
Almost immediately upon entering, Homura noticed various sticky notes and pictures attached to different corners of the apartment.
To describe it more precisely—
It resembled the bedroom of a child learning English, where every object had been labeled with a sticky note bearing its corresponding English word to make memorization easier.
Makoto’s apartment contained a large number of similar notes.
However, rather than English vocabulary, these notes contained strings of bizarre descriptions accompanied by corresponding pictures.
“Those aren’t nearly as simple as you might think, Homura. Of course, from your perspective, you probably can’t see what’s so wonderful about them.”
Having entered the apartment, Makoto nodded solemnly at the girl before him.
His words carried an unmistakable sense of pride.
As someone capable of manipulating his own five senses, Makoto was the only person who could truly experience the appearance of his home as he perceived it.
To him, the apartment’s interior decorations could be changed at will.
An ancient castle in the middle of a city.
A treehouse hidden deep within a forest.
A futuristic room filled with advanced technology.
An enormous, boundless planet belonging entirely to him.
The sticky notes scattered around the room might have seemed like incomprehensible strings of words to Homura, but to Makoto, they were practically magical incantations.
By reciting the descriptions, he could trigger autosuggestions and retrieve the corresponding memories stored in his mind.
At least within his own home, Makoto could manipulate his five senses with considerable stability, allowing himself to enjoy all kinds of extraordinary experiences.
For example, he could make any food he wanted appear before him at any moment.
He could transform his surroundings into a pleasantly warm hot spring.
With a snap of his fingers, the imaginary companion he had created would appear beside him and watch television with him.
He could even transform the scenes displayed on his television into immersive virtual environments, allowing himself to enter them as though he were physically present.
He could practically jump straight into an animated show playing on the television and challenge its villain to a one-on-one battle.
The reason his living room contained so little furniture was also quite simple.
Having too many physical objects around would restrict his movements whenever something unexpected happened.
Homura Akemi: “I can understand that the descriptions accompanying those pictures are meant to serve as autosuggestions. But what about the ones over there?”
The cold-looking girl raised her hand and pointed toward the nearby kitchen.
The notes attached there contained descriptions that were even more bizarre.
[DDD, 763 Three-Star Street, 3# Lobster, 1 Potato Chips, 4 JPY Takoyaki, Three Parts Heat, Four Parts Spiciness.]*
Looking at the words alone, it was practically impossible to make any sense of them.
Makoto Tsukimi: “Oh, those? You can think of them as magical creations produced by a fantasist like me.”
When Homura asked about them, the smile on Makoto’s face grew even brighter.
Homura Akemi: “…”
Perhaps it was just her imagination, but she couldn’t shake the feeling that the boy beside her had been waiting for her to ask precisely that question.
Nevertheless, perhaps because of her own curiosity, she couldn’t help wanting to know more.
Or perhaps, as a magical girl, she had developed an instinctive reaction to strange and unusual phenomena.
After all, the enemies magical girls hunted were witches.
And within the labyrinths created by those witches, bizarre scenes and incomprehensible writings similar to those before her frequently appeared.
Homura decided to investigate the unusual arrangements within the apartment a little further.
Makoto Tsukimi: “Magical enough that they couldn’t possibly exist in the real world.”
He nodded seriously as he answered.
Art originated from life, and fantasy originated from reality.
The beauty of imaginary things was, fundamentally speaking, an extension and transformation of things that already existed in everyday life.
Although Makoto was someone who loved immersing himself in fantasy, he understood this principle perfectly well.
He observed the personalities of his classmates.
He analyzed the reasons behind their personalities, along with their strengths and weaknesses.
Then, through a process of logical examination, he gradually extracted the elements he found most interesting.
These were the essential ingredients he needed to create imaginary characters.
And apart from creating characters…
He also spent money tasting various foods sold in restaurants and stores, carefully recording their flavors.
Afterward, within his fantasy world, he would modify those flavors and adjust their textures.
He even experimented with combining the tastes and textures of different foods in his imagination, creating fantastical ingredients that existed only within his own mind.
If the process of gathering all these materials could be compared to the work of a gold prospector, then the apartment where Makoto lived was the place where he buried his treasure.
The incomprehensible, bizarre descriptions on the sticky notes Homura saw were actually the results of Makoto’s careful experimentation and modification.
To describe them in more scientific terms, they were sensory recipes that only he himself could understand.
There were unusual tactile sensations.
Extraordinary flavors.
Countless magnificent landscapes.
Beautiful and enchanting sounds.
The variety was enormous.
However…
“Actually, I’m pretty much reaching my limit.”
“There’s only so much breadth of knowledge and experience that a single person can acquire. Among all the sticky notes in this apartment, the ones describing unusual visual scenes are the most common, while those involving sounds are the fewest.”
“That’s because I barely know anything about music. My understanding of how to modify sounds is extremely limited.”
“Even now, I’ve only managed to create a handful of decent, beautiful sounds that couldn’t possibly exist in reality.”
After briefly explaining the various things contained within the apartment, Makoto began describing to Homura what he was currently working on and what he intended to accomplish in the future.
Because editing visual scenes was related to his own area of expertise, he could continue developing that aspect of his ability.
However, when it came to creating and modifying imaginary flavors, tactile sensations, and sounds, he was genuinely approaching the limits of his knowledge.
If he hadn’t encountered Homura Akemi and learned about the existence of magical girls, his next plan would probably have involved studying music, cooking, and other relevant subjects in greater depth.
Unfortunately, he wasn’t particularly interested in those fields.
As a result, his progress would likely have been extremely slow.
But now that Homura had introduced him to the existence of magical girls, things were different.
Perhaps there were certain things he no longer needed to accomplish entirely on his own.
Makoto Tsukimi: “Homura, among the magical girls you know, is there anyone with an ability that allows two people to share their senses?”
He turned toward Homura, who was sitting on the sofa.
Homura Akemi: “If I remember correctly, the condition we agreed upon was that I would serve as your bodyguard.”
In a world where supernatural powers existed, miracles that would be impossible in an ordinary world became possible.
However, those miracles also brought dangers that didn’t exist in normal society.
Makoto couldn’t guarantee that one day, some magical girl wouldn’t suddenly take a dislike to him and decide to eliminate him on the spot.
The cruelty of children was just as unpredictable as their kindness. Follow the newest chapters on g.com.
That was why, during his negotiations with Homura, Makoto had made personal protection his highest-priority condition.
After all, he would never consider someone who possessed the ability to stop time to be weak.
With Homura protecting him, his safety in the future would seem considerably more secure.
Makoto Tsukimi: “Didn’t we get a little closer during our conversation on the bus, Homura? Why do I get the feeling you’re acting even colder toward me now than when we first met?”
Homura Akemi: “I don’t recall ever acknowledging that we’ve become any closer.”
Maintaining her cold expression, the girl sat down directly on the sofa and began dealing with the work she had brought with her.
At this moment, Homura had once again transformed into her magical girl form.
And beside her, one modern firearm after another appeared as she withdrew them from the circular shield on her right arm.
The shield attached to Homura’s right arm after her transformation was essentially a storage space.
The firearms she retrieved from it were ordinary modern weapons, completely unrelated to magic.
Homura had acquired them by using her time-stopping ability to obtain weapons from local criminal organizations and military facilities.
Unlike other magical girls, who could fight using their own magical power or the weapons that naturally accompanied their transformations, Homura’s offensive capabilities relied almost entirely on these conventional firearms.
And unlike magical weapons, these firearms couldn’t be used indefinitely without maintenance.
Nor were they simple magical tools that could be operated effortlessly without preparation.
To ensure that her weapons would be ready for immediate use in battle, Homura had to take them out of her shield’s storage space before each fight, inspect and maintain them, and replenish their ammunition.
Click, clack~ Click, clack~
The mechanical sounds of firearms being prepared echoed continuously throughout the living room.
Meanwhile, Homura showed no sign of stopping as she continued retrieving more weapons from her shield.
One firearm after another emerged.
Makoto’s originally spacious and nearly empty living room was beginning to resemble an armory.
Still, he had to admit—
At least in Makoto’s eyes, Homura, surrounded by firearms on every side while maintaining her indifferent expression, genuinely possessed the aura of a queen of weapons.
Makoto Tsukimi: “Not bad. That’s a pretty good CG scene. I’ll be adding it to my collection.”
He nodded, satisfied that he had obtained another excellent piece of reference material.
Then he turned around and headed toward the kitchen.
The sky outside had already grown dark.
It was now approximately 7:00 p.m.
At this hour, Makoto naturally needed to begin preparing dinner for himself and Homura.
Meanwhile, as Makoto turned away, Homura raised her head and looked toward him.
Her violet eyes followed the boy’s retreating figure.
Her expression remained as cold and indifferent as ever.
Homura Akemi: “I never said I wouldn’t help you contact them.”
That was the answer she gave.
Makoto Tsukimi: “…?”
Makoto, who had just turned on the gas stove and begun preparing dinner for the two of them, turned his head and gave Homura a puzzled look.
A moment ago, she had been coldly rejecting him and trying to keep her distance.
Yet now she was saying she would help him make contact with someone.
Looking at the aloof girl sitting on the sofa, Makoto began analyzing her behavior.
Eventually, he arrived at a conclusion.
Makoto Tsukimi: “Homura, you’ve been wearing that cold expression ever since we got off the bus. Don’t tell me you’re embarrassed about what happened earlier, so you’re instinctively pretending to distance yourself from me?”
Using indifference to conceal embarrassment…
That certainly sounded like something Homura Akemi would do.