Time Warping Is Complicated

Mai gently examined the small, glowing red orb in her palm. Her eyes squinted and widened the more she looked. She wiped her eyes with her fingers, narrowed them again, and kept staring.
"Y-yup... this Nova is definitely untainted."
She smiled in my direction.

I stood there, waiting for an explanation on what a "Nova" was, but all that came to mind was why she was squinting while examining the orb.
"Mai-san... could it be that you need glasses?"

Mai's facial expressions turned embarrassed once again. Immediately, she tried her best to suppress her face from heating up.
"W-well... every time I transform I seem to lose my glasses. I must have lost or broken at least fifty pairs by now... Ugh, Papa is going to kill me."

"Papa? Like your father? Does he know you're out here fighting actual kaiju?"
My own eyes widened at her admission. Quite frankly, if I were a father, I would never allow such a clumsy daughter to eradicate beasts.

Mai shook her head, waving her small hands in front of her face in a frantic motion.
"Of course not!"
She said,
"Papa would never allow such a clumsy daughter to eradicate beasts!"

"Two things, Mai-san... First, you just got done telling me you weren't clumsy. Second, how the hell did you just read my mind?"
I crossed my arms, feeling like I was losing brain cells the longer I conversed.

"Two things!"
Mai mimicked my posture,
"First, I'm NOT clumsy! I just... make a lot of mistakes. Second, I didn't read your mind! Third, my name is Magical Mai, not Mai-san!"

"That was three things, not two! And who cares what your name is?! You're creeping me the hell out!"
I stepped closer, ready to deliver an intense lecture.
"You're telling me you've lost fifty pairs of glasses, which means you've fought at least fifty of these Mërks! How can that be?! I've never seen or heard of a Mërk before today, and I know for a fact that if you're causing this much destruction, it would be all over the media!"

Mai took a step back, darting her eyes nervously toward the chaotic ruins of the street.
"You haven't heard of them because of my ability... well, the ability that all magical girls have."

For once, Mai was making a valid point. Surely, there had to be some sort of ability to keep the identity of magical girls and Mërks under wraps. I stood still, waiting for an explanation.
"Go ahead then, enlighten me."

"There's no point in enlightening you; you'll just forget that this ever happened in about five seconds."
Mai adjusted the waistband of her skirt, then gently wove her wand around the glowing orb.
"But if you must know, it's some sort of... time warp thing... We use the powers of the Novas to reverse the damage and chaos of our battles, as well as reversing time to the moment before the Mërk appears, making it seem like nothing ever happened. I don't really understand it all that well myself."

I listened thoroughly to her explanation, trying to wrap my head around it as best I could.
Time warp? Reverse damage? What is this, a time travel series?! What a load of bullshit.
If what Mai was saying is true, it made perfect sense that no one would ever know of her clumsy yet heroic exploits. It didn't seem the least bit fair to me.
"That's... kind of sad. So, you're like a hero working in the shadows? Don't you ever crave praise for your work?"

Mai blushed once again, cutely clasping her hands behind her back. She fidgeted nervously.
"Of course I do... but this is just the way it is. Plus, it's kind of cool being a secret hero. Oh, other than all of the other magical girls, they remember too."
She gently tapped the Nova with her wand.
"This is where we say goodbye. Thanks for chatting with me; it was fun!"

Suddenly, the Nova began to glow brighter. I could see what could only be described as a portal opening from its core. The damaged city was rebuilding itself, and time was slowly reversing, just as she said.

I didn't want to leave. I didn't want to forget Mai. This was the exact kind of scoop that would get me famous in journalism. Not to mention, Mai was ridiculously cute. There's no way any man would be happy to forget such an adorable face! Without a moment's hesitation, I grabbed onto the Nova with my right hand. The sensation was unlike anything I've ever felt. It was warm, but not too hot. It felt as if I were a baby resting in my mother's womb. As the beams of light and stardust danced around my hand, I looked Mai directly in her eyes and said,
"I'm not going to forget you! I'll make you famous, Magical Mai! So please, don't forget me either!"

Her eyes seemed to widen for just a second. We held each other's gazes for quite some time. Before long, Mai whispered one final message.
"That would make me... incredibly happy. What's your name?"

The fractures of light began chipping away at my current self, reconstructing my body in another location from where I was standing. With my head still intact, I shouted,
"Nakahara Kazuo!"

* * *

I stood in the middle of a crowded train station, my phone chiming with a message from my best friend, Sakuta Ryo. The message was lengthy and overly detailed, with the final words being,
"I got a girlfriend. I think I'm going to get lucky."

Déjà Vu.
I rubbed my eyes, pinching the bridge of my nose for a few long seconds.
"What the hell was that?"
I muttered quietly, scanning my surroundings as I gripped two Comiket tickets in my hand.

I examined myself in a nearby mirror, feeling as if something were out of place. Still the same old angry eyes; still the same old messy hair... Still the same old... tattoo on my palm?
"Gah!"
I shrieked, falling flat on my ass as I studied the intricate pattern covering the center of my palm. It looked like a star with an eye in the center, or like a Decarabia from Shin Megami Tensei. I wiped and wiped as hard as I could against my jeans, but the design was still plastered on my palm.

Standing up, I could feel my legs begin to tremble. Something wasn't right, and it wasn't just because I had an unknown tattoo on my palm; something in the world had changed. I had a strange sense of spatial awareness, and some kind of phantom sensation pulsing through my mind. Something had happened... something that I had forgotten. Regardless of what it was, there was no way in hell I could just attend Comiket with this overwhelming anxiety coursing through my veins. I decided it would be best to head back to my apartment and find out more about what this strange symbol on my hand meant.

* * *

Arriving at my apartment, I made a mad dash to my laptop; toppling down my tower of empty beer cans in the process. With immense force, I flipped the screen open, took a picture of my hand, and began typing a message for one of my many otaku-themed forums. I knew that if I did, at least one of my readers might have some sort of explanation behind the symbol.

"To my readers, I hope this message finds you well. This is NOT the kind of post I typically write on this forum; however I would appreciate any insight..."

I typed and typed until I reached the word count limit, about the symbol on my palm, about the feeling as if the world had been changed in some drastic way, and even about how I remembered a cute girl battling some sort of creature in a daydream that I had. With a final tap of my mouse, I leaned back in my chair.

Reaching for a beer in the mini-fridge by my bedside, I cracked the can open and guzzled the frigid liquid with haste. While I do enjoy drinking more than the average person, I had never drunk to suppress anxiety like I was doing now. It was a bit scary.

I sat and watched my laptop screen for hours, praying that somebody would have an answer to my problems. The hours seemed to stretch, and it wasn't due to the fact that I had now been through nine beers. Time in general seemed like it had been going on forever. If I had to explain properly, it was like I had lived an extra hour while the rest of the world had rewinded and forgotten something.

Shortly after 10:00 PM, I was awoken to the sound of a ping coming from my laptop. My eyes slowly blinked to life, and I was face to face with a single notification in my message box. My head was pounding, and the light coming from my screen made me want to throw up.

When I opened the message, it was from a girl. Well, I think it was a girl. Her name was 'MaiMai32' and had a particularly attractive profile picture- a brown-haired girl with thick-framed glasses, and even a pair of adorable cat-shaped lips.

I opened her private message, only to be met with a blinding display of cuteness. Between almost every word was an emoji.

"Kazuo-kun! Did you forget?! Ah, well if you did then you probably won't know what I'm talking about. I had to really dig to find you online. You're hard to track down! Or maybe I'm just clumsy after all. Anyway, If you didn't forget about the magical girl stuff you should message back! If you did then I'm just kidding and this whole message is a joke!"

What. The. Hell...
Magical girl stuff? What is MaiMai32 even talking about? Surely this is some kind of prank message.
Even if this wasn't a prank, she attached a photo file that piqued my interest quite a bit. Hesitantly, I decided to download and open it.

The photo loaded, and immediately I was left speechless. Here, a gorgeous college student had just sent me a selfie with her hand displaying the exact same star pattern as my own! Not to mention, this girl had taken a selfie at such an angle to where I could see the mirror behind her, perfectly showing me the outline of her exposed backside. She had on a bra and panties, black lace with thigh-high socks. I felt a little bad, considering she had probably just meant to show me her face and hand, yet accidentally sent a full-body shot of her amazing curves! I couldn't tell if I was horny or happy. Regardless, this MaiMai girl knows something about the symbol on my palm. Even if she was clumsy enough to send me something so amazing, she still had some useful information.

I decided to message her back,
"Of course I remember. How about we meet tomorrow for coffee?"
Truth be told... I hadn't the slightest clue as to what she was talking about.