June 1

A young man was walking home after a day of school in Kamatori, a neighborhood of the city of Chiba in Japan. He had taken a corner and was walking past an alleyway when something piqued his curiosity, causing him to stop and turn his head. Down the alleyway, which was between two apartment buildings with stores on the first floor, was an animal of some kind that appeared to be sitting on its hind legs. In addition, the alleyway was unusually dark, much darker than it should have been in the later afternoon and early evening. He could have just kept walking, but he chose to stop.

He knew that he probably should not have gone down the alleyway to get a closer look at the unknown animal, but again, his curiosity got the best of him, and he began to slowly inch towards the animal, trying his best not to startle it. He whispered to himself, “What the Hell… What is that thing?”

The creature then slowly inched towards the young man, causing him to step back a bit. It growled at him as it got closer, causing a chill to run down the young man’s back in fear. Sweat poured down his face as the heat of the warm day coupled with the intense state the animal gave him filled him with dread.

Then, he noticed something behind the animal that only increased the fear factor: The body of another animal that had clearly been torn to shreds by whatever creature was in front of him now. It was at this moment that the young man also noticed the creature’s teeth were stained with blood, all but confirming it had killed the other animal, which appeared to be a weasel. The creature had most likely picked up the poor weasel and ripped it apart with its teeth due to its size, which was short but still uncomfortably close to the young man’s height.

“Shit,” whispered the young man. “It ripped up that weasel like it was nothing.” He was sure that he was about to become the creature’s next target, and sure enough, it lunged at him, causing him to cower.

Just as he thought he was about to get killed, however, a loud clanging sound was heard from behind him, and as he looked up, he found that a sickle had become lodged in the creature’s face, causing it to scream in pain. A girl then yelled at the young man, “Back away! I got it from here!”

The young man did as told and got up, running away from the creature and past a girl who wore a black and white sleeveless jacket coupled with a black skirt. The girl then yanked on a chain, ripping the sickle out from the monster before it flung back at her. As she caught the weapon, known as a kusarigama, in her right hand, he asked the girl, “Who are you?!”

“Save that for later,” she replied. “I got a magical beast to kill!” She then tossed both of her sickles at the beast as it charged at her, both of them striking its chest and stopping it dead in its tracks. The beast screamed in pain before it grabbed both of the chains and yanked on them to try to trap the girl’s hands, but she simply let go of both chains and curled her right hand into a fist. As she did, her right fist began to glow a bright red, which mesmerized the young man.

The young man yelled as the girl charged at the beast and the beast charged at her, “Are you crazy?! A single punch won’t hurt it!”

“Watch this!” The girl then jumped up into the air and landed a strong punch on the magical beast’s forehead. To the young man’s shock, the punch seemingly went straight through the beast, obliterating its head in a small fireball as the girl landed back on her feet and looked up. “Got ya…”

The beast, now with a headless and burned stump for a neck, slumped over and fell to the ground, dead from the final injury the girl had inflicted on it. As it did, a second girl then ran over, clearly tired out as she caught her breath and stopped. “Aw man,” the other girl, who wore a green suit with a white skirt, said as she saw the battle had ended. “Masae-chan, really? You already killed it?”

“Gotta be faster than that, Anju-chan,” replied the girl. “Besides, if I hadn’t gotten here so soon, this guy over here would have been killed.”

“Uh… Hey…” The young man awkwardly waved. “So, um… What the Hell was all that?”

Masae, the girl who had saved the young man, looked at Anju and then turned back to the young man. “Wait a minute, I think I recognize you. Are you Fukuda Hikaru?”

“Yeah,” Hikaru replied to Masae. “I think I recognize you, too. Are you Naru Masae?”

“I am.” She then pulled both of her kusarigama out of the body of the magical beast. “Anju-chan, I’ll let you write the report and take the aftermath photos. That way, you’ll get the payout too. We’ll get extra since we saved somebody.”

“Sounds good to me,” Anju replied as she pulled out her phone and began to take pictures of the aftermath of the battle.

Hikaru then asked Masae, “Who’s your friend?”

“Kobayashi Anju,” she replied. “We’ve been magical huntresses together for about three years now.”

Further confused, Hikaru asked, “Magical… What now?”

“…It’s a long story, but basically, imagine magical girls, but if they were real and they hunted down monsters like the one I just killed here.” She then looked down at her bloodied kusarigama and remarked, “Although we’d be a little too violent for TV, or at least daytime TV. We’re getting down and dirty fighting these beasts, and as you can see, it can get messy.”

“I see that. So, do you, like… Have a mascot or something? Some weird animal thing that recruited you?”

Masae laughed. “No, no, no. We don’t have any of that. It’s a lot more complicated than that. Tell you what, we’ll explain more to you after we’re done here if you’re interested.”

Hikaru was very curious about what the girls did, but also knew that he had to go home at some point. “Well… I gotta run home. I’m already running late as it is thanks to this whole monster attack thing. Wanna meet up at school and talk about it there?”

“Works for me,” Masae replied. “I’ll see you tomorrow then.”

Anju then finished taking pictures just as the body of the magical beast began to fade away into dust. She walked up to Masae and said, “I’m all good with pictures. I’ll type up the report and get it in.”

“Excellent. I can’t wait to see what the payout will be this time.”