Chapter Text
Airi had barely been watching the street performance for a few minutes when the attack began. The group tried to keep singing despite the mob of people running past them, but they gave up when someone almost knocked the smallest member over. Airi herself turned around to try and see what had caused the commotion.
There were two large creatures in the middle of scramble crossing. They were dark and shaped like some kind of canine, but you could almost see through them. It was like they were made from shadows.
Despite their immaterial appearance, they were quite real. One was tearing up pavement trying to dig while the other was sniffing around, searching for something.
Like a magical, wish-granting tree.
Airi had written the small hoop earrings and letter off as some weird, elaborate prank from SEKAI. Someone's idea for a new performance theme, maybe? Even after the transformation, she just resolved to bring it up the next time she was in SEKAI.
Fumbling for the small pouch, Airi fished out the earrings and held them tightly in her palm, hoping the transformation would happen again.
A burst of light left her standing in the same red dress as last time, frills and all. It wasn't anything too unlike costumes she had worn on stage, but her hair being in two large pigtails still felt odd. More than a few people threw some odd stares her way, but that wasn't the issue right now. Giant shadow monsters were about to destroy Shibuya. This does feel straight out of an anime.
Taking a look around to get her bearings, Airi spotted something floating. No, not something. Someone. Another person was floating above the chaos. Short, plum hair framed a porcelain face. She wore a deep purple dress and had a wooden bow strapped to her back. She must be the one controlling those things.
"Hey!" Airi yelled, "What do you think you're doing?"
The other girl looked down, dead eyes locking with Airi's. "Searching." She cried out.
For the wishing tree, no doubt . It had all been real, everything in the letter had been real and now Airi had to find a way to defeat these monsters. She had a weapon last time she had transformed, hadn't she? Airi held out a hand and wished for the weapon to appear. A moment later, the large, pink battle axe appeared. She struggled to catch it before it fell but managed in the end. It didn't feel too different in her hands than the giant hammers she had used before on game shows, it just happened to be able to slice and dice as well. Heaving the weapon in her hands, Airi lept after the closest dog-monster-thing.
Combat couldn't be that hard, right?
Minori couldn't get to school fast enough. She practically kicked down the door to the classroom in her excitement to talk about the news article she had been sent.
"Guys! You won't believe this!" She called out to Shiho and Kohane, rushing over to the desks they were seated at.
"What's up?" Shiho asked.
"Genuine, real-life magical girls! Here!" It was all she could do to not squeal and jump for joy.
"Seriously?" Shiho asked.
"Here?" Kohane added.
"They showed up in Scramble Crossing yesterday evening! There are news reports and everything."
"I'm looking this up," Shiho said, pulling out her phone. "There's no way this isn't just some publicity stunt."
"It's a hundred percent real!" Minori sat down next to them. "There were even these two giant shadowy monster things! It looked like one of them created them and the other was trying to destroy them. I wonder if they're rivals. Do you think these magical girls are part of teams? They could be on opposite teams! But what would they be fighting over?"
"No clue..." Kohane muttered. "I just can't believe something like that is actually happening. I mean, does this mean magic is real?"
Minori wanted to quip about if vocaloid infested, pocket dimensions were real, anything was possible, but stopped herself just in time. "I've always believed in magic. There are too many coincidences in life for something like it not to exist."
"I guess."
"Holy shit!" Shiho gasped, "It's real." She held her phone out, showing off the video playing, of a news report on the attack.
"And you want to know the weirdest part?" Minori grinned. "They can't tell who any of the people are. If you zoom in on their faces, it's blank! Even people who were there can't say anything. They can remember hair color, clothing, weapons, what happened, and everything but facial features. Even eye color is a blank!" Minori kicked her feet and clapped her hands. "They could be in our class for all we know!" Minori slid down in the chair, head falling onto the desktop. "I wish that could be me. I'd give anything to be a magical girl."
"Even if it was like that one anime with the weird evil cat-alien thing?" Shiho asked.
"Probably!" Minori giggled, resting her head in her hands. "Have you seen the dresses?"
"You wouldn't catch me dead in anything that frilly." Shiho scoffed.
"Well, what about the fights? And the cool attacks they can do? Wouldn't that be convincing?"
"How do you know so much about this?" Kohane asked, looking up from Shiho's phone replaying the video.
"I'm in a nightcord server for magical girl fans. It's been blowing up for hours, people are losing their minds! This one user, Amai, has been scouring the web for every single article or report that goes up. It's better than following the news itself."
"Still," Kohane said. "It's kind of scary. Magical girls only show up if the world is in danger, right? Does that mean we're in danger too?"
Shiho rolled her eyes. "It'll be fine. Even if we are in danger, they always save the day, right? Isn't that their whole deal?"
"Yeah! You don't need to worry at all!" Minori cheered. "I'm sure they know what they're doing!"