Chapter One

Author's Note: Before you begin, please be aware that this story deals with heavy themes. This chapter contains depictions of emotional abuse and panic attacks. Thank you for reading!

◆ Tsurugi

“Wake up!”

I open my eyes. SHE stands in front of me, her hands on her hips. I immediately jolt when I realize I’m not on my bed, but on the floor, my lips coated with bile.

“What are you doing, sleeping on the floor?” SHE asks, and there’s bite in her voice. “You make yourself look like a street kid. Now get up and get ready for school.”

I inhale sharply as I get up. “I’m sorry, Himeko-san,” I say, trying my best to look sorry.

“It’s -SAMA, for the record!” SHE screeches. “Refer to me as Himeko-sama!”

“I’m sorry, Himeko-sama,” I repeat, and SHE seems satisfied. “Good,” she says, smiling. “Now make yourself look presentable.”

I run to the wardrobe while trying—keyword being trying—to wipe my face with my arm. Frantically I search through the clothes until I find my school uniform. I’m tying the bow on my collar when SHE appears.

“Breakfast is ready,” is what leaves her lips, before she storms back down the stairs, probably in repulsion. In the bathroom, I wash my face thoroughly and comb my hair until I look “presentable”, in her words.

When I get to the table there is nothing there except empty plates.

“Oh, I remembered your school already serves food, so we ate all of it,” HE says, without lifting his eyes off the newspaper. “Goodbye. See you later.”

I grit my teeth and grab my bag from where it hangs carelessly behind the door. “Bye.”

Just to show them how I feel about this, I slam the door behind me with all my strength.

***

“Good morning, Tsurugi-chan!”

Right as I reach the bus stop, Megumi, blessed Megumi, arrives to stand next to me. Her brown bangs swirl around as she checks our surroundings in a daily ritual. “How are things going for you?”

Megumi, family name Satou, has been my best and only friend since we met in kindergarten. She, like around 15% of the world nowadays, was born without any trace of Chūkon in her, which earned her the bullying nickname of ‘Soulless’, the derogatory term for those who cannot use magic. Since I saved her from bullies when we were five, she has followed me around like a shadow and been my friend and advisor.

I inhale sharply. “Terrible. Like always, I was denied breakfast.”

“Why haven’t you reported this yet, Tsurugi-chan?” Megumi inquires, her eyes widening. “This is abuse, and you know it.”

“My parents told me to live with them, so I have to bear with it,” I tell her for the umpteenth time. “Just like I have to bear with our bus being late because of a magical girl fighting a banshee in Setagaya.”

Megumi smiles tiredly. “Well, I’m pretty sure that the school won’t put up much of a fight if it’s magical girl-related. After all, they’re the ones protecting us, right?”

I huff in annoyance. “Yeah. And that means that if I was late not because of a magical girl-related issue, but rather because someone died, I would be punished, then.”

Megumi gasps. “Tsurugi-chan!”

“What?” I sigh. “It’s the truth. Besides, it’s not like someone will kill me for disliking this system.”

She sags. “True,” she whispers. “Especially for those who are Soulless, this system is quite uneven.”

“Quite uneven? Girl, what a way to say it sucks,” I mumble irritatedly. “Come on, Megumi, you don’t have to be polite. No one’s listening.”

“I know, but…!” She finally sighs. “But it’s the magical girls that keep us safe, Tsurugi-chan,” she adds, after a moment. “We should be grateful for them.”

“Yeah, yeah, whatever,” I grunt. “I’m just mad that magic exists and is used like this. People should be normal. There shouldn’t be monsters going around.”

The bus finally arrives and we board. As Megumi rests her head on the window, I sigh and look around. I can hear people talking behind me—

“Hey, did you see that crane [tsuru] that flew past?”

Crane. Tsuru.

“Tsuru-chan!”

No. No no no no.

My body begins to shake. I can feel something rising from my abdomen, and it’s not bile. It’s power, something right about to snap—

“Tsurugi-chan?”

My eyes dash to Megumi. She’s completely calm, and her expression is anything but like my own.

“It’s OK,” she whispers. “I’m here. Everything’s going to be OK.”

My breaths are shuddering. “No no no no no…” I gasp. “No…”

“Try to take a deep breath,” she says. “One… two. One… two. One… two.”

Slowly, I take a deep breath after the other. My breathing slows down a bit.

“Name three things you can recognize from here.”

I look around. “Bus,” I say, glancing at my surroundings. “Window,” I continue, staring at the glass. Then I look at my friend again. “Megumi.” The only thing in this world that feels real.

She smiles. “Good. Are you feeling better, or do you need something?”

I nod. “Water would help. My throat is not very good.”

She hands me her water bottle and I drink thirstily. When I’ve downed half the bottle in four gulps, I hand it back to her.

“It’s happened again,” Megumi says. “This time, it was a word that triggered you.”

“Yes, I know,” I say. Lately it’s happening an awful lot of times. First it was at a fair where there were dead fish and the smell of their blood set me off. Then, someone’s scream at a roller coaster. And now, today, the word crane.

Everything is connected to him, to that day.

“But it will be OK, someday,” Megumi says, and I feel happy once more at having a friend like her.

***

Usually, when someone is late for school due to a magical girl-related incident, nobody says a word. But, today, Kaburagi-sensei is probably feeling peckish, as she sighs in annoyance loud enough for the entire class to hear when I, Megumi, and the other five students of Seiran Academy’s Class 9-D who caught the same bus we did enter the classroom.

“You’re late again, Hoshidake-san,” she says, addressing me in place of the seven of us. “I understand that there was a banshee issue in the other side of Setagaya, but I cannot deny that this is becoming repetitive.”

“Yeah, I know, Sensei,” I reply, brushing a stray hair out of my face. “I already know I’m famous as a delinquent.”

Everyone laughs. Kaburagi-sensei sighs loudly again and then goes to the whiteboard.

“Alright,” she says, “please take your seats. Today the Steering Board has an important announcement to make.”

Everyone’s breath hitches, and I notice the tension rising in the room as I make my way to my desk. Our school board, known formally as the Seiran Academy Steering Board, is basically the equivalent of what you get when you give the job of being a school headmaster to the Roman Senate. They’re a group of fifteen highly intelligent people who, among other things, define the rules, schedules, and all important stuff in the school through extremely philosophical-intellectual discussions and long voting sessions where the majority has the final say. Usually, the board would hold an election every four or five years, but in the last few years it’s been basically the same people since the elections were put on hold after the Shunka Incident where an upstanding magical girl, Haruka Kobe aka Shunka, died fighting a cockatrice in an attempt to convince her fellow students she was good enough to aim for a position in the Board despite being sixteen years old. After that day, under threat of being blacklisted by parents and the government for illegal treatment of magical girls and using the excuse of protecting the students’ interests, the elections were banned and the same fifteen members have been there. That was fifteen years ago already, before anyone in this class was born, but still everything remains like this.

“The Board has announced that there will be a change in the rules of the school,” Kaburagi-sensei begins, unbothered by the tension in the classroom. “As you know, the student grade average up to the 12th year has been suffering major blows over the last few years. It currently sits at 50 out of 100, something deplorable for our reputation as a cradle of stars,” she continues.

Of course. It had to be about the grades. Always the grades.

“Therefore, in a decision that was approved not only by the Board members, but the teachers as well,” our teacher says, “from today on the Act of Educational Advancement and Nurturing Enhancement will take effect on Seiran Academy.”

I gulp. I don’t even know what this is, but it cannot be good.

“Sensei, what is the Act of Educational Advancement and Nurturing Enhancement?” Megumi, in her seat, shakily asks Kaburagi-sensei. I can tell that she’s just as nervous as everyone else.

“The Act of Educational Advancement and Nurturing Enhancement, or simply the EANE Act, is a set of rules created by the Steering Board whose goal is to create a higher educational system. In this system, those who are capable will be given their deserved recognition, and those who aren’t will not restrain them. In doing so, we are respecting the Darwin’s Law of Evolution, where the strong carry on and the weak perish.”

Essentially, they’re turning this place into a meritocracy, that’s what she’s saying.

“Do not view this as an extreme measure. It is simply a means to an end. If we wish to achieve a higher average, we build a system in which those who can carry us forward will not be stunted by their less capable companions.”

Forget ridiculous, this is basically pitting everybody against everybody in a competition for the highest grade. I don’t care if they say it’s not an extreme measure, it IS one. The fact Kaburagi-sensei can say all this normally means that either she’s reading from a script, or she’s with them in this. Probably the second if you take into consideration her statement that the teachers approved this, but that might just be scripted too.

“Really?” I say, voluntarily drawing all eyes to me. “Is this what the board has resorted to? An academic battle royale? To be honest, this whole thing seems pasted from somewhere. Where did you get the idea, was it Yōjitsu or some other anime?”

Dead silence follows. Finally Kaburagi-sensei speaks up again:

“Hoshidake-san, this is for the good of the students, including you,” she says. “Otherwise, we would not be sure of your… safety.”

“Our safety? From what? The banshees? The cockatrices? The chimaeras? Or ourselves?” I stand up, swiping a lock of my hair to brush it off my face, and point an arm at her. “I am fully aware of the scientifically proven fact that unstable Chūkon can be tamed by straining the brain. I am also fully aware that my own Chūkon is unstable. Basically, the Board is trying to disarm a ticking time bomb using another, which is not going to work. Why? Because there are other students with stable or inexistent Chūkon who will be mad at this meritocracy that they’re stating in Seiran Academy. And not only the students, but the parents, too, will complain. The reputation of this academy will go downhill and never return to even a fraction of what it used to be if you keep going. You understand that, don’t you, Kaburagi-sensei?” My voice has risen to a scream now. “So why are you on board with this?”

My body is shaking. I can feel the flow, the power surging from within me, and I know that something is going to happen if nobody stops me—

The sound of a hand spanking wood makes me jump out of my skin. My arm, pointed at Kaburagi-sensei, emits a purplish black light and a beam jumps out, flying through the air and making a hole on the wooden board mere inches from her head.

I can hear everyone gasping audibly, and Megumi covers her mouth with her hands. Our teacher slowly walks towards me, her hands on her hips, trying to look calm but her eyes are as unforgiving as a snake’s.

“Hoshidake Tsurugi,” she says, slowly but unable to contain anger. “This is enough. Out, now.”

“Sensei—” Megumi begins, but Kaburagi-sensei slaps the cypress wood table with enough force to shut her up.

“I said OUT!” She shrieks. Without a word, I nod, walk to the door, and close it behind me.

But I do not close it without a sound. I slam it. To show that I will not bow out willingly and soundlessly. To show that I will go with a bang.