July 2025

  ***

  Sayaka watched the events that unfolded in front of her with some interest, though she was worried all the same. Next to her was Kuma, her old benefactor, who observed the strange spectacle. She took a sip of her coffee from time to time as blue and pink lights clashed in the air above them.

  “Don’t hurt her, Rei!” Kuma commanded calmly, just in time for Rei to punch the pink Magical Girl through a concrete wall of the abandoned hotel.

  They were on Hachijō island, quite a way out from Tokyo. With only 7500 residents and an abandoned hotel ruin, this appeared to be the perfect place to test a new Magical Girl’s full capabilities in a real combat situation.

  The pink Magical Girl wore the typical outfit of the Kuma Group: a frilly dress with a headset that gave the wearer cute little bear ears, as if they were an idol group. This one, once transformed, got a giant pair of scissors as her weapon, which she broke down the middle and used as dual blades at the moment.

  However, judging by everything Sayaka saw of her, she was no match for the girl with the iron fists. Rei shot her way and kept throwing punches, while the pink Magical Girl was barely keeping up. Whenever she deflected a punch to the side, she had to do the same to the next flying towards her face and got forced on the defensive, with no opening to counterattack.

  “You’re never going to be able to confront her like that!” Rei shouted as she kept punching.

  “As you said, she has a weapon that hurts you through the magical armor of a Magical Girl form! You can’t afford to be hit!”

  “Ugh, I KNOW!” the Magical Girl in pink responded, and summoned a burst of energy around herself which catapulted Rei back; the punching Magical Girl was visibly surprised, more so as the pink Magical Girl combined her blades again and came after her with a giant pair of scissors. The metal blades slid together noisily as Rei barely avoided being nicked by them, then the Pink Magical Girl spun around, letting the scissors open again with the spin’s momentum. She smacked Rei with the extending handle and catapulted her into the nearest wall, then she followed up, separating the blades to hit her with follow-up strikes, but then…

  A bright flash occurred and Ayame poofed out of her borrowed Magical Girl form. Her eyes widened and she covered her face with her arms in anticipation of a hard landing, before Sarina, the yellow Magical Girl of the Kuma Group, jumped in to catch her.

  Ayame took several deep breaths, looking around after she realized that she was safe. Then her face contorted in anger and tears streamed down her face.

  “Damn it all!”

  “See, this is why I told you not to try it,” Sayaka said with a sigh as the two were gently put on the ground in Tokyo and waved the two Magical Girls with their mascot goodbye.

  “You could probably become a Magical Girl the same way Seika did, but not the same way I did. There’s a reason there’s an age limit,” she continued, gently patting Ayame’s shoulder.

  Ayame shot her a questioning look; she didn’t feel like talking right now, and Sayaka appeared to notice, so she continued.

  “The Kuma Group’s powers are emotion-fueled. Only positive emotions, however. Which is why Kuma picks girls of relatively happy upbringings below a certain age. Once you enter university, or the work force, or you have trouble at home, your powers are being sapped, your power generation takes a big hit, all that. You start to worry about your job, about taxes, about rent, about politics, climate change, your parents growing older, and… well, it just doesn’t work out.”

  Ayame nodded and looked at the ground. “I was able to hold that form for half an hour…”

  “Probably because you still hold a lot of love for Miori and Seika.”

  “Lo-?” Ayame looked at Sayaka and wanted to protest, but the doctor wouldn’t have it.

  “Look, you three had a complicated start, I know, with Lethe’s meddling and everything. Without her, I bet you could have started a polyamorous relationship ten years ago. You love them, it’s clear whenever you talk about them, but something in your mind stops you from admitting it.”

  Ayame looked to the side and bit her lower lip, clutching her skirt.

  “I’d fuck things up if I brought in romantic feelings.”

  “No, you wouldn’t,” Sayaka said with a little sigh, grabbing Ayame’s hand and giving it a gentle squeeze. “Look. Ultimately, it’s your decision whether you want to keep things ‘casual’ like that, but I don’t think it’s good if you hide your feelings from yourself.”

  “Well, I’m simply a unicorn, what can I do…”

  “Did you sleep with anyone else since you started your relationship with them?” Sayaka asked casually and Ayame felt her chest tighten.

  “No, I couldn’t do that to… I mean… I…” she looked around, biting her lower lip. “…it wouldn’t be the same.”

  Sayaka looked at her for an uncomfortably long time, then she smiled.

  “Well, whatever your answer to this question is, I think it’s important that you find a way to support them without doing something reckless. Your safety is the greatest gift you could make them.”

  “I’ll think about it,” Ayame mumbled, looking at the gift the Kuma Group left her with, which she still held in her hand. The hand mirror featured a little jewel which also served as an indicator for its emotional energy charge level. The dull crystal evoked the sad feeling of a dimmed phone below five percent battery charge.

  ***

  Another day at MagiColle. After going over her newest script with her editor, Ayame left the building, almost bumping into Hifumi, who blinked and looked at her with a big smile before she hugged her.

  “Ah! Ah, Ayame! I’ve been meaning to visit you! How are you holding up?”

  “I’m… alright. Thank you, Hifumi,” Ayame said with a little smile, and the younger author gave her a skeptical look.

  “No. No you’re not. Come with me and let’s grab some treats, alright?” she said, immediately grabbing Ayame’s wrist and pulling her along. While she felt a twinge of annoyance at being found out like this, she couldn’t help but appreciate the younger author.

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  It took them only five minutes to find a nearby café, where Hifumi ordered two cups of hot chocolate and two slices of cake to get Ayame to treat herself to something sweet. Ayame poked her cake in front of her absentmindedly, ever so often shooting glances towards Hifumi, who simply enjoyed a bite and leaned a little closer, making eye contact.

  “What’s on your mind, hm? I’m your friend. You can tell me.”

  Eleven years of age gap and she looks so much more mature than me right now…

  Ayame put her little fork to the side and folded her hands together, intertwining her fingers. She squirmed a little in place, unsure what she was supposed to say, but then the words came to her, in the shape of a question.

  “How do you deal with it, Hifumi?”

  “Deal with what?” the girl asked innocently and Ayame sighed, continuing her question.

  “Being so… powerless while the person you care about is so strong. Knowing that if there’s any kind of trouble that she might genuinely struggle with, there’s nothing you can do?” Ayame blushed a little. Some of the words didn’t come out right, she felt. Calling Hifumi powerless directly to her face wasn’t how she laid out this question in her mind at all.

  Still, Hifumi appeared unbothered.

  “I simply do what I can,” she answered honestly.

  “And what’s that?”

  “I’ll be her shoulder to lean on. I’ll listen to her worries, I’ll kiss her bruises, I’ll embrace her until she feels content and full, and ready to take on the whole world. And I have many great friends I could ask for help, too.”

  Ayame looked at the plate in front of her and nodded.

  “Also, I’ve been thinking about spreading the word that some of our ‘villains’ aren’t all that bad, but that’s a very complicated matter…” Hifumi admitted with a little awkward smile.

  “I mean, now Seika and Miori’s rent is tied to people being scared of Nicola, too… so if I were to tell people she’s actually a good woman, what would happen to the women she owes so much to, hm?”

  Ayame nodded and stared at the ceiling. Spreading the word. It made her think back to a small idea she had, which she dismissed almost immediately after leaving Seika’s place to return to her world.

  ‘Do you think this belief thing only works with the people of this world?’

  “Say, how far do you think we as authors can spread the word? For example about Magical Girls who have been seriously saving our world but never got much recognition?” she suddenly asked Hifumi, who tilted her head.

  “Hmm… how many social media followers do you have for your author account?”

  “Twenty thousand.”

  “Then you will reach roughly one thousand if you seriously spread the word,” Hifumi said with a dead look in her eyes. It appeared like Ayame opened an old wound of sorts.

  “That sounds awfully low.”

  “Most followers on social media are dead air. They saw you make a funny post once, saw art you posted, or they follow you because they read your light novel and want to see when you or your publisher announce the next volume. Only a single-digit percentage of them is interested enough in you to engage with you seriously,” Hifumi said, and now her voice sounded dead and robotic, too.

  “…is this a difficult topic for you?” Ayame asked quietly, reaching out to touch Hifumi’s shoulder. The young woman shook her whole body, as if her bad thoughts could be shaken off like the water off a wet dog’s fur.

  “Bah! D-don’t worry about it. It’s just: social media algorithms make me depressed. The way people have to post things at the exact correct time to gain traction, while avoiding posting links to their works, and how posts with images get a massive boost, and how you have to pay for a premium account these days to even show up on people’s radar or be first in a person’s replies which breeds a new type of attention monster who buys the premium account and then comments on every viral post in order to leech followers…”

  Hifumi continued on for a while longer.

  “…and web novel platforms these days are overrun with stupid generative AI garbage covers that just show women with big stupid boobs, which, I know, is a self-fueling problem that sells itself a solution because people make stuff for free but readers are more likely to click on stuff with good covers which then makes people hesitant to click on less shiny looking covers that were done by amateur artists who still put their heart and soul out there and…”

  Hifumi kept on rambling for the entirety of their little café date.

  Ayame tapped on her desk at home, staring at her laptop’s screen. She had the website for her social media account open and inspected her timeline. She was mostly following artists and fellow authors on her ‘Shoko Kohaku’ account while she kept following fashion brands and designers for her far smaller account which she ran under her real name, for business purposes.

  “One thousand, hm?” she mumbled to herself, continuing the tapping on her desk for a while longer before she started to type a message.

  It was a simple question, with an attached Yes/No poll.

  ‘Dear readers,

  I’m grateful to all of you for reading my stories so far, but there’s one thing I’ve been thinking about. I’d like to do a livestream during which I’ll talk about what inspired my story. Would you be interested in watching?’

  She took a deep breath and leaned back. She set the timer on the poll to 24 hours, but she was already squirming internally with anticipation.

  She refreshed the page and saw the first results. First five votes, then twenty, overwhelmingly in favor of her suggestion. After half an hour more she was at two hundred votes, and an hour later, it was at one thousand.

  “Wait, isn’t this supposed to be my upper limit?” she asked quietly to no one, then she checked the interactions. Comments, telling her to go ahead with it, heart emojis and so on. Then she checked the quote replies and blinked in surprise.

  ‘@CSISTERS_SOL: There are many Magical Girls out there whose stories deserve to be heard! Please consider listening to Kohaku’s story!’

  Ayame raised an eyebrow, looking at Miyu’s post. She didn’t realize it before, but apparently, Miyu and Momo have been following Ayame’s author account, as well as Hifumi’s and Mana’s for some time now. Of course, those were buried under their follows of artists, authors, media personalities and so on, so it wasn’t that out of place for them to follow a few anonymous light novel authors.

  Some people are definitely going to put together speculation videos about how it’s likely that the Celestial Sisters are going to perform the opening or ending song for a secret anime adaptation, however. All based on who they recently followed.

  Seeing the overwhelming response even after such a short time, Ayame decided to prepare for the stream.

  First of all, I’d want to remain anonymous. What should I do about that?

  She looked around her room. There was a window behind her, which showed the outside. She heard about stalkers finding out where an idol lives by reflections in their eyes and other hints in their rooms, and the thought made a shudder go through her body.

  Maybe I’ll just put up a still image from the novel? I’d have to ask Watanabe first… and that would be very boring, wouldn’t it?

  She groaned and scrolled through her timeline as her thoughts kept racing, then she stumbled on something. An animated avatar, telling a story in a video clip an artist she followed reposted. A VTuber.

  Maybe I could…

  ***

  The next day, Ayame sat in front of her laptop; she added a proper microphone and a camera mount for her phone to her setup, and stared at a pink-haired anime girl avatar in a frilly dress, not dissimilar to a Magical Girl outfit, which mimicked her movements in the streaming software; the chat of the video platform she chose was already buzzing with activity, waiting for her to go live.

  Of course, this wasn’t a bespoke avatar which she commissioned. There simply wasn’t enough time, as commissioning one could take months. Instead, she opted to buy an ‘adoptable’ from an artist, already illustrated, rigged and ready to stream with. She also bought a little background illustration, which was a simple apartment, with a computer desk right at the front, clearly intended as the space to put the VTuber when they were streaming video games.

  She took a deep breath and closed her eyes, gathering her courage, then she went live.

  “Hello, everyone! I’m Shoko Kohaku, author of ‘My Friend, the Magical Girl’! Welcome, welcome! I’m so glad everyone could make it to today’s stream!”

  The chat was abuzz with heart emojis and greetings, and she took a deep, nervous breath, yet again.

  If you get stronger by having people believe in you, then I’m going to become your high priestess in this world. That’s the least I could do for the women I… love.

  Ayame opened a folder full of video clips; rare footage of Minerva Crimson and Bellona Azure, which Miyu and Momo saved, despite the corrupting influence of Lethe, while others deleted them off the internet or their devices. She dragged the first one into the streaming software, showing Minerva Crimson floating in the air, holding a young Miori after saving her.

  “Today I’d like to talk about the Magical Girl who inspired me to write my series: Minerva Crimson. The first Magical Girl. And I’d also like to talk about her partner, Bellona Azure.”