Greed Makes You A Monster, Doesn't It?!

I woke up on the warm asphalt with a sharp pain in my gut. I didn't know how long I was out, but it didn't seem like it was too long…

“Ayame, hold still, why don't you ~woof?” Aichi said to me. I wasn't yet fully aware of what was happening, but I could feel his little paws tapping on me like he was playing the bongos. “This arrow wound isn't going to heal itself, you know!”

Arrow wound…? Ah, yes, I remembered. Those two sorcerers, Blaze and Aurora, shot a magical arrow right through me.

“Where are those two hooligans?” I asked Aichi, trying to sit up through the pain.

“Not important right now,” he answered immediately. “We have much bigger problems to deal with right now ~woof.”

“Rawr!!! I am hungy for money! I want to eat all the money!” Ah, yes… Mr. Hedoro had been turned into a giant monster. I caught him stomping through Susaki just off to my left. Normally, these curses, at least as far as I knew, changed one's appearance as well as their size, usually to make them into something cute, but deadly. I supposed Mr. Hedoro was just too ugly, inside and outside, for the spell to turn him into a giant bunny or whatever.

Did I really have to save him from this curse…?

Mr. Hedoro marched his giant monster self over to the nearest bank. There, he lifted the entire building off its foundation and tried to suck up all the money inside. Thankfully, banks these days were smart enough to put all their cash in carefully guarded safes. However, that didn't stop Mr. Hedoro from trying.

“Clome out, clome out wherever you are,” Mr. Hedoro told the money. “I know you're in there!” At about twenty meters tall, Mr. Hedoro was way too big to just walk inside and steal all the money. But he had a plan. He set the bank back down on its foundation and pried open the roof with his bare hands. He then picked the safe up, and swallowed the entire thing in one piece.

“Alright, Ayame, it's as good as I can get it,” Aichi told me. “There's still going to be that big scar, but you're back in fighting condition ~woof.”

“A scar?!” I was shocked to find out. “How am I going to explain that to my mom?!” I sat up to look at where the scar was. My kimono was still torn from the impact of the arrow, but through the tear I could see a dark patch where my belly button used to be. “There's gotta be a way you can magic my belly button back, Aichi.”

“I'm a magical puppy, ~woof, not a doctor, Ayame,” Aichi rebuked me.

“Alright, let's make this fast,” I told Aichi. “We still got some evil sorcerers to catch.”

I flew up to Mr. Hedoro's face, trying to set him straight.

“Ooo, what'sh this?” Mr. Hedoro asked. “You look like one of those expensive magical girl dolls.”

“Sir, I need you to stop this giant monster nonsense, please?” I tried to ask Mr. Hedoro.

“What kind of magical girl are you anyways?” Mr. Hedoro then asked. “I haven't spoken to my daughter since 2007, so I don't know what kinds of magical girls are popular with kids these days.”

And then… It hit me. Week-old sushi rolls. Next thing I knew, I was out of it again. I could hear Aichi scream my name, but I nearly fainted from the stench of Mr. Hedoro's bad breath, which had somehow become ten times worse with him being ten times taller.

When I came to once again, I found myself flying through the streets of Susaki. Except… I could tell something was carrying me.

“Aichi?”

“Oh, good, you're awake, ~woof,” Aichi told me. “I've been flying you around so I can force clean air into your lungs ~woof. I think that's what those things are called…”

“Aichi, can you put me back on the ground?” I asked. “I got an idea.”

“Will do.”

As soon as I was back on solid ground, I performed my “Brave Charm!” dance, summoning… a giant one-trillion yen bill…

Okay, so I might have temporarily crashed the entire Japanese economy with that move… Oh well. The thing I summoned with Brave Charm would always just magic itself away once the mission was over, as if nothing happened.

Using my magical strength, I was able to carry the giant bill over to where Mr. Hedoro was. He found another bank to try to rob.

“Hey!” I shouted at him. “I heard you like to eat money, so try this main course!” I teased him with that giant bill, waving it around back and forth in an attempt to catch his attention.

And it worked. Ugh… Why do men always do that weird hearts-in-eyes thing whenever they see something that they like? I've never seen a girl do this. It was always always the guys.

Mr. Hedoro stomped his way towards the giant bill. “So yummy-yummy! I'm sooooo hungy!”

Unfortunately for him, he had tripped over some power lines. Somehow, he had not snapped the power lines, which was a bit of a miracle for me. He fell over, nearly on top of me, but the giant yen bill broke his fall. His fall had ripped the bill in half. 

Doing so caused him to start crying a torrent of tears. “Aww! Why'd that witch shwindle me like that?!” His tears must have done something to reverse the curse, because shortly after he started crying, he began to shrink back down to his normal size. In a shower of dark energy, all the damage he had caused had suddenly reversed.

Aichi managed to catch one of the orbs of dark energy and swallow it whole. “Ooo, that's so good…”

“Noooooo!” Aurora cried out. It turned out she and her partner Blaze were there the entire time watching the monster fight. “That scoundrel done did defeated our pretty monster!”

“Fuhgeddaboudit, Aurora,” Blaze told her. “Let's just defeat this maroon ourselves!” Blaze then began to dance a similar freestyle dance to Meteron. “Blizzaaaard Blustaaaaah!!”

So they DID know at least some of the same spells! Unfortunately for them, I had a few tricks up my own sleeve as well. During the last few days, I had caught some glimpses of Aichi's spellbook while the puppy wasn't looking. One of Aichi's favorite spells to use was Pulse Field, so I decided that would be the first new spell I would learn. The dance for the Pulse Field spell was a simple cartwheel, and with that, I had flawlessly defended myself from their ice attacks.

They continued to attack me with both fire and with ice. However, I learned that I could hold the Pulse Field spell for longer than usual by performing front and back walkovers, done by performing a ground flip via a handstand. I knew I needed to get closer to them, but I couldn't do it on my own.

“Aichi! I need a hand, here!”

“Got it, ~woof! Hide Away, Hide Away!”

I then suddenly appeared right behind Aurora, which frightened her tremendously. With her guard down, I managed to grab a hold of her, entering into a brief tango with her. Unlike in my fight with Meteron, this tango was merely an excuse for me to knock Aurora into her partner, Blaze. With a couple of spins in the air to build up momentum, I let go of Aurora, sending her flying into her partner. The collision between the two of them forced Blaze off his broom, sending both of them falling to the ground below.

“Let's scram!” Blaze told Aurora.

“I couldn't agree more, pardner!” Aurora answered quickly. Without saying another word, both of them had vanished, leaving no trace whatsoever.

“Dang it, they got away…”

Aichi, however, instead of being bummed like me, was joyful and ecstatic in having seen that fight and my growth as a magic user.

“Ayame, ~woof! That was amazing!” Aichi cheered. “Now I know how you've been getting better at fighting! You've been sneaking peeps into the spellbook, haven't you ~woof?”

Before I could answer, we were joined by another girl and her Hollow, Sayori and Fumiko. Sayori had already transformed into her magical sukeban persona and was ready to join in on the fight. She had clearly been out of breath from all the flying she did to get here.

“I made it…” Sayori struggled to speak through her faulty breathing.

“Oh, sorry, Sayori,” I admitted. “The fight's already over.”

“The fight's already over?!” Sayori said in a state of shock. She then turned to her snake Hollow. “Dang it, Fumiko. I knew we shouldn't have tried flying all the way here from Hokkaido.”