Question?

Sanami opened her eyes to a bright light from the LED lamp above. The ceiling was unfamiliar to her. And the same for where she was lying. But she knew she was covered under a futon, on the floor. The walls were filled with posters of flashy cute anime girls, and the same goes for the table just at the corner of her vision, where there's a line of posy figurines shone before the morning window.

She felt the clothes she’s wearing had changed. It wasn't the white dress with ribbon and pink frills she last recalled wearing. Instead, it's just the plain black thrift store t-shirt. The one she wore before her transformation.

“Uoghhh!!! Nami!!!” A disgustingly excited voice rang next to her. She turned her head, where a guy was sitting at his desk, facing his monitor. His face seemingly about to kiss the screen.

“Um…” Sanami muttered. Trying to grab the blue-haired guy’s attention. He flinched on his seat, and slowly turned his head towards her, while carrying a twitching smile on his face.

“Y-Yo…” His brows tensed as he waved a hand at her. “H-How are you…?” He asked, as if forgetting how he had interrupted her the night before by somehow entering the barrier.

The reason for this mess.

Perhaps a lecture was needed. But the moment her eyes landed towards his chest, she saw the bandages hiding under his shirt, reminding her of the slamming he had sustained the night before. It prompted her to cool down, He did help me out…

But did he carry me here…? It somewhat amazed Sanami that the guy was able to carry her here despite his own injury.

“T-Thanks…” she lowered her head, and voiced apologetically, “Also… Sorry, for getting you injured… I should've handled it better…”

Although the guy had somewhat involved himself into that situation, in the first place, it was her own incompetence that led to this result in the end. If she had been stronger, and smarter, then the fight wouldn't have been extended. And he wouldn't be involved in her own failure.

She then lifted her head, expecting a scowl from the guy. It’s to be expected.

At least, it was to be expected. But instead she was met with a pair of sparkling eyes, as if he was eager to say something to her.

He leaned forward, both hands on his knees, “U-UM!!” He shouted with a respectful tone.

“Y-Yeah…?” It startled Sanami a little, instinctively pulling the futon’s blanket as a shield.

“A-Are you a magical girl! B-By any chance!” His voice trembled.

= = = = =

The question was something Toshiya came up with on the spot after seeing how gloomy her face was. Perhaps she felt responsible for involving him in yesterday's night encounter–even getting him an injury. But for him, it wasn't really that big of a deal. I even get to see magic too!

But the question wasn't really a random one, as he himself harbored curiosity towards the existence of magical girls themselves. A mountain of questions scrambled inside his head; Are they really called magical girls? Do they have transformation scenes? A familiar? And what do they eat? And it was all under the assumption that the girl before him was actually a magical girl.

Of course, the girl was making quite a dismissive face by his sudden geeking. “Y-Yeah… I guess you could say that.” She answered reluctantly.

“T-Then! Do you have a magic wand?” He asked.

“M-Magic wand…?” She paused for a moment, giving him a side-eye, "...You're quite weird you know.”

Toshiya’s face dropped after hearing that. Perhaps he brought more discomfort to the girl than what he intended.

But the girl gave him a smile–albeit a pity one, “Usually people would be more freaked out by this you know. Is your head fine?”

“W-Well, I just like magical girls, that's all, haha…” He scratched the back of his head.

“A bit too much, no.”

“Haha… It is what it is.”

The girl slipped a sigh, and decided to answer his question anyway, “Magic wand huh… I don't think we have that.”

“W-We?! So there's more of you?!”

“Can you not say it like I got a clone or something?”

In the end, despite the awkwardness at first, the two spend the early morning with Toshiya being the one bombarding the girl with questions, and the girl retorting the reality of the answer to him.

“Ah!” Toshiya muttered in the middle of their conversation. Time had passed and he now sat on the floor, leaning his back against the wall. “S-Sorry, I forgot to tell you my name, it's Yamaji Toshiya. Just call me Yamaji. Pleased to meet you.”

“Yamaji-san, then? Mine’s Kageyama Sanami. Pleased to meet you too.”

“Kageyama-san, then.” He repeated, but a thought appeared in his mind regarding her given name, Sanami? Not only did she look like Nami, she even got part of her name?

“U-Um…” Toshiya raised a hand, wanting to ask another question.

“Yeah?”

“.......Actually, never mind.” He was about to ask her if she knew of his favourite series of “✦Magical Girls, Nami!✦”, even wanting her to know how similar she looked to her. But in the end, he decided it would be too weird to ask such a thing.

Suddenly, a tiny orb of pink light appeared next to the girl, it expanded to the size of a baseball before it popped into glitters, revealing an entity that seemed like a bunched up gear of silvers and bronze. It hovered itself like a bird onto the girl's right shoulder, moving as it resonated in metallic-like humming.

Toshiya was startled for a bit, then quickly realized that it might've been one of the magical girls thingies. Perhaps even a familiar of hers.

“Oh, Zahnrad.” The girl gave a familiar greeting to the entity perched floatily on her shoulder.

“It's assuring to see you well, Sanami-sama.” said the mesh of gears. His voice was that of a gentleman, yet monotonic, like a robot or some sort of AI. “I apologize for my lack of assistance,” his tone turned apologic.

“No, Zahnrad,” Sanami shook her head, “It's me who needed to get a grip.”

“Sanami-sama…” said the gear butler, as if understanding its own master.

I guess magical girls also have their complications too, huh… For Toshiya, he had always watched magical girls fights–despite being in the form of anime and whatnot–but he himself understood how those fights didn't always come with certain victories. They also have their times when something didn't go well. How beautiful! He thought, holding a tear of admiration.

The gear then rotated itself, now facing Toshiya–despite having no eyes of some sort, “And, Yamaji-sama…” he called.

“Y-Yeah?” Toshiya straightened his back.

“I also apologize for the injury you had sustained.”

“It's fine, really.” Toshiya waved his hand casually, “see, I got to meet magical girls, so everything's perfect.” He then gave a thumbs up.

“Your understanding is truly appreciated, Yamaji-sama.”

Despite getting himself slapped by the stupid tentacles from before, Toshiya didn't really feel anything wrong with his body. It did occur to him to go to a hospital when he coughed up blood that night, but after carrying the girl back home, all the fatigue and bruises he had on his body had somehow diminished. He assumed it was because of the girl's magical ability, thinking that she had a healing ability that had somehow affected him too. I mean, she was bathing in blood at that time too, and now she's fine? Magic sure is useful.

“By the way,” Sanami added, “did something happen? Why the sudden popping?” She asked her gear butler.

“Sanami-sama, had you perhaps forgotten?”

“Hm…?” Sanami tilted her head, and eyed her upper corner. She paused–recalling. “Ah! Crap!” Her eyes widened. She shoved the blanket that covered her just now to the side, and hurriedly got up from the futon.

“Were you busy?” Toshiya asked, afraid he had taken quite a lot of her time. He opened up his phone to see it had been 11:23 a.m.

“I was supposed to meet a friend,” she went to the desk where Toshiya had been gaming. The screen was displaying a scene from a certain moe-game he's playing, which he forgot to turn off when Sanami called out to him just then. But the girl just ignored the monitor and quickly grabbed a pen and paper from the desk, and wrote out something.

“Hm? What're you doing?” Toshiya got up from the floor, peeking closer to what she was writing. But the moment he did so, she had already finished, and handed the piece of paper to him.

“Here. It's my number.” She said.

“W-What?! Why?” It was surprising to him, for a girl to suddenly give him her number. It was something he'd thought would be impossible to achieve in his entire life, being a moe-girl lover as he was. The only number he had of the opposite sex in his contact was none other than his mom and little sister after all.

“Just think of it as thanks for helping me out,” she was already tucking in her sneakers by the front door of his apartment, with the gear butler following behind. “You seemed eager to know more about magical girls after all.”

“E-Eh?! Is it fine? I thought you guys like…” he paused, thinking whether he should just accept her gift as is without any complaint, but decided it's better to know the reason after all, “like… working in secret or something…?”

“Well,” she tapped her toes, fitting in the sneakers, “you seemed like a good person. Besides,” she turned to look at him, then changed into a rather threatening expression, “if I were to catch you spreading things, I think you'll know what happened, right?”

Another light orb popped next to her similar to how the gear had appeared. But this time, it was her shotgun. And the moment it appeared in the air, she swiftly grabbed it and aimed it towards Toshiya. Her eyes gazed coldly at him, with wryly smiling lips.

“...Y-Yeah…” The words were forced out of his mouth as he took a step back.

“Great!” The shotgun popped into pink glitters, and disappeared from her hand. “Oh well, not that anyone'll believe you,” she shrugged, then looked somewhere behind Toshiya. He followed her gaze. It was the posters on the walls that featured moe-girls primarily from his favourite magical girls series.

It did relieve him to know that she trusted him, but it wasn't really because of a respectable reason. Man do I look lame…

Sanami then waved goodbye, before stepping out of the door with her butler. Kchack. The door closed, leaving Toshiya alone in the room. The subtle background music of the game on the computer can be heard through the headset on the desk, returning him back to his usual Saturday–albeit, with a brand new paper in hand.

= = = = =

11:30 a.m.

It'd been a few minutes after Sanami had left Toshiya's apartment. She now strolled by the sidewalk next to a leisurely street with rows of shoplots, where people were walking around, buying stuff like crepes and enjoying their coffee in a cafe. A typical slow Saturday morning.

“Sanami-sama,” Zhanrad called out to her. He now looked like nothing more than a keychain with a gears motif, dangling onto the side of her sling bag. His voice was barely a whisper, just enough for Sanami to hear. “May I know as to why you did that?” He asked.

“Did what?” Sanami replied, still looking ahead of the sidewalk.

Zahnrad kept his silence until the two reached a four-way intersection, where Sanami stopped next to the stoplight that flashed a red standing figure. Only Sanami was waiting at the stoplight, gazing at the passing cars on the street.

“Zahnrad.” Sanami said.

“Yes, Sanami-sama.”

The stoplight displayed a red number, counting down from thirty–then twenty-nine.

“You realized he’s a Cursed One, right?” Sanami asked. Her eyes still fixed onto the street.

Zahnrad didn’t reply. They kept their silence, still gazing at the passing cars. The digital beeping of the stoplight began to grow louder. Twenty-five, then twenty-four.

“He got tackled by that thing, and is still alive," she paused, then continued, “he could even touch the shotgun.”

Eighteen, seventeen. “That’s correct, Sanami-sama,” he replied.

A cloud passed by, covering the two in its shadow. The LED light of the blinking red figure radiated the stoplight. Less and less cars passed by.

“Zahnrad,” she called out to him, her head hanging low and her voice lowered. The stoplight was nothing more than the two, under the cloud only one thing could be heard. “Can you keep this a secret… from the others…”

Thirteen, twelve, eleven.

Ten, nine, eight.

“...Your wish is my command, Sanami-sama.”

Five, four, three, two, “Thanks, Zahnrad.”

The figure switched to the one of walking below, now colored in green. The shadow slowly crept away from the stoplight, basking the spot with sunlight in its place. The two had already left, leaving the intersection with nothing but the zebra-crossing.