What Do You Mean I'm a Magical Girl?!

The next thing I knew, I was inside a large purple bubble with the talking puppy, floating over the city of Kōchi.

“Did you do this, or…” I asked the puppy.

“I believe you were the one who made the bubble,” the puppy told me.

“Don't make me laugh,” I told the puppy. “This is very obviously magic, and I can't do magic.”

“Or can you?”

“So you're saying I can control this thing?” I asked. “Can the bubble let me out?”

“I'd suggest waiting until we get closer to the ground before even thinking about popping the bubble,” the puppy told me. “But yes, it's all magic.”

“Don't be silly, magic is -” Before I could finish, the bubble seemed to throw itself onto the streets below. I screamed as the bubble flew down; the puppy seemed to think it was the best thing ever. When the bubble hit the pavement, it popped, throwing us onto a sidewalk.

“Aha! I knew it ~woof! You're a magical girl!”

“A what?!”

“Or, at least you will be once you transform and fight the monster you just sent us to!”

“Transform?! Monster?!” I couldn't believe what I was hearing. What did the puppy mean I was a magical girl?! …! I didn't even have time to react to all this information, as right there in the middle of downtown was a giant rose monster. That must have been where that tendril came from! But how could I fight that?! As it was terrorizing the city, I froze in place, not sure of what to do.

“I don't have time to explain everything! There isn't enough room in this chapter anyways,” the puppy shouted at me. “Just say Flower Power! Rise Up, pretty pretty please!”

“Right now?!”

“Obviously! Or else the whole city could be destroyed!”

With a sigh and not much of a choice in the matter, I had to do what the talking puppy told me.

“Flower Power! Rise Up! Pretty pretty please!”

“Let's go, ~woof!”

The puppy ran in a perfect circle around me. At first, I wasn't sure what it was doing, but it looked like it was trying to draw a sigil on the ground. Suddenly, an outline of an iris appeared beneath me.

“What's going on?!”

“It's the spell I have to cast on you in order to give you power,” the puppy explained. “Now shut up and hold still ~woof!”

The sigil began to rise into the air and cut right through me. At first, I saw my shoes get replaced with old-fashioned sandals. A long, black hakama began to appear out of thin air. This magic was giving me an entirely new outfit in real time! Completing the ensemble was a short-sleeved white kimono with a purple iris pattern and a puppy face printed on it. I wasn't sure what, but something told me to hold my hands close to me. A bow sprouted inside my hands. Shocked, I let go of the bow, and it sprouted two long ribbons as I did. A second bow popped up on my head.

“Aaaaaaaaaaaa! This worked even better than I had hoped,” the puppy shouted.

Whatever that puppy did, I was now much stronger than normal, and I didn't look half bad in this outfit it gave me. A staff appeared out of nowhere, leaving me only a few seconds to catch it before it hit the ground.

“So… what exactly can I do?” I asked the puppy.

“Try to think of a dance and speak the first words that come to mind ~woof.”

I did as the puppy suggested. I had studied a little bit of dance when I was in elementary school, so I tried to remember what I had learned. I did a few twirls, a couple of skips, and nearly tripped over my new sandals in the process.

“Flower Shower!” Wait! That wasn't what I said! I was trying to do something like a hyper beam or a giant laser or something like I've read in manga!

I aimed my staff at the monster, and true to the words that came out of my mouth, a torrent of iris petals magically shot out of the staff. I didn't expect the flower petals to deal any damage to the monster, but it did. The monster roared in pain as the petals cut into its tendrils.

“This isn't like anything I've ever seen before,” I said.

“Now try to summon a Brave Charm ~woof!” The puppy was now literally barking orders at me while trying (and failing) to demonstrate the dance I was apparently supposed to do.

I tried to mimic the puppy's movements, saying “Brave Charm!” at the end of the sequence. I had somehow conjured up a squirt gun… “What am I supposed to do with this? It's just a little squirt gun!”

“How should I know? ~woof You're the one who made it happen!”

I aimed the squirt gun at the rose monster. It sprayed out… something, I'm not sure what, at the monster, that caused it to roar even more in pain. Wait… am I poisoning this monster?! Whatever it was I did, it caused the monster to fall over, nearly on top of a group of people.

While it was down, I instinctively looked for my camera. Despite the transformation, it seemed as if I was still carrying everything from before: my wallet, my camera, my press badge, just hidden inside the kimono. As soon as I found the camera, I began snapping pictures. Lots of pictures. These angles were too good to pass up! I was up close and personal with a giant monster! How's that for tomorrow's headlines?

“Now, Ayame, do your Spinning Flower Kick!”

“What?! Is that supposed to be my big finishing move?”

“Yes! Show them your best moves!”

I supposed it wouldn't hurt to try… I had to dig deep into my memories for this one. Very unpleasant memories, those were.

Ugh… ballet…

I did my best impression of Twyla Tharp, which was to say, it went very badly. The puppy must have been quietly guiding my movements because I kept feeling something nudge me this way or that way, keeping me from falling over and making a complete fool of myself. I couldn't even remember the names of the moves I was trying to imitate! But somehow, I managed to stick the final landing, which launched me high into the air. I leaped so high and so fast, I didn't even have time to worry about whether anyone could see me.

“Help!” I cried out. “I'm afraid of heights!”

“Don't worry about that!” The puppy had flown up to me! “Focus on finishing off that monster!”

“You didn't tell me I could fly!” I told the puppy.

“You didn't tell me you couldn't fly,” the puppy told me.

With a slightly irritated sigh, I aimed my feet at the monster and closed my eyes. I tried very hard not to think about it, but I could feel myself falling and spinning at the same time. 

Direct hit!

The monster fell backwards into a high-rise, tipping it, but not enough to make it fall over. In a shower of dark energy, the monster had become human.

We won.

The puppy immediately ran over to inspect the person. Judging from the whimpering sounds it was making and how frantically it ran, something was clearly wrong.

“Oh dear…” the puppy said. “It's even worse than I imagined.”

“What are you talking about?” I asked. “You need to explain yourself right now.”

“Someone cast a spell on this poor soul,” the puppy explained. It paused for a moment, then suddenly became very afraid. “I gotta go.”

The puppy then flew off to who knows where, leaving me all alone with these weird powers and this weird outfit. I had no idea where I was or what to do from here.

•

It took me a while to figure it out, but I eventually returned to the address Sakamoto and I went to earlier in the day. He stood on the sidewalk waiting for me. He saw me still wearing the magical outfit.

“What's with the new outfit?” Sakamoto asked me. “Where have you been?”

“Oh, this? This is my photographer's disguise,” I lied so badly nobody should have believed that. “Keeps me hidden away while I take pictures discreetly.”

But he did believe it.

He simply shrugged his shoulders and said “Okay. I assume that means you have pictures.”

“Oh, do I have pictures, alright.” I showed him all the pictures I took of the monster. As he flipped through the pictures, he was clearly impressed with my work.

“These pictures are amazing!” Sakamoto told me. “It's getting late, though. We gotta head back to Susaki. We can talk more about this in the morning.”