The cafe's wall clock pointed to half past five.
Lightweaver pushed the empty cheesecake plate to the side of the table, then picked up her coffee cup and finished the last sip of her caramel latte.
It was time to head back. Today, she wanted to visit restaurants she usually avoided and order dishes she never dared to try.
Why not spend money when you have it!
This was Qiluo Tian Gong's philosophy of life!
“I should get going,” Lightweaver said, standing up.
Mingyue also stood up, her movements noticeably quicker than Lightweaver’s.
“Wait a moment.” Her fingers pressed lightly on the table's edge, as if gathering the courage to speak. “Next Monday, Tachibana High School’s school festival... will you be there?”
She looked up at Lightweaver and added, “It’s open to the public, anyone can come in.”
Nuomi hopped off the table, landed in Lightweaver’s hand, and gently rubbed her tail against the back of Lightweaver’s hand.
Mingyue gently lifted Nuomi from Lightweaver’s hand and placed it on her own shoulder, a movement that briefly allowed her to avoid Lightweaver’s gaze.
“My class is putting on a play, and I’m helping backstage. If you’re interested, you could drop by. Of course, no pressure if you’re busy that day; I know you might not like crowded places, I just mentioned it casually.
And I’m not even the lead, so there’s not much to see, but—our class also has other activities, like a haunted house and a dessert stall, and other classes have performances too—”
Mid-sentence, she realized she was making things more convoluted, so she simply closed her mouth and rubbed her forehead with her fingers.
Nuomi gently patted the back of her neck with its tail from her shoulder, as if saying, “Why are you talking like this?”
Mingyue ignored Nuomi’s hint and simply looked at Lightweaver.
“...What time?”
Mingyue blinked, as if she hadn't heard clearly.
She had originally prepared herself for rejection.
Her mind went blank for a moment, then began to race.
“The play starts at two in the afternoon. Our class is in the small theater next to the gymnasium. I can take you backstage if you don’t mind.”
After giving the time, she began to worry if Lightweaver would find it too early.
Lightweaver usually operated alone late at night; would she think this was too early?
Two in the afternoon might be like six in the morning for a normal person to her?
Lightweaver didn't know that, in Mingyue's mind, she had already been classified as a creature akin to a vampire.
Then again, she always chose late nights for her activities, so it was natural to think that.
“Alright.”
“Then I’ll wait for you at the school gate. The kind where you don’t need to transform.”
What she really wanted to say was to explore the school festival with her.
“You don’t need to transform—you want me to come in regular clothes?” Lightweaver raised an eyebrow slightly. “I thought you preferred Lightweaver’s appearance.”
She scooped Nuomi off her shoulder and held it in her arms, using Nuomi’s tail to cover the lower half of her face. “...Anything is fine, wear whatever you want.”
Nuomi struggled a few times in her arms, letting out a muffled protest: “Mingyue, you’re holding me too tight!”
“I’m afraid that won’t work.”
Mingyue’s fingers paused on Nuomi’s back. As expected, Lightweaver was still unwilling to show her true face.
Indeed, Lightweaver had always been so mysterious; how could she make an exception just for a casual invitation?
“What I mean is—” Lightweaver leaned down and said to Mingyue.
“It wouldn’t be convenient for me to appear as Lightweaver that day. But I will go.” She tilted her head and glanced at Mingyue, the red highlight at the end of her hair swaying slightly with the movement. “It’s just that you might not recognize me.”
Mingyue was still sitting in her chair, holding the slightly disheveled Nuomi she had been petting, looking up at Lightweaver.
“I’ll definitely recognize you.”
She stood up, placed Nuomi on her shoulder, and faced Lightweaver, her tone so resolute that even she was surprised. “No matter what form you take, I will find you.”
Lightweaver’s hand paused mid-air on the door, but she didn’t turn around. “Then I wish you good luck.”
Qiluo pushed open her apartment door, then fell backward, landing face up on her bedding.
She pulled the bank card from her pocket and held it up, examining it repeatedly.
She stared at the Association’s star and moon emblem printed on the card.
“If I had known it would go this smoothly, I should have asked for a few more percentage points in the agreement.”
She placed the card next to her pillow, rolled onto her side, and began to mentally plan how to spend the money.
Two months of overdue rent needed to be paid first, and she didn't want to quit her convenience store job just yet.
While Lightweaver’s income wasn’t small, royalties weren't monthly, and she didn't know when the next merchandise revenue share would come.
Finally, she wouldn't have to eat discarded convenience store food every day.
Passing by the convenience store just now, she actually felt a sense of vindication.
Speaking of Mingyue, she seemed especially shy today.
Her ears were red the whole time she spoke to me in the cafe, and her crestfallen expression was like a kitten whose owner forgot to feed it.
The school festival... there's quite a lot to do.
First, I need to wear Lightweaver’s clothes, visit Yuki in the next class, help Wings of Freedom set up their stage, and maybe later, I'll have to placate Shizuru...
But it’s too early to think about all that now. The most important thing today is—
To have a good meal!
I’m going to that ramen shop I’ve always wanted to try, and order the largest tonkotsu ramen, with double chashu and a soft-boiled egg.
This is living! Qiluo Tian Gong’s wonderful life starts now!
...
Meruru transformed back into Yuzuki Asakura in the Association’s changing room. She adjusted her collar in the mirror; there was a very faint red mark below her collarbone, where the threads of light had constricted her.
She pulled her collar up further, covering the mark.
As she left the changing room, she ran into Manager Sato exiting the elevator. Manager Sato was holding a stack of documents and, upon seeing her, gave a slight bow and asked if her sparring session had gone smoothly.
Meruru smiled and said she had learned a lot. Manager Sato nodded and continued towards the archives.
She didn't leave the Association directly but took the elevator up to the fifth floor.
The elevator doors opened, revealing an inconspicuous bronze plaque embedded in the door at the end of the hallway: Mana Spectrum Analysis Room.
She used her access card to open the door, and the room's motion-sensor lights automatically flickered on, illuminating a long row of sealed archive cabinets lining the wall.
This room housed mana spectrum samples of past Magical Girls. Since the Association's founding, every registered Magical Girl had a complete record of their mana waveform stored here.
She walked to the innermost row of cabinets. A thin layer of dust covered the archive shelves here, indicating that no one had accessed them for a long time.
She bent down, her fingers gliding across a row of archive boxes, finally stopping at the ones labeled “First Generation.”
She pulled out a yellowed spectrum atlas and turned to a specific page.
That page recorded an extremely rare mana waveform, with several lines of handwritten notes beside it, in the handwriting of Shiraha Mashiro, the founding director.
Shiraha Mashiro wrote: This mana spectrum bears a high resemblance to residual otherworldly mana. Its origin is unknown, presumed to be related to dimensional rifts.
No active Magical Girl currently inherits this mana spectrum; it is temporarily classified as lost.
She closed the archive, leaned against the cabinet, and closed her eyes for a moment, replaying the mana she had felt in the training ground earlier in her mind.
If this discovery was correct, then Lightweaver was no ordinary unregistered Magical Girl...
She returned the archive to its place and used magic to erase her traces.
She couldn't tell anyone about this for now. If Lightweaver didn't want people to know, she must have her reasons.
Rate on N.U.
