How Did We End Up in a Spar?

Director Sato gestured for her to follow, leading Lightweaver across the lobby and into a corridor carpeted in dark gray.

Signed photographs of past Magical Girls hung on both walls of the corridor. Lightweaver's gaze swept over a few young, unfamiliar faces, her steps never faltering.

How had things ended up like this? How had she been talked into this so easily? She had clearly come here just to get her money. Now that she had it, she really should have been heading to a high-end restaurant to celebrate.

At the end of the corridor was an elevator that required dual mana verification. Director Sato tapped her keycard against the scanner, entered a passcode, and the elevator doors slid open silently.

“The underground training ground is usually closed to non-Association members, but today is an exception,” Director Sato said, pressing the button for B3. The elevator began its smooth descent.

Lightweaver leaned against the elevator wall, with Meruru standing beside her.

The elevator was quiet, save for the faint hum of machinery.

Lightweaver stole a glance at Meruru out of the corner of her eye. The other girl was looking down, adjusting the musical note bracelet on her wrist, turning each charm so it faced outward.

The doors slid open to reveal a wide underground corridor.

At the end of the passage stood double metal doors, engraved with the same star-and-moon crest found on the exterior of the Association building. The edges of the crest were etched with micro-grooves that glowed with a soft blue mana.

Director Sato pressed her palm against the center of the crest. The doors slowly slid apart, revealing a massive training ground enclosed by a domed barrier.

The floor was paved with light gray mana-absorbing tiles, and rows of sensory runes glowed along the walls. Recording devices hummed silently in the corners, while the domed ceiling simulated natural sunlight, bathing the entire arena in bright, daylight-like illumination.

Lightweaver stood at the entrance. The mana-absorbing tiles beneath her feet had a slight springiness to them, feeling like packed sand. So this world had these kinds of facilities too. She was all too familiar with them.

The academy of magic in her original world had training grounds just like this, only they were much larger, and their barriers were far stronger.

She remembered the first time her mentor had dragged her into one. Standing at the entrance, she had stared up for a long time, thinking it was incredibly wasteful to use such a massive space just for fighting.

Later, she discovered they could be used for other activities besides combat.

She had even found a permanent napping spot behind the lockers in a corner of the training ground. It was just big enough for one person to curl up in the gap between some old gym mats and a discarded vaulting horse, and no one had ever caught her.

For a moment, Lightweaver felt a pang of nostalgia. It was as if, by pushing through these doors, she would see her mentor standing in the center of the arena the very next second, roll call sheet in hand, staring at her with that familiar look.

“...Honestly,” Lightweaver muttered, a sudden smile gracing her lips as she looked out over the training ground.

“Training Ground B3 has been cleared. The barrier is set to S-rank, and all recording equipment is active. The rules of the spar are up to you to decide; the Association will not provide a referee.”

Director Sato stood by the door, her finger hovering over the access control panel. She added that if anything went wrong, she would shut down the barrier immediately.

Meruru thanked Director Sato. Once the metal doors slid shut again, she turned to face Lightweaver.

She raised her right hand and gently clenched her fingers in the air. Pale pink mana seeped from her fingertips, condensing into a slender microphone staff.

The staff was a soft, pearlescent white with a slender shaft wrapped in golden, musical-note patterns. At its tip was a translucent pink gemstone, inside of which a single musical note spun continuously.

The butt of the staff tapped against the training ground floor with a crisp, clear ring.

“This is my weapon. It doesn't have an official name, but I usually call it Mic-chan.”

Meruru twirled the staff. “I mostly use it on stage, but it comes in handy during battles too.”

Lightweaver leaned against the wall, her right fingers twitching slightly. Why did weapons have to have names anyway? What was she supposed to call her own mana threads? Thread-chan? She muttered the name to herself and shuddered at how cringey it sounded, quickly shaking the thought from her head.

That staff used sound as a medium to convert mana into various effects. The principle was similar to the instruments used by the Chantoresses she had seen in her original world, but the form was entirely different.

Just when she thought she had figured out how things worked, the Magical Girls of this world would always surprise her with something new.

“It suits you,” Lightweaver said.

“Thank you.” Meruru held the staff horizontally in front of her, tapping the butt on the floor. A few glowing musical notes drifted out of the gemstone, hovering and spinning slowly around her.

“The rules are simple. No restrictions on weapons or mana. The first to land three hits wins, or either of us can forfeit. There's a healing barrier around the arena, so minor injuries will be treated automatically. Ready?”

Lightweaver raised her right hand. Mana threads slid from her fingers, fanning out loosely by her side.

Under the training ground's lights, the threads were almost transparent, only refracting a fleeting glint when the angle was just right.

Opposite her, Meruru didn't attack immediately.

The pink gemstone at the tip of her staff glowed softly, forming a slowly rotating ring around her.

Lightweaver didn't give her any more time to prepare.

With a flick of her fingers, three threads shot straight forward, aiming for Meruru's left shoulder, right waist, and knee.

Meruru tapped her staff lightly on the floor. Two of the musical notes in front of her burst simultaneously, transforming into two pale pink sonic barriers.

The moment her threads pierced the soundwaves, Lightweaver felt a violent tremor travel back to her.

All three threads veered off course, sliding past Meruru and embedding themselves in the ground behind her. The mana-absorbing tiles hissed softly.

Not bad.

“My turn.”

Meruru raised her staff. The remaining glowing notes shot forward, leaving pale pink trails as they flanked Lightweaver from three directions.

Lightweaver took a step back, her threads twisting in front of her to sweep away the two frontal notes. However, the third note slipped around to her rear.

The note burst, emitting a faint hum.

A wave of mana seeped through her skin and into her magic circuits, attempting to disrupt her senses.

But Lightweaver's magic circuits were different from those of the people in this world.

She had undergone rigorous magic defense training in her original world; a disruption of this level felt like nothing more than a gentle breeze.

Lightweaver understood now.

Meruru's combat style relied on disrupting her opponent first before finding an opening to launch a real attack.

She didn't excel at instant-kill moves, but she was highly adept at dragging her opponents into her own rhythm.

Instead of resisting the disruption, Lightweaver deliberately allowed her mana fluctuations to appear slightly unstable for a split second.

She intentionally delayed the retraction of her threads by half a beat.